A Frightening Bit of Legislation

It is only now that I am so much older than I was that I realize how naive and stupid I truly am.

Growing up I was taught about slavery, and how it is bad. I was taught about intolerance, and how it is bad. I was taught about murder, torture, harassment, and all kinds of things like that. And I was told those things were bad.

To me, it seemed as though this must have been new information for us all. For most of the adults I knew were very prejudiced against black people. They did not go by the name African-American at that time. Black Power was just coming on the scene.

There was tremendous intolerance for gay people. They were called "queers" when I was young. Faggot was a term used for guys, and Dyke was for gals. Not exactly endearing terms, were they?

I was guilty of using all the nasty words. Everybody was using them, so it only seemed right. Everybody, that is, except the people on the receiving end of those insults.

Suffering from my own persecutions, and even at times having the queer terms used toward me, I came to realize it was all wrong. I have always had gay and lesbian friends. I didn't always know it, despite everyone else seemingly aware. But you see I don't really care about that aspect of my friends' lives. They're my friends. What else do they need to be?

But I believed that people were finally "getting it", and that all of this hatred was fading away. Mine would be the generation to finally end racial hatred. Sexual inequality. Social casting. And so forth.

As it turns out my generation is more guilty of the crimes than any generation which has gone before. I say this because my generation has had all of the previous generations to look at and learn from. But we learned the wrong lessons.

I have seen prime examples within arm's reach of racial hatred. Gender hatred. Hatred against class. Hatred against gays and lesbians. I have seen all of these things which before, in my state of premeditated blindness, I failed to see.

It is exhausting to realize how many people just plain hate people who are different. This is whether the difference is skin color, faith, gender, sexual preference, class, and country. But we can't give up trying to put a stop to the hatred.

Thanks to Fairyhedgehog, I am now aware of something happening in Uganda. Granted, since I don't live in Uganda I have no real right to tell them what they should and shouldn't do. But what they are planning on doing is frightening. Basically, they are considering passing a law which implements the death penalty for gay and lesbian people. You can read Fairyhedghog's post here, and the New York Times article here.

I made my own post, speaking to the Christian community, on Faith in Forgiveness. That's another of my blogs. Not one which receives a lot of visits. Guess I'm not much of a Christian. Fortunately for me, God bases Christianity on forgiveness and not the opinions of others. I'm mostly a powerless person, but I speak when and how I can.

I wish we would all just stop hating each other. So many (most) of the world's problems would just go away if we did.

It's Easy to Be Confused

Before I get to my post I would like to recommend you jump over and read this POST from Fairyhedgehog. As is generally the case, she has found a topic of great interest. Thanks, fairy, for being good at finding these things, and then passing them on to the rest of us.

Now, as to what I was thinking of writing about.

Thought about it yesterday, but as I had already posted I decided to wait a day. Last fall I had a few days in which I did multiple posts, but readers were finding that was a nuisance to deal with, so I've tried to restrict myself to a single post in a day.

For whatever reason I got to thinking about how absolutely stupid people (and I am a people) get when they get carried away with an idea and let it take them past the point of intelligent thinking. One of the more stupid, and offensive actually, ideas is that when a couple conceives a child it isn't just the woman who becomes pregnant. They both do.

This is one of the most a*sinine concepts I've ever heard. Yes, both the woman and the man are affected by the pregnancy, but they are not both pregnant. To claim such is like saying, "You and your spouse have cancer", when it is just your OR your spouse. Or perhaps, "Fred and Joan have a broken leg. Fred fell off a ladder." Everything in a couple's life affects both of them. And when children arrive they are affected, too. So, if the baby on the way is the second, or third, or whateverth child, does that mean the children are pregnant, too?

I understand the concept of inclusion, and trying to make the guy feel like he's part of what's going on. Well, if he's any kind of a man at all he does. And he doesn't need to be told he's pregnant in order to be so. And telling him he is isn't going to change things if he isn't interested. If he isn't interested in the baby he helped create then he has bigger problems than feeling left out. In fact, I doubt he feels left out. He's clueless.

From the day I learned Son was on his way I read to him. Spouse thought I was an idiot, but she was intrigued by me laying on my stomach reading into her stomach. She wasn't sure what I was trying to accomplish, but I wanted our baby to recognize my voice when he/she came out. My hope was that the distortion from her skin and the fluids wouldn't make a big difference. I'll never know. However, at the birth, after the nurse had cleaned him up and wrapped him tightly in a soft, soft blanket, he was handed to me. I began talking to him. His eyes opened and he stared at me for a full hour as I paced the floor, telling him all about things. When he fell asleep I gave him to his mother. (Don't criticize. She was so exhausted she needed the time to gather some strength. She only held him about five minutes and then needed to sleep.)

I was still working in an office during that time. I shared a cubicle with "John". It was rectangular, with his desk at one end and mine at the other. A table, used for collaboration on project and code design, separated us. John was in his early twenties and just married. I was going to be forty in a few months. As co-workers do when there is constant opportunity, we chatted about things. We didn't always look at each other when we did. Didn't have to. We could multi-task: get work done and waste time at the same time. It was great.

Anyway, I made some mention about needing to go out and buy a crib. John stopped what he was doing and spun around in his chair. (I loved those swivel chairs. In fact, when the company got new - and horrible - chairs to replace those we were using then, I bought two for ten dollars apiece. Spouse and Son wrecked one, but I'm sitting in the other as I write this.)

Are you and Spouse pregnant?

No. Spouse is pregnant. I'm just fat.

John apologized, saying he hadn't been clear if I was into that kind of nonsense or not. His wife was, and so he tended to be that way at times, too. Although very much a young guy, John also had no problem with what they used to call, 'his feminine side'. But no one ever called him a woman. His name was John.

Of course, anyone who saw me would not confuse me with a woman either. Don't have the hips for it.