Monday, March 25, 2013

Sex, the French, and the Critical Mom

Look at today's New York Times photo of those angry Frenchmen--and this particular photo does show mostly men--yelling that "Everyone is born from a man and a woman!" a slogan which, though it has a degree of accuracy, seems anything but relevant to marshal as evidence for the notion that gay people should not adopt, or that children should not be raised by gay parents.  Where are their manners?  The French have always understood love, romance and sexuality the way the Italians understand food, the English understand law, and the Germans understand order (or engineering).  Surely the French, of all people--whose vast, flowing, wine-loving culture of philosophs and decapitated kings understand the desire of two responsible loving adults to form a family, including a child?  The French have never seemed particularly Puritanical about family life, what with everybody sneaking off and having an affair all the time.  Gazing at breasts is particularly fine with them.  The family comes into that, naturally.

Where is my evidence?  Well, La Cage Aux Folles, Le Souffle au Coeur . . . or Dominique Strauss-Kahn with his big fat frisky Frenchmen's appetite that just gobbled up the poor maid, at least, according to several former mistressess or victims of him, depending upon whom you believe.  Brigitte Bardot.  Those French.  They've always been fine with cross-dressing bisexuals (Madamoiselle de Maupin, anyone?) so why not homosexuals?  Ever since 1968 when young French revolutionaries demanded "pleasure without obstruction," the French sexual agenda has remained quite clear.   Have you got 72 hours?  Don't get me started.

I can tell you I'd much rather have been raised by a happy, mature gay couple than the paranoid, alcoholic, tantrum-throwing father and desperately childlike mother who were, in fact, my parents.  Children need love and stability, the essential ingredients of family.  Merely being heterosexual offers no guarantee of that.

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