Equals
23-04-2015“Won’t somebody think of the children!”
Despite being a comedy cartoon running for nearly thirty years, The Simpsons always seems to have a quote that you can use to poke fun at idiots in an ironic manner.
On May 22nd the people of Ireland will be asked to vote on whether or not gay couples should be allowed to get married. You’d think in a modern world such as the one we live in today this wouldn’t have even been a real question to put to the people. After all the Government can seemingly pass something into law at the drop of a hat when it inflicts pain, Universal Social Charge I am looking at you, but when they can do something to improve people’s lives it needs to go to a general vote.
Now I know that what I have just said is a generalisation really. Gay marriage no doubt requires some change in the constitution of the country for it to be legal, but come on it should be a no-brainer really.
The bit that I am going to have a little rant about here, because I haven’t had a right old rant in a while, is on the tactics and verbiage being used by the “Vote No” Camp.
People are entitled to their own views on things, that’s one of the joys of free thinking. The problem is that while you can have your opinion, you can’t force it down the throats of others.
Recently two of my friends, we shall call them DJ and ZZ-Top, were banned from a Facebook Group for engaging with the members on the Marriage Debate. Now DJ’s posts were actually well constructed, well presented and all round polite and civil. But he got banned.
ZZ-Top did make a Hitler reference, so the jury may go either way on that one
The problem is this group are firm members of the “No Camp”, as they are entitled to be, but they keep utter this same line over and over to justify their view: Children Deserve A Mother And A Father
This irks me. Not because I don’t agree that a child should have two parents. Not because I don’t think gay people should be allowed to marry (spoiler I’m voting in favour of that and trying to figure out a way of doing that more than once). This line ruffles my feathers because it’s insulting to my sister.
Let’s just get one things straight, the lil sister is in no way gay. She is, however, a mother to a wonderful little bundle of madness that I affectionally call Goblin. Goblin’s father ran running for the hills when faced with the responsibility that comes with having a child and my little sister stepped up to the plate with gusto. She has sacrificed and struggled and overcome and if you were to ever meet her and Goblin out on the street you wouldn’t be able to tell from the child’s smiles and chats that she only has a mother at home.
So how can the No-sayers shout out that line over and over, as if it is scientifically proven fact that a kid needs a mother and father in their life, when my sister and Goblin are living proof that that just isn’t the case.
A child deserves a caring family unit. It doesn’t matter if said unit is the biological parents, the grandparents, the neighbour down the road who adopted the child after tragedy struck. For the No Camp to just use this as blanket justification for backing a stupid (in my opinion) argument is annoying to every child out their in a loving home without the nucleus that Bible Bashers seem to think is the be all and end all.
People like this can sometimes be seen as hypocrites I always think. On one hand they will stand on their soap boxes and shout at people in sand cover countries, berating them for blindly following the words of a Holy Book that says go and do this, yet on the other hand they blindly follow the words in their own Holy Book. Pot? It’s Kettle, you’re darkly coloured.
Gay couples shouldn’t have to fight for the right to be able to get married. They should just be allowed to regardless. If you don’t like gay marriage there is a simple solution: don’t marry a gay person. It’s not like suddenly every gay couple is going to run out and get wed. There are bound to be couples happy to live together forever without a big ceremony, they just want to have the option is all.
The hilarious thing is that gay couples will be allowed to adopt children legally in Ireland before the votes begin on May 22nd. So the entire argument from the No Camp on why you should vote No is a moot point because regardless of whether the vote passes or not gay couples will be able to adopt children anyway and provide them with a loving home, which is exactly what children deserve.
Blue_jester