Monday, June 01, 2009

It's not about reproduction

I really like the point being made by Alec Baldwin in this HuffPo posting, "Why Childless Straight Couples Make the Case for Gay Marriage," even though I prefer the term "childfree" to "childless." Childless sounds to me like children were desired and attempted but never accomplished (like "barren"), and childfree, to me, sounds like a choice was made. That's how it is in my case.

I find it offensive when people equate marriage (or even relationships) with childbearing. Two. Different. Things. Bearing and/or raising children is an option – not a requirement. This can be done whether you are single or married, and raising children may be done by persons of either gender. It can be done by one person or several, and it should be done by choice – hopefully by people who will be good at it.

The concept of “sanctity” in marriage is purely religious.

I really believe that it is only a matter of time before it becomes very obvious to the majority of people that putting gender qualifications on who can marry whom is unconstitutional, and also silly.

Person A can legally get married. Person B can legally get married. If you are saying that Person A cannot marry Person B, and your reason is not because they are too closely related (and might produce offspring with birth defects) then your reason for that has to be religious – especially since two people of the same sex will not produce offspring.

My chosen family consists of 1 human partner and an assorted number of cat kids. I've got a piece of paper for the human. That's what this is about. We chose to get a piece of paper, and we had the right to get one. A Judge did the ceremony in a hotel room, and we are just as married as we can be, even though a church had nothing to do with it and we decided there wouldn't be any more little humans added.

Let's get the Religion out of our government - that's the best way to preserve the sanctity of many of the brilliant secular ideals held by The Founding Fathers. Rights and Freedoms.

Why do these sanctity of marriage people hate our freedoms? Why do they hate America?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I find it offensive when people equate marriage (or even relationships) with childbearing.

No joke! For years the Frogette and I were told by morons that we were only "playing house" because of our refusal to have children. The in-laws, as well, have never been shy about telling us how "selfish" we are.

Plain fact is...we have more in common with your average, upwardly-mobile, gay couple then we'll ever have with our straight friends.

Blueberry said...

we have more in common with your average, upwardly-mobile, gay couple then we'll ever have with our straight friends.

Oh hell yes! Our main difference there is that we are not upwardly-mobile (anymore).

Freida Bee said...

This is a very good post. In my and Mr. Bee's case, we've opted to not get the piece of paper. We've filed taxes together, had two children, and covered each other on insurance. The hypocritical thing is that the legalities are a moot point for heterosexual couples. When we say we've lived together for ten years, people say, "Well that's being married."- a privilege not offered to gay couples.

I am in favor of long-term/ lifetime monogamous or whatever relationships, but think it could be a powerful statement for heterosexual couples to conscientiously reject marriage as long as their gay peers are denied the right. Then, the onus would be on homophobes to "save marriage."

Blueberry said...

Dr Bee, good points on the common law rights.

I got married (not wanting to speak for my spouse here) because we were buying a house together and I didn't want to enter into a financial thing like that without more legal rights. Also, at his father's funeral I had been treated like a friend of the family and not "family", like I was not allowed to sit with him at the church where they held his memorial or ride with him in the procession. We had been living together for a few years and were committed. I was sick of being treated as an outsider by others. The piece of paper gave me rights that would have denied by law and decorum otherwise.

I was just as committed without the paper, but the paper allows more rights and privileges (even though it's just a damn piece of paper).