This story is just one of millions playing out across our country today. I just feel compelled to express it.
I just returned from four days in Houston, Texas. My grandmother died this past Sunday at the age of 87. She was a lovely woman who will be remembered with tremendous love and affection. In 2001 I moved from Dallas, TX to Washington State, becoming the only member of my family to leave the state. I was raised in a Catholic home with a moderate Republican father who was a member of the Southern Poverty Law Center, and an artistic mother who would cancel out my father's Republican vote with her Democratic one. Today, my entire family, save one aunt, worships at the altar of Neo-Con ideology.
I have watched, slack jawed, at this devolution of group think among people I once knew as thoughtful and intelligent, understanding the nuances of life. Over and over I have deconstructed my family change, which is quite the microcosm for the political unrest in our country today.
In 2000, I know both my parents supported George W. Bush and voted for his election. My father's distaste for the Clintons and my mother's newly found companion, talk radio, supported their vote. However, my theory for their endorsement was mostly rooted in "Texas Pride", which can be more than a bit annoying.
Then there was 9-11.
I shared their fears and uncertainty. All of us wanted justice and solutions. Slowly, over the next few years, my father looked for answers, and he found them in right-wing punditry. My mother followed suit.
The 2004 elections sealed the transformation. I returned home for a baby shower for my sister just after Bush received his "mandate". I stepped off the plane and was greeted with this statement from my dad, "So are you on Prozac yet?" I asked with surprise why he asked that, and he replied that my blue state of Washington was so depressed Kerry lost that we were all medicated.
Nice welcome home.
On the drive from DFW Airport to their house my mother rattled on about how this election was about "moral values" and that America let everyone know they did not want "partial birth abortion". I asked her how she came up with that since there was no vote on that issue, and she just shook her head and said that Texas is a moral red state. I stared out the car window knowing this would be a difficult visit. As our car whizzed down the highway littered with billboards, I was struck by this moral red state's values; triple x video store advertisements, women hawking "gentlemen's club" entertainment, beer and booze offering escape, all flanked by larger than life images of churches offering salvation. Not one mention of outrage from my self-proclaimed moral Texan mother upon seeing T&A and booze welcoming visitors to her home state. She stared blankly ahead and my father sneaked long peeks at the women flanking the highway.
My sister married someone not unlike what my father has become. Her husband has ratcheted up his Catholicism to keep pace with my father for his approval (and money I might add). My brother-in-law argues that contraception is morally wrong and anyone who supports it is wrong. (Did I mention I work for a reproductive health clinic that also is an abortion provider?) This is another elephant in the room. I am "immoral" to my family because of the views I have and the work I do. When I bring up the fact to my father that he and mom used hormonal contraception to limit their family to two children, Dad responds with "I did not use contraception, your mother did." How very Adam of him, and how sad I am to know who he has become.
My sister and I and our families stay at my parent's large home during holidays, allowing for some increased insight of each other's lives. It has become a hate fest of Fox News viewing, Ann Coulter book sharing and reciting articles from the National Review. My husband and I, in the interest of the holiday (heaven forbid the Christmas) spirit, try to not enter the frenzy opting to whisper our disbelief and amusement in the guest bedroom at the end of the day.
After an evening of hearing my brother-in-law wax moralistic about sexuality and how it is God's gift for procreation only, my husband and I retire to the bedroom rolling our eyes knowing that the time honored ritual he will engage in is right around the corner. My brother-in-law seems to have sleeping problems at these types of family-get-togethers. We know this because every visit he finds his way into the television room after everyone is nestled in their beds for some midnight viewing. He fails to understand that the unique layout of my parent's home allows for anyone in the guest room to see what is on the T.V. (It has a large curtain lined glass wall) On cue, our brother-in-law waits for all to sleep, lowers the volume on the television and finds as much sexually explicit programming on late night pay cable that he can consume.
My husband and I often giggle as we peel back the curtain and see this moral member of our family spend hours getting as much ocular "debauchery" as he can find. I have no problem with adults who want to view porn. I believe it is up to each individual to decide what they want in their sex lives. I feel the same way about my brother-in-law, but it's the hypocrisy that makes me livid. My brother-in-law spent the day extolling his Christian values about sexuality and morality and sneaks in porn while his post-partum wife and two sons slumber... all while holding his one month daughter in his arms to ensure she would not wake her mother on Christmas Eve.
My husband and I decided to have a bit of fun with him by having one of us jiggle our door knob while the other would watch the T.V.. He would immediately flip to Fox News where there was a rerun about the birth of Jesus. How amusing! My husband and I sarcastically surmised his reasoning for his behavior would be academic. He merely wanted to compare and contrast the holy asexual birth of Jesus to the gruntings of "heathens" on the electric box! The next day my brother-in-law was the first to insist we get ready to go to church and remember the Catholic reflection of the feast of the family.
Much has been said of this dichotomy... vocal self-righteousness amid the cesspool of poor social indicators (red state high levels of divorce, teen pregnancy, abortion, crime, it goes on and on), and my family illustrates it in its entirety. I carefully try to point this out and they respond as a child would not wanting to hear something, by covering their ears with talking points and refusing to look at the truth. Sexual outrage is the only value this group is concerned with. Poverty, justice, and healthcare are overshadowed by their concern for individual's sexual behavior. What would Jesus think?
This past week was no different. I have decided to avoid most political issues with my family, but "Brokeback Mountain" proved to be too juicy for my grieving parents to avoid. There were several jokes about "Brokeback". I did not bite until Dad mentioned he saw a parody of the poster. I immediately interjected and said "oh yes I saw it too! Kickback Mountain featuring Delay and Abramoff!" It seemed that was not the parody they were referring to. They continued to decry the injustice of how the wonderful "Walk the Line" (I agree it is wonderful) will be robbed by Brokeback. Both my mother and my father began to work themselves up into a lather over the movie. I calmly asked if they had seen this movie that disturbed them so much. No they had not. I then stated I found it strange that people can critique a film they had not seen. My father replied "I can see the water under a bridge and decide I don't want to jump in". I asked why they were so upset with "Brokeback" and at the same time both yelped "they destroy two families!" Wow. Dumfounded again. Neither seemed to remember the film they advocated for, "Walk the Line", was filled with infidelity and broken marriages, but also drug and alcohol abuse and addiction.
I return to my home, Washington State to learn we have finally supported gay rights. I leave Texas with my heart heavier than it was before, if that were at all possible. I write this for no other reason than to express my expanding dismay for my family and for our country. I wait for reason to reenter the public vernacular. I fight daily for the country and the rights I love. I arm myself with information from the widest variety of news sources possible. I long for the day sexuality, religion and politics are no longer interconnected. I yearn for the day I can have discussions with my family as we once used to be able to do, with respect and a desire to understand the other. I hope. I hope. I hope to be proud of my family and my country again.