good advice from Dan

[chelidon]

possibly NSFW (content, not graphics):

Weekly sex advice from Dan Savage

This week, he's three for three, and he made me tear up some, too. Full marks, Dan.


I can't imagine making your kid's life a living hell just because you don't believe what they believe, or they don't want to live according to your norms. I say this now, and know that if my son as a teen decides to go become a Young Republican (and jeezus, what else could he do to shock me?), I'd...try real hard to love him anyway ;> Actually, I'd gleefully debate him, especially if he's trotting out the same tired proto-Libertarian arguments I used in my teens...

Seriously, I am grateful to be of an age, and in an age, when I can largely choose my own closets, or not. Blessed be the infinite diversity of circumstance, choice, and possibility, and blessed be love, in all of its many, varied and wondrous forms. Wherever and whenever it is found, it is a blessing.

To all my fellow warriors for Love, I salute you.

Comments

[snakey.livejournal.com]

You were a Young Republican? o_O

[miriams-well.livejournal.com]

Yep. Being out in HS sucks.

What that first girl doesn't realize (yet) is that the folks teasing her most loudly are probably the other queers in the school. She broke the code of silence, dammit, and they will punish her.

At least, that's how it worked in my school. Thank god it's temporary.

[chelidon.livejournal.com]

Heh. No.

But I was...considerably to the right of where I am now. Which is funny, since that's exactly the opposite of the usual track (start out liberal, get more conservative with age).

I blame it on growing up in a military family, with a excruciatingly right-wing father -- took me until somewhere around 17-18 yrs of age to find my own place of balance. But I still at times find myself having a more Libertarian (as opposed to Librarian ;>) bent than many of my peers. In general, socially liberal, fiscally conservative.

[chelidon.livejournal.com]

Thank god it's temporary.

Ah-yup.

...and as painful as it can be, the "outcasts" can be pushed to crack their shell of conformity and learn sooner than might be the case otherwise that they are their own authority. Silver lining, to be sure...but it still sucks.

I was very encouraged by a piece on NPR about the upcoming Gus Van Sant movie about Harvey Milk (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_Milk), and just how far we all really have come since the 1970s. Not in a straight line (natch ;>), and certainly a two steps forward, one step back kind of way, but still. Progress. And hope.

[snidegrrl.livejournal.com]

I know that story - same boat with my dad and everything. For a good while I was motivated to my conservatism by a love for my dad, and to gain his respect. Fortunately that did not even last me through high school. There's also the additional thing that philosophies like Randian objectivism & intense individualism are really appealing to teenagers.

[chelidon.livejournal.com]

That last bit is so true...there is considerable appeal to what seem to be clear, obvious answers without a whole lot of nuance. Of course, almost nothing in life is that black and white or reducible to simple answers, but it's a general human desire (and not just of teens) to wish it were so.

And just as every generation tends to think it is the pivotal one in human history, despite evidence to the contrary (thus the recurring Christian imminent end-times belief throughout the last, oh, two MILLENNIA), every generation (or portions of it) tends to decide it's the one to solve all those pesky complex problems that have been so difficult for all of the rest of humanity throughout history ;>

Probably a good thing in general that we're so headblind, or we might look back at human history and just give up on changing things. Sure we can make a difference (and we'd better), but it will likely be hard, messy, and full of nuance, grey areas, and complexity, because...well, that's just the way the world is.

And for me, at that time we were coming out of the Carter years, which while I appreciate the man and his work now (and if only we'd continued down the alternative energy roads he tried to trailblaze!), at the time it was way too easy to see him and that period as a clear example of big government excess and failure. Then we got Ronald Reagan, James Watt, and so on. Ah, well. Live and learn ;>

[maitrix.livejournal.com]

Would I love my kid if s/he were to turn into a skinhead neo-Nazi (not that the White Race would accept a half-brown)? Yes. Would I have great difficulty with it? Yes. Would I have to put up with it? Hell no.

[chelidon.livejournal.com]

*lol* We all must decide where the limits to our own tolerance are. I do not tolerate child molestation, for instance, and the skinhead neo-Nazi example...that would probably do it for me. That would probably fall under the "not under my roof" clause. Yep.

Full marks for coming up with a truly chilling scenario. Dang ;>