In my last post, I put up photos of California weddings with children in attendance because it was obvious to me that same-sex couples couldn’t until now follow the traditional order of marriage first, kids second.
When parents marry, it of course affects their children. (See also our vlog from a couple of weeks back, on ways to include children in wedding ceremonies.) The mainstream press hadn’t seemed to pick up on this storyline, however, until John Simerman wrote a great article for the Contra Costa Times:
For the children, reactions to the marital frenzy range from been-there, done-that ease among older kids, to excitement at the public cheers and wedding tears. Some . . . said they hope it means unwelcome teasing or questions at school — “Are your parents married?” — can now dissolve with a simple affirmative. . . .
“They said they got married but then they took the license away. I was wondering a lot,” said Chase Crawford-Herold, 8 . . . “I figured out those people that weren’t letting my parents get married were just being a little bit cruel.”
Beyond the sharp divisions over same-sex marriage is a fact that was set in bold relief across the Bay Area early this week: the sheer number of same-sex couples raising families regardless of the state’s view on marriage, and the many children who have grown up with a booster-seat view of a galvanizing issue.
The intense debate that began four years ago in San Francisco has filtered into classrooms. That has helped children of same-sex couples more openly discuss an often sensitive topic, said Meredith Fenton, program director at COLAGE, a national support organization for children of same-sex couples. . . .
Go read the whole thing.
(Thanks to the Bilerico Project and the photographers who made these images available free for use.)
Chase’s quote brought tears to my eyes. Kids are often so much better at recognizing cruelty and inequality than adults.