The Ostrich

I’m somewhat chagrined to read that the State of Tennessee has pulled yet another bone-headed move, making it somewhat akin to Kansas, attempting to legislate human behaviour yet again.

Like the Ostrich, sticking your head in the sand may get you the juicy worm that you’re after, but you are ignoring everything else around you, and may end up with a bigger problem.

My dad was from Tennessee, and I’m sure that if you did a DNA test on half the people in the eastern part of the state, you’d find that half of them came back blood relatives to me. I’ve often thought of it as a place as close to home as I could find, right behind Florida.

As you drive through the small towns scattered among the mountains, every other hilltop has a church on it, matched by yet another one as you round a curve and head into the following valley.

Some of these churches are not much bigger than a two-car garage, and may have a congregation of a dozen or two at most. Many of them have been there so long that I’m surprised a good wind doesn’t blow the building down.

Tennessee has been in the news off and on recently for its attempt to legislate that the word “gay” cannot be uttered in their school system. And, earlier this month, a law was passed that bars teachers from discussing hand-holding in school.

Apparently the good christian folk in Tennessee fear that including human behaviour in their children’s education might actually encourage them to indulge in some of that behaviour.

Kansas seems to have a thing about abortion and letting women control their own bodies, and Tennessee seems to be developing a reputation for trying to legislate their citizens back to Puritanism.

Why is it my business if the lady across the street has an abortion? I may not think it right, and I may even think there are better alternatives, however I would certainly not want to interfere in her right to obtain one. I have no possible way of knowing all the circumstances involved, and I do firmly believe it should remain a private matter between her, her family and her doctor.

Likewise, why should we not want to educate our children about human behaviour? Holding hands is about as innocent a behaviour as there is, and in fact in some countries around the world, the sight of two heterosexual men holding hands on the street is an everyday occurrence, as common as a handshake here. It doesn’t have to be a “gateway behaviour” to a pair of 9 year olds doing the nasty under the bleacher in the gym. But, certainly we should allow our children to be educated, fully and completely.

Gay people exist. Whether you think it right or wrong, natural or an abomination, they do in fact exist. Trying to hide the fact that they exist is abnormal. I’m all for morality and goodness, we don’t have enough, but haven’t we learned yet that attempts to legislate morality always fail?

It is perfectly fine for a child of a devout christian family in the great State of Tennessee to be taught by their family and by their church the religious doctrine about homosexuality, pre-marital sex, abortion, or whatever. At the same time, a child needs to understand that there are other views, and at some point, based on all the facts, this child should be able to make up their own minds how to behave and believe.

Just as the legislature has no business marching into your Sunday School class and telling you what you can teach, churches and religion have no business in the state house making laws of the land.