Just saw this
article in the WashingtonPost about a single mother connection service that enables women to house-share with other women with young kids --- didn't see any other diaries about it so I thought I'd, uh... expound... for a bit. The article itself is mostly unoffensive; it points out that many single mothers find life easier if they can share mortgages, activities, and parenting responsibilities with another single parent. It gives major (and well-deserved) kudos to to the founder of Co-abode.org, an online service that makes all this possible.
It may have been purposeful, to not soil this admirable story with a air of controversy, but not once in the whole article are same-sex households where the two parents have sex with each other mentioned. And maybe it's just me, but it seems that there are obvious parallels worth mentioning. Excerpts and commentary on the flip.
[Darcie Allen] says she and [Shawn] Goldstein take turns playing the dad's role. If one person loses control of a situation, the other steps in so the other mom has a chance to collect herself," she says.
"Because our sons are both only children, it's been good for them to have brotherly attention and learn that they are not the center of the universe," adds Goldstein. "And we're here to support one another as much as we can." For example, recently when Allen had a late class, Goldstein picked up her son from school, fed and bathed him and put him to bed. And they trade off like that constantly, which makes life less stressful for both women.
And there are some things that could have, but for the plutonic nature of the article, been lifted from a love story:
"Darcie was the second person to e-mail me and I liked her immediately," Goldstein says. "We met over coffee, and knew we'd get along really well. And she didn't mind living with my dog."
Huh.
I mean, I know there's a lot to be enraged about in today's world. Most of us probably spend some time each day scowling, cursing, or sadly shaking our heads. Maybe I'm making a mountain out of a mole hill here, finding something to be irked about in a positive article. But that's just it, I think. Publications are important for what they say as well as all that they do not. What struck me, vividly, and what bothers me is that if this were an article about (or that even just mentioned) lesbian parents, it would probably not have felt this positive.
What bothers me is that as soon as you say the word "lesbian," tension is introduced into the discussion so that it becomes impossible to think of it as an ordinary, feel-good story about people, finding ways to have a happy family and depend on each other in a difficult world.
[sadly shakes head]
But for the day when we can have a society that doesn't have to preach "tolerance," because it has become a society that doesn't even notice these differences anymore. Even us, the enlightened liberals? We notice. We try our best not to judge, but we can't help noticing. Imagine if it were not "gay." Just "human." A "person." See how you don't have to purposefully not-judge when it's just a "person?"
And here's where I recycle something I wrote on a different blog just over one year ago... I was agitated, and Dim Son was pushing hard for the Bigotry AmendmentTM.
The fact of the matter is that loving another human being is right. No one disputes that. Likewise, devoting yourself to another human being because of that love is also right. The only way you could possibly be mean-spirited enough as to try to dictate that one couple's love is less deserving of legal protection than another's simply because the people concerned are of the same gender is if you believe, since we've determined that love and devotion are good things, that being gay is wrong. Or that homosexual love is inferior or irrelevant as compared to heterosexual love....
...homosexual behavior is not unnatural. Speaking as a biologist, homosexual behavior is WELL documented in other primate species, not just humans. And anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of history should know that gayness has been a documented part of human existence since history began. I just LOVE the argument that homosexuality is some deviant behavior people choose. Like anyone would choose to be scorned by society, be the victim of a hate crime, or be possibly disowned by their parents.
How many people reading this have ever heard the expression "jumping the broom"? If you're not black and you said you haven't heard of it, I'm not surprised. Despite references to it still today. Jumping the broom is an expression that goes way back to the days of slavery. As you may expect, slaves were not allowed to legally marry. So when two such people decided they loved each other and wanted to wed, they would hold secret ceremonies with the other slaves whereby a broom handle was laid on the ground and the couple jumped over it together, signifying their commitment to one another. This, of course, conferred no legal rights whatsoever, and the partners could be (and were) still sold away from one another.
The bottom line is this, people: banning gay marriage isn't going to stop people from loving one another, or from committing themselves to one another. All it's going to do is use the government to institutionalize the type of discrimination we've prided ourselves on moving away from for a couple generations now.
[scowls]
You know the odd thing is, I consider myself to be an upbeat person --- it's just hard to be upbeat and simultaneously have a conscience these days!
Wow, I just can't write anything short, can I?
The WaPo article concludes with this nugget:
Regardless of age or family ties, shared-living participants believe two pulling together is easier than one pulling alone.
"They're creating families of choice," observes Malgoire, noting that if people take the time to properly work out the details, shared-living "can be a wonderful solution."
You don't say... Even if you're gay? You don't say.