I've donated to enetation, which means that I should be switched over to a dedicated server, which means Ryan and I should be able to post comments only once sometime in the near future.
Sheesh. This is getting silly.
Re: the stoopid marriage week thingy --
As someone elsewhere stated, it's not the majority that needs protecting. Commitment happens; in a fair majority of cases it happens between a man and a woman. This is a well-established pattern that doesn't look to be declining soon (unless you're talking about divorce rates, at which point I would expect Dubya to go after Hollywood and Congress). At the bare minimum, he has dedicated federal resources to a campaign intended to protect something that doesn't need protecting. At worst, he's using my tax money to defeat my own desire to be able to legally commit to whomever I want in an equitable, mutually enriching way.
This campaign is not about protecting marriage. It is about protecting the heterosexual hegemony of those who think that the only legitimate relationship is one that exists between a man and a woman.
The most frightening part? It looks so warm and cuddly in theory. "We're protecting family and saving the children." What about the children whose parents are gay? What does this do to them? By denying them a legal family, you ensure that they will nearly always have problems of guardianship (frequently, gay and lesbian parents are not allowed to legally co-parent; different states have different policies; mileage may vary...). You also ensure that depictions of same-sex parent families will always appear as "other." Children of divorce once went through the same thing: their successes were seen as being in spite of an "abnormal" upbringing, their failures as being because of it. Public perceptions may seem a little thing, but in this case they have far reaching consequences at both a societal and individual level.
This is some of the reason why I can't see this "Marriage Protection Week" campaign as no big thing. I'd like to think it was just a silly waste of time any money, but my knowledge and experience suggest to me something far more insidious.
Sheesh. This is getting silly.
Re: the stoopid marriage week thingy --
As someone elsewhere stated, it's not the majority that needs protecting. Commitment happens; in a fair majority of cases it happens between a man and a woman. This is a well-established pattern that doesn't look to be declining soon (unless you're talking about divorce rates, at which point I would expect Dubya to go after Hollywood and Congress). At the bare minimum, he has dedicated federal resources to a campaign intended to protect something that doesn't need protecting. At worst, he's using my tax money to defeat my own desire to be able to legally commit to whomever I want in an equitable, mutually enriching way.
This campaign is not about protecting marriage. It is about protecting the heterosexual hegemony of those who think that the only legitimate relationship is one that exists between a man and a woman.
The most frightening part? It looks so warm and cuddly in theory. "We're protecting family and saving the children." What about the children whose parents are gay? What does this do to them? By denying them a legal family, you ensure that they will nearly always have problems of guardianship (frequently, gay and lesbian parents are not allowed to legally co-parent; different states have different policies; mileage may vary...). You also ensure that depictions of same-sex parent families will always appear as "other." Children of divorce once went through the same thing: their successes were seen as being in spite of an "abnormal" upbringing, their failures as being because of it. Public perceptions may seem a little thing, but in this case they have far reaching consequences at both a societal and individual level.
This is some of the reason why I can't see this "Marriage Protection Week" campaign as no big thing. I'd like to think it was just a silly waste of time any money, but my knowledge and experience suggest to me something far more insidious.
posted by Turtle at 4:20 PM
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