Responses to this message:
...making this the most interesting Tuesday of my college career thus far. Honestly, I'm impressed that my school was so open to having her speak here, considering that this is a Catholic institution and her son was gay. She even cited this as a reason that she very rarely speaks at high schools and a number of private colleges-- the administrations don't want to deal with the politics and controversy. Which is just too bad, because she had such important things to say about hate crimes and the way we treat each other-- or fail to treat each other-- as human beings.
The one thing she said that didn't sit well with me was the idea that members of a minority group can makes jokes or use references with each other that would not be considered acceptable if spoken by someone outside of the group. She said she couldn't explain why this is okay, but that it was... I don't know, I've never understood why it's okay for people to rebel when someone uses an "offensive" term and then use that same term amongst themselves. It just seems too contradictory to me.
Anyway, though, she spoke extremely eloquently and obviously knows her audience. But she's also one of the first speakers I've seen here who has the ability to field questions and actually give straightforward answers instead of dancing around the question. It was really impressive, actually.
But the one moment from tonight that I think I'm going to always remember-- a friend of mine, who is still pretty much a closeted homosexual-- came up to ask her a question. He said, "You've talked about the ways that we can start to combat hate in society, and in our churches and schools. But what do we do if the hate is in the home?"
-- I almost started crying right there --
Pseu
Responses to this message:
Post a response to this discussion thread