Family values

I don’t refer often enough to the excellent blog Halfway There, by the pseudonymous Zeno, a community-college math teacher in California. Apart from having picked an amusing combination of names (a reference, of course, to Zeno’s Paradox), blogger Zeno writes interesting things about socio-political news, frequently calling the right-wingers on their bullshit.

Today’s entry is a perfect example, where he lampoons a feigned Think about the children! argument against running a front-page photo of lesbian sailors kissing. In response to a letter to the editor in the Sacramento Bee, which said, in part, this:

Did anyone consider that young children might be confused by the display on the front page?

The Bee has selfishly and disrespectfully usurped the rights of parents to choose where and when to have a thoughtful discussion, with their children, about homosexuality. Believe it or not, there are still some families whose values are not reflected in the type of photo that The Bee published; and they are neither intolerant nor filled with hate.

...Zeno has this to say:

I can’t help wondering how Jane’s children managed to grow old enough to be confused without Mommie Dearest having had that thoughtful discussion she values so highly. It’s not as though most toddlers spend any time perusing the pages of the newspaper. And why should even older children be upset by a glimpse of a same-sex couple kissing on the Bee’s front page? Have they not seen plenty of same-sex kissing among family members and close friends? Doesn’t grandma kiss mommy? Doesn’t mommy have BFFs from high school or college who hug her and smooch her whenever they meet?

[...]

She wants us to believe that people who object to displays of same-sex affection are neither intolerant nor filled with hate. But I don’t believe that. Not filled with hate? Maybe, but that’s not self-evident. Filled with intolerance? Definitely.

Indeed. But let’s be even more direct about showing the bigotry behind that letter. Let’s suppose that the photo had not been of two women kissing, but of a black man kissing a white woman. And let’s look at the letter with that shading:

Did anyone consider that young children might be confused by the display on the front page?

The Bee has selfishly and disrespectfully usurped the rights of parents to choose where and when to have a thoughtful discussion, with their children, about interracial couples. Believe it or not, there are still some families whose values are not reflected in the type of photo that The Bee published; and they are neither intolerant nor filled with hate.

Would anyone seriously believe her claim of tolerance and love in that case?
No.

Believe it or not, there are still some families whose values are not reflected in images of warmth and affection. How sad for them.