A Matter of Opinion

Recently one of my very favorite people in the world - a popular and well known writer and humorist whom I have always looked to for wit, satire, and extraordinary good sense - wrote something that was hurtful to someone I care about. I was caught totally off guard, both by his writing and her reaction to it. While it went straight to her heart, it simply passed over me like a whisper because this is something she lives and I only observe. "Nature," my hero wrote, "is about continuation of the species, in other words, children. Nature does not care about the emotional well-being of older people."

True enough, I thought to myself, not rocket science, but true enough. He then went on to make a commentary on the less than desirable effects on children that will be brought about by gay marriage. Now, I have never suffered from discrimination except the playful teasing about my height ( I stand a proud but unremarkable 5' ) and that born of stupidity ( a woman can't possibly know anything about the workings of a camera so get me a male salesperson, please ) so I was distressed to read this from a man I've adored for years. I expect such things from the so called Religious Right - their arrogant certainty and determination to endorse and encourage intolerance is so flat out wrong that it's common - and their self righteous swaggering abouf there being only one path to God is too revoltingly un-christian to even contemplate. However, to hear it from a voice that has never brought me anything but comfort, a smile, and gentle music - well.

I've never given much thought to sexual preference one way or another. I consider it a private matter between consenting adults and a subject to share only as they see fit. It does not define us and it certainly has no morality attached. It's a product of genetics, no more significant than blue eyes or brown. We are who and what we are meant to be and I believe that sexual preference is as much God's design as gravity. That we routinely deny same sex couples equal rights - marriage, divorce, health insurance, inheritances, children, social and religious acceptance and economic opportunities - is, to my mind, the act of a less than civilized society. Whether we do this through laws or satire makes little difference.

Secondly, "mixed gender" marriages from "back in the day" may indeed be traditional. There was no easy way out then which is a far cry different than being happy. Did they produce better, happier or more well adjusted children? I doubt it, just as I doubt that extended families will produce, lesser, sadder or badly adjusted children.
Broken families do not automatically breed broken children. And even broken children heal. So to my beloved writer, I say shame on you and to the one he hurt ( and angered ), I say don't listen to his radio show.