So my friend's husband wrote a blog post as to the reasons why he is opposed to gay marriage. I wrote a reply and decided to copy and paste my reply on my own blog because I hadn't posted anything in a while. I am too crazy busy with school and work to post much, but I want to remember this era in the future and I want my kids to someday read my blog and know how I felt as Proposition 8 (and other anti-civil rights laws) passed. I am too busy to amend my notes so that they stand alone, so I have posted a link to the original blog post below.
http://millershoutout.blogspot.com/2008/11/its-not-over-yet.html
1-I agree that the battle will not end in your lifetime, just as laws protecting the rights of minorities are strong, however, the KKK still exists. I do however believe that people are moving towards Gay rights. If you compare the percentage with which Prop 8 passed only a few years ago to the percentage that it passed this year, you will find that it is getting MUCH closer to passing, and I believe other states will follow suit within 20 years. Worst case, within 40. But that is just my own opinion. (hereafter, I will put MOO, after things that are my own opinion. And then giggle a little bit, about the MOO sound)
2 Marriage does not hinge upon the fact that people are exclusive sex partners. Affairs do not always, nor (MOO) should they, cause a divorce. Also, any sort of online search will bring up, without getting vulgar, many websites, not just swinging ones, which are specifically designed to help couples (yes, even married ones) explore sexual experiences outside of the the "traditional role."
3 Marriage should NOT have anything to do with making babies. If I were to become a single Mom, I KNOW I would be an amazing, loving, fit parent. Should society have any say about that? Your reasoning allows a slippery slope. If society has a say in marriage and marriage has to do with making babies...then shouldn't society have the right to insist I am married before I have a child? And that leads to all sorts of futuristic scary thoughts. Mandatory birth control? Mandatory abortions? Taking children away from non-married people? (You think I'm overreacting, but they DID in the past take children away from mixed-race couples, and the future (MOO and many other peoples' opinion as well) will draw many parallels between the gay rights fight for equality and the civil rights movement)
4 Again, Marriage should NOT be an institution of procreation. Scenario: I am married. My husband and I cannot have children or do not want to have children. Is our marriage any less valid because of that? Should we have a civil union?
(Tangent note. I invite people who say that gays should be happy with having a civil union to imagine the above scenario. Think about you and your partner not being able to have children. Then imagine that relegating you to the realm of having a civil union. Doesn't it make you feel a little sick?)
5 OK, ok, but AGAIN, Marriage should not have ANYTHING to do with having babies. That's what it was in the past, just basically a chance for dudes to get laid, people to gain prestige and yay! make babies. Love hasn't really been a deciding factor in marriage since the past 100 years, no matter what "First Knight" wants you to believe. Isn't that amazing? I think of myself 200 years ago. I would have been married by now, to someone my father picked out, no doubt, someone I barely knew, and I would have probably gotten married at age 16 or 17. My job would be to keep house and make babies. Doesn't your heart warm at the thought that now, we have the chance to marry for no other reason than that another person makes us happy? Not to unify feuding clans, not to earn our parents' a dowry, not to secure our future, but just because we want to be with someone, because we want to make them happy and because they make us hapy. This is not something that takes anything AWAY from hetero marriage, this does not in any way diminish hetero marriage, as so many people feel it does, but allows more people to make that commitment to each other, solely because they love each other.
6 Legal Issues have been brought up. You don't think there were legal issues that needed to be re-worded after the civil war? If it's worth doing (MOO) and it is, then the lawyers will figure it out. And many of the legal issues you brought up have already been solved, quite easily. For example, "What if one partner in a same-sex couple decided to be in vitro fertilized and thus had a baby? Would that child legally belong to both or only one partner in the couple?" This happens all the time with hetero couples, when a man can't conceive and the wife is in vitro fertilized. The child is not biologically related to the father, but that man is STILL THE FATHER. The other legal issues are just as easily fixed and/or have already been accounted for in the legal system.
2 comments:
Well stated, IMO (which BTW means "in my opinion," but your MOO thing is really cute, too).
Hi, I'm a friend of Catherine's and came to your blog from hers. To your post - AMEN! re: issue #6 - I have a friend who is going through this very thing. Her former partner had a child - which was fully intended to be "their" son. When said partner dumped her for someone else, she didn't want my friend to have any rights to their child - who was then 6 years old. Since then, my friend has found a new partner, they together have a 5 year old little girl who has been adopted by current partner to avoid any legal problems should they not remain together. They also recently had twins! And my friend is STILL trying to gain some rights - visitation at least! - to her son who is now 13. She has been declared "de facto parent" legally, but the battle is still ongoing.
And, another point - child molesters, drug dealers, murderers, etc. all have the "right" to marry. But not gays. Really stupid, IMHO (in my humble opinion). I know MANY gay parents and they ALL have wonderful, loving, well adjusted families - except, maybe, the former partner who did my friend wrong.
Climbing down from soapbox. Thanks for letting me let off steam.
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