I've written a previous blog about my feelings towards homosexuality. In case you haven't read it or haven't realised ... I'm not but I have no problem with it.
This blog entry is not about how I feel about other peoples sexuality. This blog is about the institution of marriage. This blog is about equality. This blog is about choice.
I heard someone on the television today talking about how legalising same sex marriage would be akin to the stolen generation. For overseas readers, the stolen generation is a period of Australian history in which Aboriginal children were removed from their parents and placed into white families, the misguided belief being that they were better off (socially, economically, emotionally) in this new environment. This man's arguement was that same sex couple could not raise a child and give it the same loving, stable environment as a heterosexual couple; he trotted out the old chestnut that a child needs a mother AND a father to develop normally.
He equated same sex couples rearing children that may not be biologically their own with the stolen generation in which children were taken, sometimes forcefully from their loving parents. He went on to say that children should not be separated from their biological parents. I challenge him to tell any straight couple who have struggled to concieve a child that they are doing the wrong thing by that child because they have taken it from its biological parent (even though the biological parent may have given up the child for adoption or may have donated eggs and/or sperm). I'm not sure that this situation is any different from a same sex couple gaining a child through adoption, IVF or surrogacy.
But before all of that, I don't believe that marriage has anything to do with children these days. Once upon a time, and in the not too distant past, it certainly was inextricably linked. Today, married or not, you can have a child. With IVF, adoption and surrogacy all viable options there is no reason why one or two loving people of either sex can't have a child if they want one. Marriage is, and should be, about two people who love each other making a declaration of that love in an official capacity.
People always fall back on religion when it comes to marriage. The bible says that marriage is between a man and a woman. The bible alwo says that a woman should be a virgin when married. The bible says that if a woman is raped she is duty bound to marry her rapist or bring shame on her family for having sex outside of the marriage. The bible says we should stone people to death for adultery. The bible is against divorce. The bible says that marriage is a business transaction and that a woman's worth is measured in cows or tracts of land. The other thing people say is that we can't redefine marriage. Well, by the above standards, we have already redefined marriage.
It is illegal to discriminate against someone because of their gender or sexuality. In employing someone it is illegal to deny anyone a job based on who they sleep with in the privacy of their own home. In serving people in a shop it is illegal to deny anyone serviced based on their sexual preference. Equal rights, however, do not extend to marriage.
Marriage is the last bastian of the heterosexual. Why? What is it about marriage that makes being a homosexual unfit to partake?
I love the photos and pictures that appear on the internet about same sex marriage. Some of them I have posted on this blog. It's important to keep a sense of humour in situations such as this. After all, most of the arguements against same sex marriage are laughable so why not?
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