Kids In Castro Cause Tension

The following LA Times article was passed on to me by a friend via email.  I am going to parse it and make comments along the way.  Be warned:  Subject material will offend most.

 

A Haven's Sex and Sensibility

Protective parents -- straight and gay -- are objecting to racy storefronts in S.F.'s Castro district. Some merchants are defiant.

By John M. Glionna, Times Staff Writer April 21, 2006

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-castro21apr21,0,810728,full.story?coll=la-home-headlines

LA Times

 

SAN FRANCISCO — Brody Paul and his kid brother Zander are making their after-school rounds in this city's Castro district — one of the most openly gay neighborhoods in America .

 

Brody, 12, shops for mouthwash and Clearasil. His brother wants No. 2 pencils. Veterans of tolerant San Francisco , they're unfazed by the two women holding hands and the graffiti etched into the sidewalk: "Nick Loves Olaf."

 

But along Castro Street , the main business drag just two blocks from their home, the boys encounter images more difficult for children to digest. A video store where they regularly rent Disney films stocks triple-X gay porn flicks in plain view. Across the street, next to

their favorite pizza joint, the front window of a gay sex shop called Rock Hard displays a large Day-Glo purple sex toy, leather trusses

and graphic manuals.

 

"It's scary. It kind of makes you shudder," says Zander, who just turned 8.

 

"It's not scary," Brody corrects, offering a typical child's view of anything sexual. "It's just gross."

These are kids who live in Castro, not rural allegedly homophobic America.  This is supposed to be the Mecca of tolerance (hypocritical as it may be).  If you do not buy into the gay dogma at the heart of Castro you are very likely going to face rejection and ridicule.  If these boy's innocent reactions, in spite of a very pro-gay community, city and region, are fear and repulsion, you can't blame it on homophobia.  One of these kids even says being gay is natural at the end of the article.

 

Perhaps it is the messages that some in the gay identified and many in the gay activist communities are sending that create fear and repulsion.  Maybe gay porn next to children's videos like Snow White deserves to be called scary and repulsive ... even by the adults in the gay identified community.

Technorati Tags: children, gay parenting, Castro District

Although the Castro has long been called Boys Town , that moniker has assumed an ironic new meaning: The gay bastion is now an unlikely hub for families with children.

 

For more than a decade, heterosexual parents have been drawn to the quarter-mile-square Castro to raise their families in its quaint Victorian homes and small-town atmosphere. In recent years, the Castro's same-sex couples have also increasingly chosen to become parents, a revolution that has brought even more children.

 

...

 

At Cliff's Variety store, children shop for toy unicorns and jasmine- scented clay putty alongside cross-dressers perusing feather boas and rhinestone tiaras. And at this year's Gay Pride Parade in June, one float will celebrate gay families, featuring kids clad in construction-worker outfits and singing Village People songs.

Forcing kids into the middle of a very political event with one of the raunchiest gay pride parades in the world is astounding.  Regardless of disagreements over the morality of homosexuality, I cannot believe that anyone would think that this is a good idea.

But this new Castro has not emerged without tensions.

 

The racy storefront displays have pitted protective parents against equally militant gay residents. Many parents — both heterosexual and gay — say the suggestive ads are inappropriate for children. Gay activists want to preserve a sexually liberated atmosphere that  embraces such gay-themed holidays as "Leather Day" and — in celebration of hairy men — "Bear Day."

 

Some complain that gay culture itself, which has long celebrated free sexual expression, is under attack — not just by straights, but by gays and lesbians as well.

It's about time.  I would imagine some conservatives would jump on the band wagon and call these actions of gay identified and pro-gay parents/caretakers as hypocritical.  They would also point  out that not until the vulgarity affected them personally did these folks care enough to complain.  The rest of the world's children have been exposed to that type of thing at pride parades and public gay events for decades now across the many gay "havens" all across the wold.  Have you seen what some of the "events" are at the annual gay days at Walt Disney World? 

 

I would rather emphasize a message to these Castro parents/caretakers who are condemning these awful dsiplays: good for you!  I have never believed that gay identified people are all unconscionable.  Indeed most of the folks I have met from that worldview, in the almost fourteen years of being "ex-gay" are well intentioned and reasonable (even when they are wrong ... smile).  Regardless, it's a great thing to see people holding their own community accountable to some sort of social good.  We can have quality discussion and disagreement all day about the benefits of children's home environment, God's creative intent and all the policy issues involved but when someone takes any kind of stand to remove licentiousness ... more power to you.

 

But could some of you talk to the folks wanting to village-peopleize the children in the same show that will feature crotch-less chaps wearing leather men and "bears"?

 

Sexual liberation is found in proper placement of sexuality in one's life ... not the cop-out easy way of anything goes hedonism.  I believe true sexual liberation is to be found in the expression that God intended (that's not a new idea to anyone reading this blog.)  I am also sexually liberated as a celibate person.  Sexuality doesn't determine my environment and I am free to steward this intimate expression, in good conscience, the way I see fit, not as political/social pressure would demand.  I am self-determined, and sexually responsible ... not socially pressured.  Back to the article ...

Last year, a lesbian mother of two, now 6 and 2, complained about a sadomasochistic tableau in a clothing shop window that featured a male mannequin chained to a toilet. "As an adult I find this disgusting," she wrote in an e-mail to city officials. "As a parent I find it unconscionable."

 

...

 

Hedric, who is gay and said he moved from Germany to the Castro for its lively gay culture, worries that family-friendly sensibilities will quash the neighborhood's spirit. "What surprise is next? Are they going to outlaw the Gay Pride Parade?" he asked. "This is the Castro, not the Vatican ."

 

Jeremy Paul, the father of Brody and Zander, doesn't expect Castro Street to be St. Peter's Square. But he was offended by syphilis-prevention ads posted around the neighborhood that featured a happy, tune-whistling cartoon penis. He was particularly incensed when a flier was left on the windshield of the family car, where his children found it.

Are you, dear blog reader, speechless too?  Remember, this is an LA Times article.  Moving on ...  

"I'm happy people can enjoy a lifestyle that's denied to them back home in Kansas , but there are appropriate standards of behavior,  regardless of your sexual orientation," said Paul, a building permit consultant.

 

Mark Welsh, the gay manager of Rock Hard, has toned down his displays — but is now drawing a line. "I have always pushed the envelope to show what I can because if there's one place on the planet to flaunt sex, it's here," he said. "There's a place for these ads. Sex is why the Castro was founded."

 

Welsh, 50, who favors leather vests and form-fitting jeans, was once married and has an 18-year-old daughter who lived with him in the

Castro for a decade. He said he never stopped her from wandering the neighborhood out of fear she might see a lurid window display — even his own. "I raised her to know that it was OK for men to kiss and hold hands in public," he said.

Mr. Welsh?  Did you forget about the part where your daughter has to look at the day-glo purple penis in the front window of your own, her father's, business?  Talk about closed minded, I would confidently guess that a vast majority of the world would think that is beond bizarre and bordering on abuse.  Mr. Welsh doesn't appear to be open to the possibility that what he is doing might be wrong on more levels than his simplistic view of what being "gay" is.

 

The gay identified and "ex-gay" people I know from Kansas wouldn't want to live in Castro's bizarre atmosphere.  Concerned parents/caretakers should just admit that Castro was built on sex.  These folks are introducing their own sense of morality to combat a highly sexualized morality.  They don't need to deny that the messages sent in Castor have always been highly sexual.  maybe they are starting to get a sense of what conservative parents have been trying to oppose for a long time now.  Ther may be different end goals but the immediate battle is hardly a new phenomenon.

He said parents calling for change are a minority — and that "nobody, whether gay or straight, is going to tell me what to wear, what to say, how to act or what to display in my own shop. Gay culture will survive."

 

In the middle is Supervisor Bevan Dufty, whose district includes the Castro. Dufty, who is gay, wants to start a neighborhood gay family resource center. But he also supports merchants who want to feature racy displays. He wants to keep the Castro "sustainably gay."

  ... and on and on the article goes.  Is this truly what the gay identified community wants to uphold as what being "gay" represents?  Iknow many who identify as gay do not.  At the same time, when I identified as gay, this type of attitude, "I am going to offend you just because I can ... and you deserve it," was the norm, not the exception.

 

The article concludes with the following ...  

For now, many men will remain annoyed each time they spot another baby stroller invading their beloved gay mecca.

 

"We're not going to neuter ourselves for anybody," said Joe Gallagher, a gay barber who often runs raunchy ads featuring muscular men in the local gay press. "We're not going to jump just because these people complain. The rest of the country isn't big enough?

They've got to try and take over the Castro as well?"

 

Zander Paul says he is comfortable with his Castro childhood. "I'm not bothered by living near gay people. It's natural," he said. "For

me, the word 'gay' has two meanings. One is you're happy. The other is you like boys."

Lord have mercy on us all. Please bless and protect these children.

 

Click here to read the full LA Times article.