Advocate

Okay, my grievances with my dad are well documented. His refusal to accept the boundaries of school/work nights, his passive-aggressive nature, blah blah blah.

He showed up at my house one day last week (it was a Thursday) at 8:15…pm. Yes.

When I opened the door with a look that had to say, “What the ever loving hell?” he greeted me with, “It’s not 8:30 yet.”

Where did that come from? I never set the boundary that if he was going to come over on a school night, it had to be before 8:30. The actual boundary I set was, “Don’t come over on a school night!” We have too much to do. I’m too tired. I do not want to entertain anyone on a school night, not at 5pm, not at 7 and sure as hell not at 8:15.

What I actually said to him, quite evenly, was, “It’s 8:15.”

He walked himself right into the living room and said, “Well, I won’t stay long.”

Ugh.

He was there because he wanted to tell me he’d finally gotten a replacement hearing aide.

Yay?

He said some other things I didn’t care about…(yes, I’m a bitch. Yes, someday I’ll feel terrible for having said all this stuff because he’ll be gone…)

As he was leaving, right at 8:30 (which, again, what is this new rule I never set about 8:30? I mean, I’m glad he left before 9:00 but still.) he mentioned that the Mormon church has recently lifted the ban on baptizing the children of homosexual couples.

Okay.

Then he said…wait for it…

“I don’t even know how homosexual couples have children.”

I deadpanned, “Science? Adoption? Donation?”

He could tell he was on thin ice with me at that point. He backpedaled a little, “Well, yes, of course.”

But he just couldn’t let it go, could he? Of course he couldn’t.

He had to say, “Well, I just can’t think of those children as natural.”

What the hell?

Seriously?

OMG!

Now, let me say, he doesn’t know that Alyssa has a girlfriend.

It’s none of his business.

And honestly, it is not Alyssa’s and/or Naomi’s job to educate the older generation on life and love and for fuck’s sake, why can’t people get that love is love is love?

And any child born, no matter how they are conceived, to whom they are born or how they are born, is natural. What the actual hell?

I didn’t reply because what could I say? He’s an ignorant old man. I get that.

But I kind of wanted to slap him.

I want to remind every person out there that they need to be careful what they say, because someone they love is probably part of the LGBTQ community. They may not be out to you because they don’t feel safe being out to you. But they are there, taking in all your ignorant, asshole comments and it’s hurtful, not to just them but to those of us who love them with everything that we are.

Stop being ignorant assholes. Educate yourselves and learn that love is love is love.