Author: Zach Wahls
Publisher: Penguin Random House
Rating: WORTHY!
After sadly having to review The Invisible Orientation negatively today, I'm relieved to be able to review this one positively. Posting so many reviews of gender-queer books and novels, some people might ask: does he have an agenda? And the short, simple answer is yes, I do! I have an agenda of siding with those who are abused by right-wing religions.
Zach Wahls grew up with his biological sister Zebby, both children of Terry, who was married to Jackie. Terry was a strong and independent woman who fought against almost impossibly long odds to get pregnant as a single lesbian. She grew up on a farm in Iowa, so maybe that farm is where her dedication was born, or maybe it was just in her genes. As a nine-year old, she protested her father's plan to name the farm "John Wahls & Sons", given that Terry worked on the farm too, and just as hard as any son. He wouldn't change the "& Sons" to "& Family". He also told her she was "out of [her] god-damned mind" to want to have a child, but if she had not, Zach would never have been born, and I never would have had the chance to read this book.
The pathetic thing about all this isn't what was happening with Terry's child, but the antique attitudes of jerks like the doctor at the fertility clinic and the editor or the local newspaper who actually used the term "illegitimate child" to refuse on the one hand to in vitro fertilize her, and on the other, to announce the birth in the newspaper. It's for people like these: pathetic, bigoted, and clueless people, that swearing was actually invented, because they simply cannot be described in polite language. Did you know that?! The really sad thing is that these events were not in the 1950's where they would have been just as reprehensible, but at least in some ways understandable. No, this happened in the 1990's, just two decades back. How far we've come since then.
I love some of the things this author says and the juxtapositions he offers us in his relating the history underlying this:
On December 21, 1996, Terry Lynn Wahls took the hand of Jacqueline Kay Reger and made public, openly and honestly, the highest commitment two loving people can make. ...[walked] down the aisle at our church to the theme song of Star Trek: VoyagerWhat's not to love?!
President Bill Clinton signed into law the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). DOMA, a bill - sponsored by then-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich who was carrying on an extramarital affair and signed by President Clinton who was later impeached for lying about an affair of his own - explicitly defined marriage, in the federal government's eyes, as between one man and one woman, ostensibly to protect the sanctity of the institutionWhat's not to despise?!
There was some inconsistent writing in this book. For a book which is trying to fight against stereotyping and bigotry, I found it odd at best and hypocritical at worst when I would read a sentence like this: "Maybe part of that had to do with the Midwestern habit of not asking too many questions about things that don't concern you". I've lived in the Mid-west and not found that to be true - or at least not any more or less true there than it is anywhere else. It struck me as really weird to stereotype a group - in this case mid-westerners - in a book which was making a case for gay marriage! Not all Mid-westerners are the same, and this wasn't the first time I had read a phrase like this in the book.
It was equally odd to read this: "Another advantage of lesbian moms: I knew girls didn't have cooties". I'm not concerned with the trivial fact of his discovering girls don't have cooties, but that he's suggesting he could only learn this from growing up the child of a same sex couple. Heterosexual marriages can't teach this? This comment just seemed odd and out of place to me.
On this same theme, one phrase I didn't need to hear more than once was "we worked through the hard times so we could enjoy the good ones," yet we get that almost, but not quite, like a mantra. That and one or two other items were a bit annoying, but overall, I liked reading this, and I recommend it.
What I didn't like reading was of the roadblocks which were put into path of this family because of a few clueless and very vocal "moralists" who through ignorance and blinkered obstinacy tripped up everything they tried to do as a family. This was starkly highlighted in Zach's description of what happened when Zebby broke her arm. Terry was indisposed at the time and Jackie, a nurse by profession, knew that Zebby needed hospital treatment. Even though she was married to Terry and knew these two kids better than anyone other than Terry, the hospital could do nothing without Terry's permission, and Jackie had to endure this, knowing that this girl, who was for all practical purposes her daughter, was in pain, yet not being able to help her because of what religious nut-jobs and antiquated government polices said.
What bothered me in learning this was why we didn't learn of co-adoption, guardianship or right of attorney. I know nothing about this so maybe it wasn't an option. Maybe it's not even possible, but as feisty as Terry was, I can't believe she didn't look into any of this - into a means by which Jackie would have some rights with the children without Terry having to give up hers.
Having no rights, Jackie had no power, and if Terry had died, Jackie would not only have lost her, but the children, too, because she had no legal claim on her own family, over the very children she and Terry had lived with and raised together. Maybe there were no options, but if so, it would have been nice to have read that Terry tried this that and the other thing, and nothing worked or was possible. I felt that this was a serious omission.
This same abuse was inflicted upon this family by the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics (a place I have worked I'm now sorry to say!), because the ER doctor wouldn't listen to Jackie - not a family member as far as he was concerned - when she and terry were there for treatment of a painful condition brought on by Terry's multiple sclerosis. Thereby Terry's suffering was prolonged. Again it would have been nice to have read here as to why a power of attorney had not been put in place - did they not think of it or would it not have worked? We don't know, and I think this is a big hole in this story.
Another thing which intrigued me was when Zach tells of the time he was driving in a van with a bunch of other adolescents and this girl who was sitting next to him struck up a conversation about how homosexuals feel as they enter the phase of life where they start noticing their biologically-assigned gender of interest, just as we heteros do. Zach had apparently never talked to nor been talked to about this topic by his parents, which I found strange in a family where this played a significant part, and in which there was a commendable openness about maturity and values and so on. It struck me as a strange gap in the story.
I have to take issue with Zach on his assertion that the United States is not a theocracy. No, we don't have a Pope or an Imam or a Rabbi running the country, but you pretty much can't get elected, and sure as hell couldn't become president if you don't hold - or at least don't profess - strong religious beliefs. Can you imagine an out atheist ever becoming president? The Democrats might run one, but the Republicans would pillory him or her and the election would be lost to such a candidate. It's never going to happen. So while the US isn't a theocracy like some Middle East and Asian nations, it is without question one of the most dedicatedly fundamentalist nations on the planet, more so than places like Iran and Pakistan.
On this same topic, I also have to remind him that while he is right in asserting that the urge to show kindness is "...a sentiment found in religious texts of all kinds...", many of those same religious texts contain passages demanding that you shall not suffer a witch to live, and you will stone to death female adulterers, and so on. Religion is a mess. It's a double-edged sword, and the only benign religion is to have none. It's antiquated and unnecessary.
This is really Zach's 'life story' more than it is about his two moms, so the title is a bit misleading, but in the end it is about Zach, because the assault on the family, of which the right-wing constantly bleats, isn't coming from gay marriage, but from clueless, heartless, and all-too-often psychotic religious zealots who are trying to dictate to the rest of us - based on nothing more than the ignorant scribblings of old primitive men - how we should live our lives.
Yes, it's a fact there was no god who wrote the Bible. Rest assured it was written by men who had no clue about our modern world - and little clue about anything else, yet these myopic right-wing zealots are now trying to hold that over our heads and dictate to the rest of us that an antique, blinkered Middle-Eastern view of the world is what should rule our lives.
If these hypocrites were living that life themselves, then I would be far less outraged about their arrogance (although still outraged!), but the plain fact is that they are not. Not a single one of these people actually follows the Bible teachings. They pick and choose which Biblical dictates they're willing to adopt and which to reject, and they live by the one and conveniently ignore or forget all the others. Then they turn around and lie that they are holier than the rest of us horrible sinners. They're hypocrites every last one of them and they should not even be given the time of day let alone taken seriously, period.
They sure as hell shouldn't be allowed to dictate to people who should be allowed to fall in love and marry and who should not. I recommend this book as a very worthy and moving read.
