Nancy A. Naples article on Gay parenting in the millennium was a real shock to me. It wasn’t her views and or comments on it, it was the actual fact that gay parenting is still be looked down upon. Naples even says, “…poverty, not failure to marry, that contributes most to the instability of families and undermines children’s welfare (Naples 679).” If a child can’t eat nor has a place to live that is what is going to affect them, not that he or she has the same sex parents. The fact that our actually president thought that just really baffles me. I can’t believe that this issue was even brought to the senate and house; we have way bigger problems than if we should let people of the same sex marry. They should just give them the right, it’s their life, why do people care what they do what they call their relationship; it has no affect on anyone but themselves. A religious group calling it a “sin” is complete nonsense, isn’t the whole idea behind Christianity forgiveness? No one has the right to judge someone based on who they choose to live their lives with. Gay marriage is not hurting anyone, shouldn’t the senate be busying themselves with stuff like poverty or violence. Nancy Naples also describes how she and her partner are going to have twins and they chose to work with a lesbian nurse midwife. When reading this I wondered why they didn’t go to hospital and if their decision to work with a midwife had anything to do with how the hospital treated them. Towards the end of the article Nancy describes how heteronormative family form is everywhere and how they blend in most of the time except when they check into hotel together and ask for a queen bed instead of two twins. She also explains how they to define their relationship to people and that are unfair because straight people don’t have to explain anything, but that’s just the way the world is today. Hopefully it will get better because if they do legalize marriage that won’t really change anything culturally. Nancy Naples says, “…but it is unlikely that by itself legal change will create acceptance or transform dominant cultural views (683).” This is very true when the law changes that don’t necessarily mean that culture will change. “Queering family and parenting, and destabilizing the powerful hegemony of heteronormativity, involves daily negotiations, strategic choices, and a commitment to challenging heterosexual privilege in everyday life (683).”
Paula Ettelbrick’s “Since when is Marriage a Path to Liberation?” was a fascinating look on gay marriage. She describes marriage as this “ultimate form of acceptance” and gives those people a “status of power” (Ettelbrick 305-306). She also describes gays and lesbians relationships at the bottom of importance and acceptance, and how gays and lesbians just want to become insiders instead of outsiders. I feel like a lot of homosexuals feel this way. And my question to that is why would you want to be on the inside of something that once hated or disrespected you? Paula Ettelbrick seems to think that marriage is not good for the gay and lesbian community and says that it will not bring justice. She says that, “Justice and gay men and lesbians will be achieved only when we are accepted and supported in this society despite or differences from the dominant culture and the choices we make regarding our relationships (Ettelbrick 306).” This is the key point of her article and it relates to Nancy Naple’s article in saying that marriage is not enough and what gays and lesbians really need is socially acceptance and respect for their differences. Both of them do not think that marriage will lead them to equality.
The article on why do same sex couples want to marry and why civil unions aren’t enough just really laid down the differences between the two. It really shows why for legal reasons why gays and lesbians want to married. The advantage of marriage is a lot greater than civil unions: things like being able to visit your love one in the hospital seem so obvious, yet gays and lesbians are not allowed this. Financial reasons are also a main part of it. Most employers don’t cover life partners of gays and lesbians and they also can’t inherit their partner’s 401K without heavy taxing. The list of advantages of marriage over civil union is a big one that I did not even know about and I bet it’s a lot of things straight married people take for granted.
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