Posted by:
Surrender Dorothy
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Date: January 23, 2014 06:03PM
I wrote this as a reply on saviorself's thread that closed just as I tried to post.
From the article at this link on saviorself's thread:
http://www.rightsidenews.com/2014012233778/life-and-science/culture-wars/marriage-matters-and-redefining-it-has-social-costs.html"Marriage exists to unite a man and a woman as husband and wife to then be equipped to be mother and father to any children that that union produces. It’s based on the anthropological truth that men and women are distinct and complementary. It’s based on the biological fact that reproduction requires a man and a woman. It’s based on the sociological reality that children deserve a mother and a father. "
Reproduction requires a man and a woman, but it doesn't require that the man and woman be married and our laws certainly do not demand that the donor of the sperm and the donor of the egg that created the child be the ones who raise the child. If this "traditional marriage" model is so shiny and perfect, why is adoption necessary? Sperm donor marries egg donor and raises the child. No exceptions. Why do orphanages exist? Of course there are tragic circumstances where the sperm donor and egg donor are killed but where are the perfect, shiny heterosexual couples who rescue these abandoned children to raise them in the glossy utopia of a traditional marriage family?
Gay couples adopt unwanted children all the time. Do you think these children are better off left in the foster system or in an orphanage?
And what of heterosexual couples who because of fertility issues cannot reproduce? Do you take us to the town square and force us to divorce because we do not meet your prime directive for marriage? Maybe chop off our ring finger--the equivalent of a scarlet letter for the useless infertile--as a warning to others that we are not worthy marriage material.
One of my uncles had mumps (or maybe it was measles) as a child and it made him sterile. He was shooting blanks but was allowed to get married. They adopted children, one of whom is my favorite cousin. Too bad you and your ilk weren't there to prevent them from getting married and creating their family in a non-traditional way, a way in which many gay couples create their families--the abomination to traditional families known as adoption.
If the main purpose of marriage is raising children, what happens to empty-nesters who remain married after their children are raised? Are they forced to get divorced because their reproductive years--according to you, THE one true reason to be married--are over? Maybe you just put the woman on an ice float and find her husband a still-fertile woman so he can use up any remaining swimmers to fulfill your one true purpose of marriage. Once he can't shoot or the remaining swimmers give up the ghost, put him on an ice float, too.
What of children in orphanages or in the foster care system? Maybe you and your traditional marriage pals can pass some laws forcing traditional marriage parents to adopt these parentless children so they can be raised in a perfect, shiny traditional family. If it's the one true purpose of marriage, just keep dropping off kids at the empty-nesters' homes until the parental units drop dead from exhaustion or old age.
If you've got this traditional marriage thing figured out so perfectly, why are there sooooooooooooooo many problems with it? Why are so many children produced in these heterosexual unions neglected, abused, and abandoned? Figuring out how to fix those issues would be a much more noble issue than hiding behind "but the children" as a scare tactic to fan the flames of prejudice against marriage equality.