Glurge, or syrupy-dumb forwarded email, annoys me. Yesterday I got hate glurge from someone on my local mothers’ club mailing list. It pretends to be a call to action to save California public school systems from an evil plot to reprint every K-12 textbook, replacing the word “mom” with “sperm receiver” and the word “dad” with “sperm donor”. Because that’s just how radical our state government is! (?)
Dude. No self-respecting feminist queer would call bio-moms “sperm receivers”. We’d call them “egg producers,” with extensive disclaimers and complications. That was a joke, people… Anyway, the hate glurge needs contradicting, so if you see it, let people know it’s bull. (And point out that it’s made up on purpose to create misunderstanding.)
I sent a diplomatic reply to the group, debunking the hate glurge, pointing out that it’s hateful and manipulative, & linking to the real information and the text of the bill, California SB 1437, with analysis. It’s about positive role models and representation.
But over on the truly scary Concerned Women of America site, you can see a photo of a young girl (looking about 25, with prairie girl braids) who apparently opened her copy of “Fun with Phonics” to find herself looking at the GLBTQ equivalent of first tubgirl instead of, like, a sweet story of male penguins raising a baby penguin chick.
The thing is, I’m still mad as hell. Angry and sad.
Who believes this stuff? Who is really that dumb? Do they not have two brain cells to rub together? Are they really writing the Governor’s office in outrage – so that they can get tallied up as a tick mark on the “list of gullible idiots”? And what of the people who made up this piece of disingenuous propaganda?
My friend Ep sent her own reply to the list, telling it like it is and calling it what it is: “a particularly appalling piece of homophobic paranoia.” Hey, good cop and bad cop switched places! What happened? Why didn’t I rant? I’m so grateful that my friend did. We can always count on her cutting intelligence and her beautiful crankiness.
I’m feeling sad this week that I’m walking around in my own community with people who think I shouldn’t exist and shouldn’t be a parent. At the same time I find myself glad when they’re public with their hate, so I know who they are.
It gets me where it hurts. It would have made my life different to have had some positive images of gay and lesbian people in my education. (Not that I’m ungrateful to Martina Navratilova, Joan Jett, or Wendy and Lisa, icons of my early youth.)
These haters are saying to me – me personally – “I don’t want my children, or anyone’s children, to know you exist.” To those women who are bigoted and driven by fear, or to the ones who are just ignorant and don’t know any better, I want to ask them to talk to someone in PFLAG, in COLAGE, before they decide to diss other families.
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