When I was younger, I aspired to become the first woman President of the United States. Or a very important Senator, at least. Then, as I grew older and discovered that foreign languages, cultures, and traveling were pretty much my favorite things in the world, I hoped to become an Ambassador, or perhaps Secretary of State. Basically, I wanted to be Hillary Clinton, before Hillary Clinton was Hillary Clinton.
Then in my senior year of high school, my Spanish teacher marked me incorrect for writing the equivalent of "I went to the store and bought a shirt" on my exam instead of "I went to the store and found a shirt." The instructions on the test were to fill in the blank with a word that fit, correctly conjugated, from the chapter, which I had done. But Señora Vickman argued that the sentence that had been given to us in our lesson itself said "found" and, therefore, that was the only correct answer. When I pointed out that, if anything, I should be given extra credit for following directions exactly, being a teensy bit creative, demonstrating a clear understanding of the vocabulary, and proving a mastery of the conjugation (instead of just regurgitation), she shrugged and refused to budge. (A string of teachers like this is the reason my Spanish is not nearly as good as my French.) That was when I first realized that facing pigheadedness and people whose perspectives are opposed to my own strongly-held beliefs makes me so frustrated I get a huge lump in my throat, tears in my eyes, and basically become unable to speak from the injustice of it all. And, I swear, it wasn't about the exam grade.
We recently learned that near the gym, just after the girls gymnastics class today, there would be an anti-gay marriage protest. One of the ways we know is because a girl in Gigi's class will participate in the rally. Well, I get a bee in my bonnet, and the girls and I create placards and decide we will let our own opinions be known. There's no point just preaching to the choir, after all.
Pippa comes with us but it seems that, at seven years old, she has very little idea what the heck it's all about. Nine-year old Gigi, who is becoming very interested in history and politics, is a bit embarrassed to hold up a sign and gets uncomfortable when I am told several different times by security to put down my non-approved signs (even French rebellion has its bureaucracy). But I get a few thumbs ups from bystanders and one loud "Nous sommes bien d'accord, Madame!" ("We heartily agree, Madame!"). And embarrassed though she is, Gigi stands up for her beliefs.
One woman starts talking to us, and Gigi is as baffled by her argument as I am. Gigi describes how her best friend has two mothers, and we explain what a great family they are. The woman says, "But when the child grows up, what if she wants to marry a man and have her own family? She won't have any idea how to do that, because she won't have that example!" The fact that there are widows or divorcees raising children in single-parent/single-sex households, and that they grow up to marry and have kids, does not sway her. The fact that it would be impossible not to be able to imagine a heterosexual life in the Disney-princess, Hollywood-romance, celebrity-crush-magazine world we live in does not sway her. The fact that the parents themselves grew up in heterosexual households and yet were able to imagine a different kind of family does not sway her. The fact that, like her mothers, if the daughter grows up to fall in love with a woman, she can still start her own family does not sway her. Of course, I do not really expect to sway the woman with this one conversation, but I am so proud of Gigi for chiming in and helping me explain our perspective. France is a historically Catholic country after all, and the conversation has to start somewhere.
Gigi originally had plenty of perfectly understandable reasons for not wanting to participate, mostly that it would be embarrassing to be out there holding a sign with people staring at us, in a largely disapproving manner. Plus, I tend to scream out "Woo-hoo! Mariage pour tous!" at the top of my lungs, in a very American style, every once in a while. Given that we realize, belatedly, that we have some grammar/vocabulary issues, I'm sure we are those people -- the immigrants in the protest with oddly misspelled and unnaturally worded Chinglish or Spanglish signs. It's not like pro-gay, anti-discrimination protest sloganeering French has been at the top of my studies. Though I realize it makes me look a bit less edu-ma-cated (I mean, the people at the demonstration don't realize it's a foreign language for me), I don't care; they get the point across.
Translation. And correction:
Jamais encore la bigotisme = Bigotry: never again
("Bigotisme" being a fine noun meaning bigotry, according to my [admittedly 1973 edition] Cassell's French-English Dictionary, that it appears none of the actual French people know is a real word. Perhaps I should have gone with "bigoterie" or simply "discrimination"?)
Mariage pour tout! = Marriage for all!
(But here's that pesky tout/tous/toute dilemma. All of these words mean "all" in different contexts, and of course I choose the wrong one. It should have been "tous".)
Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité = Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood
(Pretty self explanatory French motto, and at least I got this one right.)
Besides the grammar/vocab errors, it appears I may have taken the bull by the wrong horns, so to speak, and slightly missed the mark on my marketing. It's really less a rally against gay marriage and more a rally against gay people having children. But it's not like I know about the protest other than by word of mouth, so I only get the generalities. I'm not exactly on their mailing list. And I may have missed the theme of the protest by a few degrees, but it's relevant. And at least I get the day, place and time right.
But now that I know the demonstration's true purpose, I'm even more confused, frankly. I mean, through legislation you can stop gay marriage, though I can't figure out how to see this is anything but discrimination, pure and simple. But regardless of your beliefs, there's not a thing you can do about gay people having children. Unless you're going to force abortions on them all (including the surrogates). Somehow, that doesn't seem to fit with this group's (or any group's, I hope?) beliefs.
I might have skipped the demonstration, given the embarrassment and seeming futility, until Gigi tells me that one of the reasons she doesn't want to go is that she is afraid her classmate will see her, and might spread it around school (and remember, though it's a very open/liberal/inclusive school, it's still a Catholic one...). Living in France of all places, that to me is the one reason we absolutely have to do it. Something like the Holocaust or the deportation of the Jews under the Vichy government was possible because too many people were -- and still are -- afraid to speak up for what they know, in their hearts, to be right. World War II buff that she is, Gigi grasps that concept immediately and so, side-by-side (with Pippa in tow), we protest.
I recognize that my friend and her daughter feel they are doing the same -- speaking out, as they see it, on behalf of children. And I have a begrudging respect for that. Pippa, meanwhile, seems to have a greater grasp of the issue at hand than we originally thought. When Anthony asks her opinion of the protest, she thinks about it and says to him, "Well, since I know you, I would be sad if you died and I didn't have you as my daddy. But if I didn't know you, and I had two mommies, I wouldn't miss you at all."
Now, hours afterwards, I am still choked up, frustrated, and weepy. And I think being surrounded by that much bigotry and hatred has given me a new physical response: I have a raging headache and feel like I'm going to pass out. So, perhaps not the best temperament for being Secretary of State or President ("Prime Minister, the American people simply cannot accept your country's human rights violation. Waaaah!!!!"). But at least there's one more nine year old in the world who knows that discrimination is never acceptable, and that silence is complicity.
Then in my senior year of high school, my Spanish teacher marked me incorrect for writing the equivalent of "I went to the store and bought a shirt" on my exam instead of "I went to the store and found a shirt." The instructions on the test were to fill in the blank with a word that fit, correctly conjugated, from the chapter, which I had done. But Señora Vickman argued that the sentence that had been given to us in our lesson itself said "found" and, therefore, that was the only correct answer. When I pointed out that, if anything, I should be given extra credit for following directions exactly, being a teensy bit creative, demonstrating a clear understanding of the vocabulary, and proving a mastery of the conjugation (instead of just regurgitation), she shrugged and refused to budge. (A string of teachers like this is the reason my Spanish is not nearly as good as my French.) That was when I first realized that facing pigheadedness and people whose perspectives are opposed to my own strongly-held beliefs makes me so frustrated I get a huge lump in my throat, tears in my eyes, and basically become unable to speak from the injustice of it all. And, I swear, it wasn't about the exam grade.
We recently learned that near the gym, just after the girls gymnastics class today, there would be an anti-gay marriage protest. One of the ways we know is because a girl in Gigi's class will participate in the rally. Well, I get a bee in my bonnet, and the girls and I create placards and decide we will let our own opinions be known. There's no point just preaching to the choir, after all.
Pippa comes with us but it seems that, at seven years old, she has very little idea what the heck it's all about. Nine-year old Gigi, who is becoming very interested in history and politics, is a bit embarrassed to hold up a sign and gets uncomfortable when I am told several different times by security to put down my non-approved signs (even French rebellion has its bureaucracy). But I get a few thumbs ups from bystanders and one loud "Nous sommes bien d'accord, Madame!" ("We heartily agree, Madame!"). And embarrassed though she is, Gigi stands up for her beliefs.
One woman starts talking to us, and Gigi is as baffled by her argument as I am. Gigi describes how her best friend has two mothers, and we explain what a great family they are. The woman says, "But when the child grows up, what if she wants to marry a man and have her own family? She won't have any idea how to do that, because she won't have that example!" The fact that there are widows or divorcees raising children in single-parent/single-sex households, and that they grow up to marry and have kids, does not sway her. The fact that it would be impossible not to be able to imagine a heterosexual life in the Disney-princess, Hollywood-romance, celebrity-crush-magazine world we live in does not sway her. The fact that the parents themselves grew up in heterosexual households and yet were able to imagine a different kind of family does not sway her. The fact that, like her mothers, if the daughter grows up to fall in love with a woman, she can still start her own family does not sway her. Of course, I do not really expect to sway the woman with this one conversation, but I am so proud of Gigi for chiming in and helping me explain our perspective. France is a historically Catholic country after all, and the conversation has to start somewhere.
Demonstration sign: Tous nes d'un homme et d'une femme! = All born from a man and a woman!
Gigi originally had plenty of perfectly understandable reasons for not wanting to participate, mostly that it would be embarrassing to be out there holding a sign with people staring at us, in a largely disapproving manner. Plus, I tend to scream out "Woo-hoo! Mariage pour tous!" at the top of my lungs, in a very American style, every once in a while. Given that we realize, belatedly, that we have some grammar/vocabulary issues, I'm sure we are those people -- the immigrants in the protest with oddly misspelled and unnaturally worded Chinglish or Spanglish signs. It's not like pro-gay, anti-discrimination protest sloganeering French has been at the top of my studies. Though I realize it makes me look a bit less edu-ma-cated (I mean, the people at the demonstration don't realize it's a foreign language for me), I don't care; they get the point across.
Translation. And correction:
Jamais encore la bigotisme = Bigotry: never again
("Bigotisme" being a fine noun meaning bigotry, according to my [admittedly 1973 edition] Cassell's French-English Dictionary, that it appears none of the actual French people know is a real word. Perhaps I should have gone with "bigoterie" or simply "discrimination"?)
Mariage pour tout! = Marriage for all!
(But here's that pesky tout/tous/toute dilemma. All of these words mean "all" in different contexts, and of course I choose the wrong one. It should have been "tous".)
Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité = Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood
(Pretty self explanatory French motto, and at least I got this one right.)
Besides the grammar/vocab errors, it appears I may have taken the bull by the wrong horns, so to speak, and slightly missed the mark on my marketing. It's really less a rally against gay marriage and more a rally against gay people having children. But it's not like I know about the protest other than by word of mouth, so I only get the generalities. I'm not exactly on their mailing list. And I may have missed the theme of the protest by a few degrees, but it's relevant. And at least I get the day, place and time right.
But now that I know the demonstration's true purpose, I'm even more confused, frankly. I mean, through legislation you can stop gay marriage, though I can't figure out how to see this is anything but discrimination, pure and simple. But regardless of your beliefs, there's not a thing you can do about gay people having children. Unless you're going to force abortions on them all (including the surrogates). Somehow, that doesn't seem to fit with this group's (or any group's, I hope?) beliefs.
I might have skipped the demonstration, given the embarrassment and seeming futility, until Gigi tells me that one of the reasons she doesn't want to go is that she is afraid her classmate will see her, and might spread it around school (and remember, though it's a very open/liberal/inclusive school, it's still a Catholic one...). Living in France of all places, that to me is the one reason we absolutely have to do it. Something like the Holocaust or the deportation of the Jews under the Vichy government was possible because too many people were -- and still are -- afraid to speak up for what they know, in their hearts, to be right. World War II buff that she is, Gigi grasps that concept immediately and so, side-by-side (with Pippa in tow), we protest.
I recognize that my friend and her daughter feel they are doing the same -- speaking out, as they see it, on behalf of children. And I have a begrudging respect for that. Pippa, meanwhile, seems to have a greater grasp of the issue at hand than we originally thought. When Anthony asks her opinion of the protest, she thinks about it and says to him, "Well, since I know you, I would be sad if you died and I didn't have you as my daddy. But if I didn't know you, and I had two mommies, I wouldn't miss you at all."
Now, hours afterwards, I am still choked up, frustrated, and weepy. And I think being surrounded by that much bigotry and hatred has given me a new physical response: I have a raging headache and feel like I'm going to pass out. So, perhaps not the best temperament for being Secretary of State or President ("Prime Minister, the American people simply cannot accept your country's human rights violation. Waaaah!!!!"). But at least there's one more nine year old in the world who knows that discrimination is never acceptable, and that silence is complicity.
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