Monday, March 14, 2011

What is wrong with same sex marriage? Nothing! (Part 3)


What is wrong with same sex marriage? Nothing! (Part 3)

Opponents of same sex marriage put forward varying reasons for their lack of support. I plan to discuss these reasons and why they are absurd.

STATEMENT: Children need a mother and a father to be role models 
RESPONSE: Heterosexual couples do not guarantee perfect role models

It is immediately obvious to me that marriage does not necessarily relate to raising children. This ploy is used by opponents of same sex marriage and attempts to reduce marriage into the sole purpose of having children. This was discussed briefly in What is wrong with same sex marriage? Nothing! (Part 2).

Opponents of same sex marriage often claim that children require a mother and a father to be role models and suggest that all other combinations are inferior or inadequate for raising children. In that same breath they choose to ignore the dysfunctional, abusive, alcoholic, and mentally poisonous heterosexual couples raising children.

My own family has been fractured by divorce a number of times. Opponents of same sex marriage would agree that I had the perfect role models for my upbringing as I had a mother and a father. Although my biological father has partially re-entered my life, and my step father did influence my life for approx 10 years, it was my mother, a single parent, that bore the burden of my upbringing. I am a lucky child as my mother was strong and gave me the solid base from which to grow and learn, irrespective of the instability of her own life.

Where are the role models for children of divorce? Where are the role models for children of dysfunctional, abusive, alcoholic and mentally poisonous heterosexual parents?

Single parents, same sex couples and heterosexual couples are all capable of raising balanced children and equally capable of raising children poorly. This is the nature of life.

It is an inescapable fact that heterosexual couples do not guarantee perfect role models nor a perfect environment for raising children and to argue that they do is absurd.