Actually, it isn’t really a “political” opinion. At least I don’t see it that way. It’s *my* opinion. One that has evolved over time. You might guess that I am talking about “gay marriage” and you are right.

I just don’t see what the big deal is. I have to confess that I didn’t always feel this way. But that’s probably because, when I was growing up, I didn’t have any idea what “gay” meant except something approximating “happy”. I do remember getting in trouble when I was about 10 for using the word “queer” to refer to some neighborhood kid that “me and Laurie” were “fighting with”. I couldn’t figure out why it was a bad word and no one would explain it to me. It was just a kid “me and Laurie” didn’t like for whatever reason and we were pretty scrappy little comrades. But we had to be because the Waisenen boys lived just down the alley from me and they were ROCK THROWERS! But whoever “that kid” was, he may or may not be gay…

As a kid, I was taught that when you got married, you married someone of the opposite sex and it couldn’t be your brother or your father or your cousin. Those kinds of families were pretty much all I knew. My grandparents and my aunts and uncles and most of my friends had those kinds of families. That all fit with my world view. I liked boys from an early age and, when I wasn’t being an insufferable tomboy, I was dreaming of my someday beautiful white wedding. I remember being squicked out at a junior high sleepover when some of the other girls wanted to “make out”. I know that they were just experimenting and probably most of them were pretending they were making out with Paul McCartney or that cute boy in 4th hour or somebody. I just didn’t want to kiss a girl… Of course, to be honest, I am squicked out by most males too. I am picky picky picky…

It wasn’t until MUCH later (like when I was in my 30s (yes really)) that it occurred to me that those two women who lived together that my family knew (and loved) were probably lesbians. My parents *knew* it! But they never told us kids anything about it. That subject was pretty much taboo in the small northern city I grew up in. And then I realized that my first boyfriend Danny (we were six) was probably gay. And he is. I know because his mom was one of The Comm’s BFFs and she has called to check on me quite frequently in the last year and we’ve talked about that. And, you know, I live here on the Planet Ann Arbor, where it has been pretty easy to be openly gay for a long time and I have interacted with gay folks on a fairly regular basis. Yaknow what? They are mostly regular people who are doing the same wide variety of things in their lives that I do with mine. Working. Raising children. Buying grokkeries. Trying to figure out how to pay the mortgage. Hiking, skiing, kayaking. Things that I do.

I don’t believe that people choose their gender identity. I also believe that gender is not a black or white issue. One of the things that is being ignored in all of this controversy is those who are born with ambiguous genitals and/or chromosomal abnormalities and are assigned a gender at birth which maybe does not map to what they will become as they mature. I don’t know what those people do or how they decide how to pick a life partner. Some of them don’t and I think that is sad.

As far as I am concerned, people should be able to marry whoever they want and live their lives the way they want to with all of the protections that a married heterosexual couple has. Trying to legislate biology is just crazy. If you are a heterosexual woman married to a heterosexual man and you both treat each other (and your children) with respect, that is wonderful. But that is not always the case. There are *people* who abuse their partners and/or children. I don’t think it matters whether they are gay or straight. It’s all bad.

PS. The photooo is cropped from one Mouse took in Zion. I didn’t ask her for permission so I hope she’s okay with that.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 10th, 2012 at 6:18 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.