If Not Honour

“During my youth, offspring were nurtured lovingly as ‘children’ and each child was generally reared by both a father, the male, and a mother, the female, in a shared home. These mothers and fathers were called ‘parents’ and they had the primary responsibility of raising their own biologically-produced offspring." “As legal immigrants, my mother’s family understood that this country extended to them only two guarantees; the first, that the merit of their work ethic would be rewarded by capitalistic prosperity, according to the quality and constancy of that hard work, and the second, each individual would be judged according to his own merit.” “Why are you telling us this garbage?” It was the whiner again. “You may think you’re entertaining us, but I sure as hell don’t! All this stuff is a bunch of lies; just lies from someone too ancient to even be allowed in this Hall.” “This word, ‘parents,’ what does it mean?” A soothing, melodic voice was speaking: “Ciudadanos! Please move to the nearest exit to enjoy your mid-morning reward. El Distrito has generously granted us the customary twenty minutes to enjoy our preferred gratification." "...that the roles of ‘father’ and ‘mother’ were pragmatically abolished long ago, and for very good reason. Today, our society enjoys an ever-expanding gender tolerance, one which perpetually provides the joys of unlimited variety and preference flexibility.“