MAY 1981-HIGH GEAR Page 9
Gay relatives as social security
By R. Woodward
For anyone who bothers to look, there are millions of examples to be seen in the United States of families whose continued well being depends very heavily on contributions made by their gay members.
Considering gays to be antifamily usually comes without bothering to consider that there are many ways of being a relative besides marrying or giving birth. (Millions of Americans who are gay are, of course, both married and parents, but these people are not usually those men and women who are gay who are most visible.)
"Pro-family" types who are anti-gay usually talk as if the entire human race were made up of isolated units, each unit consisting of Mommy, Daddy, and two or three children. They talk as if members of these units had no reason to see themselves as being related to anyone else in the rest of the Universe.
You would never know from most "pro-family" rhetoric that married people have brothers and sisters, and that there are such things as aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and cousins.
Judging from the usual rhe toric of most "pro-family" advocates, most of them believe that men and women who are gay were all brought by some sort of deviant stork. It seldom occurs to them that each gay person is, at the very least, the child of two parents.
When "pro-family" types are reminded that each gay person is someone's child, it does not usually occur to them that many parents might not want to disown their children solely according to what might be thought of their children by the neighbors. Practical considerations
Even if being loving and generous in dealing with relatives is beyond the ability and comprehension of many "pro-family" advocates, these advocates should not be ignoring certain practical considerations.
Probably no human being is completely without selfish
being supported in one's old age besides financial assistance. Many cases of what appears to be senility are actually cases of severe depression caused by being ignored by everybody.
Those tempteď to ostracize a brother or sister or brother-inlaw or sister-in-law who has been revealed as being gay should ask themselves if they want to end up being completely responsible for the aged folks themselves, and if they want to do without the help they have been getting in paying for dental work needed by little Osgood and little Griselda.
(Little nieces and nephews should be taught that making fun of somebody's sexual orientation is not any nicer than making fun of somebody's name.)
Social security
Gays in the family are not just kin. They can easily turn out to be the most reliable form available of social security.
Having a few unmarried wage earners as members tends to make a family more secure financially.
"Pro-family" types usually forget that society as we know it is based upon division of labor. It is neither necessary nor advantageous for everybody to be performing all of the same functions.
"Pro-family" advocates like to depict members of ethnic and racial minorities as being enemies of gays, when in reality large minority families tend to be those American families which make the most of division of labor among various family members, and make the most of support available from gay relatives.
Large ghetto families
A description of the structure of certain large ghetto families and of how gay members are an integral part of their structure can be found in an article by anthropologist Jagna Wojcicka Sharff which appeared in the March 1981 issue of Psychology Today. The article is entitled "Free Enterprise and The Ghetto Family."
"For Hispanics on New York's Lower East Side," says the intro-
family is an insurance policy against poverty, a weapon for self-defense, an investment portfolio for the future."
The article, we are told, is about what an anthropological team has found out about "how
family members develop the specialized roles most useful for survival."
Among the various roles usually found in a large Hispanic household, says the article, is that of "wage earner."
author, "is sometimes a girl, but "The wage earner," says the more usually a boy who has been socialized in a quasi-feminine mode. The macho training applied to the street representative isn't applied to him."
"We do not understand the dynamics of the process," says the author, "but from our observations it is apparent that a sizeable minority of children, both boys and girls, are encouraged to develop differently from the stereotypical masculine and feminine roles. In the case of boys, we observed a youngster as young as eight years old being spoken of by adults as a pato (colloquial for homosexual) and addressed as "wonder-woman” by some of the children...He seemed to not mind the teasing.
"These boys keep up a steady attendance in school, stay away from street action, help with household chores, and actively participate in their mother's gossip groups... Most of their earnings are handed straight over to their mothers. They speak softly and shyly, and move with gentle body movements. Their earnings are essential to their households, and while they themselves might gradually rise out of Dolittle their income is used to sponsor a Street, more often a portion of younger, gifted child, often a girl, to improve her education and thus her career and marital possibilities...
"In effect, the large family is a kind of social security system for the present and future of the household. The members of the family are linked in an organic network, to which each contrib-
ent, and on which all depend for regarded as being of any importheir day to day survival." tance at all.
The stereotype of Hispanic culture is that it is macho oriented and generally hostile to gays. Hispanic families who are poor, however, not only realize that they need the support of those family members who are called faggots, but even try to make sure that at least one child in the family turns out to be one.
Is life as a Mommy or Daddy member of a small nuclear family a proper model for most Americans, or is it simply a status symbol for those few people who happen to be well-to-do? Consider the alternative
Having a great deal less homosexual activity in the United States than there is now would mean destroying the structure of American society and the structure of the American family as we know them.
It would mean doing without certain freedoms which even the moet straight-laced reactionary takes entirely for granted.
Even the most ardently rightwing Americans tend to assume that individuals should be allowed to fall in love, and that individuals should have some say in choosing their sexual partners and spouses.
These assumptions are not as universal as most American suppose.
In most places around the world, throughout most of history, marriage and reproduction have been regarded as inevitable duties to society and to one's family, with an individual's own feelings regarded as being of secondary importance, if
There tends to be less homosexual activity in a society which permits no individuality at all.
A certain amount of homosexual activity is an unavoidable side effect of having a free society.
If most people in a society are raised on the idea that individuals have a right to make decisions for themselves, not all individuals will be choosing the same things.
Social scientists have not been able to prove conclusively that any society in the world has no homosexuality in it at all, but it has not been hard to show that a great deal less overt homosexual activity takes place in some societies than in others.
According to anthropologists, those societies in which overt homosexual activity is rarest are those in which infant marriage is the rule. In such societies a marriage partner is chosen for every individual as soon as the individual is born, and every individual is married off by the age of five or six.
It seems unlikely that most Americans would eagerly embrace the attitudes and social circumstances which cause overt homosexual activity to be so rare in such cultures.
Not permitting anyone to fall in love, and having all marriages bindingly arranged before the individuals invovled are old enough to walk or speak, might help to keep homosexual activity at a minimum, but it seems unlikely that most Americans would see these things as embodying the traditional values of the American family.
"AMBITION often puts men upon performing the meanest Offices; so climbing is performed with the same Posture with Creeping."
ignityleveland
JONATHAN SWIFT
Provides spiritual, educational, and social programs for Catholic and non-
motives, but "pro-family" types duction to the article, "the large utes according to his or her talCatholic gay men, Lesbians & their
might at least try to be selfish in ways that do not harm themselves.
Rather than worrying about what people will think, those who find out that they have children who are gay would do better to ask themselves which of their children are most likely to help support them in their old age. There is, of course, more to
Biblical quotation for beginning a discussion of Jerry f Fell and his leadership of the Moral Majority:
"Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.” (Matthew 15:14)
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