I had to fly to Chicago this weekend, never something that you'd ever do voluntarily in February, but my aunt died, the last of a great trio of big-haired, five foot Italian women, a group of women who said what they were thinking, whether you agreed with them or not. They were loud, they were full of life, they were often racist and cruel, but when the three sisters walked into a room, you knew that if you got the chance to speak, you'd better make yourself heard, and not be afraid to defend your statement. Growing up in a family of loud women need not be looked upon as an embarrassment, it could actually be viewed as having an advantage over those Waspy families who had to encourage their children to speak at the dinner table. In my family, you shouted when there was a break in the chatter, and if you weren't quick enough, you didn't get to speak. The skill comes in handy in heated debates and at loud bars.
Those big-haired women, (may the gods forgive them and love them as much as I do) could cook like you wouldn't believe, and every holiday was a carnival of amazing dishes and desserts, dancing and drinking, cursing and laughing. The next day on TV, the Brady Bunch dinners seemed to me to lack the volume of real life, when parents discussed things in reasonable voices, and children had issues that were resolved in an hour. And the food at the Brady table was as bland as the conversation. Pot Roast and Pork Chops and mashed potatoes, no garlic chicken, no minestrone, no lasagna, and the Brady kids never fought over the last Aunt Helen cookie. I can remember getting chased around the block for taking the last cookie.
But what makes Americans all come together in one neat electoral package is that no matter what religion you adhere to, none of them like gays. And if your child happens to be gay, the church tells you that you can still love the sinner while you hate the sin.But when you vote, you vote with the church, anti-gay, anti choice, no matter what. You can love your family, but you vote what God dictates.
I never realized it until now, the teaching of the Catholic Church makes it easy for both of us. My mother can still love me, even though my sin of love for my partner condemns me, I can still love my mother and my partner even though my mother sins from her hatred of homosexuality. We are allowed still to love each other, because there is no way to stop a daughter from loving her mother, or a mother from loving a child, but we are not allowed to speak of the sin. Which puts us in a place much like Mr. Brady, who was gay and died of AIDS, you can love, but you can never give a voice to the shame of sin. Meanwhile, your silence on the subject of sin prevents you from fully participating in the lives of those you still love, and from ever giving them true unconditional love.
But maybe we'll have progress of a sort when our parents recognize that for gay children to live within the teachings of the church means that their children will live a life without love of other humans, not just the physical love of another human, but a life without family, the life without that person who knows the most intimate thoughts and desires, a life without someone to argue with, a life without someone to cook for.
The most important thing that I got from my trip to Chicago came from an Italian Catholic priest saying that we will never have peace unless we begin to love each other. We cannot have peace from war, we can't have love from hate, there is no solution to the human situation from organized religion if we don't love one another first. Our problems with family are the same as our problems with our community. Our problems with other nations are the same as the problems in our family. Love brings us together, hatred divides us, and we will never live in peace until we realize that all humans sin, and we begin to forgive each other.
Without forgiveness, peace is impossible, and without peace, the future is impossible.
Without the love of our family and friends, we will never rise to the time when peace is possible. You have to learn love and tolerance as a child to ever achieve it as an adult.
