Posts Tagged ‘gay rights’

5 Feb

Conversations with my daughter

Posted by Dayle Lynne in Parenting. Tagged: , , , , , , , , .

Gay Dad Project braceletsA couple of weeks ago, my boyfriend and I were talking about Girls Scouts and how they donate to LGBT rights organizations. My daughter over-heard and asked what we were talking about, so I explained. For the first time, I gave her the terms. She’s known the meaning behind the terms for a while now, but she’s never had the vocabulary . . . the labels. But since she overheard me use the acronym, I thought it was appropriate to explain what those letters meant.

She, once again, expressed her belief that two people who love each other should be allowed to get married . . . even two boys or two girls. That’s pretty much as far as the issue went with her. She doesn’t know about anti-gay bullying and the discrimination that exists on a daily basis. I’m not ready for her to fully know that world, but I did explain that there was a lot more to it than just being able to marry someone of the same gender. I specifically mentioned how some people can actually lose their jobs. I wish I could have taken a picture of the look on her face . . . a look that just screamed, “THAT is the stupidest thing I have ever heard.”

And you know what? It probably is the stupidest thing she’s ever heard.

I don’t believe in using children to make political statements. Children will believe as they are raised to believe. My daughter believes in equality because I’ve raised her with the values of equality. Some of her thoughts are her own . . . some are just mirrors of my own. I do believe in open and honest communication with children . . . and I believe that when left to truly share their own thoughts, they have so much to teach us.

My daughter does not fully understand a world where someone would discriminate against another person for any reason. So for her to hear these things, it sounds stupid . . . because it is stupid.

A few days ago, we received rainbow bracelets in the mail. They were made by Pete Shea, dad to one of the founders of The Gay Dad Project. I knew my daughter would love the pretty-colored and sparkly bracelet without any explanation, but I didn’t want to give it to her without her understanding the meaning behind it.

I explained to my daughter that some people take a long time to tell others that they are gay, that some are afraid of discrimination or that family and friends won’t understand and will turn them away. I explained that some people try to pretend that they’re straight just so they can fit in and even sometimes get married to someone of the opposite sex and have kids. I told her that that’s exactly what happened with the dads of a few of my friends. I told her how it was difficult for them when their dads finally came out later on.

We talked about how divorce can be hard no matter what and she nodded. She added, “Well, sometimes it can be fun because you get a whole birthday month!” (referring to the multiple celebrations between both families) I smiled and said, “Yes, that’s true.” We talked about how having two families is pretty normal for her considering her dad and I split when she was only 2 ½ and that sometimes it can be more difficult when a child is older because that child is used to both parents being together. I added that it can be even more difficult to find out that one of your parents has been hiding something out of fear.

Then I told her that my friends started this project to help families like theirs and that one of their dads made these bracelets for us. My boyfriend asked her why she thinks a rainbow is used and she thought for a little while before saying, “The colors are all different and beautiful.” We talked about how people are just like the colors of the rainbow . . . all different and beautiful on their own, but something truly special when they all work together.

I put the bracelet on her wrist and the conversation was over.

I led this conversation much more than I usually do. There’s not usually a purpose to our conversations . . . I just like to hear what she’s thinking. This required more explanation on the part of my boyfriend and me, but we stopped often to ask her if she understood and to demonstrate that understanding in her own words.

She’s growing up and continuously learning more and more about the world around her. I’m not always comfortable with that. I want to protect her from harsh realities. I want her world to always be filled with understanding, acceptance, kindness, and love. But she shows me time and time again that she’s capable of taking in this new information without losing her innocence. With all those harsh realities come some truly amazing people and organizations who stand up for what is right, who speak out against discrimination and hate, who make an effort to have a positive influence on the world. The more my daughter learns that people can make a difference, the more she’ll understand that she can make a difference as well.

6 Aug

Where I stand on this Chick-Fil-A thing

Posted by Dayle Lynne in Politics. Tagged: , , , , , , , , .

My boyfriend and I have been together for nearly 5 years. For at least 3 ½ of those years, he has been helping me raise my daughter. Regardless of our marital standing, he is very much a father figure in her life. He doesn’t want to get married – it’s never been on his radar. I’m of the “been there, done that, no thanks” mindset. Still, I love him and he’s been a positive part of my life for a long time now.

Oh, and he happens to be black.

I don’t really bring that up unless it’s pertinent to a conversation, which isn’t really often (pretty much only when I talk about his parents moving here from Guyana or when I’m telling the story of when my daughter told me “Kes’ skin is different from mine” and then followed it up with “mine’s smooth and his is dry”). But it’s pertinent to this conversation.

My father is racist. He always has been. As a teenager, he told me that he would disown me if I ever dated a black man. When I was 17, I went with a black friend to a school dance – I made sure to send my dad a picture (we weren’t speaking at the time – it’s a complicated relationship).

A little over a year ago, my dad said to me, “I’m still prejudice, but I really like Kes. No, really. I’m still prejudice, but I like him.”

But things weren’t always so docile and there was a point when I almost lost my family over this . . . and I’m fairly certain they’re not even aware of it.

After Kes and I had been dating for 2 ½ years, I took a big step. I asked my aunt if I could invite him to our family Christmas party (it’s held at her house). I didn’t tell her he was black. I didn’t think I needed to. I was going to have a talk with my father about it, but Kes wasn’t even sure if he could make it, so I figured I’d wait until we knew for certain if it would even need to be discussed – because prior to this, Kes was only known as my friend.

Well, people talk and my family is no different. They put two and two together and there was a big issue. My father wouldn’t speak to me about it. My boyfriend was uninvited – not because anyone else in my family cared about the color of his skin, but because my father wouldn’t show up if Kes did. I cried for weeks. I didn’t want to go, but I went anyway because I didn’t want to keep my daughter from the rest of my family.

The following year, I was riddled with anxiety. All I could think was, “What am I teaching my daughter if I don’t stand up and say, ‘This is not okay’?” And I came to a decision – a conviction I would not have wavered from. I decided to take my daughter to the family party one last time and a week or two later, I would talk to my family and explain that I would not be going to another one until my boyfriend was welcome.

It was very difficult and emotional for me. It wasn’t that I had come to any new understanding about how discrimination was wrong. It wasn’t that it wasn’t wrong before and it was wrong now. It was that I came to a point where I was prepared to lose some of the people I love because it was more important to me that I stood up for what was right. (Luckily, it never had to go there. Without any discussion or explanation, my boyfriend was invited to the party that year.)

I know, I said this was going to be about Chick-Fil-A, right? So why am I writing about the racial tensions surrounding my relationship? Because I have recently come to the same difficult and emotional place that I did 2 ½ years ago.

On Thursday afternoon, I posted this message on Facebook:

“My heart hurts for those who are mistreated, abused, discriminated against, killed, and scorned all because of who they happen to love. My heart hurts even more because there are so many people that are uniformed, misinformed, or just indifferent to all of that. Over the past few days, I have seen things that I really wish I could unsee — sides to people I care about that I didn’t know existed. I’ve been very emotional and it’s been extremely difficult for me to maintain any sense of diplomacy, but I have been trying.

“I’m not usually one for melodramatic exits, but I needed to get that one last thought out there. I think I just need to step away for a little while.”

It wasn’t any major post that brought me to that point – more a straw that broke the camel’s back kind of thing. It was quite simply my daughter’s preschool teacher posting a picture that stated, “I support Chick-Fil-A because I love Jesus.”

Honestly, I didn’t understand why I was so emotional. I didn’t understand why all of this hype was affecting me so deeply. I just knew I needed to step away from it for a bit, so that’s what I did.

I thought about it a lot over the next few days and came to a very clear understanding. After all of my arguments comparing the fight for gay rights to women’s suffrage, to civil rights, to Loving v. Virginia and after all the discussion about tolerance of different opinions and free speech and after all of my unrelenting efforts to remain diplomatic with every blog post, FB status, and article I shared, I developed a conviction stronger than any I had had before.

This is NOT about a difference of opinion. This is NOT about tolerating another’s views. This IS about right and wrong and if you are against gay rights, you are wrong. You’re wrong in the same way that Jim Crow laws were wrong. You’re wrong in the same way that not allowing women to vote was wrong. And I am tired of being “tolerant” of discrimination.

To spell that out a bit more — thinking homosexuality is a sin is an opinion; thinking LGBTs don’t deserve equal rights is not and it is the latter I will not tolerate. And I’m done being diplomatic about it.

Suffragettes did not win the right to vote by being tolerant. The Civil Rights Act did not happen by being tolerant. Loving did not win against Virginia by being tolerant. And we are not going to achieve equality for LGBTs by being tolerant.

This is nothing new to me. It’s not that I had some grand awakening and suddenly believe things differently than I did before. But like the incident with my family, I have come to a point where I am prepared to lose people I care about because standing up for what’s right is more important.

I know most people are tired of hearing about Chick-Fil-A. I know most people are more than ready for all the hype to die down. I’m not. This whole thing has forced a lot of people to show their hands, and I think that’s a good thing. I think it’s a good thing to know where everyone stands on this because I think we may have gotten a bit too comfortable.

There have been a lot of advances lately – more and more states legalizing same-sex marriage, the steady decline of support for DOMA, the end of DADT . . . I think we needed the slap in the face to remind us that there is a still a long, long way to go for equal rights.

And while Chick-Fil-A may not seem like the kind of place to start a grand movement in the fight for equality, I’m sure the same was thought of Woolworth’s 50 years ago.

Photo Credit – Chick-Fil-A

Photo Credit – Suffrage First

Photo Credit – Lunch Counter Protest

1 Aug

Some more thoughts on equality . . . because apparently, I’m not done writing about this

Posted by Dayle Lynne in Politics, Religion. Tagged: , , , , , .

If your religious literature states that homosexuality is a sin, I don’t care. You are perfectly entitled to that belief – just as vegetarians are entitled to believe that eating meat is unethical or  Jehovah’s Witnesses are entitled to believe blood transfusions are immoral or Muslims and Jews are entitled to believe that eating pork is unclean.

However, vegetarians are not trying to outlaw meat-eating, Jehovah’s Witnesses are not protesting outside of blood banks, and Muslims and Jews don’t try to shut down Jimmy Dean factories. But there are plenty of otherwise very rational and kind people who see nothing wrong with trying to impose their religious beliefs on other members of the population by denying rights to homosexuals.

The largest part of this debate (and I still, for the life of me, cannot understand why equal rights is a “debate” . . . especially in 2012) has been the issue of marriage equality, but it goes beyond that. It is still legal in more than half the country to fire someone for being gay (and legal in 2/3 of the country to fire someone for being transgendered). LGBT teens are more likely to be depressed and commit suicide (but not when they live in supportive environments). We’ve all seen the pictures of people beaten, abused, and killed because of their sexual orientation.

Over the past couple of weeks I have heard the argument that supporters of gay rights are hypocritical because they discriminate against Christians or are intolerant of Christians. Saying that someone is discriminating against you/intolerant of you because they say you can’t (or shouldn’t be allowed to) discriminate against someone else is the most backwards argument I’ve ever heard.

Are there supporters who lump all Christians together? Of course, and I don’t agree with them either. I know just as many Christians who support gay rights as those who don’t. And I find it sad that they need to qualify “I’m a Christian” statements with “but not one of those Christians.”

However, the truth is that most of those speaking out against gay rights happen to call themselves Christians and happen to use their religious literature when they speak out. (Kind of like all squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares . . . maybe not “all” in this case, but certainly the vast majority of squares are rectangles.)

Do I think they all “hate gay people”? No, I don’t. What I think is that they are misguided and seem to lack understanding and acceptance of the fact that we do not live in a theocracy. This is not a “Christian nation” and we are not bound by biblical principles, regardless of anyone’s interpretation of them.

Do I think some of them “hate gay people”? Of course. How could I not when you have protesters holding signs stating, “God Hates Fags” and “Fags Die God Laughs”? But I don’t think that because you identify yourself as a Christian that you follow along with them.

Are there people out there who bash Christianity and Christians as a whole? Yes. There are people out there who bash just about everything, and I definitely don’t support that.

But here’s thing — if you’re a Christian, I doubt you have ever walked into your church and had to pass protesters holding signs stating, “Death Penalty for Christians.” If you’re a Christian, all 50 states protect you from being fired because of your religion. If you’re a (straight) Christian, you’re legally allowed nationwide to marry the love of your life, to adopt a child without question, to visit your spouse on his/her deathbed no matter what policies a hospital holds, to walk into any bakery and order a cake for your wedding without risk of being told, “We don’t do Christian weddings.”

If I owned a business and told you that it’s my right to refuse service to whomever I want and proceeded to state that I would not serve Christians, there would be a nationwide backlash. And yet many of the same people who would shout discrimination in that case think businesses have every right not to serve LGBTs.

This is not about an “us vs. them” and it’s not about demonizing Christians and Christianity. It’s about demanding equal rights and equal protection to all people. Nothing more. Nothing less.

***I’d like to just say that I really am tired of writing about this. I have lots of other things I want to write about, but as long as this needs to be discussed, I’ll keep discussing it. This particular post was originally meant to be a FB status no more than a few sentences, but thoughts kept pouring, so I made it a blog post.***

Photo Credit

24 Feb

A positive shift towards equality

Posted by Dayle Lynne in Politics. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , .

I am gaining more and more hope for the end of bigotry against the LGBT community, first with the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and now with President Obama directing the Justice Department not to defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court. This article in the NY Times online expresses reactions from both sides.

Conservatives argue that now is not the time for such a bold move because other issues, such as the economy, are far more important. I say for exactly that reason now is the right time (actually, I think it’s well past due, but that’s beside the point). It takes more energy, more money to fight against something than to allow it to happen. Do conservatives really think it’s worth our country’s resources to stand so strongly against gay marriage? Or would they prefer we focus on getting our economy back in order, lowering the unemployment rate, creating new jobs, etc.?

I have never understood the desire to fight so strongly against gay marriage.  I have yet to hear a valid argument. Please tell me who this hurts. Joe and Bob down the street getting married is not going to affect Jim and Sue’s relationship. And if it does, well Jim and Sue have a lot of other problems bigger than gay marriage.

I’m not telling Christian churches that I think they should start performing gay marriage ceremonies. I still believe in everyone’s right to their own beliefs. If your religion says that homosexuality is a sin and that’s what you believe, go for it. I don’t really care. But please remember that one of the foundations of our constitution is freedom of religion and that means that the rest of the country does not have to agree with you. You can’t use a biblical argument to fight a government issue.

I don’t know how much more clear we can get than the Preamble to the Declaration of Independence.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long-established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Read it. Read it again. And then please try to tell me how anyone in the United States of America has the right to tell an adult couple that they cannot get married.

Kudos to Obama for doing what’s right, for making a stand for what is constitutional, for what is American. I have hope that it won’t be long before we truly see equal rights for all.

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