{"id":7121,"date":"2013-04-03T10:36:02","date_gmt":"2013-04-03T15:36:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/?p=7121"},"modified":"2013-04-03T12:24:46","modified_gmt":"2013-04-03T17:24:46","slug":"without-shame-what-good-is-marriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/7121","title":{"rendered":"Without Shame What Good Is Marriage?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Via Andrew Sullivan…Mark Oppenheimer, who thinks same-sex marriage might just pass muster as long as we still get to stigmatize someone<\/a>…if not the homosexuals…<\/p>\n

So here’s my question to Douthat, Maggie Gallagher, Ross Douthat Brian Brown, the world of conservative evaneglical preachers, and others who are so concerned about same-sex marriage: What does it do your perception of Ronald Reagan that he was a divorc\u00c3\u00a9\u2014and in being the first divorced president certainly helped remove any last shreds of stigma? Would you have voted against him for that reason\u2014as many would have in 1952? Would you discourage people from listening to radio hosts who have divorces in their past (Limbaugh, Dennis Prager), or voting for divorc\u00c3\u00a9s like John McCain? If our goal is to work our way back to 1950 Marriage, how are we going to re-stigmatize divorce for wealthy white people? How are we going to make their divorces seem unseemly? In 1950, when a divorced woman moved into the neighborhood, people whispered about her. Are we prepared to whisper again?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As they used to say back in the day…matter of fact as some of my elementary school teachers used to say to my face…I’m the product of a broken home. \u00a0 Oddly, I would not have known my home was “broken” had it not been for so many helpful adults back in the day. \u00a0 Kids hear those whispers too Oppenheimer. \u00a0 But that’s part of the fun isn’t it?<\/p>\n

Here’s my problem with shaming divorcees..<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

That’s my dad under that sheet. \u00a0 Mom divorced him when I was two and raised me herself. \u00a0 And but for the fact that mine was a household with a single divorced women at the head of it, you might even say that I was raised in a good Baptist home. \u00a0 But for that one fact. \u00a0 I remember how mom was treated back in those days. \u00a0 I remember how she raised me by setting an example. \u00a0 Never mind church. \u00a0 Yes I got taken to church. \u00a0 She never cheated anyone, never took advantage, never said anything about anyone in my presence she wouldn’t have said to their face, never drank or uttered a curse word in my presence, paid her bills, lived frugally (well…we had to…) kept her promises and when she passed away people in the town she retired to would come up to me on the street and tell me what a ray of sunshine she always was. \u00a0 But no…it was a shameful thing being a divorced woman. \u00a0 The head of my household growing up should have been the crook. \u00a0 Why, I might not be homosexual if my father had been there. \u00a0 A boy needs a father, and better to grow up learning how to rob people of their savings than to be a homosexual. \u00a0 Provided of course I share some of the loot with a few conservative think tanks.<\/p>\n

Dad, let it be said, was always nice to me, and nice to mom. \u00a0 To other people…not so much. \u00a0 And mom loved him until the day she died. \u00a0 But she knew better than to let me be raised by him. \u00a0 Let me tell you a brief little story about that. \u00a0 When I was a teenager dad was earning a semi-honest living driving trucks and cargo around the country. \u00a0 More about that “semi-honest” part in a bit. \u00a0 One summer mom felt comfortable enough letting dad take me with him on one of his cross-country runs and one afternoon we stopped somewhere to eat and rest up a bit. \u00a0 I chowed down in the restaurant and Dad went into the bar next door. \u00a0 He came back, sat across the table from me and with a cheerful smile pushed some papers and a pen across the table at me and asked me to make a mark on the dotted line. \u00a0 I must have raised an eyebrow. \u00a0 Just make a mark there, he said. \u00a0 You want me to sign it, I asked? \u00a0 No…just scribble something. \u00a0 So I’m the obedient son and I did it, and he took the pen and papers back, folded them up and put them in his jacket pocket and smiled warmly at me and said, “You just made your dad five-hundred bucks.”<\/p>\n

Aw gee Dad…<\/em><\/p>\n

So I have this…hunch…that if he had remained the God Ordained Head Of The Household like he was God Ordained supposed to be I probably would not be the sort of person I am now, capable of passing the background check I could so I could be doing the work I do now at Space Telescope. \u00a0 Still, he was my dad and I loved him all the same and I feel these bitter little smiles come out of me whenever I hear some jackass homophobe saying that you can love people without sanctioning their behavior. \u00a0 You don’t say? \u00a0 Know something about that do you?<\/em> And one day when my brother and I discovered he had no stone for his grave I bought him one, and my brother paid to have it placed, and it reads “Beloved Father” because sometimes you do things not because of what was, but because of what ought to have been.<\/p>\n

I have never regretted mom’s divorce. \u00a0 Regretted dad couldn’t have been a better dad, but I suppose he actually did the best he could, the best that was within him to do, and he loved his sons and his wives (he married again…and…divorced again…) as much as it was within him to love anyone. \u00a0 But without a doubt was absolutely for the best for both mom and me that I was not raised by him. \u00a0 And piss on you Oppenheimer, if you think whispering shame at divorcees is a good thing. \u00a0 Never dawns on the likes of you that divorce might actually be a good thing does it? \u00a0 Never dawns on the likes of you that the shame you throw at single mothers is felt by their children does it? \u00a0 We’re just collateral damage in your little culture war aren’t we?<\/p>\n

Here’s the problem with jackass social conservatives like him…they seem not to be able to function socially without a bunch of arbitrary rules that can never be questioned lest they get utterly lost in the human relationship thicket. \u00a0 They have no idea what the rules are for, other than they’re there to prop up some sort of civilized behavior, the reason for which they have no clue whatsoever. \u00a0 Homosexuality is shameful because it’s against the rules. \u00a0 Divorce is shameful because it is against the rules. \u00a0 The rules are Very Important because without them we wouldn’t have a fucking clue how to behave toward our neighbors.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I have a wee suggestion. \u00a0 Instead of shaming divorce, how about we shame spouse abuse. \u00a0 How about we shame cheating. \u00a0 How about we shame not setting a good example for children. \u00a0 How about we shame not taking care of children.<\/em> Ah…but spouse abuse was never one of the rules…was it? \u00a0 Women having to submit gracefully and all. \u00a0 And children…the only thing they’re good for is a reason why same-sex couples can’t get married and women can’t own their own bodies. \u00a0 It’s not like we give a good goddamn about their health or feeding or educating them.<\/p>\n

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Via Andrew Sullivan…Mark Oppenheimer, who thinks same-sex marriage might just pass muster as long as we still get to stigmatize someone…if not the homosexuals… So here’s my question to Douthat, Maggie Gallagher, Ross Douthat Brian Brown, the world of conservative evaneglical preachers, and others who are so concerned about same-sex marriage: What does it do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,4],"tags":[145,19,6],"class_list":["post-7121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","category-politics","tag-a-life","tag-the-jackass-chronicles","tag-the-right-wing-mindset"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7121\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}