Teach, You're Wrong.

My sixteen-year-old brother-in-law came home from school today and told us he learned that the majority of children who grow up with homosexual parents are traumatized for it and that's why gay couples shouldn't be allowed to marry or adopt.

I could spit nails I'm so mad.

I told him I didn't believe that a bit, and asked who had told him such a stupid thing. When he told me it was his teacher... ooooh, I feel like marching (or taking the bus) over to his school and having it out. I'm so mad.

He said that his teacher told the class that kids grow up traumatized because they have two dads or two moms instead of one of each. You know, because all the other kids come from "normal" families, raised by their moms because their dads are in the States working to send money hone, or raised by grandma because both mom and dad are dead or gone, or bounce between mom's house and dad and step-mom's house, or (like my brother-in-law) have fathers who are alcoholics and are for all purposes out of the picture, or who have wonderful heterosexual, devout Catholic parents who beat them, or ignore them, or tell them that if they ever find out their child is gay they'll disown them and so help them God hope to see them burn in Hell. But surely having two moms or two dads will really screw them up.

I was pleased to watch Hernan jump right in, too. He really cares about his little brother, and often treats him more like his son than his kid brother. We were both really upset to find out that his teachers are saying this kind of thing in school.

I told him I'd like to read the "study" his teacher claimed to be referencing, and if he could please get the name of it or the author or a copy, I would love to read it.

Oh! I'm so mad. Even madder than a month ago when he told me that someone at his school told him that Darwin's theories had been refuted and were now popularly considered defunct.

On the positive side, I hadn't realized how good my Spanish had become until I started firing off reason after reason why I think that's the stupidest thing I've heard in a long while, at least since his aunt told me that brown eyes are healthy and "colored" eyes are inferior and "sick". I guess there's nothing like stirring up a person's passions (or a strong beverage) for getting that foreign language to come tumbling out a kilometer a minute ("kilometer" because I'm so metric now.)

At least every time I hear that gays traumatize their children, and blacks are all uneducated and lazy, and Chinese (which I understand to mean "Asians") are all ugly and smart and know kung-fu... and that goblins are going to steal my baby's soul, and so on and on... at least every time I hear it I can say that it's not true and hopefully that does something.

Especially with my kid brother. He really looks up to Hernan. I'm glad to see he listens to his big brother. Still, we're only two against all his teachers and all his friends. He's a smart boy, though; I think he'll wise up.

Oh! But I'm still so mad!