I think I'll hang out here too, if you don't mind; even a TR that I've been reading, written by the sweetest mother of 4 that you'll ever meet, has been crashed by a troll bashing a parenting decision she's made. Whenever I need some SANE conversation (or not!
), I'll just pop on over here!
Reading threads like the one in question just makes me shake my head. How did these people learn to be so hateful and intolerant? I have to share something...when I was very young, perhaps 4 or 5, I saw a picture of a doll in a catalogue whose skin color was different than mine. I live in a rather homogenous suburb, so being so young, I didn't remember seeing someone with that particular skin color before. I started going on about how "scary" and "dark" the doll looked, and one of my parents said something that I remember to this day; "She's not scary; she just has different color skin but she's the same as you on the inside". OK, writing it out makes it sound silly, but I think you get my point!
I would have missed out on a HECK of a lot of lifelong friendships over the years with many absolutely wonderful people of all races, colors, religions and orientations if I hadn't been taught at a young age to see people for who they are, not how they look. Of course, seeing people for who they are goes both ways and I've also learned to AVOID people based on that...I got teased quite a bit in middle and high school because of what I looked like on the outside, and I still somewhat suffer the aftereffects.
OK, I've blabbed enough...it's just a sore spot for me, as a straight female, to see other people projecting so much negativity on a particular group. I've recently become a personal advocate for the GLBT community because my closest friend came out to me just a couple of months ago, and around the same time I learned the brother of one of my childhood friends came out as (and I hope this is the right term) undecided. See, I could write forever...but you guys are all so great!
Seewhatimesdone.
