I had a flatmate who believed sexual orientation is a choice – usually one made out of spite in the case of sexual minorities – but I don’t think anyone would choose to be gay or bisexual, not in the world we live in. I have friends and family who’ve lived in denial for over twenty years, friends who tuck away pieces of themselves because their families wouldn’t approve. I have friends who have mutilated themselves, lived in destructive relationships, and developed eating disorders because they’ve been so terrified of being different, wanting and loving things they shouldn’t. I have a friend who has no legal rights towards her own child despite living under the same roof with the child’s biological mother and looking after and adoring the baby as much as any parent could. No, there are simply too many every-day hardships to believe anyone would choose to belong to a sexual minority if given the choice. Too many shoves, too many dirty looks, too many glass roofs, too much trodding of basic rights.
That said, I know many people who find that battle worthwhile and in hindsight would not change it no matter how much they’ve been hurt along the way. I know a middle-aged lesbian couple with a grown-up child they brought up together from a baby, and I can only imagine the terror they might feel when thinking ”What if I had given up? What if I had continued conforming? What if I had ’chosen’ to be straight?” Others, I can imagine asking the same questions, but because denying their sexuality would be denying a part of their identity. (There seems to be a need to validate or white-wash sexual minorities by emphasizing long-term relationships. Single gay people or people in casual relationships have the right to their identity as much as gay people in long-term relationships. This post is, however, about relationships and families, so please excuse the one-sided approach. Similarly, the focus is on same-sex relationships. This isn’t to neglect different-sex relationships of bisexual or transgender people – their issues are just different.)
I do not believe sexual orientation is a choice, and I don’t think granting sexual minorities rights should be a choice any more than, say, granting the same rights to people with a different skin colour from the majority. People will not stop being gay, bisexual, or transgender if we refuse to acknowledge them. Families with same-sex parents will not stop having babies. (This, by the way, is not a new phenomenon brought on by our times’ moral corruption. As mentioned, I know adults brought up by same-sex couples – usually lesbian for practical reasons – and I’m sure such families have existed for ages in one form or another.) The only question is whether we acknowledge their rights as regards to their families, their spouses and their children.
As it stands, a child can be taken from a loving parent she or he has known all her or his life in favour of a biological parent who has hardly even met the child. In Finland, same-sex couples can have their relationships acknowledged and thus have legal rights when it comes to things such as inheritance and property. In many countries, it is still possible for a partner of fifty years to be evicted from a shared home after the death of the loved one under whose name the property is. Imagine being left adrift after losing your spouse, your partner. Imagine knowing you have no way to protect your partner if something happens to you.
I have a friend with a beautiful baby girl whom both she and the other mother adore. They have fought for this baby, they have gone through fatiguing fertility treatments, they have rearranged their entire lives. They have done all this with the knowledge that should anything happen to the biological mother, my friend would have no rights to the baby. They have done it in hopes that change will come, that people will see families like theirs and stop being so cruel. They are very brave.
That said, I know many people who find that battle worthwhile and in hindsight would not change it no matter how much they’ve been hurt along the way. I know a middle-aged lesbian couple with a grown-up child they brought up together from a baby, and I can only imagine the terror they might feel when thinking ”What if I had given up? What if I had continued conforming? What if I had ’chosen’ to be straight?” Others, I can imagine asking the same questions, but because denying their sexuality would be denying a part of their identity. (There seems to be a need to validate or white-wash sexual minorities by emphasizing long-term relationships. Single gay people or people in casual relationships have the right to their identity as much as gay people in long-term relationships. This post is, however, about relationships and families, so please excuse the one-sided approach. Similarly, the focus is on same-sex relationships. This isn’t to neglect different-sex relationships of bisexual or transgender people – their issues are just different.)
I do not believe sexual orientation is a choice, and I don’t think granting sexual minorities rights should be a choice any more than, say, granting the same rights to people with a different skin colour from the majority. People will not stop being gay, bisexual, or transgender if we refuse to acknowledge them. Families with same-sex parents will not stop having babies. (This, by the way, is not a new phenomenon brought on by our times’ moral corruption. As mentioned, I know adults brought up by same-sex couples – usually lesbian for practical reasons – and I’m sure such families have existed for ages in one form or another.) The only question is whether we acknowledge their rights as regards to their families, their spouses and their children.
As it stands, a child can be taken from a loving parent she or he has known all her or his life in favour of a biological parent who has hardly even met the child. In Finland, same-sex couples can have their relationships acknowledged and thus have legal rights when it comes to things such as inheritance and property. In many countries, it is still possible for a partner of fifty years to be evicted from a shared home after the death of the loved one under whose name the property is. Imagine being left adrift after losing your spouse, your partner. Imagine knowing you have no way to protect your partner if something happens to you.
I have a friend with a beautiful baby girl whom both she and the other mother adore. They have fought for this baby, they have gone through fatiguing fertility treatments, they have rearranged their entire lives. They have done all this with the knowledge that should anything happen to the biological mother, my friend would have no rights to the baby. They have done it in hopes that change will come, that people will see families like theirs and stop being so cruel. They are very brave.
I don’t rally for the right to a church wedding. If Churches refuse to acknowledge same-sex relationships, that is their choice. In countries that supposedly separate state and Church, however, denying sexual minorities their legal rights based on certain intepretations of the Bible is unacceptable. There are no arguments for it, only excuses. The current legislation in most countries is blatantly discriminatory and tramples on basic rights of people, and we should all fight it however we can.
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