Monday 15th, March 2004
A shocker (at least to me)12:04:41 PMWritten By : Scott Good
Friday night, a group of us got together at a friend's house. During the course of the evening, one of the men mentioned his 6th grader had come home that 
day saying he'd had a great day in school. The father asked why and the son said because they'd spent the entire Social Studies class watching TV.
Not surprisingly, the father then asked, "What were you watching?," to which the son replied, "All about gay marriage in California."
What was surprising to me was how outraged the father was about this. He was strongly, deeply, incensed the schools would allow this sort of thing to go on and he, himself, went on and on about it at some length.
This is a spirited group, always up for a debate, and that got everyone going. I consider myself a conservative but at least in this regard was the liberal of the bunch.
As we dug into what it was he and, as it turned out, much of the rest of the group found so offensive, it quickly became obvious he thought his sixth-grader didn't know about gays and felt it was his responsibility as a parent to be the one to share this information rather than the school's.
Well, yeah, OK. Sure. But if you've waited until he's twelve to get around to telling him, sorry my friend but he's already got the information. My 11 year old daughter Sydney, I told him, has known about gay people for more or less all her life. And, why not? I've never gone into the details of the mechanics but it's always been just a matter of fact that some men love men and some women love women.
It was funny, if a bit disconcerting, to listen to the rather wild rantings of some of the group (among whom, it must be said, was at least one gent who considers it his responsibility to stimulate conversation with inflammatory statements).
My favorite statement was that if we let all the gays marry it would bring Medicare and Medicaid, along with the Social Security system, crashing to the ground. What with survivor benefits and all (like married couples can get) the entire system wouldn't be able to support the weight of it all.
What?
I asked this: "Let's say we put all the country's gay men in a line, and have them face another line made up of all the country's lesbian women. Then, let's have each of them marry the person standing across from them, so you've got each gay man married to a lesbian woman. Are you telling me there is going to be an economic difference between that and having each of them turn to the side and marry the one standing next to him or her?"
But, of course, that fell on deaf ears.
day saying he'd had a great day in school. The father asked why and the son said because they'd spent the entire Social Studies class watching TV. Not surprisingly, the father then asked, "What were you watching?," to which the son replied, "All about gay marriage in California."
What was surprising to me was how outraged the father was about this. He was strongly, deeply, incensed the schools would allow this sort of thing to go on and he, himself, went on and on about it at some length.
This is a spirited group, always up for a debate, and that got everyone going. I consider myself a conservative but at least in this regard was the liberal of the bunch.
As we dug into what it was he and, as it turned out, much of the rest of the group found so offensive, it quickly became obvious he thought his sixth-grader didn't know about gays and felt it was his responsibility as a parent to be the one to share this information rather than the school's.
Well, yeah, OK. Sure. But if you've waited until he's twelve to get around to telling him, sorry my friend but he's already got the information. My 11 year old daughter Sydney, I told him, has known about gay people for more or less all her life. And, why not? I've never gone into the details of the mechanics but it's always been just a matter of fact that some men love men and some women love women.
It was funny, if a bit disconcerting, to listen to the rather wild rantings of some of the group (among whom, it must be said, was at least one gent who considers it his responsibility to stimulate conversation with inflammatory statements).
My favorite statement was that if we let all the gays marry it would bring Medicare and Medicaid, along with the Social Security system, crashing to the ground. What with survivor benefits and all (like married couples can get) the entire system wouldn't be able to support the weight of it all.
What?
I asked this: "Let's say we put all the country's gay men in a line, and have them face another line made up of all the country's lesbian women. Then, let's have each of them marry the person standing across from them, so you've got each gay man married to a lesbian woman. Are you telling me there is going to be an economic difference between that and having each of them turn to the side and marry the one standing next to him or her?"
But, of course, that fell on deaf ears.
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