Start breeding or get divorced, ladies:
Attorney Charles Cooper, the former Reagan administration official arguing in support of Proposition 8, stressed that recognizing same-sex marriages would “sever (marriage’s) abiding connection with its traditional procreative context.”
In turn, Justice Elena Kagan countered with the example of elderly couples and others who marry, despite being past child-rearing age.
“There are lots of people that get married that can’t have children,” Breyer added.
Yeah, but they’re not REAL families. They’re not families with 2.5 kids and a dog and a white picket fence. They’re not families with soccer practices and PTA meetings. They’re not really married, not really really. Not like real married couples are, browsing the baby aisle at Target, dreaming of the nursery. Those are the real families. These people are just second-class.
I can’t tell you how many times I was asked, early in my marriage, when Mr. A and I were going to “start a family.” I can’t tell you how many times it’s been implied, usually by relatves or co-workers with kids, that they had a life that somehow carried more weight because they “had families.” I can’t tell you how often we were treated like we had no responsibilities at all, like we had nobody we cared about or were obligated to, because we didn’t have children. Because the implication was that we two, we were not a family. Our friends, our pets, our house, our jobs, that wasn’t a family.
(Could have fooled me, come birthdays. Wasn’t the second cousins who showed up for those, thanks.)
I can’t imagine the extra level of horror attached if people then went on to imply we weren’t even a COUPLE. Assholes.
A.