Guest Editorial
BY GLENN MOLLETTE | APRIL 3, 2013
Gay Marriage? Civil Unions? Civil America?
I can't remember the first time I heard the words homosexual or lesbian. I probably was a young teenager. I do not remember.
I can't fathom why anybody would be sexually attracted to someone of the same sex. We live in an age where a percentage of our country and world wishes to live in gay relationships. They also want to call it marriage.
The only way I have heard the word marriage used is in referring to a man and woman living in a monogamous relationship. Marriage is a Bible word. Different forms of the word, marry and marriage occur about 22 times in the Bible. I do not understand why anyone would want to take a term that has historically been used to identify a relationship between a man and a woman and try to redefine it.
While I personally do not approve of homosexual/lesbian relationships, I nor any other American can live another person's life. This is part of the Liberty of being a citizen of the United States. I am opposed to redefining the word marriage.
If two men or two women want to live together and commit themselves to each other in a civil union then so be it. I can understand why two life partners would want the other to benefit from their retirement or medical benefits and a civil union may make this possible. I've known men and women who have lived together most of their lives. Some of them acted more brotherly or sisterly toward each other than they did married. I've known of other same sex couples that lived together and acted more married than some men and women who are married.
I am an advocate of traditional marriage and traditional families. We need strong families in our country. A nation will never be any stronger than its families. A broken hurting family adds to a broken hurting society. Children need love, guidance and parents who will spend time with them.
There are certainly scores of children who have been raised in traditional homes who haven't turned out so well. The presence of a mother and father is not a guarantee that life will all be well.
Personally I am glad I had a mom and a dad. I was fortunate. They were both hard working people and very traditional in their roles. My dad worked a hard job all of his life and my mother had the tough stay-at-home and raise five children job. Today roles have changed so much in traditional marriages. Moms work outside the home and children are raised by schools and media devices.
I had a nontraditional role as a parent and caregiver during some key years of my two sons' lives. Their mother was unable to physically do anything for them her last three or four years. These were key formative years of my children. It would have meant so much if she could have been active in their lives. However, she couldn't and therefore we tried to do the best we could.
Traditional is a great word but life isn't always traditional. What does a traditional family really mean? Does it mean a man and a woman with two sons and two daughters? Does it mean they have a house with four bedrooms and two baths? Does it mean the boys play football and the girls cheerlead? Does it mean dad works 40 hours a week and mom stays home, raises the kids and cooks good meals? Does it mean the kids grow up and all do well in school and produce healthy happy grandchildren? I do not have to stay on this rhythm.
We all know there isn't a lot about our country that resembles the forties and the fifties. I still love to watch the old shows and what seemed to be such simple beautiful lives of that era's television characters. Our country barely resembles that era.
My prayer for America is that once again we will become a people who value our time with each other. I hope we will become a people who will find time to sit around the table and talk at least once a day. I also hope that we will at least listen to what the other person is saying. My hope is that we will become a great nation of people who pray and look to God and that God and the Bible would once again become favorite subjects in our homes.
I'm praying for a civil union in our United States. During the Civil War we were divided. For years African Americans were treated wrong in this nation. There was nothing civil about how America treated African Americans.
Today, we have union but we have division. I heard about this man who once tied the tails of two cats together and threw them over a clothesline. That was very cruel. The cats had union but they were not very civil to each other. Sadly there are many marriages in the United States where two people live in joint legal union but the people aren't very civil to each other.
If America ever needed to pray more, work harder and love deeper toward making our nation a civil nation, it is today.
Glenn Mollette is the author of American Issues: Every American Has An Opinion.
He is the author of other books and hundreds of articles. You can hear him each Sunday night on XM radio 131 at 8 EST.
