A Child Left Behind

The headline in this morning’s paper read, “Failed at every turn, boy had little chance for life.” As I stood in the grocery store line and read the first part of the story, my heart sank at the tale of an eleven year old boy, born three months premature to a fourteen year old mother who was buried this weekend after eleven horrific years of neglect and abuse. The child didn’t stand a chance. Or did he?

Mr. President Bush, in his customary doublespeak wishes to leave no child behind. This moral crusader also wants to see to it that our family values are not destroyed by the possibility of two loving responsible adults who happen to be of the same gender sharing in the holy and legal bond of marriage.

Mr. President, the child they buried in your home state of Texas was left behind. Left behind by parents who gave him nothing more than biology. By a social worker who failed to remove the infant from a home where abuse was evident from the time he was two months old. Failed by a society who would rather allow a helpless child to starve to death before risking his morals to a home in which both loving parents were of the same anatomical makeup.

Mr. President, one of the saddest things for me about being a gay man is the slim to none chance that I will ever have the joy of fatherhood. It’s a real trick in Texas to adopt a child if you’re gay. It’s a trick to do it if you aren’t rich like the good folk whose tax dollars you are so eager to protect.

However, Mr. President, had I have been given the chance to be a father, that boy who was buried in the great state of Texas yesterday would not have known pain, would not have known hunger, would not have felt his tiny body being abused and he most certainly would not be dead.

But your morals will not allow me to raise this child. My perverted sense of family would be detrimental to the child’s mental health. He would have never been able to cope with not having a nu-cu-ler family like yours.

Oh well, Mr. President. At the tender age of eleven, the boy of whom I speak is, well, dead. In his eleven short years on this planet, he never knew love; he never knew what it was like to have a full stomach and a clean place to sleep. He never knew what it was like to be held and to be read a story. He never knew life.

I guess he’s better off now. Congratulations Mr. President. You done good. You protected another child from the clutches of some nasty homosexual like me. I hope you feel real, real good about yourself.