By: D’Anne Witkowski-
Your son just fell off the monkey bars, shattering a kneecap and busting out some teeth. Your kid is screaming in pain, blood all over his face, and you’re trying to calm them down on the ambulance ride to the hospital saying, “It’s okay, you’re going to be okay,” while trying to keep terror out of your voice. When you get to the hospital your son is whisked away on a stretcher to be seen by an ER doctor.
Sounds like a nightmare, doesn’t it? No, not the your-child-getting-seriously-injured thing. I mean, come on, accidents happen and in this fictitious scenario he’s going to be sore and on crutches for a little while and looking like a Jack-o-lantern until his front adult teeth come in, but fine. No, the nightmare is the fact that the paramedics, x-ray technicians, nurses, and doctors who cared for your son could be “known homosexuals.”
A terrifying thought.
Granted, a health care provider’s sexual orientation probably isn’t the first thing on a parent’s mind when their child is sick or injured. Thankfully, Linda Harvey of Mission America reminds us what’s important when it comes to child health and welfare.
On her Oct. 18 radio show Harvey warned parents about the dangers of gay and lesbian care takers. “How do you feel about open homosexuals tending to your child in a health care setting? Do you think these folks provide good role modeling at a time when your child is very vulnerable?” she asks, adding that her concern stems from the gay and lesbian employee group at Children’s Hospital in Columbus.
Harvey was stunned to learn that the group had done some scandalous things. According to Harvey, “they participated in last June’s gay pride parade (and) in a health expo on adolescent health this summer and that they’re concerned about same-sex partner benefits. They’re also planning to be identified with rainbow lapel pins.”
That’s right: rainbow lapel pins, which means “open homosexuals.”
“Let’s say your eleven year-old has broken her leg rather badly and needs to be in the hospital a few days, which would you prefer: a nurse who’s proud of her lesbianism, who has rainbow identifiers on her work clothing, or a nurse who does not?” Harvey asks, knowing that any sane and loving parent would rather take their chances at home with some pliers and duct tape than subject their child to a lesbianism-flaunting nurse.
Harvey continues, “If you want your children to admire people who proclaim a homosexual lifestyle, they’re involvement with your child during a hospital stay is sure to be an influence.”
That’s right, parents. One day you’re telling little Billy how dangerous and sinister homosexuals are and the next day he’s in traction and a nice lesbian is bringing him Popsicles and a gay doctor is responsible for the fact that he’ll walk again. That’s just not fair to Billy. Better that he never know kind, helpful, professional gay people exist at all.
Not that Harvey is trying to denigrate gay and lesbian health professionals. “Let me be clear that folks involved in these behaviors can be certainly competent workers,” she says, “but they are tacking onto their workplace identity one that is highly offensive to many people and can be erroneously influential to children who won’t, or shouldn’t, see the whole picture of how this behavior really manifests itself.”
Got it? If the lesbian nurse could just, say, show the child a video of herself having lesbian sex and going to hell then children would get the full perspective. But Harvey would object to that, too.
Harvey’s advice to parents? “You may want to consider writing a letter that you file with your pediatrician that should your child ever be hospitalized, you do not want your child to be treated or cared for by (gay employees) except in the case of an emergency situation,” she says.
If Harvey were really serious she’d drop the “emergency situation” exception. But then again, no decent parent could stand to watch a child suffer or let a child die in the name of shielding him or her from nefarious homosexual influence. And no decent doctor or nurse of any sexual orientation is going to let a child suffer or die just because he or she has anti-gay nuts for parents.
*D’Anne Witkowski has been gay for pay since 2003. She’s a freelance writer and poet (believe it!). When she’s not taking on the creeps of the world she reviews rock ‘n’ roll shows in Detroit with her twin sister.
