February 2013
Reality Is Just An Opinion
'Kids say the darnedest things!' Got that right, Art Linkletter. And it's often at the most inopportune times.
"Mommy? What's a homosexual?"
You can tell when a kid is setting you up—the furtive look, the repressed giggle. Lexi had none of that, so I knew it was a straight (if you will) question.
We were sitting on the floor in the kid's section of Barnes and Noble, winnowing the 21 books she had chosen down to the 15 I would pay for (and the others that would come out of her pocket). The radio station playing over the speakers had just run a 5-minute top of the hour news-weather-sports-hot topic blurb, including a protest over gay marriage with a person screaming, "Homosexuals are taking over, homosexuals are ruining the country, homosexuals are going to destroy our way of life! ! !" I kind of got the idea he really liked saying the word 'homosexual.'
"Well, it can be used two ways. As a general term, it describes any person who is attracted to someone of his or her own sex. Sometimes it's used specifically for men, while the term 'lesbian' is for women." I was pretty sure she wasn't looking for a breakdown on the etymology.
She listened to me chatter on for a few minutes until I looked at her expectantly; any questions from the peanut gallery? "Oh." She thought for a long moment and then shrugged. "Sounds wike 'gay' to me." Her eyes went past me to a display and she dashed off a couple of aisles to pick over the Ramona Quimby books.
There was an unmistakable noise of disgust behind me. Keeling my face neutral, I turned around and found myself face to knees with a middle-aged frump (if the calf-length dress and battered loafers were an indication). I looked up. Yep. My age, plus or minus a few years, graying brown hair in a sloppy bun, shapeless floral print housedress and a gargoyle-worthy scowl on her face. I had no desire to start a conversation with her.
No problem. She was happy to throw down the gauntlet. "That was disgusting! Parents need to be careful these days! If you don't watch it, you'll turn her into a—a—homosexual!" she hissed.
Was it worth my time to educate her that sexual preference is a born trait—like eye color? Would she even listen if I told her that hatred and bigotry drive LGBT teens to suicide at rates far greater than their straight peers? Probably not—and probably not. Plus her armload of books was a clear indication of her stance; the most liberal author was Ann Coulter. Everyone else in the stack was somewhere to the right of Hitler and Genghis Khan. Before I knew what was happening, my mouth fell open and words escaped. "Could be worse. She could turn into a tea party bigot."
With a strangled noise, she fled, almost running over my kid in the process. She stopped to straighten out her path and, including Lexi in her general look of disgust, bailed.
Lexi brought an armload of books over and gave me a worried look. "Did I do something wrong?"
"Not even close." I grinned and plopped the books onto the 'mom is paying' stack—and added the others we had sorted out. "Not even close!"