Your Children Already Know

Your Children Already Know (non-fictional) Gay Couples

Letter to Editor : NO on Prop 8

Hey, all of you homophobes out there, I have news for you.

Your children are have already found out that real life non-fictional gay couples aren't much different from other couples and are nice decent people and good parents..

Maybe it was the day that the question went around the room "what do your parents do for a living ?" and one kid said "Daddy Ted is a plumber and Daddy Bob is a writer" and another said "Mommie Carol is a veterinarian and Mommie Alice is a professor of mathematics.".

Or maybe the kids were just comparing notes on how they spend time with their parents. "Mommie Alice teaches me music and Mommie Carol takes me horseback riding." "Daddie Bob and I read together and we work in the garden together after school ; Daddy Ted likes to take me fishing and play basketball with me."

Whatever your kids' teachers teach or don't teach, whatever books they read or don't read, your kids have found out or will find out that gay couples are pretty much the same as other couples except that they usually CHOSE to have children rather than having them by accident. They will find out that being gay is about as remarkable as being left handed

As to what storybooks young kids read, well if reading "Sleeping Beauty" , "Snow White", and "Cinderella" hasn't made any naturally gay kid change to being straight, it's hard to believe that reading "King & King" will cause any naturally straight kid to change to gay. Not any more than reading "Little Red Riding Hood" will cause any naturally animal friendly kid to become an adult who murders wolves and polar bears by shooting them from an airplane.

To anyone concerned with the issue of giving dignity and respect to gay partnerships, I suggest you actually READ the California Supreme Court decision "In Re Marriage Cases" which you can download at http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/documents/S147999.PDF . It's long but if you can get through the first part, you have the essentials. What is essential to understand is that the California state Constitution , unlike the US Constitution, has an explicit Right of Privacy. No need to find that right in the "penumbra" of other rights. The California state Constitution expressly states that marriage is a civil right, a right of all (adult) persons. Furthermore it is well established in California that for purposes of due process and equal protection analysis, sexual orientation is a "suspect category" and discriminations based on that category are subject to "strict scrutiny", which means that only a "compelling state interest" can justify even the most narrowly drawn statute serving such a purpose. More importantly, this case opinion is a clarion declaration that gay people and their personal relationships are entitled to the same dignity and respect as those of other people.

Let freedom and equality for all ring through the land !

some qustions for John McCain

regarding his adamant opposition to gay marriage and to gay couples adopting children

and his extreme opposition to abortion

Why if you are so vehemently against abortion are you not heartily in favor of same sex (gay) relationships ? A same sex relationship is inherrently incapable of causing an unwanted pregnancy and thus incapable of causing any need for abortion.

Why when there are so many unfortunate children languishing in the foster care system are you so vehemently against letting gay couples adopt thise needy children ? Does a child only have value to you before it born ? Only while its continuance can cause misery for some unwillingly pregnant woman ?

I don't vote for any candidate who is anti-sex education, anti-contraception, anti-choice / anti-abortion, or who is an anti-gay bigot. You and your wolf-murdering sidekick have zero chance of getting my vote because of your records and avowals on these issues.

• Re-thinking "Marriage" : re-thinking "marriage" and "civil union" ). Further material added 10/07/08 . Now that I have read "in re Marriage Cases", this article seems a lot less radical than it did as I wrote it.