Word To The Ys

I’ve raved about it before, but after watching my favorite show GLEE last night, I just had to come here and write about it.

Here’s a quick recap for ya: I have a persistent and abiding love for gay people.  This stems from my expansive history of deep friendships and, yes, romantic yearnings for people who happen to be gay.  I guess they’re just my type.  And by “my type”, I mean that they are beautiful, talented, thoughtful, sensitive, inquisitive, compassionate, accepting people.  I guess that just tickles my fancy.  Most, if not all, of these stupendous men I’ve loved I’ve met in choir or theater or both.  There tend to be many of them in these artistic communities because…well, here I go stereotyping, but participation in the arts at college or post-collegiate level necessitates the qualities I’ve listed above, and this is something that in my experience comes more naturally by gay guys than straight ones.  Plus, there really aren’t many female basses in the world.  So choir=lots of gays.  And boys who sing=my eternal love.

So no big shock…there’s a gay character on GLEE.  He’s Kurt Hummel, and he’s fabulous.  But his character goes beyond providing snarky one-liners, good fashion, and amazing vocals; he provides an opportunity for the show to tell a very important story.  He is our window into the emotional life of a teen gay and his relationship with his dad in a small midwestern town.  In my opinion, this is the most important story being told on television in 2010.  (Aside: okay, so this is the only non-PBS Kids show I watch with any regularity.  But it’s still important!)
Kurt is small, theatrical, bitchy, wounded.  He lives with a widower father, Burt,  whose comfortable skin is football games, changing oil filters, and drinking a beer or two while watching March Madness.  When we first met him in the fall, he was excited because Kurt had just joined the football team as their kicker (in a spontaneous effort to connect with his father over something, anything.)  He was shown as wary of his son, but warier still of his son’s ability to play without being absolutely crushed by the huge guys on the field.  “He’s so small,” he laments under his breath as he watches his boy take the field.  His concern is palpable.  But when Kurt makes the game-winning field goal, Burt is shown (though you can’t hear his voice) celebrating in the stands, yelling “That’s my boy!”  When they return home, Kurt comes clean about his sexuality to his dad, who explains that he’s always known, and that it isn’t easy for him, but he loves Kurt and he’ll try hard to do right by him.  “Thanks for telling me,” he says before leaving his son about 1000 pounds lighter for the revelation.  Between now and then, we’ve seen Burt unequivocally supporting Kurt in his pursuit of a “girl” solo in Glee Club*, trying to reassure Kurt that he loves him while the two have difficulties finding common ground and, deepening the strife, dating the widowed mom of another Glee-cluber, Finn.  You see, the son of his new gal is star quarterback, straight, and loves an afternoon of ESPN almost as much as Burt, so their connection comes much more naturally than the one with Kurt.  Which, understandably, hurts Kurt that much more.

All of this is background for those of you who do not watch the show (and while I wish everyone would, I do realize it’s not for everyone) so you can understand the context for what happened on this week’s show.  Burt invites his girlfriend and her son Finn to move in with him and Kurt.  For the time being, it necessitates the two teens sharing a room.  While the two boys have co-existed in Glee Club all year, Finn is clearly very, very uncomfortable about living with Kurt until a new addition to the house is completed.  Kurt attempts to make the room over to better suit both their asthetics, and this is the scene that follows.  Please, please watch it.  Please. 

This made me weep.  It was so moving to me.  I wish I could get everyone with homophobic tendencies to watch this storyline with an open heart and try to see what I see: homosexuality is no choice.  It is no abomination.  It is a variation in this incredible spectrum of humanity and, if you wish, God’s creation.  Homosexuals are exactly who they’re meant to be.  Kurt’s dad, by very definition a “guy’s guy”, has struggled to understand and to love and he got there.  Why are there so many people out there that still can’t, still won’t?

I’ve been thinking about it a lot.  My own dad (who I don’t think would be too embarrassed to have me tell you this) had some issues with it at the time in my life where I was beginning to realize all these people I loved were gay.  He’s a church-going guy, and I think at first he didn’t know how you reconcile what the Old Testament says explicitly about homosexuality with acceptance and love.  As a teen, I saw it all very simply: God is about love.  Jesus was a radical, and would be the first person to invite an outcast to dinner.  If we’re supposed to live in the example of Christ, then we love as God and Jesus have shown us.  I still see it that way, though over the years I’ve encountered plenty of conservative viewpoints and I can see that the issue can be complex.  I still prefer to peel away all the layers of rhetoric, translations, and specific dogma as Jesus told me to do when he said, “Here are the two new rules, the only rules: love God with all you’ve got, and love your neighbor as yourself.”

And that last part’s the kicker, innit?  Because it’s so hard to love ourselves.  There’s an old adage that says that homophobes are afraid of gays because they’re afraid of being gay themselves.  But I think they’re just afraid of being different, period.   I often think this is the fundamental basis of homophobia: because to accept this difference in others is to acknowledge that we are all different in some way.  If you want to take it a step further, we are all weird.  Unique.  As much as we try to make ourselves into strange clones of one another through our fashion, our culture, our language, our music, our faith, our material possessions.  We all want the granite and stainless in the kitchen.  We all want wrinkle-free skin and thin bodies.  We want people to like us, so we try to be like them to make it easier for them, and they do the same in return.  If they don’t we expect them to.  We try to “cure” them of the homosexuality, or the alien status (by sending them home if they won’t “just speak English, already!”) or the fatness.  What if, instead, we embraced our freakiness?  The other day, driving with Max, I told him lovingly that he was weird in response to something, well, weird.  “I’m weird?” he asked, concerned.  “Yes, but it’s no wonder…you come from me and Papa, and we’re both really weird.  You come from a whole family of weirdos!” I quickly added, “But being weird is great.  Being weird means you’re different. Unique. Special. People know who you really are and what you really think; you’re a person with your very own thoughts.”  Max’s chest puffed up with excitement.  “Yeah,” he said with relief in this voice, “it’s good to be weird.  I’m glad I am.”

If we can love our own freakiness, maybe we can cease being afraid to embrace the differences in others.  My dad did.  After considerable thought, study, probably prayer, and all the browbeating from his daughter, his attitude changed.  He even wrote a lovely one-act play for Advent with a gay main character that was thoughtful and sensitive.  Because faith and acceptance are not mutually exclusive.  Being a straight guy that understands homosexuality doesn’t make you queer. (My husband’s the pudding proof of that!)  Gals, this obviously goes for you, too.  My vision of utopia?  No school kids throw around the terms “gay”, “fag[gy]” or “queer” to insult.  No one thinks of homosexuality as a choice (and a bad one at that) but lays judgement aside in favor of tenderness and empathy for a difficult life.  We all yearn for and appreciate true humanity.  I never have to worry that my children will be ostracized for who they are in their hearts.  Max can remain proud of his weirdness, forever. As far as I’m concerned, that’s the Kingdom Come.

*Kurt wants to sing the fabulous “Defying Gravity” from Wicked.   This was written into the story after Chris Colfer, who plays Kurt, told of not being allowed to sing his favorite “girl” song as a high school student.  I just love that the producers of the show used that real-life story and gave Chris the chance to sing it, because it’s sublime.  Click link to listen to Chris Colfer singing it.  It’s on my Mother’s Day Mix this year and it gave me this entry title.

Posted in Max, Mostly Me, Over My Head | 8 Comments »

Max is on vacation from school this week, so I’ve gotten to hear some real nuggets during our extra hours together.  Just heard: (after pouring juice for Seth and himself all on his own) “I can’t wait to see what my next lesson in life will be! (aside, sotto voce) What’s that? Making oatmeal cookies?” 

I guess he wants to make oatmeal cookies.

We’ve been working ourselves into a groove with our new life with the college student.  Fortunately he doesn’t drink to excess and pee in our shoes in the middle of the night.  He does, however, stay up very late doing his homework.  He’s doing smashingly well so far.  Other than having him gone two more nights each week, and generally having less help with household chores, it hasn’t had a huge impact on the family unit.  Though the boys are very much looking forward to having him home tonight and tomorrow night.  He’s a lot more fun than I am.

Case in point:

Hey, look!  Here they are having some of that “fun” stuff on Sunday night; it was about eleventy hundred degrees out and time to remember how to run through the sprinkler!  How is it that they forget every year?

(Please do not heed my dead-as-doornails lilacs.  Or our overgrown lawn.  Or the weeds.  As my Dad famously quoted Merlin Olsen as quoting his parents as saying: “We’re raising boys, not a yard.”)

(And yes, you really do have to choose one or the other when you have three young boys.)

I’m still getting used to this new kid who lives at my house.

Other than that, we’re just trying to lay low and beat the heat.  And the weeds, though that appears to be a losing battle.  Also, my epic battle versus the laundry pile seems to be drawing to a temporary cease-fire.  So maybe we’ll just take Merlin Olsen’s parents’ approach and try to teach our kids to stop shoving each other instead.

Posted in Joe, Max, Ollie | 6 Comments »