Outward

This Kid’s Reaction to a Married Gay Couple Is Ridiculously Adorable

I once asked my dad whether he worried I’d be racist, since we lived in the South and were surrounded by racism. “Of course not,” he told me—“parents have to teach their children to be prejudiced. Nobody’s born with that kind of bigotry.” The same is clearly true with homophobia: For all the chatter about Michael Sam’s gay kiss scarring children, kids who haven’t been indoctrinated with their parents’ animus tend to react to gay couples with open-hearted curiosity that quickly fades into apathy.

That process—the transition from slight confusion to mild interest to utter indifference—is captured adorably in a video recently spotlighted by the Gaily Grind.* In the clip, we see two husbands explain their relationship to a young child, Calen, and watch as he reasons out the situation in a dazzlingly cute monologue:

You’re both husbands? You married each other? That’s funny. I’ve only seen husbands and wives. But this is the very first time I saw husbands and husbands! So funny. So that means you love each other! Yeah. You’re much alike. I’m going to play ping-pong now. You can play if you want to.

Watch the video below to get the full experience, including Calen’s look of overwhelming excitement when he realizes he’s never seen “husbands and husbands” before. It is, at once, completely innocent and profoundly touching—and, for me, a heartening confirmation of my dad’s belief that there’s no such thing as inborn bigotry.

* Correction, May 19, 2014: This post originally misstated the name of the Gaily Grind as the Daily Grind.