Near the end of his life Uncle Joe went to live with my father. He was losing bodily functions. I knew he couldn’t handle staying in my house with all the noise of six children, but I offered and I would have taken him in without malice. He really believed that at the end of his life he would finally find the love in my father’s heart. The most horrendous quote that I’ve heard to date came from that period in my life:
“You know what that crazy Son of a B**** said to me today? He asked me to sit in the bedroom and talk to him like Ma used to do. I told him ‘I’m not my f***ing mother.’ Then he asked me if I would just sit and hold his hand like you used to do. I told him: ‘I’m not my f***ing mother and I’m not my f***ing daughter. If you want company you find a way to get your ass in that wheelchair and you come into the living room and sit with everyone else. If not you can sit in here alone then.”
I was mortified. I couldn’t and wouldn’t talk to a stranger on the street in that manner. I didn’t understand how my own father, my flesh and blood, could talk to his dying brother like that. I couldn’t believe he would brag about it, as if he made a valid statement. In disbelief, all I could squeak out of my unbelieving mind was: “Dad, I really worry about your soul.”
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Uncle Joe was monitored while at my father’s house. H wasn’t allowed phone calls that weren’t listened to via extension. He wasn’t allowed to make calls. My father and his wife had to control every move. When Uncle Joe wanted something religious in his room, my dear sweet step mother commented: “We don’t keep any of that s*** in our house.”
Everything my uncle owned was supposed to go to my father’s children, his blood children, and my father’s grandchildren, his blood grandchildren, but when cousins brought my father the list of wishes, Dad crumpled them up and said: “Too bad. It’s mine.”
I can’t help but wonder how different my uncle’s life would have been if he had been given freedom as a homosexual American. I can’t help but wonder if he would have had deeper family relationships if he was simply respected as a person. Family values? Where are the family values in the heterosexual acts of my father? What are family values when they are based on condemnation and prejudice? What is value when one can’t simply be who they are, because of the judgment and fear of those who can’t understand? Family value, in truth, would be acceptance. A family can’t have value unless every player in the game has their own personal value, above and beyond the choices of everyone else. If every member of a family doesn’t possess value and isn’t respected, the family value falls short. Family value built on lies and hidden hearts is solely built on pretense.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Baronius
That's a hellish story. But I note, once again, your comfort with comparing your opponents to Nazis.
2 - Pam Messingham
It is the extreme of either side. The radical extreme right is fascism...the radical extreme left is socialism. It is not MY comfort, it is the insight to what is happening in America. Cut all social programs while we pad all the subsidies to the rich and to corporate. It is not about Nazi's...it is more about Capitalism...which is far more about fascism. It isn't just a prejudice, the proof is in the pudding. The particular artical I read accused the president of following the Communist Manifesto...Carl Marx. The burn the gay theory is not bred in the minds of communism, but moreso in the minds of absolute control and domination. Who would believe ones place on this earth is superior to another? It isn't about God. It isn't about Communism, either. Take it for what it's worth. ~Pam
3 - Dr Dreadful
People hate because it's easy: you don't have to think about it. Biologically this is a survival mechanism: it's a lot simpler to kill members of the marauding band from the other side of the hill if you don't think of them as human like yourself.
Some people find this natural urge hard to suppress. As xenophobia, racism, sexism, religious sectarianism etc become "politically incorrect" or unfashionable, they direct their energy at groups they are still "allowed" to hate.
Most of the time people modify their views when confronted with the object of their hate/fear on a human footing. My sister-in-law, for example, used to be homophobic but opened her mind when she worked with and befriended an openly gay man. (Since she works in the fashion industry, chances are she would have had to revise her views eventually anyway!)
It's sad that this didn't apply with your Dad, Pam. Maybe this was because your uncle was closeted, so his brother didn't have to "officially" face up to him being gay.
Then again, some people are just arseholes.
4 - Igor
Wonderful article, Pam!
Acceptance and tolerance are the real family values.
5 - Pam Messingham
Dr. Dred...my father knew. He found love letters in my uncle's desk drawer and used them to manipulate his little brother by threats to take them to the school board. In the fifties that would have destroyed him. My father used to tell us that my uncle would try to make my little brother "one of them" I used to laugh and say: "Dad, he's homosexual, not a pedophile." My dad didn't see it that way. I think my dad just fits into the latter. I loved my father, don't misunderstand, but he was a lot different than I am. Needless to say, my non conformity kept me disowned a majority of my life.
Igor. Thank you. I agree.
6 - Igor
@1-Baronius feels the sting of accurate characterisation. If you don't want to be called a nazi don't talk like one.
7 - Baronius
Pam - Even passing familiarity with the history of national socialism and international socialism would lead you to realize how wrong you are. Fascism was never about reducing the size of government, and it was never about capitalism. Fascism is about big government.
The label "right" can be applied to a half-dozen completely contradictory things, and to claim that they can morph into one another is simply an error. A Thatcherite Brit would have nothing in common with an Italian fascist or a Spanish monarchist.
Totalitarians love to round up gays, be it in Communist Cuba, Nazi Germany, or Islamist Iran.
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Igor - Tell me what I've said that's like a Nazi or take it back (or live with the fact that you're a liar).
8 - Pam Messingham
Mussolini said: Fascism should be called capitalism because it is a merger between government and corporations....Fascist...I will not back down from that. Period. It's not something I think...it is the truth...it is where the extremes lead on both sides...
9 - Baronius
I hate conversations about the definitions of "conservative" and "liberal". But clearly you can't simultaneously use a right/left paradigm and claim that both sides meet at their extremes. You need to define some axes. Otherwise you're just defining yourself as good and others as bad.
There's no agreed-upon definition of fascism. I think that nationalistic totalitarianism is as good a definition as any. Whatever objections you may have with the American right, you can't call it economically totalitarian. As for Mussolini, in practice he was no supporter of capitalism.
10 - Pam Messingham
I didn't say that either side worked only in their extreme state. I said that is the extreme of both sides. Saying they don't meet their extremes? Well, that's debatable on some issues. I think that corporatism is getting very out of hand and scary right now. I don't think health care makes us socialist or communist...I think that is just the banter of the right....
I do think we are heading into a very bad governmental state...I think absolute control is in our back yard.
11 - Igor
@7-Baronius: George Bush and Ronald Reagan increased government size and debt more than anyone else in the past 30 years.
"Fascism was never about reducing the size of government, ... Fascism is about big government."
12 - Pam Messingham
Igor...and corporatism.
13 - Glenn Contrarian
Baronius -
Totalitarians love to round up gays, be it in Communist Cuba, Nazi Germany, or Islamist Iran.
Or in right-wing North Carolina.
14 - Pam Messingham
Glenn, look at all the preachers that are coming out and saying the "Homosexual American's" (my new term) should be put to death. I don't get why "they" don't get it?
15 - Igor
Hate. Born of fear.
16 - Baronius
Igor, your comment #6 was vile. Your comment #11 demonstrates that #6 was also pointless. BC comment policy specifically says that pointlessly vile comments are not allowed. I don't expect it to get pulled though, and I wouldn't want it to be, because it reveals a lot about you. Shame on you.
17 - Pam Messingham
Baronius it makes sense to me. He is saying what Glenn is saying in 13...that's all...just without the words...sometimes people can't look at things so literal...they need to come out of the box and look at things with an open mind.
18 - Dr Dreadful
@ #13:
"Forgive them, Father, for they are a bunch of slobbering Neanderthals who not only know not what they do but are actually proud of this."
19 - baritone
Pam, your tale is one into which you obviously put a lot of thought, emotion and effort. That it revolved around close family members at odds makes it more poignant. The Right has co-opted the phrase "family values" as if it is solely their property. Yet, as you illustrate, what is all too often truly valued is not the family per se, but conformity. Social conservatives live life walking down a very narrow path. Anything that veers off of that path is looked upon as loathsome and sinful. They are, in my mind, very sorry human beings.
Baronius is very sensitive about the use of certain words and phrases. Are conservatives fascists? Well, as Baronius observes, the definition of fascists and fascism is not altogether clear. To me, it's in the eye of the beholder.
While the usurping of power in this country and even much of the world by large corporations is disturbing and very dangerous, what is happening now mainly in Republican politics is also disturbing and dangerous. To me, therein lay the fascism.
The Republican party has been largely taken over by religious fundamentalists. The Bushies invited them into the fold back in 2000 and again in 2004 to help get W over the top and into the WH. Afterwards, the fundies were largely ignored by the neo cons and moderates in the party. Even the more libertarian factions within the GOP gave little credence to the godsters as having any kind of meaningful power base.
Well, hallelujah! They have arrived. The tea baggers who were swept into office at all levels of government back in 2010 pulled a fairly clever bait and switch - campaigning mainly on jobs and the economy, but then once in office left most of that behind to fulfill their main agenda - the so called "social" issues of abortion, contraception, gays in the military, same sex marriage and the defense of marriage act. Concomitantly, they have worked hard to destroy unions - both public and private - and to disenfranchize as many likely Democratic voters as possible. Pretty much under our very noses, Michigan has become our first truly fascist state. Democracy is well on its way out in the Great Lakes State.
Meanwhile, we see more and more of the tea bagger/fundies standing before their state legislatures and/or their congregations spewing hatred and stupidity against the President, against Democrats, against gays and other monorities, and against women. Should Romney win in November, it is also likely that the Republican stranglehold on government from the local to federal level will increase. They will systematically destroy virtually every achievement of the Obama presidency along with most if not all social progress made over the past 60+ years.
As I noted, these people walk down a very narrow path. They are paranoid. They hate and fear everything outside that path. I'd say that your father, Pam would be found in this group. This may amount to their last stand, but in the interim, they may enjoy a great deal of success which will hurt a lot of people. Unless and until progressives look up and realize what is happening, the narrow minded hate mongers will enjoy victory after victory that may take decades, even a century or more to undo.
Baritone
20 - Glenn Contrarian
Baritone -
And your diatribe is one reason why I'm so glad for my American passport and the opportunity it gives me to go elsewhere on a moment's notice. America just might become the world of "The Handmaid's Tale", and if I see us going that way, I and my family are out of here. I believe we should stand up for America, that we should defend her and be proud of being America...but if America becomes something other than the land of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, then America's not America anymore, and I feel not the least bit guilty for voting with my feet if that's what I need to do to protect my family.
21 - Pam Messingham
Baritone, I live in Michigan. I am the first to call the Ogre of a Governor a Dictator. I do it all the time in my blog that is linked to two of the local news papers. Michigan is their proving ground. The place that shows the total ignorance...like in Allen Park...long story...but they actually want a financial manager. I don't get it. I totally agree with what you said about my father...and he went from a union worker, Ford Motor Company ... to a tea bagger...Tea Baggers are way too messed up to even begin to talk about their story. I was seriously wondering where I could move, like Glenn, because I don't want to watch the fall of America, either. Thanks.
22 - Baronius
What's supposed to be fascist about him? The plan to take over local governments is aggressive, but there's nothing fascist about it. There's got to be a difference between "you're a fascist" and "I don't agree with you".
23 - Pam Messingham
What is fascist about Rick Snyder? How about taking money from education and elderly and giving it to big business? How about his form of emergency financial managers. Totally hurting everything people have stood for in this country since the constitution was written. The guy is horrendous. Yes, a fascist.
24 - Baronius
He didn't take money from education and elderly and give it to big business. And if he did, that's not fascist. He didn't hurt everything people have stood for in this country since the Constitution was written. And if he did, that's not fascist.
25 - Baronius
Let me flesh that out a little, if I can. I'm guessing that your first comment was referring to budget cuts. If so, then what Snyder did was take less money from big business and give less to education and the elderly. He did reduce the spending on education last year, and is increasing it this year. What part of that is fascist? The increase, or the decrease? By what definition of fascism?
States have had to take over bankrupt local governments throughout our history. Was New York fascist when it took over Nassau County recently? By what definition?