Same Sex Marriage?

First, this post is not about sewing or projects or anything like that.

This video made me think this morning.  Those of you that know me, I'm sure wouldn't be surprised that I fully support the idea of gay marriage.  I'm on the liberal end of the spectrum. So when I was watching this video, it wasn't making me change an opinion, or rethink my view on a position.

What this video made me think about is the definition of family.  It seems that a lot of people define a family as a married husband and wife and their children.  Does that mean then that committed man and woman in a relationship, but not married in the eye of the state, who have children, are not a family?  Does that mean that a war-widow raising her children on her own isn't a family because they don't have a husband and a wife?  What about the single dad who is raising his children without the biological woman who is the mother of his children because she is incarcerated - are they not a family?  What about the woman who decides that she wants to have children on her own - and gets a sperm donor, does she not have a family?  What about the grandparents raising their grandchildren?  Or the older siblings raising the younger ones?

What makes a family into a "family"?   What is the purpose of marriage in terms of government?  I'm not talking religious definition of marriage - religions can define it however they want, I believe that is their right, I'm talking about how the government defines marriage, the legal rights associated with it. There is freedom of religion in this country and that's a great thing in my mind - I might disagree with your religious beliefs, but I don't deny you that choice of your beliefs.  If you offer legal marriage to one group of people you should offer it to all people, not discriminate, not by color, creed, age (if you are a consenting adult) or sexual orientation.  I won't go into the issue of consenting polygamy here - so if you want to define marriage as between two adult people I'd be happy with that.  But leave it at that.  Let them decide who they want to spend their life with.

Because, why can't two women or two men raise a child?  What makes them less than fit?  If you say a child has to have a male parent and a female parent otherwise they are getting a disservice or something terrible is happening to them, that they aren't fit parents, then you need to equally consider the fitness of single moms, single dads, parents who are drug users, drug dealers, work-a-holics who are never home, grandparents raising their grand kids, parents who have nanny's raise their kids, etc.  If your definition of what makes a good parenting situation is simply one man married to one woman, then you are discounting all the other types of "families" that have gone under the radar.

If you want to have this fight, then really have the fight - don't pick on just one small group of people and deny them rights you give to others, if you are going to deny rights do it across the board and see what happens then.  Because I don't think you'll win.  How does this hurt you?  Maybe it doesn't conform with your beliefs, but does everything in the world conform to your beliefs?  But don't make others second class citizens because of it.