Why Gay Marriage Is Good News For Hetero's Kids.

While I find New York to be surprisingly late in their legalization of gay marriage, it's wonderful that it finally happened. Obviously, this is great news because of the legal benefits of marriage, and allowing same sex marriage goes a long way as a symbolic gesture promoting a view of gays and lesbians as equal to their hetero counterparts.  I'm really happy about the idea of someday never having to hear this popular explanation of homophobia: "Sex outside of marriage is wrong, and since gays can't get married they're living a life of sin."  Sorry suckers, soon you'll all have to be coming up with new arguments as the changing culture steamrolls right over you. 

That being said, while I'm a lover of equality I'm not necessarily a lover of marriage, nor do I promote it, and I puke a little in my mouth every time I see those Marriage Matters banner ads.  I'm a bisexual feminist, not to mention an atheist, living in what some would argue is the post-feminist era, and marriage hasn't always been so nice or so good for many women living in a patriarchal and heteronormative society.  Even in marriages, working women bear the burden of raising children and doing the most housework.  It's one thing to be single and responsible for yourself and your mess, it's another to be responsible for yours and someone else's! 

BUT, I'm hoping gay marriage can help change that. 

I just wish it happened sooner.

For instance, this week I'll be attending a baby shower for my cousin who is giving birth to twins.  I've been to her sister's baby shower, so I know the drill.  It'll be all women in room that will be decorated in blue since she's having boys, there will be cake and punch, and after playing some obnoxious game we'll sit around watching her open her presents.  I'll zone out and fantasize about getting laid, or maybe write a story in my head, or maybe I'll think about things I need to buy at the grocery store.  Either way, it'll be nothing but women giving one woman presents for her children.  Diapers, toys, clothes, bottles, breast pumps, grooming kits, lotions, wipes, expensive swinging seats, and I'll just be giving a gift certificate because I'm lazy like that.  Again and again I come to these boring baby showers and see the same thing: women gathering to help another woman prepare to give birth, with the men nowhere in sight. 

In my cousins case the man is not just absent from the shower, but he's going to be absent from his children's lives.  It seems crazy to me that we, as a nation, can see the problem with so many men taking no responsibility for their children, and yet we continue traditions that focus on women as exclusively responsible for the rearing of children. 

But same sex couplings challenge traditional gender roles.  This scares nearly half the nation but it delights me, and SHOULD delight so many women and Christian conservatives who advocate for men to step up and be fathers to the children, instead of splitting as soon as the pregnancy stick turns pink.  Having gay men get into the baby shower game, and to go through the obstacles involved in having children of their own -- children they actually want -- is a good model for young hetero men, and it's a good model for hetero girls and women who automatically settle for not being able to rely on men to be there, or to do housework, or change diapers, or the many many long lists of complaints articulated by so many mothers and wives. 

I think our culture will seriously benefit when having not one but TWO male parents becomes an increasingly normal reality.  Our culture can also benefit from lesbian parents because the same debate about a woman staying home to raise the children won't have the same gender implications when the working partner is also a woman.  It will allow people to see that child rearing is not something someone is necessarily biologically destined for, but rather it's a choice that a person can make regardless of their sex. 

Unfortunately for me, I don't think same sex marriage will increase the likelihood of jello shots at baby showers, and in fact it may mean I actually have to attend more showers, but someday I hope to attend one where I watch a man tear open a wrapped package of diapers given to him by his fantasy football buddies. 

Yeah, that would be nice.