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Gay Uganda's Blog Dealing with issues lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender and other sexual minorities in Uganda face. Gay Marriage: It is about more than just children
I came across a blog on gay marriage the other day. It is by a US professor of law, a philosophical outlook on life. He is not gay, and what attracted him to the subject was an ongoing discussion on his site. He argues that the agitation for homosexual marriage is in truth a philosophical legal issue. In his view, society came up with legal recognition of marriage specifically to protect children. That that is the function of marriage, and since the probability of a same sex couple to procreate is low, they should not be afforded this privilege. Only Children? Of course I disagree- because, though this thought is not couched in the hate filled language of many who oppose and are vocal about the idea, the professor fails to grasp the essence of why I as a gay person would want my relationship to be recognised concretely in a marriage. It is not only the children though it may be about them. Gay people can get children, and then they find themselves with complications. Dick Cheney’s daughter decided, with her life time partner, to get a child. She is now pregnant, but in the state that she is living in at the moment, her partner will have no relationship to the child. They may bring up the child together, but if anything happens and the birth mother is no longer present, then the partner has no rights. Indeed, (before), the courts could easily refuse her custody because she is homosexual. I have lived with my lover for years, yet because we have no legal recognition of our status, in the eyes of the law we are nothing more than acquaintances. If I am sick and unable to make decisions, he cannot make them for me. It has happened that families which rejected gay people in life have chased, legally, their lovers away from their death beds. They have taken over, and excluded life long partners from the burials. They have gone to court to challenge the surviving partner’s right to the couple’s property. There is the case of the US congressman who died recently. His lifetime partner cannot get his pension, because their relationship is not recognised. Gay marriage is about social and legal recognition of the same sex couple. And it is more, ultimately it is a call on society to recognise me and my man as an entity and not to discriminate against me because I am different. The indignities can be small and irrelevant, but they can also be massive. It is about recognising that I, as a gay person, and my lover, are also spiritual people who desire the blessings of god to our union. I do not think that I ‘devalue’ my neighbours marriage because I want to be recognised as married too. They say imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, why would I be devaluing him? Accepting my humanity as an equal It is about me accepting myself as a human being, an equal to my neighbour who is not gay. If I sit back and let my lover to be unrecognised, it is the same as accepting my neighbours’ assessment that somehow, I am less than him. I do not deserve to be recognised. I do not deserve the full rights of all other individuals, because I am gay, a homosexual who is different. My lover is not protected. My children are not protected. I can suffer indignities at law because I am different. No, that is not right. I am different, but why should I be unequal before the law? gug 2006-12-18 07:36:52 GMT
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