03.11.2010
I’ve been thinking a lot about some friends who are expecting their first child due later this year. Tracy and Jessica are no different from any other newly expectant parents and a few weeks ago, Tracy and I spent a lot of time talking about the notion of parenthood, adoption, and the issues that gay individuals face.
Initially, they had decided to proceed with looking into adoption just in case Tracy would be unable to get pregnant, but upon their first try with, I believe, intra-vaginal insemination, the procedure worked. So they postponed adoption. Tracy and Jessica had used a known donor and Tracy and I discussed the different issues that come up with this scenario.
Tracy admitted that being in California, and particularly being in Los Angeles County, she doesn’t encounter prejudice as much as she would in another state. However, in this process, she and Jessica encountered pretty harsh discrimination.
In discussing the birth certificate, they have a choice of putting the donor’s name on the child’s certificate. If they were to do so and, let’s say, something happened to Tracy during childbirth, Jessica has absolutely no custody rights to the child. The child would go to the known donor even though he entered into this situation not as a father but merely a donor. As difficult as it may have been for all friends involved, they all agreed on a pretty strict and concise contract to outline the roles of each participant so that were anything to occur, the specifics would be clear.
If Tracy and Jessica were a heterosexual couple in the same situation, none of this would apply. If the woman received IVI using sperm from a donor and something happened to her, the donor wouldn’t get custody of the child, her husband would.
This really angers me. This goes beyond discrimination in my books. It’s a complete denial of the existence of one’s partner. It invalidates any feelings, any memories, any plans that two individuals have just because the individuals involved happen to be of the same sex.
And how is this for the protection of the child?
People who are against same sex marriages are incredibly narrow-minded. They would rather a child grow up in an abusive household as long as there’s a mother and a father. Or that the child grow up with an alcoholic parent so long as there’s a mother or a father. Or have the child grow up in a house where there ARE no parents because they’re constantly working, or are using drugs, or had kids to fulfill a social status and otherwise don’t care for them. But, as long as in that house is a mother and a father, it makes it OK.
Why must we define a relationship as real only if it is between a penis and a vagina? A relationship is so much more than just sex and frankly those people who keep saying “It’s against God’s will” or “It’s against nature” are only thinking about one thing: sex.
First of all, what is “God’s will” if not a human putting words into God’s mouth? A human wrote the Bible; it didn't write itself. And because of this, it is subject to interpretation and cannot be considered objective.
Secondly, “It’s against nature” is a stupid argument because homosexuality exists in nature. And not only does it exist in nature but it has existed throughout human history. I love when people try to argue that marriage has been between a man and a woman for all of history. Obviously these people have never heard of little ancient civilizations called the Greeks or the Romans. But that’s just history talk. Boring, edumacated shit.
Sex is a part of a relationship, a way to physically show your love for someone. But it’s not the definition of a relationship. I just yearn for the day when two individuals who love each other and accept each other can openly marry and openly raise a family without laws or people in a completely different county telling them how they can live their lives. (Remember that teeny part of American history when inter-racial marriages were outlawed?) Sigh... I’d rather have a family, no matter who makes it a family, raise children in a loving and comfortable home instead of opening up the newspaper and reading how one more child died in the hands of a foster parent who only cared in collecting state checks or at the hands of his/her own parent. But hey, I guess as long as the foster parent or biological parent is heterosexual then those children’s deaths don’t mean anything. Let’s just keep focusing on the issue of gay marriage and gays raising children because that’s the real threat.
