The Evesham Township School District in New Jersey has been embroiled in a dispute over whether to show Debra Chasnoff's video "That's a Family" about non-traditional families. The video includes families with adopted children, mixed-race families and same-sex couples with children.
According to the New York Times (Sept. 14) several parents objected after the video was shown to third grade students. The objections eventually led to the video being dropped.
Divorce, adoption, even mixed-race parents, those are just facts about the modern world. But same-sex couples with children? That's not a fact. That's a controversy.
Parents who objected to the video claimed that they were not motivated by prejudice against gays but by concern that the video was not suitable for such young children.
The Times quoted one parent as saying, "I don't think it was appropriate. If it was maybe in the fifth grade, but in third grade they're a little too young." But then the parent retracted even that plausible position, adding, "It's something to be discussed within families. I think it's the parents' responsibility to teach the kids about that stuff."
Another parent reportedly said that children "shouldn't learn questionable things in school that they're not ready for and don't understand." What is questionable? Whether gay parents exist? Whether they love their children?
Steven Goldstein, chairman of the gay rights group Garden State Equality, said the opposition was fueled not by concerns about parental control but "about fear of gay people."
But I suspect that Goldstein is not quite correct on either point. The opposition to the video was likely fueled not so much by fear of gay people as by plain, old, ordinary antipathy--disapproval, hostility--to gay people and to any mention in the curriculum of their existence.
And the objections were prompted precisely by the issue of parental control. Parents understandably want to determine what and how their children learn, but parents who want to keep their children from knowing about the way the world is are doing them few favors.
It is hard to justify letting some parents control what government (tax-supported) schools teach since the schools are paid for by parents with a variety of values and attitudes. In other words, the objecting parents want to control what other people's children as well as their own are "exposed to."
In other times and places, these are the same type of parents who object to school lessons on other aspects of the modern world--evolution, birth control, sex education, comparative religion. In the past they would have objected to any mention of interracial marriage. And now they are objecting to saying anything about gays--whether gays as parents, gays as couples or just the fact that gays and lesbians exist.
None of the parents bother to explain why they think young children "aren't ready for" and "don't understand" about gay parents or gay couples. What is so hard to understand about two men adopting a child or two women raising the child of one of them from a previous marriage? If children grow up with that information it does not seem odd or incomprehensible; it is just another aspect of a fascinating and varied world they are learning about. The children probably think of the gay couple as "best friends" or "roommates."
The problem is not with the children's understanding, but with the parents' importation of a different issue. When religious conservatives think about gays, they think primarily of sex. Gays? Sex. Gay couples? Sex. Gay parents? Sex. And they do not want their children learning about gay sex. But it is doubtful that third graders connect gay parenting with sex. Conservative parents see sex where it isn't even mentioned.
This is the same mentality that made the children's book "And Tango Makes Three" the library book that drew the most parental objections last year. The book is a charming true story (by all means read it) about two male penguins who together brood and hatch an egg and begin raising the baby penguin. Homophobic parents objected to the book because it was "about homosexuality." But nowhere in the book is there even a hint that the two penguins engaged in sex.
Such beliefs border on psychosis.
If conservative parents fear anything, it is not homosexuals, but that their children may abandon the parents' hostility toward gays and come to accept gays as just another part of the world around them. It is this loss of control over their children's values and social attitudes, not the facts that the children learn, that upsets conservative parents most. But that is always the risk of education.
25 Comments for “Straight Families, Gay Sex, Double Standards”
posted by Brian Miller on
The conservatives’ position is justifiable, in that they are having their children force-fed arguably political dogma by the state, under the penalty of law.
Parents should have the right to educate their children as they see fit, and not have their kids taught “tolerance” by a third party.
Most sensible people will learn about gay families over time.
While the conservatives’ animus towards gay people is contemptible, the argument that the state has the right — nay the obligation — to force them to relinquish their parental educational rights over their children is even more contemptible. It is not the role of government to impose viewpoints upon other people.
Viewpoints should win because they’ve prevailed in the marketplace of ideas. Just like mixed-race parenting, gay marriage and parenting are prevailing in the marketplace of ideas. Eventually conservative parents will come around to their own recognition of reality — all the more genuine because it wasn’t ripped out of them at the point of a gun held by a government “child welfare” agent.
posted by Craig2 on
Why do these social conservative parents have to hold the *public* educational system to ransom over these issues? If they have homophobic religous views, why not send their kids to a *private* conservative religious school?
Craig2
Wellington, NZ
posted by Regan DuCasse on
Brian, there is an obligation for schools to provide information for children to function well and lessen the fear conflicts that create dangerous bullying and harassment.
There are ignorant and undereducated parents out there. There are parents who have contempt for it and there are parents with irrational prejudices about homosexuality and gay people.
Education isn’t served, nor are their children by educational dysfunction. This is a serious problem, this reluctance to BE educated and deal with the reality of homosexuality.
These parents are taking a lot for granted. That their children’s peers don’t have gay parents or a gay family member. Or that they won’t have a gay child themselves in their future. Who could be these very parents grandchild.
There is no rational reason to insulate children from this. None at all.
Not even religion. Most religion is inherently sexist, and anti gay teaching is an extension of that misogyny.
People are incredibly unreasonable about this subject almost exclusively. And the constant barrage of millenium old standards and information for it, is about as ridiculous and stopping a child’s educational material on blacks or women at the year 1922 and going no further.
Why do people want to pretend that nothing new or important has been learned and understood and researched about gay people SINCE the Bible?
There is an irrefutable correlation between this animus against gay people and bullying that’s resulted in school shootings and suicides among children as young as ten.
Children are naturally curious and should be. They will ask questions and they have a right to be told the truth.
What troubles me more, are the incurious adults and educators who prefer being left in the dark so they can’t or won’t be able to handle this subject themselves, let alone for their children.
I just saw the original, non musical version of “Spring Awakening” by Frank Wedekind here in Studio City, CA.
At one point, a fourteen year old girl is begging her mother to tell her where babies come from because she’s already figured out there must be something that happens between PEOPLE and not the work of storks.
The girl’s mother stammers, hems and haws and finally just runs from the subject and leaves the girl ignorant after all. With tragic consequences. This is a prime example of a parent’s own lack of skill (as in the case of this current controversy), and also a determination to use fear or no information at all as a way to protect the child. It’s actually intellectual laziness, if not cowardice.
And parents too have an obligation to get over that sh*t when lives are on the line.
The reluctance to deal with sexuality, whether gay or not, STILL has tragic consequences in our time. “Spring Awakening” was written in 1891. It was banned from production and considered scandalous and too graphic for it’s time.
Considering these parents attitude on homosexuality and the banning of books on it, even non fiction. And with real tragic consequences occuring from fear, ignorance and prejudice of even gay CHILDREN, schools are creating more liability if they DON’T do something.
These parents aren’t too different from those of over a century ago.
And there is no excuse for that whatsoever,
posted by Bobby on
Everytime anything controversial is schedule to be shown the parents should have to sign waivers. I’m tired of schools pushing their political agendas, be them extreme environmentalism, anti-junk food propaganda, gun control, and yes, even gay rights.
It is one thing for at teacher to stop a student from calling others “f-gg-t.” Which ironically they rarely do. But to show pro-gay videos? Give me a break.
This is just as silly as banning the game “cops and robbers,” banning dodgeball, and giving medals for participation in a sports game.
Schools don’t need to reinvent the wheel every 5 minutes.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
Why do these social conservative parents have to hold the *public* educational system to ransom over these issues? If they have homophobic religous views, why not send their kids to a *private* conservative religious school?
Because that amounts to double taxation — once to support public schools at full price, and once again for private-school tuition.
Furthermore, Craig, this is what public schools are being ordered to teach children:
Most religion is inherently sexist, and anti gay teaching is an extension of that misogyny.
Why on earth should parents be forced to accept that in a classroom? It amuses me to no end that people who believe that want religion kept out of schools, but then demand that their own antireligious views be inserted into the curriculum. They want children to be mocked and told that their parents are “sexist” and “misogynist” because of their religious beliefs.
posted by crankyd on
Brian…i think your “marketplace of ideas” argument isn’t appropriate for this example. Seems to me that the parents objecting to this are using nothing more than “might makes right”…more straight parents than gay ones, so the gay families representation get pushed aside. Just because there may not be many gay-headed families out there, doesn’t change the fact that they DO exist, and deserve a fair representation.The videos in question are showing a VARIETY of different kinds of families, including gay-headed households.
“Sorry kids of gay parents, you don’t make a big enough share of the market segment for us to care.”
And Bobby…your characterization of this as a “pro-gay” video is a bit disheartening. Almost like you’re beginning to ascribe anything remotely related to gay families as “gay agenda propaganda”, much as Paul Varnell writes about nervous conservatives only seeing “gay sex” wherever any topic of gays come up. It doesn’t sound like these videos are trying to say one kind of family is better than another, or than any one in particular is under attack and needs special protections. Mixed-race families, adoption kids and children of same-sex parents just…ARE.
I don’t consider fair and realistic treatment of the fact that gay families exist to be a political agenda.
If it is, then were all sunk.
posted by Brian Miller on
there is an obligation for schools to provide information for children to function well
Is there, now?
So those who are attacking the conservatives wouldn’t mind if the conservative viewpoint on homosexuality, including its contentions of eternal unhappiness and life-shortening disease, was presented as another “real world viewpoint” that students “need to be aware of?”
I doubt that very much.
This is ideological warfare — using the state as the enforcer of a “correct” point of view. Correct points of view don’t need government “enforcement” — they win in the court of ideas.
Ironically, by violating the rights of these parents, well-meaning lefties are extending the lifetime (and amplifying the volume) of the anti-gay arguments they seek to expunge. Those ideas will die on their own, without need for a PC jihad.
posted by Bobby on
“And Bobby…your characterization of this as a “pro-gay” video is a bit disheartening.”
—Well, I’ve seen the video, it is pro-gay, there’s nothing wrong with being pro-gay, but once you raise that debate, you need to let the other side make their views known, and that’s when it gets ugly so why bother. At my school they once brought a pro-life speaker and I was forced to listen to him. I didn’t like it. I was also given a magazine by the Lubabitchers which had an anti-gay article. I didn’t like that either. That is why politics in the classroom must be kept to a minimum unless it’s a debate class.
“Mixed-race families, adoption kids and children of same-sex parents just…ARE.”
—Does the video include white families? Protestant families? A lot of diversity lovers seem to hate the majority. The video only included families outside the norm. That is disrespectful to everyone else.
Look, if this was a case of a child being discriminated against for having two same-sex parents, then fine, the teacher can take care of that problem, so can the child. I was discriminated against for having rich parents yet my class wasn’t forced to watch a video about rich families.
Frankly, if I ever have kids, I will send them to a school that reflects my values, which will probably be a private school. A public school is for the entire public, that’s why they shouldn’t be teaching pro-gay or anti-gay stuff.
posted by MMMM on
There is no Democracy without an informed citizenry, so yes, the schools have an obligation to prepare children to act as responsible citizens in a Liberal Democracy. And there was a time when schools in this country almost did it. Civics courses taught civic participation, public action, personal responsibility, and civic pride but were mocked out of existence by the snide academic left in the late 60s and 70s, mostly because ham-fisted bigots, sneering fascists, and chauvinist dolts on the right had given civics a bad name. Today we need more than ever to teach people what it means to be an American in a pluralistic society. That includes respect for principles of Constitutional and civil order and the balance we achieve in this country with individual liberty, basic freedoms, personal autonomy and responsibility, public restraint, and (OMG!) even tolerance and a basic awareness of phenomena that matches how they actually appear in nature. Imagine, a school that saw a family with two fathers and said to its students, “That’s a family with two fathers.” BRILLIANT!
posted by crankyd on
Well, to any of you constant complainers out there (you know who you are) that are always screaming that are never any respectable representations of gay people out there…Shut The F*ck Up.
Unless this video features codpiece-wearing bull-dykes, and fatherly fags in full drag (which i doubt), what more do you people want?
No sissies and dykes on Pride floats, but God forbid, average people raising average families, well…not in front of THE CHILDREN.
And unless these gay families are ranting against God and religion in this video, the producers are not obligated to feature some extreme-right-wing Christofascist babbling on about the evils of homosexuality.
Showing the average family out there that has a strong faith? Protestants? White families? Sure, why not? But the fact is, is that most kids already COME FROM these kinds of families. The point of the video is to let kids know that there are other worlds out there, right in their own backyard.
This whole thing sounds more like a Social Studies lesson to me rather than some political manifesto being shoved down the throats of our innocent children.
You want to call it Social Engineering? Fine. Whatever.
But apparently our society can’t seem to let this pass (Gay Sex! Gay Sex! Gay Sex! ) without getting their collective panties in a bunch over it.
posted by Bobby on
“Today we need more than ever to teach people what it means to be an American in a pluralistic society.”
—Look, schools are there to teach basic skills, science, writing, math, maybe the arts. But now they’re forcing kids to take physical education, they’re showing the movie by Al Gore and presenting it as fact, they’re advocating against the second amendment (if they even bother to teach it), they got teachers giving anti-Bush rants, and in Brookling there’s a public schools that resembles a mosque by all the Islamic education they’re getting at taxpayer expense. So please, no more fucking pluralism. You want your kid to be a world citizen? Take him to a unitarian church where they’ll brainwash him against war and capitalism. Otherwise, schools should not be using kids as guinea pigs.
“Showing the average family out there that has a strong faith? Protestants? White families? Sure, why not? But the fact is, is that most kids already COME FROM these kinds of families”
—Typical, diversity never seems to include whites, Christians, straights, conservatives. Which is why I’ll never support diversity. Tell me, have you ever heard the concept of majority rules? You want your kids to watch gay videos? Then send them to a liberal private school or a gay public school like the one in New York City.
A classroom is a captive audience. Any controversial video must be submited to the parents for approval.
Power to the parents! Frankly, I would love to see how gay parents would feel if an anti-gay video was shown in class. This is why we’re supposed to avoid controversy in school.
posted by RealPolitik on
MMMM: Brilliant comment, thanks for writing that. I was struggling to find a reason why non-traditional families should be addressed at all, and you provided a perfect reason, consistent with democratic principals.
Bobby: “But now they’re forcing kids to take physical education…” Uh, I don’t know where you’ve been, but I had Phys Ed in school back in the 1960’s. Trying hard to figure out what this has to do with showing the Al Gore film.
posted by crankyd on
“Tell me, have you ever heard the concept of majority rules?”
Yeah, and as usual in the case of many social conservatives its nothing more than “might makes right.”
I think we also have something called the tyranny of the majority.
As far as I’m concerned, too many people have a simplistic and limited idea of what it means to live in a democratic society.
I guess since there’s more heterosexuals out there, homosexuals should just shut the fuck up or just kill themselves.
Fucking stupid minorities.
posted by crankyd on
Bobby, maybe i haven’t been clear enough in my writing, but in an earlier post i support including Whites, Protestants (i.e. mainstream) families in these videos.
If they aren’t there, they SHOULD be.
But at the same time i can also see why (incorrectly) they weren’t included, as they are the norm that most kids already recognize by default. This should be fixed if the videos are going to be shown.
But i’m still troubled that you ask “how gay parents would feel if an anti-gay video was shown in class.”
A neutral representation (that is, without some anti-straight political diatribe) of a same-sex headed family would be properly balanced with a comparatively neutral video of a heterosexual-headed family (again, sans diatribe)
Your insistence that an anti-gay video would be a fair message to add is completely off base.
Gay does not equal Anti-Straight.
Straight does not equal Anti-Gay.
This flawed logic is the kind of crap that the Extreme Right has convinced so many others to be fact.
posted by lmargol on
I don’t agree. I think third grade may be a bit too soon. Anyway, I see little point in schools replacing parents when it comes to some moral issues.
posted by Karen on
“Too soon”? Gay-headed families are not obscene, no matter how much the conservatives think they are.
My children will be in classrooms, talking about their two moms, way before “maybe 5th grade”. They are not uttering obscenities or speaking about anyone’s sex life – just the facts of THEIR life. They are not obscene, and these bigots have no right to squash all mention of families like mine because THEY think our mere EXISTENCE is obscene. This is infuriating.
I don’t care who is or isn’t showing AIT as “fact” – that’s a separate issue. At issue here is whether parents have a right to ban completely age-appropriate, indisputably factual material simply because it will make them explain to their wondering children why their religion says two women raising a child together is wrong before they can use the “ewww, weird sex” argument.
My kindergardener niece was just the flowergirl in my wedding, and she is neither confused nor disturbed by the fact that I married a woman.
“Sometimes girls marry girls,” she says.
posted by JJason on
I recall knowing my parents names, where they came from, and that they were my parents, my married parents, when I was young.
I remember being introduced to the concept of other types of families, one with only one mom, or one dad. I remember being taught about divorced/remarried families, children raised by grandparents, an uncle, adopted by a couple, or a single person.
I remember learning all of this before I ever learned one thing about sex.
So I just do not get why some conservative folks don’t seem to understand that gay families can be gay families and can be explained to children without talking about gay sex.
It’s like those parents who don’t want to have the HPV vaccine for their daughters at age 9. The medical science proves that the vaccine works best when it’s given to a child around 8 or 9. But they don’t want to give it to their girls because they don’t want to teach them about sex outside of marriage, they don’t even want to be introduced to the idea of sex!
I got tons of vaccinations as a kid and all I was ever told was that it would sting, and that it would prevent me from getting sick. –And really, that’s all the kids need to know.
And that’s all kids need to know about gay families: they exist. It’s really not that hard of a concept for a kid to understand.
It’s a sure sign of deep control issues when someone refuses to even acknowledge that other people, other families exist.
posted by Arthur on
Gay people and families exist. Showing a video to children that pretends to represent the many different types of families, that consciously EXCLUDES all gay families is a “censoring” of reality, a lie.
If the video EXCLUDES White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs), then it’s equally a lie. I’m not sure if that’s the case, if none of the participants were caucasians, for instance.
Stating that including a family of colour in such a video about families makes it “Pro-Black Propaganda,” is pathetic, laughable, and hearkens back to the times of Jim Crow. It’s the same thing for gay families.
My sister-in-law didn’t want to tell her 10 year old son when we eloped despite the fact I’ve been his favourite uncle since our first Santa Claus Parade together. We love her to bits, and she us; she was simply afraid it would become the birds and the bees talk, and that made her very uncomfortable for a couple of reasons. We abided by her wishes as a parent, he would grow up sooner or later. How many religious people would have done the same?
Before she could even tell him about us he was asking her questions like “Why isn’t there a photo of mes oncles up with the other (wedding) pictures?”
Her biggest surprise when she finally did tell him, was that it wasn’t about sex for him at all. The nephew was just relieved that he was finally allowed to call me “mon oncle speciale” in front of family, instead of having to pretend he didn’t know.
It’s a first-language-french-everyone-bilingual family, so there are different cultural norms, which explains part of it. I know being forced to lie about us to their grandson was driving my father-in-law and mother-in-law (PFLAG Members)nuts. They suddenly learned what it feels like to live in the closet!
It’s not the Kids who get upset, love isn’t about sex for them, it’s the parents who get bothered.
posted by Bobby on
Look, I’m gay, I’m glad I don’t have to chase after women, but I know that my sexual orientation is not accepted by everyone. So while I tell the world to go to hell, I don’t force anyone to accept my sexual orientation or force them to watch videos about gay families.
In an unfair world, do you think I like not being able to say “oh, he’s a hot guy” because it might make some people uncomfortable? I don’t like it, but as a member of a minority it’s in my best interest to make sure that the majority is comfortable with me.
That doesn’t when I won’t surf the men looking for men section on craiglist during work hours, just like the straights, I have the right to date. And since I work in advertising, I don’t get much private time anyway.
The problem with gays, muslims, and other minorities is that most of them seem to want the world to adapt to them. So today gays want gay family videos, tomorrow muslims want to ban pork products from high school, where does it end?
This used to be a country, a country where immigrants came and ADAPTED to the general society while keeping their customs. That’s why devout Catholics send their kids to Catholic schools, they don’t want their children being exposed to secular propaganda.
So if you are a gay parent, I have no problem with your kids telling everyone else about their families. All kids are free to do that. But controversial videos don’t belong in the classroom. I’m sick of teachers overruling parents and doing whatever the fuck they want. Just because they have a teaching degree doesn’t mean they’re qualified to impart knowledge, or even be near a child. Specially those female teachers that have been molesting boys. If it was up to me, I would remove their clitoris, maybe then they wouldn’t get so much pleasure in being child molesters.
So like I said before, Power to the Parents!
posted by Regan DuCasse on
Bobby, first of all, homosexuality transcends ALL cultures, colors and family structures. Being a certain religious background or ethnic identity is more malleable within the dominant culture.
Homosexuality isn’t like that. And too many people are of the mistaken idea that homosexuality SHOULD and can change with enough social pressure.
This is very different. Even Muslims and whoever, aren’t forced to completely sublimate their identity.
We know the correlation and causation between advancing ignorance of homosexuality with school bullying and other issues that are tragic.
These are preventable through education. This is not a theory, and ignoring the fears and questions of young people serves nothing good.
These same parents who harbor this same fear and ignorance would do well to take a course too.
I say again, what’s the point really in leaving the pink elephant in the room to dance and dance and pretend it’s not there?
When acknowleging what needs to be can do much more good?
This literally is the ONE subject that people do get crazy about. They ARE obssessing about it being a sex issue, instead of a LOVE and HUMAN issue.
In fact, a close friend of mine…an immigrant from Bolivia worked in a strip mall that has a video rental store that has a lot of gay clientele.
Her twin sons were six at the time and witnessed to men peck each other on the lips.
Before she could explain, her twins got it right-they said, oh mom…those men love each other don’t they?
She was very relieved and realized then than children see love, not sex, when they see adults showing casual affection to each other.
That is the correct assumption of the innocent.
Turning such a thing into something dirty and unmentionable, seems to be in the minds of the corrupted.
I wouldn’t call a show of love to another human being a bad thing.
With all the movie posters, tv shows and even commercials that depict and show casual VIOLENCE all day long, same gender affection shouldn’t be THIS offensive to anyone.
Has anyone here noticed how many film posters feature a gun in the hand of someone, male or female?
Has anyone here noticed how few of them depict people in a loving, affectionate pose?
Violence is more acceptable than the love that dare not speak it’s name.
Which is why so many school children resolve conflicts with violence.
Homosexuality is hardly a sickness people want to think. Acceptance of violence and gangsta chic…that’s something that’s permeated schools for years.
posted by Bobby on
Hey Regan,
“Has anyone here noticed how many film posters feature a gun in the hand of someone, male or female?”
—So what? People are more comfortable with violence, it’s fun watching violent film, they’re not as boring as romantic movie. As for guns, yeah, lots of people want like them. Even Gandhi said that the cruelest thing the british did to the Indians was banning gun ownership among them.
“Has anyone here noticed how few of them depict people in a loving, affectionate pose?”
—Well, I’ve seen quite a few. Hollywood also love sex movies. And advertising loves showing couples in love that don’t look like the rest of us.
“Which is why so many school children resolve conflicts with violence.”
—Not anymore unfortunatly, schools are banning games like “cops and robbers,” there are soccer games where score isn’t kept so there can be no losers, kids have been sent home for pointing their fingers as if they were a gun, the children are being feminized. It’s very sad.
I however believe in violence because it brings respect.
If I tell someone “don’t call me a queer because I’m a human being with human dignity” he’s gonna laugh in my face. But if I tell him, “don’t insult me or I’ll kick your ass,” he’ll watch what he says in my face.
In high school, those who defend themselves thrive, those who are afraid to fight fail. I know because it took me years to find my inner strenght.
By the way, how would you feel if they show a gay video and somebody uses that video to ridicule you? When it comes to bullies, you don’t want to give them ammunition.
posted by Lori Heine on
It does no good to try and force people to accept things. All that does is generate even more resistance to your ideas.
The same people who object to videos about non-traditional families are the ones trying to force the schools to teach everybody’s kids that the earth is flat and the moon is made of green cheese. There are more of them than there are of us, so if we push an argument on whose controversial vision should prevail, we ain’t gonna be the ones who win it.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
Add to that the fact that the gay community apparently has a few issues it needs to work out about acceptable child-rearing practices……
posted by cesquaq on
my lover and i were at a friends house and we were all outside. my friend and i talking and my lover and my friends 6 yo son playing. at one point my lover came to me for a quick kiss. my friends son asked his mom why 2 girls were kissing each other. she simply said ” honey, sometimes boys kiss girls, sometimes girls kiss girls and sometimes boys kiss boys”. he said ok and went back to playing. now he’s 11 and shows no sign that he was traumatized by the kiss or the explanation. he’s fine with the portrayal of gays in movies and queerly enough has not turned gay.
posted by Lori Heine on
Goodness, in one example (NDT’s) we’ve got people running around naked and doing S&M in front of kids, while in the next they’re simply kissing. A lot of folks out there don’t seem to know the difference, but hopefully, Cesquag, you do.
Unfortunately, many straight people think that we don’t have the moral sense to know the difference. Do you?
This stuff is happening, the ‘phobes are making a big deal of it, and a lot of us are simply ignoring it. We’re alerted to the problem by a link to an article and we…tell a happy little story about people kissing.
Whattya want to bet that’s not the problem? Really…what would be your first clue?