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03/13/2007
Video: Across the pond yet worlds apart
From the Five TV program programme "The Wright Stuff," a debate on pro-gay books being used to teach tolerance in elementary primary schools:
Can you imagine how this would play out if on a typical American debate show? First off, the callers would be interrupted or cut off several times over by the host and their ego. Secondly, at least half of those in the "con" column would cast stones from the moral pedestal on which they've placed themselves. Also, the entire decibel level of the point-making process would be less a conversation, more a shouting match.
So cheers for the civility, mates. While we don't agree with those who assert that five is too young or that these acceptance-encouraging books are about sex anymore than Cinderella or Rapunzel, their opposition doesn't enrage or force us to question humanity in nearly the way our homegrown opponents so often do.
Your thoughts
Cinderella *is* about sex! Probably Rapunzel, too, knowing fairy tales... they're *all* either about sex or violence, or, in most cases, both...
Cinderella specifics: The original German was translated into French, of course... the slippers weren't glass, they were fur - but the French word for "fur" is the same as their word for "glass", so the English translators decided to mute out a little of the sex right there... Trust me, it was no accident that in the original, the girl asked the prince to try on her "fur slipper"...
I'm sure there's more. I was nearly as shocked about Cinderella as I was when I found out that Vampires were about sex, too... I'd been innocent enough to think them just run-of-the-mill horror fiction monsters...
***sighs dramatically as she reminisces about her childhood innocence***
Posted by: Anon | Mar 13, 2007 5:40:14 PM
Exactly. We were saying that these books are no more about sex than Cinderella or Rapunzel. Our opposition likes to say any book involving gay love is "about sex," but yet they don't view any of the stories about hetero love in the same way.
Posted by: G-A-Y | Mar 13, 2007 5:53:59 PM
I think it is very interesting how a conversation about two men being in a relationship or two women being in a relationship is suddenly equated with sex education. The explanation to young children should be that they are in a relationship just like a man and a woman are in a relationship giving examples. Automatically heterosexuals jump to the assumption that they are going to have to explain the mechanics and plumbing to their children. It is just another example of glbt people being sexualized by those who don't understand them, even those who are well intentioned.
Posted by: Brian Fender | Mar 13, 2007 9:27:55 PM
You are very right, Brian. What the opposition in these sorts of these debates never seems to understand is that we are only seeking to have our sexuality "flaunted" in the same way that heterosexuality is "flaunted" via most traditional fairy tales.
Posted by: G-A-Y | Mar 13, 2007 9:44:36 PM
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