I don't know about you, but I am a bit of a purist, particularly when it comes to words. Sometime, when I have time, I'll provide for you all a glossary of GLBT terms and made-up words...such as "heteronormative", "homonormative", and "gender complexity", ad nauseum.
But where to find the time? So here, for now, I'll just share one of my favorite pastimes with you: arguing with strangers in the Comments section of the Gazette, my much beloved hometown newspaper.
This time, the topic is Mike Huckabee, and some statements he made in an interview that were taken entirely out of context...by a hostile interviewer, and for the sake of argument, I suppose.
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You know, a long time ago, I used to be the world's most horrible drunk. My mother detested the drunken me -- my demeanor, my mouth and particularly my *words*...which indeed, were reprehensible.
The night I first got drunk, my parents came home, found the evidence, and confronted me. "Spydra, you're drunk." "No I'm not," I said. "Yes you are," they said. And on and on...until they both lost their patience with me.
Looking back, I realize that what angered my parents -- more than the clear and convincing evidence, more than the sloppy silliness, more than the lie in the face -- was my *insistence* that false was true, insistence that drunk was sober, unreasonable insistence that what was, was not...keeping a straight face, and to the point of acting offended and hurt that they could even entertain such a notion. I denied and denied and denied...but didn't change the truth.
That is what I am reminded of now, and each time this topic is debated. Be gay if you want to be gay; but please don't argue that it's normal. And when I disagree with you, you can claim that I hate you, and claim that it's natural, and claim that it's healthy; you can deny and deny and deny all that you want, but it doesn't change the truth.
If only from the standpoint of ability to pro-create, homosexuality is a barren fact; slice and dice and mince words all that you want, procreation requires something from a man, and something from a woman -- REQUIRES it. And if that thing from the man and that thing from the woman needs any additional assistance -- turkey baster, test tube, petri dish -- then it's NOT NORMAL. And while it can be argued that it's not necessarily *wrong* it most certainly is not and will never be normal.
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The 2000 US Census counted over 600,000 children of same gender parents. Social service agencies report there are now over NINE MILLION American children of same gender parents. What did these NINE MILLION American CHILDREN ever do to YOU that you feel this need to HURT them by attacking their parents, spyder?
"[S]tudies on children dating back 25 years conclude that children raised by gay and lesbian non-adoptive parents fare as well as those reared by heterosexual parents (Breways, Ponjaert, Van Hall, & Golombok, 1997; Chan, Raboy & Patterson, 1998; Golombok, Perry, Burston, Murray, Mooney-Sommer, Stevens, & Golding, 2003; Wainwright, Russell & Patterson, 2004)."
A 2008 report from The Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Agency, America's most respected experts on adoption.
http://www.adoptioninstitute.org/policy/2008_09_expand_resources.php
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spydra -- 8:11 PM on April 16, 2010
Please, don't even try to go down the adoption road with me. I was given up for adoption at birth, and was adopted at 11 months. My birth mother was white, and my birth father was black; my adoptive mother is white, and my adoptive father is black. They were childless then; five years after they adopted me, they got pregnant with my sister -- yes, their "real" biological daughter.
That was 40 years ago. We all love each other tremendously now...but *none* of us can say that we *weren't* confused and hurt and disturbed by it all at some points and at others -- especially now that my sister and I both have biological children of our own.
Even now, when I discuss the topic, I'll stumble over my words...referring to my birth mother as my "real" mom...and wondering what it is that I mean when I say that. My adoptive mom is the only mother I've ever known...and I love her so very, very much; I imagine that I love her *as though* she were my biological mother. I love my biological mother intensely as well, though I've never seen her face, and never will.
And so, I live loving two mothers, two fathers, and two sisters. But deep down inside, I know that one mother, one father and one sister actually aren't...and I can only imagine how confused and hurt and disturbed I'd have been had a gay couple adopted me and required me to call both of them my "mother" or both of them my "father." It simply wouldn't be true, or even possible; we all know it, and requiring a child to state otherwise is, in my mind, a form of brainwashing and child abuse in and of itself.
The same is true for "transgendered" folks; they claim they feel like a woman trapped in a man's body, or a man trapped in a woman's body; we all patiently go along while they cross-dress and take hormones to artificially stimulate the growth of facial hair or swelling of breast tissue -- to simulate that which they are not. And if they feel strongly enough about it, they willingly and knowingly go under a knife and irreversibly maim themselves to remove their penis or their breasts...and the rest of us are supposed to pretend that it's normal? Yeah, right.
Talk about confused. The truth is this: if man is born with a penis and has it removed and refashioned into a vagina, then that man still has no idea how it really feels to be a woman; he only knows how it feels to be a man who had his penis removed and refashioned into an artificial vagina.
Listen, carrotcakeman, because this is a VERY OLD MAXIM, and one I know you've heard before: the truth hurts. Sometimes, it hurts worse than others -- but it doesn't do anything to alter the truth. Wishing something doesn't make it so...neither does money, or power, or a knife, or use of poor logic, or shouting, or accusing those who dare to disagree with you of hating you...or denying the truth over and over and over again.
In Holland there is the expression of "lange tenen" -- it means "long toes" and those suffering from the condition are constantly and easily hurt, because it's so easy for others to step on their abnormally long and constantly tender toes. I suspect you suffer from this condition...otherwise, how could you and why *would* you read my previous post and interpret that I feel a need to "HURT NINE MILLION American CHILDREN" or that I've somehow attacked any of their 18 MILLION real PARENTS or the 9 MILLION others who aren't but pretend to be?
I didn't even mention the word "adoption" in my previous post -- you did. I'm sure you weren't expecting an answer from a real life adoptee, and not just a speechless statistic you glean from some dubious study. Unlike you, I call 'em like I see 'em based upon my personal life experience; I don't need to rely on hyperbole and theorems and slapping people around with statistics in a futile attempt to argue the obvious.
My point in my previous post was that one can never win an argument with a drunkard, who will swear a lie is the truth. Similarly, there is no reasoning or arguing with those such as yourself, whose response is to quickly take offense and orchestrate a hissy-fit until the person who disagrees with you either gives in or goes away. This may come as a surprise to you...but just because you jump up and down and stamp your feet doesn't do a thing to change the mind of the person with whom you disagree; if anything, it only convinces that person MORE that you're not listening, entirely unreasonable, and that their disagreement with you has strong merit.
This is a lesson we all learned while waiting with our mothers in the checkout line at the supermarket and having a temper tantrum after being denied a piece of candy. Speaking for myself…I might stop arguing with you because enough is enough, and I have other, more important things to do than quarrel with a child…but I would never, *ever* – no matter how ridiculous you screamed and cried and thrashed your feet – no, this mother would never capitulate and reward your inanity by giving in and purchasing you that candy -- no matter how much I loved you.
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