I am writing this diary to inform the community how the recent discussions on homosexual relations are affecting me.
Disclosure: I am neither heterosexual or homosexual. I do not engage in sexual relations. As a result of a rape, I am a single parent. I focus my life on taking care of my child. I have hitherto been a Unitarian Universalist for 15 years. I am now considering becoming Catholic.
Until very recently -- until just the past two weeks, in fact -- I have been very supportive of the homosexual push for civil unions and marriage.
Rather suddenly, my feelings have undergone a sea change. Find out how, below the fold...
The struggle for the rights of women has long been uppermost in my mind, and a very important motivator in my personal political preferences.
Now, as I approach the age of 40, I find that I am not better off, economically and emotionally, as a single woman with a child, than I would have been had I married and had children. I now wish I were married, with lots of children.
In fact, I am dirt poor. What is worse, though, is that my "liberal friends" have turned on me. I have been put down mercilessly for preferring my role as mother to my academic training as a scientist. I am spat on constantly by "liberals" who view my desire to focus my life upon my child as "irresponsible" and who view my "rejection" of a professional life as a personal insult to their "superior" ivory tower liberalism. I like to bake cookies for my child: as a result of not concentrating 24/7 on a profession and "progressive" actitivities, I am called "lazy" and "shiftless" and "not cool."
I chose poverty and motherhood over wealth and "progressivism." Now, as my childless liberal friends -- both male and female -- also become "40-somethings" and realize how unfulfilling their lives are without families, I have become the target of their frustrations.
In the last two weeks, I have lost two long-term friendships. One female friend took an axe to our 18-year relationship when she realized that my daughter will graduate high school in a few weeks, and that I have a great relationship with my daughter. She realized that she has avoided childbirth, in good "liberal" style, and now it is too late for her to create a child of her own. The realization recently hit her that she now can't get married in time to allow her to become impregnated by a husband, and her biological clock is running out. Her long-term "liberal" boyfriend doesn't want to marry. If she wants a child, she now must adopt: she has missed the boat to generate her own child. Now, the profession she so badly wanted before -- and upon which she focused her efforts, seems pointless and unfulfilling.
Her reaction to this realization was to denigrate my own chosen path of motherhood. (She had had an abortion when something similar had happened to her when we were younger. I did not have an abortion, and I now have my genetic child and a chance to have grandchildren.) She is now jealous that I have a child, and she doesn't.
The second friend -- a male -- is a staunch polyamorist with a vasectomy. We had a common academic interest that kept us friends for a long time. I tolerated his tales of polyamoristic adventure, although inwardly, I felt rather disgusted at his promiscuity. I supported him through various divorces and breakups. I listed to him laud the virtues of being a "freethinker" and a "freelover." When his ex-wife, though, took off to the opposite coast with his legal daughter (begotten by his former wife through in vitro fertilization from an anonymous sperm bank, after she became became frustrated at his sterility and his shinnanigans), the realization that no self-respecting woman will have him anymore because of his sexual history, resulted in him lashing out at my "betrayal" of liberal values in placing my relationship with my own child above academics and external employment.
The axe fell on that relationship when, last week, I finally told him that he had now slept with so many women, without safe-sex precautions, that his public reputation was that of a "male slut" (a reputation of which he is proud), and that my own reputation was being hurt by association. Also, I could not tolerate it that he was telling the step-children of the women with whom he was sleeping that he was having sex with their step-mothers, because he was encouraging these teenage boys to follow his example and "love lots of women, without the inconvenience of becoming committed to them." His backlash was to attack my motherhood and preference for associates in stable, monogamous relationships. In his eyes, I was betraying "progressive" and "liberal" values by admitting that I did not feel comfortable with his sexual lifestyle, and that I no longer could tolerate being touched by him.
The loss of that second friend came just on the day that bloggers on MyDD and DailyKos condemned the FDA decision to place limits on anonymous donations of sperm by gay men.
The condemnation of the FDA's move on these blogs, was truly disturbing to me. I, personally, believe that, as a potential mother, I have a right to say "no" to accepting any insemination of sperm generated by a gay male. The whole concept of anal sex is repulsive to me. As a scientist, I am fully aware that no scientific test can guarantee that any gay male's semen is free from STD's. I know my microbiology. Anal sex is very high risk. I believe that I have a right to know if a semen specimen may have been exposed to such a high-risk form of sexual contact. I do not want my child to come from the same organ that has been inserted into an organ designed for feces. After all, diarrhea flows through there. I don't want that in my vagina or uterus!
To make a long story short, the vitriol of those who claimed my position was "bigotted" caused something in my worldview to change. These gays, lesbians and GLBT supporters appeared to be more concerned about their "right" to propagate themselves, than of my health, or the health of any potential child I might bear.
Suddenly, I was no longer a mother or a woman with my own rights and health to consider. In their eyes -- I am merely a vessel for their own genetic propagation, and a tool by which they might achieve political "equality." To them, I must willingly accept their sperm on an "equal" basis, or be branded a "bigot."
I was disgusted by the blog posts and commentary as were posted.
In the days since, I have undergone a sea change in worldview. Suddenly, the Religious Right's characterization of the "gay agenda" made sense to me. Pope Benedict went, in my eyes, from being an opponent to a man of wisdom. I have gone to mass several times and have decided to go through the training to become Catholic.
I have now found that I cannot stomach the pro-GLBT discussion of "gay marriage" on these blogs. There seems to be no tolerance for dissenting opinion. Persons who question the wisdom of a Democratic focus on "pro-gay marriage" are denigrated with foul language.
I have become conservative. "The Sexual Revolution" is now, for me, not desirable. The "Free Love-ers" and the militant feminists and gays have turned me off. The intolerant "flaming liberals" on these blogs are turning me off -- and pushing me away from being a Democrat.
That's how I feel. You may feel otherwise. I write this so that you know that you are losing a once-dedicated member of your base.
Update [2005-5-10 13:0:25 by Daemmern]: Let me clarify something. A lot of people have complained that I am discriminating against gay males by not also expressing a similar desire not to be impregnated by sperm donated by a promiscuous/high-risk heterosexual donor. In fact, I don't want to be inseminated with ANY sperm from ANY male who has engaged in ANY behaviors that are high-risk for sexually-transmitted diseases. This includes both heterosexual and homosexual anal intercourse, as well as oral sex, needle-sharing, and other risky behaviors. I would prefer a requirement that ALL such high-risk behavior be disclosed by any semen donor.