where does it stop?

http://www.edgeboston.com/index.php?ch=news&sc&sc2=news&sc3&id=108755

On a day that civil rights and equality earned a victory as Prop 8 was overturned in California, it is sickening that such an act of intolerance could take place in the United States.

The victim was just a baby. He was only 17 months old, for crying out loud. Nothing could have justified physically hurting someone that young, much less violence that took his life. Pedro Jones, who was entrusted with care of the baby, said he beat the child to "make him act like a boy instead of a little girl." Although Jones did not specify what exactly that behavior entailed, it is heartbreaking that "effeminate" traits are considered so inferior that a baby had to die for America's protection of hypermasculinity.

Someone's comment on Facebook:
"fuck this foo
and the kids stupid momma, she should know not to trust your kids to someone that is not their daddy, DUMB BITCH"

This statement does not help anyone. Blaming the mother will not bring her child back, nor does it shift blame from Jones. You do not need to be someone's biological father to be capable of love. In part, isn't that what the fight against Prop 8 is about? Marriage rights, adoption rights, the right to love freely, justice and equality and all that rainbow sunshiney goodness. It's not wrong or stupid to trust your kids with a partner who is not their biological parent.

It is wrong to take advantage of that trust. Trust is humanizing and beautiful. It's believing in someone, a two-way street where trust has to be reciprocated with a commitment to follow through. Jones didn't do that. He murdered a child for.. what? To assert his own masculinity? To save society from the social ills of an individual who didn't follow traditional gender roles? The mother is no less of a mother for thinking she could trust him. It pains me deeply that some people would call her a bitch when she had no idea something like this could or would happen.

The irony of it all? "I’m sorry," Jones said. "That’s my baby. I loved him to death."

Evidently, he meant it.