Watch straight love with your child? Watch gay love too.

My Sunday viewing was the comedy show Fortune Feimster, Sweet and Salty. I first noticed her when I watched a couple LGBTQ comedy specials (Tig Notaro, Hannah Gadsby) on Netflix and she started showing up in my suggestions lists. I wasn’t sure I wanted to take a chance with her until PrideSource did a feature article on her. The article discussed this show and another one, Crushing It, and talked about how the two shows made some people feel safe to come out and give others a better sense of the difficulties LGBTQ people face. This one was released near the start of the pandemic, when many people were looking for streaming entertainment. Even straight people thought it funny. This one, an hour long, is about growing up and discovering she’s lesbian. She grew up in the South – Belmont, North Carolina – and this was filmed in Charlotte, quite close to home. She talks about joining the Girl Scouts (for the cookies), what goes into becoming a debutante, having Sunday lunch at Hooters (a little dissonance there), going to an all women’s college, and coming out to herself and family. I quite enjoyed this one. Feimster is a good storyteller, using her face expressively and keeping the pose as the audience laughs. The other show is now on my list of things to watch. I found the following discussion interesting enough to share. The ideas undergird Christian conservatism, which has a hold over national politics. However, this gets into Christian theology, which may not be of general interest. So you might want to skip this section. The post was written by wilderness voice of the Daily Kos community. Most of the ideas are from a video by Melissa, not otherwise identified in the post, though the video may identify her further. I didn’t watch the video, mostly because the portion discussed here is 19 minutes in. The post and video look at a few beliefs about Jesus and God: God is too holy to look upon sin. God requires a blood sacrifice that Jesus fulfills. To be saved we must have faith in the sacrifice that Jesus made. I’ve heard from other sources that having God require a blood sacrifice and that Jesus fulfilled it puts a barbaric practice at the core of the theology. So I’m interested in discussions that say the core of the theology is actually something else, actually love, compassion, and community. The post notes that Jesus said nothing about those few beliefs. One might think that if Jesus was the fulfillment of a sacrifice he would have said something about it. But he didn’t. Those few beliefs come from the letters of Paul. Now Paul never met Jesus in person and it took a while for Jesus’ direct disciples to accept Paul. He was a Jewish leader who had a dramatic conversion experience. He spread the teachings of Jesus around the Roman world and wrote a series of letters to the congregations he founded explaining the theology of Jesus. Or what Paul assumed the theology of Jesus to be. I see a lot of what goes on in the world according to whether a person supports and enforces a social hierarchy or whether they try to subvert the hierarchy or try to live outside it. I’ve concluded that all evil in the world comes from enforcing the hierarchy. Republicans are all about the hierarchy and making the gap between those at the highest and lowest levels as wide as possible. Back to the discussion at hand, the basic message of Jesus is to call us to subvert, abolish, or live outside the hierarchy. In contrast, there are things in Paul’s letters that support the hierarchy (and many things that don’t). So I’m wary of religious people who use Paul’s letters as proof of their point. This post notes those beliefs about sacrifice are from Paul, not Jesus. So why do conservatives apply them to Jesus? That comes from the modern belief that the Bible is inerrant, that it was all inspired by God, all of it has equal value, and the words of one voice must be reconciled with other voices. Though Jesus said very different things than Paul the two are supposed to make sense together. And that clouds the meaning of what Jesus said and did. The post lists four important pieces of the message of Jesus. One, God is love who views all of us as his children. Two, the forgiveness of God is free. It does not require payment, certainly not vengeance. All we need to do is recognize things we have done that are wrong, that get in the way of love and community. Three, to receive forgiveness we must forgive others. If we refuse to offer forgiveness to others we’re refusing to forgive ourselves. Four, love God and love your neighbor as yourself. Do this for now, not for what may come after death. Many Christians are so obsessed with the afterlife that they see no need to take care of this life, this community, this world. Conservatives, who enforce the hierarchy, like the teachings of Paul that talk about the hierarchy. They’re not so into the teachings of Jesus, who asks us to abolish the hierarchy. Now to a completely different topic. I turn to a post by Krotor of the Kos community and his Boys Love column. This is the series of posts that looks at movies and video series of two young men who fall in love. The better films are made in Asia and a defining feature is there is little to no homophobia. The lads do have obstacles to overcome, just like in straight romances. In this particular post of the series Krotor speaks to our straight allies. You too should be watching boys love shows. Especially if you have a child in the house. If your child is gay they need to see gay people falling in love. Goodness, they see plenty of stories of straight people falling in love. They need to see gay relationships on equal footing. If your child is straight they need to see gay people falling in love. They need to see gay love is equally natural to straight love. Seeing that will help them become a stronger ally. If your child hasn’t yet disclosed their orientation they especially need to see gay people falling in love. They need to know that you as their parent will continue to love them and support their relationships no matter who they bring home as a possible partner. And when you turn on the screen and cue up the streaming service don’t announce that you’re inviting the family to watch a gay love story. You wouldn’t invite them to see a straight love story, would you? And when the show starts, watch it with them. Or start watching by yourself and let their curiosity draw them in. Be wary of, even avoid, Western depictions of boy’s love. Most of them have to work through way too much homophobia. Definitely do not include Brokeback Mountain. While it was pivotal and important in its time its main message is homophobia. Krotor’s righteous rant against that movie and everything Hollywood has released depicting male-male love is here. Yeah, this column series is Boys Love and features how to find good shows about young men falling in love. However, there are shows that feature young women falling in love. Watch some of those too.