I remember one day, not long after learning I had a gay son, I was flipping through the local radio stations as I was driving to a doctor’s appointment when something caught my ear. I wasn’t sure exactly what I’d heard, but it was enough to compel me to reverse course on the AM dial and return to it. And lo and behold, it was Rush Limbaugh in all his blustery glory. Now I am not a fan of Rush Limbaugh and can usually only take him in small doses if at all, but something coming out of his mouth that day caught my ear and I needed to know what it was.
Now this was a while ago so I will have to paraphrase from memory as best as I can:
“Someday folks, medical science will bring us to a point where a pregnant woman can walk into her doctor’s office and have a test done which will accurately determine whether the child she is carrying is gay. Now ladies and gentlemen, herein lays the moral dilemma: will women choose to have the child if it is determined the child is gay?”
I was so stunned by this I had to pull over. I thought I was going to be sick. Now mind you, I was still in a massive state of zombie-like shock from learning that I was a mom of a gay child. But hearing that from a prominent radio talk show host was so stunning to me that I began to sob uncontrollably. In fact I had to pull to the side of the road until I could calm down. I was so sick to my stomach I thought I was going to vomit.
The thoughts were shooting through my head at mind-numbing speed and in no particular logical sequence: I cannot even imagine my life without my wonderful loving son in it? How could anyone consider aborting a child because of its sexual orientation? Where is the so-called moral dilemma in having a gay child? Wouldn’t the moral dilemma be in creating a test that would give people the option to abort a baby whose sexual orientation didn’t meet their approval? Don’t people know how much that child will bless their lives? Don’t they know how incomplete their family will be without him or her? I cannot imagine my life without my son’s love, sense of humor, compassion, mischief, baby tantrums, adorable way of saying things, attention to the funniest details, passion for airplanes, thoughtful compliments, and quirky view of life.
Oh my God, the love I felt for my son at that moment was simply overwhelming. I just could NOT imagine our family without that wonderful kid! The hole would be so big. How dare that stupid Rush say something like that…
But I quickly realized that I was shooting the messenger when I should have been thanking him. He had forced me to think about what life would have been like without my gay son and the thought of that was more than I could bear.
So after looking into my rear-view mirror, literally and figuratively, I dried my eyes, put the car in drive and proceeded on to the doctor’s office.
My life has been so blessed.
Thank you Rush for reminding me how blessed it is.
Oh ok, you want to know what got me started on this. Well it started with a post I read the other day over at Andrew’s place. And that reminded me of the incident I described above.
4 comments:
I've heard Rush follow up on this, and so, you should also know that he was not personally advocating this- on the contrary, it was just the opposite. Rush Limbaugh is pro-life. He would never deem it okay to abort a gay baby (if that were ever even possible to tell). What he was speaking about was how if you were able to identify a gene in the womb that could tell you if your kid would turn out gay, people may abort it. Don't dismiss that- hell, in England, where abortion is verry permissive there are now reports of fetuses being killed for minor, correctable defects, like clubbed feet. Some soulless people want "perfect" children. Rush made the point that if this were found to be the case, the homosexual community would become pro-life faster than you can blink. And this has been proven prescient in many ways, such as the news recently that scientists in Europe think they may have found the genetic trait that causes homosexuality in sheep and thus may be able to breed it out of them. Gay activists are pissed! B/c, if you're able to do it for sheep, people may be next. Not exactly the same, but a close variant on that to which Rush was referring. So, no, you definitely should not be mad at Rush- he would never support killing an unborn child for any reasons like that.
Yes, I realize that Rush was not condoning abortion, but rather was just pointing out that it is a very real possibility that one day there could be a test to detect homosexual fetuses.
The reality of that possibly happening hit me hard. We already know that with the advent of the test to detect Down Syndrome, many people opt to terminate the pregnancy rather than have a baby that has Down Syndrome.
And to address elaygee's point, yes, statistically we know that some (if not many) of those people aborting babies with Down Syndrome are probably anti-abortion and wearing it on their sleeves as proof of their good Christianity.
Could be wrong on that last point, but something tells me I'm not.
While I can identify with what you're saying here, thinking of such a test causes me to give other thoughts.
Imagine how much secrecy and the pain that came with it could have been avoided if you had such a test available to you when you were born to your son. Not because you would have terminated your pregnancy, but because you would've been equipped with that knowledge while raising him.
Imagine what a parent who already knows their child is going to be gay could do. Imagine how it would effect those important "sex talks" when they are younger. Imagine being able to know in advance to prepare for those times when your gay child struggles with the fact that she doesn't have the same feelings as his or her peers.
Yes, such a test could create the opportunities for some horrible choices by those who can't stand the thought of having a gay child. But at the same time, it would create so many opportunities for expecting mothers who wouldn't choose to terminate their pregnancy, but use that knowledge to help their child's growing up process go more smoothly.
The possibilities created by such a test really is a double-edged sword. But let's not completely forget the "edge" we might find favorable.
Jarred, I went over to your place and actually read the very enlightened post you wrote in response to this post. You gave me a perspective that I probably never would have thought of myself. But you also gave me an evening of "what ifs" too.
Oh my, how different things would have been for our family and especially our son if we could have known ahead of time. And you are right, it would have changed the discussions he and I had about sex, it would have changed the tools my husband and I would have equipped him with to handle the challenges of life (as a gay man), and it would have made his early years so much more normal since the doubt, conflict, denial, and shame that colored his early years would have been nonexistant. But probably most importantly, we would have had 9 months to educate ourselves about and get comfortable with our son's sexual orientation. He would then have been brought up just knowing that he was who he was --- and his being gay would truly have been what it should have been all along --- a nonissue.
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