Sharp Corners

My boys and I are members of a homeschooling group in the area. I received an email today that went out to the entire membership “warning” me that June 6th is “Gay Day” at Disneyworld and that it might “flow into the entire weekend.” If you know me, you know that even typing those hateful words ties my stomach in knots. I am passionate about a lot of things, but gay rights is top of my list so you can imagine this email makes me rabid.

I’m not entirely sure what to do.

I have read over the agreement members must sign in order to join this group and there’s nothing to indicate that I should have anticipated this email. My knee-jerk reaction is to instantly remove my family from the group because this type of hate goes against everything I believe in and stand for — hate directed at any group, lifestyle choice, ethnicity, etc. I want nothing to do with anyone who would spit out vile crap like this, particularly around my children. Furthermore, I don’t want to support (and pay to be in) a group that condones this kind of talk from its membership, and allows its email list to be used as a soapbox.

On the other hand, why should my family be the ones to leave? We are paid-in-full members with as much right to be there as anyone else.  Besides, I feel as if silence is as good as acceptance of this situation. I also get the irony that if I sent out an email shouting (this email was typed in bolded size-48 font, by the way) a warning that next week was “White Day” and everyone ought to bar the doors and save the children, you can bet they’d bounce me out on my ass.

I’m truly at a loss as to what to do about this. On the one hand, I live in the real world and know that people discriminate or are hateful about a lot of things, not just lifestyles that are different from theirs. I’m not a 16-year old emo-girl filled with angst at the unfairness and repression facing the human race. Neither am I a self-righteous, smug 20 year-old who hasn’t yet figured out that the world doesn’t spin on her personal axis.

I’m just a regular middle-aged woman who believes no one should suffer — knowingly or unknowingly — at the hands of fools. I’m just an average mother who wants her children to grow up to live in a world where this kind of talk is actively discouraged, not ignored, and do what I can to make it so.

Here’s what I don’t want:

~ To try and change anyone’s mind or this group’s email policies. It won’t happen, which sickens me on a number of levels.

~ To start a fight within the group.

~ To ignore the email.

~ To teach my children that it’s okay to spout utter filth as long as its “part of their doctrine / belief system / values, etc.”

~ To send a message to my children that it’s permissible to run away from a situation simply because you don’t like what you hear, rather than find a way to deal with it in a way everyone can live with.

Here’s what I do want:

~ To be treated as fairly and respectfully as I treat other members of this group whose beliefs differ from mine.

~ To teach my children by example the right way to respond to these kinds of situations.

~ For my children to understand that my acceptance of others isn’t a moving target and shouldn’t be for them either.

~ For my children to learn that I mean it when I say we are accepting of all lifestyle choices, and know that I will support them just as vocally in their future choices.

In case you’re wondering why I don’t just “find another group,” it’s because they simply don’t exist around here. Though there is an active homeschooling community here, there are only two support groups to choose from and, incredibly, the other makes this group look like the most accepting people on the planet (yes, I live in a very narrow-minded part of the country).

Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time something like this has happened. Several months ago I was sitting with a number of mothers as our children participated in a group activity. For some reason, the conversation turned to Girl Scouts and one woman said she would never allow her children to join a troop. “They let those disgusting lesbian sickos teach those poor young girls now. There’s no telling what they will do if you turn your back for one second,” she said. The only thing that kept me from climbing across the table at her was the knowledge that murder is a felony and I was out in broad daylight with seven witnesses.

I later asked several people whose opinion I respect what I should have done besides bite my tongue in half, but none of us could come up with a good response. Unfortunately, that’s left me in the spot I am today — not knowing how to respond to this kind of hate.

So I’ll put this question out to my GLBT friends, and anyone else who would like to help me figure this out.What should I do? Nothing, since it won’t make a difference in the long run, or say something because not enough people do?

Comments, as you might expect, will be moderated. I will approve all comments as long as they are respectful, thoughtful, or helpful, even if we don’t agree on the topic at hand.