"Traditional marriage" advocates keep running into the same problem: how to define "family/marriage" in a way that excludes gays, but doesn't piss off childless heteros, like me. See, you don't want to get into the issue of "well, families only include children", because then you have to field questions like, "okay then, should we test people's fertility before allowing them to marry? what about older married couples in which the wife is menopausal and can no longer have children- should we force them to divorce? not allow older people to marry at all?"
Eventually, if you start arguing that family=children, but don't exclude infertile or deliberately childless hetero marriages, you have to admit that you just don't like gay people. Thusly:
The family is not easy to define, but I define it as group that includes dependents, children.
So, my family is not a family, as it does not include children. However, looking at the above, we could easily define a gay commune that includes children as a family.
Ah well, it's not like clear thinking is a desirable trait amongst bigots. Oh, Opine Editorials, you never fail to amuse.
they way that the "trad marriage" defenders are actually "defending" that "ideal" has forced me to the conclusion that it *isn't* just about hating people who are gay - i really really am thinking it's at least as much about traditional GENDER ROLES as marriage [if not moreso] because allowing same-sex marriage means, to some extent, allowing or even requiring laws that are gender neutral *EVERYWHERE*
ReplyDeletethis makes me even *more* angry at the BS.
I've always thought "family" as the closest people to you, which may not include relatives.
ReplyDeleteI never was into the relative thing anyway. Most of my relatives suck.
I've always thought "family" as the closest people to you, which may not include relatives.
ReplyDeleteAbso-friggin'-loutely. I tend to like my family. Hell, if pushed I might even say I love them. But that doesn't mean that I feel I have to be close to them at all times. My theory is that if they weren't related to me I wouldn't spend any time with them. So saying that we have to have to have this level of care because they're "family" is stupid.
It's as much an artificial as a biological construct. Yeah, it's evolutionarily advantageous to have family looking out for you, but if it turns out that there are people who have no relation to you whatsoever who are there for you while your own family doesn't give a crap, then in my opinion the people who care are family, no ifs, ands, or buts.