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Nov. 18th, 2003 11:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walbournSo it seems to me that this whole "debate" about gay-marriage in the US is just plain silly. The only possible justifications for passing these crappy "Defense of Marriage" acts are the same justifications used to exclude every minority in history from full participation in a society. Every time the argument is won that "no, they are people too and should be treated with same respect that we give everyone else", we have do it over, and over, and over again.
I find it deeply ironic that we are debating how to care for the elderly, educate our young, and provide insurance for all Americans at the same time we are trying to deny all the assumed rights to another group which prevents them getting good insurance, having a family structure to support themselves in sickness and advancing age, and raising well-adjusted children.
Some pundit on TV today said with a straight face that they think it is totally reasonable for government to support marriage "between man and a woman" because it promotes breeding--I mean children--and deny those rights to homosexual couples because they don't provide offspring for the society. Yet we don't deny licenses to heterosexual couples that fail to conceive a child within a timely fashion, or heaven-forbid don't want kids. I'm sure you will say it is because I'm childless, but I really, really, really hate every political argument in this nation having to come down to a half-ass, ill-informed, knee-jerk "it's for the children" argument.
Can't we make good decisions that will impact how our children are treated as adults instead of just how they are treated as dependants? What about your gay children? Are you seriously going to doom them to a life of exclusion from the social fabric of our nation? Prevent them from being given the right to be at their loved-one's side when they are dying in a hospital? Prevent them from being able to pay for dependant insurance? Prevent them from raising a child in the home of their choosing? Or are you going to continue to have every single aspect of daily life reinforce that they are not wanted and that they should give up having stable relationships and live their lives totally out of the public view. Would you rather just go back to exposing disappointing children on a rock somewhere?
If people would just admit they are against gay marriage because they are anti-gay instead of pretending there is the remotest logical or moral justification for their position, then we can at least stop pretending that it is a genuine debate on the way the government promotes 'family', and is in fact just straight prejudice and Puritanical brain-washing. At least then we can avoid having to listen to this horrible, negative crap being justified by people pretending to be on the high moral ground.
I find it deeply ironic that we are debating how to care for the elderly, educate our young, and provide insurance for all Americans at the same time we are trying to deny all the assumed rights to another group which prevents them getting good insurance, having a family structure to support themselves in sickness and advancing age, and raising well-adjusted children.
Some pundit on TV today said with a straight face that they think it is totally reasonable for government to support marriage "between man and a woman" because it promotes breeding--I mean children--and deny those rights to homosexual couples because they don't provide offspring for the society. Yet we don't deny licenses to heterosexual couples that fail to conceive a child within a timely fashion, or heaven-forbid don't want kids. I'm sure you will say it is because I'm childless, but I really, really, really hate every political argument in this nation having to come down to a half-ass, ill-informed, knee-jerk "it's for the children" argument.
Can't we make good decisions that will impact how our children are treated as adults instead of just how they are treated as dependants? What about your gay children? Are you seriously going to doom them to a life of exclusion from the social fabric of our nation? Prevent them from being given the right to be at their loved-one's side when they are dying in a hospital? Prevent them from being able to pay for dependant insurance? Prevent them from raising a child in the home of their choosing? Or are you going to continue to have every single aspect of daily life reinforce that they are not wanted and that they should give up having stable relationships and live their lives totally out of the public view. Would you rather just go back to exposing disappointing children on a rock somewhere?
If people would just admit they are against gay marriage because they are anti-gay instead of pretending there is the remotest logical or moral justification for their position, then we can at least stop pretending that it is a genuine debate on the way the government promotes 'family', and is in fact just straight prejudice and Puritanical brain-washing. At least then we can avoid having to listen to this horrible, negative crap being justified by people pretending to be on the high moral ground.
