And another one from last year. My stepdaughter's bi and a teenager, so gay and abortion rights have been hot-button issues for me lately. These are the people that are going to be taking away her right to gay-marry or have an abortion one day. Or with the way things have been going since 2010, they'll be the ones that take away her access to Planned Parenthood's contraception and HPV/Cervical Cancer screenings.
Showing posts with label gay marriage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gay marriage. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Monday, December 20, 2010
Don't Ask; Tell If You Want
So after 17 years, despite McCain's whining, Don't Ask, Don't Tell is finally being repealed.
A woman I work with has an interesting take on issues of gay rights. She thinks that gay people should have the right to be gay and even to be in long-term monogamous relationships. She just doesn't think that it's something that she should have to explain to her children. She would be uncomfortable if a gay pride parade went through Bakersfield because then she would have to tell her children what "gay" means. She doesn't think gay people should be able to marry, but that they should have domestic partnerships. The word "marriage" is only for straight couples. It belongs to the religious (she's catholic), and if gay people change what the word means, she'll have to explain it to her children. She doesn't have any problem with gay couples, as long as they keep it to themselves.
I strongly disagree with this view. She has the right to be a bigot (just to be clear, she's a very nice woman, just bigotted on this issue). She even (in our society) has the right to shelter her children from all outsiders and train them to be bigots. She can homeschool her children, only taking them out to go to church, where they will continue to hear nothing of gayness, except maybe to denounce it as a sin. What she does not have the right to do, is have her beliefs enshrined into law and inflicted on everyone else. She doesn't have the right to create a double standard where gay people have to keep it to themselves, but nobody else does. When a gay couple kisses in public, they have not shoved-it-in-your-face anymore than a straight couple doing the same. When a gay man mentions that he has to hurry home, because he has a romantic evening planned with his husband, he has not done anything wrong. If you are offended by this behavior, you are the one that needs to change.
43 years ago, anti-miscegenation laws were making biracial marriages illegal in some states. Imagine replacing "gay" with "biracial" in the above paragraphs. How well do you think those views would go over? "I don't have any problem with biracial couples as long as they keep it to themselves." "Marriage is for racially pure couples."
When I was at my mother's the other day, someone (either my wife or I) mentioned that our minor daughter is growing to be so beautiful, she sometimes gets mistaken for 20. My sister commented on what a shame that was.
Now, I know what she meant. My family is very conservative. If a young girl is beautiful, they do not think she should be proud and show off her body. Above all, they do not think that young people should have anything to do with sexuality. They believe that here should be a concrete wall between youth and anything sexual.
I also know that my wife has dealt with serious emotional issues from being told similar things when she was a child. So I figured I should call this out and see if she could rationally explain why it is that being young and beautiful and looking adult were such horrible things for my daughter. I asked what she meant. And she said she didn't mean anything and tried to drop it. My mother tried to rescue her by saying that "there are a lot of predators out there" and that they were only concerned for her welfare.
I've been trying to puzzle out the connection between the gay rights thing and this incident with my family. I think I've finally got it. They both rest on unspoken assumptions.
"When they kiss in public, or want to serve the military openly, gay people are doing something wrong and straight people are not." You can't get there without one more piece, an unspoken assumption. The unspoken assumption: gay people are different, and what they are doing is wrong in the first place.
"When a young girl is beautiful and adult-looking, it is unfortunate." The unspoken assumption: she's going to get raped, or she will have lots of evil consensual sex as a direct result of being beautiful; if she didn't hide her beauty, it will be her fault when these things happen.
The biggest problem is that these views aren't challenged. When religious conservatives say these sorts of things amongst each other, they are reinforced. They can pass these things off as true. They don't need to state the assumption, because they all know it's true. When they say them in the public arena they need to hear the other side, and they need to be prepared to defend their views. And they need to state the unspoken assumption out loud. Because the unspoken assumption is the weak link. The unspoken assumption is the part that makes them sound like a bigot to the moderates. There's a reason it's unspoken.
A woman I work with has an interesting take on issues of gay rights. She thinks that gay people should have the right to be gay and even to be in long-term monogamous relationships. She just doesn't think that it's something that she should have to explain to her children. She would be uncomfortable if a gay pride parade went through Bakersfield because then she would have to tell her children what "gay" means. She doesn't think gay people should be able to marry, but that they should have domestic partnerships. The word "marriage" is only for straight couples. It belongs to the religious (she's catholic), and if gay people change what the word means, she'll have to explain it to her children. She doesn't have any problem with gay couples, as long as they keep it to themselves.
I strongly disagree with this view. She has the right to be a bigot (just to be clear, she's a very nice woman, just bigotted on this issue). She even (in our society) has the right to shelter her children from all outsiders and train them to be bigots. She can homeschool her children, only taking them out to go to church, where they will continue to hear nothing of gayness, except maybe to denounce it as a sin. What she does not have the right to do, is have her beliefs enshrined into law and inflicted on everyone else. She doesn't have the right to create a double standard where gay people have to keep it to themselves, but nobody else does. When a gay couple kisses in public, they have not shoved-it-in-your-face anymore than a straight couple doing the same. When a gay man mentions that he has to hurry home, because he has a romantic evening planned with his husband, he has not done anything wrong. If you are offended by this behavior, you are the one that needs to change.
43 years ago, anti-miscegenation laws were making biracial marriages illegal in some states. Imagine replacing "gay" with "biracial" in the above paragraphs. How well do you think those views would go over? "I don't have any problem with biracial couples as long as they keep it to themselves." "Marriage is for racially pure couples."
When I was at my mother's the other day, someone (either my wife or I) mentioned that our minor daughter is growing to be so beautiful, she sometimes gets mistaken for 20. My sister commented on what a shame that was.
Now, I know what she meant. My family is very conservative. If a young girl is beautiful, they do not think she should be proud and show off her body. Above all, they do not think that young people should have anything to do with sexuality. They believe that here should be a concrete wall between youth and anything sexual.
I also know that my wife has dealt with serious emotional issues from being told similar things when she was a child. So I figured I should call this out and see if she could rationally explain why it is that being young and beautiful and looking adult were such horrible things for my daughter. I asked what she meant. And she said she didn't mean anything and tried to drop it. My mother tried to rescue her by saying that "there are a lot of predators out there" and that they were only concerned for her welfare.
I've been trying to puzzle out the connection between the gay rights thing and this incident with my family. I think I've finally got it. They both rest on unspoken assumptions.
"When they kiss in public, or want to serve the military openly, gay people are doing something wrong and straight people are not." You can't get there without one more piece, an unspoken assumption. The unspoken assumption: gay people are different, and what they are doing is wrong in the first place.
"When a young girl is beautiful and adult-looking, it is unfortunate." The unspoken assumption: she's going to get raped, or she will have lots of evil consensual sex as a direct result of being beautiful; if she didn't hide her beauty, it will be her fault when these things happen.
The biggest problem is that these views aren't challenged. When religious conservatives say these sorts of things amongst each other, they are reinforced. They can pass these things off as true. They don't need to state the assumption, because they all know it's true. When they say them in the public arena they need to hear the other side, and they need to be prepared to defend their views. And they need to state the unspoken assumption out loud. Because the unspoken assumption is the weak link. The unspoken assumption is the part that makes them sound like a bigot to the moderates. There's a reason it's unspoken.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Gay Marriage Outrage: Women Aren't Continuously Pregnant!
All the news on the gay marriage hearings has got me pretty ticked off.
The people making the case for a secular reason to forbid gay marriage seem to be putting a lot of their eggs in the basket of "protecting child-bearing within procreative marriage". They claim that the only reason to have the institution of marriage is to foster male-female unions that will take care of biological children. So gay marriages are not legal because they produce no children or adopted children that are not supported by a procreative marriage.
Here is the list of other things that this group should logically be against:
The other side of their argument seems to be historical. Historically, marriage has always been between one man and one woman. Why change things?
Of course, historically, marriage has been between one man and one woman of the same ethnic background, professing the same religious beliefs. Well, wait... that's not quite right. Historically, marriage has been an exchange of property (one woman) between one man (father) and one man (husband). I sure am glad the religious are protecting us all from the depravity of two people making a lifelong commitment to one another (sometimes with the intent of providing a stable and nurturing family environment for children). Maybe next they can take us back to the days of miscegenation laws.
The people making the case for a secular reason to forbid gay marriage seem to be putting a lot of their eggs in the basket of "protecting child-bearing within procreative marriage". They claim that the only reason to have the institution of marriage is to foster male-female unions that will take care of biological children. So gay marriages are not legal because they produce no children or adopted children that are not supported by a procreative marriage.
Here is the list of other things that this group should logically be against:
- Marriages of convenience between people that aren't sleeping together (no children)
- Marriages where one of the participants is infertile (no children)
- Marriages between people that don't want to have children (no children)
- Marriages that aren't annulled after menopause and children's majority (no children)
- Celebrity-length marriages lasting a matter of weeks or months (children not properly supported by a procreative marriage)
- Divorce (children not properly supported by a procreative marriage)
- Single parents (children not properly supported by a procreative marriage)
- Adopted parents (children not properly supported by a procreative marriage)
The other side of their argument seems to be historical. Historically, marriage has always been between one man and one woman. Why change things?
Of course, historically, marriage has been between one man and one woman of the same ethnic background, professing the same religious beliefs. Well, wait... that's not quite right. Historically, marriage has been an exchange of property (one woman) between one man (father) and one man (husband). I sure am glad the religious are protecting us all from the depravity of two people making a lifelong commitment to one another (sometimes with the intent of providing a stable and nurturing family environment for children). Maybe next they can take us back to the days of miscegenation laws.
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