Marriage by Partnership, Family by Committee
It’s a brave new world people. What is it with calling your marital or common law spouse “partner”, anyways? I don’t get it. If husband and wife don’t exactly work for you, what is wrong with the genderless term spouse exactly? What, are you entering into some kind of business together? Are you planning on opening a chain of restaurants perhaps? Is this intended to make it easier to unwind the “partnership” at the appropriate time? Not a divorce settlement per se, but a sale of assets, a repayment of debt, a return on investment. Please do let me know.
Slippery slopers were told marriage and family would not be undermined by the recognition in law of same-sex weddings. With the Ontario Court of Appeal’s landmark ruling yesterday granting parental status to a third guardian of a five-year old boy, the spectacle of the family compact consisting of multiple mums and dads is now fully upon us. Forget about defending the natural family, and the traditional marriage that binds it, it already seems passé to defend same-sex marriage as between just two persons if we are now permitting three-parent families. MPs better hurray up and bridge the gap to placate an impatient judiciary. Doubtless activist judges will restrain themselves to even that, if the family can prove they all live in a happy, loving, nurturing relationship.
What’s wrong with three parents, you ask? Well for that matter, what’s wrong with four or five or ten? Should the couple divorce, all three parents can now legally apply for custody, remarry and have their new spouse also recognized as mothers or fathers as the case may be. In theory that is. The reality is the boy will effectively have no mother and father, because just as a practical matter, he won’t be able to say “Mum” or “Dad” at home if more than one resides in the same household. Better to call your mummies Mary, Sally and Susan just to be clear about whom you’re talking to. Without the special bonding to a Mum and a Dad, gone will be the natural distinctions that validate that you live in something other than some boarding house run by a living room committee of custodial guardians with parental status. Gone will be the distinctions that symbolize the ideal of family.
Beaverbrook
6 comments:
Good point. How do kids in SSM's differentiate between their Mom & Mom or Dad & Dad in terms of referencing them? Do they use first names or is it Mom AA and Mom BB?
Strange new world, alright!
I agree with the use of the term "partner" - it has always sounded so clinical and perfunctory. However, I wonder what is meant by "the natural family." Throughout the millennia of human existence, even up to today, there have been numerous cultures in different locales around the world where more than one wife, who each bore multiple children, was the common practice, and was seen as "natural." I don't deny that this arrangement would create difficulties within our Christianity based legal system, but I'm not sure it can been seen as any less natural than two parents rearing children.
James, I don't know about the merits of a perfunctory or clinical marriage, but I always thought people's natural inclination was to hope for something more uplifting than that.
I can understand the bristling by some against the term "natural". Republicans bristle at the term loyalist because it implies they are not loyal. That's why same-sex proponents talk of the "traditional family" instead of the natural family, because traditions can be discarded so easily in this day and age and it doesn't imply they go against nature. But procreation is stubbornly biological, there being no escaping from the fact that every son and daughter is born with one father and one mother as their parents. Even if it is an inconvenient notion for some families, I see nothing inherently wrong in defending that ideal.
NOTE:Regarding a Ontario Court legally recgonizing a three parent family for a five year of age boy. All three so called parents are homosexuals,two lesbian moms and the sperm donator visiting dad who is a male homosexual. No doubt in part, a trickle down effect due to the federal-liberals legalizing homosexual marriage in Canada/Liberal Land North unfortunately. These types of family's are not natural also immoral.
Monarchist - I see now how I caused confusion! What I meant was I agree with *your* comments regarding the use of the term "partner" instead of spouse.
As to your other comment above, I see your point, but might elaborate in saying that I see a difference between what is natural and what is ideal. A family with multiple "parents" is no more natural that a family with one parent; however, which one of them, and all the permutations in-between, is ideal is a whole other matter.
Of course a child will only truly have two parents, however, a "parent" is also the child's nurturer, of which one can have many; a friend was raised by her aunt and uncle, but considers them her parents, despite referring to her biological mother as her mother. Personally, the ideal in my view is that every child always have their biological mother and father as parents to raise them. However, I see no real issue, aside from legal matters, if that child also has other "parents," who could well be actual grandparents, uncles, aunts, or even spouses of one of the parents. Of course, the latter would mean divorced couples continuing to live together along with the new husband or wife, and/or polyamorous bisexual situations; but, it could conceivably happen.
James, thanks for the clarification!
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