8th writing - For and against composition about homosexual marriage and adoption

In the first place, only in seven countries around the world the law considers the possibility of marriage for same sex couples (2010 data). Furthermore, these countries have regulations on assisted reproduction and a regime of open affiliation. But this is a small container for all the gay community expectations. To begin with this controversial issue, the essential point is to set the situation within context. The reality now for homosexual couples that want to start a common life, exercising all their rights, is extremely difficult in a great number of countries. 

The most important disadvantage is those people who are against these laws claim that children need a father and a mother for their integral development. It is often suggested that homosexuals’ adoption would be detrimental to the upbringing of these children. In fact, to contradict this argument, the real situation is that a great percentage of abuses to children (psychical, sexual, etc…) are being done by their heterosexual parents or relatives. Another argument that they use is that it would create chaos in the adoption registry. Many people argue that it is not necessary to approve gay marriage or adoption, because most of the benefits of a marriage can be regulated through legal agreements (inheritance, transmission of goods, properties, etc.). Last but no least for people who are against the establishment of these laws is that they consider marriage as an essentially heterosexual institution, and the application of these rights for homosexual people imply the distortion of this concept and its perversion. 

Taking everything into account, I can conclude that marriage is only a word that means “the state or relationship, the act or legal contract, the civil o religious ceremony during which this act is performed, a joining together as a union” and adoption means “to take a child into the family through legal means, to educate and take care of her or him as one's own child”.

On the other hand, people who agree with these laws illustrate another category of arguments, like the right of everyone to be happy, be free and have equality according to the rules. For them, laws should grant everyone rights, no matter your sexual orientation. One point of view in favour is that the current adoption law does not require being heterosexual to adopt. In fact, many gay couples raise their children, adopted by one of the members, or conceived through assisted fertilization methods. This is one of the aspects that people who are in favour of this change in the law feel as a great disadvantage, because the parent has no hereditary link with the children, and cannot take care of them in the case of death of the adopter. People in favour also note that the family, as a social institution, is a product subject to changes, and is permeable to the cultural and environmental modifications, so the rules and laws must change with the objective of accompanying cultural and social changes. Finally, we must also take into consideration the rights of millions of orphan children that are waiting for a family, living in extremely bad conditions and without any hope, who could have an opportunity to be adopted with these changes in the laws.

All of these changes in attitudes, types of families and welfare state, which mirror our current society, have to have their reflection in laws, and changes in the rules must be done. And who has to do this, am I wondering? It is the responsibility of our political representatives in the Parliaments. They are elected to defend our rights and propose the development of laws that do not fit with the current reality. Because of the reasons expressed in favour of the changes in the law that will allow homosexual couples to marry and adopt, it is high time our sexual orientation was not used by slick politicians in order to avoid their job as representatives of all the citizens. The politicians have the obligation to develop laws that grant the same rights for all of us.

7th writing- A film review – The kite Runner

The Kite Runner is a 2007 film directed by Marc Forster and based on the book of the same name by Khaled Hosseini, which was published in Britain in 2003 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. I could not compare this film with others by the same director, because he is totally unknown to me.

This is the story of Amir, an Afghan man who explains his experience of life in Afghanistan and how he fled the country after the Soviet invasion. He also tells his change of status in Fremont, California, his trip to Afghanistan to retrieve Hassan's son and his return to America.

The film begins in San Francisco, where Amir lives with his wife Soraya. They are unpacking the first copies of his first book "A Season for Ashes", which has been sent by his producer and suddenly he receives an intriguing call from his father's old friend, Rahim Khan.

The film is a coming and going between past and present. It recalls Amir’s childhood and his experiences with his father, Agha Sahib, with his servant Ali and Ali’s son, Hassan. We could be part of the story of a complicated life, his sense of desolation and distance from his father became hurtful. His past is a time in which Amir is torn between his weaknesses in front of other boys their age and his fortune to have a strong and famous father, but who does not pay him much attention. Amir fills his life with his love of reading and writing, the adventures with Hassan, with whom he has grown and shared games. Rahim Khan also has an important role in his environment. He is a partner and friend of his father who supported Amir’s love for writing and listened to him when Agha Sahib was deaf.

This childhood is shattered by two events that marked Amir for ever; he and Hassan won a renowned winter kite tournament in Kabul, but the end of the day is bloody. Hassan is raped by Assef, a tortuous, violent youngster, and Amir witnesses the fact and does not intervene to save his friend Hassan. This secret is the trigger of his guilt.

The coup in Afghanistan and the subsequent Soviet invasion are the reasons for his trip to America. He and his father try to lead a simple life and to carve out a future for themselves in a country with different customs and where they were initially welcomed with suspicion.

In Fremont he met his wife, Soraya, with whom Amir gets married after following the strict Afghan’s rules of courtship. In Fremont also his father died. After receiving the call from Rahim Khan Amir decides to return to Kabul. On this trip back to his country, through Pakistan, the memories haunt him. The experiences and the reality of his country at war and under the power of the Taliban scare him again. He returned to Afghanistan and to his past to rescue the son of Hassan, Sohrab, from the hands of the Taliban, and he does it even if it costs him having to face one of his ghosts, Assef, again.

I loved the photography and music that accompany this stark story. They exceptionally involve the complicated atmosphere that floats throughout the film. The actors align themselves with shocking reality, they seem to be very implicated and make you part of the sensations; pain, jealousy, hope and fear are obvious. The plot is devastating, vivid and compelling and you find yourself in the story of Amir, even though this is not your intention.

I recommend this film but only if you like drama, it is not a funny story. Although, as it happens to me, whenever I see a movie based on a book I have read, I warn you that if you are planning to read the book, you had better to see the movie first and enjoy the book afterwards. And why do I make this recommendation? Because movies always run faster, they jump over details that have drawn your attention in the written story and that do not appear on the screen.

In this film an example of these missing details is Hassan's cleft lip, which in the book is the subject of an unexpected birthday gift for the young Hassan and a scar on Amir's memory when he goes to Kabul to rescue Sohrab. Nothing is told in the film about Sohrab's suicide attempt, the complications that Amir has to recover himself from the beating after the rescue, the difficulties to get the boy out of the country. And there's a scene, the flight of Amir from Assef's house after receiving a brutal beating, which reflects the situation of the escape in a totally opposite way as it is explained in the book, in which incidentally it is much more credible.

I must also note that if you have thought that the movie is hard, then you should better not read the book, since it is far more explicit in some scenes, such as the one of the rape, and it may even hurt feelings. This scene is softened in the movie, like others of a violent nature that do not reflect accurately what the book says.