Sunday, February 29, 2004
Gay Marriage
Today in the New York Times, author Nathaniel Frank articulates perfectly my views on gay marriage. I think civil unions are a "second best" answer to this controversial issue and any other proposal discriminates against minorities.
A couple of weeks ago I heard John Stossel from ABC news discussing this subject and he came to the same conclusion. He said he viewed homosexuality as something perfectly natural and therefore felt that people who are gay should have the same rights as everyone else. I had never thought about it in those terms. Is homosexuality normal? No. But many of us have attributes that are not shared by the majority of people. But is this form of sexual orientation natural? Who can argue with this statement?
Therefore, the President is wrong in his desire to amend our constitution to define marriage as between a man and a wife. In fact, my hope is that he finds he finds that he has much more important things on which to concentrate. What I think Mr. Bush should be talking about, and another reason that we should allow gay marriage, is that we need to support the family structure as the fundamental foundation of our society. In Washington D.C. over 60% of children are born to single women. These kids grow up without a stable family and then enter our public schools often having a host of problems complicating their ability to learn. It's no wonder that inner city schools are in trouble. The combination of the student population with an inept bureaucracy is a blueprint for educational failure.
But the problems of the family are not limited to urban environments. Divorce, as we know, is rampant in America and it is the kids that get caught in the middle of the wars between the mother and father (I've always wondered how it became normal for children to be shipped from one home to another every two or three days like some borrowed items of clothing). Even when there is a stable family unit, we find that both the husband and wife work, which many times results in kids being home alone unsupervised for long period of time.
We all need to get back to basics and realize that the union of husband and wife must come before the child. Once the child is born the husband and wife have to understand that their main role now is as parents. We need to be clear as day that the commitment of parenting means not only taking care of the daily needs of the child but preparing him or her to be respected members of our community. It's not a part-time task and it cannot be left to someone else to impart the values that a youngster will need to depend on to be successful in life. How refreshing it would be for our leaders to focus on what's really important to the future of this country.
PermaLink | 6:17 PM |
|
A couple of weeks ago I heard John Stossel from ABC news discussing this subject and he came to the same conclusion. He said he viewed homosexuality as something perfectly natural and therefore felt that people who are gay should have the same rights as everyone else. I had never thought about it in those terms. Is homosexuality normal? No. But many of us have attributes that are not shared by the majority of people. But is this form of sexual orientation natural? Who can argue with this statement?
Therefore, the President is wrong in his desire to amend our constitution to define marriage as between a man and a wife. In fact, my hope is that he finds he finds that he has much more important things on which to concentrate. What I think Mr. Bush should be talking about, and another reason that we should allow gay marriage, is that we need to support the family structure as the fundamental foundation of our society. In Washington D.C. over 60% of children are born to single women. These kids grow up without a stable family and then enter our public schools often having a host of problems complicating their ability to learn. It's no wonder that inner city schools are in trouble. The combination of the student population with an inept bureaucracy is a blueprint for educational failure.
But the problems of the family are not limited to urban environments. Divorce, as we know, is rampant in America and it is the kids that get caught in the middle of the wars between the mother and father (I've always wondered how it became normal for children to be shipped from one home to another every two or three days like some borrowed items of clothing). Even when there is a stable family unit, we find that both the husband and wife work, which many times results in kids being home alone unsupervised for long period of time.
We all need to get back to basics and realize that the union of husband and wife must come before the child. Once the child is born the husband and wife have to understand that their main role now is as parents. We need to be clear as day that the commitment of parenting means not only taking care of the daily needs of the child but preparing him or her to be respected members of our community. It's not a part-time task and it cannot be left to someone else to impart the values that a youngster will need to depend on to be successful in life. How refreshing it would be for our leaders to focus on what's really important to the future of this country.
PermaLink | 6:17 PM |
| 
