Letter to the Editor, Victoria Advocate, Ralph Nance, June 16, 2022.
Why are drag queens reading to children in schools and libraries? Why are children in Dallas being dragged to gay bars? (Not my verbiage: the sponsors of those events named them “Drag your Child to Pride.”). Nina West, an early proponent of such events, called them opportunities “… for children to get creative and think outside the boxes us silly adults have crafted for them.” Yes, “male and female” are silly boxes—that just happen to bear the miracle of life. Every other alternative must step outside of its box to “have” a child. And if straight adults are accused of making boxes for children, doesn’t the accusation fly both ways? For the umpteenth time, we see that whenever one group accuses another’s morality of being based on power, they immediately add, “But not ours!”
What is surprising is how our (yet) predominantly heterosexual culture has leapt over several sexual barriers to get to this point. Why haven’t we had strippers bounce into our elementary classroom to read of the pleasures of dance? Why haven’t parents taken their children to strip joints to pop them out of their prudish boxes? And to be fair, why not male strippers popping from cakes, dancing to “YMCA?”
Did I forget to mention pole dancers?
But of course, we haven’t done those things, and we all know the obvious reason. We once believed in preserving, for as long as possible, the fairy tale castle of INNOCENCE, that exists not because of sex, but because of magic. In that world, a benign God has poured out wonder upon wonder to the child’s delight—strawberries, cat’s fur, climbable (somewhat) trees, sun, rain, grass, playful love, love-filled play—and we glimpse that, just maybe, there’s a world where no one is ever exploited, betrayed, or used for someone’s financial, sexual, or self- aggrandizing purposes. Some call it an illusion, but even so, it is a greater reality than all that follows its loss, and the hope of what might be regained. Without that world, children, whatever sexual path they choose, lose a valuable standard for someday judging what is said, offered, or done to them. For sin has no sexual identity, and sexual exploitation hunts for us all, and in us all. Let the strippers, the pole dancers, the drag queens wait outside the gates of Innocence; it is lost all too soon.
Ralph's Letter to the Editor, Victoria Advocate
Letter to the Editor, Victoria Advocate, Ralph Nance, June 16, 2022.
Why are drag queens reading to children in schools and libraries? Why are children in Dallas being dragged to gay bars? (Not my verbiage: the sponsors of those events named them “Drag your Child to Pride.”). Nina West, an early proponent of such events, called them opportunities “… for children to get creative and think outside the boxes us silly adults have crafted for them.” Yes, “male and female” are silly boxes—that just happen to bear the miracle of life. Every other alternative must step outside of its box to “have” a child. And if straight adults are accused of making boxes for children, doesn’t the accusation fly both ways? For the umpteenth time, we see that whenever one group accuses another’s morality of being based on power, they immediately add, “But not ours!”
What is surprising is how our (yet) predominantly heterosexual culture has leapt over several sexual barriers to get to this point. Why haven’t we had strippers bounce into our elementary classroom to read of the pleasures of dance? Why haven’t parents taken their children to strip joints to pop them out of their prudish boxes? And to be fair, why not male strippers popping from cakes, dancing to “YMCA?”
Did I forget to mention pole dancers?
But of course, we haven’t done those things, and we all know the obvious reason. We once believed in preserving, for as long as possible, the fairy tale castle of INNOCENCE, that exists not because of sex, but because of magic. In that world, a benign God has poured out wonder upon wonder to the child’s delight—strawberries, cat’s fur, climbable (somewhat) trees, sun, rain, grass, playful love, love-filled play—and we glimpse that, just maybe, there’s a world where no one is ever exploited, betrayed, or used for someone’s financial, sexual, or self- aggrandizing purposes. Some call it an illusion, but even so, it is a greater reality than all that follows its loss, and the hope of what might be regained. Without that world, children, whatever sexual path they choose, lose a valuable standard for someday judging what is said, offered, or done to them. For sin has no sexual identity, and sexual exploitation hunts for us all, and in us all. Let the strippers, the pole dancers, the drag queens wait outside the gates of Innocence; it is lost all too soon.