Ike Skelton, the Chair of the House Armed Services Committee, has been no friend to the repeal of DADT. But sometimes people who disagree with us can make our arguments better than our strongest supporters do, and Skelton's comments to CBS News tellingly reveal the denial and futility at the heart of the DADT opposition.
As we argue about equality and patriotism and the harm a nation can do to itself by looking at this issue through the narrow slit of prejudice, Skelton sees the problem with DADT repeal more simplistically, and in a way few of our supporters would even have thought of: "What do mommies and daddies say to their 7-year-old child?" he asked.
That's a surprisingly good question, when you think about it. Not a lot of 7-year olds will be weighing in on the merits of gay soldiers serving openly in Afghanistan, but that's not what Skelton's talking about. In fact, he's articulating the concern of the entire generation of people who grew up denying that lesbians and gay men existed - could exist - at all. They're older than 7, but when it comes to homosexuality, they have that same sort of idealized innocence. Skelton speaks for those who think that homosexuality, like cancer, should only be whispered about in public, to shelter tender minds from facing this dark truth too soon, the people who believe in their deepest hearts that homosexuality, if it must exist, is something to be ashamed of, suppressed, and kept hidden from the public (which is what those 7-year olds have been enlisted for) at all costs.
Skelton and his constituency are living in an increasingly shrinking closet. According to a new CBS poll, 77% of Americans know someone who is homosexual, compared to 42% who could say that in 1992. And while the remaining 22% today can say they don't know anyone who's lesbian or gay, they certainly can't say they haven't heard about people who are. The fact that the question is now regularly being asked in public interest polls presupposes the problem that irks Skelton and others: sexual orientation is a political subject that pretty much all Americans are asked about, talk about, and have opinions about. Directly to Skelton's point, there are not a lot of nooks and crannies left in the country where discussion of gay rights is not permitted, for adults or children. Conservative churches from one end of the nation to the other have made sure of that, as has the National Organization for Marriage and other anti-gay groups that run ads - on television and radio and in newspapers - opposing gay equality. Like discussion of DADT, those ads can and do lead kids to ask questions of their mommies and daddies.
In fact, the only place where discussion of gay rights is hindered at all is in the military. Heterosexual soldiers, of course, are free to weigh in to support or oppose (or be indifferent to) DADT - as long as it's eminently clear they are straight. Lesbian and gay soldiers, however, have to be ever cautious about what they say and how they say it, and certainly cannot articulate the fact that their opposition might arise from experience.
And that is the point. Not that we are protecting children, somehow, since they'll be exposed to the public debates over homosexuality in any number of contexts, DADT being only one. No, all DADT protects is its own premise: that homosexual soldiers should be silent about that fact, and leave the debate over their lives to the heterosexuals.
This has historically been a very successful strategy of disabling the very people who discrimination harms from explaining why, and arguing for its elimination from the law. But those days are gone. Even the new survey of military opinions on DADT will inquire into the opinions of the very people the policy harms. . . in fact, the only people the policy harms. They will still have to remain in the closet in order to be surveyed - something not even Kafka or Orwell could have imagined - but they will be asked; as bizarre a victory as I can envision.
And while all of that is going on, 7-year olds across the country will be watching TV and listening to the radio, and even talking to their friends at school. It's entirely possible they already know more about gay people than Ike Skelton does, and will likely be more comfortable viewing gay people as just people than Skelton wants them to be.
9 Comments for “The 7-Year Old Vote”
posted by Bobby on
For god’s sakes, who gives a crap about 7 year olds? Did Martin Luther King march with toddlers? Did George Washington had political meetings in kindergartens? What matters are the people who actually vote, senior citizens! Sarah Silverman understood that when she did her “great schlep” campaign in which she asked voting-age grandchildren go to Florida and brainwash their grandparents into voting for Obama.
posted by jpeckjr on
Skelton knows that the people who actually vote are senior citizens. They are also the demographic most consistently opposed to equality for gay people, partly because they still associate gay people with child molesting.
DADT repeal does not lend itself to the “we must protect our children from the homosexuals” tactic. But Skelton found a way to inject it into the DADT mix. Clever of him, wasn’t it? Now, we must keep gays out of the military “for the sake of the children!”
posted by Jorge on
For god’s sakes, who gives a crap about 7 year olds? Did Martin Luther King march with toddlers?
http://fun.familyeducation.com/martin-luther-king-jr/social-justice/35130.html
Flashback to Birmingham: The Children’s Crusade
May 2, 1963: Children as young as six or seven set out with their older brothers and sisters for a demonstration against the segregationist policies of this deeply divided southern city.
Hmm!
Okay now that I have some breathing space, let me tell you that when 1991-92 rolled around, about 9 or 10 for me, I was very interested in the abortion debate. It was a very big issue in the presidential campaign, and my parents talked quite freely about it. What they didn’t tell me, I picked up from the adult section of the library.
So this idea that controversial political topics are things children need to be sheltered from doesn’t get a lot of sympathy from me.
posted by BobN on
What I like best about those who would “protect the children” is that they usually go off describing various sex acts and listing all sorts of things like beastiality and coprophilia. It’s like the Uganda pastor who preaches how awful SSM is by showing S&M porn in church with children in the pews.
posted by Bobby on
“So this idea that controversial political topics are things children need to be sheltered from doesn’t get a lot of sympathy from me.”
—Fine, maybe MLK did it. However, children are usually to young to know any better, so whether it’s schools making kids sing pro-Obama songs or making them watch that propaganda film by Al Gore, I don’t think it’s acceptable.
I know a teacher who before being forced to show Al Gore’s global-warming lie, she presented the other side for balance, now she’s worried that she’ll might get fired.
posted by Jorge on
It’s gotta come from somewhere. My major problem with school indoctrination is that it interferes with parental rights. Still, one person’s indoctrination is another person’s civics lesson.
posted by Bobby on
“My major problem with school indoctrination is that it interferes with parental rights.”
—Precisely, progressives always seek to undermine the family. “You parents are stupid, we will educate your kids.”
“Still, one person’s indoctrination is another person’s civics lesson.”
—That’s like saying one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. I disagree, you can teach without indoctrination if #1. You teach opposing points of view. #2. You don’t tell them what to think but help them make up their own minds.
posted by Jimmy on
“That’s like saying one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.”
I wonder what George III would have said about that.
posted by Regan DuCasse on
Indeed young children were engaged in the civil rights movement because they were directly affected by Jim Crow. Their entire quality of life was informed by white supremacy and power structure.
Which damaged generations of blacks, the legacy of which still reverberates to this day.
It’s not a bad thing for children to learn the difference between the consciousness that created bigoted systems of government, again…that directly affects them and how.
People like Skelton are crying victimization by gay people, when the opposite is true, just a white claimed victimization by blacks if Jim Crow were dismantled.
But gay people, like blacks aren’t the power structure, nor the creators of any hierarchies that could affect straight people’s lives.
The implementation and maintenance of Jim Crow was strengthened by the myths and fears of black SEXUALITY, MORALITY and mental capacity.
A similar indictment of gay people.
That’s why the gay/black issue parallels so closely.
The means of segregation isn’t as available with regard to homosexuality. That’s the only difference.
The point is, that Skelton wants kids to be got at first and taught to fear and loathe gay people. And it’s getting harder to do that with teens and more experienced adults.
And BobN makes a very important point of fact in that regard.
The purist Biblical approach isn’t enough because so many other Biblical directives are simple.
But it’s straight people who will elaborate on gay lives by going into the most graphic and invasive descriptions of what they think gay lives are about.
I’ve heard ministers in their Washington D.C. churches, Oral Roberts on his own television broadcasts and as mentioned, Martin Ssempa do so in the hearing and sight of children.
This tactic has been used on me when a less gay friendly person resents my support of gay people, they’ll launch into a graphic lecture and as if I must be ignorant of ‘what those people do.’ to like gay people.
Considering how readily the gay community is called sex obsessed, we have examples of the definitively anti gay outdoing gay folks on that one.