April 29, 2005
Why does my life merit a warning label?
by Jeff Langstraat
This story caught my eye last night on the news:
Inside were books about foreign cultures and traditions, along with food recipes. There was also a copy of ''Who's In a Family?" by Robert Skutch, which depicts different kinds of families, including same-sex couples raising children.
The book's contents concerned Parker and prompted him to begin a series of e-mail exchanges with school officials on the subject that culminated in a meeting Wednesday night with Estabrook's principal and district director of instruction. The meeting ended with Parker's arrest after he refused to leave the school, and the Lexington man spent the night in jail.
The Parkers (who are more than concerned parents…they’re also members of the Article 8 Alliance (I ain't gonna give those bastards a link). This is the group that has been trying to find someone, anyone, to help them impeach the Supreme Judicial Court Justices that ruled in favor of allowing queer folks to marry each other in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health.
The parent wants a warning when same-sex families will be brought up in class. Apparently, the fact that there are kids in the Bay State that have two mommies or daddies is an “adult theme.” We saw the same thing happen when Margaret Spelling threatened PBS, and dropped support for the show Buster, over the inclusion of a lesbian couple in the Sugar Time episode of Buster. We’re seeing the same thing in an Alabama legislator’s attempt to remove anything queer from libraries and schools. (I say go after the King James Bible; after all, it was commissioned by and named after a homo.) The same thing happened when the Simpsons episode on same-sex marriage was broadcast; the show had an “adult content” warning at the beginning of that episode. The same thing happens whenever there’s a queer-themed show on television. Our lives are dangerous to children, or so it would seem.
I’m sick of it. My life doesn’t need a warning sticker, and I refuse to wear the fucking thing.
I’m a sexual being. My life isn’t all sex, though. (I’d sure as hell like it my life included more sex, though!) My gayness isn’t all about sex. It’s also about being part of a community, a vibrant collectivity of very different people that have created several incredible cultures. I refuse to have my life or my community reduced to one thing.
What’s ironic is that the Right constantly complains that we queers reduce everything to sex, that we define ourselves only in those terms. Yet, it’s their actions that are actually doing this. Let’s take a look at what our loverly Governor, Mitt Romney (R-UT) had to say about this:
I have a question for Governor Romney, and for the Parkers: Where is the discussion of human sexual behavior in a book that talks about kids coming from families with gay parents? Where is it? Please demonstrate where any talk of fucking or sucking or fisting (the topic ‘Wingers seem so completely obsessed with) in this book, or this topic? It ain’t there.
Sexuality is complex, of course, and involved in family life in multiple ways. That’s not the direct issue here, though. The issue is that my life and community, and the families in that community, are deemed to be solely sexual.
So, to the Parkers, who say they aren’t intolerant bigots, I say, “You are liars.” Their project is part of a larger movement to deny my existence, push me into the closet, or help me die (when I’m really not up for that last option, or any of them).
If my life is so troublesome that it requires a warning sticker,. I feel like going back to one of the older slogans of the gay liberation movement:
I am a revolting homosexual!
You ain’t seen nothin’ yet, motherfuckers.
Posted by in Sexual Politics
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Say it loud, say it proud!
Jeff, Your life merits a warning label because these people are afraid. Fear drives them. It haunts them. They feel out of control, and the only way they know to feel control is to try to control others.
Fuck 'em.
Let's go dancing and forget they're there for a little while, shall we?
2
Comment by: Jeff at April 29, 2005 11:20 AM
Dancing?! I'm all for that!
And then some ass-kicking :)
3
Comment by: spyder at April 29, 2005 06:53 PM
I was thinking they should have to wear the warning labels: Warning, behind this sticker is an intolerant Reconstructionist. Now that would make some deep satire--create a FDA style notification document using any one of the medications stuck in a magazine add. Contraindications: Reconstructionist/Dominionists are more dangerous when confronted with fact based realities. Keep them in a warm lighted church at all times without access to communication media.
1
Comment by: lorraine at April 29, 2005 11:10 AM