Gay marriage - A simple issue? Really?

When I was in elementary school, there was exactly one child among two classes my age, 50 or more children, whose parents were divorced. Well, for a few months there was a second girl, who became my best friend, whose mother was divorced. She and her mother moved suddenly, and we never got a chance to say good-bye. There were no children in my class who were living with deliberately single mothers. Some things have changed since then.

Changes in technology (birth control) and law (no-fault divorce, etc.) decreased the importance of marriage in society. And theories from the Left have knocked marriage first one way and then the other. In my lifetime, marriage has been portrayed by the Left as a meaningless piece of paper, as slavery, as an expression of patriarchy and authoritarianism,  as an institution within which any woman who has sex is being raped, as an arrangement of temporary convenience, as in "starter marriages", and as many other things. Lots of people have felt lots of pain as a result of these various theories. NOW, marriage is suddenly a constitutional right. Until the Left comes up with another goal.

People are starting to talk about some of the legal problems which are posed by same-sex marriage. Like what do you do with the "presumption of paternity" in the case of a lesbian marriage? Or annulment based upon a non-consummated marriage? The law books must be full of wording that will need to be changed, all because of the insistence that the definition of ONE WORD be changed.   What about the Rush Limbaugh-Elton John Compromise?

Gay marriage seems to me to pose the danger of making marriage less attractive to heterosexual men, especially in "at-risk communities" where young men already think of "Sperm Donor"as an ideal family role.

For one thing, the NYT reported that about half of gay married men in Massachusetts do not consider sexual fidelity to be particularly important. Understandably. So, if gay and straight marriage are "totally the same", why shouldn't straight men expect that their wives will be cool with hubby having sex with other people? If your girlfriend doesn't like that idea, why get married and face conflict over your desire for other women? Is there any value to the idea of marriage as a "civilizing bridge between the sexes", requiring both partners to rein in their natural inclinations for the benefit of the partnership?  Should the word "marriage" be made so broad that such social responsibilities become less obvious?

And then there's the recent liberal theme that fathers are, at best, second-rate mothers. Never mind increased pathologies among youths in fatherless homes. Or "daddy-hunger" among young children. Signs of "daddy hunger" such as a child having to be "pried from the leg" of a male day care worker every day are interpreted not as signs of distress over the absence of a father, but as evidence that the child-care worker makes a fine father substitute. When a boy suggests that his two mothers can find a dad to move in with them, it's just "cute". Mentioning those phenomena in a concerned way will soon be "hate speech" directed at a protected minority.

The Left has characterized the idea that children do better if their fathers are involved in their lives as irrational bigotry. President Obama was apparently totally off-base when he tried to convince young black men to take more responsibility for their children.  Sometimes I wonder if the President's opposition to same-sex marriage might be partly due to his difficult experiences as a community organizer in Chicago, dealing with a culture dominated almost totally by women (with the men often entering gangs instead of staying with the mothers of their children).

If fathers get no respect for any unique contribution as a parent, WHY NOT be the sperm donor for a lesbian couple instead of marrying? Or brag about your "baby mommas" raising your kids with their own mothers (since two women make the ideal parenting team).  This would be in line with some old British/American feminist and socialist positions which seem to be making a come-back now.  Though limiting the number of male children is not being pushed currently.

The feminist position on sex education remains:

What is important here is to separate sex from procreation

And hence, from parenthood. As liberal policies have done in the South Side of Chicago.

The push to encourage acceptance of gay and bisexual relationships as "normative" also seems to be having an effect in "at risk" populations. A friend who works at a Job Corps reported that a very high percentage of the students, upwards of 40%, self-identified as gay or bisexual, with a high percentage of those claiming to be bisexual. I am bracing for the liberal push for "bisexual marriage rights".

During the relatively short period in ancient Greece when male homosexual relationships were revered as "purer" than those with women, because there were no concerns of marriage or inheritance, bisexual behavior increased dramatically. And the independence and status of women were also reduced in Athens during this "golden age", with sequestration and veiling of upper-class wives. Prostitutes had more freedom than other women. But at that time, marriage and homosexual relationships were thought of separately.

 Who knows what bisexual "family relationships" will be promoted in the near future by the "marriage is a constitutional right" crowd? Whatever they are, they will not fit the ideal model demonstrated by large-scale studies, which show that the best environment for growing children is in a stable, low-conflict home with both biological parents. (As far as I know, most of the smaller comparative studies with same-sex parents compared those families to heterosexual families with divorced and re-married or co-habiting  parents, due to the small number of children raised from infancy in a same-sex household).

I was not particularly surprised that many young women in the Job Corps would claim to be bisexual, as more information is coming out recently concerning the "fluidity" of female sexual orientation. Plus all the stories about women in Hollywood and elsewhere who seem to change their sexual orientation, and pornography directed at men which feature lesbian sex.

 But my friend said that there was also a high percentage of young men who claimed to be bisexual. Interesting how the old hard-left theme that sexual orientation is just a matter of "social conditioning" is now making a comeback, after the Left spent years trying to convince us that sexual orientation is totally immutable. The truth is likely somewhere in the middle, with many women being more "flexible" in their sexual attractions. More information needed. Exciting, unsettling times ahead.