Pride Month and Random Thoughts

Last week I was talking with some friends about tattoos. I shared an artist whose work really impresses me. I mentioned that she is a good friend of my kids (son and dil). Somewhere in that conversation it came out that she is transgender. I mentioned that I sometimes wonder how my kids turned out to be so open-minded and inclusive growing up in the same environment as so many of their classmates that did not. The couple (two women that are married to each other) suggested it was from us, their parents. 

Unfortunately, I don't think that's the case. 
Truthfully, I think I have learned more about acceptance and inclusiveness from my kids than they ever learned from me. It could be that I just had way more bigoted baggage to dump than they had, but still--it was more about their questions and openness to other ways that brought me about to seeing things from a different perspective.
I don't think I was ever a gay-basher or hater of the LGBTQ+ community, but neither did I recognize the outright oppression they face. I was privileged, unaware, and comfortably neutral on a social issue that is often devastatingly cruel to many people. Wrong thinking religion was a big part of that. 

Today I am in a different place than I was a decade or so ago. I'd like to think of myself as an ally, but I'm not sure that it's my place to make that claim. Perhaps it's best if the LGBTQ+ community decides who is and who isn't an ally.
I am now seeing people as my friends--not my queer friends and my straight friends.
However, if you were to separate my friends into queer and straight groups, they would probably be fairly even. Queer friends and their allies would far outnumber my just straight friends. It's kind of weird when I think about that. This old, former Southern Baptist evangelist has come a long way. Listening to younger voices has been a big part of that, so has questioning the things that I think I know. 
Mark Twain says it's the things you know that just ain't so that get us into trouble. That seems to be true about a lot of things, and a lot of people.

I'm still not as much of an advocate for social justice as I could be (or should be). The conservative part of me tends to move more slowly. Or maybe I'm just old, lazy, and too damn comfortable sitting on my deck and enjoying my privileged and unproductive life. 

John