December 26, 2012

• (r)evolution

  When I was in junior high, my Asian immigrant parents were both quite conservative: they emphasized financial responsibility, they voted for Republicans, and they didn’t believe in gay rights (to be fair, back in the late 80′s and early 90′s in suburban Delaware, there wasn’t a whole lot going on with the gay rights movement). I remember having a purely theoretical (because none of us knew any gay people) but still very emotional argument with them about gay rights. My mom was mostly silent. My dad just kept restating that it was wrong, unnatural, and disgusting. My sister was away at college. I sat at the dinner table, young, inarticulate with frustration, and crying in anger, but firmly convinced that my dad was wrong. We had the conversation when my sister was home from college, too, and although she was able to speak with more maturity and experience, it still didn’t go well.

  Over the years, my parents drifted towards the center, abandoning the Republican party to vote for Bill Clinton (and every Democratic candidate since then), less based on issues such as gay rights and more based on their impression that the Republican candidates just weren’t intelligent, and that the Republican party had started getting too extreme. On the most controversial issues, they preferred to remain silent and un-involved, and although gay rights was no longer an issue that my dad would rail against, they approached it with more of a “let’s not talk about that in polite conversation” take on things. I wasn’t sure how they felt about it, and it wasn’t a conversation I sought out, since it was still a purely theoretical one. It didn’t seem worth enraging my tiger parents over the issue, since my sister and I are both straight, and sometimes, you need to pick your battles (and if you’re a stubborn kid with tiger parents, there are plenty of battles to pick).

  I found out yesterday that my parents’ old family friend, whom they have known for almost 40 years, doesn’t talk to her daughter because her daughter is gay. My parents went out to visit all their old friends from that time, but they set aside some time before the group gathering just to talk to their friend with the estranged daughter. They actively opened up what must have been a difficult and awkward conversations with their friend (and Asians hate having difficult and awkward conversations with their friends). They told her that she is making a mistake, that her daughter is still her daughter, that sexual orientation is a matter of biology and not of choice, and that they analogized blaming someone for being gay with blaming someone for being Asian or short or part of a minority group. They told their friend that there may be no such thing as “normal,” and that even if there is, that everyone is “abnormal” in some way, and that’s just how it is, and it’s OK.

  Mind blown.

  So it turns out that you can teach an old dog new tricks, and I’m so proud that my 71 year old dad has gone through this evolution (revolution?) of the mind, and that he did so not because he was forced to confront the issue (I don’t know if he actually knows anyone who is gay?), but because he has gathered more facts and information over the years that changed his mind, and he went against his own initial feelings on the subject, overrode his system of social etiquette, and risked losing an old friendship, because he wants to do the right thing.

  • 5:28 pm
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