"Don't Say Gay"

There’s been a lot of GQP/Rethuglican shenanigans involving LGBTQ rights, especially against the youth.  All of it has been totally revolting and although I tweet and post my support for that community, I haven’t written about it much.  This morning there was a very moving article in ArcaMax by a columnist who wrote about his experiences with heterosexual sexuality in school during the 1970s.  He wrote about how gay students weren’t allowed to hold hands in the hallways or celebrate prom the way heterosexual students could.  He expressed sadness for their loss; for the fact they had to hide who they were.

It reminded me of my senior year, when I first became friendly with gay students in high school.  I went to an all girls’ school in Baltimore, and I loved not being around boys who were mean about my weight and competitive with others.  I didn’t have to put up with boys and girls holding hands, kissing and otherwise sneaking off to make-out between classes.  I found boys attractive but had no wish for a boyfriend.  Part of that might because of my warring parents; part of it may have been because I was a “slow bloomer”.

My mother didn’t talk to me at all about sexuality.  Maybe it was because she was embarrassed or maybe it was because she was Deaf and couldn’t communicate well.  I learned what I knew from two books she left lying on my bed pillow:  Portnoy’s Complaint (oh, yes, she did) and Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Afraid To Ask.  I learned a little bit about homosexuality from the latter book but wasn’t sure I understood what I was reading.

My parents never expressed an opinion one way or another about homosexuality.  We didn’t go to church and we were Presbyterians.  All I remembered of church and Sunday School was that Jesus said to love everybody.

So my best friend and I had the same English class when we were seniors and struck up a conversation with another student, Diane.  Diane pretty quickly confided that she was diabetic and a lesbian.  Oh.  What was a diabetic and what was a lesbian?  Diane said she loved girls and pointed out a couple of other students, saying they did too.  I didn’t know how to react and I saw Diane watching us closely to see if we would reject her.  We didn’t.

Diane had a lot of issues.  She said she was manic-depressive, like her mother.  These days, the condition is called bipolar disorder.  She had mood swings.  She would become very morose or very upbeat and hyperactive.  In one stage or the other, she’d not take care of her diabetes and would have hypoglycemic attacks. To be honest, it was the emotional issues that were more problematic for us.  She’d refuse to go to the nurse when her blood sugar dropped and we had to drag her around the quad, keeping her on her feet, while another of her friends would run and get orange juice from the snack bar. 

When I read the columnist’s words, I thought about Diane and her friends.  I wondered where they were now and how their lives had gone since the stay-in-the-closet years.  The columnist was happy that now, kids of different sexuality can hold hands and become pinned or engaged or married or just enjoy proms together.  I hope that Diane and her friends were able to find that kind of open happiness for themselves.

Now, though, we’ve got Rethuglicans trying to drag us back into the past when there was this prevalent attitude of “don’t say gay”.  They don’t want kids to feel it’s ok to be different, be it sexuality or skin color.  After all this time on earth, I shouldn’t be surprised anymore about how evil and hateful people can be to each other.  Yet, I am not only surprised, I find it very depressing.

A lot of the loudest clamoring to go back to “the good old days” are the right wing conservative “Christians.”  They think they are Christians but they are not.  A true Christian follows the teachings of Jesus, whose greatest commandment was to love God and to love your neighbor as you love yourself.  There’s no “but only if they’re white male Protestants.”  No.  We’re supposed to love everyone.  I can’t even say they’re just Old Testament fanatics because the Jewish religion doesn’t follow the New Testament but they are usually not frothing-at-the-mouth conservatives either.

Earlier I mentioned that I was a member of the Presbyterian Church.  While I was actively attending church, the General Assembly took up the question of whether gay people should be openly welcomed and whether they could serve as deacons or elders.  All the churches were polled for members’ feedback.  Our church had several members who were more or less “in the closet” and very supportive of being able to serve openly.  About half the congregation, gay or straight, were in support as well.  The other half was not. 

The discord made me angry.  I’d just been on a committee to study how to help homeless families and the “Not in My Backyard” attitudes of half the congregation was dismaying.  No surprise, these were the same people opposed to openly welcoming gay members.  Still, enough people voted to send the church’s support to the General Assembly. In 2011, the Presbyterian Church changed its Constitution to allow LGBTQ people to become pastors.

Progress.  But will it all be undone now?