My Mother, GBLT Activist Extraordinaire

[Plaid Adder]

Are you ready for this? The Archdiocese of Boston has pushed my mother over the edge.

She called me up at work the other day to inform me that she had just called all of her state representatives to inform them of her support for same-sex marriage. She had done this specifically because the Archdiocese sent her a letter condemning same-sex marriage in terms that, to her, were so foul and off-pissing that she got mad enough to go right to the phones.

OK, you have to understand a few things to get the true meaning of this:

1) When I first came out to my mother in 1992 she was awful about it. It was 5 years before she would even interact with my partner and she only really came around in 1999.

2) My mother is a registered Democrat, but supports Bush and supported the Iraq war.

3) My mother was very Catholic most of her life (recently defected to the Episcopalians). She used to feel the same way the Church did about the whole same-sex thing. Now, apparently, she just gets incensed when she hears this shit.

4) The only thing that has made it possible for my mother to change about all this is a basic shift in public opinion. She has always been VERY concerned about what other people think of her. The reasons he can deal with us now is that she has figured out that all her friends think it's OK.

The times they are a-changin'.

The FMA is going to be a bomb for Bush if the fundies push him into it. Too many people now have gay family, friends, and acquaintances they don't want to see hurt. I will put money on that right now.

C ya,

The Plaid Adder

[Jack Rabbit]

1. I'm glad to hear this, Pladder

It's disturbing to hear tales of alienation between parents and their gay children when they come out. At least you can count it as a blessing that communications between you and your mother continued.

As long as that happens, there is always hope for this kind of transformation.

Perhaps there was more to your mother's transformation than just a shift in public opinion. After all, she perceived an attack on her child in that letter from the archdiocese; she did when many mothers would do instinctively.

However, you are correct that there are lesser bonds than that of a mother to her children that are driving this shift in opinion. The fundies have always realized this, too. Do you remember when Jerry Falwell criticized the television program Soap for featuring a gay character as sympathetic and likable? As if a gay person couldn't be sympathetic and likable in real life! He knew and wanted to put a stop to it. Today, many of us have friends and family who gay. We don't want to see them hurt. That will kill DOMA and dissipate the influence of the Christian Right that has too long been a curse on America.

[nostamj]

2. hmmm.....

for the 'revue'

put this in the back of your mind and see if you come up with anything.

four people lined up for 'traditional' marriage ceremony: Maid of Honor, Bride, Groom, Best Man.

twist: at the end of the number, it's a double ceremony for two SS couples.

maybe work from Berlin's "Old Fashioned Marriage" ?

just brainstorming................

[aintitfunny]

3. You must be very proud of her (nt)

[Plaid Adder]

4. I am, but I'll tell ya, it's weird.

You'd have had to know her 10 years ago to know exactly how weird it is. But hey, never look a gift horse in the mouth, I say.

Living proof it can happen to anyone,

The Plaid Adder

[harper]

5. This is why I think the war against gays will backfire

Bush and his lackeys are forgetting that even their most conservative supporters can and may have gay family members. The fundy campaign against same-sex unions is based on demonizing gays. Hard to do when a much-loved child or sibling is the target of the fundy attack.

I have an aunt and uncle who were life-long republicans till Reagan and the way he talked about people infected with HIV. At the time their first-born was dying of AIDS. They left the party over that issue.

[Cleita]

6. My mom was one of those

"What will people think?" persons, too. I'm happy that your mother has come around, regardless of how she got there.

I don't know what the Church's problem is these days. It would seem that they would be moving toward real Christian thinking, you know love your neighbor, not hate him because he is different from you.

[SpiralHawk]

7. My 82-year old Mom lives in Greater Boston

and is a life-long Catholic. Don't know where she stands on same sex marriages, because we've never talked about it. I'll ask her next time we talk.

At any rate, Mom has about had it with the "church," so to speak. She really started losing faith in the institution -- not the core spiritual ideas -- when all the pedophile scandals broke out. Then Cardinal Bernie "Blur the" Law got ousted for all the inexcusable covering-up and weasly lying he did.

My mom is a beautiful woman now, and she has been through the course of her life. She had always quietly wondered why so many priests made passes at her -- and also made passes at every one of her women friends.

When she recalled that pattern, and weighed it with the endless reported cases of priestly pedophilia, she finall rebelled with a roar.

She meets with many of the older women in her parish. They talk. They are active. They are all reading "The Da Vinci Code." They are steamed and they want to do something to set things right before they die.

If I am reading the picture correctly, my Mom and her friends are but part of a much larger unconnected (in many respects) network of Motherly and Grandmotherly awakening.

Here She Comes
http://www.chiron-communications.com/communique%208-4.html

[Capn Sunshine]

8. Like all morality arguments, they turn on themselves

The "family values" crowd seems to forget that all these people come from a FAMILY. The fact statistically is that everybody---EVERYBODY-- is related to or friends with a homosexual.

And the most highly "moral" act one can do according to these folks is to choose monogomy and fealty to ones spouse.

So wouldn't you WANT gay folks to marry?

(disclaimer: not that it's worked out that well for straights either....what , 1 in two fail rate?)