Opinion
Kansan
Published daily since 1812
Ann Premer, Editor Jamie Holman, Business manager Gerry Doyle, Managing editor Sara Cropper, Retail sales manager Angie Kuhn, Managing editor Dan Simon, Sales and marketing adviser Tom Eblen, General manager, news adviser Justin Knupp, Technology coordinator
Friday, February 12, 1999
Bruno Pieroni / KANSAN
Editorials
Same-sex pairs unjustly missing rights of heterosexual marriages
Today is National Freedom to Marry Day, a day set aside to recognize the U.S. government's lack of recognition for same-sex marriages.
Those opposed to same-sex marriages have made reference to every argument from the Bible to a need to revive "traditional family values," but the two main issues to be decided are what constitutes a family, and what constitutes a marriage?
The definition of a family never has been static in our society. In 1967, the Supreme Court decreed that banning interracial marriage was unconstitutional. Nuclear families with working fathers and stay-home mothers make up less than 7 percent of American households. Children have grown up healthy in a variety of families, and same-sex couples who have adopted or had children have raised healthy adults. There has been no empirical evidence to show that children growing up without a parent of both sexes are at risk.
Freedom to Marry Day is a reminder that gay marriages deserve rights of legal union.
Marriage fundamentally is a legal contract. The Legislature has defined marriage as a union between two persons of opposite sexes, and Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act, allowing states to disregard same-sex marriages made in other states.
Calling a same-sex union a domestic partnership as opposed to marriage is wrong. This allows for the restriction of
rights inherent in heterosexual marriages, namely housing rights, spousal benefits and a right to raise one's adopted or natural children. The label also strips away the cultural and spiritual significance of the bond for the gay and lesbian couples involved.
It is not the government's role to legislate "morality" on an issue where morality is defined in accordance with specific religious traditions.
Private freedom and the pursuit of happiness are integral parts of our Constitution. Regulating a person's ability to love and establish a family are not areas of the law that should be regulated. We should all bear this in mind when casting votes in both state and national elections. It is time same-sex couples be allowed the same freedoms as their dual-sex counterparts.
Matthew Skinta for the editorial board
Children require male, female parents
The ideals behind Freedom of Marriage day distorts the institution of marriage. Marriage has been defined by society, religion and the U.S. government as a union between man and woman. These heterosexual marriages provides the most stable environment for raising children.
By calling a union between two homosexuals a marriage, they become entitled to all privileges heterosexual married couples enjoy, including the right to adopt.
There are about two million couples and individuals waiting to adopt children, said Bill Pierce of the National Council for Adoption. There are not enough infants available in the United States for prospective parents who want to adopt them. Most agencies will not
Marriage rights should not be extended to homosexuals.
even interview heterosexual couples who have been married less than three years because of their desire to place children in better, more secure homes.
There is evidence that children parented by homosexuals have trouble developing gender images. Further, these children themselves have problems learning how to be a husband or wife, or mother or father. Children learn these things by observing their parents. Homosexual households do not have role models for children to learn from. It is almost impossible for homosexual couples to provide their children
with a balanced view of society.
Thousands have protested the proposed Civil Solidarity Pact in France saying that the bill will ultimately allow gay couples to adopt. Germany and Spain have both refused to allow gay adoptions.
Two national polls done by Newsweek indicated that only 33 percent of the overall population supports gay marriages. In Hawaii, where legalizing same-sex marriages has been an issue, a Honolulu Star-Bulletin poll showed that 74 percent of those surveyed disapproved of homosexual marriages.
The ban on gay marriages in more than 30 states is not institutionalized homophobia or lawmakers trying to score moral points, but a suitable reflection of public opinion.
Kansan staff
Timothy Burger and Katrina Hull, dissenting
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Broaden your mind: Today's quote
How to submit letters and guest columns
“Romance, like the rabbit at the dog track, is the elusive, fake and never attained reward which, for the benefit and amusement of our masters, keeps us running and thinking in safe circles.” —Lenny Bruce
Letters: Should be double-spaced typed and fewer than 200 words. Letters must include the author's signature, name, address and telephone number plus class and home-town if a University student. Faculty or staff must identify their positions.
Guest columns? Should be double-
spaced typed with fewer than 700 words. The writer must be willing to be photographed for the column to run.
All letters and guest columns should be submitted to the Kansan newsroom, 111 Staufer-Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit, cut to length or reject all submissions. For any questions, call Ryan Koerner or Jerome Doherty at 864-4924.
If you have general questions or comments,
e-mail the page staff (opinion@kansan.com)
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Romantic rituals offer chance to seize the day
Perspective
I don't like red, and I can't stand pink. Roses and carnations smell, well, strange to me. I don't like mushy, poetic cards. I always have found chubby little naked boys
hovering around with bows and arrows mildly disturbing. I think I lost my only sweet tooth some time back in grade school, Iced, heart-shaped sugar cookies lost their appeal around the same time. If I were to wrap it all up into one statement, I would have to say. I don't much like Valentine's Day.
Mike Perryman
opinion@kansan.com
I think that I used to enjoy the holiday. Although I cannot remember exactly when that would have been, I'd probably guess that it was
somewhere around early-to-mid grade school. It is not as if I have become bitter or anything since then. I actually enjoy all of the affection. It's just that that I don't like the pressures that go along with Valentine's Day.
It's almost always a no-win, mentally taxing situation. If you don't have a date, you feel like a fool. You feel like a fool because you're supposed to feel like a fool. If you do happen to have a date or a girlfriend or a boyfriend, you have to switch your mind from "I really don't care" to "Considerate" mode, spending money you don't have and money that you never will have on everything from flowers and chocolates to oils and weirdo lighting. Put simply, it's all become too complicated.
If we don't already have a date, we feel obligated to ask someone out. We cannot face the humiliation of being alone while everyone else is out smiling, laughing, courting, mating or doing some other fun and exciting thing — This is all in our heads, by the way. A good number of people who are out on Valentine's Day actually are quite miserable. If we do have a date, we feel that we have to secure reservations at some stuffy, overcrowded, formal restaurant and then flatter and flatter until we lose our appetites and feel sick to our stomachs.
it really is quite amusing when you think about it. People go so far out of their way to convey their feelings toward another person, and despite all of the gifts and shallow compliments, who knows if they ever even get their point across.
I say that it is time to quit fooling around with all of the stupidity and tell someone how you feel. Speak it! The worse that can happen is...well, we won't go there. But good things can happen, too — I think good things can happen. I don't remember ever having actually tested the theory.
When we were kids, it was easy. We didn't have to be romantic, witty or even creative. One of our friends simply would walk up and tell some random individual that we liked them — whether it was true — and that was that. All of the sudden, we had a girlfriend or a boyfriend, and life was good. We didn't ask questions. There was no emphasis on buying worthless stuff. We may have exchanged a couple of cheap, one-sided cardboard Valentine cards or a few stale heart candies inscribed with "Be Mine" or "Yours Truly." But for the most part, it was all about being able to say that you had a girlfriend or a boyfriend, even if you rarely talked with the person, which typically was the case.
Despite my ranting and raving, it is a good thing to remember that gifts are not a bad thing. Some really good friends told me once that giving gifts was one of five ways of showing another person that you care. The other four are the time you spend, the favors you do, the way you physically act and the words you speak. The last one is my favorite. Which one can you relate to?
Unfortunately, as we all know, dating is not this simple, and the pressures of Valentine's Day don't make it any easier.
Man, I wish dating still were that unsophisticated and naive. I would give just about anything to be able to turn to my roommate and say:
"Hey Dave, there's this girl in my Spanish class. She's cute, and, well, do you think you could either ask her out for me or at least get her number? That way you can call her and see if she likes me?"
Oh, by the way, if anyone knows where I can get a good deal on a dozen roses and a box of Russell Stover's assorted chocolates, could you please give me a holer?
Perryman is a Prairie Village senior in journalism.
Valentine's Day reminds singles about loneliness
H.G.
Miller
opinionkansan.com
Perhaps you haven't noticed the preponderance of pink and red hearts adorning the aisles of local merchants or the sultry advertisements coming through the radio waves, but Valentine's Day
Because this holiday has worked its way into mass marketing, and thus the Grand American Culture, I feel that it is my duty to make fun of it.
If you aren't familiar with the customs, the main point of Valentine's Day is to show love and passion for those who are closest to you by surprising them with gifts at a designated time or else risking a loss of that special relationship.
Otherwise, the holiday, with all of its pink and red (how tacky, really), simply exists to make single people even more painfully aware of the complete lack of intimacy in their lives. I dedicate this column to all of the single people out who must deal with this month-long onslaught of romantic insinuations, lovey-dovey salutations and all the other nauseating reminders of how happy other people are.
Before the tirade of angry letters begins, let me tell you that I'm just being honest. I am well aware that there is more to life than bedding down with the nearest warm body, but single people don't exist in a vacuum. We have friends. We have boyfriends and girlfriends, we people go see movies with and have dinner with, and people who call us in the wee hours of the morning to discuss the problems of the world and hear a friendly voice.
If I could express my feelings about this brutal holiday with one single statement, I would like to title this column "You Will Not be Getting Avv Tonight."
We just don't get to sleep with these people. I don't know why, but those are just the rules.
I'm willing to bet that every one of us knows at least one person our age who has gotten married by now. Personally, I have three garter belts on the wall at home. I'm not trying to show off that I've got the hops, I'm just trying to illustrate that when all of your friends keep getting married, you begin to wonder what it is that you're doing wrong.
And so, we'll call up our other single friends and complain about our married friends and drink copious amounts of alcohol and hope that we don't do something stupid with the people that we're "just friends" with because there are usually good reasons why we're all just good friends anyway. And I'll just write some run-on sentences, maybe some bad poetry, and then I'll go to bed and wonder what the name of that waitress was and whether I tipped her enough.
Then there's this whole holiday thing. It's not bad enough that single people must go to bed every night pondering the absolute stupidity of a statement such as, "As soon as you're not looking, it will happen," but we also have to put up with the commercial industries ramming images of happy couples — with their boxes of chocolates, their knowing smiles and their frolicsome ways — down our throats with about as much subtlety as a chalk birthday announcement in front of Wescoe Hall.
Miller is a Hutchinson senior in English.
Let's face it, it's hard work being single. We're constantly checking for rings anytime we meet somebody new and always looking for the most subtle way of finding out about a boyfriend before wasting good material. It's impossible to attend a party and not stare longingly at the slightly-trapped couples who fondle each other in the darkened corners, all the while waiting for the fight that always seems to follow.
Feedback
Student courtesy important for bars
I always feel bad when I go out with my married couple friends because it's them on one side of the booth and me on the other, and I'm obligated to hit on the waitress because I'm so obviously alone. And, of course, she realizes this and probably doesn't like working that hard just for a tip.
As everyone already has heard, there was a big controversy about students leaving bars — The Wagon Wheel, the Hawk, Bull Winkles — and causing too many problems. These bars that offer a place for us to go and to have a good time now are held responsible for hiring security to patrol outside. To have this done surely will not be cheap. If you
1
a are student leaving the bar,
do not ruin it for everyone
else. Bequiet, and do not litter.
These two things are the biggest reasons why the bars almost had to close at midnight. The biggest problem for the bars was that most of their business comes after midnight. Also, keep in mind that these bars employ many of our fellow students, who need the money. The students would be losing out on a lot of the tip money that makes up a big portion of their earnings.
Now that we have been given a second chance, let's show them that we can be courteous to those who are sleeping at 2 a.m. and that these same people will not have to wake up to a lawn full of trash.
Students before us could handle it, so let's make sure that the students after us can enjoy these bars, too. Remember, it only takes a few to ruin it for everyone.
Lance Willmann Clay Center sophomore