"in 2006, when asked if gay couples and pets count as family, 30 percent[of poll participants] said pets count but not gay couples.
"The sheer idea that gay couples are given less status than pets should give us pause," Powell said in an interview.
Even though five states and the District of Columbia now allow same-sex marriages, the federal government doesn't recognize them. The Census Bureau definition of "family" remains traditional: "A family is a group of two people or more (one of whom is the householder) related by birth, marriage, or adoption and residing together."
Many religious conservatives hope the government sticks by that definition, even in the face of shifts in public opinion.
"Same-sex marriage is a dangerous social experiment," said Glenn Stanton, director of family formation studies for Focus on the Family. "A lesbian couple who legally married in Massachusetts — are they family? We would say, 'Absolutely not.'"
While this article's hook is enough to keep you thinking for a while ("straight people with cats are families but gay people with cats, dogs, and two kids aren't? hmm...") it also has a nice overview of current feelings around marriage, families, and adoption issues. The interests of many groups, gay or straight, are brought to light in a pretty well rounded way, which i appreciate.
Quite often the debate in America is over how 'marriage' should be defined, but this article also brings up how the definition of 'family' ties into that debate. People opposed to the idea of same sex marriages, for example, oppose not only the change in the definition of 'marriage' but the change in the formulation of a traditional 'family' (the 'think of the children!' card is played rather often, despite multiple research studies).
This article also mentions a whole book on the subject, and I do love book links.
Focus on the Family is also the group that has been denouncing the Safe Schools Improvement Act, legislation designed to create specific provisions against name-calling and other bullying based on sexual orientation, as "gay propoganda". Which is great. To my personal delight, one of the responses to this was for Sirdeaner Walker, a board member of GLSEN and a "good Christian woman" of sorts to send them a letter telling them the story of her young Christian son who killed himself after being tormented with anti-gay slurs at school, and appealing to them on a level of showing God's love to all children. Being non-Christian, this is not that emotional a level for me, but I always appreciate people who, even if they think of homosexuality as a sin, recognize that hate is not the right way to go.
ReplyDelete