Best advertisement for gay marriage: The Leffew family
There’s been a lot of news on the gay marriage front in the past few weeks. First Iowa, and then Vermont have legalized it. As Vincent Rossmeier wrote about in Salon’s War Room, a recent poll suggests that support for gay marriage may be on the dramatic increase (though, as Vincent points out, that may also have something to do with the pollsters’ phrasing).
Today, the good folks at Queerty highlighted a gay family that’s doing their part to increase acceptance of gay marriage – in the most adorable way possible -- by uploading some very moving videos of their family on to YouTube. According to their YouTube bio, the Leffews are a “private family” living in California, with an eight-year-old son and a four-year-old daughter. They started posting the videos after the passage of Prop 8, to “destroy some of the negative stereotypes about gay families”
Highlights from their YouTube stream includes the dads’ wedding dance, a scene of them preparing their daughter for school, and Easter-egg coloring.
But in my favorite video, dads Bryan and Jay sing a lullabye to their little daughter. It’s terribly poignant to watch -- I dare you not to get choked up.
With all the sturm and drang around Perez Hilton and ridiculous Nom ads, it’s easy to forget what’s really at stake in the gay marriage debate. In the end, it’s not about politics, it’s about families like the Leffews – and their right to live peacefully and happily, and sing goodnight to their insanely cute little children.
Tom Pantera
Skip Williamson
Kerry Lauerman
Dan-onymous
gail williams
J.D. Noir
Salon.com
Comments
It seems as though we're stumbling towards equality and maybe even a little understanding and/or compassion towards my minorities.
There is no groundswell of support for gay marriage, unless you count polls that deliberately ask loaded questions, hoping for a particular answer. Citizens in Vermont and Iowa emphatically DID NOT vote to change the laws in their state -- on the contrary, Iowans recently had voted to make ONE MAN/ONE WOMAN state law -- but social engineering courts (or legislatures) overturned the will of the voters and citizens in order to force their own vision of "political correctness" on the electorate. No such gay marriages are recognized by the Federal government, with good cause.
I have no beef with the Leffews, or their right to live as a couple. I do wonder about the children -- whose children are these? Two men are not capable of either conceiving or gestating a baby. If they are adopted, what agency placed them with two gay men, rather than a married couple? Especially a little girl, who would badly need her mother...and believe me, every child has a MOTHER. And a FATHER. And every child knows that somewhere out there, he/she has a REAL MOM AND DAD, and not just some PC gay couple wanting to imitate an authentic family, by copying the lifestyle of straight people in every possible way EXCEPT sexually.
Two dads do not, and never will, equal a mom (ditto for two moms never equally a father). Heather never, ever had "two mommys", because that is a biological impossibility.
Too bad, so sad. This is an otherwise wonderful post.
Too bad, so sad. This is an otherwise wonderful post.
But to say, "The Leffew's appear to be a perfectly nice couple, but in no way, shape or form are they married, because MARRIAGE is a relationship between a MAN AND A WOMAN, period paragraph."
However, it is the American people, at any given time in history, who shall decide what "marriage" is to their respective states. I don't want to step on Laurel's toes, but I don't want her stepping on anyone else's, either. So, on that note, I agree that the archaic legal definition that stands in most places today does indeed limit "marriage" to a union between one man and one woman. But, and this is really a BUT, that code is older than dirt and frankly not much more appealing. For goodness' sake, in most states, marriage generally gives the husband "marital authority over the person of his wife." And how about this one: "The wife acquires thereby the name of her husband, as they are considered as but one, of which he is the head. In general, the wife follows the condition of her husband. The wife, on her marriage, loses her domicile and gains that of her husband. One of the effects of marriage is to give paternal power over the issue."
I appreciate everyone's right to an opinion, but the fact remains that the days of religion dictating law had better be over, because I will need to duct-tape my head daily if not, and that would just look ridiculous.
Laurel: You say "marriage" as though it were a word couched in biology. Marriage is and always has been a social construct. It can be whatever society wants it to be. It was something different a hundred years ago than it is today, and it can be something different a hundred years from now.
As for the adoption: Why on earth do you assume a man and woman are better suited to parent children? You mention that the little girl needs a mother. What of all the little girls whose mothers die? Or abuse them? Or watch while a man abuses her child? Regarding this particular girl: Her mother gave her up. I don't need to spell out the irony (and don't wish to suggest that it wasn't an unselfish act, but want to emphasize the notion that a biological mother, whom you hold up as the ideal, chose not to raise this girl of hers.)
If grown adults want to live in sin, then, OK they can deal with the ultimate consequence. They should not be allowed to indoctrinate their kids into a sinful lifestyle though. (As an aside, what parent hasn't remembered to lock the bedroom door only to have a little one come in while mommy and daddy are going at it? Now imagine if little Johnny walks in on daddy and daddy during a butt stab session. i'm sure there would be no negative impact on the horrified kid. It's bad enough to have to explain it when it's a heterosexual couple)
You'd think if people were going to protest, they might focus on, oh, I don't know, things that really do mean an unhappy childhood - like domestic violence, for example.
@rwnutjob - just can't help myself. fudge packers? really?
I don't care what gender parents are, or whether there are 2 or more or less of them. This is what we need to see.
d
And that's something that struck me as odd. On the one hand are the Leffew men with their daughter. On the other hand is a young fellow with a beer bottle sticking out of his underwear, what little there is of it. If the Leffew men are an advertisement for gay marriage, the young fellow with the beer bottle in his underpants is an advertisement for . . . what?
The effect was a little jarring, rather like reading an essay on family values in Playboy magazine.
Oh that's just so gay!
For the moment, though, I choose to enjoy a family video. Until someone tells her that she's f-ed up, that little girl will hopefully simply know that she is loved and treasured for the individual that she is. I'm choosing to look for the good, and see the divine in us all. Just for today, just for this moment.
Otherwise, it's too easy to take the bait, and end up scratching and clawing in the mud, or drowning in my own bile. For today, for this moment, I am choosing another route.
http://open.salon.com/blog/lemonpulp/2009/05/05/are_those_my_civil_rights_in_your_pocket
I'm okay with intelligent disagreement on political issues like taxes or policies. But the equal rights for gay people is a human rights issue. So while it may sometimes be forced into being a political issue, it's bigger than that, more important than that. And there is no legal or ethical or moral justification for denying people their civil rights. Just as there is no, and I mean none, zero, zip, justification for equivocating, for seeking a "compromise," or for "allowing dissent." All of it is too close to the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s, and the language and ideas people like both rw and laurel express are eerily like the anti-miscegenation laws. Just as if someone had said, as many did, in a kind tone of voice, "it's really a terrible idea for there to be interracial marriage. People need to know their history and where they're from. And they won't feel like they belong to any group," I'd hope a good many people would say, "well, actually, we don't have to tolerate your point of view."
So, no. Her post is hateful because the ideas themselves are hateful.
The issue of biology is one to look at, certainly, but to let the weight of your argument bear on just the fact that two people of the same sex cannot procreate is to argue, implicitly, that biology is fate. We know that even in marriage, it is not fate. Women and men are infertile and adopt in heterosexual marriages. If biology does not have to be fate in those relationships, then I don't think the argument "two men can't have a baby" holds much water. Lots of people can't have babies (including people who marry much later in life), yet we not only allow their marriages, but we often offer those people our blessings.
I couldn't make heads or tails of your middle paragraph; I think you're arguing that by advocating gay marriage, I would be advocating to not recognize the biological fact that this girl had a mother and a father, biologically. To parse it the way you did makes it difficult for me to understand an alternative argument; however, to rewrite it, in a clearer form, makes it sound as though you believe recognizing that a child biologically has a male parent and a female parent is mutually exclusive to recognizing that she can also have two male caretakers, also known as parents, who are not biologically related to her. These are not mutually exclusive. If you need further proof, you can reference my example above.
I'm also unclear how or why anyone would need to recognize a biological fact--it takes a sperm and an egg to create a child--in this scenario. You cannot be arguing this, can you? And yet you are.
Finally, no one is arguing that traditions are rights, because they are not. But you're confusing the tradition of marriage with the rights and priveleges of marriage, two very different things. If both sides were only arguing about the tradition of marriage, then Baptists, say, would have no quarrel with Episcopalians marrying same sex couples. The tradition might change between churches and sects (as often happens in religion) but each would be able to manage the tradition as they saw fit.
But we're not talking about tradition--we're talking about being legally recognized as someone's spouse. The tradition argument fails because no one is primarily concerned with that issue.
While society does have, in a manner of speaking, the "right" to decide how best to manage its traditions and institutions, it needs to do those both within the letter of the law, and within the moral bounds prescribed by it (or, perhaps, outside of it). Martin Luther King argued that "an unjust law is a law that is enacted by a majority and inflicted upon a minority that is not binding on itself." So, the moment you are willing to support laws which stipulate that infertile people cannot marry, or that support individual churches/sects as redefining the "tradition" of marriage as they each see fit, then perhaps I'll coincide. If you are unwilling to do so, then you need to ask yourself why. This is not a moral decision you're making, and your arguments are specious, at best, and don't hold up to logic, let alone close moral scrutiny.
We attend schools, graduate from schools, find jobs, raise children (oh yes we do), pay taxes, buy cars, take vacations, play racquetball, shop for clothes, play computer games, go skydiving, camp, fish, hike, cook, clean (well, some of us clean), bathe, try fad diets, love salmon, enjoy a good barbecue, like football, wash dishes, nurse our elderly parents, sing lullabies, write poetry, flirt, get addicted to drugs, lose jobs, break up with our partners and feel awful, squeeze fresh orange juice, grow asparagus, and on and on.
The actual sex part is really a teeny tiny portion of who we are, and there is a HUGE spectrum of us out there, no two of us alike, same as you.
Marriage is a very old human institution; far older than any religion or even the idea of religion. The oldest human ancestors had marriage; you'd have no problem whatsoever understanding a marriage in a Neanderthal community 10,000 years ago and vice versa. You can argue that marriage is precisely what defines human beings as "human", along with things like language or the use of tools.
So no -- I do not like seeing it trashed, along with all the measurable benefits to society and children, for the sake of "political correctness" and to benefit a tiny, LOUD, vocal group. If marriage is ANY relationship between ANYONE (or anything for that matter)...if any random collection of people can just nag and bray and claim to be married...if you can marry your sister or your father (as often suggested by Salonistas as really great ideas)...then the very idea of "marriage" will disintegrate. If marriage is so flaccid and meaningless, that anybody at all can marry, then why marry at all? It won't mean anything. If any two (or more) random people can raise any number of entirely unrelated children, and that is considered "wonderfuL" while traditional marriages with a man and a woman and children born of their union is SCORNED -- then I guess it's a highway to the dark ages. That's how animals live -- in big, shapeless tribes. Supposedly that is what HUMAN BEINGS evolved FROM.
As far as interracial marriage, I am in favor of it, as well as all civil rights that people are entitles to. MARRIAGE IS NOT A CIVIL RIGHT. It is a privilege reserved for men and women. The very reason that interracial couples have every right to marry is because they fulfill every single requirement of a marriage if they are a MAN and A WOMAN (and of age, and not already married). To deny this simply on the basis of their race simply shows ignorant racial bias. A black man is in every imaginable respect a MAN; a black woman a woman. Furthermore, Jim Crow laws in the South banning interracial marriage were only aimed at African-Americans; they singled out ONE race as inferior to another. There is simply no relation whatsoever to the argument on gay marriage.
Lastly, a couple people seemed outraged I don't have a blog. That is not a requirement on Open Salon. I like to read it occasionally and comment on other people's columns; I am not interested in blogging. There is nothing "hidden" or nefarious in that. I simply don't wish to do it.
But the situations are very different. Anti-miscegenation laws were part of an entire complex of laws and practices designed to oppress blacks and keep them from meaningful participation in society, including ability to vote, work, and obtain housing and employment. And all of that followed two hundred years of slavery, though slavery in effect extended all the way into the 1940s through the forced labor prison system in the south.
The situation for gays and lesbians could hardly be more different today. There are are many legal benefits and protections for same-sex couples covering housing, employment, public accommodations, and many other areas. Gays and lesbians have achieved great success in the arts, medicine, education, science, politics, and in every other field. All of that is a sign of widespread societal acceptance, not hatred or oppression.
Heather: "The issue of biology is one to look at, certainly, but to let the weight of your argument bear on just the fact that two people of the same sex cannot procreate is to argue, implicitly, that biology is fate."
I think it is safe to say that throughout the history of the world marriage has always been about heterosexual marriage, at least until the last few years. Even now only a few countries and states have legalized it. When people in this country are allowed to vote on it, they vote against it. When courts rule on laws reserving marriage to hetero couples, with few exceptions they find in favor of those laws. The Washington Supreme Court, in Anderson V. King County, certainly did not find that same-sex marriage was a human right.
Why has marriage been about heterosexuals? Because throughout all of history people hated homosexuals? Not at all. Marriage has been about heterosexuals because heterosexual marriage involves procreation. While some same-sex couples have children (always through hetero relationships somewhere along the line) and some hetero couples don't, it makes sense to define an institution based on the norm, not on exceptions to the norm.
In other words the male-female relationship is what has always defined marriage even in societies in which same-sex relationships were acceptable in other contexts (e.g., ancient Greece).
Given the availability of civil unions to same-sex couples, I don't see any compelling reason to change that. I'd like to see laws permitting civil unions in all the states, and I think that's a reasonable compromise. Of course the counter-argument is that one cannot compromise with rights. But since I don't think there is a right to same-sex marriage in the first place, I don't find that argument compelling.
incandescent writes: "I think as the status quo continues to be challenged the "traditionalists" and "conservatives" will come out of the woodwork . . . . "
Dude, I hate to tell you but the traditionalists ARE the woodwork. The advocates of same-sex marriage are coming out of the woodwork with their rights that they discovered last month.
incandescent: "Eventually, the battle will be won and we can move on to the next civil rights issue."
So what are the next rights to be discovered? Rights to plural marriage, I assume. Or is there something else on the agenda?
I would like to rspond to Laurel962's coments. My family will be a family married unmarried doesnt really matter in the larger sense. My partner and I have been together 13years we are truly in love and very content with our relationship. We are cristians and we are very much involved with our church and comunity. As people of faith we try and read the bible and try to live by god's words translated thru man. Marriage is important to us its important to our families and friends and I belive that it is important to God.
You had a feew questions about how my children came to be with us so let me educate you. I do also belive in a perfect world a bio mother and father would be the best parents for my children. Sadly that is not the world we live in. My kids are adopted. They are biological brother and sister. My son was born with a bunch of major medical problems "Goldenhar Syndrom" Basically every part of his body is underdeveloped heart, lungs, arm, leg, facial deformaties. My son was left in foster homes from the time he was born untill we adopted him at the age of five. No hetero family wanted my son with all of his medical issues. My son Danile had two other siblings adopted away from him. How do you ask? Because in Ca when a child is born to an unfit parent that child is placed with any other siblings curently in the child welfare system. My son watched as two of his siblings where adopted away from him.
My daughter Selena was placed with my son when she was born. The clock started ticking, when my daughter reached the age of 12 months she two would be taken away from her brother.
This is where we came into the story. A social worker came across our profile "Ok with children with Medical Disabilities" She called us in the hopes that we would be open to a child with major medical problems. We met Daniel and Selean and fell in love. Our children have embraced us and loved us as their parents for over three years now. Our world is brighter and happier then we have any right for it to be. Bolth my partner and I come from very conservative families with lots of mothers, sisters, grandmothers, Our daughter will understand what it means to have the advice and guidence of a female role model.
Thanks for letting me vent.
Jay Leffew
Hope you stay and put up some posts about how you and your family are getting along. Thank you for putting your family up to such scrutiny. That took guts and you have all my respect.