I came across an article today that astounded me. It's titled,
Intrigued, I decided to read it, because hey - if there's some big secret I'm trying to keep from people as a gay activist, I really need to know what it is!
What was written had me alternately laughing and cursing at my computer screen. It is an absolutely perfect example of how desperate the conservative right is to gather damaging information on LGBT households - parents, in particular - and how far they will bend or fast they will spin the truth in an effort to create that info.
Now, the title of this article (and I use that term extremely loosely) would lead one to believe the man quoted and referenced in this piece - Mr. Robert Lopez - would have actually been raised by two moms, yes? I mean, this isn't neuroscience here..."testimony from a man raised by two moms" should indeed indicate he was actually raised by two moms, right?
Wrong.
You see, that isn't actually the case. Upon actually reading this piece, I quickly realized that the man was raised alone by his mother, who yes - happened to be a lesbian, and who yes - also happened to have a girlfriend. How could I dare come to this conclusion, you ask? I mean it states right there in the title he was raised by
The trick here is getting past the inflammatory rhetoric that is passed off as journalism and noticing the facts. Take, for instance, this lovely paragraph, told from the viewpoint of Mr. Lopez:
"After my mother's partner's children had left for college, she moved into our house in town. I lived with both of them for the brief time before my mother died at the age of 53. I was 19. In other words, I was the only child who experienced life under "gay parenting" as that term is understood today."
Okay, whoa whoa whoa...back it up a minute. Did he just say his mother's partner moved in when he was 19? As in 19 years old? As in GROWN and at an age where the whole 'formative years' thing is just a faint memory in the rearview?
Why yes, I believe he did.
And yet he claims to have suffered from his experience of being raised under "gay parenting", and to have been afflicted by numerous ill effects from that 'raising'.
Is anyone else smelling this? Am I the only one? How can this not be a story on The Onion or some other satire site?
Has it really come to this...that the Right is truly this desperate in the face of all the scientific evidence that has proven time and again that LGBT households are really no different, and certainly not damaging?
Honestly, to trot out a story about a man who was supposedly 'raised' by his mother and her partner, only to state this 'raising' took place beginning at the age of 19, and then for only a few years until his mother's death, and try to somehow use it to prove the damage imparted by being raised in a gay household? That's a stretch even for the conservative media.
The article goes on to explain, in Mr. Lopez's words, how incredibly difficult his life was, having no male role models and no one to explain gender-norms to him at all. How he didn't know when or how to say the right thing at the right time in social situations, due to his lack of knowledge regarding "gender cues most of us take for granted"; and how he ended up in the "gay underworld" after college because of his 'raising'.
Seriously? Did he live in a bubble all those years when he was living alone with his mom? No uncles, no male friends, no grandparents...no one who was male in his life at all? How very interesting. And how exactly does this speak to being raised by a committed, monogamous, same-sex couple who live under one roof as a family again? That's right - it doesn't.
This seems more indicative of life with a single mother and the effects that might have on a boy growing up, but again - there's no need to concern ourselves with the facts, folks. These gays are out of hand, and here's just the guy to prove it!
One extremely interesting tidbit came from his explanation of his decision to marry a woman (stated that way in the article by him, thus indicating he might just be a big ol' gay, himself). He remarks that his goal was to "concern myself first and foremost with my children's needs, not my sexual desires."
Well, that's admirable. I mean, as long as you're not a closet case, who is ruining not only your own life but that of your wife who thinks she married a straight man, and those of your children who are going to be devastated that you lied to them all these years when you do finally come out at the age of 50-something. Because then it's not admirable, it's loathsome and selfish.
So at what point do we get to refute mess like this and bring it to the attention of those who are promoting what it supposedly "proves"? And would it really make a difference if we did? Is the right-wing so far gone that it no longer cares about the truth behind its reporting?
The existence of some things, like Fox News, would suggest the answer is 'yes'. But I have to wonder - and I have to hope - that somewhere, someone will fact-check their way into the conservative regime, and will show the people there that not only are they operating on fiction, but they are willfully ignoring the fact. That just adds up to sadism, if you ask me.
Knowing something is wrong and factually incorrect, but promoting it anyway because it supports what you've been beating your head against the wall to prove, no matter how many people it hurts or how many young people it drives to suicide...that, to me, is the greater danger.
This movement spends so much time and energy and money and resources to beat down a group of people who have never done a thing to it besides have the audacity to believe something it does not. And the people behind this movement willingly give these things to a cause that is unfounded and disproven and harmful, when that time, energy, money, and resources could be spent saving the lives of the homeless or hungry.
But hey - at least they're not gay, right? And to them, that seems to be all that matters.
