Happy Birthday, Gaga! I hope this is the best year ever for you!
The whole basis for the Gagablog has been to explore a kind of superchaos magic by drawing connections between the art of Gaga, world news events, and my own magical intentions. I have long praised Gaga for being a liberator, since well before I started this blog when I wrote the song "Savior Mom (Lady Gaga)". I think this is one of the most important roles she plays and the power and ability she has to liberate people is what I recognize as divine. She has done so much to promote equal rights for gays and lesbians and bisexual people and maintains this focus. I think she played a major part in changing of American attitudes on this issue by grabbing the country's imagination with the mystery of sexuality in a way that transcended preconceived notions. The country was already evolving as more people became more aware but Gaga put strong focus on this at times when it really made a difference. While she still promotes the message of equality, I think the efforts she made around repealing "Don't Ask Don't Tell" and when she met with President Obama were crucial moments in changing the course for America so we can more fully accept everyone sooner.
Since then she worked specifically to end bullying and encourage kids to be brave to really be themselves. She has always had this effect on kids through her music but made an even more concerted effort for it by launching the Born This Way non-profit organization with her mom, Cynthia Germanotta. This is an important gay rights issue as well, since homophobic bullying has been one of the most insidious kinds for decades if not generations. Bullying affects all sorts of kids, though, and Gaga's message supports kids for any sort of difference and celebrates them. By telling kids to be proud and brave and really express who they are we can end the culture of intimidation and exclusion in school. And if we work to teach kids that lesson who knows? Maybe the adults in our society will learn it as well and we will all be more supportive of each other. If we could extend the understanding to our governments we could end war and hunger and disease, too, but it all comes down to something kids face every day and have not been protected from, the hurt of being judged, abused, and excluded. Bullying is one of the worst ways this happens but it is really at the heart of all human misery. Even kids in good environments can end up feeling judged and excluded when their opinions are not considered because they are just kids. I know I always had amazing and creative ideas as a kid and only wished I had written more down, especially story ideas. I still have them all the time but wish I had given myself enough credit to work on those ideas I had in my youth. I do feel that one reason I still have so much creativity is because I rebelled against the "bullying" ideas that imagination was not of much value (judgement) and that you could not make a living writing (exclusion). But I still need to overcome them, I still need to trust myself and be bravely who I really am, even as a grown boy or "adult", and this is why I think it is so important to overcome these oppressive forces as soon as possible and as early on in life for the benefit of all.
Magically, it is a happy coincidence that the Supreme Court is taking up the issue of marriage equality on Gaga's birthday. I actually noticed it because the two things people were really talking about on facebook just now were marriage equality and Gaga's birthday today - the sun is about to rise on the 28th as I type this in Colorado, anyway, and people have been posting to celebrate her birthday around the world. I wish that as a magical birthday present to Gaga the Supreme Court decides on the fullest equality for gay and lesbian couples to marry. I've supported gay marriage ever since I was old enough to know what the idea was, probably around the year Gaga was born. Now I have an even stronger argument for it and it ties together Gaga's messages of caring for kids and equal rights for marriage.
I believe every argument in support of marriage equality and think they are all important but I really want to focus on a specific issue relating to kids. I also want to point out that the oft-repeated argument against marriage equality, that civil unions are just as good and that they just don't want to call it marriage is just stupid. If they are truly only worried about the name I imagine some of them will end up calling marriage between gay and lesbian couples "marriage" but rhyme it with "Minaj" or some such way to try and denigrate it. But most people will get used to it and just say "he's married" or "she's married" about people instead of saying "he's gay married" or "she's lesbian married" or something silly like that. As with everything in this kind of cultural evolution the more exposure people get the easier it will be to see past restricted thinking.
I'm really worried about kids and the way this cultural evolution, and the right decision by the Supreme Court, can improve their lives. I heard on the radio that 40,000 kids in California alone are in households with gay and lesbian parents. I'm sure there are very important legal reasons why it would be better and easier for these kids if their parents could marry. I'm not aware of what they all are, I can imagine, but in addition to them there is a value to granting these people with the title of "married people." It gives the couple that sense of value to their relationship, from their commitment to each other and the recognition of that in community and before the divine - this is what marriage is. But for the kids it also gives a sense of value - recognizing their parents as married makes them "just like any other family" - and of course they are - but having the label attached means everyone can accept the family the same as a family with only one mom and one dad. And people will accept it, once they get past their fear, once it happens all over and people see it is okay.
There used to be more stigma against divorce. There still is some stigma against it but it has been gradually wearing away as "everybody is doing it." Divorce used to be much more rare and as we have gotten used to it, and used to single-parent families, we are not as "shocked" by it as we used to be. I saw an episode of "Leave it to Beaver", from the 50's, in which one of Beaver's friends had parents who were divorced and it was the theme of the episode as Beaver discovered what this thing called divorce might be about. When I was a kid in the 80's there seemed to be much more stigma against being a child of divorced parents than there is today but it was becoming more common. Parents getting a divorce is terrible for kids to go through but even worse if there is stigma against it. At least in that way over time it has become easier, for kids, when it is something that more of them have in common and there is more understanding about.
Gay and lesbian couples marrying is a good thing for kids, though surely some of them will get divorced, too. But I imagine that kids who are told that their parents can't marry feel a stigma against them. They might still feel prejudice against them when their parents can get married - for a hopefully short time until everyone gets used to it. But everyone will get used to it, except maybe the most staunch conservatives, and marriage between two men or two women will go from something we used to only see on TV to something everyone is familiar with as everyone comes to know more gay and lesbian married couples.
I have to stand up for marriage equality for fairness and justice and the positive effect on families but I have another reason that is even closer to my heart and for me just makes it imperative to progress as soon as possible for the sake of kids. I have been working for 6 years with abused and neglected children, trying to help hundreds of kids most of whom are like orphans. I'm just trying to help them learn to control their behavior and express their emotions more positively but we work in an institution and it is not an ideal place to grow up, just better than where they came from or their behaviors had become too extreme for foster placements. But the thing that every kid needs more than anything else is a family. You can really tell how much a kid needs a family when they live for a year or two, or more sometimes, in an institution and they don't have families, or have very limited contact with them in most cases. I work with kids who are only 5 to 10 years old, and who act younger because they are "stuck" in many ways in the infant and toddler ages they were traumatized at. You can tell how much a kid needs a family when they don't have one, or when they have never had a good one. One of the main reasons kids have to stay there so long is there simply aren't enough families to adopt them or take them in as foster parents. This is a very specific concern that effects me directly because I see the pain in these kids but mostly it can affect them. Legalizing marriage for same-sex couples creates so many more eligible families to adopt kids who need them. Same-sex couples can still adopt kids, at least in some places, though Catholic and other charities try to make a big fuss to prevent them from it, which sickens me knowing how much the kids need a family more than the Catholics need doctrinal purity. But adoption is a lengthy and difficult process and while much of that process is valuable and needed to make sure the kids get good homes anything that can help speed up the clerical parts of the process would help kids get families faster. For this specific reason it would really be great if marriage between gay and lesbian couples became legal immediately so that more kids who really need families can get them sooner.
I think just setting the precedent for the whole country will be the best way to get more people to come out and raise awareness everywhere of the importance of marriage equality and treating everyone as equals in general. I have to cheer on the passage of marriage equality, especially with the magical power of it being Gaga's birthday, and I'm happy and hopeful that it will result in that much deeper love as people take vows to each other (and Love itself!) with the blessing of the community. I heard that Gaga might be getting married this summer, too, so it should be a wonderful year for her. Just for Love I have to really cheer for the Supreme Court to make the loving and true decision, but especially for the kids who need families I have to say what a great Birthday Present it would be for marriage equality to be the law of the land and more kids get homes faster.
I remember a kid from my work who was eating a cinnamon bun at breakfast with me. He told me his mom made cinnamon buns then clarified "My mom who took care of me, not the mom I came out of" - meaning his foster mom, not his biological mom. I think about how so many little monsters call Gaga our Mother Monster and some surely feel this extra specially if they feel Gaga cares for them and supports them and their mom did not. In my case, I do have support from my mom but have usually felt little or no support from my community or government, until recently, and do feel that support, care, and encouragement from Gaga as I'm sure others who feel somewhat outside society, for whatever reason, have felt. In this way I can see how she is "fostering" us all to better homes and better visions of ourselves, at every level, individual, social, governmental, cultural and in our imaginations. I love her for this and hope it encourages people to do the same for other people - both to encourage and inspire each other by becoming our best selves and to literally foster and adopt kids who weren't theirs before, but will become theirs, and you their mothers and fathers, just as Gaga became our Mother Monster.
Happy Birthday Gaga I hope it is a wonderful one for you and I hope you get my birthday wish for you - well, I have a lot of wishes for you - but especially this gagablog magic one that the Supreme Court makes marriage legal for everyone and we soon see how silly and hurtful it has been to hold it up and how wonderful and helpful it is to recognize it. Paws up for Love! (''') <3
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