Currently the United States has been focusing a lot of its political attention on social issues, one of them being marriage rights. And there has been a focus of attention on the idea that families need to have two parents, at least in regards to getting families out of poverty, and that having a so called "stable" family is going to create more well adjusted children. So a main question of what a family is, might not be who we consider our family to be, but who the government will allow us to say are our family. Because the government does have some rights to deny some people the right to marry another person.
In some ways we create our family. We choose who we would like to live with. In others we just have to deal with the hand that we were dealt.
There are some people who say that the attempts to legalize gay marriage are not worth it, because marriage as it is recognized at the moment is not something to be trying to achieve, and that it is instead rather elitist, by making things harder for those people who are not married. During the Bush administration, they promoted a two parent home as the basis for economic security. There have been pushes to have marriage mean a lasting relationship, but given the current(and historical) trends in divorce and single parenting, it would seem like the definition of a family should be changing to fit in with the current realities about families, instead of trying to fit everyone into a cookie cutter mold of what a family should be like. It should also be noted that race and gender play a part in how families are viewed, and how they are treated.
So a question, is marriage a privileged institution, and how can our image of family be changed to fit with current reality's about families?
Articles you might find interesting-
Punks, Bulldaggers and Welfare Queens- The Radical Potential of Queer Politics? by Cathy J. Cohen
State Austerity and the Racial Politics of Same-Sex Marriage in the US by Priya Kandaswamy
(These articles are sort of academic. Alright, rather academic.)
I really liked your comment here: "it would seem like the definition of a family should be changing to fit in with the current realities about families, instead of trying to fit everyone into a cookie cutter mold of what a family should be like." This aligns very closely to my opinion on this matter as well. Yes, we should be advocating for stable family relationships; no, we can't expect for every family in our increasingly diverse country and busy world to adhere to this high standard.
ReplyDeleteIt almost reminds me of sex education in this country. In a morally and hygienically "pure" society, teenagers wouldn't have sex until they were married or at least until they were older. But that's NOT the reality of the situation; trying to push abstinence-only education and omitting information about birth control, STD manage, how to have sex, and why you shouldn't ever assault someone sexually is like closing your eyes, muffing your ears and saying LALALALALA NOT LISTENING. It's not dealing with the realities of the situation.