Catching up with the papers...

Please Look After This Bear

Pico Iyer

JAN. 9, 2015

                       

             

Credit Peggy Fortnum 

                   

When Paddington Bear landed in London in 1958, it was still quite a provincial place. Safe, settled, a little gray — no sign of the Beatles or the swinging ’60s yet — it upheld the ceremonial proprieties immortalized in “Brief Encounter” and “84, Charing Cross Road.” Men wore ties to dinner, women skirts; the post-nuclear nightmares and beatnik explosions of America were barely visible on occasional television screens. Yes, the likes of the Trinidad-born novelist Samuel Selvon were beginning to give voice to other realities in works like “The Lonely Londoners,” but if a British family’s name was Brown, you could be fairly sure its skin was not.

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Speaking of beloved children's books, I will always be very grateful that my parents, especially my mom, read to me as a child and that I got my love of fiction from them. I also have fond memories of elementary school teachers reading out loud during class:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/08/us/study-finds-reading-to-children-of-all-ages-grooms-them-to-read-more-on-their-own.html



This essay from last Sunday's New York Times sums it up so well when it comes to religious objection to gay marriage. One passage that really stands out is this one:

Their owners are routinely interacting with customers who behave in ways they deem sinful. They don’t get to single out one group of supposed sinners. If they’re allowed to, who’s to say they’ll stop at that group?

It has long gotten to me that very conservative Christians say they object to all sins and that they are not being bigoted when it comes to gay people. If this is so, then why are we their only scapegoats?

If, for instance, their religious sensibilities are offended by serving gay people, where are their objections to serving straight people living together, but not married? They supposedly believe it is a sin to have any relations outside of traditional marriage, yet they are not denouncing those between unmarried men and women. When was the last time a minister spoke ill of straight people "living in sin"? The 1960s, maybe?

I am so tired of feeling frustrated and getting preachy over something that will probably always be a huge wedge issue in our world. I certainly don't think homophobia will ever disappear in my lifetime. And while it doesn't personally affect me, unless we reach a point where religious fanatics start going after single and celibate gays and lesbians as well, it deeply hurts. 

The thing is it should bother all people when someone's right to love and spent the rest of her life with her partner is infringed upon. No one should ever have the right to keep two people in love apart. And the idea of putting that right up to voters (most of whom are straight and would certainly be devastated if their right to love were treated that way) is both mind-blowing and heartbreaking.

The rest of the op-ed piece can be read here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/11/opinion/sunday/frank-bruni-religious-liberty-bigotry-and-gays.html?_r=0