A look in his eyes.

Note: It has been some time since I have posted here.  Certainly not lack of interest.  I have been (and will continue to be) up to my Obamas in fundraising as the co-chair of the National LGBT Finance Committee for the Senator.  But here I am, weighing in from Denver.

Some folks here in Denver try to avoid the protesters.  They take a circuitous route, they keep talking with their chums, they look the other way.  Lots of people make light of the chants and the signs.

I’ve been a protester so I pay attention.

And I think because of that, I pay less attention to the message than I do to the messenger.  I understand what it is that motivates someone to protest – a passion for the issue and a certain degree of anger.  And so when I pass a protester, I try to consider what motivates them. I consider what we might have in common.  I am a firm believer in the notion that you can never move people to a new understanding without first identifying common ground.

So last night I left the Pepsi Center and began my walk through the protester gauntlet.  I had been separated from my friends and so it was just me, left to my own thoughts.  And I came face to face with a sickening pro-life poster held by a young man.   A very young man. 15 tops. 

I looked into his eyes.  I grabbed my camera and I took his picture. I wanted to remember what he looked like.  When I told my friend Jeff about the 15 year old, he said what many say, “Brainwashed!”

I’m not so sure.

Eileen and I have three kids.  We are good parents most of the time.  Our thirteen year olds are staunch supporters of equal rights for all Americans.  They call people out on the use of the word ‘gay’ as a pejorative.  They don’t sit idly by.  I bet there are those who would call them “brainwashed.”

Having said that, I have never asked any of our kids to join me at a protest.  Eileen and I have long felt that our kids needed to make their own decisions about how they wanted to advocate for the issues they care about – when they were old enough to do so.

But the truth is that our kids care a lot about what we care about.  Just as I suspect that young man cares a lot about what his parents care about.

But I do believe that when we talk about anti-gay activists at our kitchen table it is without anger and with respect.  I like to think that we point out the argument against gay equality in a relatively evenhanded way. 

Maybe that is what got to me the most.  To this beautiful young man, I was a baby killer.  Nothing more and nothing less.

God knows it is more complicated than that.

Comments

[PunditMom]

What a great perspective!

[Stefania/CityMama]

It's nice to see you posting here again! I, too, never avoid protesters (having been one). It's nice to see what we're up against.

[Daisy]

How sad that his passion has led him to such a narrow perspective. I admire your open-minded attitude and your discussions with your children. They'll be well adjusted enough to make thoughtful decisions.

[Laura]

I went to a pro-choice rally in DC a few years ago. At the metro station there was a group of pro-lifers with their extremely graphic posters of fetuses at various stages of development. The children holding up the signs were even younger than 15. If exposure to that is not some kind of brainwashing, then I don't know what is. That is not presenting a child with the ability to hear her parent's point of view as well as the other side, that is shoving your opinion into your child's still developing thought process. That is so far from compassion as can be. That is not parenting, that is indoctrination of a next generation.