Living in France and not speaking French is more than a little daunting. A few months ago, I started taking French classes five days a week for two hours a day.

Today, only about 5 of the 10 students showed up (all female), which worked out perfectly -- we spent the entire time discussing marriage, children, and gay rights. I'm the only American in the class -- in fact, the only native English speaker, so it was really interesting to get view points from around the globe.

There were women from Mexico, Brasil, Paraguay, and China -- and the similarities between the view points in the class were astounding: all the women were married with children or wanted to be (except me -- I don't want kids), all the women agreed that it was important to finish university and start a career before marriage and children, all the women agreed that it was a good idea to live with your future husband before marriage but that they would never do it because of their families and culture (again, I was the outlier -- I have lived with someone I was not married to), and all the women felt that, while gays should be allowed a civil union, they should not be allowed a church union or to adopt kids -- for many reasons: it's unnatural, their communities would never allow it, it's too difficult for the child to understand, etc..

This shocked me. And I think I shocked them when I explained my opinion.

I'm not gay, but I don't have any issue with gay marriage or gay adoption. There are 500,000 children in the US alone without parents waiting for adoption. The women in the class kept saying that it would be too difficult for a child to understand why he has two mommies or two daddies, and it made me want to scream -- better two mommies or two daddies than none at all. The idea of a child spending an entire childhood in an unstable environment without the permanency they need or crave because someone has deemed it too complicated for a child to comprehend the "gay situation" is ludicrous.

Anyway, just thought it was interesting how people from around the world have so many similarities and yet can be so different. I know there are plenty of people who don't support gay marriage or adoption in the States, but the fact that I am able to have my own opinion without worry of how it would look to my family or the people around me does make me happy to be American. I'm thankful for the reminder -- sometimes, living in Europe, it's easy to jump on the "America's so dumb" bandwagon.