Posted by
Playful Walrus on Monday, October 06, 2008 3:30:38 PM
Meghan Daum starts off her Los Angeles Times column mocking those of us who support marriage, but then goes on to note that our culture is indeed devaluing marriage with a lopsided emphasis on weddings, while our youth aren’t instructed enough in marriage.
A television ad supporting Proposition 8 implies that gay marriage would have to be "taught" in California public schools unless the right of same-sex couples to marry is overturned. It makes me wonder: What exactly do you teach when you teach gay marriage?
The teaching will be that there is no difference between bride-groom marriage and the monosexual unions that the state also licenses as marriage. And students who say otherwise will likely be pegged with a hate crime or some violation of the school code. Bride-groom marriage will not be allowed to be portrayed as the ideal.
As it turns out, the only thing in the education code related to marriage has to do with teaching "the legal and financial aspects and responsibilities of marriage and parenthood."
Do you really believe that there won’t be an imposition of neutered marriage into every area of curriculum, including reading selections and problem examples? History tells us otherwise.
Moreover, it's only a requirement for school districts seeking state funds for health education, which not every school does.
I see. So I shouldn’t be concerned because after I’ve paid my taxes, it will be up to my local school board whether or not they want to get any of that money back? So much for the insistence on “fairness”.
Granted, if gay marriage remains legal…
Again with the imprecise language. It hasn’t been illegal for two men or two women to have a marriage ceremony, and it won’t be if Prop 8 passes. State-issued marriage licenses would be reserved for bride-groom unions. They could be heterosexual people or homosexual people. So enough with saying that Prop 8 would make “gay marriage illegal”.
Here is something where we agree:
As inundated as young people are with superficial, misleading and often incredibly tacky messages about sex, they're barraged with equally superficial, misleading and often incredibly tacky messages about marriage.
Definitely true, and it is one reason they don’t see the big deal about judges imposing a neutering of marriage on all of us.
As a result, many teens of all sexual orientations (and many adults too) not only confuse sex with love, they confuse the long-term implications of marriage with the short-term gratification of wedding and honeymoon planning.
Right again. Make no mistake about it, though – it is this flippant attitude towards marriage that has aided the push to neuter it. However, same-sex couples can already have their lavish ceremonies and their lives together, and still well be able to if Prop 8 passes, if that is what they want.