We Want Your Children

I feel for the Christian Right. In a way.

Tests on brains have shown that conservative people have different brains. Their fear center (the amygdala) is more active.

Poor dears.

So they are more afraid. And the more afraid you are, the more you see things in black and white. No time for touchy-feely gray.

So when they say the crazy statement, “Prop 8 is going to make it so teachers have to teach about gay marriage in school,” well, that’s just their fear talking. But their fear is not unfounded. Sure, this false statement is wrongly reductive and listening to them running and hollering like their hair is on fire is sad. But in a way, their lying statement is a concretized idea that they can bind their fear to. They have murky, scary feelings about gay marriage. This hardcore black and white thing flies out of their mouths, from their fear center, which is basically, “Get your faggot hands off my children!”

The Christian Right should be afraid, though, and I do feel sorry for them. The world continues to evolve, and they still believe in a two-thousand year old myth. Not the most adaptable sorts. It’s difficult to find peace when you are constantly fighting reality. And gay rights, as well as the shear number of gay people, is on the rise. This is real. And perhaps only natural.

Out in the animal kingdom, when population pressures or pecking order pressures get great enough, for many species this leads to an increase in homosexual behavior. I understand that we are not cows or monkeys, but we are cow and monkey enough that perhaps this is going on with us, too. If nothing else, people sure are coming out more readily, in like Junior High. The combination of people feeling more at ease with their sexual orientation and coming out mixed with the cow-monkey POSSIBILITY that there is an increase in the number of gay people because of social pressures mixed with just way more people on earth so way more gay people on earth mixed with television, the internet, modern dance, you just, you can’t swing a double donger without hitting a gay person. And that’s just at your family reunion.

The world is changing. And the Christian Right doesn’t want to face this in the worst way. They are throwing their children toward the voters saying, “My child. My precious child. How can you teach this to my child?”

And you just have to say, “Because maybe your child is a little homo, since there are so many more of them these days the possibility has increased, and wouldn’t it be better if (s)he could be way more relaxed about it? And if (s)he’s straight, wouldn’t it be great if (s)he would be way more relaxed about it, too, since the homos are showing up in droves, like zombies, albeit friendly ones?”

In effect, the Christian Right is right. We are coming after their children. No, it won’t be a law that gay marriage will have to be taught in schools, but there is a much greater chance that gay marriage will be talked about in schools, off the cuff, much as anything that exists on earth is talked about: like whale migration, imaginary numbers, Verdun and state capitols.

The world is changing. It is more open. And it is way more gay. Maybe more so than ever before. And we do want your children. To know it? Yes. Only because it is true. We are coming after your children with our gay openness. Lock them indoors! But don’t be surprised when you turn around if little Matthew is doing a grand jeté across the playroom floor to Clay Aiken’s latest offering. If he can’t help himself, he can’t help himself.


In celebration of California, as a Universal Life minister, I head up to Big Sur to marry two women this weekend. I hope there are children there.