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Two rants, intertwined, on homophobia and pedophilia. Feel free to skip, or to ask me to put this under a cut. Feel free to rant here, or even silently. Feel free to disagree and discuss, as long as you're willing to be reasonable (and I promise the same).
--
So.
I've mentioned before Mexico's recently passed (I think I'm using the wrong legal-ish word for this) laws allowing same-sex civil marriage, shortly followed by the ones acknowledging same-sex couples' rights to adopt. Today, a somewhat famous Mexican folkloric singer (one whose fame mostly comes from her songs' lyrics humorous support of women's fight against machismo) was asked to choose. Should a child be abandoned on the streets, left to starve -- when the alternative is for it to be adopted by a same-sex couple?
She said, leave the child starve. And, when asked for clarification, she said the same.
The thing? She's simply expressing an opinion many share. In one such discussion I personally witnessed, a father of two teenagers declared he would kill his sons were they to admit on being gay. Mind me, this is a 30-something civil servant with a college-level education, born and grown in the youngest and most liberal of Mexico's States. Most important, what I don't see in those discussions: same-sex couples are not rooting for adoption in order to take orphaned children from heterosexual couples' hands; they are doing this because they want the reassurance that, where something to happen to a gay/lesbian with a living-in-the-same-household biological child, said child's de facto other parental unit, the biological parent's couple, would not get his child-caring rights all stomped over because legally there's nothing binding them.
They are not trying to take perfectly innocent, naive, normal children, in order to corrupt, twist and torture them. Or to selfishly turn their life Hell.
No, people. No. Seriously. Just, NO.
...
And the priest on the church I go to every Sunday is in no way helpful, either. Last week, he raved against same-sex couples while publicly declaring that a man whose cheating on his wife lead to an out-of-marriage child should not be judged, blamed or otherwise confronted by his sons ... because, after all, he is a man who, you know, turned to another woman when his wife couldn't look after his needs (because she was busy nursing a sick familiar, BTW). The same priest also talked, on the same Mass, about the News insistence on the religious angle's when reporting pedophilia, despite the fact that less than a ten percent of the men currently accused of the crime are priests. He said, there are fathers, stepfathers, cousins, uncles, brothers, teachers, trainers ... and you don't see about them in the news.
You know, I usually agree -- because I don't want the Church or religion to be accused of the faults of men, even if said men say the serve the Church or are religion's men. But the thing I think he's deliberately ignoring in his speech, the thing the media is mostly ignoring too, the thing that I thing they should focus in? Fathers, stepfathers, cousins, uncles, brothers -- they all have access to one or only a few children. Yes, the molested children are suffering, but the reason why they're being given access to these children is a, how can I say it, a trust that doesn't need to be. Given, expected. Won.
Whereas teachers, trainers, priests (et cetera)? They need to win our trust. And maybe not even them but the institution they represent -- all the teachers, all the trainers, all the priests. All the people in those situations where they will be trusted to look after our children. And when they make such a thing, they soil all of the group's image, be it teachers, trainers, priests. They taint all of the hardworking, caring people in their group. And to me, it doesn't matter if they are priests; I hate them equally if they are teachers. Especially because they have access to much more children.
And god, I could rant much more here, but it makes my stomach hurts. Because there's idiocy and then there's this.
--
So.
I've mentioned before Mexico's recently passed (I think I'm using the wrong legal-ish word for this) laws allowing same-sex civil marriage, shortly followed by the ones acknowledging same-sex couples' rights to adopt. Today, a somewhat famous Mexican folkloric singer (one whose fame mostly comes from her songs' lyrics humorous support of women's fight against machismo) was asked to choose. Should a child be abandoned on the streets, left to starve -- when the alternative is for it to be adopted by a same-sex couple?
She said, leave the child starve. And, when asked for clarification, she said the same.
The thing? She's simply expressing an opinion many share. In one such discussion I personally witnessed, a father of two teenagers declared he would kill his sons were they to admit on being gay. Mind me, this is a 30-something civil servant with a college-level education, born and grown in the youngest and most liberal of Mexico's States. Most important, what I don't see in those discussions: same-sex couples are not rooting for adoption in order to take orphaned children from heterosexual couples' hands; they are doing this because they want the reassurance that, where something to happen to a gay/lesbian with a living-in-the-same-household biological child, said child's de facto other parental unit, the biological parent's couple, would not get his child-caring rights all stomped over because legally there's nothing binding them.
They are not trying to take perfectly innocent, naive, normal children, in order to corrupt, twist and torture them. Or to selfishly turn their life Hell.
No, people. No. Seriously. Just, NO.
...
And the priest on the church I go to every Sunday is in no way helpful, either. Last week, he raved against same-sex couples while publicly declaring that a man whose cheating on his wife lead to an out-of-marriage child should not be judged, blamed or otherwise confronted by his sons ... because, after all, he is a man who, you know, turned to another woman when his wife couldn't look after his needs (because she was busy nursing a sick familiar, BTW). The same priest also talked, on the same Mass, about the News insistence on the religious angle's when reporting pedophilia, despite the fact that less than a ten percent of the men currently accused of the crime are priests. He said, there are fathers, stepfathers, cousins, uncles, brothers, teachers, trainers ... and you don't see about them in the news.
You know, I usually agree -- because I don't want the Church or religion to be accused of the faults of men, even if said men say the serve the Church or are religion's men. But the thing I think he's deliberately ignoring in his speech, the thing the media is mostly ignoring too, the thing that I thing they should focus in? Fathers, stepfathers, cousins, uncles, brothers -- they all have access to one or only a few children. Yes, the molested children are suffering, but the reason why they're being given access to these children is a, how can I say it, a trust that doesn't need to be. Given, expected. Won.
Whereas teachers, trainers, priests (et cetera)? They need to win our trust. And maybe not even them but the institution they represent -- all the teachers, all the trainers, all the priests. All the people in those situations where they will be trusted to look after our children. And when they make such a thing, they soil all of the group's image, be it teachers, trainers, priests. They taint all of the hardworking, caring people in their group. And to me, it doesn't matter if they are priests; I hate them equally if they are teachers. Especially because they have access to much more children.
And god, I could rant much more here, but it makes my stomach hurts. Because there's idiocy and then there's this.
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