riEarlier this summer, a mother of six wrote a letter to the editor<\/a> of the the Billings Gazette about a Ren fair she said was spoiled by a gay wedding. The Gazette published her letter.<\/p>\n I took my household (six children, ages 3-15, and myself) to the Renaissance Festival at the Billings zoo this past weekend. It was our first time to go, and overall, the kids enjoyed it very much.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n We attended the parade, a barbarian raid, jousting and a royal wedding, as well as hearing numerous musical groups and looking through many booths. I expected some cleavage and wondered if there would be profanity and rough language. I heard no rough language, for which I was thankful for.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n However it was shocking and disappointing that the \u201croyal wedding\u201d was a gay wedding with a long, deep-throated kiss at the end. I took my whole crew to this, as when one of the girls saw it on the program, she wanted to go. There was no parental warning anywhere that this was going to be a gay wedding, and I left it sickened and angry that that was presented with no warning. I apologized to my kids, and told them I would not have subjected them to that, if I had known.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n She was sickened and angry, she writes, when she attended the advertised \u201croyal wedding\u201d at the Ren fair and witnessed a \u201clong, deep-throated kiss\u201d between two women. Would she have been similar sickened by a \u201clong, deep-throated kiss\u201d if it had been between a man and a woman? One things not.<\/p>\n In our current era, many of those who oppose homosexuality argue that they only on the grounds that the Bible says marriage should be between a man and a woman.<\/em> They claim that it is not about disgust, not about bigotry\u2014that it is simply about what the Bible says.<\/em> Leaving aside the fact that Bible-based bigotry is still bigotry, the author of this letter to the editor makes it clear that disgust does<\/em> play a role in her views.<\/p>\n Those who oppose gay rights today often claim that they object to gay sex in the way same that they object to premarital sex\u2014because the Bible (they say) states that sex should take place only between a husband and a wife, not an unmarried man and an unmarried women, and not two men or two women, whether the state considers them married or not. They assert that there is no difference in how they view a sexually active gay man and a sexually active unmarried straight man.<\/p>\n But is that really the case?<\/p>\n Let\u2019s leave aside the fact that there is<\/em> a difference in the way they view these situations\u2014in their eyes, after all, a sexually active straight man can get married, but a sexually active gay man cannot. But set that aside.<\/p>\n Consider this: When this mother attended the Ren fair, she surely cannot have assumed that the \u201croyal wedding\u201d would take place between an actually married couple. She likely assumed that they were actors. Any<\/em> kiss that took place as part of the \u201croyal wedding,\u201d then, ought to be considered sexual promiscuity, regardless of the gender or sexual orientation of those doing the kissing.<\/p>\n This mother had no problem taking her children to see a kiss between two unmarried people who likely had no intention of actually marrying. Her objection was not to the sexual promiscuity involved in a deep-throated kiss. It also had nothing to do with what God does or does not allow vis a vis marriage. It had everything to do with viewing sexual activity between those of the same sex as\u00a0repulsive<\/em>.<\/p>\n The woman\u2019s letter continued as follows:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n If the Renaissance organizers wished to have their royal wedding show be between a lesbian couple, then I feel they should have put that on the flyer or been a warning at the beginning of the show, so that families who believe that is perversion could make the choice of whether they wanted their children exposed to that or not.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n I believe that my rights as a parent were violated when the lesbian wedding was presented without warning. I came very close to leaving the fair because of it, but after driving 100 miles to come, standing in line for an hour to get in and paying the entry fee, decided to go to one more show and then decide.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n The fair is presented as a family event, and other than this very disappointing choice by the organizers, I felt that it was. I hope that the organizers will give this consideration as they prepare for next year and if they want adult-only or gay presentations, then I ask them to make that clear in the program, so parents can avoid what they feel is inappropriate.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n I\u2019m going to hazard a guess that this same woman is the sort that poo-poos the idea of trigger warnings in college classes and refers to liberals as \u201csnowflakes.\u201d<\/p>\n What exactly is a \u201cfamily\u201d event? Conservatives\u2019 have a seeming stranglehold on the term \u201cfamily.\u201d They\u2019re the ones who supported tearing families apart at the border. They\u2019re the ones who support cutting welfare benefits for families. And yet somehow, they\u2019ve seized hold of the label \u201cfamily\u201d and act like they own it.<\/p>\n I\u2019m reminded of the 1980 White House Conference on the Family. At a series of three conferences held around the country, sponsored by the Carter administration, a wide variety of stakeholders met and set out an agenda for government policy vis a vis the family. But there was a sticking point over definitions.<\/p>\n Just what was a family?<\/p>\n Conservatives rallied and organized and sought to stack each of the meetings, which they viewed as a battlefield in the wider culture war that was developing. They had a very specific definition of family in mind. As the Christian Science Monitor reported at the time<\/a>:<\/p>\n The pro-family groups want government approval for their definition of a family as persons related by blood, marriage, or adoption. The more moderate groups recognize a broader definition of families as anybody in a loving and caring relationship, sometimes including unmarried and homosexual couples.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n For many conservatives today, an event that is \u201cfamily friendly\u201d means one that not only has no nudity or language, but also has no same-sex acts or portrayal<\/em>s. In the eyes of these individuals, affirming incorporation of same-sex transgender individuals make an event de facto not \u201cfamily friendly.\u201d<\/p>\n Portraying of LGBTQ affirmation as\u00a0inherently not \u201cfamily friendly\u201d has dangerous consequences, not only because of the message it sends to LGBTQ children and teens but also because of the message it sends to LGBTQ individuals and families. This is wrong, and should not be catered to in any way shape or form.<\/p>\n\n
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