And so we found out tonight that Rosie O'Donnell is gay. Not that it is any huge surprise. Of course, all the naysayers are going to come out of the closet themselves to denouce every single thing Rosie says she stands for. They are going to pick apart her interview as though she were supposed to answer the questions by some guidelines, by some menu. Just to paraphrase her, most of the kids in foster care do come from heterosexual families/parents. So, if being heterosexual was so perfect, why are all these heterosexual, but nonetheless imperfect parents having their kids taken away? A third of those kids end up in foster homes that are single family households. So basically, what the naysayers of gay adoptions are saying is that it is better for a SINGLE, HETEROSEXUAL parent to raise a child, than for a steady, GAY COUPLE to do so. Being a Black person, I am always surprised at how gay issues closely follow at the heels of Black issues. Just a few years ago, we were hearing the issues of White families adopting Black children and vice versa. (Not that the controversy is over yet). There were the seemingly sensible reasons against inter-racial adoptions, but looking at the larger picture, they were mere excuses. Excuses such as, Black kids won't learn how to be Black, or how to be themselves (like being Black and being raised by a White family and/or vice versa, is the same thing as a dog being raised by a cow). You know, they kind of look alike, and they do walk on all fours, but they are not quite the same thing. Arguments in that line.
Discrimination is discrimination whatever masks it may choose to assume. Discrimination against Black people is exactly the same thing as discrimination against gay people though quite a number of people do not feel that way. Most people think that race based discrimination is worse than handicap-based discrimination, is worse than age-based discrimination, is worse than sex based discrimination. Discrimination prevents someone from attaining something, an education etc. It doesn't hurt any less because you were discriminated against for being gay, or hurt any more because you were discriminated against for being Black. You still lose your education. It is you the PERSON, not the blackness, not the gayness, that misses out on that opportunity. It is the PERSON that suffers.
It goes beyond hypocrisy that in a state like Florida, gay people can be allowed to be foster parents, but cannot be allowed to adopt those same children. It's not like the gay couple stops being gay for as long as they are foster parents, and resume gayness as soon as they adopt the children. This is another one of those boot-leg laws. "They are not quite human." "They are a third of a real person." These were generally agreed on issues in America, that were not questioned until, as we say, calmer heads prevailed. Until the laws were changed. Yes, outright racist laws, but legal nevertheless, and so long as something is law, it shall be followed and just punishment shall be handed down to those who disobey, until at such a time that the law shall be changed. As long as the law says a Black person is a third of a White person, a Black person will be paid a third the wages of a White person, yet expected to turn out 3 times as much. (Yes, you will never be fully human with all your degrees, your achievements, your upstanding character because you are Black). So goes Florida, for in Florida, a gay couple can foster a child for 10 years. Can love, nurture, educate, take this child out of the most turbulent years, but they will never adopt that child. This child will never be truly, legally, theirs. It is a shameful, unconstitutional, pathetic excuse.
We are human, we worry about changes. We worry about things that are new, things that are not "true and tried." But just like in a heterosexual adoption, the adopting family is screened thoroughly, and I believe that gay people would also have to be screened just as thoroughly. Violence is highest in homosexual (male) relationships, followed by heterosexual couples, and lowest (extremely low) in lesbian (female only) households. So, on a violence basis only, the lesbians come out on top as the best parents. Who knew?
On the issue of a higher percentage of children of gay parents turning out gay, I think that that is a non-issue for the rest of us. Why? Two reasons. First of all, because it is none of my business, and also, because I am not interested in knowing what my neighbor does in his bedroom at night. So why should I worry that these children will turn out gay? It is none of my business. None at all, and anyway, I have no control over it. Gay or straight, they should practice safe sex - hopefully abstinence (but who are we kidding here). Get into a monogamous relationship, and as adults, it will be up to them to choose their partners. I have no say in that, and I should rightfully, have no say. Secondly, how are we to know for sure that these children were not actually gay in the first place? Just because they were raised by a gay parent doesn't mean that that was the reason they turned out gay. Had they been raised by heterosexual parents, they might have wondered through their twenties and thirties in a litany of broken heterosexual relationships, only to eventually find out that they are really gay. I cannot assume that a child has a higher likelihood of being gay just by virtue of being raised by gay parents because in the first place, I do not even know that this child could ever have been heterosexual. It is the case of the chicken and the egg. Who came first? Same thing as in incidences of breast cancer. Is breast cancer increasing in the United States, or is it just that detection levels are higher and more people are going for mammograms today than ten years ago? There are many people who are gay who we shall never know about because they did not come out and say it. Not that they need to. It's just that I don't think homosexuality is increasing. Yesterday, we knew of two gay people, but there were actually ten. Today, we know six gay people, but there ARE STILL just ten gay people. So you see, there are just more out of the closet. The closet is not hiding more than ten, and never was. The closet has always had ten people. Yesterday we knew two out of ten, today we know six out of ten. No need for panic.
"And these too, shall come to pass."
In Rosie's interview tonight on PrimeTime, Diane Sawyer interviewed a Florida politician, who doesn't believe that gay parents should adopt, but he believes that they should be allowed to foster ...and on going back to that hypocrisy thing... . I can't even be outraged at this because I have seen him before. And so have you. So has most of America, and especially Black America. The only difference is that before he was filled with racist venom, but today, he is well meaning, but still, sadly mis-informed. Do you know who he is? He is that guy in the 60's denouncing desegragation of American schools. Like Harry Byrd, a senator from Virginia. He is that superior court judge upholding the constitution part that says, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..." yet still not granting poor White men, the right to vote, not to mention Black men. Black men were not men in 1776, and neither were poor White men. Haven't we all come a long way. I have nothing against religion. It is that same Bible that says, in 1 Corinthians, 13:13, "So faith, hope, love, abide these three, but the greatest of these is love." So, we sit and hope and pray that Black kids raised by White families will grow up right (whatever that means). Or that White kids raised in Black families grow up right. But above and beyond all the hoping that we do, that same Bible tells us that the best thing we can do for these children, is to love them, and to have them raised by families that love them. Yes, the greatest of these is love. So, while you are hoping that a child raised in a gay family turns out "straight," with all the meanings that 'straight' can have, place them in a loving gay or heterosexual family because love exists in that family, and "...faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love." And so to conclude, it is a whole lot easier to be heterosexual in these world. Even Rosie concedes as much. But remember, it is also a whole lot easier to be White. They claim they can cure homosexuality, would you take a White pill? It is a whole lot easier to be Male, it is a whole lot easier to be Israeli and not Palestinian (at least, until 3/13/02). It is much easier to be Western European than Eastern European. It is much easier to be Northern European than Southern European. It is always easier to be one thing or another. So shoot me for being Black and shoot me for being from the southern hemisphere, but I guess you can spare me the third bullet because I am after all heterosexual. All in all, I'm sure the first two bullets would have done their job.