my beef with Zach Wahls.
My Beef with Zach Wahls
I want to make it clear: I think Zach Wahls is a great guy. He’s smart, articulate, brave, and endearing. He’s got a great sense of humor and a nice, hard jawline. He would undoubtedly wipe the floor with me in any kind of serious debate, so I’m hoping I never find myself in one with him. That said, I have some problems with the paradigm of his book, My Two Moms, in which he shares stories about his childhood in a home with lesbian mothers, Terry and Jackie.
Their family’s story is moving and Zach tells it beautifully and simply. Terry wanted children but didn’t have a partner, so she got pregnant twice with the same sperm donor and had a boy, Zach, and, a few years later, a girl, Zebby. She faced several challenges, not just as a lesbian mother but as a single mother (for example, the local newspaper initially refused to run the announcement of Zach’s birth in 1991 because she was an “unwed mother”). She met Jackie a few years later; they fell in love and had a traditional gay commitment ceremony with a frustrating lack of legal bearing. Terry was diagnosed with MS in 2003, several years before she and Jackie were legally wed in Iowa. This meant that they faced humiliating hurdles in medical offices, including an excruciating night in the ER when doctors refused to listen to Jackie’s recommendations for Terry’s treatment.
So, what’s my problem with this awesome, wholesome family overcoming the odds through love and faith? I’m going to sound like a jerk, but here it is: it bothers me that Zach’s argument seems grounded in the fact that his parents deserve equal rights because they have good values; they are monogamous and committed and raised him well, so their family must be as good as anyone else’s. He is able to effectively advocate for his lesbian moms because he is a tall, good-looking, white, straight man, who is proud to say that he is so normal, no one can tell he was raised by gay parents.
What if Zach’s parents had gotten divorced? What if one of them had struggled with drug or alcohol addiction, or mental illness? What if Zach had gotten in trouble in high school, had gotten a girl pregnant or gone to rehab or jail? Would any of these things mean that his parents aren’t just as deserving of equal rights? Of course not. But squeaky-clean Zach probably wouldn’t be a YouTube sensation, and he probably wouldn’t be on Ellen Degeneres talking about his Norman Rockwell family as the best defense we have against the crushing homophobia of the religious right.
I want to get to a point where our argument can be this: gay people deserve rights because they are people, and they deserve to fuck up and make all the same mistakes as straight people, including but not limited to: infidelity, divorce, lying and/or cheating, addiction, disease, adolescent parenthood, etc. I want queers to continue to advocate for themselves in all their damaged glory. I want the three-times divorced eyeliner-wearing queen to stand up on TV in her gold hot pants and say, “Me, Ellen, me! I deserve to get married again! I fully intend to do it for money and I’ll divorce the bastard if he forgets my birthday but goddammit, it’s my RIGHT!”
I don’t like the fact that we need a spokesperson like Zach Wahls, but I truly appreciate the work that he does. In the end, it’s a net positive if he can get someone to reconsider their feelings about what makes a family. I think My Two Moms is a hugely helpful book and I believe it will be frequently given as a gift. “Here,” the adult gay child will say to his parent, “I know you might think I’m crazy, but here’s a kid who was raised by gays and thinks we should have marriage equality. He turned out all right.” Translation: “I know you’ll listen to this stranger because he is straight and white and normal, whereas you won’t listen to me because I am gay and crazy and weird.”
Excuse me for being pissed that the queer community needs a representative who looks like a Ken doll and touts his Eagle Scout values while marriage-protecting conservative politicians cheat on their dying wives. Fuck this noise.
I want to make it clear: I think Zach Wahls is a great guy. He’s smart, articulate, brave, and endearing. He’s got a great sense of humor and a nice, hard jawline. He would undoubtedly wipe the floor with me in any kind of serious debate, so I’m hoping I never find myself in one with him. That said, I have some problems with the paradigm of his book, My Two Moms, in which he shares stories about his childhood in a home with lesbian mothers, Terry and Jackie.
Their family’s story is moving and Zach tells it beautifully and simply. Terry wanted children but didn’t have a partner, so she got pregnant twice with the same sperm donor and had a boy, Zach, and, a few years later, a girl, Zebby. She faced several challenges, not just as a lesbian mother but as a single mother (for example, the local newspaper initially refused to run the announcement of Zach’s birth in 1991 because she was an “unwed mother”). She met Jackie a few years later; they fell in love and had a traditional gay commitment ceremony with a frustrating lack of legal bearing. Terry was diagnosed with MS in 2003, several years before she and Jackie were legally wed in Iowa. This meant that they faced humiliating hurdles in medical offices, including an excruciating night in the ER when doctors refused to listen to Jackie’s recommendations for Terry’s treatment.
So, what’s my problem with this awesome, wholesome family overcoming the odds through love and faith? I’m going to sound like a jerk, but here it is: it bothers me that Zach’s argument seems grounded in the fact that his parents deserve equal rights because they have good values; they are monogamous and committed and raised him well, so their family must be as good as anyone else’s. He is able to effectively advocate for his lesbian moms because he is a tall, good-looking, white, straight man, who is proud to say that he is so normal, no one can tell he was raised by gay parents.
What if Zach’s parents had gotten divorced? What if one of them had struggled with drug or alcohol addiction, or mental illness? What if Zach had gotten in trouble in high school, had gotten a girl pregnant or gone to rehab or jail? Would any of these things mean that his parents aren’t just as deserving of equal rights? Of course not. But squeaky-clean Zach probably wouldn’t be a YouTube sensation, and he probably wouldn’t be on Ellen Degeneres talking about his Norman Rockwell family as the best defense we have against the crushing homophobia of the religious right.
I want to get to a point where our argument can be this: gay people deserve rights because they are people, and they deserve to fuck up and make all the same mistakes as straight people, including but not limited to: infidelity, divorce, lying and/or cheating, addiction, disease, adolescent parenthood, etc. I want queers to continue to advocate for themselves in all their damaged glory. I want the three-times divorced eyeliner-wearing queen to stand up on TV in her gold hot pants and say, “Me, Ellen, me! I deserve to get married again! I fully intend to do it for money and I’ll divorce the bastard if he forgets my birthday but goddammit, it’s my RIGHT!”
I don’t like the fact that we need a spokesperson like Zach Wahls, but I truly appreciate the work that he does. In the end, it’s a net positive if he can get someone to reconsider their feelings about what makes a family. I think My Two Moms is a hugely helpful book and I believe it will be frequently given as a gift. “Here,” the adult gay child will say to his parent, “I know you might think I’m crazy, but here’s a kid who was raised by gays and thinks we should have marriage equality. He turned out all right.” Translation: “I know you’ll listen to this stranger because he is straight and white and normal, whereas you won’t listen to me because I am gay and crazy and weird.”
Excuse me for being pissed that the queer community needs a representative who looks like a Ken doll and touts his Eagle Scout values while marriage-protecting conservative politicians cheat on their dying wives. Fuck this noise.