Keeping Families Together

The Asian And Pacific Islander Family Pride Blog

April 20, 2012

No Matter How Good, Scripted Conversations Have Nothing On An Authentic Story

By BELINDA AND JOHN DRONKERS-LAURETA

This was a good week. One with fresh insights into what may work and what will definitely not work when talking to people who see nothing wrong with denying LGBT persons rights enjoyed by every other citizen and convincing them otherwise. It’s the convincing that is the problem, because convincing requires that the talking must be in carefully attended to: choose words and tone to make the listener receptive, avoid making him or her defensive. When two people with different opinions agree to talk and listen to each other, a golden opportunity exists to come to a mutual understanding.

We Learned From The Breakthrough Conversation Project

We went to a training session put up by the Breakthrough Conversation Project. This is a public education project from the Equality California Institute “designed to identify and overcome the psychological, cultural and emotional triggers related to LGBT people and kids that drive down societal and political support for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality–including the freedom to marry.” The people responsible for the course content were professionals who do thoroughgoing research on effective communication. They tested their theories in fiercely fought LGBT campaigns in several states and distilled their experiences into lessons learned.

We learned a lot. For example, avoid saying Civil Rights, because that term belongs to Black Americans some of who get upset when we appropriate that term for our purposes. Use Equal Rights instead. Also avoid terms like “marriage equality,” “same sex marriage,” “gay marriage,” or “right to marry.” Instead use: “marriage,” “freedom to marry,” or “marriage for same sex couples.” The idea is avoid putting the listener on the defensive by using terms that the media overused and loaded with negative meanings. We were shown strategies to connect with those who are conflicted about marriage for same sex couples. For example, build empathy by emphasizing that exclusion from marriage hurts couples and families and tell stories that illustrate the hurt. The latter we didn’t need to be told. We know from nearly twenty years of experience that stories are the most powerful way to connect with other people.

But We Probably Won’t Use All We Learned

What the Breakthrough Conversation Project learned during their campaigns and shared with us is priceless, but the application of their knowledge is not for what we do. The lessons they imparted are framed to do political battle. They do analysis on voter patterns, they research what messages work, and then they come up with what to say, how to say it, and what to emphasize. Theirs are public campaigns to prevail at the ballot box; ours is a one on one conversation with a parent to keep a family together now that a child has come out.

This difference in purpose became clear when during a staged role play the parent of a third grader asked the teacher: “What am I going to say, when my child comes home and asks: ‘Daddy, what is gay?’” It caught the teacher flat footed. She stumbled and hemmed and hawed, then came out of her role, turned to us class participants and said that this was an answer the Project was still researching. What? A child heard an unfamiliar term and wants to know what it means. He or she is not interested in the theories of sexual orientation or consequences of a wrong answer in the voting booth. Most people in the room know what the answer is. Gay is a man who falls in love with another man or a woman who falls in love with another woman just like Daddy fell in love with Mommy. If a parent is as lucky as we are, he or she can point to an example: Gay is like Uncle Lance who loves Uncle Francis.

We learned from our class work but will apply it very carefully, because each conversation is unique and stands by itself. And that is why we collect and tell stories: to show our families they are not alone.

Belinda and John Dronkers-Laureta are board members of Asian & Pacific Islander Family Pride www.apifamilypride.org

Keeping Families Together

The Asian And Pacific Islander Family Pride Blog

April 13, 2012

President Obama Let Slip An Opportunity For A More Inclusive We

By BELINDA AND JOHN DRONKERS-LAURETA

As a rule, we avoid talking about politics. We learned the hard way that politics is a slippery subject and we don’t know enough about it to render decent analyses. Our sources aren’t all that reliable either: newspapers and the internet. The popular press reports political issues as if the subject is one-dimensional leaving it to the reader to piece all those single subject stories together. Pundits pontificate but have been proven wrong often enough to be not credible. And single-issue activists act as if theirs is the only subject of concern.

This is an election year and the volume of political reporting is increased several notches. It is difficult to ignore. We read what our political leaders do and what Republican candidates say. We think about what we read from the point of view that the only job a politician has is to be elected or re-elected and they will therefore say anything that will do that job. Politicians pander and that “etch-a-sketch” comment from Romney’s senior aide is not far from reality. And then we read that President Obama flip-flopped and did not sign the executive order that would have banned federal contractors from discriminating against LGBT employees. It would have been a very small step, applying to just contractors awarded federal contracts, but he wouldn’t take it.

We Are Farther From Integration Than We Thought

What is our take on the president’s refusal to sign? We are deeply disappointed. We think President Obama is a politician who wants to be re-elected and so calculates that he will offend less people by his refusal than by his acceptance. We don’t believe it is cowardice or timidity or any of the other descriptors used by those who so ardently championed this executive order. Most opinion polls indicate that more and more people across more and more demographics agree that LGBT people should have equal rights. Both the Departments of Justice and Labor signaled their approval, but still, he would not sign.

Our disappointment stems from our interpretation that President Obama’s refusal to sign is an indicator of how far away we are from gaining the hearts and minds of our fellow citizens. One of the more astute politicians of our time, President Obama judged this small concession to equal rights too risky to endorse; too many people would be offended, the probability for effective republican criticism too great.

It Doesn’t Feel Good Still Being On The Outside

      Our constitution starts with “We the people” and our Declaration of Independence contains the sentence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident.” Columnist Byron Williams points out that our history may be viewed as a continuous struggle about who is “we?” It started out with a few white male adults who owned land. Over the centuries, after titanic struggles, other groups became included, but almost 225 years after our constitution was signed, LGBT people are not part of the “we.”

Our disappointment is that our first black president in whose election we gloried refused to make a small step, a very small step, to enlarge the “we” an inch closer the promise of America.

Belinda and John Dronkers-Laureta are board members of Asian & Pacific Islander Family Pride www.apifamilypride.org

 

Keeping Families Together

The Asian And Pacific Islander Family Pride Blog

April 6, 2012

Between Policy and Reality There Falls The Shadow

By BELINDA AND JOHN DRONKERS-LAURETA

A Dark Example

We caught this story from Instinct Magazine about a drill sergeant who is virulently homophobic. It happened in Fort Benning, Georgia. A gay soldier was mercilessly and brutally harassed: called in front of his platoon and screamed at: “Are you a f*gg*t?”, physically attacked: choked, rocks thrown, fired at with blanks, and asked to out the platoon’s other gays. Finally, other platoon members had had enough. Five straight soldiers “came out” to the sergeant who promptly began harassing them. The five complained to the company commander, who went to the base’s person in charge of all basic training, who, in turn, “de-hatted” and threw the homophobic sergeant in jail (Army drill instructors wear a distinctive campaign hat). The Army’s Criminal Investigation Command is involved and there will be a trial.

A Good Example

This next story is from the Huffington Post. Joseph Amodeo resigned from the junior board of New York’s Catholic Charities. The Catholic Charities Junior Board is a group of professionals in their 20s and 30s interested in taking an active role in assisting New Yorkers in need. Amodeo said he had enough of Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s attitude. What attitude? Seems that the cardinal refuses to help homeless youth who are gay. The conflict started when Carl Siciliano, founder of the Ali Forney Center, a nonprofit offering emergency services to homeless LGBT children, wrote a letter to Cardinal Dolan. In it, Siciliano wrote that the cardinal’s harsh anti-gay message caused parents to turn against their gay children and turn them out into the streets to fend for themselves. The cardinal responded: “For you to make the allegations and insinuations you do in your letter based on my adherence to the clear teachings of the Church is not only unfair and unjust, but inflammatory. Neither I nor anyone in the Church would ever tolerate hatred of or prejudice towards any of the Lord’s children.” This response made Amodeo, a gay catholic man, resign.

About That Shadow

Why these two stories? Because we want to use them as examples for a more specific topic, namely, the difference between policy and reality. A policy is a general statement of intent, a stated principle, something to strive for. It is not what actually happens.

The Army (and the rest of the armed forces) repealed their Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. This means that the Army can no longer discriminate against openly LGB soldiers (transgender people in the military are excluded from protection and can be harassed without recourse). Yet, here is a sergeant, a four time Afghanistan tour of duty hero, who totally ignores the policy and does harm.

The Catholic Church has a policy stating that to be an LGBT person is against the teachings of Christ. Yet here is a gay catholic young professional militating against that policy. Amodeo wrote: “As someone who believes in the message of love enshrined in the teachings of Christ, I find it disheartening that a man of God would refuse to extend a pastoral arm to such youths.”

The Road Ahead

Establishing policy and passing laws are necessary steps in the fight to gain acceptance and respect for LGBT persons, but they are not sufficient. Individuals implement policies and laws. When you hear activists say: “We have to change hearts and minds,” that is what they are talking about. Changing individual hearts and minds is where the action is.

Belinda and John Dronkers-Laureta are board members of Asian & Pacific Islander Family Pride www.apifamilypride.org

 

Keeping Families Together

The Asian And Pacific Islander Family Pride Blog

March 30, 2012

We Collect Personal Stories Because They Are The Engine For Change

By BELINDA AND JOHN DRONKERS-LAURETA

We have been going through the files of our past banquets to come up with quotes and ideas for the one coming up on June 2. We re-read testimonies written down as they were told and those sent afterwards. We collect personal stories from our banquets and other API Family Pride events, because personal stories have the power to change minds.

What follows is a story we want to share with you. We gave it only the lightest of editorial touches.

Reflections From A Young Queer Asian Who Is Not Out To Her Parents

In first hearing what the API Family Banquet was all about, I was surprised in a good way. The purpose of the banquet is to flip the script on who gets “graded” or “rewarded,” so instead of the kids, it’s their parents. API parents who support their LGTBQ children are honored and recognized at the banquet.

It was a very safe space for me to be there. When I walked into the banquet, there were different families and their stories corresponded with pictures of them—of children coming out and a description of their parents’ support. Everyone I met was energetic, eager to learn, and be there for each other and I easily felt at home. There were nothing but genuine moments that I witnessed at the banquet: hearing about people’s coming-out stories and their parents’ initial response to it, good or bad, was really touching. I’d either bust out with respectful laughter, or, in other cases, got teary-eyed.

Along with people telling their stories, there was singing and cultural dances, raffles and fortune cookies all printed with the same message that read: “In all API homes, all children are welcome.” One of the key quotes in the program was from API Family Pride’s director, Belinda Dronkers-Laureta: “. . . so this year we honor parents and families and organizations who did not wait for a Supreme Court decision, who did not read survey results.” I feel honored and lucky as a person to know that there are spaces, especially this one so close to home, where I can be reassured, organized by people with different experiences, but who all dealt with the struggle and broke through it, coming together to support the same cause. It’s what happens in this community that gives me hope for the rest of society, but within is where it all starts, and if anything, matters.

This banquet not only broke the mold of how API families feel about their LGBT relatives’ sexual orientation, but it encourages nothing short of mutual respect and love. Children and parents fundamentally don’t have to go through their struggles alone. The banquet addresses the struggle head on and the result of it has been so positive. I definitely reach out to the folks in LGTBQ communities to know about this event and what it stands for.

Belinda and John Dronkers-Laureta are board members of Asian & Pacific Islander Family Pride www.apifamilypride.org

 

Keeping Families Together

The Asian And Pacific Islander Family Pride Blog

March 23, 2012

Changing From What Was To What Is

By BELINDA AND JOHN DRONKERS-LAURETA

An Asian lesbian told us that when she came out to her father he said that she still should get married to a man. She was indignant: marry someone she doesn’t love? Spend the rest of her life with someone she does not care about? Yes, her father said. Go ahead be attracted to other women and even fall madly in love with one, but marry a man. Is this irrational? Is this a contradiction? Alarm bells were ringing in our heads. Is there something here we hadn’t considered?

What Was Old Is New Again

Words have meaning. You know that. But stand still for a while and think of a word. Now ask yourself: what all does that word mean?

Take ‘marriage’ (we were going here all along). What does it mean? Two people so much in love that both want to fuse their futures and share all their tomorrows. What else? It means a wedding to bear witness to the world. It is love between only two people, not three, not five. For many still, it is love between one man and one woman. There will be children, watch them grow, bask in their success, and then spoil grandchildren. There are over a thousand legal rights conferred upon those who marry. All this enclosed by one word, a word few think about much, but a word that smoothly evokes the path of life and order in the universe. Until the time, that is, when people realize that what actually happens violates the prevailing social perception.

We have friends who started living together, had children, and are together still. No wedding. We know a man who passionately asks why only two people? Why not three people in love, five? Someone so close to us we call him uncle grew up in an orphanage for boys. When society’s clock told him it was time, he proposed marriage to a woman from an orphanage for girls. He barely knew her, but promised to be a husband; she promised to be a wife. Where was love? Is love only possible between one man and one woman? We know better. Then why does marriage not include other pairings? In fact, marriage only recently has come to mean what we think it means and by now it does not even mean that. Before now, marriage took all the forms people today find so objectionable. It even used to be a mere business transaction. Before long, its meaning will be different again.

Different Beliefs, Different Notions, Same Old Clashes

      We doubt the Asian father who told his lesbian daughter to marry a man anyway believes marriage is about love. He is likely to think that to marry is a duty owed the culture that tells him and the long chain of ancestors before him that is how the world works. People marry for security, for protection, for not being alone, for procreation and, yes, for love. Of course, his daughter, raised in a value system different from his, believes marriage must be preceded by love. A clash of expectations, both an outgrowth of explaining the world differently.

Among the emotions that assail a parent when a child comes out, is the disappointment that there will not be the normal path of life, no grandchildren, maybe not even happiness. An oft-heard question parents ask their LGBT children: “How can you be happy?” But there is no such thing as irrational and there are no contradictions. Those parents, who work it out soon realize that their expectations are not grounded in any universal truth, and upon reflection are merely an artifice that suited different times, but not these.

Belinda and John Dronkers-Laureta are board members of Asian & Pacific Islander Family Pride www.apifamilypride.org

 

Keeping Families Together

The Asian And Pacific Islander Family Pride Blog

March 16, 2012

API Family Pride’s Annual Banquet Celebrates Being A Family

By BELINDA AND JOHN DRONKERS-LAURETA

You may have heard this. API family immigrates to America; son or daughter comes out as LGBT; parents are distraught, blame America: LGBT is an “American disease”. You may not have heard that “coming out” is also American, not necessarily a disease, but definitely another bad American trait. Of course, LGBT is neither a disease nor American, but “coming out” may just be uniquely an American or, at least, a uniquely Western trait.

In a research proposal a couple of years back, we wrote that in America, LGBT persons come out because they can; it is part of the norm. Sharing personal information is a way to release stressful emotions, show trust, and form bonds. It is also a way to seek help and find solutions. But it is not the API way. API parents may not understand the meaning that coming out holds for their American schooled children.

API Parents With LGBT Children Face Coming Out Too

Parents of API LGBT persons face a double quandary: one, their child is LGBT and all the implications that that carries, and, two, he or she is announcing their sexuality to the world. We have witnessed the confusion, despair, anger, and sadness of API parents with LGBT children. “Why is he or she doing this to me?” and “Why does he or she have to tell everybody?” are two common laments. Belinda famously said that when LGBT children come out of the closet, their parents go in.

Many API parents of LGBT children feel utterly alone. They don’t know anything about LGBT. They have no one to talk to because they don’t know anybody with the same “problem.”

API Family Pride’s Banquet

      There are exceptions. API parents who went into the closet, but emerged to remain parents in the full meaning of that word: supporting and guiding their children into adulthood and celebrating them for who they are.

About eight years ago, API Family Pride thought that parents who came out of the closet could serve as role models for parents having a difficult time coming out. We organized the API Family Pride Presentation Banquet. The idea was to create an event where API LGBT children and their parents tell the different stories of their coming out. There would be food and entertainment, but the event’s centerpiece is when API LGBT child and parent take center stage and tell their story of coming out. Those are incredible, emotion-laden moments; tears flow.

            Over the years, we realized that our Banquet is more than LGBT children and parents telling their story. We are grasping to explain the emotion that so moves those who are there. It is about being Asian, being part of an Asian family; it is about ancient family rhythms that make us who we are, honoring a wisdom acquired by previous generations and brought over to a new land; it is about belonging.

On June 2 we celebrate our Banquet for this year. You are invited to come and feel the evening for yourself.

Belinda and John Dronkers-Laureta are board members of Asian & Pacific Islander Family Pride www.apifamilypride.org

 

 

 

 

Keeping Families Together

The Asian And Pacific Islander Family Pride Blog

March 9, 2012

How Do We Construct A Message That Keeps API Families With LGBT Youth Together?

By BELINDA AND JOHN DRONKERS-LAURETA

To prepare for our upcoming Queer & Asian workshop at UC-Berkeley in April, we reread some of the research projects we conducted that are the basis for many of our workshops. Some of the material goes back seven years and we wondered how relevant the research results still are. No doubt, we should do new research, but the information we have is still solid. This despite the progress toward acceptance and the quantum leap in visibility. Maybe, it has to do with the intensely personal considerations that go into “coming out” for both parent and child.

We Try To Find Out Why Some API LGBT Families Stay Together

      Our research focus is API parents who struggled with the reality of having an LGBT child but accepted and eventually honored their child. While it may be useful to ask parents who reject their LGBT child what their motivation is, they are loath to talk to us and when they do, they cite religion or culture or both. but rarely themselves.

Our purpose is to keep Asian families with LGBT children together and we want to know the experiences of those parents who achieved that. Our Banquet (more on that in our next blog) honors those parents and holds them up as examples that the religious and cultural obstacles are not as insurmountable as they seem. Our workshops call attention to processes that work for API parents, and LGBT children are often surprised that their parents, too, have a difficult coming out process.

A Question For Parents

We asked: “What made it difficult for you to come to terms with your child’s sexuality?” The number one answer: “Concern about what our extended family would think. Concern about what our friends and coworkers would think. Not just what they think about our LGBT child, but also about us as parents.” Many parents believe that they must have done something wrong and that they are to blame for their child “turning out” an LGBT person. They dread the judgment of their peers.

Another Question For Parents

We also asked: “What did your child understand least about your coming to terms with his or her sexuality?” The number one answer: “That we needed time to understand.” Asian families don’t normally discuss sex with their children, and homosexuality with its attendant shame and dishonor, is even more a taboo subject. When we add the lack of information and role models, the subject becomes still more fraught with conflict. And conflict resolution is also not something done well in Asian families.

Unconditional Love Sustains The Family Bond

      Many parents we asked said that despite their struggles, they loved their LGBT child and disowning him or her was never an alternative. This, then, is what sets these parents apart from those who reject their LGBTQ child: unconditional love.

We try to translate that into a message that our workshop attendants can own: hold fast to the reality that this is your child, the one you raised, the one who would not hurt you. It doesn’t always work, but when it does, it is marvelous to see.

Belinda and John Dronkers-Laureta are board members of Asian & Pacific Islander Family Pride www.apifamilypride.org

 

 

Keeping Families Together

The Asian And Pacific Islander Family Pride Blog

March 4, 2012

We Are Far From Mainstream, But LGBT Acceptance Is On The Rise

By BELINDA AND JOHN DRONKERS-LAURETA

We were sitting around having a casual conversation over good food (Asian, of course!). We wondered if there is an order for the process of societal attitudes that culminate in equality. Is it first tolerance, followed by acceptance, then respect, and finally equality? That would seem logical, but logic plays a very small role in LGBT equality. Then, too, what exactly do these terms mean? What would be the difference between tolerance and acceptance? What would equality look like? What would it feel like for an Asian LGBT person to walk and move through life in America just like a white Anglo-Saxon male?

Such conversations have little practical utility and are more suited for either conversations with a large social dimension, or a master’s thesis. Underlying the conversation, though, is a real concern: how is progress toward LGBT equality measured and how can the measurements, whatever they are, be used to achieve the goal better and quicker?

Sometimes Diamonds, Sometimes Coal

      We live in a time when progress toward API LGBT equality is spotty. Great triumphs are balanced by bitter defeats. In 2009, Houston became the nation’s largest city to elect an openly lesbian mayor. On Election Day 2011, Mayor Annise Parker was re-elected. On that same day, 53 out of 75 candidates endorsed by the Gay and Lesbian Victory fund won their contests. But listening to the Republican candidates for president, there is no room for LGBT equality and the Democratic Party is resisting a plank on marriage equality for its 2012 platform, while its standard bearer is still evolving on that subject and has been for four years.

Ellen Degeneres was named spokeswoman for JC Penney, One Million Moms launched a campaign to boycott the department store, but JC Penny’s management stood firmly by their choice. Kirk Cameron, 1980s sitcom heartthrob and lead actor in Firefly (2008), said that homosexuality is unnatural and ultimately destructive.

An openly lesbian judge from Dallas County, Texas, refuses to issue marriage licenses to heterosexual couples until Texas allows same-sex marriages. Judge Tonya Parker said that in a state that denied marriage equality she doesn’t think that she could “partially apply the law to one group of people that doesn’t apply to another group of people.” Barbara Johnson, a Maryland lesbian, was denied communion at her mother’s funeral. She told her story: “I approached [Father Marcel Guarnizo of Gaithersburg’s Saint John Neumann Catholic Church] to receive communion, and at that moment, he placed his hand over the bowl containing the Eucharist and looked into my eyes and said, ‘I cannot give you Communion because you live with a woman, and in the eyes of the church, that is a sin.’” Later, when Ms. Johnson delivered the eulogy, Father Guarnizo left.

It Is Neither Half Full, Nor Half Empty, There Simply Is No Glass

We are reaching to make a point. In a land this large, and this diverse, with a tradition of free speech, the progress of a cause may be measured by the degree and number of conflicting signals from the field. We are at the beginning of a sea change and although the outcome is not in doubt, it is still a long hard road.

Belinda and John Dronkers-Laureta are board members of Asian & Pacific Islander Family Pride apifamilypride.org

 

Keeping Families Together

The Asian And Pacific Islander Family Pride Blog

February 24, 2012

Can A Case Be Made For Equality By Observing That We Are Just Like Them?

By BELINDA AND JOHN DRONKERS-LAURETA

LinkedIn maintains discussions for their Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual &Transgender Community Center Group. There are between fifteen and twenty-five ongoing discussion threads, some of them narrow in scope and others wide open. The one that caught our attention asks: what do people feel are the top three issues facing the LGBT community in the 21^st century? Some of the replies are: marriage equality, legal and economic equality, government support for services, anything benefiting questioning youth, and safe and affordable housing for LGBT seniors. Notice that all of these answers are all external to the LGBT community.

Challenges Within The Community

Surprisingly, challenges within the community were also cited: racism, classism, ageism, lack of caring for each other, and, a startling for us, the schism between gay men and lesbians. Reading the internal challenges reminded us of something that happened about 15 years ago. Our workplace had started an LGBT Employee Association and its inaugural event was a presentation by a straight ally. He extolled the virtues of the LGBT community: loving, caring, thoughtful, altogether deserving of equal treatment and full incorporation in the workplace. We had brought our gay son as a guest and during the Q&A afterward he laid into the speaker. The gist of his comments was that the LGBT community is like any other community and suffers from whatever other communities suffer from: economic inequality, racism, and strict social hierarchies. The reason LGBT people deserve equal treatment and full incorporation into the workplace is because they are people and not just members of a romanticized and idealized community.

Can We Now Make A More Useful Argument?

      So here is our question. Would it be useful to achieve equal rights (in all social aspects) and full integration by writing and citing examples showing that our LGBT community is a reflection of the larger community with all its glories and all its warts; literally hold up a mirror? If that sounds crazy, or maybe even scary, can we do something with the underlying premise? In other words, can we say that that which sets the LGBT community apart is not what we do or say, but what the larger community does or says about us? And what they say about us, they are essentially saying about themselves. Does that make sense?

We are out of our depth here, because it occurs to us that every other marginalized community can say the same thing and we have not studied that. We intuit, for example, that women are marginalized because of the shape of their skin; people of color are marginalized because of the color of their skin; LGBT people are marginalized because of their sexual identity and orientation. Can we say that in all three examples, the dominant group seized upon a single difference, was afraid of it, blew up the difference and found “dangers to the stability of all society” as an excuse to marginalize communities?

We don’t have the answers, but it may be worthwhile to pursue this line of thought.

Belinda and John Dronkers-Laureta are board members of Asian & Pacific Islander Family Pride www.apifamilypride.org

 

Keeping Families Together

The Asian And Pacific Islander Family Pride Blog

February 17, 2012

What Happens After Same-Sex Marriage Is The Law? Work For Acceptance and Respect

By BELINDA AND JOHN DRONKERS-LAURETA

A few friends asked why we think that the fight for marriage equality is won when only seven states allow same-sex marriage, but 29 states constitutionally restrict marriage to one man and one woman and another 12 states have laws restricting marriage to one man and one woman. Also, the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act for the first time involved the federal government in defining marriage as the legal union between a man and a woman. The forces arrayed against equal marriage appear formidable.

Current Trends and History Assure Marriage Equality

We are fully aware of the energy and treasure already expended and to be expended still to establish a legal right for same-sex lovers to marry. We also know people for whom this fight is their sole focus. We do not diminish their work, indeed, we extol their efforts and lend a hand every time we are asked. But the tide is inexorably turning, slowly perhaps and with stops and starts and sometimes moving backwards, but it is turning. We read the results of polls and know that more and more Americans believe that the right to get married should extent to people in love regardless of their sexual orientation or identity. We especially read the statistic that among the younger generation the affirmation is overwhelming. In addition, we are aware of the history of other, similar struggles. Women’s rights, mixed race marriage, racial equality, those were struggles that all overturned laws against and resulted in laws in favor.

But They Do Not Assure Acceptance And Respect

It is absolutely vital that a legal right be established, because everything starts with that. But once established, the struggle for social and economic rights begins and with it the struggle for acceptance and respect. We know there is a gap between what people answer to pollsters and what they actually believe. We know that every time a law passes that allows equal marriage, a movement starts to repeal it; we read of the One Million Moms campaign to boycott JC Penney’s, because they appointed Ellen Degeneres as their spokesperson; we listened to Roland Martin’s homophobic remarks on CNN. When courts and the Justice Department found that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional, New York’s archbishop (now cardinal) Timothy Dolan wrote that this would cause a conflict between church and state of enormous proportions.

We study those counter trends to discover what lies at their root so that we can begin to change minds, because we know that a legal right does not change long held beliefs nor alter encrusted traditions.

But It All Starts With The Law

Even though we will prevail because time is on our side, we know that the legal right for same sex marriage requires Herculean efforts. We don’t want anybody to lessen the pressure to establish that legal right. Other organizations are better suited to carry on that fight. We are better suited to help change minds.

Belinda and John Dronkers-Laureta are board members of Asian & Pacific Islander Family Pride www.apifamilypride.org

 

Keeping Families Together

The Asian And Pacific Islander Family Pride Blog

February 10, 2012

Let’s Send Flowers To The Ninth Circuit Court Of Appeals

By BELINDA AND JOHN DRONKERS-LAURETA

We wanted to write about something else, but this week it is not possible to ignore the momentous ruling from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that California’s Proposition 8 violates the Equal Protection Clause of our federal constitution.

Although we are on record of viewing the struggle for LGBT persons to marry as won awhile back and that now we should prepare to combat the prejudice and hatred that will remain for generations, this court ruling is a big milestone. Our son is a step, albeit a small one, closer to being equal to his brother and sister and everybody else.

We Celebrate Some Parts Of The Ruling

We like Judge Steven Reinhardt’s statement that: “Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gay men and lesbians in California.” A host of ingrown traditions, stultified beliefs, and archaic laws told our son that he does not belong, that he doesn’t get to be the same as everybody else. Not just that, he is also less valued, because he does not adhere to values treasured by a majority. Equal but separate does not work, because those who are separate are always inferior.

We Worry About Other Parts

We worry about the narrow scope on which the ruling is based. The judges did not say that same sex marriage is protected under the constitution. They said that there is no reason to separate LGBT people from the rest of society. And that is why we worry about the dissent by Judge N. Randy Smith who thought that there could be a reason for the state to ban same sex marriage, namely, “responsible procreation” and “optimal parenting.” Statements of protests from Prop 8 proponents don’t worry us too much, because we have been reading and hearing them for so long. Maybe we should pay closer attention for what they say to see where they are going next.

Regardless, Take Time To Celebrate

The legal battle for same sex marriage continues, though for us, the outcome is a foregone conclusion. Still, someone has to man the barricades until the Supreme Court ends the discrimination. So from parents of a gay son to those who are manning the barricades, a heartfelt thank you for staying the course and making it happen

Belinda and John Dronkers-Laureta are board members of Asian & Pacific Islander Family Pride apifamilypride.org

 

Keeping Families Together

The Asian And Pacific Islander Family Pride Blog

February 3, 2012

True Gatherings Have A Magic All Their Own

By BELINDA AND JOHN DRONKERS-LAURETA

We want to tell you how the subject of a casual conversation worked itself into an idea, from there to a set of plans, and this year, we hope, into concrete execution.

It began with a dinner conversation over the verb “to gather” and its noun “gathering.” We had just come from the BOLD Gathering in Minneapolis. We speculated that the organizers wanted something more intimate than a conference and came up with calling it a Gathering, but what exactly is a gathering? We googled an on-line dictionary to find out. Dictionaries are good for general meanings, but they are not good for terms hat may have an emotional connection. For example, gathering means: assemblage or meeting, but if that is all there is, the BOLD organizers could have called what happened in Minneapolis a Meeting or an Assemblage. They didn’t, probably because they wanted to foster more of a sense of intimacy among the attendants.

When the dictionary doesn’t do it for you, then you discuss and argue and work it out among yourselves. We did and concluded that a gathering is a meeting of people who all have something in common that they believe is momentous and gather for a specific purpose. Having something in common is important, because then they don’t have to spend time and explain that which they have in common, but more importantly, all participants feel the same. And, for our purposes, the smaller the number of people, the closer we are to the intimacy the word “to gather” holds for us.

From Those Discussions, This Idea

When a child comes out to parents the news literally alters the parents’ reality, they become, as it were, disconnected from what they know and what they believe. They have questions, they seek reassurance, they want a reality that once again makes sense. API Family Pride has a program to help. Called Family Circle, it organizes small, intimate groups to help parents handle their new reality and preserve family bonds. These are, in fact, gatherings, but with our new sense of what we want that word to mean, we have a new sense of what our Family Circle should be: a Gathering.

A gathering is a powerful event. It gathers people with a common link, it inspires hope and provokes new thinking. API Family Pride’s gatherings are over food, because good food is always celebratory and keeps us connected to our culture. We want to create a shared space and time that strongly connects us to who we are and where it is safe to speak about the unspeakable, because we all have that in common. We want the result to be that when people go home, they have a real sense of belonging to a community that they did not know existed beforehand, a community that is larger than they thought, and from which they can draw strength and safely learn.

How Are We Going To Execute The Idea?

      We already know a bit about how to organize these gatherings, but our new insight allows us to emphasize some of its aspects. It is far more intimate to have them in a home with a host and hostess than in restaurants. It is also better to have only a few families, but at the same time tell everyone that there are many more families who have successfully made the new reality their own and are happy. Although we are all Asian and Pacific Islanders, it is more intimate to have these gatherings with people who have a culture in common and speak the same language or dialect.

We are planning four of these gatherings this year and are currently looking at all aspects. If you have any ideas you want to contribute or want to host a “Gathering”, let us know, 510-818-0887 or info@apifamilypride.org.

Belinda and John Dronkers-Laureta are board members of Asian & Pacific Islander Family Pride www.apifamilypride.org

 

Keeping Families Together

The Asian And Pacific Islander Family Pride Blog

January 27, 2012

One More Time: Is There Such A Thing As Gay By Choice?

By BELINDA AND JOHN DRONKERS-LAURETA

Actress Cynthia Nixon lit a firestorm when she said she is gay by choice in a New York Times magazine interview. The context in which she said it and the caveats she appended after she said it don’t matter, everybody will only hear or read: “And for me, it [homosexuality] is a choice. I understand that for many people it’s not, but for me it’s a choice, and you don’t get to define my gayness for me.” If only we could dismiss what she said as a careless remark made by an actress whose fame lends her utterances an undeserving importance, but we cannot. Cynthia Nixon is a bright and thoughtful person with a thoroughly grounded view of who she is.

On The One Hand Her Remark Will Cause Harm

Can you imagine a gay child coming out to his or her parents and the parents glomming on to the “gay is a choice” notion? They could demand that the child make another choice or they’ll withhold financial support for college. They could even insist on a gay cure. You don’t need much imagination to realize what politicians like Bachman or Santorum will do with Nixon’s statement. They will hold up this one remark by this one woman as vindication for their belief that homosexuality is bad behavior, not an inherent trait. In fact, Cynthia Nixon’s remark may be used as a reason for all kinds of abuse forcing LGBT people to make the right choice.

What about the struggle for equal rights? One of the considerations used to judge whether a law is unconstitutional is the determination if the minority targeted by that law shares an unchangeable trait. Even though what is or is not unchangeable is an evolving concept, Cynthia Nixon’s remark could be used to support arguments that to be gay is not unchangeable.

On The Other Hand Her Remark Will Provoke Much Needed Thought

Cynthia Nixon had a 15-year relationship with a man and together they have two children. She is in a 7-year relationship with a woman who gave birth to their son last year. Bisexual is a quick and easy label to put on her, but she rejects identifying herself as bisexual, because “everybody likes to dump on bisexuals.” She also says that she “responds to people in front of her the way she truly feels.” And so she concludes that she makes a choice.

The struggle for gay rights occurs in a thick fog of opinions and judgments. We long for an objective anchor. Although there is a scientific consensus that homosexuality has a biological basis, biology is apparently not the only factor. Science has yet to definitively identify a biological or sociological basis for sexual orientation. Perhaps science’s need for labels is in the way, because sexual orientation or sexuality or identity is far to complex and fluid a subject of study to be captured by definitions that try to make the subject stand still. Gregory Herreck, a professor of psychology at the University of California at Davis, writes that women move easier between same sex and opposite sex partners than do men, but for a percentage of both sexes there is a fair amount of choice.

Is There A Conclusion?

When all is said and done and the dust settles does it matter whether being LGBT is the consequence of nature or nurture or a combination of both? We think not. However people choose to identify themselves, that choice is not a reason for others to force people to make a different choice (if a choice even exists), nor is it a reason to deny them any rights.

Belinda and John Dronkers-Laureta are board members of Asian & Pacific Islander Family Pride www.apifamilypride.org

Keeping Families Together

The Asian And Pacific Islander Family Pride Blog

January 20, 2012

The Election Messages Perpetuate Homophobia

By BELINDA AND JOHN DRONKERS-LAURETA

Politicians pander. They, or their staffs, do research, find out what a particular constituency wants to hear, and then package words in a message they hope will garner sufficient votes. Sometimes they fudge some facts and sometimes they outright lie. Nothing new here, but we want to draw attention to the impact of their messages.

What Are They Saying?

In the furious race for a republican presidential nominee, all candidates are pandering to an anti-LGBT constituency, with John Huntsman a possible exception. In a January 7 debate Newt Gingrich said that in Massachusetts the Catholic Charities preferred to close its adoption services rather than allow LGBT couples to adopt. Mitt Romney agreed with Newt Gingrich (yes he did!) and thought that everybody in the audience also agreed, then he went further: “Calling [same-sex marriage] a marriage creates a whole host of problems for families, for the law, for the practice of religion, for education.” In his 30-second spot Rick Perry, Man of Faith, Rick Perry said that there is “. . . something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military. . .” Rick Santorum said that allowing gays to raise children amounts to “robbing children of something they need, they deserve, they have a right to.” He claims that children must have a father and a mother. And nobody beats Michelle Bachman’s harsh record of bashing LGBT people.

What They Are Saying Is Divisive

Their messages perpetuate a hierarchy of human beings based on individual identity characteristics, in this case being LGBT; an LGBT person is ranked lower in this hierarchy, is worth less, than a heterosexual person. Their messages sanction the continued denial of LGBT people’s access to rights and privileges given as a matter of course to people higher in the hierarchy. Their messages invoke a divisive cultural order of values that is now under attack but they feel compelled to preserve.

There may be laws against it, but the violence against LGBT people stems in part from the “so what, they’re not as good as we are anyway” mentality; it is all right to hurt them. The continued denial of equal rights also is based on this hierarchy of values of a person’s worth to society. The difficulty we face in changing this is the deeply rooted nature of this hierarchy and the appeals to God, history, and tradition to preserve it.

Our Task Is to Counter The False Message

      API Family Pride works to keep families together. We have known for a while that behind the initial anguish of parents with an LGBT child is this notion: I tried my best to raise my child to be a worthy member of society and now he will never be that. Our task is to change that perception. That task is made more difficult during this election campaign when all around the message proclaims the opposite.

Belinda and John Dronkers-Laureta are board members of Asian & Pacific Islander Family Pride www.apifamilypride.org

 

 

 

Keeping Families Together

The Asian And Pacific Islander Family Pride Blog

January 13, 2012

In Coming Out, Do Asian Languages Get A Bum Rap?

By BELINDA AND JOHN DRONKERS-LAURETA

Are Asian Languages A Problem?

In peer-reviewed literature, language is often cited as a major obstacle for API LGBTs to come out to their parents: more precisely, the lack of language. Studies find that many Asian languages have a limited vocabulary to discuss sex or sexuality. Specific vocabularies evolve when there is a need for them and because in API cultures sex and sexuality are reluctant subjects of discussion (another research finding), there is no urge to develop a vocabulary. This makes it difficult for API LGBTs to explain to their parents who they are. In a clip from the video There Is No Name For This, a Chinese man explains that if he were to use the Chinese words available to explain that he is gay, his parents would think that he dresses up as a female and prances about on street corners. That is not who he is. Filipinos have a similar problem. It is even difficult to come up with relevant Asian language equivalents for “coming out.”

Are API LGBT People The Only Ones With A Language Problem?

Words are symbols that communicate meaning. Are APIs the only group that doesn’t have an adequate symbol for communicating a gender identity or sexual orientation that is not the norm? When a female comes out to her Caucasian parents and says: “I am lesbian,” do the parents understand the full meaning of the word lesbian or do they associate the term with just the sex act? Testimony seems to point to an association with just the sex act. When priests and reverends rant against LGBT people, they refer to the “unnatural act” which is an “abomination unto the Lord.” Guess what they are thinking and how is it that bearing witness to who you are is an “unnatural act?”

The point we are making is that language is a barrier to coming out for at least the two groups we primarily connect with, APIs and Caucasians, and probably a barrier for everybody else. The nature of the barriers in different languages may differ, some more formidable than others, but they are barriers nevertheless. When API Family Pride is asked to help keep a family together, the effort is to shift the attention of the angry and confused parent from just the sex act to the child and explain that that child is the same person as just before the moment he or she revealed yet another facet of his or her complex personality. It is not easy without an adequate vocabulary in any language.

In America At Least, A Specific Vocabulary Is Being Built

When we first put our workshop material together, we thought it a good idea to put together a vocabulary. We circulated a draft for review and were stunned by the return comments that ranged from correction to our (researched) definitions to brand new words. The word “queer” has several meanings and is a pejorative term for some LGBT people, especially those of an older generation. The word “homosexual” is shunned by those LGBT people under age 50,because of its medical/psychological origins as a pathological condition. “Genderqueer” was a new word for us and is defined as a person who does not identify as, or does not express him- or herself as completely male or female.

In America at least, language is moving to accommodate with words the meaning of an astounding array of manifestations for identity and sexuality that is now being acknowledged. Wittgenstein observed what makes a subject difficult to understand is the contrast between the understanding of the subject and what most people want to see. That is what remains difficult, but at least we know in what direction to search for meaning. In a recent meeting we were asked which personal pronoun we preferred when being addressed. We smiled.

Belinda and John Dronkers-Laureta are board members of Asian & Pacific Islander Family Pride www.apifamilypride.org

 

 

 

 

Keeping Families Together

The Asian And Pacific Islander Family Pride Blog

January 6, 2012

Can You Be Told That You Must Come Out?

By BELINDA AND JOHN DRONKERS-LAURETA

An article caught our attention. Titled Why is Recommended to Come Out if You’re Gay (yes, we think the word “it” should be inserted in the title) it is written, as best as we can determine, by a straight ally. It gives reasons why LGBT people should come out.

In a previous blog, we mentioned our workshops on coming out. During those workshops we explain why it is difficult to come out and suggest strategies to help in coming out. We also devote a section on the advantages and disadvantages of coming out, because not coming out is an option chosen by quite a number of LGBT people. We are convinced that the actual decision to come out or not is so intensely personal that we would never recommend one course of action over the other. That is why the article caught our attention, it is foursquare for coming out and that is contrary to what we counsel.

Don’t Go With The Article’s Advice. Develop Your Own.

If you have an opportunity, read the article. At first reading, there is certain logic to the argument, but upon reflection the logic goes away. The article is filled with platitudes that sound helpful but really are not. For example: “Once you come out, you will be more able to live your life to the fullest.” What does it mean to live life to the fullest? Do non-LGBT people live life to the fullest? How about: “Once you’re older and out of school, believe me it becomes much easier [to come out].” We know that is false. The obstacles, real or perceived it does not matter, change as one becomes older, but coming out does not become easier.

The article states: “If people around you have trouble with who you are, then that is their problem.” Look around and observe the violence committed against LGBT people. Pay attention to the debates among the candidates for the GOP presidential nomination. We have seen, read, and heard testimony sufficient to know that when people around you have trouble with who you are, they can hurt you and that makes the people around you your problem. Many considerations go into a decision to come out among those personal safety is paramount.

      Still, the article does get one thing right. Before you come out, develop a support system of friends and allies. Create a space where you are safe. To do that, however, you must first feel good about yourself.

LGBT Allies Are Just That, They Are Not LGBT

The problem with us allies is that we ourselves are not LGBT and will never really know the anguish and apprehension of revealing a sexual orientation and identity that is so at odds with prevailing norms as to cause violent reactions among people. We may come close to knowing what it is like through our work and friends, but it is difficult to really know. As parents of LGBT children, we have our own special anguish and apprehension for their safety and the opportunities and rights denied them, opportunities and rights granted to others as a matter of course, but our anguish and apprehension are not the same as those of our LGBT children.

We know that logic has a relatively small role in the struggle for acceptance and respect. There is no logic in the denial of rights, there is no logic in religion’s opposition, in fact, much of the latter’s arguments can be shown to be false. But it does not matter, we are not in logic-land, we are in emotion-land.

Belinda and John Dronkers-Laureta are board members of Asian & Pacific Islander Family Pride www.apifamilypride.org