riEarlier this summer, a mother of six wrote a letter to the editor of the the Billings Gazette about a Ren fair she said was spoiled by a gay wedding. The Gazette published her letter.

I’m going to hazard a guess that this same woman is the sort that poo-poos the idea of trigger warnings in college classes and refers to liberals as “snowflakes.”

What exactly is a “family” event? Conservatives’ have a seeming stranglehold on the term “family.” They’re the ones who supported tearing families apart at the border. They’re the ones who support cutting welfare benefits for families. And yet somehow, they’ve seized hold of the label “family” and act like they own it.

I’m reminded of the 1980 White House Conference on the Family. At a series of three conferences held around the country, sponsored by the Carter administration, a wide variety of stakeholders met and set out an agenda for government policy vis a vis the family. But there was a sticking point over definitions.

Just what was a family?

Conservatives rallied and organized and sought to stack each of the meetings, which they viewed as a battlefield in the wider culture war that was developing. They had a very specific definition of family in mind. As the Christian Science Monitor reported at the time:

The pro-family groups want government approval for their definition of a family as persons related by blood, marriage, or adoption. The more moderate groups recognize a broader definition of families as anybody in a loving and caring relationship, sometimes including unmarried and homosexual couples.

For many conservatives today, an event that is “family friendly” means one that not only has no nudity or language, but also has no same-sex acts or portrayals. In the eyes of these individuals, affirming incorporation of same-sex transgender individuals make an event de facto not “family friendly.”

Portraying of LGBTQ affirmation as inherently not “family friendly” has dangerous consequences, not only because of the message it sends to LGBTQ children and teens but also because of the message it sends to LGBTQ individuals and families. This is wrong, and should not be catered to in any way shape or form.

If you go out in public, you will see other people. That is how going out in public works. Beyond basic decency standards that apply to gay and straight individuals alike, you cannot restrict the actions of other. You cannot require events that would not otherwise come with parental warnings to to offer a parental warning if they they involve same-sex individuals, couples, or portrayals.

Seeing gay or lesbian individuals be intimate in public—in the same ways straight couples are—is simply part living in a world full of people. We have basic decency laws that bar things like public nudity. Selectively applying rules like these—or parental warnings—to actions that would be considered appropriate if the couple were opposite-sex is wrong, inappropriate, and discriminatory.

If this mother did not want her children to see a “full, deep-throated kiss”—the genders involved should be irrelevant—she shouldn’t have taken them to a “royal wedding” event at a Ren fair, period and full stop.

People are allowed to exist in public without a parental warning.

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