photo from the New York Times My personal experience of Jacksonville, FL, is not rainbow flags and pink triangles. On the contrary, I know it as that place where I was stuck for three days covering a trial on the state's use of the electric chair. It is that city with the airport that has Southwest Airlines service to New England. It is the area that sent some of the meanest conservatives to the Florida legislature. And the population there overwhelmingly voted to ban same-sex marriage in 2008.
And now I read in the New York Times, it is one of the cities with the highest percentage of same-sex couples raising children.
Are you kidding me? Jacksonville?!?!?! My friends and I started joking that we needed to send dispatches to these queer families: You don't have to live there!! Come to Tallahassee!! Check out Gainesville!!
The Times article notes that the South is the region, according to U.S. Census Bureau statistics, where there are the most families being headed by same-gender couples. And it notes that a number of them are black or Latino. At long last, the media are starting to pick up on something that we LGBT people already knew: gay does NOT equal "white male with money".
I think it is an amazingly complex idea that so many couples have settled in arguably one of the most conservative parts of the state, and are creating their own queer spaces especially in the church. It poses a challenge for the community around them; do we integrate this population into our spaces? Are we comfortable leaving them to fend for themselves? I'm thinking specifically of the Episcopal Church, which has its Florida Diocesan headquarters in Jacksonville. During the last General Convention, Bishop Howard of Florida wasted no time in sending a letter back to the diocese to firmly assert that "Florida Episcopalians" knew what was what with all this LGBT stuff, and there would be no change in our diocese on the question of ordaining LGBT people to the episcopate (or the clergy, for that matter). The letter made me sad, especially as I noted how many times the word "fear" was stated over and over.
So here is the diocesan office... in a city with an apparently large number of LGBT people with children. Many of those LGBT people would like to find a spiritual home in which to raise their children. How afraid can one be of a child and parents wanting that child sealed and marked as Christ's own forever? If there's no fear there, then why would there be fear of a gay person who bears that sign of the cross on their being living into whatever is their calling, their vocation?
At the same time that this news was breaking, our new Governor who bears an uncanny resemblance to Voldemort, was appointing a new secretary for the Department of Children and Families, David Wilkins. Wilkins prior employment includes working for the Baptist Children's Home, which requires couples seeking to adopt children to be "professing Christians, be active in a local Christian church, and follow a lifestyle that is consistent with the Christian faith." Governor Voldemort refused to directly answer any questions about whether he would seek to reverse a decision made by Governor Charlie Crist to let the ban on gay people adopting children fall by the wayside of a bygone era. He would only say that he thinks married straight people make the best adoptive parents.
Lost in all of this, again, are the children in foster care who are looking for a permanent home. These are the kids that have suffered the most from Florida's ban. Gay people could foster kids, but weren't allowed to finalize a family bond with them.
In Jacksonville, all those same-gender couples are having to shell out big bucks to provide health insurance coverage to their children. Why? Because gay people can't get married, and are treated as roommates under the law. Hence, there is no "family" coverage. Who suffers? The children.
In time, I hope, there will be a change to this state of affairs. I mean, if Jacksonville can be a mecca of gay parents.....
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