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The Gay Megathread (see mod note on post #2212)
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Philogos- going on what you are advocating here would I be correct in assuming that you would also disagree with the U.S. Supreme court ruling in 2003 overturning the laws on sodomy ?
And would agree with those states - Texas being one of them- that have not repealed their sodomy laws in line with the supreme court ?
I am really curious as to how anything that philologos has advocated here could ever, except in a perfectly mad and deranged parallel universe, give rise to such a bizarre assumption.
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I am really curious as to how anything that philologos has advocated here could ever, except in a perfectly mad and deranged parallel universe, give rise to such a bizarre assumption.
I believe marienbad is alluding to the premise that philologos would oppose a top-down dictat that didn't involve a public vote (as he suggests is happening in the UK re: gay marriage) and support those groups of people who decided to go against such a top-down dictat.0 -
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philologos wrote: »The reason I largely don't believe that we should change marriage legally is because I value the traditional family,.
I have been thinking about this and tbh I think this notion of the 'traditional' family is little more then an idealised concept (like having sunshine everyday in summer) which does not take into account reality and ever changing social dynamics.
I understand what the 'ideal' is - Father + Mother + Children = nuclear family but dispute the notion that this is the ideal, the norm or the way it has always been.
The concept of the nuclear family was introduced into Ireland by the Tudors during the conquest, extended by the Stuarts and strictly enforced by Cromwell.
Prior to that Gaelic Irish society was based on a patriliniar, extended kin-ship groups (The Clans). This clan based system was systematically and violently destroyed as it was incompatible with Anglicisation. The same thing happened in Scotland and Wales. Similiar tactic were used in the Americas, Australia and New Zealand to destroy the traditional form of family units there and introduce the Anglo concept of the nuclear family.
The nuclear model was forcibly introduced as the basis of the family to destroy the power base of the Gaelic Irish clans and facilitate centralisation and conquest.
What this means is that the nuclear model has only held sway in Ireland since the mid 17th century. The previous Clan system having existed for around 2,000 years (500 B.C.E. - 1650s C.E)
Even in the 20/21st centuries the nuclear model, while considered the ideal, was/is certainly not the only form of family in existence.
As a case study if I look at my own family it is obvious that this nuclear model was never the only model. To all intents and purposes I am the product of a typical Irish Catholic, middle class (my granny had a nanny
) family and we are certainly not unusual.
It we look at my maternal family alone we find a great-grand father who was raised by a single mother. He married and had 9 children. Two of his daughters were single parents due to the early deaths of their husbands. One of his sons also died young living his widow a single parent. His youngest son married but they were unable to have children. 4 out of his 9 children had non-nuclear families.
My grandmother (one of the single parents) had 5 children = 4 daughters, 1 son.
All four daughters married and had children. 1 is separated (29 years and counting), 1 married twice and divorced twice - she raised 6 children alone = 2 from her first marriage, 2 from her second and 2 who had no biological relationship to her but were left in her care when her 2nd husband took off. Their biological mother had also abandoned them.
The son married a Korean woman while he was stationed there with the U.S army in the late 50s and adandoned her and his children when he deserted in 1963 (:mad:). We have no idea what his marital status is now.
3 out of her 5 children had non-nuclear families.
Of the 4 daughters:
Daughter A married and legally separated had 3 children = 2 straight and 1 gay. The two straights married (one had their marriage annulled by the RCC) at least once and divorced. The gay isn't allowed to get married. All three had children (1 adopted is adopted, one is an unmarried father and one preparing to marry his female fiancée and 1 is preparing to marry her female fiancée - in Canada). The gay has grandchildren.
Daughter B is still married, had 4 daughters = 3 married and 2 got divorced. 1 remarried, 2 live with their male partners. 3 had children - 1 via IVF treatment.
Daughter C still married, had 4 daughters and 2 sons = all the daughters married, 1 divorced. 1 son married but is also an unmarried father. He and his wife live with their children and her children from a previous marriage. Her youngest son is an unmarried father but lives with his partner. Daughter C and her husband had a celibate relationship from the time she was 38 to after she went through the menopause. The reason was she is a devout Catholic so refused to use contraception, already had 6 children and as her husband was a farm labourer on a low income the family was under sever financial pressure and simply couldn't afford to have any more children.
Daughter D (deceased) was the twice married, twice divorced biological mother of 4, adoptive mother of 2 and for most of her life a single parents (and really bad judge of men
).
These women are now in the 70s so very much the products of conservative, Catholic Ireland - yet only half of them conformed to this notion of the 'traditional' family.
The point is we cannot legislate on the basis of attempting to create some idealised concept that has no basis in reality - the State is obliged to legislate for what is. Now, before anyone wants to jump in and say well isn't equality an idealised concept and legislation would be an attempt to create was is not. The reality is that it is the State itself that has created the current inequality by its utter failure to recognize all it's citizens as equal under the law despite the fact that the Constitution states they are.
The Constitution recognises the special role of the family but at no point states that the nuclear model is the only form of family in existence and that there is no room for any other model to exist or that 'non-traditional' family models are deserving of a lesser legal status.
If one is truly interested in the family then it is my firm belief that one should be advocating and campaigning to ensure that what that means is that there are no '2nd class' form of family units - not that the State should enforce some idealised concept that simply is not, and has never been, the only model.
If the nuclear model is ones ideal - follow that model but do not expect everyone to follow suit and do not seek to portray those who follow different forms as inferior and therefore not deserving of equal legal recognition.0 -
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