We live in a great, diverse country where we may each have opinions.  The First Amendment guarantees the right to practice different religions and express our opinions.  We don’t have to agree, but we do have to coexist.  Our founding fathers understood that we built our country from many distinct parts.  The very name “United States” implies a collection of many.  The similar Latin phrase ‘E Pluribus Unum’, placed on all our currency, means ‘From many, one’.

For our citizens to all collectively believe the same things is profoundly dangerous.  Homogeneity is our enemy; diversity is our friend.  Our founding fathers listed the freedoms to practice our faiths and express our different opinions as the First Amendment.  This is the very definition of diversity.  You’re entitled to your faith and expressions, as long as they do not impinge upon others’ rights.

I have friends and family who are part of the LGBTQ+ community.  I unapologetically defend them and their rights.  I understand that homosexual, transgender, and gender identity are terms that some may choose not to practice or even acknowledge.  That’s perfectly fine; just don’t deny it to everyone else.

Sensationalizing the normal

As I worked at Microsoft one evening, a friend burst into my office.  His demeanor indicated a particular level of distress.  It didn’t indicate a ‘building is on fire’ distress, but I was nonetheless intrigued.  Obvious alarm bells went off in his head before coming to me.  He explains that he was downstairs in the garage, sitting in his car.  “Uhm…  Okay?”  He then sees our friend Bob dropped off at our entrance after coming back from dinner.  I’m still perplexed and respond with, “Yeah?…”  Bob’s friend Bill was driving.  My friend explains, “As Bob gets out of the car, he leans over and kisses Bill.“

I now understand the nature of this conversation.  First, I quietly lean into my friend who had so abruptly burst into my office.  Next, I looked him straight in the eye.  Finally, without showing an iota of emotion, I responded with, “So?”  In this moment, his eyes widened, and his mind raced.  He realized that I knew about Bob, and it didn’t bother me.  I had known for months, if not years.  It wasn’t ‘a thing’.  This conversation backfired.  To put it bluntly, he did not find kinship with me in his homophobia.

I simply saw another dedicated teammate returning to work after a dinner break with their significant other.  As they exited the car, they leaned in for a kiss goodnight.  There is nothing especially noteworthy about this.  If you sensationalize this based on their genders, that’s your baggage.

Incidentally, Bob and Bill (not their real names) are still together decades later.

Or worse, criminalizing the normal

Tragically, some struggle with the practice of ‘live and let live‘.  They find the ideas of homosexuality, transgender, or even cross-dressing so distressing that in their mind, they’re criminal.  Much like being straight is not a crime, neither is being gay.  If telling children about straight couples like Snow White and Prince Charming is perfectly appropriate, so would telling children about gay couples.

I wrote a post about the very use of the word groomer, and the way it’s used to shame the LGBTQ+ community and its allies.  It’s not how you would conduct your life, but it’s not your life.  To use language that equates them to child sexual abusers is not merely unkind, but defamatory.  I may not care for Jehovah’s Witnesses conducting their door-to-door ministry at my door, but I do not imply that they are criminals.  They are not.

I do not minimize the crime of sexually assaulting children.  However, being gay or supporting that community is not sexually assaulting children.  No degree of mental gymnastics will equate the two.

Who are the actual groomers?

Without tabulating the actual numbers or understanding the cause and effects, can we accurately predict a trend among an observable trait?  Are left-handed people disproportionately higher percentages with a particular gender or race?  We know that colorblindness is about sixteen times higher among men than women, but we also know that a recessive gene causes colorblindness.  Sickle cell anemia is considerably higher in black populations.

However, some still find that even mention of the LGBTQ+ community to be distressful.  They’ll reason that members of that community are obviously damaged.  While they’ll begrudgingly concede that not all homosexual and transgender people will sexually assault children, they’ll mentally assume that the converse is true.  Therefore, they conclude that the majority of people who sexually assault children are homosexual, transgender, or even cross-dressers.

They theorize that heterosexual and cisgender people are normal; they can’t possibly sexually assault children.  Ergo, the groomers must be from the LGBTQ+ community.  However, they never actually looked at the numbers.  Let’s look at the numbers.