Oh, lord, I could not resist using that as a title. But I read this post the other day about whether being gay runs in families. And, of course, with all the talk about whether there’s a genetic component to being gay, that’s the question kind of being danced around. But David’s spin on it kind of blows my mind. He says “It’s part of your heritage.”
It’s weird how just switching from “genetic” to “heritage” has such a powerful effect, but it really does. Not only does it immediately get at the truth of the matter–that it’s not like people just started being gay in 1950, but that it is a part of our culture and families–but it also gets at the notion of what’s lost when we deny gay people the ability to publicly be themselves–it is (and always has been) an attack on them and their families, even if sometimes self-inflicted, because it denies them the right to their own heritage.
Anyway, I love it. I’m going to be thinking on that for a while.
Tiny Cat Pants 
interesting that the author of the linked article has noticed “a streak of gayness running through at least three generations of my father’s family,” because statistically speaking, it (male homosexuality) seems to run down the maternal side of the family (in so far as studies have shown that gay men have a larger quanity of gay uncles and cousins than do their straight counterparts, but only on the mother’s side of the family).
It’s an interesting switch of terminology to be sure..
I wish people would spend less time debating why people are gay and more time pointing out that it shouldn’t really matter.
I didn’t read the article – but was struck with the memory of one of my photography teacher’s telling me how she had 5 siblings – she and 2 others are gay. I thought about this concept 14 years ago.
David, writer of the above-linked post, here with wrinkle on dolphin’s comment.
Not only does this come through my father’s side, but it comes from fathers on my father’s side. Out of the eight cousins I know are gay and the couple I think might be, only one’s mother is a member of the family.
We are a funny bunch. To take a quote from “Petrified Man” by Eudora Welty, my all-time favorite, completely out of context, “Fred says, ‘Funny ha-ha or funny peculiar?’ And I says, ‘Funny peculiar.'”
To take a quote from “Petrified Man” by Eudora Welty, my all-time favorite, completely out of context, “Fred says, ‘Funny ha-ha or funny peculiar?’ And I says, ‘Funny peculiar.’”
And as Miss Eudora well knew, we love our family, but we loves our “funny peculiar” family best of all. Because they deserve it more for putting up with the rest of us idiots.
Thanks for the link, B, and for the post, David. Much to ponder.