Why do people think they have rights over other people's lives?

 

Why did this happen to a brilliant high school senior?  (click for link to article)

      What makes me say what I say? This one should be obvious to everyone who knows me and my family. We have been facing gay rights for a very long time and trying to come to grips with all the errors we made as our daughter grew up.

     She was born in 1968, the dark ages when it came to understanding mental health and gay issues. She was the second of three children, born 15 months after her older brother and three years before her younger sister.  When she taught herself to read before entering pre-school and taught herself to count backwards from 100 before that, we didn’t really think anything was amiss.

      Her poor older brother’s intellect sat on the back burner until he was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, when one of his friends remarked, “It’s about time he figured out how smart we all knew he was.” That was what it was like to grow up in her house.

     She hid from all of us the eating disorder she struggled with throughout her childhood--that’s how clever she was. It finally came to a head when she was a freshman in college, and one of her high school friends, at his wits end, dropped her at a hospital known for their eating disorder program. The hospital alerted us.

     In and out of treatment programs, in and out of therapeutic centers, and we were stymied. The most intelligent line I heard through all the years came from a friend whose answer, when faced with my question: “Could she be gay?” was “So what if she is.”

     That was so many years ago. I mourn the wasted years but celebrate the good years. It could have been as much her fault as mine: She should have sought the help she needed to open the closet door. But opening that door was her right, her choice, to be done on her terms.

     The principal of the school didn’t have the right to open the door. It wasn’t his closet. It wasn’t his family. It wasn’t his door to open.

Mother in Law

Back in 1966, when the doctor said “It’s a boy,” all I could think of was “Oh my God, I’m going to be a Mother in Law.” Why didn’t I ever picture myself as a Mother in Law?

My mother’s definition of a Mother in Law was someone who kept her mouth shut and her purse opened. I vowed to try to keep quiet—not so easy. My kids tell me I’m opinionated and getting worse. If they don’t want my opinion, why do they keep asking for it, at all hours of the day and night? I try not to be too harsh, but I’m not so good at it.

Today is the day I awakened with a new question: Am I still a Mother in Law? I keep laughing at the skim milk/whole milk description of marriage. Clever it may be, but it isn’t really funny. 

When I had suspicions that my daughter might be gay, I asked a good friend, one who had lived with me through the ups and downs of a middle child who is still trying to figure out how to handle her intellect, coupled with other assorted issues, her answer was simple: “So what if she is?” Would that the only question we all asked about the gay community were “So what?”

People who have gay relatives, friends, co-workers know the answer to the question. We laugh with Ellen and ask“so what?” We even marvel at her beauty as she appears in advertisements for cosmetics. What a stereotype buster. Spend some time with a bunch of Lesbians. It’s fun, sort of like a sorority house—with no men to add tension to the mix. 

My children were married during the short time before California was so viciously attacked by the proponents of Proposition 8. The wording on the ballot was confusing. A vote in the affirmative was a vote against gay marriage (Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.) They had a beautiful, formal wedding, attended by family and friends, and have been living as a married couple since 2006. 

Now they wonder, will they be “unmarried?” What a funny word. Doesn’t unmarried mean divorced? Why would they get divorced? They love each other, love living together, and have a life together. They don’t want to be unmarried and I like being a Mother in Law.