Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Ricky Martin comes out of Closet



The last thing I thought I would be writing about would be a Puerto Rican Pop Singer but here I am. I am no Ricky Martin fan to be honest but that sentiment here is irrelevant.

From others who like his music or who know his personality I had already heard that he was Gay. No big deal. Who did not already know? Strange thing is that he has been living behind a public mask of sorts for many years.

Ricky Martin announces he is gay
In his website he wrote: "To keep living as I did up until today would be to indirectly diminish the glow that my kids where (sic) born with."
He may just be generating interest in a book he is writing etc. And of course, most famous singers hit a wall around the age of forty whereby their fan base melts away. Got to reinvent yourself.

Martin has two sons born to a surrogate mother in 2008. I have seen this before in some high profile gay people whereby they adopt or have surrogate mothers produce a child.

The Parenting instinct is a strong one. For people who are perhaps cheated out of the “normal” life of the other ninety odd percent of humanity, why not do some social catching up of sorts in building one’s own life to satisfy oneself and try to conform to social norms as well. Nobody likes being an outsider.

Kudos to Ricky, for coming around to reality and to not living one’s life in a total lie.

Putting Martin aside, the flip side of all this has to do with Christians who want to keep Gays from marrying.

I do not know the personal life of this pop singer but apparently a parenting instinct is being followed. Some sort of natural law is in place. Problem with natural law is that nobody has re-examined it on the religion side of any equation for thousands of years.

On the secular side, Darwin’s view of the world, and it’s natural laws, is a hundred and fifty years old.

The whole Christian right argument about marriage has been that it can only be between a man and a woman. And because in the ancient past marriage was the only logical, socially acceptable way to reproduce and nurture offspring.

That with science, in a secular world, some assumptions about marriage are obsolete. Obsolete in the sense that children can be produced without marriage or two opposite sexes in direct or total connection.

Parenting is a real issue in the concept of marriage and not the lineage idea attached to claims of property. Somehow the political or religious right is always obsessed about property first and foremost. Property I can assure you is nowhere mentioned in so-called mythical Natural Law.

With parenting not an issue for some gay people who can afford surrogate mothers and nannies, the other part of the equation regarding gay marriage is one of companionship.

I am not too hip on every phrase in the old/new book but I do not think that lifelong companionship is emphasized too much in the writings of men only over the centuries.

Never the less, there is a gay man, a pop singer with two kids. Why would his marriage in theory to someone of the same sex be a sin and or a crime?

Marriage is a civil secular institution.

To Life !