"Son, I'm sorry, because I know you don't agree with me on this. But I don't believe in supporting gay people's rights, because it's bad for families" (qtd. in Gray 819-835). Yes, you read that right! That was Kentucky Representative Napier's response to a 17 year old college student who had presented him with 400 signatures on index cards of LGBT individuals to prove that they did exist in his district. And this was in 2002.
It's always amazed me that there are those that believe being gay or lesbian is somehow detrimental to family live. I have a family . . . I have a partner, a brother, a niece, two great-nieces, a mother, a father, and probably some assorted cousins. Is that not a family? My partner and I could have had kids, could have adopted, could have done foster children . . ., God knows there are plenty of unwanted kids in this country.
The first part of this chapter in Mary L. Gray's Out in the Country discusses one attempt of making LGBT youth more visible in one rural area of KY. Gray argues that "family is the primary category through which rural community members assert their right to be respected and prioritized by power brokers like Lonnie Napier" (835-851). By invoking the "we are the same as everyone else" they hope to become visible within their own communities. They can do this by claiming familial ties to the community in which they live.
This, of course, is a throw back to the argument that we, as LGBT, are the same as everyone else and capable of upholding the social norms of society. I've read a lot about the different arguments that exist for LGBT communities in the last year, and I would argue that perhaps people in rural areas have to be accepted as "normal" before they can become anything else. One has to be visible before they can begin to push the boundaries further. Perhaps there is more meaning than I thought in the old saying that you have to walk before you can run!!
It's always amazed me that there are those that believe being gay or lesbian is somehow detrimental to family live. I have a family . . . I have a partner, a brother, a niece, two great-nieces, a mother, a father, and probably some assorted cousins. Is that not a family? My partner and I could have had kids, could have adopted, could have done foster children . . ., God knows there are plenty of unwanted kids in this country.
The first part of this chapter in Mary L. Gray's Out in the Country discusses one attempt of making LGBT youth more visible in one rural area of KY. Gray argues that "family is the primary category through which rural community members assert their right to be respected and prioritized by power brokers like Lonnie Napier" (835-851). By invoking the "we are the same as everyone else" they hope to become visible within their own communities. They can do this by claiming familial ties to the community in which they live.
This, of course, is a throw back to the argument that we, as LGBT, are the same as everyone else and capable of upholding the social norms of society. I've read a lot about the different arguments that exist for LGBT communities in the last year, and I would argue that perhaps people in rural areas have to be accepted as "normal" before they can become anything else. One has to be visible before they can begin to push the boundaries further. Perhaps there is more meaning than I thought in the old saying that you have to walk before you can run!!
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