The Kids Are Alright: Some Thoughts About Same-Sex Marriage
by Steve Singiser
Sun Nov 08, 2009 at 02:00:05 PM PST
The following, hard as it might be to believe, is a true story. The setting: Driving in the family car to a lavish lunch at the local Carls Jr. drive-thru. Saturday afternoon, November 1st. 2008.
My four year-old daughter is absorbed by a Disney cartoon on her seatback DVD player, while my seven year-old son fidgets in the back seat. I have lunch duty with my kids, because my wife is on a deadline, and needed to go into the firm on Saturday to tie up some loose ends. I am listening to a college football game on the radio when my son interrupts the play-by-play from the backseat:
"Hey, Dad, how are we going to vote on Proposition 8?"
Aside from the plural "we", which I found kind of cute, this was not the question I was hoping for. Discussions on marriage with a second grader is not my idea of a fun conversation, "traditional" or same sex.
"Why do you ask, buddy?"
"Well, Dad. I have been thinking about it. And I talked about it with some friends at school. And I think we ought to vote "yes."
Ruh-roh.
This comes, to say the least, as a shock. I am pretty well to the left-of-center politically, and my wife, if anything, is to my left. So, hearing my elementary school-aged son coming out as a proponent of marriage discrimination was a bit of an eye-opener.
I need to get to the bottom of this...
"Really, bud. Well, why do you think that?"
"Well, Dad, that would make it illegal for a boy to marry a boy, and a girl to marry a girl, right?"
"Yes, Cody, that's what Proposition 8 would do."
"Well, I think that it should be illegal."
This is where the speculation sets in. Has his teacher been pushing this? Is one of his buddies the product of a very conservative home, and they have pushed the issue with their kids? Who knows?
"Hey, Cody, why do you think it ought to be illegal?"
"Because, Dad, I don't want to marry a boy. I want to marry a girl. You know, like Kate or somebody."
I start breathing again. He thinks "same sex marriage" is somehow a mandatory thing, and that Prop 8 is the thin line between marriage the way he has always understood it, and some bizarre new world where only boys can marry boys and girls can marry girls.
"No...buddy. It is not like that. Prop 8 makes it illegal for boys to marry boys, or girls to marry girls, if they want to. It won't change who you get to marry."
Silence from the backseat. Wheels, quite clearly, are turning.
"Oh...well...that's okay then. Besides, why should I care who someone else marries??!!"
Kids get it.
And that is the only saving grace out of disappointments like California's Proposition 8 and Maine's Question 1. It was echoed again this week when in his moving post-mortem on Wednesday morning, Bill in Portland Maine found some comfort in the otherwise dreary data post-election:
This morning the words of America's first openly-gay Episcopal Bishop, V. Gene Robinson---who has endured bigotry of the worst kind, including an assassination attempt---are soothing my savage manboobs. Robinson visited Portland several weeks ago to talk about Question 1. He raised the all-too-real possibility that things wouldn’t go our way this time. And now that the results are in and the vote didn’t go our way, his words are helping me this morning. A lot.
He said that we've already won this fight, it's just a question of timing. Here's what he means. Look at this result from last night, courtesy of Adam Bink at Open Left. It is the only thing I've shed tears over this morning, and they are happy ones:
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