Another "Grab Your Hanky" Post

Via AmericaBlog:

Rion Holcombe, age 20, has Down Syndrome. His dream is to be a college student.

A few days ago he got “the letter.”

His reaction:

Just remember, as you're reading about the assholes in Washington posturing and gesticulating (not to mention "world leaders" from around the globe) while selling us all to their major donors: Good things do happen.

It occurs to me that this is the sort of program that's just what the teabaggers and their corporatist handlers keep preaching about -- you know, self-reliance and all that -- but they've forgotten one very important element: no one does it by himself. That's why we have societies.

The Power of Words

From my friends at Nick's Place:

The One Bright Spot

We have a putsch in Wisconsin, the Republicans in the House of Representatives have decided that discriminating against gay people is more important than jobs, that sleazeball James O'Keefe has scored another successful assassination, and on and on.

This is the one bright spot in my morning:

Curiosity

Here's a post from hilzoy that quotes at length from Charles Brown's response to this statement by Sarah Palin:

I'm not one of those who maybe came from a background of, you know, kids who perhaps graduate from college. Their parents get them a passport and give them a backpack and say, "go off and travel the world." No, I've worked all my life. In fact I've had two jobs all my life until I had kids. I was not a part of, I guess, that culture.

There's a lot wrong with this statement, most of which Brown answers. Like him, my family wasn't well-off, and I went to Europe on my own. I was older -- my late twenties -- and I had saved up the money for the trip by -- well, by working. That's also a large part of the way I went to college, although my parents did foot tuition for the state university I attended. I paid for everything else myself. But I wanted to see Europe, even though I could only afford a trip to France and England.

I fell in love with Paris, but then, who doesn't?

But both hilzoy and Brown hit on one point that I think has a lot of resonance: curiosity. Curiosity is a natural state, as far as I'm concerned, and even more than ignorance, incuriosity is something that I simply don't understand: I can't figure out why anyone would want to be that way. (Ignorance can be remedied, and stupidity can't be helped, but incuriosity is beyond the Pale.)

Maybe that's why I don't have a great deal of comfort with authority -- I was one of those horrible children who started asking "Why?" and never stopped. "Because I said so" just never worked with me.

And it seems that too many of the conservative rank and file just don't wonder about things, when the universe is this totally magical place with so much to discover.

What they hell are they doing with their lives?

Stealth

I ran across a couple references to this story; the most comprehensive so far is Pam Spaulding's coverage at Pam's House Blend at at Pandagon. Trayce Hansen, Ph.D. or not, is a disgrace to the profession. She is, however, a prime example of the kind of sneaking dishonesty that forms the core of the anti-gay lobby. A relatively sophisticated reader looking at Hansen's comments would realize that there is no science behind them at all, notwithstanding her flouting her credentials as a licensed clinical psychologist. (Word to the wise -- if you live in San Diego, look for another therapist. Especially if you are a human being.) Actually, reading her article (appearing, of course, on the "Christian" News Wire) is enough to make you want to puke:

The accumulated wisdom of over 2,000 years has concluded that the ideal marital and parental configuration is composed of one man and one woman. Arrogantly disregarding such time-tested wisdom, and using children as guinea pigs in a radical experiment, is risky at best, and cataclysmic at worst.

Same-sex marriage definitely isn't in the best interest of children. And although we empathize with those homosexuals who long to be married and parent children, we must not allow our compassion for them to trump our compassion for children. In a contest between the desires of some homosexuals and the needs of all children, we can't allow the children to lose.

In other words, all the fanatical religious right hogwash gets bruited about again. I've actually e-mailed Hansen with a (cleaned-up) reaction to her piece, pointing out that it is fundamentally dishonest and completely misrepresents the reality of same-sex parenting. This, of course, is the standard right-wing tactic: there's no legitimate argument here, so let's preach the controversy. It's devious, it's dishonest, and somehow they never question their own morality while they're going it.

Spaulding posts a rebuttal from a real psychologist. It's right on point, scathing, and altogether terrific. Read it.

My Annual Pride Post

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Antidote

To counter the nightmare of our current administration and its enforcers noted in the post below, read this one from Phoenix Woman at Firedoglake. There is hope for the future.

I feel better now.

Gay Kids

I've been advised about a special issue of the Child Welfare League of America journal on GLBT children and parents that looks very thorough. A brief summary and ordering information are here. Some of these articles will most likely be appearing on the Internet, at least in abstract, and eventually.

This is important stuff. If you have any interest in the welfare of gay kids, go for it.


Further thoughts: Kids are about the most important thing we have. Even I, who always thought I would make a terrible father, think about what it would be like to be raising children. I still think I wouldn't make a great father, and I would want to be. (I'm overprotective, distracted, sometimes negligent although not criminally so, and not terribly involved with the day-to-day. I honestly don't know if I could relate to a children very well on a constant basis.) I think it's particularly important for gay kids to have access to gay adults as role models and mentors, and I think the moves against gay adoption are as much about keeping that from happening as from concern about the welfare of the children, which is completely unjustified.

And the gay kids are the ones that really need the support and love. They're getting it from all sides.