Last night, I went for dinner at my partner's parents place. We had a lovely summery meal - lots of salads, corn on the cob, and a whole roast lamb cooked on the barbecue. The ever-gracious hostess had guests from the United States (Montana and Arizona, I believe), plus from the Wairarapa. We discussed travel, hunting, family, all the sort of things you'd discuss at a normal dinner party.
Then we caught the bus back into town. Now, I don't normally have a problem with public transport. But there's something... unnerving about an evening bus service on a Friday night. I feel uncomfortable - like if these young, slightly intoxicated passengers found out I was gay, i would be subject to taunting and even perhaps violence. Regardless of the truth of the nature - I'm sure most of the young people are friendly, accepting, modern young people - a gay man has to act as 'straight' as possible to avoid unknown threats. Now, anyone who knows me knows I'm not really that big a fan of public displays of affection, but still, it's uncomfortable thinking, 'what if they know? Am I giving off a gay vibe?'.
So it's within this context that I get genuinely disheartened when I read blog posts like Michelle Kaufman's "Big Gay Out: Politicians, children and human dignity?". For one, it feeds into this idea that being gay, being different is abnormal, that it's OK to discriminate against someone because they're different than you are. And it's this sort of discrimination and bigotry that makes people like me feel nervous when we're in unusual societal situations. And for those who may not yet fully understand their sexuality or have recently come out, reading comments like these from people who are supposed to love, support or represent them must be down right scary.
On top of this, the thing that Michelle doesn't seem to understand is that, just like there is no such thing as a specific Christian lifestyle, is that THERE IS NO SUCH THING IS A HOMOSEXUAL LIFESTYLE. While an event like Big Gay Out, Auckland Pride or pride events in general are great at increasing visibility for GLBTI issues in our society in general, no one event, no one organisation can claim to speak for all queer folk everywhere. Just like the Catholic Church, or Family Life International cannot claim to speak for all Christians everywhere.
There are so many different kinds of queer folk. Undoubtedly, there are GLBTI families who have decided not to go to these events because they're not ready yet to expose their children to sex education, just as much as there are families who do go. There are GLBTI individuals who choose not to go to these events because they don't, for whatever reason, feel events like these represent them.
When you have individuals railing against these sort of events, asking how politicians can 'endorse these behaviours', they are isolating the Christian communities from families who very well might share their beliefs - monogomy, marriage, raising children in a loving two-parent family, even faith and a belief in God. You are pushing them away from the flock.
We are a nation of individuals. GLBTI individuals and families are not only nothing to fear, but many simply wish to live in a very similar way to you - as a well-balanced, happy family, the basis of which is the same as many 'Christian value' families - love. When discriminatory, hateful rants like this are posted, you do more damage to your cause than good.
