dawn stefanowicz

[inca nitta]

Originally Posted by Emproph

So what do you think Inca Nitta?

I think that Dawn's case is very complicated, therefore very interesting and that in reality, she is fighting with her own father and the pain he brought her rather than with all gay parents. I also see clearly that she has been wounded severely, on the emotional level and definitely needs help. She deserves sympathy more than she deserves condemnation.

[Emproph]

Originally Posted by inca nitta

I think that Dawn's case is very complicated, therefore very interesting and that in reality, she is fighting with her own father and the pain he brought her rather than with all gay parents. I also see clearly that she has been wounded severely, on the emotional level and definitely needs help. She deserves sympathy more than she deserves condemnation.

I was also reading a part of the excerpt from her book that she came to forgive and love her father. Which was nice to know, in that she doesn't seem to be hateful so much as she skews anti-gay hateful. Which given her experience, is understandable.

To be continued here...

[Daniel]

Originally Posted by keltic63

I googled her, and after reading the previews of the search results I remembered the story. She was raised by gay parents and is claiming that her life is a wreck because of it. She has a book coming out (or is already out) and it uses her personal story to affirm every anti-gay speaking point the American Family Association has ever made. We are then to believe that because her life is a mess and that she had gay parents, that gay parents are bad.

the problem with that equation is that if a person has a messed up life, and has straight parents who behaved badly, then all heterosexual parents are bad parents.

I think that this is fairly easy to see, but of course, when she appears on Fox, or 700 Club, or Focus on the Family, no one will think to mention all the messed up kids of straight parents.

Very well said Steve! If one can tar with the widest brush, well, what does that say? This tells me that the Lady Dawn is attempting to make her story a universal one: ie all gay parents are bad, gay marriage should be outlawed. Forgetting, or course, those 'loving' straight parents who have thrown their kids to the curbside, as another thread on this site has mentioned (a third of kids on the streets of NYC are gay). While Miss Dawn's experience as the child of a messed-up gay man is undoubtedly real, her reality is not everyone else's reality. The problem here is her self-imposed myopia.

Originally Posted by Emproph

Any complaint of bad parenting, coming from her, that may have been the direct result of same gender attraction, in and of itself, is quickly and decidedly nullified by her anti-gay stance. She's not against bad parenting, she's against gay parenting

For what I've read, this sounds like a fair observation.

Originally Posted by keltic63

Now you've got me thinking. Why don't we have the coverage, and thus the leverage, of groups like the 700 Club and Focus on the Family.

We do actually.

I watch the Gay Cable Network here at 11 PM on thursday night. Any Humm and Ann Northrop cover cases such as this as well as a vast amount of gay news. Andy is an atheist, who grew catholic, while Ann is an agnostic. They are both activists of long standing here in NYC. It's all there if one watches weekly. Of course, this is a cable show, not on one of the big channels. One often gets a behind the scene view of things aas well. And the interviews with the movers and shakers in gay achivism are often quite moving. If you don't have this show in your area: petition for it!

Originally Posted by inca nitta

I think that Dawn's case is very complicated, therefore very interesting and that in reality, she is fighting with her own father and the pain he brought her rather than with all gay parents. I also see clearly that she has been wounded severely, on the emotional level and definitely needs help. She deserves sympathy more than she deserves condemnation.

She needs counseling as well as something more than 'forgiveness', which more than often in Christian terms (I hope I won't have bricks thrown at me for sayiing this), keep one's 'ego' structure intact. By that I mean, the offending party is seen in a way which only relates to the person who feels victimized (ego vs ego). But there is something deeper, I feel, which needs attention (and this comes from a Buddhist perspective), and this is an awareness of the suffering of the perpetrator. My sense, and experience, tells me that real healing starts to take place when the 'victim' is able to see that the person who has victimized one is a victim him/herself. This kind of view isn't easy to come to. It leads one -eventually- to 'Getting Your Parents Off the Hook'.

One of the huge first steps in growing up.

While one should recognize the real problems that result from the interaction one has (and doens't have) with a parent, at some point, for one to become a fully functioning adult, one has to take one's parents' (or whoever the authority figure is) off the hook. If this isn't done, then one simply goes through life with the refrain: 'If only such and such hadn't happened I would be happy...I would be somebody...I.. I.. I..I ..I . It can even become a reason (as Stephen Sondheim has said in a song) 'not to move'.

It' bloody hard, but I feel that this is the hurdle that has to get gotten over.

Originally Posted by Emproph

I was also reading a part of the excerpt from her book that she came to forgive and love her father. Which was nice to know, in that she doesn't seem to be hateful so much as she skews anti-gay hateful. Which given her experience, is understandable.

And if she has really gotten over the matter and can love her father...well...why all the anti-gay crap? One could say that the oven is on but the bird isn't done yet. It takes a fair amount of heat to get tender.

I mention the above perspective as I anticipate seeing my own family for the Holiday's. My Dad will be 80, and there were many years there when I blamed him for a lot of stuff- and rightly so. But at some point during my 30's, an angel must have spoken in my ear, because I woke up one morning with the realization that I was the one who had to start telling me parents that I loved them, rather than wait around and bitch and moan about the lack thereoff.

I had to get them off the hook. The thinking being: those who know better do better. So I starting telling them that I loved them.

Well....years have passed, and let's be clear, things aren't all hunky dory, we don't sit around staring into each other's eye's telling each other how much we've grown and boy wasn't that a mistake blah blah blah and I'm sorry for all the shit I caused you, but there is something of a relationship between us now by virtue of those three small words. Have we dissected the past? Put blame where blame once wanted to be made? No. I've figured out that it isn't worth it. If my parent's were in their 50's or 60's that would be a different matter. We would have some time to work through the debris of a psychic bomb being thrown into the room (my siblings, however, are entirely different matter). Now in the twilight of their lives, when they are looking forward, not backward, I feel that's it's my role is simply listen to and love the two people who brought me into the world: to give to them what I have wanted from them. And as the saying goes: what one sends out comes back to one. Perhaps not in the one wants, but that's not for me us control.

I dearly hope Miss Dawn will be able to see through her pain and suffering as well as the pain and suffering of her Dad. There's a reason why people do what they do.

This is having compassion for one's self and others. And I belief this to be the essence of the Gold Rule. It's also what the Buddha taught.