I just heard yet another guy from the Family Research Center give a softer version of their anti-love arguments for marriage. On Morning Edition (without Bob this morning), he gave the usual litany of reasons for marriage, all centered around children. Renee Montaigne pointed out that many married couples are childless, but he just glossed over that. He pointed out specifically that marriage conferred a large number of special rights on straight married couples, yet strangely, didn’t think that was wrong — odd for a group that constantly harps on their belief that gay people want “special rights.”
But, as always, there was one word that he didn’t use, something he had in common with all the other discriminatory assholes over on the right.
He claimed that he would describe a gay couple to his child by saying, “They are two people who care for each other and live together.”
He couldn’t bring himself to say “love.”
I was talking with my boss’s boss today about that very segment, and we both had some similar feelings about it. In addition to issues I had with some of the comments made by both speakers, I found the overall segment unbalanced in two specific ways: 1) the gay speaker was representing just himself as a unique, private individual who wanted to get married, while the anti-gay marriage position was advocated by a professional representative of the Family Research Center; and 2) the gay speaker delivered an unquestioned monologue, while the FRC rep was questioned by Renee. I’d have preferred to see these items levelled in some way; either both or neither of the speakers should have been questioned, while the speakers should either both have been professional representatives of organizations involved in this debate or both private citizens with no professional stake.
While overall I appreciated the questions asked of the FRC rep, I do wish that she had followed up on his assertion that all of these marriage rights are given in support of children with a question to him about the many gay and lesbian parents with children; if it’s really only about the children, then shouldn’t these families also get the same benefits? This part of the equation always reminds me of the hypocrisy of abortion foes whose care and concern for the “unborn child” seem to stop once its born.
I found it intriguing, as apparently you did too, that the issue of “special rights” being given to married people was so boldly and with no apparent sense of irony stated by the FRC speaker. I did the auditory equivalent of a double-take at that point.