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07/31/2007
You may kiss the bride (as long as she promises to drop a child)
Of the possibility that Vermont could someday bump their same-sex civil unions up to full marital equality, Focus on the Family's Jenny Tyree today says this:
"Their viewpoint seems to be that marriage is just a legal term that can be changed easily, but this view denies that across human civilizations, marriage exists for one purpose – to give children the gift of two biological parents."
We reply:
"Ugh, enough with this 'marriage = reproduction' nonsense! If you 'pro-family' folks really wish kids to be a required product of marriage, then THAT is the constitutional amendment for which you should be so aggressively fighting. Make it be known that you think a marriage is only a marriage if it produces children, and let the chips fall where they may with the American public. Otherwise, this ridiculous posturing looks like nothing more than yet another way to mask the anti-gay marriage side's truth (i.e. they simply want a gay-less world) behind a veil of false compassion (i.e. they care only about families).
Ms. Tyree, we do think civil marriage is a legal term, because that's what it is -- a legal contract! However, we absolutely do not think it can or should be a concept that is changed easily. We think the burden is on decent, tax-paying, loving couples to provide suitable evidence as to why they are just as deserving of a slice of the cake as anyone else. We feel that gays have done that, and then done that again, and then done that again, and then done that again still, yet you 'pro-family' folks continue to throw out lines like the ridiculous 'marriage = reproduction' line in order to muddy the waters of this very simply issue! And we feel that we are sick and tired of it!
Our actual 'viewpoint' is that your side cannot get us on the actual issues, so you all take advantage of the public and rely on campaigns of misinformation and fear to keep your movement afloat. And you've hijacked the concepts of both morality and family, presenting gays as if they are antipathetic to both. But Ms. Tyree, many of those straight couples who do have babies (in or out of wedlock) produce gays and lesbians. They are as much a part of the American family as anyone else, with the capacity for just as finely tuned morals as their heterosexual counterparts.
When we look back on historical marriages, we see things like doweries, property rights, arranged and forced unions, polygamy, and many other things that would surely make modern evangelicals less than comfortable. And when future civilizations look back on American marriage issue circa 2007, they are probably not going to say, 'Hey, why were there not more kids being produced in the early 21st century?' What we are confident they will ask is, 'How and why did all of those groups with the word 'family' in their names succeed at so cruelly denying gay couples the equality that they deserved? That's because in the pantheon of historical remembrance, it is your roadblocks that are the missteps, not our righteous claims to what should already be legally available to us!"
Vermont Commission Studies Same-Sex Marriage [CitizenLink]
Your thoughts
Re: debunking the idea that marriage = reproduction, I wrote recently of:
Children without marriage: Two new studies showed more than half the babies in the U.S. born outside of marriage are born to women who nonetheless live with the child’s father.
http://www.mombian.com/2007/07/25/if-this-keeps-up-only-children-of-same-sex-parents-will-be-born-in-married-households/
Marriage without children: Another national survey showed that children are viewed as less central to marriage today, although they are still one of the highest sources of personal fulfillment.
http://www.mombian.com/2007/07/02/marriage-and-parenthood-changing-attitudes/
Posted by: Dana | Aug 1, 2007 9:14:11 AM
If they really want to equate marriage to reprocdution, then they need to institute a ban on childless marriages. No biological kid within two years and your marriage is automatically dissolved. Marriage+reproduction indeed!
Posted by: Alan Kelchner | Aug 1, 2007 12:51:16 PM
Alan: Although in a tongue-in-cheek fashion, it's certainly been proposed:
http://www.goodasyou.org/good_as_you/2007/02/wa_marriage_pro.html
Posted by: G-A-Y | Aug 1, 2007 1:08:35 PM
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