Welcome to the United States: Please restrain from kissing.
Too often, I wander within the binary halls of the CNN Website, partially to break boredom, partially to satisfy my curiosity in regard of this venerable institution's spin on world breaking news (and I take 'breaking' very literally). Today, I stumbled upon a news bite that demonstrated once more how dysfunctional our continent size microcosm is.
Recently, two lesbians were harassed at a Seattle Mariners game for kissing in public (http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/06/05/seattle.kiss.ap/index.html ). This event seems to have generated a lot of passionate debate on both sides of the issue and I would rather not add to the proverbial blog diarrhea. Yet I feel compelled to offer a 'stranger in a strange land' view of the situation, as it appears to me as comically misguided as it is deplorable.
While the good citizens of this country suffer through ever rising prices, the loss of their sons and daughters in a corporate war, rampant logging crisis and one of the poorest excuse for health care developed nations could muster (among many other things), it seems that they still find energy to monopolize an almighty ire regarding an innocuous display of affection. I cannot affect surprise in this matter, as I have lived through the dark days of the 'Nipple Super Ball'. Nonetheless I am still amazed at the ability of the American public to delve into the pits of moral despair when encountering phenomenon which they were told to judge as 'abnormal'. It seems that to the average Seattle citizen, a kiss between lesbian partners qualifies as an abnormality, and mandates the actioning of the nearest authority figure in an attempt to put an end to this blasphemy. I note, with a grin that said citizen did not gather the personal might to address the situation themselves and acted vicariously through a stadium usher. Ever wondered why there are stadium ushers when everyone is screaming their head out? But I digress. Back to our blasphemous kiss...
You see, the problem here is more complex than it first appears. Firstly, a grown adult is distressed by a public display of affection, and notably because this display of affection is between same sex partners. This reaction is probably born from years (maybe generations) of cultists brainwashing by religious figures who have long forgotten the message of their holy scriptures to concentrate upon man-made moral rules destined to satisfy the innate desire for misery our puritan forefathers brought to this continent. I have little doubt about their lack of reaction regarding a kiss among individuals of opposite sex. So maybe can we blame religion in this case?
That would be too easy though, as we would blame a universal human phenomenon for an abnormal human behavior. After reading some of the public comments in the article, I realized that the issue was one of education. Education of the parents, who were never taught that love is the most quintessential and natural of human feelings. Note my use of human, which tiptoes around the fact that I discard the rest of the animal reign, through self-admitted ignorance. By love, I do not mean the traditional teaching of correlatively traditional relations between male and female, but love in its purest form and thus in its most widespread manifestation. Love between strangers in a fluttering moment of assistance on the side of the road, love between parents and children, love between a pedestrian and a homeless individual, love of a gardener for a flower, love of a child for an animal, love of man for his enemy, love of passersby the time of a smile and a stolen eye contact, and yes, love between lesbian, gay or straight partners. Love is everywhere yet is not taught properly, or rather is not allowed to expand naturally, like a bonsai which growth is twisted and thwarted by a gardener’s whim. Because of this mangled education and lack of nurturing of natural tendencies, parents carry parasitic taboos that are in turn communicated to children. A father exclaimed that he feels uncomfortable exposing his children to same sex affection because he does not know how to explain it to them. Indeed, how could he, he was never taught.
So, far from wanting to join the crowd of angry puritans or outraged gay activists, I stand on the sideline and wonder how we can bring this derailed train of a society on the right track, far away from the proselytistic cult of nationalism and violence, away from the religion of the All Mighty Dollar and toward a culture of love, tolerance and compassion. Anger is not the solution, you are, if you only will.
No go and make the world a better place.
Pierre out…