Commentary
Constitutional ban on same-sex marriage does no one's family any good
by Shannon DruryI'm a married, stay-at-home mom of two kids, a son and a daughter. I spend a great deal of time viewing the world through their eyes. My parenting decisions are informed by my obligation to prepare them for the complexities of adulthood, in which obvious answers are few. I may be able to fix a skinned knee, but I can't make sense of heartbreak. I aim for an attitude of flexibility, in hopes that they will too.
For example, I play John Coltrane records in the house, but I don't take it personally that the kids prefer Ke$ha. Friends tease that my liberalism will one day boomerang on me, that Elliott will become a junior Alex P. Keaton, the Reaganite spawn of hippies on the sitcom "Family Ties." They don't know that I've already decided to parent on the side of caution: In my house, conservatism is presented as a moral philosophy I don't happen to share, not a subject so taboo it gains allure by virtue of parental rejection (a win-win, I think).
Parenting this way is not easy, but I believe it will reap benefits in the long run. My children's adulthoods are not fixed in my imagination, so they will never hear me say, "But I always thought you were going to law school!" My children sometimes examine the photograph of their parents' wedding in our Minneapolis backyard, but it doesn't lead into an automatic discussion of their own wedding days. Maybe they'll decide to marry, maybe they won't.
Or maybe the state they live in won't allow them to marry the partner of their choice.
I care about children, my own and others in our community. But I don't agree that "protecting the legitimate interests of children" requires that we limit marriage to heterosexual unions, as does Jennifer Roback Morse, a writer and researcher affiliated with the National Organization for Marriage. She presented her testimony before the Minnesota Senate Judiciary Committee last month, in support of a constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage. She said that "marriage exists to meet the social necessity of caring for helpless children, who are not, and cannot be, contracting parties. Children are protected parties."
As she opened her testimony, Morse identified herself as the parent of two, like me. I wonder if she ever considered the possibility that one or both of them could be gay. Nowhere in the transcript of her testimony does she mention how legal discrimination might affect the self-image of gay and lesbians themselves, preferring to focus her disapproval only on the children conceived by gay and lesbian parents, whom she rather coldly described as "partially purchased." This strikes me as an odd way to describe a family created out of love and significant emotional and financial commitment, which I would think Morse would find preferable to one formed in the aftermath of a drunken hookup.
Some LGBT citizens in Minnesota have children. Some LGBT citizens in Minnesota ARE children. As Sen. Scott Dibble asked in emotional testimony before the full Minnesota Senate May 11, "What family is this helping? Not a single family in Minnesota is helped by this effort."
The bitterness of the language is already affecting two children I love dearly, sisters who came to my daughter Miriam's sixth birthday party this month. Jennifer Roback Morse believes these two girls are doomed to ask "uncomfortable questions about their origins," but I think Mia and Margaret are more likely to ask why Morse (or anyone) would describe their family as evidence of "the brutality of the marriage 'equality' regime." The brutality will result from the culture war that threatens our state now that the Legislature has voted to put a constitutional amendment on our ballot.
And the damage this fight will inflict on my children, should one or both be gay, is absolutely intolerable. Morse may be confident that her kids don't land anywhere on the LGBT spectrum, but I'm not. I parent on the side of caution and assume nothing. To do otherwise would be brutal, indeed.
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Shannon Drury, president of Minnesota NOW, is a writer, at-home parent and community activist. She writes a regular column for the Minnesota Women's Press, with additional work appearing in HipMama, Literary Mama and Skirt magazines. She blogs at www.theradicalhousewife.com and is a source in MPR's Public Insight Network.
Comments (9)
Jeez MN it's the 21st century.
Marriage is a civil and contractual matter in America. Period.
Cheers, JAM, CT, USA
Onward to full marriage equality now!
Thanks, Shannon! I always love reading your insightful and moving commentaries.
Thank you.
Well that was just an excellent piece. I remember the suffocating feeling of assumptions by grown-ups in my own childhood and I also choose to not inflict that on my children. That point alone in this piece is probably radical to a lot of people who, I imagine, self-righteously believe they were lucky to be born normal or the standard model or even "in god's image". As this commentary states, that is brutal for children.
Shannon, I grew up in rural Minnesota to parents much like you. At an early age I was confronted about "uncomfortable questions about [my] origins": I was adopted, and thus why I didn't look quite like my siblings. I was only about 5 at the time, too young to really understand what it meant. My parents assured me they loved me and supported me and treated me just as one of their own. I would only grow into that understanding.
Years later I did actually meet my birth mother. Telling me the story of my birth, all of us, myself, my birth mother, my adoptive parents, have no doubt in my mind that what happened to me was the absolute best thing that could have happened.
For the proponents of this amendment to purport that in all cases, the parents of children who procreated them are in all cases to raise them is absolutely absurd, and an insult to myself, to my adoptive and to my birth family. We should all be able to choose the structure of our family what's best for us based on OUR OWN decisions, not what government tells us it should be. For there is nothing more personal than choosing a spouse, forming a family, and the government should have absolutely no say in that for us. We know best, not the government, and certainly not complete strangers we've never met. And that is why this amendment must go!
As a Mom of two, I too find it hard to parent without discrimination and indoctrination. I am trying though. My children already have different opinions of my own. They see things in the world of black and white, and as we grow older, we tend to see the grey's. I am hoping that its the greying that all will begin to see. To understand that we can accept what we don't support. As you are doing with the word "conservatism". I too choose to take the liberal slant, but one rooted in moral and family based values and structure, are corner stoned with civil and social justice. I wish the so called conservative could do the same. Only children are harmed by this bigotry, Jim Davine said it better on Sat. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yPMD5rH0CI&feature=player_embedded
Thank you for a very well written rebuttal to the misplaced intentions of a few that have now exposed our state to potential misguided and uninformed voter rule.
Minnesotans should ask the anti-gay groups this question. Mass and Iowa have gay marriage and now have the lowest divorce rates in the nation. Nevada and Arkansas ban gay marriage and have the highest. How, then, does gay marriage threaten "traditional marriage"?You might also ask them if they favor a constitutional amendment banning divorce. If not, why not, since the Bible absolutely forbids divorce?
What we don't need, is more big government sticking its nose into our personal affairs. We need to fall back to the core principles set forth by the founders... many of whom feared the tyranny of the majority above all others. Make no mistake, that is exactly what this proposed ammendment represents.
Personal liberty, freedom from government interference and the pursuit of happiness. These are my values. I am confused by so-called conservatives who hold those values as paramount, yet support this amendment.
Minnesota will be on the wrong side of history should this come to pass. I do not relish explaining this to future generations, because I will be ashamed of us. As should we all.
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