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12/16/2009
Crouse grouse: Gays wanna be humans, affecting others' drive to dehumanize them
The social conservative mindset, summed up in two sentences:
[Concerned Women For America's Dr. Janice Shaw Crouse] served with Jennings on a task force organized by former Surgeon General David Satcher charged with the responsibility of finding “common ground” between left-right activist scholars for “responsible sexual behavior.” During that time, she found Kevin to be charming and friendly, but his charm, she said “tends to obscure his total and overwhelming commitment and dedication to mainstreaming homosexual behavior, especially among students.”
Crouse says: Kevin Jennings Must Go [CWA]
Alright, so let's process: Ms. Crouse was on the Satcher task force (much ballyhooed and decried at the time) for the purpose of finding common ground. And what was her takeaway? That Kevin, a successful gay man, is thoroughly charming, yet his desire to help other friendly and charming LGBT kids reach their own success constitutes some kind of sneaky tactic. Plus she implies that Kevin's charms, rather than being a genuine byproduct of his life and work, are actually some sort of deliberate obfuscation, meant to hide his "mainstreaming" agenda. That's not common ground: That's grounded commonality!
The unfortunate truth: It is pretty much impossible to find common ground with the overheated 'mo foes...
...because these folks' ground begins and ends at a place where LGBT people are anything but common. A well-adjusted, hardworking gay adult is not seen to them as a success story or a role model. When we are well-adjusted, they claim it's because we've been corrupted by the media, society, and Satan. And when we are hardworking, they accuse our dedication of being "militancy." We can achieve the highest of heights within our fields, while still remaining a pleasant demeanor and family life. Yet if we use our own triumphs to inspire our younger selves to greatness, they say that we are "indoctrinating" kids into some kind of "lifestyle."
They don't want common ground: They want a human fabric wherein the L, G, B, and T threads have been unwoven. For those of us who've managed to patch together the tattered threads of non-acceptance in order to form a blanket of peace, mindsets like Ms. Crouse's are not only unfortunate bits of political rhetoric. They are cruel, shameful, dangerous attacks on the very core of our beings. Attacks that validate every ounce of Kevin Jennings' work.
We will not negotiate our worth! Mainstream gay kids are counting on us.
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