IT'S ALL ABOUT. . . . .

Same Sex Marriage, I
By
Dyssonance
Published: April 1, 2007Posted in: Essays, Fave, OldTags:

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You know what this is about?

This is about denying the right of others to have a family.

Despite what many propagandists would like people to believe, marriage is not a union of a man or a woman, nor two people who love each other.

Marriage is the social convention for establishment of a family. That’s all it is. That’s all it has ever been. The rest is window dressing — ancillary crap that floats around and makes it all look more desirable.

Why should it be desirable? Because the family is the core unit of society, the brick of which civilization is built. The more desirable it is, the stronger the society, and more durable, and longer lasting. The most powerful societies in all of history have had extremely refined and broad definitions and declensions of family and familial obligation, all surrounding the critical aspects of kinship.

Who is related to whom.

In our society, despite the window dressing of feminism and the artificial construct of the nuclear family foisted on the country in the 1950’s and 1960’s for economic purposes, when a woman marries a man, she “leaves” her family and joins his.

This is signified by her taking his name. The modern extension as it has developed basically has him “leaving” his family as well, and together they create a “new” family — but she still joins him.
That’s the patriarchy at work.

They become related to one another through the civil act of union, normally called marriage in English ( from old French — prior to that it was a rite of kyning, overseen by the cyth or cythu in English).*That’s* what people are forgetting in all this argument and pissing contest, and, well, I’m finally tired of it.

There are only three ways to establish kinship in our society. You have to be born into it, or you have to marry into it, or you have to be adopted.

For all the talk of preserving the idea of family, opposition to the right of gays to marry is, basically, denying them the right to found a family — to establish kinship. In short, they are trying to destroy families in order to save a narrow and convoluted artificial construct they want to label as the family. Social engineering at its best (and, admittedly, that’s actually part of the job of a religion in society).

Kinship is what says you are someone’s child. You are the child of *two* people. No matter how hard you try to wrangle it, there is no legal means for two gays to set up kinship for a single child as being related to both of them.

And legally — that is, within the eyes of the society at large and in a manner that grants the benefits and duties and lineage and all that good stuff that so many people take for fucking granted because it is so deeply embedded in their lives that they can’t see it — is all that matters.

Screw the whole “acceptance” crap — that’s about as true as the idea of a “gay agenda” — and realistically, most folks know that. Being gay is not heteronormative. It will never be “accepted” in a heteronormative society, with its rigid gender roles and tight little comfy niches that people have to fit into. This is about something *more important* that acceptance. Something outside that. This is about a fundamental right that is being denied.

So all that expensive and costly paperwork, all those forms and dues and tradeoffs that aren’t passable at the federal level or recognized outside the state jurisdiction that people say should be “good enough”, and that have to be updated at the same costs each and every time there is a life change, can do all the pretend stuff. They can mimic — though not provide — the whole issue of family.

But they are not “good enough”.

They cannot make a family. Because they cannot establish kinship.

And Kinship is what this is all about: denying it to others.

©2007 and on by .:dyssonance:. All rights reserved.



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About the Author
Dyssonance is a writer, 3D artist, and general annoyance who rarely cleaves to the standard party line for any group. Here she takes the time to examine underlying issues of language, empowerment, expression, and transition, in a mixture of the absurd, the serious, the personal, and the peculiar.
1 Comment

1.
David
Posted January 12, 2010 at 10:13 AM

And we must not forget the matriarchal societies, such as the natives of North America. Their kinship is somewhat complicated (and if we remember from our history, the Europeans didn’t want any of them either!).
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