From THE ADVOCATE, the leading gay newspaper. (Note: This article contains vulgar language)
The URL is here: [http://www.advocate.com/printArticle.aspx?id=211497]
Excerpt:
We often protest when homophobes insist that same sex marriage will change marriage for straight people too. But in some ways, they?re right. Here?s how gay relationships will change the institution?but for the better.
[...]Anti-equality right-wingers have long insisted that allowing gays to marry will destroy the sanctity of ?traditional marriage,? and, of course, the logical, liberal party-line response has long been ?No, it won?t.? But what if?for once?the sanctimonious crazies are right? Could the gay male tradition of open relationships actually alter marriage as we know it? And would that be such a bad thing? With divorce rates at an all-time high and news reports full of famous marriages crumbling at the hand of flagrant infidelities (see: Schwarzenegger, Arnold), perhaps now is the perfect time for the gays to conduct a little marriage makeover.
[...]Even many gay male couples, who [Dan] Savage describes as having ?perfected nonmonogamy,? fear disclosing that their relationship is anything but one-on-one. Gary (not his real name) is out in every area of his life, and his family is completely supportive. ?But I don?t tell my family, even my brother?who I?m incredibly close with?that I have sex outside of the relationship with Ben,? his partner of 14 years, he says. ?I have never said that to him.?
Gary and Ben, who live in Los Angeles, won?t reveal their real names because Ben has a high-profile career in television. ?We have too much to lose,? Gary says. ?But we also don?t want people passing judgment on us.? Which is why they don?t even tell most of their friends.
Sex therapist Timaree Schmit says she can understand gay couples? desire to conform?at least outwardly?to the kind of conventional relationship that society deems ?deserving? of marriage rights. ?It?s been a big part of campaigning for marriage equality to repeatedly prove the ?normalcy? and stability of same-sex couples. People may feel pressure to make their relationship fit into a more acceptable box.?
Blake Spears and Lanz Lowen recently completed The Couples Study (TheCouplesStudy.com), an examination of nonmonogamy among 86 gay couples. A long-term gay couple themselves (36 years), they had found that little research had been conducted on how gay men navigate this terrain, so they embarked on an admittedly limited and self-selective study (they found many long-term couples who fit the bill, but relatively few who were willing to participate), but one that gives a view of the diversity of experiences. In fact, the thing they found most striking is that while nonmonogamy seems to be fairly pervasive among gay couples (though they did not hear from the many monogamous pairs), there is surprisingly little support within the gay population for such relationships.
Spears and Lowen were also surprised to discover such a wide range of kinds of nonmonogamy. ?We thought we might find some models that we could slot some couples into,? says Spears, ?but people had such a wide variety of approaches to nonmonogamy. And I think it spoke to the amount of creativity in the gay community.? They did identify some key characteristics and outlined the various ways in which couples live out their agreements, including having sex beyond the couple (12% do so together; 56% do it both together and separately; 32% play only independently ? stats that seem to shift as relationships evolve), degrees of talking about their experiences together (40% had full disclosure; 40% had varying degrees of it; 20% took a ?don?t ask, don?t tell? approach?), and kinds of outside sexual contact (34% will only have no-strings, anonymous encounters; 40% have friends with benefits; and some couples in both the aforementioned categories have differing preferences, meaning one likes it anonymous and the partner likes to have sex with friends). Seventy-five percent of the study?s participants put some rules on what constitutes their commitment and what will violate it.
Forty-two percent of the study?s participants agreed to open up within the first three months of their relationship, while 20% agreed on nonmonogamy only after a period of turmoil in which one partner was caught having cheated.
This article dovetails nicely with the research I had written about showing that gay unions are nothing like traditional married couples. And the differences matter when children are brought into the mix. It seems to me that this is nothing like traditional male-female marriage, where two opposite sex people join tightly in an exclusive, life-long, love relationship in order to provide a stable environment for the children they create ? whom they are both bonded to by blood. Children growing up with two opposite-sex parents bonded to each other for life will learn a very different view of love, marriage and self-sacrifice than will children being raised by gay couples.
The article seems to argue that the distinctive characteristics of same-sex unions would come to influence society?s perception of what marriage is, if same-sex marriage were to be viewed as being equal to marriage in the eyes of the law. A very good article to read about this is Dennis Prager?s article, entitled ?California Decision Will Radically Change Society?.
Public schools are part of the plan
In a related article, New Jersey public schools are pulling gay erotic literature out of the hands of children in response to parent complaints.
Excerpt:
A New Jersey school district has apologized to parents after requiring high school students to read books that include graphic depictions of lesbian sex and a homosexual orgy.
The books were on a required summer reading list for middle school and high school students. The district decided to pull the book off the list, with the start of school just days away.
[...]One book, ?Norwegian Wood,? was on a list for incoming sophomores in an honors English class. The book includes a graphic depiction of a lesbian sex scene between a 31-year-old woman and a 13-year old girl, according to a report first published in the Gloucester County Times.
?I don?t think that?s relevant for any teenager,? parent Robin Myers told the newspaper. Her daughter was assigned to read the book. ?I was just kind of in shock,? she said.
The other book in question was ?Tweak (Growing up on Methamphetamines).? That book included depictions of drug usage and a homosexual orgy.
[...]Peter Sprigg, with the Family Research Council, said he?s not surprised by the controversy surrounding the books.
?Here we see the intersection of parental values being offended, the hyper-sexualization of our youth and the homosexual agenda being pushed,? Sprigg told Fox News Radio. ?This just illustrates why a lot of American parents are not willing to entrust their children to the public schools anymore.?
So whose idea was it to put books featuring explicit sex scenes on a summer reading list for teenagers?
[Public school superintendent] Earling said the school district?s summer reading list was prepared by a committee made up of teachers, librarians and school administrators. The board of education ultimately approved the list.
Recall that Obama?s ?Safe Schools Czar? Kevin Jennings promoted child pornography to children.
This New Jersey story also shows what public schools want to do with your children. It?s not an unusual story. Here is my recent story about how teacher unions deliberately try to evade parental oversight. Public schools are paid by taxpayers through compulsory taxes, regardless of the quality of education they provide to children. They aren?t responsive to the needs of parents and children ? because they aren?t private companies in competition. Public schools are a monopoly, and they have enormous influence in politics. They don?t have to care about parents and kids, because you have to pay for them regardless of how they perform. And a lot of their initiatives have no parental opt-out. Because they not only want to force you to pay, but to force you to agree with their views.
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