Every time I open up my favorite celebrity gossip websites, I can be guaranteed something about Scientology will pop up. Tom Cruise this, Will Smith that. It’s enough to fill up anyone’s day. And while I do not condone Scientology as a legitimate religion (Come on! Aliens? Really?), I do tend to believe the bashing of Scientology by the media gets a little out of hand, if only because it gives the group the exact amount of attention they need to win over more anxious, celeb-struck converts.
The other morning, I stumbled upon the latest in Scientology gossip. According to the article, not only is 2-year-old Suri Cruise still feeding off the bottle, but her parents are feeding her this delightful mixture of barley water, homogenized milk and honey.
Now, as any over-informed, hypochondriac parent will tell you, feeding honey to an infant is about as risky as pushing their stroller down a hill. Yes, they might be fine, but who wants to take the chance? You see, feeding honey to a baby under the age of one could potentially expose them to the Clostridium botulinum bacterium, which is the cause of infant botulism poisoning. At 2, Suri has probably developed the necessary immune system protections to prevent infection from the botulism spores. However, part of good ol’ L. Ron Hubbard’s dietary edict says that women should not breastfeed their children. So there is reason to believe baby Suri has been consuming this “barley milk” for a while now. Great parenting.
Now, this column isn’t about Scientology. Instead, it’s about how countless couples such as the Cruises can abuse their children in one way or another (so long as it doesn’t come off as abuse) and proceed on as normal. For all intents and purposes, there really is nothing preventing people like that from reproducing or adopting children. And yet, in only 12 states is gay adoption legal by court ruling or state statute. Well, there I go – reminding people I’m gay and all. And yet, as someone who will more than likely have to jump through a number of hoops to have a family that will be reasonably legally protected, I am somewhat appalled. And you think I would be a bad parent?
Anyone who knows me knows that I have an intense desire to be pregnant. Perhaps I am an ill-product of a single mother, or perhaps I hang out with too many women. Yet, any time I see one of those delightfully popped tummies, joyously bared for the entire world to see, I get jealous. I want to experience carrying a child. I want to experience childbirth. Technicalities be damned!
Yet, this desire – delightfully called “womb envy” – is not weird, it’s only strange to our heteronormative, sexist society. The ancient Grecians can be said to have a form of womb envy: As the myth goes, Zeus gave birth to Athena through his forehead. My desire to be pregnant stems from a natural desire to want to experience the process of birth – to experience what it means to produce a human life. I just want to have a baby.
Perhaps social perceptions are changing. Recently, Oprah featured a transgendered man who kept his reproductive organs with the expectation of one day becoming pregnant. Thomas Beatie, featured both in The Advocate and on Oprah, was artificially inseminated by a sperm donor but is legally considered a man. Not only was this a wonderful opportunity for the often-marginalized trans community to be featured within mainstream culture, but it showed the sincerity and the “normality” of this queer couple. Yet, this is only one man, and society is still overwhelmingly against him.
So, not only is it more difficult for me to have a child – through adoption or biological processes – but I have to watch as heterosexual couples gleefully spawn off child after child. Place abuse on top of that, and I begin to question whether or not we, as a society, are restricting the proper people. Reproduction is supposed to be a human right – perhaps, even, a human responsibility. I could be just as capable a parent as the Cruises. The only difference is I’m gay.
Matthew John Phillips is a junior English major. He can be reached at mjphilli@umd.edu.
