They say getting older makes you more conservative. Maybe it's true, because when I read this over at AmericaBlog, my reaction wasn't quite the same as John's:
Anyone who thought this "traditional family values" garbage was only focusing on gays, well, get ready because you're next.From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
Olivia Shelltrack finally has her dream home. Her family moved into the five-bedroom, three-bath frame house in Black Jack last month. But now she fears she and her fiance face uprooting their children because of a city ordinance that says her household fails to meet Black Jack's definition of a family.
Shelltrack and Fondray Loving, her boyfriend of 13 years, were denied an occupancy permit because of an ordinance forbidding three or more individuals from living together if they are not related by "blood, marriage or adoption." The couple have three children, ages 8, 10 and 15, although Loving is not the biological father of the oldest child.
Here's what I simply don't understand. They've been together 13 years. The have kids together. They own a home together. Why on earth don't they just get married and be done with it?
I know, I know, they're entitled to organized their lives the way they choose to organize them, and it's more than a little stupid for the town to pass an ordiance like that. But really, would it kill them to just go to city hall and get the piece of paper? Especially since there are so many financial and legal benefits to being married. It's not like being married is a Bad Thing.
Like I said, maybe I'm just too old to get it. But I don't see what is so horribly wrong about getting married.
*sigh* Between this post, the Mark Morford thing, and my post about David Irving the week before that, I'll probably get kicked off a few progressive blogrolls for showing DINO tendencies. I'm sorry, truly, if I've upset any readers. All I can say is, this is who I am; if I'm not quite as far Left as you thought, I'm sorry. I do think Joe Lieberman is a dork - does that help?
Comments (3)
Lots of reasons to be pissed off about that kind of legislation (although in this particular case, the solution seems obvious, I agree). Suppose this was a household of two women who can NOT get married but have been together 13 years...? Suppose it's my house and I'm renting extra rooms out to boarders to help meet the mortgage? Suppose I've gotten together with two or three people to share a rent...?
I really can't see how this kind of ordinance is at all constitutional, and many of the implications of such legislation are disturbing to say the least. Did you follow the related links to Madrassas (sp)? where Chavez and her family will be forced to sell their home wihtout the extra renters? They're married, the issue is the nephews and renters they've got...
Posted by BEG | March 3, 2006 12:18 AM
You're quite right in anticipating the surpise your readers may feel reading your candid thoughts on marriage. I was particularly shocked when you wrote:
"Why on earth don't they just get married and be done with it?"
Time and other things prevent me from really having a conversation here, but in a weird way it was kind of fun to find out that...
"I'm not quite as far Left as you thought..."
Ah well. ;)
Posted by Sour Duck | March 3, 2006 9:58 AM
I have to come out on your side regarding the marriage thing. I think it's a sign of being unrelentingly dogmatic to ask people to do all the same things in regard to your union that that they would if you were married - extend benefits, respect the commitment and energy put into the relatiohship, accept one another into each others' families - but make a big deal about how you're not married. How, exactly, is that different than marriage? If you learn that marriage is unprogressive, but then go ahead and do it - you're married, sorry, even if you are grossed out at the history of marriage. I'm grossed out at is history, too. People aren't going to give up the concept of marriage - but they are giving up bad ideas of how marriage should work. The only reason you would refuse to go along with it is stubbornness.
I think BEG makes a good point - this law is not a good law - but the anti-marriage married folk are a huge pet peeve of mine.
Posted by Sara | March 3, 2006 10:26 AM