Get critical!
I need feedback by noon-ish tomorrow. I should mention this is for the Wednesday edition of The Daily Utah Chronicle, the University of Utah's student rag. They'll be doing a special issue devoted entirely to gay rights.
( Editor: )
( Editor: )
a) first and foremost, i don't think you should change anything about what you've written (except possibly a grammatical error: first sentence, join "on to" to make "onto"). i feel we certainly have the right to make suggestions or rebuttals, but to request that you actually change it... i don't know. it makes me think that you're some kind of evan clay doll for our molding. what you've written is true and brilliant from your perspective, and that's honestly all it needs to be. honest.
b) i don't understand what gay people raising normal children has to do with sexual abuse being predominantly perpetrated by heterosexual males. wtf, really. those are two totally different issues, and two almost disjoint cultural misconceptions. sure, one is more tame, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be disarming the other. in fact, i would probably deem it more important. perhaps a different quote or paraphrasing is in order if it makes people think that "identified in their families and communities as heterosexual" means "closeted queer." personally i took it at face value, but i suppose there's a chance for misreading there.
regardless. that misconception (that homosexuals are sexual predators, particularly on children) is common, pervasive, and almost entirely unchallenged in our culture, because we never talk about sexual abuse in the first place. and no matter what your audience, there's going to be at least one person in the crowd who's utterly dumbstruck by that figure: "98% are straight?? that couldn't possibly be true... " it's simply something that everyone continues to ignore, and the more we push the truth the better.
sure, gay people raise normal children... so what? that doesn't appear to be what you're getting at here. what you appear to be going for is forcefully claiming your right of respect, of civil liberty, of social acceptance, belief. and fear even, if the reader is the kind of nazi such an assertion would threaten. the right to raise children is just as important as the million other things you didn't mention about the necessary and soon-to-be-realized rights of gay people.
c) i'm all in favor of your criticism of marriage (of course, i'm not unbiased). i think it's a great way to blend liberalism and rebellion into, "we're going to get our fucking civil rights, with or without your power-structured, economically stunting institutions." btw, families are fucked up, and so is marriage, both economically and socially. if pointing that out is offensive, so be it.
and let's discuss short-sighted for a second, shall we?
"I would say that it is in everyone's best interest to encourage stable, loving families.." hmmm. well, no, sounds like nuclear family in this case (since those are the only families that are given the opportunity to be "stable"), and i would have to disagree, but thank you for projecting your assertions onto me and my radical cohorts. i would say it's far more important to design a social structure that would assign the raising of children to people who are qualified and (more importantly) want to raise children. i think families are fundamentally broken, a religious fairytale, and there is nothing in place to catch children who are inevitably unwanted (except for abortion, of course, which isn't exactly a privilege). yes, i am suggesting communal child-rearing. OH NO! well, i am a crazy socialist like that though.
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