Gay parents find the south more welcoming

January 19, 2011 7:47 AM

Gay parents find the south more welcoming. The south gets a bad rep. Organizations like Southerners On New Ground are doing incredible grassroots work that is changing that.
posted by anya32 (52 comments total)

I guess some folks don't consider Arkansas the South.
posted by clvrmnky at 8:05 AM on January 19, 2011 [1 favorite]

There no brush as broad as "The South". I lived 10 years in different parts of Atlanta.

In the early 1980s it was a building (now demolished) on West Peachtree Street near the WSB studios. My girlfriend and I were the only straight couple in the building. At that time, the area between 10th street Piedmont Park and where I was living was overwhelmingly white and very gay friendly one might say. I imagine it still is.

Then I moved and spent some time in SW Atlanta which is predominately black. At that time, SW Atlanta was not what one would call gay friendly. We were the only white couple in the building and never felt anything but welcome, but the homophobic rantings of some of my neighbors would have made our friends from West Peachtree Street feel extremely unwelcome. It was living there that I got my first impression that the brothers aren't exactly broad-minded on the subject. Maybe that's changed, but I would not place bets on it.

Parts of "The South" have always been welcoming to diversity. Other parts, not so much.
posted by three blind mice at 8:07 AM on January 19, 2011 [4 favorites]

Wow, talk about cognitive dissonance between the title of that NYT article and a lot of its content, as well as the situation presented in the last link. From the second page of the NYT article:

Some gay parents here say that family life can be complicated. Cynthia, the mother of a talkative 9-year-old, can be herself at her daughter’s cheerleading practice, because it is far from their home. But at her daughter’s school, she tells no one that she is gay, because her partner, Monique, teaches there.

Not to mention that every state in the South bans SSM (and most have banned domestic partnerships or civil unions as well). It's not so much that the South is "more welcoming" than "gay parents decided to stay there after they came out". I mean, good for SONG and everything, but let's not overstate the case here in the name of countering regional stereotypes.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:08 AM on January 19, 2011 [11 favorites]

Even when employers agree to cover domestic partners, those couples pay higher taxes, because without federal recognition of their status, health coverage is considered income and is taxable.

True everywhere, not just Florida. I should know -- my partner and I pay through the nose.

I feel more at ease where I am in the South than I did in many parts of the Bay Area. And yes, I know that my state does not recognize same-sex marriage or domestic partnerships and probably will not in my lifetime.
posted by blucevalo at 8:10 AM on January 19, 2011

Gay couples in Southern states like Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas are more likely to be raising children than their counterparts on the West Coast, in New York and in New England.

There's the actual finding. The data don't say gay parents like the South better; they say gay people in the South are more inclined to raise children. That's a very different conversation. Rewrite headline plz.
posted by saturday_morning at 8:11 AM on January 19, 2011 [23 favorites]

I always thought it was "bad rap".
posted by josher71 at 8:13 AM on January 19, 2011 [2 favorites]

ooh, you're right josher71. sorry about that.
posted by anya32 at 8:14 AM on January 19, 2011

It was living there that I got my first impression that the brothers aren't exactly broad-minded on the subject. Maybe that's changed, but I would not place bets on it.

Um, excuse me?
posted by nasreddin at 8:16 AM on January 19, 2011 [3 favorites]

No worries! I was thinking that I'd been wrong all these years.
posted by josher71 at 8:16 AM on January 19, 2011 [1 favorite]

Do you mind adding the "gay" tag to this post? That's the one I think people are most likely to search for these kinds of stories.
posted by hermitosis at 8:21 AM on January 19, 2011

That's a very different conversation. Rewrite headline plz.

Tell it to the NYT; that's their headline, not anya32's.
posted by blucevalo at 8:25 AM on January 19, 2011

Well of course the South is more welcoming to your face. But out on the porch, we're talking about you, oh yes we are.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:30 AM on January 19, 2011 [25 favorites]

I'm intrigued by the different metropolitan conditions of place -- urban and rural/suburban. Are straight couples living in the South also more likely to have children than other regions of the country?

And I can't imagine that Southerners are more "tied to the land" than other places in the country with a history of agriculture. They refer to the west coast, New England, and New York, but how does this compare to the midwest?

Do people just have to work things out more with each other because the communities are smaller? (alluded to in the Southern Organizing Conversation vid.)
posted by Kronur at 8:32 AM on January 19, 2011

Um, excuse me?

Maybe they meant the Miller brothers in 2C.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:32 AM on January 19, 2011 [1 favorite]

I see two main reasons why child-rearing could be more prevalent in the south than elsewhere:

1. (as mentioned earlier) folks who came out of the closet later in life, having already had children, just ended up staying in the south. the unsaid fact is that they feel more pressure to conform to established heterosexual standards, so they end up married with kids, even if it doesn't feel right.

2. there is simply more child-rearing IN GENERAL being done in the south. the birth rate is higher and the age at which women start having children is lower, yes?
posted by taumeson at 8:43 AM on January 19, 2011

Um, excuse me?

Hey, stereotyping is totally OK if you're talking about oppression of a different minority group!

Apparently people have no fucking idea what intersectionality is. Isn't it always great when the narrative can be twisted into minority group vs minority group? Let's pretend [minority group A]'s problems are all caused by [minority group B], so then we don't have to worry about the real fucking problem, which is society at large.
posted by kmz at 8:48 AM on January 19, 2011 [1 favorite]

Well of course the South is more welcoming to your face. But out on the porch, we're talking about you, oh yes we are.

Talking about you to the neighbors.

Um, excuse me?

I can only speak from my own experience nasreddin. But when I was talking with my neighbors in SW Atlanta they would say stuff that I considered pretty hard-core homophobic. My black friends there were pretty open about it saying that among "black folk" it was different (i.e., less level of tolerance for gay men.) Of course not everyone thinks the same way, but it seemed to me that there was pretty clearly a different consensus on the south side of Atlanta as compared to the north.

Brandon Blatcher is so right. Southerners to your face are often unfailingly polite, but when you're talking to someone who assumes that you are "one of them", they open up in surprising ways.

Like the sweet old lady who lived next to me for a few years in Decatur who used the n-word in my company like we were talking about a mutual friend. You know, two white people talking and all. I always assumed when she was talking to the black neighbors who lived on the other side of her house, she was referring to my Chinese wife in equally unflattering terms... but what the hell. She always smiled at us.
posted by three blind mice at 8:56 AM on January 19, 2011 [4 favorites]

Hey, stereotyping is totally OK if you're talking about oppression of a different minority group!

Eh, it's my understanding that blacks in America do tend to be more homophobic. I think there's stats on it, but can't find them at that moment. Anyone know of a good source?

Being black, I'd say it's generally true, though in-artfully phrased by three blind mice with "the brothers" comment. There's a huge amount of dislike and/or hatred of gays in the black community in general, particularly among black men. I think it stems from the church and religion, and strong patriarchal overtones within the community.

Let's pretend [minority group A]'s problems are all caused by [minority group B], so then we don't have to worry about the real fucking problem, which is society at large.

No said that, what are you talking about?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:02 AM on January 19, 2011

Brandon Blacher, I always said that being out in deep East Texas was a lot easier on me than on my 6 younger siblings. Nobody was ever anything but nice to my face, but I think my sisters heard a lot of offhand ugliness from their friends and the parents of their friends.

That said, I love being a gay family here in Houston. I'm involved with the Houston GLBT family group, and we have over 400 member families. We've never had a problem of any kind, unless you count being treated as some people's "Gays" every once in a while, getting trotted out for parties to show everyone else how liberal the hosts are, as a problem. A little consciousness raising, aka sarcasm, can go a long way in situations like that, though.

I think the key dynamic that is missing in this piece is IDENTITY. People may identify as gay but that may not be the ONLY thing on their minds. You don't get a bus ticket to SF when you get your gay card. My identity as a member of my extended local family, my identity as a Texan, my job opportunities and desires, my identity as a mom and as a wife, are as important to me as my identity as an out lesbian. I'd be a complete fish out of water in SF, NYC, or other historically GLBT enclaves. This is my home. That's why I live here.
posted by pomegranate at 9:02 AM on January 19, 2011 [8 favorites]

Gay parents find the south more welcoming.

How about gay parents just like the south more, whether it's welcoming or not? Because that's what the data actually indicates.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 9:08 AM on January 19, 2011

The NYT changed the title of their article.
posted by fugitivefromchaingang at 9:19 AM on January 19, 2011

Sorry, here's the link.
posted by fugitivefromchaingang at 9:20 AM on January 19, 2011

what are you talking about?

Apologies to tbm if I read too much into his comment, but my calm on this topic was seriously damaged by some of the comments in this thread. And it all just reminded me of the racist bullshit that was spouted after Prop 8.
posted by kmz at 9:22 AM on January 19, 2011

True everywhere IN THE US, not just Florida.

Fixed that for ya. Sure as fuck isn't true anywhere in Canada.
posted by ethnomethodologist at 9:23 AM on January 19, 2011

I love being a gay family here in Houston.

Annise Parker FTW!
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:29 AM on January 19, 2011

fugitivefromchaingang: The NYT changed the title of their article.

The title tag on the webpage still has the "welcoming" phrase.

ethnomethodologist: Fixed that for ya. Sure as fuck isn't true anywhere in Canada.

I thought that the "federal" sentence I was quoting implied the US. I didn't mean to imply that it was true in Canada. Nor did the article itself refer anywhere to Canada.
posted by blucevalo at 9:29 AM on January 19, 2011

Dear NYT editors: If you could run these articles by us first that would be great.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:33 AM on January 19, 2011 [11 favorites]

Like the sweet old lady who lived next to me for a few years in Decatur who used the n-word...

Was this your next door neighbor?
posted by TedW at 9:47 AM on January 19, 2011

Friendly note to three blind mice: "The brothers" can be a loaded term for a non-black person to use. To many of us (though by no means all), it's roughly equivalent to non-black usage of "the homies", which is just barely a step up from "the coloreds/Negros", which is just barely a step up from "the nigras."

It's especially problematic when it's used in a sentence that attributes a set of characteristics -- negative or positive -- to blacks.

Disclaimer (I have to add this because I've gotten some very nasty reactions before on MeFi when I've pointed things like this out): I am in no way, shape, or form accusing you of being even the tiniest bit racist or impugning your character in any way. Just trying to help a brother out. ;-)
posted by lord_wolf at 10:17 AM on January 19, 2011 [1 favorite]

I saw this earlier this morning, and half an hour later ran into a friend of mine at the garage where we were both dropping off our cars for service. She was getting hers ready for a cross-country move, as she is the final candidate to be the senior pastor of an MCC congregation in Florida.

Gays people: We're everywhere!
posted by rtha at 10:27 AM on January 19, 2011 [1 favorite]

I always said that being out in deep East Texas was a lot easier on me than on my 6 younger siblings. Nobody was ever anything but nice to my face, but I think my sisters heard a lot of offhand ugliness from their friends and the parents of their friends.

I missed this when I posted a minute ago. My friend who's going to Florida did a stint as pastor at the MCC in Wichita Falls, TX, a few years ago. She grew the congregation by a whole lot, they bought a new building, etc. And when she was installed as the pastor of the MCC here, several of her former Texas congregants came out for her installation. They struck me as being very brave, though I'm sure they don't think of themselves that way. As certain as you are that you'd be a fish out of water in SF/NYC, so do I think I would be where you live. You'd probably do just fine here, and I'd probably do fine there. But home is where you feel at home, you know?
posted by rtha at 10:36 AM on January 19, 2011

"The brothers" can be a loaded term for a non-black person to use.

You are all my brothers.
posted by Meatbomb at 10:54 AM on January 19, 2011

every state in the South bans SSM

Every state on the West Coast bans SSM. Yes, they all have varying levels of domestic partnership rights, but between Prop 8 and Oregon Ballot Measure 36 and the Washington Supreme Court's bizarre ruling in Andersen vs. King County, I don't think you can say the West is any more welcoming to gay marriage than the South.

I'm not GLBT, and I cannot pretend to speak to the varying levels of hate and discrimination in this country, but I know gay couples in Tulsa, the Buckle Of The Bible Belt(TM), and are happy there.

Hell, the NYT did a whole article on gay kids there in 2009, some of whom lived in Sand Springs, which was and is the redneck suburb of T-Town. And they have found a place and a community there, and they seem like they're doing OK.

Meanwhile, we probably see a gay bashing incident in Seattle every month or two.

It's never as simple as "Red State" or "Blue State" or "Hate State." It's easy shorthand, but it's just not that way, and it's never been that way. Using this stereotypic shorthand is what gets GLBT kids bullied in the first place. Stop doing it.
posted by dw at 11:16 AM on January 19, 2011 [4 favorites]

every state in the South bans SSM

Every state on the West Coast bans SSM.

Nearly every state PERIOD bans SSM. We have 6 states that perform SSM, and two more that recognize it but don't perform it. And that's it.

It's easy to paint entire regions with a large brush, but it's more useful to note that only a very small number of US citizens live under laws which permit SSM in any form.
posted by hippybear at 11:39 AM on January 19, 2011

Is there any way we can stop stereotyping based on region?
posted by randomkeystrike at 11:40 AM on January 19, 2011 [1 favorite]

Sorry, that should have been "5 states plus Washington DC".
posted by hippybear at 11:41 AM on January 19, 2011

Bless their hearts.
posted by staggering termagant at 11:42 AM on January 19, 2011 [6 favorites]

Every state on the West Coast bans SSM. Yes, they all have varying levels of domestic partnership rights, but between Prop 8 and Oregon Ballot Measure 36 and the Washington Supreme Court's bizarre ruling in Andersen vs. King County, I don't think you can say the West is any more welcoming to gay marriage than the South.

I think that's oversimplifying things. The entire West Coast has domestic partnerships that are very similar to marriage. Oregon and California have constitutional bans on same-sex marriage, but they make amending their constitutions relatively easy. And the level for support for same-sex marriage is much higher in the West.

I see the need not to stereotype by region, but I don't think it does any good to minimize the very real differences either.
posted by neal at 12:19 PM on January 19, 2011

I want to see the data on parenting overall. If, say, Southern heterosexual couples are 10x more likely to have kids than heterosexual couples from the rest of the country (clearly not the case, just giving an example for easy math), and gay Southern couples are 2x more likely to have kids, then it would be true to say gay couples in the South are more likely to have kids than gay couples elsewhere, but it would be false to conclude that the South is more welcoming to gay couples. Without any context, the data they gave us in useless.

I was more interested in the stuff about the churches. I live in Nashville and haven't noticed any churches that advertised themselves as being particularly inclusive, though I also haven't been looking.
posted by joannemerriam at 12:26 PM on January 19, 2011

Welcoming congregations in and around Nashville.
posted by rtha at 12:50 PM on January 19, 2011 [2 favorites]

Of course not all of the South is bigoted. I'm sure in the big cities people are pretty welcoming of different walks of life. But keep in mind that stereotypes don't just appear out of thin air. Not everyone in San Francisco is gay, maybe something like 15% (I remember reading that number somewhere, I could be wrong). But our stereotype of being a bunch queer granola-eating liberals didn't just appear out of the blue. I'm just sayin'...
posted by MattMangels at 2:17 PM on January 19, 2011

You are all my brothers.

Does that mean I can't go out with your sister? No? How about your mom?
posted by Halloween Jack at 3:06 PM on January 19, 2011

Of course not all of the South is bigoted.

Oh, the irony.
posted by one more dead town's last parade at 3:07 PM on January 19, 2011 [2 favorites]

I think the difference is more urban vs. rural. In most urbanized areas in the South, you're not going to get much flack for being gay. In the rural areas and smaller cities, you're much more likely to be the subject of overt bigotry. But even there, usually it will be more of a social ostracization thing than "we won't let you work here because you're gay."

Even here in Oklahoma, where most of us apparently think 'the ghey' is a communicable disease on par with Ebola, there are quite a few openly gay people and they don't get harassed, at least in the larger cities.

One of the things I really hate about the South (really, life in general) is that people who think stupid and bigoted things often don't wear it on their sleeve.
posted by wierdo at 3:16 PM on January 19, 2011

I want to eat some queer granola from San Francisco. You just can't find it here in Tokyo...
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:14 PM on January 19, 2011

My last apartment was two blocks away from St Lukes Church mentioned in the article, and on my drive to and from work I was constantly amazed at the diversity and tolerance as evidenced in the works and events that the church organized. I was never a member myself, or even a believer, but it was nice to reflect on having such a good neighbor in the community. And really when we're discussing any sort of gay friendly community in Jacksonville, what we're really discussing is the Riverside/Avondale Historic District, two neighborhoods that completely blow away the stereotype of Southern bigotry that the rest of the city seems to revel in. I still live in the neighborhood and at the bars, restaurants and cafes around me I continue to meet older adults who have come out of the closet after years of convincing themselves that they were heterosexual. Being younger-ish it's generally a bit of a shock to hear them talk about their kids and grandkids, there's a disconnect in my head between what the norm was for my generation and theirs. I would like to applaud all the good work the people at JASMYN are doing to help LGBT youth in the city.
posted by nulledge at 4:34 PM on January 19, 2011 [1 favorite]

Our Socialist government here in SF gives out queer granola the second Tuesday of every month, flapjax. I'll try to remember to go down to City Hall - or schedule a free delivery, which comes by solar-powered fixie! - and send you some.
posted by rtha at 4:41 PM on January 19, 2011

woo-hoo!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:59 PM on January 19, 2011

I think the difference is more urban vs. rural

If you're gay or lesbian in the South, raising kids is as dangerous in urban areas as in rural. Just ask Janice Langbehn and her late partner's children.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 5:14 PM on January 19, 2011

Being gay and partnered if one of you falls ill can be less than ideal in California as well.
posted by rtha at 5:23 PM on January 19, 2011

Dear PRECIUS gay families, ,My realtor ADOPTED 2CHILDREN WHILE HE WAS WORKING WITH ME. wE HAVE MOVED INTO THE THE MORNINGSIDE NEIGHBORHOOD OF THE ATL THAT DOESN'T CARE IF YOU ARE RED AND YELLOW, BLACK, AND WHITE, YOU ARE ALL PRECIOUS IN HIS SIGHT SO COME HANG, PLAY WITH MY BABIES AND I'LL MAKE YOUR PARENTS A COCKTAIL OR 5. LOVE YOU , PEARLYBOB
posted by pearlybob at 9:56 PM on January 19, 2011

Nulledge, I totally don't know what to say. I grew up in Jax, and Riverside was my stomping grounds (7:30 club, hooray!). I didn't think people in Jacksonville read metafilter. I thought they just looked at the front page of AOL and that was it. I have no problem with gay people, but apparently I am incredibly bigoted towards people from Jax. Thanks for making me rethink my stereotypes. Next time I visit Edge City I'll look around and wonder if one of the customers is you.
posted by staggering termagant at 8:01 AM on January 20, 2011