I own a butterfly kite. It’s has an ombré color fade from blue to purple in the wings, as well as a pair of 50-foot long rainbow tails. When the wind is blowing and it’s in the air it’s quite a sight to see – the wings even appear to flap in the wind.
Last November I bought an identical kite for a woman on her birthday, and I intended us to fly kites together in December. December was when I was going to visit her in her hometown of San Francisco to see an art show with her. She and I were in a long distance relationship that lasted a little less than six months, and it ended before an opportunity to fly our kites together.
I loved that woman deeply, but our relationship just didn’t last. There were lots of things that worked against our relationship lasting. Distance, of course, was one of those things.
However, there was a time in the relationship when I considered what it would be like to be married to her. I’m a good cook, and I imagined waking up a half an hour earlier than her most mornings and making her breakfast before she went to school (she was working on a master’s degree). Perhaps a couple of years from now making her breakfast before she headed off to work. As someone who’s retired for health reasons, I pretty sure I would have assumed many of the aspects of being a stereotypical homemaker.
But, of course, it wouldn’t have been been a stereotypical relationship as both of us are trans women. Should the relationship have developed, marriage equality issues would have come into play as it does for all same gender couples.
If only Superman could come and fight against the evils of marriage inequality. As a comic book superhero, he famously has been an advocate for “truth, justice, and the American way,” and fighting for justice would seem to include fighting for marriage equality.
But, Superman might not always be for justice related to the LGBT community these days.
It’s true, DC comics has introduced a number of gay superheroes (Batwoman and Earth 2’s Green Lantern being two of those characters) and has generally been moving in the direction of portraying LGBT characters as three-dimensional. Heck, DC has won multiple GLAAD media awards because of their pro-LGBT comic book story lines. However, DC has hired Orson Scott Card to be one of the writers for an online only Superman series Adventures of Superman. He’s even writing issue number one of the series.
If you read science fiction, you may recognize Card as the author of the highly regarded book Ender’s Game. But, he’s also is famously known for advocating against gay rights.
He’s written such essays as The Hypocrites of Homosexuality and Homosexual “Marriage” and Civilization. In the later essay he wrote, among many things:
“Homosexual ‘marriage’ won’t accomplish what they hope. They will still be just as far outside the reproductive cycle of life. And they will have inflicted real damage on those of us who are inside it.
They will make it harder for us to raise children with any confidence that they, in turn, will take their place in the reproductive cycle. They will use all the forces of our society to try to encourage our children that it is desirable to be like them.”
In an interview with Salon in 2000 Card stated, “Gay rights is a collective delusion that’s being attempted.”
And lest anyone think those viewpoints are years old and that he may have evolved on the issue, it should be noted that he’s currently on the board of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), the lead organization that’s fighting against marriage equality wherever state legislatures or voters are voting on allowing LGBT people to legally marry.
I’ll never marry that woman I fell in love with last year, but that doesn’t mean I won’t in the future fall in love with someone else and want to get married. Superman may not live in the real world, but I’d like to think that if he were a real being he would be on the side of justice for LGBT community members.
With Orson Scott Card writing issue one of a new Superman series, I’m less sure that Superman would, if asked, support marriage equality. And, that to me is a sad thought.
