Cleaning up the kitchen the other night, I found a purple post it note stuck to the floor. I picked it up and squinted at the scrawled writing. “Who is…” I paused and looked closer at the paper, “Gerald McGaybutt?” Hysterical laughter from my two older boys ensued. They thought it was great that I walked into their trap. I, however, wanted to cry. I have tried so hard to increase their compassion and open-mindedness. My kids would never, ever utter a racist comment, but it seems like prejudice against gays is the last frontier. It infuriates me when I hear them toss out, “That’s so gay.”
I drill into them that all people are equal and who a person loves is simply who a person loves – no more, no less. Who are we to judge? The most important thing is being capable of love, not who the object of desire is – man or woman. I tell them that I couldn’t care less if they grow up to be gay – I just want them to be happy. I remind them about the kids they know with two moms. I tell them I have gay friends. I tell them that they have gay friends; they just don’t realize it yet. I promise them that by the time they are in high school at least one or more of their friends will be gay – it’s a statistical probability. I tell them that gay teens who are bullied may even kill themselves. I am turning myself inside out, trying to teach them tolerance.
What kills me even more is the possibility that others will think they learned their attitudes from me and my husband, Jeff. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I worked in magazines and was an arts reporter, if I didn’t feel comfortable with those different from me, I’d be in trouble. One of the reasons I fell for Jeff, was because he had zero homophobia. He had a gay friend who had a crush on him. This friend would sing little songs about how he wished Jeff were gay. Jeff didn’t run away screaming. He laughed and was flattered. When we got engaged, this friend came over to me and said, “You won, bitch.” I have to say, I was really flattered then. Jeff didn’t care that the gay men I worked with asked me if he was available. He took it as a compliment. I have been hit on by lesbians and I saw it as the highest praise. At a show Jeff’s band played at the Hard Rock Café not long after I had given birth to my first child, a woman asked me to dance and told me I was beautiful. You know what, I was so appreciative – I thanked her (and yes, I danced with her, after telling her that my husband was on the drums, only so I didn’t lead her on). I wasn’t feeling very beautiful with the lack of sleep and she changed that. I feel like my kids should have inherited the compassion and openness gene.
There are glimmers of hope. They love watching Nate Berkus, the openly gay talk show host. (I love him too.) They watch HGTV and love Color Splash with David Bromstad, another openly gay host. My son will be on the art track next year and in high school, allowing him to build a portfolio and work toward a career in art even before college. He wants to go into sneaker design. Surely he will have gay friends. But, here’s the thing – I don’t think that my boys are homophobic. I don’t think that they are hateful in their comments. I think if they found out that one of their good friends was gay, they would be just fine with it, supportive. I think that in middle school especially, “That’s so gay” and other slurs are part of the vernacular. It’s part of the way that kids speak and that needs to change. There needs to be some sort of tolerance program in school, specifically dealing with accepting others’ sexual orientation. Because no matter how many It Gets Better videos a teen watches, no matter how many grown ups tell him/her to be comfortable in who he/she is (and you would hope grown ups will be the ones to tell a gay teen this), no matter how wonderful role models like Chris Colfer and Darren Criss in Glee are, if peers aren’t accepting, it’s a rocky road. And that is a damn shame.
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