It's A Good Thing

I got a nice email from Mike Alvear thanking me for posting his Huffington Post article entitled "At Least Have the Decency to Lie About Your Sexuality". Mike's site has a lot to say about gay marriage, marriage, dating, adoption, children, family and homophobia....life.

Check it out at Mike Alvear's Urge & Merge. And while you're there take a look at this article: Iowa & Now Vermont Gay Marriage Victories: How They Strengthen Heterosexual Marriages. I'll give you some tidbits to whet your appetite, but do take a moment to check out Mike's work. It'll get you thinking, and, as Martha would say, that's a good thing:

• "As outrageous as it may sound, heterosexual families will become stronger and stronger as more states follow Iowa’s gay marriage ruling. Gay marriage will reduce the number of divorces caused by fraudulent marriages, ensure that more orphaned children grow up in stable homes, raise the standard of living for children with gay parents, make neighborhoods safer for families, and boost the economies of struggling communities.
  It’s not the license to marry that will create these benefits; it’s the massive shift in attitude that’ll result from it. The more gays are accepted as equal citizens the more stable heterosexual marriage will become. Why? Because there are an untold number of “traditional” marriages that break up because one of the spouses comes out.
• Homophobia drives fearful gay men and women into fraudulent marriages. The pressure to conform, the weight of discrimination, the potential loss of cherished dreams (serving in the military, worshipping in church, getting job promotions, raising kids) propels many into marriages they otherwise wouldn’t commit to. Like my friend Cooper.
  Cooper is 64 and recently divorced. He was married for 38 years before he came out. He left behind him a woman whose life was shattered by a truth that tunneled its way out of the mounds of shame, hostility and hatred that society heaped on it. The woman is 62. What is she supposed to with her life now the he’s found his?
• Homophobia has a way of wounding gay and straight alike. It creates two classes of victims: People who are forced to lie and the people they lie to. As homophobia decreases, so will the pressure for gays and lesbians to enter into fig leaf marriages. Which in turn, prevents children from being hurt by divorce and helps heterosexuals, like Cooper’s wife, create authentic, stable marriages.
• Disposing the Problem of Disposable Children. There are too many kids in foster care and not enough parents to adopt them. There are plenty of gay and lesbian families willing to adopt some of the 568,000 kids languishing in institutions, but statutory bans and local judiciaries refusing to grant gay adoption petitions impede them. According to the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute’s latest national survey, only 40% of public and private adoption agencies have placed children with gay adoptive parents. The same survey showed that a majority of childless gay men and women would like to become parents.
• Gay marriage wouldn’t just improve the lives of orphans; it would also improve the lives of children who have parents that happen to be gay.
  Let’s say two women with average incomes have a child together named Billy. Because the women aren’t allowed to marry, Billy doesn’t get the financial and emotional safety nets other kids get.
  For example, if Billy has a serious accident while his biological mother is away, the hospital can deny him the right to see his second parent, effectively torturing the child at the time of his greatest need.
  If Billy comes home to recuperate, the boss isn’t legally obligated to provide sick leave to Billy’s second parent, effectively preventing a child from being soothed by his nurturing parent.
  If Billy’s biological mother dies, the surviving parent has no legal rights to Billy, effectively allowing the state to rip him from the arms of a loving mother and throw him into the foster care system.
  If Billy’s parents separate, the departing parent is under no legal obligation to provide alimony or child support, effectively plunging Billy into poverty.
  From his parents’ inability to get joint health, home and auto insurance policies to his own inability to access his second parent’s Social Security survival benefits, Billy suffers.

Again, it all boils down to common sense and what is right and fair for all Americans, their families, their children.

It boils down to the fact that gay marriage will not change marriage, it will strengthen marriage and family and society.

And that can't be wrong, can it?