Aidan’s world

This morn­ing, as I picked my son up from his crib, and he sleep­ily cud­dled into the crook of my neck, I had a thought. In the wake of the elec­tion, I’d been mus­ing about my respon­si­bil­ity to him, my respon­si­bil­ity to give him a decent world to live in. I found myself try­ing to find com­fort in the fact that, despite it all, the world is still spin­ning. He can still make a liv­ing, he can still be rel­a­tively safe. But this morn­ing I had a thought, one that I am ashamed to say had not occurred to me before now, not in any seri­ous way.

What if Aidan is gay? What if he grows up to find com­fort, hap­pi­ness, and love with another man? What kind of world will I have given him, in that regard? The world he woke up to this morn­ing is one where gay cou­ples _can_ find love, sup­port, even legal pro­tec­tion… just not in this coun­try. In this coun­try, today, he would find hatred, big­otry, and prej­u­dice. He would find that we have elected offi­cials who actively seek to deny him legal pro­tec­tions avail­able to every other cit­i­zen. He would find a coun­try that ignores AIDS, hop­ing that it will just go away. He would find a coun­try where our elected Pres­i­dent ascribes to a set of beliefs that say gay peo­ple are sin­ful aberrations.

I do not think I can live with that. I know I should not be able to.