CUL-DE-SAC

The latest chapter in the fight over gay marriage begins this week with the effort to get California Proposition 8 shot down in federal court. The proposition to restrict marriage to heterosexual unions in California passed in 2008 and it’s already survived a challenge in state court. The federal challenge, I assume, could go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and have repercussions for the many laws, banning same-sex marriages, that have been passed in states all around the country.

For the record, I agree with Barack Obama and the runner-up in the Miss USA pageant that marriage has been and should remain a union between a woman and a man.

My view on this subject has always made me a little uncomfortable because most of the people I associate with seem to disagree with me. We’ve become a nation in which people of different political persuasions have very little to do with each other. (Read Bill Bishop’s book “The Big Sort” to learn more about this) We work in different jobs. We live in different neighborhoods and run in different social circles. My tribe is liberal/academic. So my opinion on gay marriage has made me feel like an enemy sympathizer in the American culture war.

It may be cliché but it’s no exaggeration to say marriage is one of the pillars of our civilization. Yes, it has changed over the years but it has always been a joining of female to male and I have yet to hear a good enough reason to change that. There is a fundamental difference between same-sex couples and heterosexual couples (the ability to have children together, in case anyone was wondering) and I believe the law can take that into account.  

The debate over gay marriage has raised an issue of human rights and I’m glad it has. It has made me realize that everyone, gay or straight, must be able to choose a life partner… someone who supports you, loves you, and speaks for you in serious or dire situations. I think reasonable people agree that all committed partnerships should enjoy government support and recognition. But we disagree on whether partnerships among same-sex couples should be called a marriage or a civil union.

Courts have disagreed on this matter as well. I can’t know how the U.S. Supreme Court will rule on the question, though I could hazard a guess. What’s very clear is that the majority of American voters, from California to Maine, aren’t ready for gay marriage.

Will they ever be? It’s possible and it may even be likely. Polls show that young people are much more open to the idea. But to say gay marriage in America is inevitable is a bold statement to make in the face of more than 30 state votes on the question, every one of which concluded that marriage should remain a heterosexual union. Personally, I don’t think we can accept gay marriage until we conclude that having children is incidental, not fundamental, to marriage.

Some folks seem to think that all people who oppose gay marriage are homophobic. That’s like saying that anyone who criticizes the state of Israel is anti-Semitic. There are good people on both sides of this debate, and I hope we can keep the discussion civilized until all the people have voted and all the courts have ruled. I’m looking forward to some resolution of this issue, but we’ve got a ways to go.

As the calendar turned from ‘09 to ‘10, I spent New Year’s Eve as I usually do these days. I attended a party of families with small children. Typically, we celebrate the coming of the New Year on east-coast time. The kids blow their horns and we drink our champagne at 9 p.m., which allows us to get the kids home and in bed by ten o’clock.

That evening I had a conversation I’ve had several times before, with parents my age, in which we wonder why our parents worried about us so much less than we do about our kids. We all say the same thing. When we were young, but old enough to cross the street by ourselves, our parents would send us out the front door and say, “Go play.” We’d wander the neighborhood. We’d ride our bikes to friends’ houses that were a dozen blocks away. We’d play in fields and canyons and hang out at the park.

Today, by contrast, parents are afraid to let their kids out of their sight. Children don’t walk or ride their bikes to school. Even kids who catch the school bus are accompanied to the bus stop by a mom or dad. I had a part-time job as a school bus driver in Minneapolis twenty-five years ago. Even then, elementary school children found their own way to the bus stop.

What turned us into a nation of hovering parents? It’s tempting to look for simplistic explanations but reality is rarely simple. One contributing factor must be the sensational coverage of child abduction and child sex-abuse cases in the media.

In San Diego the trial of David Westerfield, convicted of kidnapping and murdering a seven-year-old neighbor, truly made me fear for the safety of my son. This is despite the fact that abduction of kids by strangers is so rare it’s outrageous to let it govern our parenting styles. Parents today act as if they know there’s a child molester, living on their block, who sits at his front window just waiting for the first unprotected kid to wander by so he can lure him/her into his lair.

Another factor is the modern tendency to program a kid’s day. Middle class and high-income parents seem to believe their kids just won’t turn out right unless they spend most of their time doing “constructive” activities – activities that are planned and supervised. This means lots of driving kids around town to soccer practice and music lessons. It also means a lot less time that kids spend wandering around, playing their own games and discovering their own adventures.

Was there a third factor? I’m sure there’s that and more. We have smaller families today. It was impossible to keep close track of every kid back when people had seven or eight. The point is that family life in urban/suburban America has changed dramatically, and it’s up to all of us to decide if it’s for the better or the worse.

Fearing for our kids is natural. But when does it become an obsession that robs children of the skills they need to learn independence and become adults? I wish all parents, including myself, the wisdom to figure that out.