Honestly after the discussion we had in VC it had me deep in thought a little bit on 2 things:
(irrelevant) 1) It's kind of funny how the last 3 threads have all ended up revolving almost entirely around babies/children/kids/teenagers and almost all involving the same base topic- the idea that kids have very little rights/protections on their own and require external protection and/or supervision. The reality is our discussions, viewpoints, and voting habits determine entire lives of people because by in-large children have no recourse to change much on their own during adolescence. It's a little scary if you think about it!
2) Your comment (in vc) on children and their need for attention guiding their actions holds true, but I think it was a little too black & white the more I thought about it. I think back to studies that show just believing babies got hurt by doing something will cause them to cry, even though nothing really happened to hurt them other than that set expectation. But---- edit: just realized I didn't really fully finish this thought out, something something kids are also inquisitive and do need curiosity and can critically think about topics on their own something something
I think it comes down to this:
Parents make the immediate decision on what is best for their kids using their available knowledge, experience, personalty, blah blah etc. However, being a parent doesn't immediately make you right, and it doesn't and shouldn't mean you have complete and utter control. Universally we all pretty agree there's a level of biological right that everyone should be able to have kids, but there really isn't some sort of god given right you can be a parent. In fact, in almost all countries there are methods of separating unfit parents with children.
So going into Gumline's point of (tldr: "it's their kid, their monkey, their circus"). To a point, yes. But there's a consideration of societal benefit in that. We probably all agree that someone cooking meth in the basement of their house as their 3 kids play upstairs probably isn't good for the kids, or society. In almost all states that's a felony outright (manuf/distr/poss of scheduled drugs in the presence of a minor).
So when someone says "I don't want my kids seeing gay people kiss" I get nervous around this type of behavior. First off- is there societal benefit towards hiding the existence of gay people from a child? Considering we protect many classes of people and gay people are one of them, this fails the sniff test, in my opinion. It's really no different than hiding the existence of minorities, or even the opposite sex from your child. It comes off as incredibly dangerous- the failure to create an atmosphere where your child interacts with different types of people and understands and empathizes with them. But second off- it's not really just about gay people in kid's movies. There's a serious connotation that if you're unwilling to show the existence of gay people in movies, are you also accepting of them? If this closed minded movie-goer doesn't want to show his kids a gay person kissing, would he or she APPROVE of their kid being gay?
The number one most important thing as a parent is really to keep them alive, keep them healthy, and prepare your child for society/real life/whatever. Are you adequately preparing your child by hiding things they should know? Gentoo's strawman is a little bit loose. I don't think anyone is saying what he's arguing, but honestly, shouldn't kids KNOW about sex, genders, races, religion, etc? If you don't really understand or are exposed to these things, this can be somewhat dangerous.
Final 2 cents:
One of my biggest failures as a person was on here when I attacked someone's sexual identity. It was a complete and utter moral failure on my part, and part of that antisocial behavior was the lack of understanding and empathizing environment surrounding it. It is 2022 and I saw someone make an almost word for word insult that I made just that small 10ish years ago. In some ways, it feels like little has changed here. A lot of the world has moved on but so many people in this community (until recently it seems) used the F slur, some people still use "gay" to mean lame, or dumb in discord. I think it's just an example of creating an anti-gay environment creates these kind of opinions and creates these rifts. Gay people are still treated like second rate citizens, and any attempt to normalize their existence is met with profound pushback from a die hard set of vocal people insistent on THEIR moral failures.
We can say legalities this, legalities that, but I find myself in disbelief that not everyone on this community is on the same page- the idea that playing some sort of devil's advocate for these parents is a reasonable stance to make. We should inform, educate, and realign- not defend these viewpoints. Are these viewpoints really defensible? Were things like segregation defensible? To me the inability for many gay people in the world to still be included on a level playing field as hetero couples is just a sign of identity segregation. Pixar can make 100 movies with straight couples but the second they even hint at a gay couple its met with disdain? It ain't right, folks.