At a time when people live in burrows depriving their children of their unquestionable right to education and “normal” heterosexual families oppress their children by creating a climate of fear and authoritarianism, the author August Cortowith a post on his personal Facebook account, talks about the need for acceptance away from watertight and social stereotypes.
On the occasion of a trip to Iowa, the author remembers the Mennonites, members of the Amish community, who have chosen to live completely cut off from the modern world – no electricity, no running water, no contact with the outside world, except for buying and selling traditional products.
Ultimately, can adherence to a worldview exceed the love and freedom of man? Can traditional families or even extended families realize that their children are not an extension or property of them?
The fear-mongering, risk-taking and all the Cassandras about the same-sex couple bill are remnants of a dark age that has no place in a democratic society.
His post in detail:
«When I was in Iowa, USA with the international writers program, we were taken to a bazaar attended by, among others, conservative Mennonites and members of the Amish community. The former, although closed as a community, accept certain types of technology, while the latter live completely cut off from the contrivances of the modern world – no electricity, no running water, no contact with the outside world, except for buying and selling traditional products. At 17, the young Amish pass the Rumpsringa test – they live for a time in the technologically advanced world, to decide whether they prefer it (thus cutting themselves off from the community), or whether they want to return to the fold of their extended family.
Our attendants had sternly warned us not to photograph the people displaying their goods and handicrafts at the bazaar: “They are not animals in a zoo”. I remember their costumes, their politeness and modesty, the aura of purity they exuded.
But all this was a result of exoticism: willingly or not, I saw them as strange creatures, and I wondered what it is like to be a child (we are not talking about an LGBTI child) and to grow up in such an antiquated, closed environment.
People should be free to live as they wish, as long as their way of living is not harmful to others – in this case, their children.
Fatefully, I think of the months-long hysteria over the same-sex marriage and procreation bill – and the blackmailing argument that children are at risk from being raised in non-traditional environments.
But countless parents – and let’s emphasize, heterosexual parents – raise their children with extreme views, with conscious deprivations, in a climate of fear and exclusion – and no one stands up and intervenes, because children are considered property.
When attachment to tradition exceeds love, and encroaches on the right to freedom, the child becomes an object. And everything else – the phobic reactions, the risk theory – are words of the wind”.
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