That's right: Another post about this. Sometimes, a topic is just on my mind in a way that I have to write about it so I can move my brain over to thinking about something else.
My last post on Gay Marriage brought a number of private responses, including some long and thoughtful ones I'm not going to post because they agreed with me. Here's most of one that didn't — from a gentleman who asked I withhold his name. I'm going to interrupt a few times and respond…
I continue to enjoy your excellent, well-written blog even when I don't agree with you. I just read your "Tuesday Morning" post addressing Rep. Tim Heulskamp's comments on gay marriage. Unless I misunderstood you, you seemed to be saying basically that conservatives are hypocrites because they are just hunky-dory-fine with divorce, single parents, and gay adoption, but when it comes to gay marriage we suddenly have a problem. Nothing could be further from the truth.
It's not so much a matter of being "hunky-dory-fine" with any of this. No one is saying you have to be delighted with the concept of Gay Marriage. It's a question of what you think is so potentially damaging to society and mankind that there must be government action to stop it. "Hypocrite" is your word, not mine. I'm just looking at an argument that strikes me as illogical and inconsistent.
I keep reading how horrible it is that kids not have two loving, mixed-sex parents and thus we must prevent my friends Mike and Geoff from getting married just in case one of those two men suddenly gives birth…or something. That does not make a lot of sense to me. Gay marriages rarely involve children, especially in states where Gay Adoption is not permitted. Straight marriages usually do have offspring, especially in the idealized configuration preferred by most of those opposed to Gay Marriage. Someone — you, anyone — please explain to me why you so want the government to forbid the union of two same-sex folks (a union that rarely puts kids in that position) but do pretty much nothing about the epidemic dissolution of the unions of opposite-sex folks (unions which often do involve children). I'm also guessing you don't like the situation where a woman decides to have a child without getting married. Why is there no serious legislation proposed to discourage, let alone forbid that? It too creates the situation where a child is being reared without a male parent and a female one…and it creates it a lot more often than allowing Mike and Geoff to marry.
Back to you…
My wife was raised by a single mother after her father abandoned the family when she was just a toddler. She will be the first to tell you that even in her mid-thirties she still bears deep scars and hurts from her parents' long-standing separation and the lack of a father figure to shape and guide her growing up. Recently one of my best friends went through a divorce and his children were devastated. Yes you can quote scientific research saying that kids without a mom and a dad "get along fine", but I think deep down you know that's not the case.
It isn't and I didn't mean to suggest it was. Kids are better off when they come from a loving, safe environment and two good parents are better than one. Unfortunately, that is not always an option. There are bad marriages. There are sometimes bad people in marriages. A former lady friend of mine came from a family where the father had a tendency to drink, strike his wife and make sexual moves on his step-children. The parents divorced and my friend was better off being raised by her mother only as a single parent. She has scars because her folks didn't separate sooner. One reason we have divorce in this country is so that marriages that go that way can be dissolved for the good of everyone involved, including the children.
I do not disagree with you about the ideal. I believe I had the ideal and I wish every child in America could have parents as good as mine were. I also realize that is not possible and we have to deal with the realities before us…and it is possible for kids to "get along fine" with a parental situation that is less than ideal. In a nation with this high a divorce rate, it would have to be possible.
Your turn again…
Most conservatives genuinely mourn over the widespread wreckage and devastation that's been plaguing our country largely due to the breakdown of the traditional family and the "I'll do whatever I want" attitude when it comes to sex.
And yet, a lot of them — the overwhelming majority, I'd bet — were quite prepared to vote for Newt Gingrich over a man with what from all appearances is a very happy, healthy marriage with two beautiful daughters.
In the Bible God said, "I hate divorce", and most of us do too. To us gay marriage is just society taking another long step farther away from the God-given ideal of a loving, committed, monogamous man and woman whose complimentary roles help make the family stronger, and many of us wish more politicians would take a stand to help protect the institution of the family on all fronts, instead of watching it continue to crumble.
God may hate divorce but He sure makes a lot of them. Frankly, I think divorce is kind of a necessary evil in a world where lots of folks (the majority, some stats tell us) marry someone and then want desperately out…and often don't find the ideal mate until the second or third try. Ronald Reagan, who all my conservative friends seem to think walked on H2O, seems to have required a second shot at it. A very few of you might not have voted for Newt because of his dysfunctional marital history. Every single one of you would vote today for Reagan and point to his marriage to Nancy as an ideal, never mind anything any of their kids did.
I personally don't buy the premise that child-yielding monogamous relations have to be the ideal for everyone. In fact, I think a leading cause of divorce is that some feel pressured into that configuration before they're ready for it or in spite of the fact that they may never be ready for it.
Ultimately though, the problem with your argument is simply that there are gay people in this world and they cannot fit into your template. Mike and Geoff are just not going to abandon 20+ years of love and commitment to one another and go father children with women so they can conform to your ideal. That's off the menu for them. I frankly don't see that any argument that touches on procreation (or since they have no desire to adopt, child rearing) has anything to do with their lives. More and more, Americans are realizing that…which is why I expect to see Mike and Geoff married before long. They aren't a threat to your ideal. They're actually trying to get as close to it as biology will allow.