“Family” this and “family” that. I’m furious at conservative politicians and moral busy-bodies for the way they’re using this perfectly good word today.

On the surface, they appear to be defending tradition, but underneath they’re using it as a code word for strong opposition to women’s rights, abortion, and equal rights for gays, as well as support for school vouchers and religious education, and as a way of saying that some families should be more valued than others.

The so-called “traditional family” is a thing of the past. Less than a quarter of America’s 91 million households today are made up of a breadwinner father, stay-at-home mom and two children.

The family of today is more likely to be an adoptive family, a single-parent family, a blended or step-family, grandparents raising grandchildren, or an unmarried same-sex or opposite-sex couple with or without children.

The claim that “Gays are destroying the family” particularly annoys me. Gay people are not destroying families. In many cases gays have to go to extraordinary lengths to create their own families. The problems with American families today are problems that originate within those families.

There are real problems of divorce, spousal abuse, teen pregnancy, STDs, and

child abuse in our country. These problems can’t be blamed on gays and lesbians.

The self-proclaimed, so-called “moral” right-wing politicians and conservative religious groups need to take a step back and look at what the real problems are and begin to find ways to deal with them, not use gays and lesbians as scapegoats.

It’s irresponsible to continue to demonize the gay community for problems which are not theirs.

Alan L. Light

Iowa City, Iowa