Last fall, George and Barbara Bush attended the wedding of two friends in Maine. The friends were two women who were marrying each other. This is old news, but I refer to it now to say that same-sex marriage, like many other so-called polarizing issues, is easy to discuss in polemical terms in the abstract - “we ought to do this” or “we ought to do that.” But the issues become something else when the people involved are our friends.
I don’t know about you but when issues like this touch the lives of my friends they also touch my life as well - in a personal way - and my reaction to the critics who attack my friends is usually something like, “kiss my ass.” I think George and Barbara would give a more polite “none of your damn business” response, but the point is still the same - political issues divide us in the abstract, which is where politicians want to keep them so they can use those issues to manipulate us. But our personal reaction to those issues, when we encounter them through our own lives or the lives of our friends and family, tells us more about where the country is headed and how those issues will finally be resolved.
Showing posts with label same-sex marriage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label same-sex marriage. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 08, 2014
Monday, November 02, 2009
Family In an Age of Transition
We live at a time in history when many issues seem particularly polarizing. One of those issues is same-sex marriage. Conservatives find it easy to pontificate on the subject, railing against it as an attack on the traditional family. Liberals advocate for it from the high ground of civil rights and the inclusiveness of love.
I was born and reared in a traditional family - a traditional Southern family. My parents were decidedly heterosexual. They were married only once - to each other - and produced children who followed that same path. Yet, when I hear people talk about same-sex marriage as an "attack on the family" something in me recoils. And I think I've found out why.
Our family isn't traditional. I doubt yours is either.
Some of our family members live in relationships with members of the opposite sex, without benefit of marriage. Several of us were born out of wedlock. Two are from foreign countries. We have children from previous marriages, who have their own children, and no one thinks of them as anything other than child, niece, nephew, cousin, grandchild and great-grandchild. If we asked, a couple of us are of dubious family lineage, but we don't ask - and you better not either. And, our family includes two babies for whom we were a surrogate mother. Even though they now live thousands of miles away, and we may never see them again, we still oooh and aaah over the baby pictures. Don't try to tell us they aren't "really" part of our family. Someone will whack you in the head with a pot.
So, as I looked around the room at a recent family gathering of our "traditional" family, I realized that same-sex marriage can't and won't redefine family for us. We've already done that for ourselves. And I suspect your family has, too.
I was born and reared in a traditional family - a traditional Southern family. My parents were decidedly heterosexual. They were married only once - to each other - and produced children who followed that same path. Yet, when I hear people talk about same-sex marriage as an "attack on the family" something in me recoils. And I think I've found out why.
Our family isn't traditional. I doubt yours is either.
Some of our family members live in relationships with members of the opposite sex, without benefit of marriage. Several of us were born out of wedlock. Two are from foreign countries. We have children from previous marriages, who have their own children, and no one thinks of them as anything other than child, niece, nephew, cousin, grandchild and great-grandchild. If we asked, a couple of us are of dubious family lineage, but we don't ask - and you better not either. And, our family includes two babies for whom we were a surrogate mother. Even though they now live thousands of miles away, and we may never see them again, we still oooh and aaah over the baby pictures. Don't try to tell us they aren't "really" part of our family. Someone will whack you in the head with a pot.
So, as I looked around the room at a recent family gathering of our "traditional" family, I realized that same-sex marriage can't and won't redefine family for us. We've already done that for ourselves. And I suspect your family has, too.