Equal Rights For All

Teah and I had a pretty amazing conversation today about equality, but before I recount what was said, I need to explain a few things that Teah and I had previously discussed.

A few weeks ago Teah and I were talking about marriage and I pointed out the fact that it isn't only boys and girls that get married, but boys and boys or girls and girls. I also let her know that in many states in the U.S. it is against the law for two people to marry each other if they're the same sex. This, I explained, was the reason that Aunt Andie and Aunt Chris got married in Canada. About the same time we were having these discussions, Teah was also learning about Martin Luther King, Jr. at school. She came home and told me that people with dark skin or light skin didn't used to be able to do the same things, but MLK helped to change the rules so that everyone was equal.

So, Teah had these separate discussions tucked away in that amazing brain of hers. Tonight she connected them all on her own in a pretty awesome way. On our way to a friends house we were chatting in the van and somehow the subject of babies came up. Almost always when we talk about babies Teah tells me that she doesn't want to have any when she grows up - she decided this many months ago at exactly the same time she learned that having babies hurts. I told her that probably she could wait to make that decision until she was a grown-up and maybe she would want to talk to the boy she's going to marry about it as well. This is when she said, "Mom, if I move to another country when I'm a grown-up then I can marry a girl if I want to". I told her that she was right, but that probably by the time she was a grown-up she would be able to marry a girl here in the United States since there were people fighting to change the rules. To this Teah responds with, "AGAIN?", in an agitated voice. My first thought was that she was confused and thought that same sex marriage was legal before and they were fighting to change it for a second time. So, I told her that they weren't fighting "AGAIN" because it had always been against the law for two girls to get married. Seemingly exasperated, Teah responded to me, "No Mom, I mean the rules that were changed when people with light skin and dark skin couldn't do the same things". She was frustrated that people had already fought for equality and now they were doing it AGAIN!

WOW. Even a six-year old can see the parallels between the fight for same sex marriage and the fight for civil rights.