ELISA ENGLISH's Blog 英語園地

About my fictional story

I want to talk about why I picked the sensitive and controversial topics for my recent fictional story.  I have worked at my current company for almost fifteen years.    Our company is a fortune 300 company with employees of more than 5,000 people in Minneapolis alone, excluding advisors.  All these years that I worked there, half of the colleagues whom I currently work with or have worked with in the past are either gays or lesbians.  What I felt working with them is that they are pretty sensitive and sometimes more considerate of others.  I actually have become good friends with some of them.  I especially like the gay boss whom I used to work for.  He is always so gentle and considerate of his subordinates.  I was sad when he moved on to another department.  I like to choose whom I work for.  Since he left the department, I decided to leave too.  Later, I accepted a position at another department but the manager who hired me got a promotion, so I had a new boss again.  The reason that I like to choose whom I work for is to avoid working for a bad boss.  This unexpected change turned out to be the worst experience that I had.  I had the worst boss I ever had, someone who lacks empathy and integrity.  I was fortunate enough to get out of the situation in two weeks by stating that the nature of my job has changed significantly from what I originally signed up for, so I should not be bound to the time restriction of posting for another position.          

Anyway, what I want to say is that gays and lesbians are not any different from any of us.  In reality, they might even have a better personality than any of us who are straight.  It is sad to see that some still discriminate against them.  I remember I once read a blog article by a homeschooling mom who has very strong Christian family value.  She was angry at California governor for passing SB777 and stated that the public schools were demoralizing family values in banning anything in the public schools that could be interpreted as negative toward homosexuality, bisexuality and other alternative lifestyle choices and in painting a picture that alternative lifestyles are normal and acceptable.  She was afraid of such bill that introduces school children to the concept of alternative lifestyles.  She was threatened by this difference in value that will be introduced to her kids and feared that her kids with Christian value will be ridiculed and bullied because they are different.  She reached the conclusion that the American education system isn’t really better than that of Asia for its poor academic performance and the “amoral” values fed upon the kids.  For the above reasons, she decided to provide homeschooling to her kids. 

Upon reading her article, I decided to look up what California S.B. 777 is about.  What I learned from just glancing at the bill is that the purpose of California S.B. 777 seemed to be just a protection to people who hold different values.  I did not perform an in-depth analysis on CA S.B. 777 and I might not get the magnitude of the impact.  You can find more details about it at the link below http://www.hrc.org/issues/parenting/5308.htm    

 I really don’t know what to say.  It is hard for me to think that kids believing in Christianity will become minority and be bullied since Christian beliefs are so widespread in the US.  On the contrary, kids from a gay or lesbian family are truly the minority and are more likely to be bullied.  We are not living in a perfect world.  We cannot keep our kids in a bubble and shield them from anything that we deem as evil.  But is it truly evil?  I don’t think so. I think that it is a prejudice to think of homosexuality as abnormal.  I think that it is presumptuous to discriminate against one’s sexuality.  I believe that all religions start with the purpose of teaching people to do good deeds, rather than silencing other voices.  I have come across some people with such an extremely strong belief that makes them intolerable of other beliefs.  It is truly sad.  Of course, not everyone who has a strong religious belief is like that.  Hopefully, those people are just the minority.         

The other subject that I also slightly touched upon is the iron-fist approach of some of the Chinese families who place academic excellence as the utmost purpose of education.  I also find it sad that some parents would neglect the one and only childhood that their kids could have and deprive it all just from monetary standpoint.

By the way, as I said, the story is just fictional though it intended to reflect some reality in life. 

Written by Elisa English

On 2/20/11 in Minneapolis in the midst of a blizzard.