... because !!!

Wow, it's uncanny.  Last night I had a quick visit from my parents (81 & 80) who had come down to see a concert at Laycock Street Theatre (just around the corner).

Despite my early entry into computers (since 1979) they've never really picked up the can, and still haven't gotten one, despite now having a few devices (digital camera, personal video recorder, etc) where a computer would be handy to organise the output.  So no, they don't have the internet yet.

I've often encouraged them to get a computer, but they've resisted the offers, and my wife keeps reminding me that if they did actually get one, then I'd be getting a lot of calls to offer support and troubleshooting (and yes, I can exactly see her point).

Yesterday you'd have thought they had read my last blog post on promulgating same-sex marriage!!

But, much to my horror, IN REVERSE!

It was an almost throwaway line just as they were leaving from Mum: "oh, and all the palava about gay marriage..."  After which I replied my standard "Why not?".  Wow, sometimes you are extremely proud of your parents and want to thank them for all they've done for you in the past, but in this situation I am rather horrified at the bigoted nature of their views on this issue.

Essentially they believe gays should not marry - "because".  When pressed they ask "Why should they be able to marry?".  When pressed even further my Dad (who usually has less prejudiced views than Mum) asked me "What do two men do when they get married"  (the unspoken answer, of course, was to commit buggery.  "Filthy pigs!!" he cried.  "Filthy pigs!  If it wasn't for poofters, we wouldn't have AIDS."

My wife was strongly urging us to drop the subject as she could see the conflict we were heading for, and she was right.  We did manage to leave it at that (although it unseated my father enough for him to leave his jacket here - he was trying to make a quick exit at this point).

But Dad, may I say what I was prevented from saying yesterday.  They are (in your opinion) filthy pigs already.  We don't have gay marriage now and that sure doesn't prevent fornication between same sex couples.  Perhaps if we offered them marriage it'd be like the rest of us and it'd PREVENT the fornication.

But it's amazing how I am the progeny of a couple from an earlier generation and our views are so diametrically opposed on this topic.  We couldn't disagree more.

What's more is the whole crux of this issue.  None of us are gay, so it really has absolutely no bearing on us whatsoever.  How can we judge people for doing something we basically have no concept of and do not participate in?  Logical analogy: I try to correct spelling in a text wrtitten in Swahili.  I have no idea how to speak the language (let alone spell it) but I wish to impose my beliefs on native speakers of that language and correct their behaviour.  I've thought long and hard about this analogy, and yes, from what I can see, it is precisely congruent to the situation.  So if me correcting spelling errors in a text in a language I don't speak sounds weird, that's exactly how non-homosexual people imposing conditions on homosexuals is.