In the opinion section of the Aussie newspaper the Courier Mail was a starling piece that I had to read to believe. David van Gend theorizes that same-sex marriage hurts children. He claims that the issue of gay marriage is not about the union of two loving people, but at its core an issue of what is right for the child. Now let’s just for sanity’s sake assume that every gay couple that wants to get married wants to have children, because let’s face it everyone wants children, right?
He fails in his piece on several fronts. The most glaring to me is that thinking automatically that gay parents equals a world filled with nothing but men or women. That only lesbians hang out with other lesbians and gay men only shoot the breeze with other gay men. Being a straight black female I find myself hanging out with gay white men, gay black men, straight Mexican men, lesbian Asian woman, tall white guys and short black woman. My life is enriched with the encounters that I have on a daily basis and the eclectic mixture of friends that I surround myself with and I am sure that Mr. Ven Gend is the only person on the planet who hangs out with people who are exactly like he is. And even then I am sure there is some liquor involved.
He says that the law of the land should stay out of the fundamental rights of the child to a mother and a father, but implying that this is a right means that there is some level of a law involved. However the last time I checked the rights of a child as it pertains to what a parent is obligated to do is only to feed, house and cloth the child. No where does it say that a child has the right to a mother and a father. And then if it did the law would have to define what a mother and father is. Are we then to genderize the role of mother and father? Is this putting women back into the kitchen where many of us don’t want to be and men back out on the battle field where again many of them don’t want to be. Would this make stay at home father’s feel less than the men that they are? Would this make working mother’s feel ashamed of the paycheck they bring home to keep their kids swaddled in Nintendo’s and Air Jordans?
Sure a woman wouldn’t be able to show a male child how to properly hold his penis to use the bathroom, though there are youtube videos that can, but could a woman not get a male relative to do the same? Could a man not get his female mother to show his daughter how to properly use a tampon? This piece totally places the raising of a child squarely on the shoulders of two people. That is not the experience of a child, it takes a village to raise a child. That saying was spoken God knows when but it still holds true today. Now more than even with the increase in parental working hours.
More and more children are being raised by grandparents, aunts, uncles, godmothers, non-blood family friends. Very few children are raised solely by their parents, even if both of them are present.
So why are we to believe that a female mother and male father are in the best interest of a child when statics speak otherwise? Barak Obama, the President of the United States was raised by his single mother, and his grandparents and look what he managed to accomplish in his life. George Bush was raised with a mother and father and look how he turned out.
Well now Mr. Van Gend has brought nature into the equation. Well let’s take a look at nature. Human beings are alone in the fact that we care for our young from the time on conception to the time either the parent or the child stops breathing. Turtles lay their eggs on the beach, cover the nest with sand and walk away. Bird lay their eggs, watch them hatch, and then push the birds out of the nest. And in fact humans beings are the only animals on the planet where the sperm donor actually stick around. Every other male in the animal kingdom does a quickie and then leaves. So the nature argument doesn’t hold water.
He goes on to quote an atheist philosopher (does anyone else see the irony here) “As he wrote in Marriage and Morals: "It is through children alone that sexual relations become of importance to society, and worthy to be taken cognizance of by a legal institution."” I want to know who in the hell is sitting around thinking about the sexual relations of some random person on the street? I seem to find that in this present sexual cultural that children and sex are as separate. The only institution that should be concern with who I’m having sex with is the Department of Health. And only then when I invite them into my sex life. Pray tell what legal institution should be given the key to our sexual relationships? Last time I checked society scoffs at prom stars who flaunt their public sex on our TVs and monitors. Oh wait that’s right, they are having sex simply for the pure enjoyment of it and not to produce children. That’s what makes it dirty and something to be scorned. My mistake Mr. Van Gend I thought sex was first and foremost for the simple pleasure of it. A fact that God intended for it to be by placing the majority of our nerve endings in our genitalia.
I think the excuse that gay marriage should be barred because it can’t produce children is a pure crock of crap. I personally can’t have children so then should I be denied a meaningful marriage with a husband of my choice? Should the court void all the marriages of the infertile couples around the world?
He ends his piece with , “Opposition to gay marriage is all about the child, and no parliament has the right to impose a motherless or fatherless life on a little child.” So then divorce should be taken off the books then, because you have to go to court to divorce someone. Just like you had to go to court for the license to marry that person. You can’t have your cake and eat it to Mr. Van Gend. You can’t say the court can do this and only this when agree with it and then tell the court to go to hell when it does something you don’t agree with. If the court can sanction divorce, a procedure that breaks up a household then it should sanction gay families. A action that brings households together.
Mr. Van Gend, you argument is full of holes and quite amateur in its assumptions. And frankly you have made a right ass of yourself. Thank you very much for you time.
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