Gay Marriage Analogy
Jun. 4th, 2009 11:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
talktoolooseI just wrote this email to my dad:
"I was thinking about your question about gay marriage. You asked why it is important that gays be able to call their civil unions 'marriage'. Why isn't it enough to have just the legal rights?
"I thought of a good analogy. What if we told immigrants that no matter how long they live here, they cannot call themselves 'Canadians'? After five years, they could apply to get the rights of Canadians, but they could never call themselves citizens of this country. When asked for their citizenship at a border crossing, they would have to say, "Armenian, with Canadian Validation Status," instead of "Canadian."
"I mean, they'd have all the rights, but if we let them call themselves 'Canadian,' they dilute the word for the rest of us, you know?"
"I was thinking about your question about gay marriage. You asked why it is important that gays be able to call their civil unions 'marriage'. Why isn't it enough to have just the legal rights?
"I thought of a good analogy. What if we told immigrants that no matter how long they live here, they cannot call themselves 'Canadians'? After five years, they could apply to get the rights of Canadians, but they could never call themselves citizens of this country. When asked for their citizenship at a border crossing, they would have to say, "Armenian, with Canadian Validation Status," instead of "Canadian."
"I mean, they'd have all the rights, but if we let them call themselves 'Canadian,' they dilute the word for the rest of us, you know?"
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Date: 2009-06-05 03:19 pm (UTC)