Contrary to Pope Benedict XVI's denunciations about what he called the "powerful" gay marriage lobby in America and the religious right's warning that gay marriage is a slippery slope to bestiality, there have been no confirmed reports of anyone applying for a license to marry their dog.
More and more of us are becoming open to the proposition that good, happy productive lives can grow from experience different from our own. Nontraditional families are gaining acceptance everywhere, from TV sitcoms to our own neighborhoods.
It's no secret that the past few decades have transformed traditional gender relationships. Both men and women are operating by a whole new set of rules. Instead of celebrating Mother's Day or Father's Day, some schools are celebrating Parent's Day to accommodate kids from the wide diversity of families today.
Gay and lesbian couples and single moms and dads by chance or choice embody changing ideas about sex and sex roles, they are also transforming the gender based definitions of parenting. They are challenging us all to reevaluate the terms of marriage. Along with single parents raising children, they are also transforming the nature of parenting -- and showing how Americans have transcended the gender-based definitions of parenting. We aren't mother or father anymore; we're just parents.
For years now, we've been celebrating fathers who change diapers and mothers who bring home the bacon as well as cook it. But the Supreme Court's June 2003 landmark decision striking down sodomy laws validates gay relationships, including gay parenting, and shows how the terms "mother" and "father" are often archaic concepts.
Yes, the terms "mother" and "father" do still usually convey a biological distinction between who inseminates and who gives birth, but the rise of donor insemination and surrogate pregnancies open debate even on that.
Whether we acknowledge it willingly or not, the differing social roles the mother-father nouns once designated are rapidly converging. Certainly, there are still things that fathers undertake more than mothers, such as teaching a child to ride a bike. Some things often seem to fall more to mothers, such as arranging childcare. But each parent can, and does, tend to everything.
Single parents have long blazed the way in performing the traditional roles of both mother and father; same-sex parents are pioneers on the same path. In today's America, no matter their gender, and no matter whether they are married or partnered or single, what people do is parent their children.
Parenting Is the Best Job Description
To parent: It's a verb that barely existed a quarter of a century ago. By now, however, it is more useful than the verbs "to father" and "to mother," which were always of limited utility. "To father" refers to nothing more than the biological function of making a baby; it is the provenance of paternity suits.
"Fathering" says nothing about the social role of being a male who is an active presence in his child's life, performing the once-traditional masculine task of introducing his child into the world beyond the home. "Mothering," on the other hand, bears little genetic import at all; it primarily refers to the social role of caregiver.
In our transformed world where men nurture and women behave paternally, "motherhood" and "fatherhood" reveal nothing about who takes the kids to school or disciplines them, who earns the family income or stays at home, or who comforts children when they cry or who praises them for being brave.
The experiences of gay and lesbian families are providing a valuable instruction manual for parenting beyond gender. Films such as Daddy and Papa, directed by Johnny Symons, and He's Having a Baby, directed by Georg Hartmann, dramatize the dimensions of same-sex parenting. Books such as Gay Dads: A Celebration of Fatherhood, edited by David Strah, and actor B. D. Wong's memoir of his newborn son's life-threatening illness, Following Foo: (the electronic adventures of The Chestnut Man), show the challenges and choices made by male couples heading families.
These contributions help us see how, for gays and lesbians, the words "mother" and "father" are barely even linguistic conveniences, much less terms that signify who does what in a family, or who's who. The task of raising children is rapidly becoming work without ties to traditional sex roles.
Ghost-Busting Old Sex Roles
By virtue of being same-sex parents, lesbian and gay couples are not shadowed by the traditional sex roles that still ghost heterosexual couples and that can harry single parents who can feel their families are deficient because both genders are not represented.
When both parents are male, who acts as father? When they are both female, does one parent play daddy?
As shown since 1996 in my own studies of two-woman households, homosexual parents have no choice but to roll their own roles -- establishing their own responsibilities based on what suits their characters and temperaments, and what's best for their kids.
A gay man can grin and say ironically, "I'm a really good mother," which may mean that he performs the daily child care in his home, but his comment does not define him as a mom. Nor is a lesbian who coaches her son's hockey team a father. Both are just doing what parents do.
And they are showing us all that we can raise children who believe a parent can do anything.
Follow Dr. Peggy Drexler on Twitter: www.twitter.com/drpeggydrexler
Gavin Newsom: It's About Time: Democratic Party Should Adopt Marriage Equality in Platform
Culture evolves. Try it. Make friends with some gay and lesbian people, who might also be parents.
This begs the question of what do children need today? My personal opinion - what children need to learn and develop is an ability to tolerate multiple perspectives, an appreciation of the importance of relationships, an ability to be flexible and change based on what may/may not be useful, and a general stance of curiosity regarding others in the world.
These are clearly not gender specific. Thus Peggy's comments are well put regarding Parenting with a capital P vs. being a father or mother.
This is different - it isn't parenting in the sense our parents may have understood it - though if one is able to step back - it includes their parenting approaches. We need to support those who feel threatened by these changes - and value their parenting - even as the notion of parenting itself is changing.
Parents who take parenting seriously - no matter what their general persuasion - deserve commendation.
Why are some parents neither male nor female? Father is the label given for male parent and mother that of female parent. You can have one or two of either if you like but we don't need to relabel them.
Yes, the words mother and father are the words we use to describe female and male parents.... but the real biological differences between human males and females are not open to any silly "debate" disseminated by the PC Police and "diversity" hypocrites who want to make males and females "gender neutral".
In other words, changing the words used to describe male and female parents still doesn't change the FACT that females and males play different biological and psychological roles in reproduction and child rearing.
In other words, just because females can now become a parent (aka a "mother") by artificial insemination, doesn't mean females play the same role as a male parent (aka a "father").
That said, we have to realize that gay marriage is one issue and having children and gender roles are another issue. I say that because whether you believe in God or nature or whatever, there is a reason why only one man and one woman can have a child together. Yes, I know there are heterosexuals who either choose not to have a child or for health reason cannot have a child but that is not the case with people who are gay. People who are gay can never have a child together and it is not a choice or a health reason it is their sexuality that is the problem. I do not think that means people who are gay are bad or anything they are not. Just that when it comes to families overall it is better to have one man and one woman. That is the way God wanted it and the way nature has made it for us humans.
GENDER is largely a construct we have and most who research is agree we have a range. What you call "two genders" is your assimilation of false cultural ideas that don't accurately reflect reality or human experience.
we have functioning brains and we use them. intelligence and curiosity will always win out. gender-stereotyping is lazy analysis.