Don't say gay.....

....isn't about being gay!

Just as I wrote about the new restrictive abortion laws being passed having little to do with preserving the life of fetuses, the new anti-gay laws being introduced have very little to do with gayness. All of this is about control. It’s about trying to roll back the clock to an earlier time, circa 1950, when (mostly) white men controlled the how, who, what, and when of society. The people behind a lot of these antiquated laws have lost a control they never had and they want it back.

Times have changed and it is more difficult for these folks to walk and navigate this new terrain where people are being accepted for who they are rather than having to try to please everyone except themselves. Here’s the bad news for them: the genie is out of the bottle and isn’t going back in. If they honestly believe children won’t learn about sexuality because such discussions are banned, these folks don’t understand children - especially today’s young ones.

My generation was much more innocent than the kids being hatched these days! My Catholic school didn’t dare teach us anything about any kind of sexuality. Does that mean we didn’t learn about it? Of course not. My friends and I learned a lot through some little pamphlets the church sold for 25 cents in the foyer. It’s amazing what you can learn by reading between the lines.

Today’s children have personal lifelines to whatever they want to know about: the internet easily accessed through their phones, iPads, computers, and television. To think these children don’t already know a lot about what adults want to censor is a form of blindness.

I had a friend who was raising a young boy and girl and one day our discussion turned to how she was teaching them about sexuality. I said it must be difficult to know how much to share with them and when to share it. “No,” she said. “Children ask questions. When they ask me a question about sexuality, I answer it. I don’t say any more than I have to in order to answer truthfully. If they ask a follow-up question, I answer it as well. By the time they are teenagers, they will probably know just about everything they need to know and they will feel safe talking to me about sex.”

Sane, right? Too bad more parents don’t take this approach.

Of course, the other push behind these anti-LGBTQ laws is the desire to have our country run according to the arch-conservative interpretation of the Christian Bible. There is a group of people who have been working behind the scenes for years in order to make the United States a Christian nation. Our founders would be very upset since one of the basic principles our country is based on is freedom of religion.

Just as I said about the anti-abortion movement, we need to pay attention to what is going on. These folks are not going to stop with controlling women’s bodies; they are already moving into the area of wanting to control contraceptives. They won’t stop with banning teaching about gay people; they will try to ban gay people’s existence. Now is the time to speak up and to act.

Just because you aren’t a pregnant woman, just because you aren’t gay or bisexual or transgender, doesn’t mean these laws won’t affect you, or someone you love, eventually in some way or form. Write your representatives, vote, have discussions with family and friends. Staying silent could have serious repercussions well beyond you and your lifetime. If allowed now, some of these efforts will take decades to reverse. Personally, I would rather focus on supporting a society that is becoming more open and accepting rather than one that is shrinking and divisive.

Living with grace and ease,

Krysta