Why a little boy wearing a dress, is O.K.

I get some of my column ideas, strangely, while reading Christian right-wing websites. Well, one of them, one that quite frequently seeks to attack and disparage gays but especially gay men, led to this column. In Germany, a man has started wearing a dress in solidarity with his young son, who prefers to wear dresses instead of pants. The son is five years old. Now, this got me thinking that 150 years ago women could not wear pants. In fact, there were occasional arrests of women for wearing pants.

While some Christian fundamentalists would support the arrest of males who wear dresses, most Americans won't. Now, is the wearing of dresses by men really that much different than the wearing of pants by women? Not really. I wouldn't wear a dress, but that is not how I am wired. Some boys and men are wired that way, naturally. It is not bad or evil. It is just who they are. Too many on the religious right-wing want people to stay in very specific gender roles. Many still don't believe women should be able to work, but that they should be in the kitchen, or in the bedroom making babies. To them, this is what is normal.

Unfortunately, those on the religious right-wing quite frequently confuse the norm or average with what is good or moral. But Mozart didn't have normal musical skills and LaBron James does not have normal athletic skills. They aren't immoral because of that. They are outside the norm, and in a very good way.

This young boy is also outside the norm, but being outside the norm isn't bad. It is just the way that he, and others, are. We are all outside the norm in some ways. For some of us, it is more apparent to others. For others, it is more hidden. But we are the way that we are and as long as we do not do harm, there is nothing wrong with that.