Reason, Tradition and bad poopies.

Personally, my feelings about gay marriage are contradictory.

On one hand, having gay family members and friends, I strongly believe that if any two people are in love, and wish to "take it to the next level" as it were, and make that committment, they should be able to. And they should reap all the benefits, responsibilities, and consequences of that decision.

On the other hand, as a father and a husband, I'm a big fan of the traditional Man-Woman-Children family. I think it's generally the most natural and healthy place for children to be raised. (Yes, I know there are unhealthy traditional families, great single parents, and probably great gay parents as well. I still hold to my beliefs here.)

Children are a natural consequence of the traditional marriage. (yes, I also know a great many hetero couples have problems having kids... talking in generalities here.) To add children to a gay marriage is an artificial construct, and here's my problem with gay marriage... the connection between marriage and family. A union between to gay people isn't the same as a heterosexual marriage as a consequence of the biology and the organic nature of a hetero family.

Is it fair? No. It's just the way it is.

I'm not trying to convince anyone. And if I had to vote on a referendum on gay marriage, I don't know which way I'd vote. I do feel that in order to make gay marriage a possibility, one consequence we are seeing is the trivialization of the traditional hetero family. And this makes me sad. When I hear a pro-gay marriage editorial on NPR, or read an op-ed piece somewhere, one of the first points made is usually to attack the traditional family.

Margaret Cho's pro-gay marriage schtick on NPR earlier this week is a case in point. First she put down marriage as a whole. Then her argument was something along the lines of "Well, since it's not that big a deal, what's the problem with letting Gay's in." The problem is that Marriage should be a big deal. And our society is already trivializing it. So it's an easy target.

I'm not going to really get into reason and tradition the way ML and BH do. It's not my bag, baby.

P.S. Bad Poopies is my daughters term for a productive upset stomach. It just seemed to flow from the discussion of BH's Ass.