Not fooled by "family" focus

Editor: There will no doubt be some who are taken in by Focus on the Family's "intolerance of same-sex marriage" ad campaign. Life lessons are learned, they say, by a family with a father and mother. By equating the nuclear family as the "traditional" model, they've discounted the strengths of communal and extended family childrearing. But I'm not fooled. This campaign isn't a "focus on the family." It's another face of the Christian right's relentless attack on civil rights for non-heterosexuals, most recently against legal recognition of same-sex unions.

I was shocked to see that the Jewish Western Bulletin had sold this organization ad space, and disappointed in the paper's choice to do so.

As a side note, I learned from my parents' union that some men tend to wield power over women, that children should shut up, and that I was lucky that grandma lived next door. All this goes to show – and the same is true for many of my peer group – that there's no overwhelming evidence to show nuclear family systems as being more foolproof than other models.

Gender shouldn't be the first question. We should be asking "are members equally supported, equally cherished, equally loved?"

Pheonix Wisebone
Vancouver