Out of fairness to our readers and for those that may feel the same as this read does, I wanted to share this with you.
From: (name omitted)
To: Ara Manoogian
Subject: your homophobia
Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2003 07:38:31 -0700 (PDT)
Ara --
I just read a few of your logs on gay adoption -- and I am outraged. Your prejudice is not helping us shape our new country. You are perpetuating traditionalism and spreading your unreasonable fears [expressed by others, a slick way to hide your own opinion, thus to avoid being accused later].
Learn to be more open-minded and accepting of others. Gay/lesbian parents can be more caring and practical than a hetero couple -- and your horrendous remarks, that you quote from others, but I see as your own -- are untrue and biased.
I am glad your logs won't appear on the main site of Armenian life any more.
(name omitted)
from Yerevan
I replied:
Hi (name omitted),
I don’t know how you could even conclude that I’m homophobic and what I reported were my own feelings using non-existent persons as my source?
Maybe I should put you in touch with my best and most trusted general manager Janice, who was an Afro-American, openly gay woman and she worked for me until she had to take an early retirement to go care for her elderly mother in Denver, Colorado. If Jan’s mother didn’t get sick, I would have let her work for me as long as she wanted to, as I had great respect for her because she was honest and forthright.
If these women are anything like Janice and her partner Johnnie, I have no doubt that they are loving and caring to the child they adopted. If I had children, without fear or hesitation, I would leave them in Janice’s care. In fact in the 1970’s, we had a homosexual couple living next door to us and everyone knew they were gay, but that didn’t stop any of us kids from visiting them at their house. They were nice, warm and they use to make us Tang (an orange drink mix) and feed us if we were hungry. I have many gay friends and none of them have ever “hit” on me, as they know I’m straight and we are only interested in being friend.
The issue we are dealing with in this adoption is not the fact that they are a direct physiological or physical danger to the child, it’s they adopted the child from a country where being gay at the time of their adoption was illegal and until today is culturally not acceptable for the majority of the people. On top of this, they clearly concealed this fact of their true intentions, knowing that if they had applied to the Armenian government as a couple (even today), they would have been turned down. If you just go on this one argument, then the adoption was clearly a moral, ethical and legal violation in any country of the world. The other arguments, as legitimate as they are, could be viewed as secondary if need be, though I think they are very important too.
I don’t know where your from, but if your not from Armenia, then the culture you brought with you can not be applied in deciding if this was right or not. You have to understand today’s Armenian culture and use that as a way to measure things. It would be like you going to Afghanistan and insisting that women do not cover themselves when in public. Irregardless of if you thinking this is wrong, it’s their culture and law. This means if you live in Afghanistan you have to respect the culture and law. Same goes for Armenia.
Since you are living in Yerevan and just to prove my point of how the natives feel, may I suggest that you share the story I posted with the natives that live around you and see what they think? When you do this, please write back to report your findings that I will share with the rest of our readers. If this is a problem for you because of a language difference, I would be happy let you go along with my worker to conduct a survey of 100 random people to see what they think of this situation, so when we petition the government for a review of all international adoption cases, they wont be able to accuse me of perpetuating traditionalism and spreading my unreasonable fears.
In the future, please read everything before writing me and certainly don’t read between the line, as what I write, I try to write as straightforward as possible.
Ara.
From: (name omitted)
To: Ara Manoogian
Subject: your homophobia
Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2003 07:38:31 -0700 (PDT)
Ara --
I just read a few of your logs on gay adoption -- and I am outraged. Your prejudice is not helping us shape our new country. You are perpetuating traditionalism and spreading your unreasonable fears [expressed by others, a slick way to hide your own opinion, thus to avoid being accused later].
Learn to be more open-minded and accepting of others. Gay/lesbian parents can be more caring and practical than a hetero couple -- and your horrendous remarks, that you quote from others, but I see as your own -- are untrue and biased.
I am glad your logs won't appear on the main site of Armenian life any more.
(name omitted)
from Yerevan
I replied:
Hi (name omitted),
I don’t know how you could even conclude that I’m homophobic and what I reported were my own feelings using non-existent persons as my source?
Maybe I should put you in touch with my best and most trusted general manager Janice, who was an Afro-American, openly gay woman and she worked for me until she had to take an early retirement to go care for her elderly mother in Denver, Colorado. If Jan’s mother didn’t get sick, I would have let her work for me as long as she wanted to, as I had great respect for her because she was honest and forthright.
If these women are anything like Janice and her partner Johnnie, I have no doubt that they are loving and caring to the child they adopted. If I had children, without fear or hesitation, I would leave them in Janice’s care. In fact in the 1970’s, we had a homosexual couple living next door to us and everyone knew they were gay, but that didn’t stop any of us kids from visiting them at their house. They were nice, warm and they use to make us Tang (an orange drink mix) and feed us if we were hungry. I have many gay friends and none of them have ever “hit” on me, as they know I’m straight and we are only interested in being friend.
The issue we are dealing with in this adoption is not the fact that they are a direct physiological or physical danger to the child, it’s they adopted the child from a country where being gay at the time of their adoption was illegal and until today is culturally not acceptable for the majority of the people. On top of this, they clearly concealed this fact of their true intentions, knowing that if they had applied to the Armenian government as a couple (even today), they would have been turned down. If you just go on this one argument, then the adoption was clearly a moral, ethical and legal violation in any country of the world. The other arguments, as legitimate as they are, could be viewed as secondary if need be, though I think they are very important too.
I don’t know where your from, but if your not from Armenia, then the culture you brought with you can not be applied in deciding if this was right or not. You have to understand today’s Armenian culture and use that as a way to measure things. It would be like you going to Afghanistan and insisting that women do not cover themselves when in public. Irregardless of if you thinking this is wrong, it’s their culture and law. This means if you live in Afghanistan you have to respect the culture and law. Same goes for Armenia.
Since you are living in Yerevan and just to prove my point of how the natives feel, may I suggest that you share the story I posted with the natives that live around you and see what they think? When you do this, please write back to report your findings that I will share with the rest of our readers. If this is a problem for you because of a language difference, I would be happy let you go along with my worker to conduct a survey of 100 random people to see what they think of this situation, so when we petition the government for a review of all international adoption cases, they wont be able to accuse me of perpetuating traditionalism and spreading my unreasonable fears.
In the future, please read everything before writing me and certainly don’t read between the line, as what I write, I try to write as straightforward as possible.
Ara.
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