We've known for a long time that our adult daughter is a lesbian. We've never had any problem with that at all. The only difficulty is in just how often and how much people choose to make her life more difficult. I won't go into great detail here but things have happened to her that happen to children and women in Darfur and other lawless places. Things have happened to her that happen to other minorities and these things continue to happen on a regular basis.
As her dad, a man, and a person with a sense of fairness I have to tell you that this is the only force in my life that brings out my urges for revenge, for punishment, and worse. Instead I've repeatedly reminded myself to channel my energy in a positive direction. It's not easy. It's counterintuitive at times. But I do it.
Recently she had an experience with a major airline that was discrimination, pure and simple. Proving it would be difficult but I know the pattern well by now. Some petty functionary in a low position of power decides to punish the sinner and uses that petty power while ignoring the advice of others around her/him. We've seen it in restaurants, college business offices, so-called-Christian professors and instructors classrooms, churches (the love just shines through), and in stops by policemen with nothing better to do. It's a regular thing. These same petty lowlifes are likely the same ones that ask why special laws are needed to protect gays and lesbians. Of course they know why the laws are needed but they object because the laws would make illegal their hateful actions. You don't step in the way of the power of God ordained hatred without ruffling more than a few feathers.
One of the saddest and most unreal occurrences I'm aware of is parents who toss onto the streets their children because those children are gay. A disproportionate number of homeless youths are gay or lesbian. I see them downtown all the time...kids...13, 14, 15....dirty, cold, hungry and afraid. God told their parents to do this. Incredible.
So, we've decided to join PFLAG. We're hoping that we can find a network of supportive friends for our daughter and that we can help loving parents to understand and to not lose that child they've loved all of the child's life. The child was always gay. They love him or her then and can love them now and forever.
There are so many truly ugly things in the world. If a person wishes to be driven by hatred then just look around. See the genocides in Africa and SE Asia? Hate those. See the families here in the USA working 2 jobs, doing their best, yet losing their homes while their kids live on peanut butter? Hate that. See the criminals in charge in Washington DC and all the willfully deaf and blind who support them? Hate them. There's so many more examples. There's no reason to hate your own children because of who they are...because of the genes they were given.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
During a dull meeting
Sitting here at my desk at work listening in on a conference call with some folks from here and folks from California. My phone is on mute because it's unlikely that I'll have anything to say, but they pay me to do this.
Outside my window is the northwest side of Portland, Oregon. There are the ritzy West Hills but mostly I see part of the largest forested city park in the nation, sensibly named Forest Park. When I was in college, just before I was married, I lived in a wonderful house near the edge of that park. I lived in that house when I met my wife, Debbie.
Few people want to hear an old guy get all philosophical so stop reading here please.
Overall I'm a very fortunate person and except for a few momentary lapses I've felt that way my entire life. Wasn't born rich, not at all, but I had a good loving home, plenty to eat, lots of friends and fun, and good health. I loved being a kid, a teen, a young adult and so on. Without angst my life has been fairly uninteresting. Living much of my life in small town and rural southern Indiana doesn't add much interest either.
Sure, I had some struggles. From about age 16 to 23 or so I got into the muscle car, factory job, beer and party scene. Did some street racing, drag strip racing, learned to work on my own car, had a sponsor, drove cars for pay for others, and loved it. I still love muscle cars, though I don't own one. (My favorite personally owned car is now very rare and worth over $100,000.)
I always liked girls and women in every way. I had many worthy of lots of respect in my life and my general respect for women grew over the years. I think that working with nurses for many years increased that even more. And I am, I think, generally a pretty nice guy and not scary to look at. So I was lucky enough to date many women and to feel comfortable around them. They were at time a mystery but never beyond understanding.
Then dawned the age of hippies. Sold the fast cars, bought an old VW (many, in fact, one after another) quit my high-paying job because it supported the Vietnam war, and went to work in hospitals (ER tech, OR tech) for many years. The pay was less but the rewards were huge and the challenges great. And for a guy who liked women it was like having a job in the best place in the world.
Oh yeah, mixed in with all this was that f'ing war, which is much like the present war: Old men sending young men off to die for nothing. Anyway, we had the draft back then. I was healthy. They wanted me. I tried to tell them that I was deaf, gay, lame, whatever. They didn't buy it. So it was Canada, jail or the Army Reserve. I did the latter. What can I say about this? It was six years of being ruled by dimwits and scumbags during active duty times. But here I am, alive, stable, and glad of it.
Back to that hippie thing. There were types...city/town hippies, college hippies, political hippies, Earth hippies, traveling hippies, artsy hippies, pot hippies, acid hippies, and so on. I started as a townie but rapidly moved to the Earth/traveling/pot hippie type. I drove and hitchiked all over the nation and into Mexico and Canada. It was great times.
After a little crisis I landed in central Florida working in the OR of a big hospital in Lakeland. Lived there for a year wading around in swamps with my fine dog Butterpup, going to parties and flea markets, dating, and dealing with the roaches, heat and tourists. But then I took a long, slow trip to the West, left Florida and for some reason (?!?!?!) moved to Indianapolis.
But I continued to visit the West, Wyoming, Colorado, Montana, Oregon, California, as often as possible. Then it hit me: Why not move West? Brilliant. I applied for jobs in seven western states, got hired at the VA Hospital in Portland, and here I am.
I love mountains and canyons, waterfalls, big trees, wild weather, snow, cold, wind, silence, self reliance, hard hiking, and more. It keeps me alive.
Enough for now.
Outside my window is the northwest side of Portland, Oregon. There are the ritzy West Hills but mostly I see part of the largest forested city park in the nation, sensibly named Forest Park. When I was in college, just before I was married, I lived in a wonderful house near the edge of that park. I lived in that house when I met my wife, Debbie.
Few people want to hear an old guy get all philosophical so stop reading here please.
Overall I'm a very fortunate person and except for a few momentary lapses I've felt that way my entire life. Wasn't born rich, not at all, but I had a good loving home, plenty to eat, lots of friends and fun, and good health. I loved being a kid, a teen, a young adult and so on. Without angst my life has been fairly uninteresting. Living much of my life in small town and rural southern Indiana doesn't add much interest either.
Sure, I had some struggles. From about age 16 to 23 or so I got into the muscle car, factory job, beer and party scene. Did some street racing, drag strip racing, learned to work on my own car, had a sponsor, drove cars for pay for others, and loved it. I still love muscle cars, though I don't own one. (My favorite personally owned car is now very rare and worth over $100,000.)
I always liked girls and women in every way. I had many worthy of lots of respect in my life and my general respect for women grew over the years. I think that working with nurses for many years increased that even more. And I am, I think, generally a pretty nice guy and not scary to look at. So I was lucky enough to date many women and to feel comfortable around them. They were at time a mystery but never beyond understanding.
Then dawned the age of hippies. Sold the fast cars, bought an old VW (many, in fact, one after another) quit my high-paying job because it supported the Vietnam war, and went to work in hospitals (ER tech, OR tech) for many years. The pay was less but the rewards were huge and the challenges great. And for a guy who liked women it was like having a job in the best place in the world.
Oh yeah, mixed in with all this was that f'ing war, which is much like the present war: Old men sending young men off to die for nothing. Anyway, we had the draft back then. I was healthy. They wanted me. I tried to tell them that I was deaf, gay, lame, whatever. They didn't buy it. So it was Canada, jail or the Army Reserve. I did the latter. What can I say about this? It was six years of being ruled by dimwits and scumbags during active duty times. But here I am, alive, stable, and glad of it.
Back to that hippie thing. There were types...city/town hippies, college hippies, political hippies, Earth hippies, traveling hippies, artsy hippies, pot hippies, acid hippies, and so on. I started as a townie but rapidly moved to the Earth/traveling/pot hippie type. I drove and hitchiked all over the nation and into Mexico and Canada. It was great times.
After a little crisis I landed in central Florida working in the OR of a big hospital in Lakeland. Lived there for a year wading around in swamps with my fine dog Butterpup, going to parties and flea markets, dating, and dealing with the roaches, heat and tourists. But then I took a long, slow trip to the West, left Florida and for some reason (?!?!?!) moved to Indianapolis.
But I continued to visit the West, Wyoming, Colorado, Montana, Oregon, California, as often as possible. Then it hit me: Why not move West? Brilliant. I applied for jobs in seven western states, got hired at the VA Hospital in Portland, and here I am.
I love mountains and canyons, waterfalls, big trees, wild weather, snow, cold, wind, silence, self reliance, hard hiking, and more. It keeps me alive.
Enough for now.
Blamstorming after VA Tech
Let the blamestorming begin. Unleash the lawyers. The students and the professors are dead at Virginia Tech and someone other than the shooter has to be blamed. Someone alive. Someone with deep pockets, good liability insurance, or both. This, more than anything, is the American way.
I wonder, other than broadcasting a "Be careful" message as effectively as possible, what could or should the administrators and the police have done after the first shootings? Where would you have told 26,000 students to go to be safe on a 2600 acre campus? Who would you tell them to be on the lookout for? Why might you have suspected that the first two shootings indicated an impending massacre?
But really, the answers to those questions don't matter. What's important is for lawyers to cash in and for families to imagine that blaming someone other than the shooter will somehow help them heal.
Scratched wounds don't heal. A billion dollars won't replace one child.
I wonder, other than broadcasting a "Be careful" message as effectively as possible, what could or should the administrators and the police have done after the first shootings? Where would you have told 26,000 students to go to be safe on a 2600 acre campus? Who would you tell them to be on the lookout for? Why might you have suspected that the first two shootings indicated an impending massacre?
But really, the answers to those questions don't matter. What's important is for lawyers to cash in and for families to imagine that blaming someone other than the shooter will somehow help them heal.
Scratched wounds don't heal. A billion dollars won't replace one child.
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