Where Does Such Hatefulness Come From?

This morning’s Los Angeles Times has a cover story that attempts to explain where the opponents to same-sex marriage in California get their energy. [”Gay Marriage opponents got a surprise boost“.]

Specifically, the Protect Marriage coalition, according to staff writer Jessica Garrison, were highly energized after San Diego’s Mayor Jerry Sanders “switched sides” on the gay marriage debate.

Sanders ran for office in 2005 and made it clear he opposed same-sex marriage. Coming after the marriage blitz in 2004 started by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, Sanders made it clear he opposed such stuff. At the time, it was a remote possibility that the Supreme Court would eventually rule against the voter-approved Proposition 22. But when the San Diego City Council actually approved a symbolic measure endorsing same-sex marriage in September 2007, Sanders did not veto it as expected. Instead gave an emotional 5-minute speech in a press conference in which he explained that he could not do such a thing to one of his own daughters, who, he revealed, is lesbian.

Sanders did what millions of Americans have done: he enlarged his understanding, and changed his personal convictions, based on his own personal and family experience.

The Rev. Dr. Paul Egertson, who is Bishop-Emeritus of the Southwest California Synod of the Lutheran church, had a similar change of heart. Raised in a conservative Norwegian synod, the son of a respected pastor, Paul Egertson is steeped in Lutheran love for God (and I might add, family values). Paul and Shirley (a former Baptist) parented six fine sons. But when their eldest came out as a gay man, the Egertsons worked through the typical modes of self-examination and critical evaluation. Was it something we did wrong? They concluded, well, no. We have six fine sons. Was it something wrong with our eldest? No, he is the most honest and honorable son one could desire to have. What is wrong then?

The “wrong,” they concluded, is neither in nurture or nature but in social and religious values which are prejudicial, fearful and, yes, hateful.

For goodness’ sake, even Vice President Dick Cheney has a lesbian daughter—partnered for 17 years with Heather Poe, and raising a child—of whom he has said that he is proud. Countless Americans have changed their prejudicial views when they realized that they were just that. They have allowed their family experience to enlarge their values and change their social and political opinions.

What is the Protect Marriage coalition trying to protect, then? Certainly not family values, since family values have prompted so many people to change their views.

But not all. According to Garrison, one of the voices behind the coalition known as Protect Marriage is Gail Knight, the widow of Peter Knight, the state senator who wrote and pushed Proposition 22. What irony, since the Knight’s son is a gay man with whom his father refused to reconcile.

Sadly, from time to time we hear of other such anti-family family values, in which parents write off or disown their own children to build an ideological wall to protect their own philosophical views.

What is that about? It is about ego. It is the certainty that my views are correct (read: I am absolutely right; and since others differ with me, therefore others are wrong) and my child is not correct. Psychologically, it comes out of disavowing one’s own parenting—ashamed to have a gay or lesbian child, the parent does not want to consider the issue of nurture or nature but instead rejects natural love of one’s own children. Or, and I fear this is too true, it is the mind of a parent who fears s/he has failed to bring up the child right, and is now trying to continue parenting the child publicly. Since it isn’t easy or effective to spank one’s little girl or boy in public, launching a statewide drive to spank one’s son for being homosexual is the ultimate retaliation for a child’s imagined disobedience.

At the core of this is shame. To scold and shame, or even reject, one’s own child privately is one thing. To reject one’s own flesh and blood publicly is an effort to shame her or him by bringing together thousands of others to shame him.

Interestingly, the Protect Marriage group and its friends are not too proud of themselves. The “About Us” page on its web site, for example, does not identify one person behind it by name. A “Who Is” search reveals that the site is registered to the “Prop 22 Legal Defense Fund,” but no address is given.  (It’s also interesting that they don’t keep their site up to date!  The About Us page was posted before the California Supreme Court In re: Marriage decision in mid-May!)

Its resource page identifies the Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, Liberty Legal Institute and Alliance Defense Fund.

Most of these seem to be run by cadres of corporate men and their attorneys. Perhaps they are all “family men.” But I can’t help wondering if the best way to protect one’s family is to not to fight the imagined demons of the liberal world out there, but to protect one’s family. Men, do you want to protect marriage? Then buy your wife flowers—often—and tell her you love her. And actually listen to her when she talks.

So I’m still having trouble understanding family values which means—in general— “hurray for families”—but in particular, “hurray for my family, but you don’t deserve to have a family.” Where does such hatred come from?

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

This entry was posted on July 21, 2008 at 09:14 and is filed under Lesbian/Gay Marriage, LGBT Rights, Public Affairs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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