Same-sex parenting: What do we know?

Comments on a recent post about an article in the Southern Poverty Law Center have drifted toward a discussion about same-sex parenting. Commenters noted that several professional associations (APA, Pediatrics group) have policies which endorse gay parenting. Other commenters have questioned the wisdom of such endorsements citing research based concerns.

So here is the first of a multi-part series summarizing what I can find on the subject. I am not as aware of this literature as I am some other aspects of social policy so I do not claim that this is exhaustive but I do want to put up some links and get our conversations based on something besides anecdote and irrelevant studies.

Let me start with a link to a 2005 article by William Meezan and Jonathan Rauch, titled, Gay Marriage, Same-Sex Parenting, and America’s Children. It is a serious effort by advocates of gay rights to examine the literature. They find much contention among bonafide scholars about the quality of the research. For instance, they note

The significance of this body of evidence is a matter of contention, to say the least. Steven Nock, a prominent scholar reviewing the literature in 2001 as an expert witness in a Canadian court case, found it so flawed methodologically that the “only acceptable conclusion at this point is that the literature on this topic does not constitute a solid body of scientific evidence,” and that “all of the articles I reviewed contained at least one fatal flaw of design or execution. . . . Not a single one was conducted according to generally accepted standards of scientific research.” Two equally prominent scholars, Judith Stacey and Timothy Biblarz, vigorously disputed the point: “He is simply wrong to say that all of the studies published to date are virtually worthless and unscientific. . . . If the Court were to accept Professor Nock’s primary criticisms of these studies, it would have to dismiss virtually the entire discipline of psychology.”

Dismiss psychology? Stacey and Biblarz say that like it would be a bad thing…

Meezan and Rauch identify only four studies that meet sufficient criteria for examining claims about gay parenting. I encourage readers to review their summaries. My impression is that the studies are suggestive, they are far from a basis for making policy recommendations. Meezan and Rauch acknowledge as much when they write

We believe that both sides of that argument are right, at least partially. The evidence provides a great deal of information about the particular families and children studied, and the children now number more than a thousand. They are doing about as well as children normally do. What the evidence does not provide, because of the methodological difficulties we outlined, is much knowledge about whether those studied are typical or atypical of the general population of children raised by gay and lesbian couples. We do not know how the normative child in a same-sex family compares with other children. To make the same point a little differently, those who say the evidence shows that many same-sex parents do an excellent job of parenting are right. Those who say the evidence falls short of showing that same-sex parenting is equivalent to opposite-sex parenting (or better, or worse) are also right.

This seems to be about as good a summary as I could write. We have precious little to go on and I believe social conservatives are correct to say we are not inspired to make national policy based on the positive results obtained thus far. Advocates of same-sex parenting, Meezan and Rauch go on to suggest a research strategy

In particular, the clustering in four neighboring states of all three kinds of arrangement— same-sex marriage in Massachusetts, civil unions in Vermont and Connecticut, and neither in New Hampshire—offers a near ideal natural laboratory. A rigorous study of how children fare when they are raised in these various arrangements and environments would not be easy to design and execute, and it would require a considerable amount of time and money; but the knowledge gained would make the debate over gay marriage better lit and perhaps less heated, to the benefit of all sides of the argument.

Although some would never agree, I believe there is some merit to this suggestion. Doing such a study would not interfere with the ability of advocates on both sides to make their cases on ideological grounds, nor would people who are not in favor of gay parenting be required to change their moral views in order to acknowledge that such arrangements exist and should be reviewed. 

Now what do you think? What are the promises and pitfalls of such a study?

In beginning this series, I hope that commenters will add specific references to studies which I should consider adding to future posts.

194 thoughts on “Same-sex parenting: What do we know?”

  1. Pam –

    “Ponder for a moment that some of those boys and girls who were raised in perfectly loving families turn out to be gay. They’ve seen real live role models of great parenting and some of them might make great parents.”

    Great thought.

  2. God finds a way for all His purposes….through all sorts of avenues….all sorts of folks stepping up to take care of one another in all sorts of situations….

    He even found a way to cause a virgin to give birth….(just noticed that was mentioned)

    The creator is innately creative in ways we just don’t fathom, but he continues to accept our efforts whether or not we are able to discern His intent….

    I’m sure some will disagree that he’s accepting of all our efforts….hence, this sort of continuous disagreement..

    From what I can see, no one here has argued against the idea that the absolute best environment for a child is in the home of a perfectly loving mother and perfectly loving father. We’ve all been in agreement that traditional family is the most zippidy doo dah thing around when it’s ACTUALLY in order and working correctly. And then, there’s all the rest of the real people and kids in the world who are left to fend for one another. That’s what we were talking about here for the most part. Wasn’t it?

    Ponder for a moment that some of those boys and girls who were raised in perfectly loving families turn out to be gay. They’ve seen real live role models of great parenting and some of them might make great parents. Or, some might be great at parenting for the same reason some straights are great at it…they’ve learned what NOT to do from bad parenting skills.

    One thing I’ve often pondered is this….

    Most reparative therapists argue that gay men were raised by distant fathers with whom they never bonded emotionally. If that’s the case, it stands to reason that a gay man would make an exellent father because he is more likely to be intuitive and loving toward his son. Just some pondering of my own.

  3. Oh- and yes Jag, all teenage girls can’t stand her (her being their mother) but then by around 23 or there abouts and all is good back on the homefront.

  4. Ask a child anything and I assume they will give you they answer they think YOU want. They are easy to manipulate and have not developed psychologically. I swear, I could yell at my child (if I had one) for no good reason and easily convince my child that I was not yelling and that I was telling him how good he was. And guess what – later in an interview with someone else he would tell you just that.

  5. Ann –

    Happy new year to you as well!

    You stated:

    “If we were to ask any child whether they would want a mom and dad or just a mom or just a dad or two moms or two dads, what does anyone think they would say? Sometimes adults are not the only people who matter when it comes to life decisions.”

    Any child? I think if I asked the 3 year-old I know adopted as an infant from Vietnam by two women what she would want, I can almost guarantee she’d say her moms. They dote over her like crazy, and offer her a life ahead that she might likely otherwise never have.

    I think the answer would vary greatly based on who you ask and when. Those raised in a loving same-sex household may love it, those raised in a loving hetero household may love it also…some might want anything other than what they have…and heck, ask a teenager, and many might want to scrap their parents altogether.

  6. No, Ann, we don’t really have any thoughts on 78343

    Primarily because it is extrapolation. It takes a fact and add a “because”. And to guess about the “because” requires knowing the mind of God.

    We don’t know if God had a reason. And if He did, we certainly can’t guess what it is. I think Jayhuck has well explained this.

    If you enjoy pondering, then ponder. I know there are many things that I like to think about, they take us out of the day-to-day and let us try and make better sense of the universe.

    But don’t think it odd if we don’t join you on this one.

  7. Ann,

    My answer is the same – I cannot know the mind of God, and I won’t pretend to.

    I think that, in the fullness of time, we all will know 🙂 For now we see through a glass darkly, right?

  8. I don’t like to try and pretend to know why God does many things – because, in then end, I will never know for sure. THAT is why answering that question of yours about WHY God created men and women to have children, is impossible for me.

    Jayhuck,

    This is not the question I asked – again, I did not ask about what God has made possible and why, I asked about what He didn’t make possible, his discernment in that, and if anyone had any thoughts on it. Now I am sighing. Anyway, I agree with you about not pretending to know the mind of God and I hope in the fullness of time we will have all the answers that we ponder about now.

    Does anyone else have any thoughts about #78343?

  9. Ann,

    I don’t like to try and pretend to know why God does many things – because, in then end, I will never know for sure. THAT is why answering that question of yours about WHY God created men and women to have children, is impossible for me. I would rather deal in what we KNOW rather than in speculating on why God did or did not do something.

  10. Ann,

    And I would venture to suggest that, if children are made aware of both kinds of parents, and know kids who are happy in both kinds of households, and have been appropriately exposed to both kinds of parents – that they might answer either way.

    Do you have any thoughts on why He made it impossible for men to create children with each other and impossible for women to create children with each other

    Sigh – Ann – I’ve already answered this – I cannot answer it because I cannot read the mind of God. Why does God do bad things to good people? Why did God create men and women who CAN’T have children? Why has God created gay parents who are just as good parenting as straight parents? Can you answer these questions?

  11. I would venture to think that children would answer that they would like a MOM and DAD. This does not preclude them from being happy and healthy and safe and stable in other familial settings, it only indicates a preference – one I think adults should pay attention to, regardless of what decisions they make.

  12. Jayhuck,

    Yes, I agree and know what God has done and made possible – created male and female as a means to pro-create children. Do you have any thoughts on why He made it impossible for men to create children with each other and impossible for women to create children with each other. Perhaps you have already answered this question by saying that you do not try to pretend to read the mind of God. I don’t either and that is why I am only pondering this instead of having the answers.

  13. Ann,

    If we were to ask any child whether they would want a mom and dad or just a mom or just a dad or two moms or two dads, what does anyone think they would say?

    First, we don’t let children make many decisions for themselves, because they are, well, children.

    Second, it depends on how we ask the question and to whom we ask it. Would we be asking children who understand that there are both gay parents AND straight parents who raise children, or are we only asking children who have no exposure whatsoever to the gay parents who are out there?

    I think there would be many things wrong with asking this question of children anyway. Should we ask children if they want the parents they currently have or new ones?

  14. I just posted this on the thread about marriage and again realized it should go here on parenting

    If we were to ask any child whether they would want a mom and dad or just a mom or just a dad or two moms or two dads, what does anyone think they would say? Sometimes adults are not the only people who matter when it comes to life decisions.

  15. Ann,

    I will not try and pretend to be able to read the mind of God. And I did answer your question and not with an answer that talks about what we CAN do. God had to have some way for us to create children, so he gave us males and females – that’s all we know, and that is all we can ever know for sure. You are free to interpret his discernment in this as you see fit. Personally, i don’t see that his discernment has to extend beyond the mere fact of creating life. Why did God do this? What is his discernment? My answer: to create life. Which is the same answer I’ve given you several times above.

  16. Jayhuck,

    You keep referring to the things that we CAN do and what God has made possible for us and I agree with you on these – my question is, do you have any thoughts on why He has made this one thing impossible and what do you think, if anything, His discernment is in it? Also, you mentioned that you knew what I was trying to do and where I was trying to take the conversation and what inferences I was making – please don’t say these things as they are all assumptions you are making about me that have no merit. Others on this blog resort to these tactics but I believe you don’t have to – at least with me.

  17. Ann,

    I’ve already answered your question. I think if God created male and female to have kids – that’s it. Its all about procreation. Why did God do this – I’m not sure I want to even try and answer that question. God has done many things that I couldn’t even begin to answer the why question for. All we know Ann, is that Gay people can and do make equally good parents.

    Here’s something else to ponder, if God just meant for men and women to be parents, why are gay parents parenting just as well as them?

    I understand what you are trying to do Ann and where you are trying to take the conversation, but you cannot make the inference that just because men and women can CREATE life, that they can SUSTAIN it as well. Its been proven already that this isn’t the case.

    I’m not sure I can say anything more about this.

  18. How about this – men and women can create the children and gay people can raise them?

    Jayhuck,

    Is it possible or impossible that this can be reversed – can same gendered couples create children and have others raise them? No. This is what I was referring to when I said that God has made some things impossible for us and I was wondering about His discernment in it.

  19. Jayhuck,

    I think it is very revelent to this thread. It speaks to the point that while we have a lot of possibilities available to us, God has made this one issue impossible and I thought it was sobering and would be interesting to ponder. I know two people can pro-create, there are single parents, whether by choice or tragedy, that heterosexual couples do not always make good parents, etc., but my question is – do you have any thoughts on His discernment in making it impossible for a man or men to have children without a woman’s participation or involvement and that He also made it impossible for a woman or women to have children without a man’s participation or involvement?

  20. Ann,

    How about this – men and women can create the children and gay people can raise them? 😉

  21. Ann,

    Focusing on that, what are your thoughts?

    Hopefully I answered that in the above post. To me, basically, it means our species can reproduce, and that men and women have the tools needed to CREATE life.

    BUT, we know that one man plus one woman don’t necessarily make a good or healthy family, and that two women or two men CAN be good parents and form a healthy family unit.

  22. This is great to ponder, but we have diverged from the original discussion which was same-sex parenting. The fact that men and women can reproduce is something I think we are ALL aware of, and I’m fairly certain that all of us on here appreciate and marvel at the ability of our species to create life (I know I have a much greater appreciation for it after my OB rotation) – however, that really wasn’t the point of this thread 🙂

  23. Happy New Year Jayhuck!

    Thanks for your reply – my post did not talk about sex or the ability to be a good parent or what happens after a child is born – those things human beings are capable of and responsible for, rather it spoke to the observation that God has made it axiomatically impossible for a man or men to have a child without the participation of a women and that He has also made it impossible for a woman or women to have a child without the participation of a man. Does that speak to His discernment and what does it tell us? Is it something that merits and is worthy of pause and consideration? Focusing on that, what are your thoughts?

  24. I too share Ann’s thought and think that if there was no such plan men and women would not have been so different sexually and instinctually. Sexual difference is there in humans to draw them together in order to conceive life. Like any faculty, it can be used and misused in many ways, but that will not erase its primary aim without humans becoming something else.

  25. Hi Ann,

    That’s a truly excellent thought to contemplate and I hope to share ponderings soon.

    I will say now that hammerhead sharks are not mammals but parthenogenesis in Komodo dragons and other lizards is quite fascinating.

    God’s original plan for humans and creation was wonderful but we are fallen creatures and I fear we are falling deeper ans deeper.

  26. Ann,

    I think God has made it impossible for a human being to produce another human being without the participation of the opposite sex.

    I’m pretty sure all of us are already aware of this. However, just because two opposite sex people can have a kid doesn’t mean that they will be good parents, that they are Holy, that they are decent, etc. ALL this means is that they can reproduce. Is there anyone on this blog who isn’t aware of this? I doubt it. AND, science has already progressed to the point that we don’t have to have sex in order to create a baby – even though God created the act as one of its purposes. How long will it be before we need even less participation from the genders? I don’t know, but that is also something interesting to ponder.

    Happy New Year 🙂

  27. Thanks Jag for the reply and info – it is all very interesting – I am not sure if I would put Mary’s conception in the same discussion as it has only happened once, and with a divine purpose, but I can definintely see your point. Other than that example I think God has made it impossible for a human being to produce another human being without the participation of the opposite sex. I think that is worthy of taking a moment to ponder. Happy New Year!

  28. Ann –

    To be frank, I don’t know if we truly know the anatomic limits of the sexes yet….what is possible or impossible. I am often surprised at the findings of science.

    I was astonished when we just discovered that even a mammal (such as the hammerhead shark) could have asexual reproductive capacity. I have no idea what is possible under God in human sexuality or reproductive capacities, but I know that my mind certainly doesn’t think our understanding ends in the year 2008.

    http://scienceblogs.com/deepseanews/2007/05/a_virgin_shall_be_with_pup.php

    This is technically a “virgin” conception…I don’t claim to know what is possible or impossible….and what we’re capable of just yet.

    I know it sounds blasphemous (and I don’t mean it to, being a good Christian myself), but reading this made me wonder about Mary. Who knows, eh?

  29. Jag,

    I did not write about the possibilities that God has given us – I wrote about what He has made axiomatically impossible and thought it would be interesting to ponder that and wonder about His discernment with it. Focusing on that, do you have any thoughts?

  30. I’m not going to fathom why God has or has not done something because any reason I come up with is from my imagination and any reason someone else comes up with is their imagination (and alot of us imagine the bible being written from very different kinds of God) So – the argument can go on and on – I don’t care.

    However, when people start to talk about attractions being the “natural way” or that technology has exceeded our “original” intent you might as well group yourself into the segment of people who say that ” If God intended man to fly he would have given him wings.” Really –

  31. Ann –

    You stated:

    “t is interesting to ponder why God made it impossible for a woman to have a child without a man’s participation and why He also made it impossible for a man to have a child without a woman’s participation. We can finagle this all we want to, and we do, however, it is a sobering thought to wonder about God’s discernment in it all.”

    Why has God given us the ability to transplant a human organ (having an organ inside of us that otherwise would not be present and leads to life extension)?

    More controversial… Why has God given us the technology to actually prevent a life from existing with only the swallow of a pill (birth control pills) or condom? People seem not to find these so offensive….but they sometimes prevent life that would otherwise exist, and many don’t think twice about it.

    We seem okay with sex for recreation, mutual affection, and non-childbearing if it serves the majority. I’m not sure why people get so hung up on the man-woman sex aspect of reproduction. I would assume that most couples in the USA have the majority of their sex as nonreproductive…but somehow the reproductive capacity of some becomes this odd standard the the measure of a relationship.

    I would consider that God gave us the technological capacities to overcome the man/woman participative nature of reproduction – to both allow us to have children without it, and to prevent us from having children with it. It runs both directions.

    I wonder about these questions too. I think God’s discernment in giving us such capacities is interesting to consider.

  32. I just posted this to another thread and realized it should be on this one instead – sorry for the duplicity.

    it is interesting to ponder why God made it impossible for a woman to have a child without a man’s participation and why He also made it impossible for a man to have a child without a woman’s participation. We can finagle this all we want to, and we do, however, it is a sobering thought to wonder about God’s discernment in it all.

  33. Jayhuck–

    Thanks for clarifying on your Orthodoxy. Realizing that it’s a term that seems so specific on one level and yet has the varied meanings, I wanted to be make sure that you were both speaking to the same thing. This may be a first for us (you and me) but I totally agree with your definition and usage!!!

  34. Jose –

    You stated:

    “Jag, this is not grade school. Be assured that I reprimanded some at FSB more than they “reprimanded” me.”

    Well, to me, it seems very simlar to you stated “grade school,” when you state things like:

    78087 – “Timothy Kincaid goes off again pontificating accusatively..”

    “Mary could not resist insulting me…”

    78145 “There you go again Jayhuck with your personal attacks and nonsense statements…”

    In the past two posts only, it seems very much like your stated reference of “grade school.” Please attempt to be kind and demonstrate the kindness, intelligence and thoughtfulness that these important issues require.

    Thanks.

  35. There you go again Jayhuck with your personal attacks and nonsense statements. I’ll try to ignore you when you have nothing of substance to say.

  36. Jose,

    For someone who doesn’t like accusatory comments, you seem to make an awful lot of them! Is it just me or do you seem to think highly of yourself and no one else on this thread? I am still with Mary, I hear very little compassion in your messages and a great deal of self-righteousness.

  37. Hi Fitz,

    It depends somewhat on what we mean by “departure point.” The departure point leading to a religious discussion on this thread I think is 75814 where Timothy Kincaid starts insulting people who do not approve of homosexual parenting and then begins expounding his wishy-washy construction of an all tolerant Jesus and some weird non-biblical theology.

    In 76687 I mention that we are off the theme but feel compelled to respond to several comments made that confound the Jesus of Scripture. I try to bring it back in at 76778, reminding people what this thread is about but in 76813 Timothy Kincaid goes off again pontificating accusatively that he can’t find my Jesus in the Scriptures. So, I help him by showing him the numerous places where the non-wishy washy Jesus is revealed.

    I think they got into this religion discussion because they were trying to identify Jesus-like parenting skills and Mary could not resist insulting me by saying “I would not want you role modeling fatherhood or manhood to my children” (what children?) and that my “definition of Christian and goodness seem awfully close to justifying all sorts of criminal thoughts and behavior.” Pretty bizarre and libelous comments about a highly respected, lifelong educator and father of four wonderful children. It seems like some people feel free to say things on blogs that they would never dream of saying to them in person.

    I do thank you Fitz for helping us to get back on the thread.

  38. Eddy and Jose,

    Actually, the Orthodox Church, big O, also lays claim to the small o meaning of the word. The Orthodox Church in America is a somewhat odd phenomenon. It is really only in this country that the ethnic distinctions become a big deal. First, the Orthodox Church is the second largest body of Christians outside of Catholicism – and no Eddy, I am not Roman Catholic. 🙂 And most of the Orthodox Churches are all in communion with each other. So while we don’t have a figurehead that is exactly like the Pope, we do all look up to the Patriarch of Constantinople as a spiritual guide. The main thing to understand about what I just said is that almost all Orthodox Christians can take communion in other Orthodox Churches – if that makes sense. There is so much more to it than that, and please remember, I am relatively new to the faith, so while I feel comfortable with the basic tenants of the Church, I’m still liable to get some things wrong – especially when trying to explain it to other people.

    Anyway – I love Wikipedia – If anyone is interested, here is a good Wiki article on the Eastern Orthodox Church – The article does a very good job of “nutshelling” the faith: Read the Article Here

  39. How did a discussion on the relative merits of the scant studies done on same-sex parenting turn into what this has become.

    76184 Is the departure point for the topic as presented.

  40. Hi Eddy,

    I agree completely with your definition of Orthodox/orthodox. The Orthodox Church (upper case) covers Eastern/Greek, Russian, Coptic, etc. Lower case “orthodox” is, as you say, “sound or correct” teaching/doctrine. So I see myself as “orthodox” but not “Orthodox.” I hope this reinforces your effort to “obliterate orthodox obfuscation.”

    I do believe and find that there are some fundamental teachings that all Christians accept and I’ve been addressing these in my comments. Then there are add-ons and omissions, some of which rise to the level of outright heresy, and by virtue apostasy, so that those individuals or denominations can no longer be called Christian no matter how much they claim the title.

    Justifying homosexual conduct, as a church, rises to that heretical level. The mere discussion of the justification of homosexual conduct does not rise to that level. So, what the ECUSA has done in “consecrating” as bishop a practicing homosexual who has divorced his wife and fragmented his family to engage in a homosexual relationship is pure heresy and drops ECUSA from the Christian family. Many Episcopalians have recognized this and are leaving the ECUSA to join with the Anglicans, who remain within the Christian fold, or with Catholics and other faithful Christian denominations.

    Blessings to you.

  41. Jag, please keep my comments in context. Here is the context:

    Mary States: 76933. “I don’t know Jose – by your terms – I would not want you role modeling fatherhood or manhood to my children. Your definition of Christian and goodness seem awfully close to justifying all sorts of criminal thoughts and behavior.”

    “Your words frighten me because unfortunately some people still think we live in a fantasy land where papa and mama are always there for their children.”

    My response at 77004.

    Mary actually sees Satan himself in my Jesus for she says, “I would not want you role modeling fatherhood or manhood to my children. Your definition of Christian and goodness seem awfully close to justifying all sorts of criminal thoughts and behavior. . . . I have read little to no grace in your posts. . . .”

    What can I say? Mary, I wish you nothing but peace and a joyful Epiphany.”

    Mary at 77119.

    Jose,

    Be careful – I did not say I could not find your Jesus in scripture. I said your doctrine is very close to justifying some criminal behaviors. I said I saw little or no grace.

    My response at 77120. Actually Mary and Jayhuck, you’re quite wrong if you mean that “we are (all) adopted.” God adopts only a few. In reality “Many are called but few are chosen.” You are still imagining that wishy-washy Jesus I spoke of earlier. I would urge you to sober up in your understanding of the Christian teaching.

    Peace.

    Mary at 77526. “Right now, your tactic is oh so familiar of the hating christians that really just want homosexuals to stop grossing them out with their behavior rather than truly being interested in transformed lives. Jesus ate with us sinners.”

    “You are not Jesus. You are a man who is imperfect, with sin, and in need of grace as well. We all are such. Please take time to show real concern.”

    And now for my full sentence response at 77543 which you distort by cutting in half:

    “It is clear Mary that you are in way over your head when it comes to entering any rational discourse on the Jesus of the Scriptures and you have descended into merely making irrational ad hominem attacks on my person. I will certainly not stoop to insulting you personally.”

    ******************

    Jag, this is not grade school. Be assured that I reprimanded some at FSB more than they “reprimanded” me. There were some pretty hysterical people commenting on that blog. Two of the most irrational bloggers left (were dismissed?) and they then closed the blog. They are functioning much better now. Brad Wilcox and Elizabeth Marquardt are doing some excellent work.

    Peace.

  42. Jose –

    I believe you were reprimanded by the Family Scholars Blog for the nature of your comments as well (when they had comments way back when)…

  43. Jose –

    “Nevertheless, your answer is at least somewhat intellectually correct and your understanding will remain at best cerebral.”

    Thank you for acknowledging that I am correct. However, I don’t know if you have any “special skills” at predicting how my understanding “will remain” and how my own evolution may or may not continue. You see Jose, I anticipate that on every subject and in life, I will continue to evolve – to grow and change in the depth and range of my understanding. I strive for this…and I hope you consider this path as well.

    As for your blatant attacks on others and Mary (you stated things as “It is clear Mary that you are in way over your head when it comes to entering any rational discourse on the Jesus of the Scriptures…”, I’d cut it out. It detracts from your statements, appears bullying, and shows an inability to debate thoughtfully….it’s hard to tell through the mud-slinging what your point it. As you might know, people tend to tune-out and not give your view full consideration while they are being insulted.

    Do yourself a favor, and attempt to offer others the consideration you would like to have.

  44. Remember we are the adopted sons and daughters of our Father.

    Mary,

    Happy New Year!

    I understand and appreciate what you said here and would like to add this – I don’t believe God has any step children, we are all equal in His eyes.

  45. “Orthodox” is a most interesting word. Used to be, when not capitalized it meant “sound or correct in opinion or doctrine; conforming to the Christian faith as represented in the primitive ecumenical creeds.” When capitalized it was ‘designating the Eastern or Greek Church’ or ‘pertains to the Greek Church’. Are these the definitions either Jose or Jayhuck were speaking from?

    In one sense, almost anyone could say that their church was ‘orthodox’…don’t we all believe that our church is the right one? Jayhuck, it is my impression that you’re Catholic. But I admit I assumed Roman Catholic rather than Byzantine, Greek, Russian or one of the other Orthodoxes. Are you saying you belong to one of these Orthodox persuasions? Is your friend who’s an Orthodox priest from the same branch as you?

    Jose, I’m thinking that the word ‘orthodox’, with or without the capital ‘O’, has morphed in definition both through time and across cultures. Did the traditional definitions I presented represent what you meant? If not, can you elaborate on what you mean by the Orthodox Church?

    Yours for obliterating orthodoxy obfuscation,

    Eddy

  46. Jayhuck. What I know about you is what you have stated in your blog profile and what you have stated in this discussion. I knew you had interest in the Orthodox Church, that’s why I mentioned it. If you are IN the Orthodox Church and one of your best friends is an Orthodox priest then he can confirm that what I have been saying is the Scriptural truth and that you are quite confused about what the Scriptures are saying regarding the forcefulness of Christ and His return to judge both the living and the dead. I read daily the Orthodox Study Bible and under no conditions do they affirm homosexual behaviors. This is what the Orthodox Study Bible teaches: “To claim that homosexuality is natural or an ‘alternative lifestyle’ is delusion. Rather, it is unnatural, shameful and unacceptable to God.”

    If the Orthodox Church sees homosexuality as “unnatural, shameful and unacceptable to God” do you think they would endorse their adopting children? Hopefully your Orthodox friend is helping you through these misunderstandings. The Orthodox and the Catholic Church see eye to eye on this issue. No homosexual unions and no homosexual adoptions. It’s an abomination. If you are IN the Orthodox Church when will you accept its teaching?

    I haven’t accused you of anything. I’m just disagreeing with your understanding of Jesus and your repeated ad hominem attacks calling me “angry and judgmental.” It is you who are being accusative. I’m referring to the unfounded assumptions you have of a wishy-washy Jesus. That’s the baggage I see you carrying around.

    I suspect your Orthodox priest friend may be already telling you this ad more.

    Timothy Kincaid. Mennonites are strict Biblicists even though, as in all denominations, we have our heretics. As Biblicists we believe in heaven and hell, salvation and damnation. We believe in a final judgment and we know that Jesus is the one who will judge us. We know that Jesus was not jovial or being “pleasant” when he addressed the scribes and Pharisees calling them “Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell?” In this, as when he clears out the temple with a whip of chords, and many other passages we clearly see the wrath of Jesus in action. And “He will come again to judge the living and the dead.”

    “The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works. Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.”

    Hmm. Sounds pretty wrathful to me. And Jesus is the one doing the judging. I didn’t write this. This is from the 20th chapter of the Revelation of Jesus Christ written by St. John. I’m not judging anyone. I’m only a messenger pointing to what the Scriptures really say. If you wish to be a Christian and not a heretic, then it’s better to accept the teaching than distort it and invent your own.

    Peace.

  47. Jose,

    Surprise!! I am a Mennonite and a complete pacifist.

    My, that IS a surprise. I didn’t know the Mennonites – or other pacifists – view Christ as wrathful.

    But in any case 🙂 A blessed New Year to you!

  48. Jose,

    You are carrying too much baggage of Scripturally unfounded assumptions to objectively understand Orthodoxy or Scripture. If you’re interested in the Orthodox Church consult with an actual priest on what I’ve been saying here and you’ll see that he agrees totally with what I have said.

    I am IN the Orthodox Church, Jose. I have been Orthodox for many years, and I do understand the church. One of my best friends is an Orthodox priest. You don’t even know me Jose, yet you throw all these accusations at me like you do. This is why many of us on here believe you are angry. Take care and good luck to you too.

  49. It is clear Mary that you are in way over your head when it comes to entering any rational discourse on the Jesus of the Scriptures and you have descended into merely making irrational ad hominem attacks on my person. I will certainly not stoop to insulting you personally.

    But you must realize that, while you have the audacity to make baseless statements, you know absolutely nothing about what homosexual people I have known throughout my life

    Jayhuck, through your cute smiley face and smug comment you likewise demonstrate you have nothing intelligent to contribute to what is essentially a theological discussion. You are carrying too much baggage of Scripturally unfounded assumptions to objectively understand Orthodoxy or Scripture. If you’re interested in the Orthodox Church consult with an actual priest on what I’ve been saying here and you’ll see that he agrees totally with what I have said.

    Good luck on your nursing career aspirations.

  50. Jose,

    If you really cared, you would take the time to get to know gay people before slapping down the rules. Gay people are well aware of how some interpret the bible and its stance on homosexuality. Getting to know someone might open up dialogue and understanding. Right now, your tactic is oh so familiar of the hating christians that really just want homosexuals to stop grossing them out with their behavior rather than truly being interested in transformed lives. Jesus ate with us sinners.

    Jesus – because he is God – in my book, knew us all before we spoke, before we thought, and was intimately aware of our soul and presence in the womb. You on the other hand do not have that insight and should probably take a different approach to judging, denouncing, shaming etc… others.

    You are not Jesus. You are a man who is imperfect, with sin, and in need of grace as well. We all are such. Please take time to show real concern.

  51. Well, where shall I begin? Let’s take you one at a time to the extent that I have time.

    77150. Jayhuck. I am neither angry nor judgmental. I was just sitting around the fireplace cuddling with my wife and daughter after having come home from a sumptuous wedding anniversary dinner and enjoying an excellent IPA. I’m just talking about the increasingly common perspective, perhaps stemming from some Asian philosophy syncretism, that does construct a very wishy-washy Jesus that has nothing to do with what the Scriptures reveal of Him.

    77177. Mary. Cheap grace is wishy-washy. Try reading Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship for a start. Christ does not offer cheap grace.

    “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads t destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.”

    Guess who said that. It wasn’t me.

    77286. Timothy Kincaid. “I think you’ll have to remove the Mennonites from your list. As hardcore pacifists, they don’t much worship Jesus the Warrior.”

    Surprise!! I am a Mennonite and a complete pacifist.

    I’m talking about what the main churches of Christendom teach and not what certain individual members or heretics within them imagine, and I’ve already referred to the apostasy within the upper echelons of the ECUSA and the UCC. Many Quakers have become totally wishy-washy and getting far more into yoga and Buddhism than Christianity. A few I think are still within Christ. I can’t speak for all the churches you mentioned but I doubt that they are all advocating a wishy-washy Jesus, a Jesus without a wrathful aspect. If they are it’s their fabrication and has nothing to do with Scripture. Best you reread the Revelation of Jesus Christ.

    I do agree that Christ is most certainly applicable to our age but He assuredly has very specific rules, indeed Commandments that must be obeyed. There are real consequences to our disobedience.

    You say certain Catholics and Orthodox, “do not see us all as “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God who abhors us and is dreadfully provoked”. Soooo. Who said anything about that? God loves us.

    Baptists and Pentecostals have no difficulty recognizing my Christ, in fact, I’ve learned a lot from them. It’s the wishy-washy Christ that they don’t see in Scripture.

    You may not want to convert me but I definitely wish to convert you, simply because I really do love you.

    77289. Timothy Kincaid. “I think Jose is going to be dreadfully disappointed when he gets to heaven and finds that God let in so many of the people that Jose wants to keep out.”

    How can you say such a terrible thing? I don’t want to keep anyone out of heaven. That’s why I’m taking the time to explain what the Scriptures are really saying. I’m only the messenger. If I didn’t want you to go to heaven I would keep quiet and let you believe in a wishy-washy Jesus.

    77325. Jag. By the circumlocution of your response I would have to assume the answer is “yes,” you have no children or ever fostered a child, and that yes, you are thoroughly dependent on some research you’ve heard about or read.

    Nevertheless, your answer is at least somewhat intellectually correct and your understanding will remain at best cerebral.

    You are completely wrong about “mother” and “father.” A child can have only one mother and one father even if you choose to distort the real meaning of these words into figurative speech. Much of chaotic deconstructionist thinking today depends on confounding the meaning of words so as to produce shifting and incomprehensible tongues.

    To label me “angry” is merely to descend into ad hominem attacks. Should I call you a few names? I won’t. We are talking about the Jesus revealed in Scripture. This is not my invention.

    77327 & 77352. Jag and Mary. This is noble and idealistic. I wish you well in raising children and any children you might adopt. Eh, do you have any?

    Peace.

  52. Jag,

    You’re welcome. My father had step children and always included them in his count of all his children. He was not a perfect man but did understand the need for people to belong. And today I count them as my true siblings, too.

  53. Mary –

    “In addition, if I did adopt children I would certainly make it clear that love is love – neither greater nor lesser because of blood.”

    Thank you for your contributions on this. It was refreshing to read your thoughts.

  54. Jose –

    You stated:

    “It may be possible for people to love a foster child or stepchild as they do their own it the probability I do believe is highly unlikely. Do you have any children Jag? Have you ever been a foster parent? Or are you thoroughly dependent on some research you’ve heard about or read?”

    Any person of attempted objectivity realizes that their own personal experiences is not the appropriate barometer to judge the masses and generalize. Whether or not you have a child or foster children really has no bearing on whether statements about populations are true or untrue…but studies, which draw samples to examine populations *accurately* would be important to look at. I don’t base my opinions on only my own biases….they should be supported.

    Again, I’m sorry you feel that it is unlikely to love a foster child as one’s own biological one. I don’t know of studies that support that, but perhaps you can reference them? You see, I don’t just base things on what I *feel*.

    As for “mother” and “father,” you and I will have to disagree on this one. While many people have joined to create children, what it takes to be a mother is far more than the act of birthing. For example, when you say the phrase “Was she a good mother?” Are you asking if she delivered the child or conceived adequately? Of course not, you are talking about the parental role of mothering. It’s not linked solely with biology, but biology can certainly be a part of it….for example, “she is my biological mother,” but, as you can see…biology is hardly the sole factor or even the important one when we judge who is the “mother” or what type of a “mother” she is.

    Jose, you seem angry. I hope that you resolve whatever is troubling you and have a good new year.

  55. Jose,

    I think you’ll have to remove the Mennonites from your list. As hardcore pacifists, they don’t much worship Jesus the Warrior.

    You make the rather easy mistake of assuming that all Christendom agrees with you. You are quite mistaken.

    Most mainline churches in America are seeking a way to love God inclusively. They are seeking to apply principles of faith to daily life rather than a recitation of rules.

    To your list of churches who have “lost sight” of your angry vengeful Christ, you can add the Presbyterian Church USA, the United Methodist Church, the American Baptist Church, the Friends (Quakers), the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the United Church of Christ, the Episcopal Chuch, the Bretheren, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), and the list goes on. And that’s just the US.

    Now not all members or leaders of all of these denominations agree with me on issues of theology. But they do pretty much agree that Christ is applicable to our age and that he is not found in a recitation of rules. Nor do they tend to see Christ as forceful, militant and angry.

    I would suggest that the Catholic and Orthodox lay persons and local priests – even with their great insistence on tradition and the authority of the leadership – do not see us all as “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God who abhors us and is dreadfully provoked”.

    I would even go so far as to suggest that many a Baptist or Pentecostal would have difficulty recognizing your Christ.

    But you are certainly entitled to believe as you wish. I have no desire to convert you or convince you of “your error”. If you are following Christ then you are a brother, whether or not I agree with how you view our Father. Just as earthly siblings often have very different relationships with their parents, I think we need not expect that our relationship with our Father be identical.

  56. Jose,

    I’m not imagining a wishy-washy Jesus. In fact – that is what YOU imagine I imagine.

    Grace is not wishy washy. It takes a lot of strength, alot of personal battles, and experience. God does not impose himself on people – he offers a gift of salvation. And for those of us who call him father (or perhaps you overlooked that) we are his adopted sons and daughters. A good example – I am emphasizing that statement.

  57. Jose,

    I would urge you to sober up in your understanding of the Christian teaching.

    I would ask the same of you Jose. You sound very angry and judgemental at times.

  58. “Mary,

    One last remark – Remember we are the adopted sons and daughters of our Father.”

    “You are absolutely right.” Jayhuck.

    Actually Mary and Jayhuck, you’re quite wrong if you mean that “we are (all) adopted.” God adopts only a few. In reality “Many are called but few are chosen.” You are still imagining that wishy-washy Jesus I spoke of earlier. I would urge you to sober up in your understanding of the Christian teaching.

    Peace.

  59. Jose,

    Be careful – I did not say I could not find your Jesus in scripture. I said your doctrine is very close to justifying some criminal behaviors. I said I saw little or no grace.

  60. Mary,

    One last remark – Remember we are the adopted sons and daughters of our Father.

    You are absolutely right 🙂

  61. Typo: The sentence should read, “It may be possible for people to love a foster child or stepchild as they do their own. The probability I do believe is highly unlikely.

  62. Let’s see now, how shall I best respond as I duck the flying shrapnel? Hmm, the issue of determining the comparative adequacy of heterosexual and homosexual parenting is already a forgone conclusion so that to think that, all things being equal, heterosexuals make better parents is like thinking the earth is flat. I don’t know why Dr. Throckmorton would even bring up the question. Sorry, I’m so behind the absolute conclusions that some say the research has provided. I still believe that the best upbringing for kids is provided by their mother and father when not comparing dysfunctional heterosexual parents with idealized homosexual couples.

    Now Jag, I never kept any emotional distance from my foster kids. I loved them intensely and strove to offer them the best I could. One stayed with us as he went through life-saving open heart surgery. I do not function in fantasy idealism. It may be possible for people to love a foster child or stepchild as they do their own it the probability I do believe is highly unlikely. Do you have any children Jag? Have you ever been a foster parent? Or are you thoroughly dependent on some research you’ve heard about or read?

    “The argument that the only true parents are the biological ones, is untrue. . . .” Jag. But I was talking about “father” and “mother’ not “parent.” I understand that today a parent can be anyone who is bringing up a child. But not anyone can be a father in the strict sense. A father is “a man who has begotten a child.” The word parent also had this meaning originally: “one who begets or brings forth a child.” It still has this meaning among others. Both heterosexuals and homosexuals most face the fact that the earth is not flat. If their sperm or egg did not go into the creation of the new person they cannot possibly claim fatherhood or motherhood of that child. If they have any integrity they should confess to the child that they are not the mother or the father. Just about every child wants to know who his/her father or mother is. Don’t you?

    Timothy Kincaid and Mary can’t find the Jesus that I speak of in the Scriptures. All I can say is keep searching because just about all of Christendom recognizes him. The Jesus I speak of is acknowledged by the Catholics, the Orthodox, the Lutherans, the Anglicans, the Mennonites, the Amish, the Baptists, etc. I know that some of the upper echelon of the ECUSA and the UCC have lost sight of Him.

    Mary actually sees Satan himself in my Jesus for she says, “I would not want you role modeling fatherhood or manhood to my children. Your definition of Christian and goodness seem awfully close to justifying all sorts of criminal thoughts and behavior. . . . I have read little to no grace in your posts. . . .”

    What can I say? Mary, I wish you nothing but peace and a joyful Epiphany.

  63. I don’t know Jose – by your terms – I would not want you role modeling fatherhood or manhood to my children. Your definition of Christian and goodness seem awfully close to justifying all sorts of criminal thoughts and behavior. And your certain discrimination of the variety of homes that children are raised in (in the real world) may be too much condemnation for me. I have read little to no grace in your posts and definitely lacking an understanding of society and family in history (please read any book by Stephanie Coontz – you will not like her research). The idea of papa, mama, brother and sister as a single social unit is relatively new and one that existed for a blink of an eye in our history.

    Moving back in time one hundred years and the roles of parenting looked very different from even your prescribed ideal of parenting and role modeling for today. Society is not static and constantly changing. With the new family laws in practice today (ones that allow women to sign for credit and loans from banks, allow us to own property, ones that give financial and wlefare protection to children etc…) has changed the way we negotiate the terms of marriage, co-commitment in relationships, income, roles etc… and we will continue to change and renegotiate those roles as time goes on.

    Your words frighten me because unfortunately some people still think we live in a fantasy land where papa and mama are always there for their children. They aren’t. In addition, if I did adopt children I would certainly make it clear that love is love – niether greater nor lesser because of blood.

  64. Jose –

    You stated:

    “I have been a foster parent on several occasions and know that, though I try very hard to care for them well, I cannot compare the love that I have for my own children with the love that I have for foster kids. This is a simple and honest reality.”

    I am not sure what you were attempting to say in this. If you mean that because your foster children were temporary, you kept an emotional distance from them – I certainly understand. If you are implying that someone cannot establish an equal emotional bond for these children because they are not theirs biologically,

    this is a commentary on your own state, but not necessarily generalizable to others. This would be a commentary not just on same-sex couples, but any couple who adopts or uses reproductive technologies.

    You also stated;

    “When we address the question in this way we must conclude that the natural heterosexual must be superior to the homosexual couple. Whether or not we have adequate studies to demonstrate this does not matter, the conclusion is rational.”

    Interesting logic here. “I believe the world is flat so it is” logic. In this case, we have the majority of scientific studies and the backing of every major scientific organization stating the opposite of your conclusions. To believe otherwise is rather “irrational.”

    As for biological parents…there are plenty of same-sex couples that produce children that have some combinations of both parties. For example, a woman who is fertilized by the sperm of the brother of the partner. But, to me this is neither here nor there. Heterosexual couples use reproductive technologies avidly, and the “parenting” that takes place is not from the bio parents.

    The argument that the only true parents are the biological ones, is untrue, but moreover likely offensive to heterosexual couples who choose to adopt to add to their existing families, adopt exclusively, use IVF with a donor, and same-sex couples who use similar means. Every child is a wanted child….that’s not to say that they are all treated well, but it’s a pretty good starting point.

    However, this more clearly reveals your stance:

    “The question of corrupting the morals of minors by exposing the child to acts of moral turpitude is no longer a legal argument.”

    I’m not sure what “acts of moral turpitude” you are speaking of. I don’t know any same-sex couple that commits any “acts” in front of their children that any average opposite-sexed couple wouldn’t. But then again, I don’t see same-sex affection, and loving relationships between parents as something morally corrupting…rather, I see it as a positive presence in the household to see that your parents love one another as well as their child.

  65. Jose,

    As much as I read Scripture, I still cannot find your Jesus in the pages. I don’t see some “forceful” militant angry man insisting on strict observances of the Law and intent on condeming the world into submission. Which, if you’ll excuse the assumption, seems to me to be the one you follow.

    And you probably can’t find the one who is wishy-washy about adherence to the Old Testament commandments and isn’t much concerned about rules as he is about how we treat each other. You probably think my Christ is a cop-out, a self-justifier and weak.

    I guess we’ll just have disagree about the nature of Christ. That’s fine. I don’t assume the Holy Spirit works the same with all of us – or indeed that God reveals himself the same to all of us.

    Perhaps God knows that you need a forceful Christ that has a very exact list of rules. And perhaps He knows that I need a Christ that is applicable to a modern world and relevant to my daily life. So you worship Christ the King, and I’ll worship Christ the Redeemer and we’ll let each other work out our own salvation.

    God bless.

  66. Jag, with all due respect I think you are covering too many topics simultaneously and not focusing on one or two specific issues that we might be able to objectively address in a sound-bite forum. Broad generalizations based on inclusive or poorly structured studies merely express what one might wish. These wishes may relate to what is the universal, historical and sociological norm or to some new experimental approach on child rearing.

    Let me address at least a couple of things. This thread is about comparing homosexual and heterosexual “parenting.” Same-sex couples cannot reproduce therefore at best only one of the couple can be a natural parent while the other must be a step-parent. I have been a foster parent on several occasions and know that, though I try very hard to care for them well, I cannot compare the love that I have for my own children with the love that I have for foster kids. This is a simple and honest reality. We know the general impression that exists about stepparents. We cannot be denying the obvious because we do not have studies that might clearly indicate that stepparents are simply not as good as the real parents. But from this the argument jumps to comparing stepparents with bad parents. When we make this leap we enter the abstract because we then assume that the homosexual stepparent is better than an assumed bad parent. Rationally everything gets very foggy at this point. We begin to talk about “good” homosexual stepparents vs. “bad” heterosexual parents. This confounds what we are essentially addressing which is really how does the best or optimal homosexual couple compare with a similar heterosexual married couple in parenting? When we address the question in this way we must conclude that the natural heterosexual must be superior to the homosexual couple. Whether or not we have adequate studies to demonstrate this does not matter, the conclusion is rational.

    Now, in our democracy, like it or not, if one in the homosexual couple is the natural parent he/she may cohabit with someone of the same sex and bring up the child. The question of corrupting the morals of minors by exposing the child to acts of moral turpitude is no longer a legal argument.

    A second point for now: You say, “It isn’t sperm or a womb that makes you a father or mother. Those things do, however, make you a biological contributor to the existence of the child.” This is not true. It is indeed the sperm and the egg that make you the father and a mother. The reduction of father and mother to the appellation of “biological contributor” plays right into the contemporary effort to demean the responsibility that the true father and mother should assume and contributes to parents disengaging from their moral responsibility to parent the children that they have fathered and mothered. What you are talking about is not whether or not they are father or mother, which they are by definition, but whether or not they are good parents. That is a value judgment and not the biological fact that they are the father and the mother and as such should be held responsible for the good parenting of their children.

  67. Jose –

    Given your personal experiences as a father of four children, I would assume that you understand the desire to protect them. Same-sex parents have that same desire…so perhaps their “motivations” are a bit less selfish, and just as much about children as their heterosexual counterparts. If you see a discrepency between the two groups on the desire to protect their children, I’d love to see the research.

    Even if you “personally believe” that it is in the “best interest” of the child to be raised by heterosexual parents, it is clear that the conclusion of research (and every major scientific organization) does not support your personal opinion. Sometimes we must resign that even though we have certain beliefs and hold them rigorously (like the world is flat), that under closer examination they may not be true.

    I do find it interesting that you believe that heterosexuals “would adopt only after they have tried to have children through the natural method.” There are many who feel the desire to adopt who are perfectly capable of having children (some who also have existing biological children). I applaud these individuals for seeing beyond biology in what makes a person a parent.

    Many heterosexuals “get” what we all know deep down. It isn’t sperm or a womb that makes you a father or mother. Those things do, however, make you a biological contributor to the existence of the child.

    As an aside, With divorce rates and children out of wedlock being what they are, I think your notion that children in heterosexual couplings are being raised by a mother and father are a bit out of line with the data. If you need the research on this, I’d be happy to provide it….but I assume you have read the data on divorce and are further aware that most custody arrangements are not 50/50. The effect on children of this epidemic of divorce, is something we could also write on. I certainly wish that many heterosexuals would give more consideration to marriage, child-rearing and the effects of their relational dissolution.

    While I certainly respect that it is due to heterosexual couplings or contributions that children come into existence, please also remember that it is because of heterosexual couplings or contributions that so many children are created, unwanted and/or abandoned in the first place.

  68. In talking about saints and sinners I observe that people somehow imagine that Christians are not or should not be sinners. Well, no one should be a sinner but we all are. It’s an all too common confusion of non-Christians that they can somehow commit all sorts of sins and yet not be as bad as the Christians because “at least” they are not “hypocrites.” They are often just as hypocritical as the hypocritical Christians if they have any sense of right and wrong, if they have any conscience.

    What really differentiates Christians from non-Christians is not their level of goodness—indeed, the non-Christian may actually sin less and do more good—but the fact that the Christian looks to Christ for forgiveness and has faith in the redeeming power of Christ while the non-Christian stands in an essentially hopeless situation with no one to turn to for forgiveness, or not accepting that there is someone to turn to for forgiveness and salvation, someone actually calling the sinner to repentance. Though one should certainly do good for Christ’s sake, it is not the doing of good that makes the ultimate difference but belief and faith in the Person of Jesus Christ. Though people may hear this a lot, too many just don’t get it.

    I say this in response to several comments made about Jesus and I know this takes us off the theme of this post. Yet I need to add one more point, Jesus most certainly approached people and forcefully expressed Himself to them. He even chased people out of the temple with a whip of chords. We have of late been constructing a concept of a very wishy-washy Jesus. That’s not the Jesus described in the Bible.

  69. Jag: “Perhaps because you see this as an issue about “homosexuals” and not one about children?” I’m entirely concerned with the children. Jag: “If you’ve met a mother or father, you know that an instinct is to protect the child you have.” I am the father of four children.

    Jag: “Can we make the same claim of heterosexuals who seek to adopt?” There is no politics necessary for heterosexual adoption. But it is true that some heterosexuals may adopt for their own interests rather than the child’s.

    Nevertheless, regardless of the diversity that may exist among human beings if the homosexuals had the best interest of the children in mind they would want them to have a mother and father and if they wanted to raise children they could do so with someone of the opposite sex so that the kids would have a mother and a father. They would adopt only after they have tried to have children through the natural method.

  70. But he travelled about and people heard he was coming and gathered around him. There were no telephones, newspapers, websites, radio, TV’s. How did people hear he was coming?

  71. In addition Marty. Some people did not follow Jesus and that was the end of that. And no offense but some people who call themsleves followers of Jesus – just don’t look like it to me. Granted – I have had my days where I looked like a mega hypocrite, too. But for folks to be batting away at other peoples sins (the way that some do) and not paying attention to many of their own is just pharasee like to me.

  72. Jose –

    You stated:

    “I see the issue of placing kids with homosexuals as one of politics that serves the wants of some homosexual adults and has nothing whatsoever to do with the real interests of needy children.”

    Perhaps because you see this as an issue about “homosexuals” and not one about children? If you’ve met a mother or father, you know that an instinct is to protect the child you have. Same-sex couples have families already…in many places both in the USA and abroad, they adopt children…and many seek rights to protect their existing families.

    In your statement above, I’m not sure you can really make that claim, at least not with any authority. You cannot claim to know the motivations of all in a particular group. Can we make the same claim of heterosexuals who seek to adopt? The groups are just as diverse, I’m not sure why heterosexuals would have a different motivation for seeking adoption than homosexuals.

  73. Marty,

    I am a christian, go to church regulary, attend a small bible group, etc…. and my statement is based on my interaction with christians who are less than kind in their personal opinions and attitudes of gays – even though I am ex gay (some people don’t know.)

  74. Mary: I would like to see christians truly show kindness and compassion to gays without trying to preach to them or impose their way of living on them (gays) and instead just be nice.

    I think it’s a mistake to judge “Christlike behavior” by what some Christians say on the internet and inpress releases. I’ll be the first to admit that I often say some very harsh things here, and on other blogs, but if you were to ask any of the gay people that I interact with I’m sure they would be the first to admit that I do not preach to them, impose anything on them, and am always nice as can be. I do truly love my many gay and lesbian friends.

    As for being Christlike, you should note that when Jesus interacts with a person, he is kind and loving and compassionate without exception. Yet when he “preaches” to the masses, he says some very harsh and intolerant and offensive things, and is most certainly trying to “impose a way of life” on them.

    I think this is true for most Christians — kind and loving and compassionate in ALL personal relationships, yet preachy and intolerant of sin when speaking in public. Very “Christlike” imo.

  75. Eddy,

    I wasn’t including you. You seem to be more interested loving the sinner than you are in hating the sin.

    But I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve heard that phrase when it wasn’t being used to justify cruelty.

  76. The infantile concept of love: Give me what I want and don’t ask me to change anything. I won’t listen to Christ Himself if He asks me to change. I’m not a Christian or accept any religion but the one I construct at any moment and which can change at any whim. My true god is called concupiscence.

  77. Timothy,

    I hate to get sidetracked here but you really are giving a cry for help.

    A quick suggestion, throw it away if it is meaningless to you. But I think they way you wear your sexual orientation like a chip on your shoulder might be intimidating people away from you. If you are feeling cast aside, perhaps you are the one looking down and people are wondering what they ever did that you hate them.

    It is something I see in many people, they wear their black fingernail polish like a chip on their shoulder, or their expensive shoes, or their gold teeth. Things I have no problem with, but none the less things people are more confronting others with, and while wondering why people don’t give them more attention don’t realize how intimidating their emotional state of hating the world really is.

    My favorite line from Death by Pizza, “It’s not that the world didn’t appreciate the genius, it’s that the genius didn’t appreciate the world, and the people in it. After all, solitude is a whole lot nicer when you have someone to share it with.”

    We all share this planet, lets learn better how to get along okay?

  78. Jose,

    And it’s there in your last sentence where you and I agree to disagree. I just see it differently. And, as Dr. T has pointed out earlier, we each remain compassionate in that view.

    It does concern me a little….the way you keep referring to “homosexuals”. It’s become my experience that those of you who refuse to call gay folks “gay”….well….there’s just alot more going on with you than just being against gay adoption or whatever the issue is at hand. It’s more like you’re against gays/homosexuals even existing. This may not be an accurate description of you at all……I’m just telling you that your language gives me that perception based on my experience.

    I do appreciate you coming back and speaking to me in a way that is easy for me to understand, and your sharing a bit of personal information/experience…those sorts of things humanize you in my view. It just helps. 😉

  79. Timothy–

    I didn’t read your post 76347 until after 76350. Ouch! I think I’m going to steer clear of you for awhile. Happy New Year!

  80. Timothy asked:

    Why is the sin that is hated always in someone else’s life? And why is the reaction to the sin never have any impact on the sin but simply harms the sinner?

    These words don’t apply to me. You insult me when you talk to me like I’m “them”. You insult me with the broad generalizations you make in these questions.

    I’m sorry the phrase got cheapened. Fortunately, the truth behind it survives and the message will continue to go out for at least as long as evangelism is still legal.

  81. Timothy,

    I am hoping to see a change in christians overall in the next decade (slow I know). But I would like to see christians truly show kindness and compassion to gays without trying to preach to them or impose their way of living on them (gays) and instead just be nice.

    I doubt you can convince some people to take the next step and vote for gay rights but at least I would hope to see christians really showing the model of christ to others without preaching and that they start being authentic about their own lives.

  82. I hear you Pam and I certainly empathize with your compassion for these kids in and out of foster homes and adoption agencies. And there are all those kids living in broken homes, fatherless or in chaotic situations. I’ve taught at all grade levels and in ghetto schools. I currently serve on our local school board in a district in which 20% are identified Special Ed kids. My wife is an educational consultant working to improve reading and math programs. We know the kids of the meth parents and those that have been affected by FAS. So we are with you in trying to address these problems. The question is how best to do this and I don’t see how placing them with homosexuals for parenting in any way helps these kids and none of my questions in my previous posts have been addressed.

    I see the issue of placing kids with homosexuals as one of politics that serves the wants of some homosexual adults and has nothing whatsoever to do with the real interests of needy children.

  83. Eddy,

    Why is the sin that is hated always in someone else’s life? And why is the reaction to the sin never have any impact on the sin but simply harms the sinner?

    You must realize that outside of the insular conservative Christian world, the phrase “love the sinner, hate the sin” is seen in exactly the same light as “some of my best friends are negros”.

    The world does not see this as some great evidence that Christ’s followers demonstrate love. They see it as self-righteous justification that church folk throw out there right before they do something cruel.

    And the gay community didn’t give the phrase that reputation. The anti-gay church folk earned that reputation on their own.

  84. MY NEW YEARS REQUEST TO ALL OF THOSE WHO “LOVE” ME:

    If your definition of love is to make my life as miserable as you possibly can; if you think that love requires you to force me to adopt your theology; if you think your love justifies denying my relationships, taking away my children, denying me tax breaks you insist on for yourself, insisting that I stay in the closet, keeping me out of the military, not tracking hate crimes against me, insisting on the right to fire me for being gay, lying about my “lifestyle”, or setting yourself up as some victim and blaming me; if your love looks more like stalking; or if your love in any other way resembles what any rational, sane, non-Christian person would call “hate”, then,

    PLEASE STOP LOVING ME.

    Love someone else for a change.

  85. Timothy–

    I’m very sorry that you feel Dr. Brown didn’t see you as a person. As I read his posts to you, my impression was that he liked and respected you. Or to put it another way, if there were a room full of people that included both gay activists and evangelicals, my hunch is that Dr. Brown would prefer to spend more time getting to know you rather than talking to a good many of them.

    I’m not saying my impression is correct but it did strike me how greatly it differed from the impression you got from the same dialogues. I know that you hate the expression “love the sinner, hate the sin” but, if you’re going to understand where people like the doctor are coming from, it might help for you to imagine what it must be like to really believe that with all your heart.

    My impression had been that someone in early Exodus first coined that phrase. When we wanted to bring the message that God loves gay sinners too to the local churches, that phrase was the simplest way to cut through the ‘bull’. This is what we believe. This is the message your church could stand to hear. “Yes, it’s important to hate sin BUT you’ve got to see the person as someone, just like you, ensnared except by the grace of God.” (And yes, there was a congregation or two that thought we were too hard on sin.) So, they love you. Heck, sometimes they even like you. But, they also believe you’re caught in a snare.

    I know that stings. But, think about it, don’t you likewise believe some very unflattering things about Dr. Brown, about ex-gays? It’s inherent in our theological differences that we’re going to have these ‘clash points’. When you attack ex-gays or ex-gayness, I experience that sting. Yet, for some reason, I keep coming back. I think the fact that we can disagree on something so fundamental and yet manage to have mostly civil and intelligent discussion–well, I think that speaks volumes for all parties involved.

    Peace. BTW, I’d look you up in that crowded room. Happy New Year All! I gotta feel we’re all going to disappear again.

  86. Jose’,

    I don’t know if gays are more altruistic about adoption or not. If you put it on a continuium, I’d bet it would come out pretty evenly as compared to straight folks. There’s no basis for an argument for gay adoption in that line of thinking anyway, since it would put more worth and value on some kids than others. I’m not willing to do that. There is a big difference between children being adopted from state foster care systems and in private adoptions. I looked at the stats on kids in foster care and it’s no wonder I have such strong feelings for the issue; Texas, where I taught elementary school for 18 years, nearly leads the country in the amount of children who are living in foster care.

    I don’t have a Dickens view of adoption agencies or state care for minors. I have a student in my class right now (i seem to have at least one every year and I’m no longer in Texas) who is in the foster care system. He’s moved 3 times since school started and is finally with family (aunt and uncle). When possible, these kids ARE adopted out to members of their own family. The majority of kids I’ve taught who were in foster care, sadly, didn’t have that option.

  87. Fitz has responded to the question asked as he could. The question related to specific data remains open. The question could also have been asked as, What data can be advanced to indicate that being raised in an agency is worse than being raised by two or three men, homosexual or not? There is also a difference between “foster care” and being adopted and I don’t think an adoption agency is technically “foster care.”

    I’m also curious about what data exists that demonstrates homosexuals are specifically selecting only those children that are not being selected by heterosexual couples. Are homosexuals going to adoption agencies and turning down healthy kids that are say, under three years of age? This sounds rather strange to me and implies that homosexuals are more altruistic than heterosexuals when it comes to adoption. Where is the data showing a significantly greater proportion of otherwise “rejected kids” being selected by homosexuals? I can understand that homosexual men would see the problem of trying to raise very young children and prefer raising older children but I’m suspicious that lesbians would prefer trying to raise older boys.

    Are these “rejected” kids also willingly and knowingly preferring to be adopted by homosexuals, particularly two men? At what age can they make such decisions? Can parents or next of kin who may put up kids for adoption make specific requests for who may adopt their children? Can they request for a Catholic or Christian home?

    Much of my reflections here relate to whether we can possibly make conditions, criteria for adoption depending on the perhaps dire needs of the children or the wealth of the adopters, etc. Different adoption agencies and state laws do make such decisions.

    I think it’s important to reflect on this because we often have a concept of adoption agencies that may stem from some Dickens novel. I have two half-brothers and a half-sister that spent many years in an adoption agency so I have some direct knowledge of the pros and cons. I’ve also been a foster parent on several occasions.

  88. Warren,

    I have met proponents on both sides who really don’t seem to care about the humans involved; they just want to win. However, I am now convinced that people of good will and genuine compassion live on both sides of the aisle.

    Absolutely true. I guess I was in a moment of frustration. I had been trying for a week or so to get someone to see me as human and to tell me what he truly expected me to accept as my lot in life, only to be treated to catch phrases and callousness and a Culture War. Then here there were those ready to craft policy to deal with some miniscule number of theoretical situations involving gay folks but didn’t want to spend one sentence on real kids.

    But I do know that there are many people on all sides of all issues who truly grieve that their positions could result in someone experiencing pain. It was unfair of me to dismiss them completely.

  89. Warren

    On the subject of special needs children: I take that to mean any child that has legitimately poor prospects for adoption.

    My understanding of the data (above) shows that the number of traditional homes wanting to adopt children remains higher than the number of children up for adoption. Adoption can be promoted more vigorously, while impediments to adoption curtailed. So in general I would preface that their exists no child centered need for adoption by same-sex couples.

    Further reduction in the number of special needs children can also be addressed by promoted it more vigorously, while curtailing impediments.

    As far as your direct question

    “Is your belief that being in a gay home is worse than being in foster care? And if so, what data could you advance?”

    I would answer No. A stable “gay” home is probably going to be better for any child than a series of foster homes. My thoughts along this line are represented well in this post by Sociology professor William Weston in the following post on his blog : “Gruntled Center” (a post you may find interesting & relevant)

    http://gruntledcenter.blogspot.com/2006/03/gay-parent-research-full-of-holes.html

    “Few researchers expect that same-sex couples will turn out to be bad parents. But it is very premature to conclude that their kids turn out the same in all respects as children of married parents.”

    “My expectation is that same-sex couples will, as a group, score similar to parent/step-parent couples in overall kid outcomes.”

    As you can probably deduce – my concerns about adoption in particular are balanced with the very real understanding of the social institutional nature of the change represented by homosexual parenting/marriage.

    I am humbled by the current rate of illegitimacy and the failure of responses to 40 years of family breakdown. Innovations based on the micro prospects of a single child need studious balancing with the macro effects on already unstable social norms.

    In this regard it is helpful to note that biologically related children of homosexuals (the most common type – usually from divorced opposite sex marriages) don’t come in for particular attention under my analysis. The phenomena of IVF created or intentionally created children with the express purpose of raising them in unorthodox “flexible” families represent the greater threat to accepted social & legal norms.

  90. I want to weigh in here as well. Fitz, could you address Pam’s practical concern regarding those children who are not being adopted by straight couples?

    I am following you on IVF; but this is a separate matter from special needs kids who are not being adopted into loving straight homes.

    Is your belief that being in a gay home is worse than being in foster care? And if so, what data could you advance?

  91. Fitz,

    I don’t recall anyone here saying that gender is not important to child-rearing. In fact, most of us who are proponents of gay adoption do concede that the very best situation is for a child to remain in its own natural home with its own mother and father. We live in a society where that too often doesn’t happen. Things happen to children that have nothing to do with their worth and value as a person. And yet, they can’t help but view themselves as less valuable when compared to children who’s families managed to stay together. Even children who lose a parent to death, feel less valuable. They do….at least for a time.

    We can and should affirm the value of the family all day long and do everything to support families to stay together and raise their children.

    Then, we have to go back and take care of the messes made by everyone else…..myself included. We are not being hypocritical, we are being practical.

  92. The promotion of intact natural families as a social & legal norm has no corollary to the “eugenics” movements. Classes of people are not being denied their natural ability to procreate based on any genetic trait. Rather the law is promoting the important social norm of intact natural married families & insuring children their rightful homes.

    Indeed – the opposite is the case. Those seeking to make children into a product that is bought and sold: wombs for “rent”, sperm for “sale” & the like. They are the ones reducing the human person to a commodity the acquisition of which is predicated on adult desire, not the needs of children.

    Child bearing and rearing is not a product or service. It is the natural right of individual couples who are fertile to bear & rear their children. No further “right” to acquire children exists. Not to same-sex or opposite sex couples. Adoption is regulated by the state in the best interests of children & the family.

    Multiple European countries have laws regulating IVF, prohibiting it – promoting adoption instead, and confining it to married couples.

    Men and women are members of a class that can produce children. While any member of that class may not or cannot produce a child, they remain members of a class that can produce children. Same sex pairings can never produce children. They are members of a class that always and everywhere are incapable of producing children. Therefore same sex “marriage” necessarily severs marriage from procreation. It both androgynizes the institution and separates it from any necessary link to childbearing.

    The homosexual movement affirms that gender is a deeply important human category. Sexual orientation as a concept presumes that gender exists and is an important category for human relationships. It would be odd to presume that gender is all important to adult romantic relationships, yet retains no significance beyond that.

    It does retain tremendous significance to the child in the form of his or her natural mother & father. To reaffirm the importance of gender to the same-sex attracted while at the same time deny its importance in child rearing & for the children themselves is paradoxical & hypocritical.

  93. Timothy said:

    Until the comments here and on the other thread, I guess I never realized exactly how self-centered anti-gay activists think.

    There are many discussion stoppers on here but this one caught my eye.

    Timothy, my first reaction to people creating babies without hope of father or mother is to declare them self-centered. I do not think we would get very far in having a discussion about the merits of such actions if this was the end of my thought process on it however. Both sides could simply say the other side is bad or selfish but where would we be at that point? I suppose the culture war you don’t want would be one place we might be. If the other side is just self-centered then we should just expose and trash them.

    I have met proponents on both sides who really don’t seem to care about the humans involved; they just want to win. However, I am now convinced that people of good will and genuine compassion live on both sides of the aisle.

  94. Are you going to force all the extended families to take these unwanted children in? The family I assist here has extended family all over town….and yet…I’m the one helping them. I just don’t see your model working in alot of real world situations. I think it’s a great model and I’m happy you endorse it. I endorse it as well. I also endorse the other model where gays get to adopt kids.

    I guess there’s no way that two models can exist in your reality, right?

    I realise I’m being too simplistic, that’s just how I am and you’ll have to put up with it in order to communicat with me.

  95. MJF,

    If you want to promote and strengthen intact relationships, knock yourself out. Go for it. Yahoo. Bravo. I think that’s an admirable goal for you to try.

    But if your primary interest is in making sure that gay people don’t raise the kids that heterosexuals are tossing to the curb, you aren’t going to find respect from me.

    Rather than worry about the role that homosexuals have in your plan, worry about the role heterosexuals have. You get 50% of hetero marriages from breaking up, you get the million homeless kids off the street, you stop the creation of crack babies and AIDS babies, and then I’m sure we can then focus on the 5% or so that are not “ideal”. In fact, if you took care of the hetero problems, there wouldn’t be any crack addicted AIDS babies for us non-ideal folk to have to love and take care of for you.

    Fair enough?

  96. For consenting adults – those who choose to either purchase or recieve through donation a sperm and use their own ovum and body or purchase an ovum and surrogate – all parties must be consenting. And unfortunately, many of those who wish that lesbians and gays did not do such things are the very same people providing the product or service to them. If we allow straight couples (married or not) to choose, purchase, design their children – then the same rules must apply to those who choose not to get married to the opposite sex – they may be gay, the may be celibate, they may be unable to have intercourse or consumate – etc… for a variety of reasons. We come very close to “social cleansing” and breeding for the “master race” or the “socially acceptable only” when we begin to decide for others who is “fit” for reproduction and who is not fit. Will we draw the line if one of your family members had schizophrenia? or was a convicted felon?, or belonged to the wrong political party?, or had a genetic birth defect such as poor eyesight, high blood pressure or diabetes? Irregardless that you have none of these traits or characteristics yourself? Starting to sound scarey?? I hope so – if it begins to opens your eyes to your own biases.

  97. Pam,

    Thank you for your apologies.

    I would appreciate discussion not of ideals but of reality. In some ways I see you calling this model “ideal” to mean you are being far to abstract for me to be able to help you bring this too reality.

    This is a simple comparison of parameters. The current battle of hetero v homo households, and the one based on intact vs broken and bandaged. Its not an ideal model, it is real. I am unaware of a situation it does not encompass.

    The HvH model shows no statistical significance in indicating success of a child and the quality of their childhood, the intact model does. The HvH model does not handle households where the banding together is non-sexual, there are far more aunts and grandmothers/mothers teaming together to raise children than homosexuals — yet their model puts them in prominence of consideration. And I have no idea why.

    That means the intact model is more real, it is more significant and explains more observations. It is fare more meaningful. It even encompasses homosexual households.

    If you are still confused about what is real and ideal, please restate to me what you feel I am endorsing and promoting here.

  98. Marty,

    Thank you for the graciousness of your reply since I was making that hugely wrong assumption. I do appreciate people who are kind and work toward speaking with humility. I get that sense from your response and I very MUCH appreciate it.

    My day-to-day dealings with abused, neglected, and abandoned children have not yet placed me in contact with any labratory Johnnys. I don’t agree with creating Johnnys in laboratories for the sole purpose of ensuring that johnny not have a father. I really don’t. HOWEVER….and here’s the BIG however. In my own life I do have a first cousin who is a lesbian and she has done exactly what you’re talking about. She and her partner have each produced offspring using these technologies. I honestly don’t agree with the premise. Particularly not when there are SO many kids needing families of ANY sort. But I do love my cousin and I do love her son and her daughter. And I can’t put them back and neither can she….nor would she. She didn’t ask me before she got pregnant and the subject hasn’t come up when we visit. But no…on principal…I don’t think it’s the way we need to go about adding to the global community.

    It doesn’t follow for me that she and her children are doomed or that society is doomed because of them. I don’t believe the traditional family will ever be replaced or can ever truly be replicated. I respect and admire traditional families. I’ve had little success holding on to one.

  99. Pam @ 75788, yes, I think your huge assumption is way offbase, but probably was driven by my choice of language — which was chosen for 2 reasons: first, because “throwaway kids” has been used several times in this thread by others, second, to imply that I agree with Mary to some degree: that it would be better (but certainly less than ideal) to allow same-sex couples to adopt rather than have unwanted children languishing in institutional care.

    @ 75820, you write:

    If you are saying that those of us who support gay adoption also promote irresponsible procreation…well…gay people can’t procreate and I’m positive that those of us in this argument are against being irresponsible with procreation.

    So where do you come down with respect to (mis)use of reproductive technology? It’s one thing if little Johnny was abandoned by his mother and father and was rescued by a same-sex couple, but isn’t it another thing altogether if he was created in a laboratory for the sole purpose of ensuring that he never has a father to begin with?

  100. MJF,

    I think I have spoken with a false sense of superiority to you concerning your social work or your knowledge of families in need. In fact, I know that I have. I don’t want you judging me that way….and I have become so comfortable in my little “place” in my lttle “corner” of the blogosphere that I have spoken arrogantly to you.

    It’s more than likely that you do all sorts of things to help those around you and those with needs like the children we are talking about in this thread. I’m sorry for treating you as if you were an arrogant, uncaring person. I don’t really know that about you.

    I still don’t agree with you. But, it’s wrong for me to make judgements about you.

    I’m sorry.

  101. Thomas,

    Just what “anti-gay” comment are you referring to here?

    Lets start at the beginning, so you support a program for promoting and strengthening in-tact family relationships? Do you see the need to stop the hemorrhaging of children from these relationships, by promoting responsibility in the parents in taking proper care of these children?

    What role do you see homosexuals filling in this plan?

    Pam,

    What are your answers to these questions?

  102. MJF,

    I probably did mean it as an insult. I apologize. Sincerely.

    I’m telling you what I really think. I’m speaking very plainly. No. I don’t think your paradigm is based in reality. I think it is based in something that is ideal. I think it’s ideal as well to have a mother and a father raise their own children to adulthood and teach them to do likewise. I believe this is the preferred model and I promote it. And then, I go back and deal with the reality of the situations at hand.

    I ddn’t think I was being claustrophic with my language. I’m sorry if it sounded that way to you. Again, I am more than willing to apologize for wrongs I committ.

    As far as my smokescreening or insinuiating…I didn’t intend to do that either. I was replying to your story about the road and the bandaged and the functional and I was trying to use that same language. Apparently, I failed miserably because you didn’t get my meaning at all. I really only mean what I say. I probably mean just what you think I mean. Maybe. I’m not so sure at this point, because even though I do have a college education and I do like to use big words occasionally, I do find your communication style a bit off-putting.

    I think that there is a need for people like you who have all the answers for what ails our society to actively do more about it. And yeah, it would probably help me a great deal if you would list your monthly contributions(monetary or timewise) to the welfare of your fellow man. It would probably make me take you more credibly. I’m human. Again, I apologize.

    If there’s anyone else besides you who doesn’t understand what I’m really saying here in this thread…please let me know. I do try to just say what’s on my mind.

  103. “Any group that promotes irresponsible procreation and then turns around and uses the emotive bludgeon of those “thrown away kids” to further undermine the importance of intact mother/father standard. ”

    Is there a verb to accomapny this fragment that I missed? The importance is indeed crucial – where are you going with this or where did it come from? Fragments left dangling like a throw away child leave one with all sorts of imaginations as to what you would do with such a group, if they indeed did exist. If you are saying that those of us who support gay adoption also promote irresponsible procreation…well…gay people can’t procreate and I’m positive that those of us in this argument are against being irresponsible with procreation. We are just people who see a need and are willing to accept a variety of alternatives for meeting the need. You might say that we are supporting irresponsible procreation by supporting gay adoption, but if you are going to say that, then you’ll need to complete that sentence fragment.

  104. Until the comments here and on the other thread, I guess I never realized exactly how self-centered anti-gay activists think.

    They have lots of opinions about absolutes and rules and standards and all, but don’t give two whits about the actual living breathing children that need someone to love them. Hatin’ teh gay is far more important than loving these kids.

    And when talking about the abilities of gay people to be part of society, “taking a stand” or “opposing immorality” is of absolute importance. But there is no consideration whatsoever about what anti-gay activism means to actual gay people whose lives they are trying to impact.

    It’s all about the anti-gays. And their beliefs. And their ideas. And their control over everyone else.

    In many ways it reminds me of those who constantly tried to get Jesus to condemn those around him or to uphold The Law’s rules. Jesus saw the person as a person first and in that context didn’t feel a need for condemnation. He didn’t see the Centurian as “a Roman” nor did he see the Samaritan as having “false doctrine”. He saw acts of decency and he honored them, even if they were by society’s outcasts and those whom the religious establishment considered to be sinners and untouchable.

    He didn’t tell the Centurian to convert, nor did He say that the good Samaritan needed to change his theology.

    But some today would try and pass laws banning the Samaritan from caring for the wounded man lying in the ditch. And some would seek to stop the Centurian from approaching Christ.

  105. “Nothing about the current state of our culture requires that we abandon or subvert this commonsensical & widely accepted legal & cultural norm.”

    ok…good deal. If there’s no shortage of married households with a mother and father willing to adopt these abandoned children…let’s get with it and take care of them.

  106. Pam,

    I’m sure you meant no insult by this….

    Your paradigms make me wonder how much time you’ve spent with living, breathing, intact and non-dysfunctional families, let alone their opposite who need the bandaging.

    But you obviously meant to assume some superior sense of devotion, which has not been born out in your writing. Knowing how much I deal with functional and dysfunctional families, I wonder just what kind of contest you at trying to turn this into.

    If I felt acceptance of the paradigm meant I needed to disclose how much social work I do in a month, I would have. If you have a grievance that has to do with the paradigm, rather than imagining things you have no idea about people yo uare talking to, please share.

    I would also put more merit in your solutions if I could see folks like you out there doing the very difficult work of convincing all these people in this walled-in, barriered-up institution called traditional family […]

    Could you elucidate on why you used the such claustrophobic language when describing the family? Do you find family responsibility restricting? A barrier and a wall?

    It is curious language, please tell us more.

    […] to reach off that cozy little road they’re on and take in these who need the bandaging.

    As you close that sentence I think it is safe to say my biggest grievance with your “rebuttal” is that I am having difficulty seeing what you are saying amidst a smoke screen of insinuation.

    Could you put this more succinctly? Try finishing the sentence, “I think that there is a need for …”.

    I see a need for more people taking responsibility for the children they have, and approaching their adulthood actively preparing for their sexual maturity with emotional maturity. It is the shortage of those prepared to take care of their children that creates the greatest demand for the help you see. I note that you expect more help in the ambulance department, and I see the need too.

    Can you support giving more resources to helping shore up the sense of responsibility and maturity required to have people better prepared to meet the demands of taking responsibility for their children?

    I just don’t see how I’m wrong here, especially with you painting such a cartoonish picture about family life and what is really going on in it through the world. I invite you to really come out and say what you think is really the problem. And if you feel the homosexual v heterosexual paradigm is a better model for viewing these relationships, tell me why.

  107. So let them languish?! That equates to “let us disgard these lives because we don’t have our shiziz together. ”

    …and the beat goes on…

  108. Marty brings up an important point.

    Children in need of adoption represent a very real failure of the “system” – In this sense the “system” is to encourage reproduction amongst married opposite sex parents in stable homes.

    As experience has shown, the absence of sexual complementarity in unions creates obstacles in the normal development of children who would be placed in the care of such persons — they would be deprived of the experience of either fatherhood or motherhood.

    Promoting or even allowing the adoption of children into same-sex households undermines the social notion that responsible procreation involves committed opposite sex married households.

    “As long as we are pondering moral judgments about same-sex parenting, can we at least agree to a clear distinction between:”

    “a) adoption and recovery of those “thrown away kids”, and

    b) intentional creation of motherless/fatherless children through (mis)use of reproductive technology?”

    The distinction is important. Indeed crucial. The “intentional creation of motherless/fatherless children” is the driving force behind the creation of so many children that need adoptive homes to begin with.

    Any group that promotes irresponsible procreation and then turns around and uses the emotive bludgeon of those “thrown away kids” to further undermine the importance of intact mother/father standard.

    In needs to be made clear that intact married natural childbearing & the promotion of such, is of the utmost importance for a healthy society & children. (indeed this is the social scientific consensus after 40 years of family breakdown)

    When this standard fails and society is left with abandon children – It should further promote this standard by placing those children in married households with a mother & father.

    Nothing about the current state of our culture requires that we abandon or subvert this commonsensical & widely accepted legal & cultural norm.

  109. Marty,

    Thanks for so completely validating the fact that so many children really are considered no better than trash to so many. Your questions imply (i may be wrong) that it’s not so bad to throw the trash out to the homosexuals. I realize I’m making a huge assumption..and you may not be willing to allow gays to pick up the trash of the straight folks. That may not be what you’re saying at all.

  110. Misuse of reproductive technology??

    Single women getting pregnant?

    Fathers abandoning families?

    Infanticide?

    Surrogate mothers being paid?

    College women selling their ovum?

    College men selling their sperm? (Or giving it away – LOL)

    Or are we just talking about those pesky homosexuals getting pregnant?? (sarcasm implied for those who can’t see my eyes)

    Really – I’d like to know about this misuse of reproductive technology.

    What group exactly is the greatest consumer or misuser of this reproductive technology? How are the resources being applied? How is the surplus being distributed? I mean if you want to get technical – let’s get technical.

  111. MJF,

    I can appreciate your view, in that I understand it (in case you were wondering), and I could even get on board with it for the most part IF it would actually happen as your road analogy suggests.

    Your paradigms make me wonder how much time you’ve spent with living, breathing, intact and non-dysfunctional families, let alone their opposite who need the bandaging. I would also put more merit in your solutions if I could see folks like you out there doing the very difficult work of convincing all these people in this walled-in, barriered-up institution called traditional family, to reach off that cozy little road they’re on and take in these who need the bandaging. Are you actively working to make that happen or are you just talking about it on the internet? I hope you really are causing some action to take place toward your utopian ends.

    Until then, the rest of us will just keep chugging along and taking care of each other in any way we can.

  112. As long as we are pondering moral judgements about same-sex parenting, can we at least agree to a clear distinction between:

    a) adoption and recovery of those “thrown away kids”, and

    b) intentional creation of motherless/fatherless children through (mis)use of reproductive technology?

  113. People who segregate parenthood into homosexual v heterosexual have some real explaining to do. More than has been given in this thread.

    Above I noted the careful unique relationship bonds that are available only to people who take direct responsibility for their mate and the children they produce. The unique message they are able to teach in the value they have. And so on.

    In the face of these understandable qualities of childhood, the paradigm keeps slipping from the natural model to the homosexuals vs the heterosexuals. There are a lot of reasons for this, but for me the primary reason is that to homosexuals their orientation matters, the world is (in some ways understandably) divided among homosexuals vs heterosexuals. I feel that is their war foist on me, and a poor lens to view family issues through.

    Many years of studies have found out a great many things which are not irrelevant to this particular question of homo v hetero fostering of children. Unique effects to a child’s upbringing with the loss of a father’s influence. Unique effects to a child’s upbringing due to the loss of a mother’s influence. Psychological sciences have been uniquely in tune with these effects, as they are the ones who are commonly left to pick up the pieces of missing and dysfunctional relationships between mothers, fathers and children.

    These studies also find that step-parents are not as effective as natural parents, and foster parents are not as effective as step-parents.

    With this model, we can predict effectively what the cost of the same-sex household will have on children. Since these households are the result of broken heterosexual homes. The rare exception to this is the affluent who purchase a child, paying the natural parent to abandon the child to them and remain anonymous to the child forever. A practice with humanitarian concerns that deserve their own attention.

    With what we know we can design studies that will find that there are no difference between heterosexual and homosexual headed households. We can correct for what we do know, affluence, education and marriage rates (which are correlated in ways that are so often overlooked), find people who are self-selecting themselves into these surveys, etc… And we see can attempt to look at the data from as much of the homosexual paradigm of hetero v homo, meaning apples to apples and broken homes (divorced or single parents) to broken homes (homosexual headed).

    So, this paradigm of homo v hetero misses the point. I see above many comments that create a drumbeat, a steady chanted verse of how little importance a parent and child have. Sadly, mostly now believe that there is nothing special in that bond. Nothing a child might have interest in their real parents, nothing that a disgruntled father might need to think twice about as he might believe that anyone else can raise that child just as well. It doesn’t matter. The hetero v homo paradigm is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

    Beyond that, we have quite of same-sex parenting going on where no homosexual activity is involved. And we see nothing about their plight that can be addressed. We have grandmothers helping their daughters with their grandchildren. We have aunts banding together. I would simply like to point out to all those who wish the fact that homosexuals are raising children to mean something, to take their own advice and realize that these family structures mean something too. I submit they mean the exact same thing. Yet there is no place for them in consideration when the paradigm is so strictly based on sexuality and sexual orientation. What are we going to do with them all?

    When we work up this situation we will see something very simple. A paradigm that makes sense, one that can dynamically stretch to fit every case and extend support to them.

    Look at it like a road stretched along a cliff. We have families in tact riding this road, and the first thing to do is to make sure they stay in-tact in loving functional homes. We build a fence to make sure they stay in-tact (I say this to mean anything that helps people be prepared and assisted in preserving these in-tact bonds).

    Then as some families will break through that barrier, and their families fracture, we give assistance in ambulances. Anything that helps people do the best they can with what they have left over, by banding together or by in-tact families taking on additional needy children, foster care, etc…

    Lets start there, the paradigm of the in-tact vs bandaged. And both need help particular to their condition. That is my view at least. And that will continue to be my view until someone can actually point me to research suggesting what it is about homosexuality which makes them exempt from the well charted detractions that we see in every heterosexual broken home. No study I’ve found addresses that problem. Not a single one.

  114. Pam,

    Anyone in the public sector or working in a voluntering compacity comes into contact with these children on daily basis. Those who sideline your comments have been sitting on the sideline themsleves making monday morning quarterback observations from a distance and not the trenches.

    How nice it is to sit with clean hands, trimmed lawns, untattered events and consequences in their own lives and pronounce they know best for the poor, the isolated, the neglected. Uh huh.

    Was it Teddy or FDR who said that the battle goes to those who get in …

    Just found the quote from Teddy

    “It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

    To fail by trying to love is far better in my book than to fail by neglect and lack of care. Although some would argue that placement with a homosexual family is cruel – but I can’t see that compared to the alternative. Homosexual adoptive parents are champions to those children in this hostile world.

    Langhston Hughes’ mother was quoted as saying “If I didn’t love you enough it wasn’t for lack of heart but for lack of knowledge” And any parent can say that their child – gay or straight, or otherwise.

  115. Dr. T….can we put a gold star on this thread….Timothy and Mary are in agreement!!! hee hee!!!! (hope you two find that as humorous as i do…you know i love a good giggle)

  116. Timothy,

    I remember when I cam out as a lesbian my friends warned me to say nothing to my parents until I was 18 yo. for the very reasons you wrote. Fortunately, being gay was the least of my parents’ worry with me.

    Honestly I think those that are quoting these non thorough stats are afraid that being raised by gay parents will indoctrinate them (the children that they care oh so much about but will not accept into their homes) to be tolerant of the gay lifestyle. Would it be soooo bad to get along??? And accept that people do see things different – really.

  117. Thank you, Pam and Mary.

    According to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, there are about 500,000 children in foster care. While many reunite with parents, about a third do not.

    As horrific as are the foster kid stories, they are far better off than those in orphanages.

    A thought for those who are anti-gay:

    There estimated over one million homeless youth. And somewhere between 25% and 40% of these youth are gay kids – most of whom are homeless because their parents kicked them out for being gay.

    Now we can theorize and pontificate about what parents are “optimal” or “ideal” but as Pam said, these kids have names and faces and don’t really care that their “loving parents” had contrasting genitalia when they’re hungry and cold today and not sitting inside surrounded by presents drinking hot chocolate.

    So while “it’s about the children” may sound good while “fighting the homosexual agenda”, try to remember that the children are the ones who are paying the price for your Culture War on gay Americans.

  118. Pam,

    Not only that but what many men (and I mean men) do not realize is that once divocre occurs – more mothers and children are thrown into poverty – and homelessness that might have been able to avoid it otherwise (hence the study of absent father does not take into consideration the stress of poverty) So I totally disregard the above mentioned research quoted by Warren.

    As a side note this was on the internet today

    http://men.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=5897816&GT1=10716

    All straight by the way.

    I have my opinion that it is best for a child to be raised by their natural mother and father. However, that is not always the case nor is it always the option in this society. And when we must decline to other options – I’m all for the one who can provide stability – emotional and financial, compassion, love, guidance etc…And no there are not enough WILLING and ABLE heterosexuals around to take in the case load.

  119. Mary,

    I agree and have just this to add. Children’s homes may be abundant in different parts of the country, but here in the South, most of the “thrown away” children are in the system of foster care. They are often placed in a variety of homes over different periods of time. I feel the need to add that these children I’m talking about are real live people with names, voices, feelings, etc… I’m not making this up. I know them. I see them on a daily basis and have for years. I can only teach in one school at a time so I can only imagine, exponentially, how many there are across the board. It may be my own bias interpretting through the emotion I feel regarding these kids….but I got the very real sense from some of the more academic comments above that there’s a lack of belief in the fact that many children are “thrown away”. Someone above referred to them as “Pam’s ‘thrown away’ children.” Those children don’t belong to me, and I didn’t invent them. I merely serve them in the public school system.

  120. Ken,

    It would still not be enough to convince me that children would not thrive more in a home than an institution. No thing in this world is perfect. And when your natural parents are gone through death, abandonment, mistreatment etc.., then a loving home that inspires appreciation, warmth, care etc… is far better than an institution that “pays” its help to be there with you. And there just are not enough willing married heterosexuals to take on the task of raising a an adolescent (sp?) into adulthood. Like Pam said – everyone wants and infant (whom you buy on the black market by the way) Can’t find a place for those teenagers though. And I’d rather have gay parents to help me with guidance, college decisions, social graces than no one there at all. And to whom would I go home after a bad break up, failed exam, lost job etc.. when all I knew was an orphanage??? And I’m talking about when these things happen as an adult. It is a life long journey between parents and children.

  121. Thanks Mary.

    Jose,

    I ain’t tee-totally stoopid. I did understand the broad implications of your suggestion….it stretched my doggone brain quite a bit, but I managed.

    I think I just live in a completely different reality than you. Yeah. That’s it.

    Thanks for your explanation though.

  122. For everyone here who is questioning the research with regards to opposite-gender vs. same-gender parents: what if research were to prove conclusively that opposite-gender parents were measurably better (using whatever criteria you wish to measure with) than same-gender parents? What of it? What would you do with this evidence?

  123. Timothy Kincaid

    RE: Wool vs. Goose Down

    Those are insufficient options.

    There are a number of options outside the two. Along with the epidemic proportion of no coats at all.

    All competing for the prestige of the gold standard: wool

  124. The reason that there are children in institutions is because heterosexual couples are very often picky about who they’ll adopt. They want to adopt healthy infants of the same race as themselves.

    The reason that adoption agencies love gay couples is because they are the just about the ONLY ones who will adopt mixed-race, crack addicted, AIDS babies or troubled kids that are no longer of prime adoption age.

    Perhaps on the day that good church going folk walk in and say “give me the special needs kids” the adoption workers will take their moralizing seriously. In the meanwhile someone is loving the unloved and caring for the uncared and let’s just be honest folks, those who are doing God’s work here are the gay folks.

    The anti-gays don’t much like that fact. But ask any adoption agency what they think.

  125. Mary says, “Get these children (who have been tossed out) into loving homes.”

    We tend to live in worlds of noble but meaningless idealism. How can you identify “loving homes” if you can’t identify love? All the agencies can measure is degrees of stability and material prosperity. That’s all they wish to measure because for most people it is too difficult to determine what love is.

    I think Mary that you have a meaningful reflection when you say, “Regardless of the desire for a heterosexual couple to adopt perhaps they are not fit for parenting???” If you broaden your reflection by leaving out the term “heterosexual” and just say “couple’ and then deeply ponder what it might mean to be “fit for parenting” you may gain greater objectivity.

    I would then take you back to the starting point I suggested earlier (74420) which Pam indirectly referred to (74520) but didn’t quite understand the broad implications of my question. To begin the illustration of the absurdity of comparing homosexual parenting with parenting by the natural parents I asked, how can the quality of raising an infant by two men be as good as that provided by the natural lactating mother (father in home assumed)? The honest answer is that there is no comparison whatsoever. The mother is superior and thoroughly “fit.” The example assumes all other things in goodness, “love,” etc. are equal. The two male parents are obviously inferior parents from the get go. They are unfit.

    Now we can go on to a second examination. What if the lactating natural mother has a lesbian partner? The question then changes from a general comparison of homosexual parenting with heterosexual parenting to the more limited comparative question of heterosexual parenting and lesbian parenting in which one of the lesbians is the natural mother. (The homosexual men have been ruled out as inferior.) The focus of the study now turns to how children raised in fatherless households compare with those being raised by their natural parents. The lesbians’ defensive argument must be that fathers do not matter in child rearing and both boys and girls can be just as well raised by two women. For that matter they do not have to be lesbians at all. They could be two sisters, a single grandmother, or several women raising a boy or several boys. Fathers do not matter. They have nothing significantly positive to contribute to the raising of a boy or girl.

    Remember we have not yet made any judgment on the degree of “love” or ability to “care.” It is assumed for the moment that in our example these factors are equal.

    I am not relying on studies but on reason in my discussion. Perhaps Fitz, Warren and others have the studies comparing fatherless homes with those of children raised by their natural parents.

    I’ll pause here for now and perhaps come back later to address issues of children in adoption agencies, etc.; older children or handicapped children, Pam’s “thrown away” children unable to find homes with married parents. But I must repeat that we are not yet addressing the question of what is love? And I had earlier stated that we might not be able to demonstrate significant differences in children reared by one parent, two or six parents, or whatever, and the “whatever” includes the adoption agency itself. This is because we do not understand what is really in a child’s best interest.

  126. I’m sorry, maybe the wording above wasn’t clear enough — I would argue that any scientifically grounded perspective will always be only sufficient and limited however complex and intelligent or ostensibly useful it might be, while nurturing children into human life and society is the most sensitive issue I can think of (there is an entire line of reflection hailing from the Ancient Greeks until today emphasising the foremost importance of child rearing to shaping society). In this respect, I think moral judgement should prevail, even if science can provide some limited insights, but not guidance.

  127. I have stressed before that children could be better off in environments provided by some types of unions or singles rather than staying in institutions. But that simply dodges the question in debate here about the possible effects of same-sex parenting. Can society or the state a priori decide for orphaned children that it is better for them to grow up in an environment that nurtures gender atypicality than to remain in the care of the institution until they are adopted by any qualified opposite-sex married couple?

    You know, what is ironic about looking into research for objective, neutral bases for social decision is that you cannot escape moral judgment. It becomes so obvious, in this case, that it comes down to what we want for our children to be like, similar to us or not, ie ‘different’. Gay people will first doubt any study that indicates likelihood of same-sex parenting environments producing more ‘liberal’ or atypically gendered children, then probably argue that if there is nothing wrong with being gay, why should it be with adopted children surfing the gender rainbow? People opposing same-sex parenting could argue either for traditional grounds or for rational expectations of social chances. I for one would argue for sufficiency of any scientifically grounded perspective and the need to find policies that are safe from shifting paradigms. After all, maybe we came upon the most sensitive issue of them all.

  128. Very true, Pam. In addition how come we have youth graduating from the systme at 18 years of age?? I was thinking about this this very evening. Where do they go? Who provides them with guidance for college, jobs, life? Where do they spend their first holiday away from the orphanage? Just wondering.

    Anyhow, Fritz’s numbers don’t seem to equate to the condition do they?

  129. The married couples are all filing to adopt just any child? Is that right? Are the married couples not more likely to be waiting for an infant child? I know of two instances personally, a single cousin and a gay married friend, who have adopted children but in each case they have adopted older children who had been waiting in the system for some time for a home? How can this be if what you are saying is true?

  130. Fitz,

    Regardless of the desire for a heterosexual couple to adopt perhaps they are not fit for parenting??? There are other things to consider. Abuse potential, income stability demonstrated (not hoped for), health risks and physical disabilities and not to mention mental illness.

  131. Pam,

    I agree with you. Get these children (who have been tossed out) into loving homes. It does not matter who as long as they love, protect, provide, care, etc… Let’s look at the lives and interuption to growth in those who are owned (oops guardianed??) by the state.

  132. JAYHUCK

    “I’ll say this for the third time”

    Please refrain from saying anything to me. You are obviously not an honest broker. A social scientific consensus exists and has existed concerning family formation.

    “Social science literature demonstrates the children who are reared by a married natural mother and father have more positive outcomes in a wide variety of important factors compared to children in other adequately studied family structures.”*

    The only discussion being held here is the current state of research concerning same-sex parenting. This research is nascent, flawed & disputed.

    You seem to take the tact of an advocate, dissembler and elision. As my post above indicates- multiple courts and even same-sex “marriage” advocates have been consistently more honest.

    PAM FERGUSON

    When encountering such debates it is important to not that according to statistics provided by both the National Survey of Family Growth and the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute there are approximately 120,000 children in the United States waiting to be adopted each year. About half of these children are adopted by family members, leaving about 60,000 children who are waiting to be adopted by non-related adoptive parents. By contrast, each year there are anywhere between 70,000 and 162,000 married couples in the United States who have either filed for adoption or in process of filing. That means that in any given year, there are between 1.2 and 2.7 married couples per waiting child.

    In other words, there is no child-centered need to open up adoption to homosexual couples.

  133. Fritz,

    Your argument reads as follows:

    We know that wool is warmer than cotton, much warmer. And it’s cold outside. And we don’t want the children to freeze.

    Therefore we should not allow goose down.

  134. We don’t know that opposite-sex households are OPTIMAL for raising children, just that they can be good.

    Jayhuck,

    Do you see any reason for the fact that only a man and a woman can concieve a child? Is it just a fluke of nature or would you think it comes packed with other requirements? I don’t dispute the fact that children can be relatively safely reared in all sorts of environments (just as any form of life can adapt to many settings), but the problem is that, in the process of nurturing, our gender background frames their nature. If you need scientific reasons for that, I can quote from a study published just few days ago in a Dutch journal of gender studies (the resource may be secured):

    The different physical environments in which boys and girls are living may contribute to the process of gender differentiation, and in this way influence future choices (Pomerleau et al. 1990). As suggested by Bussey and Bandura (1999), children build efficacy for the tasks in which they are involved and this efficacy may lead to later preferences for such tasks. Children practice culturally-prescribed adult roles and behaviors through their play, and thus, their play with different types of toys may give rise to different types of adult behavior (Bussey and Bandura 1999; Caldera et al. 1989; Marcon and Freeman 1996).

    […]

    We also found, however, that lesbian mothers were less likely than heterosexual parents to create highly gender-stereotyped physical environments for their children. Even though many gender-stereotypic features (e.g., color schemes) appeared in bedrooms of children with lesbian as well as heterosexual parents, the environments fashioned for their children by lesbian mothers were less clearly dominated by gender-related decorations. Thus, heterosexual parents were more likely than lesbian parents to provide their children with physical surroundings that drew attention to the child’s gender.

    (Erin L. Sutfin, Megan Fulcher, Ryan P. Bowles and Charlotte J. Patterson, ‘How Lesbian and Heterosexual Parents Convey Attitudes about Gender to their Children: The Role of Gendered Environments’, Sex Roles, Springer Netherlands, Published online first: 16 December 2007)

    Parental cultural and behavioural influence is taken into account by scientists who study the role of pre-natal sex hormones in the gender-related play behaviour of infants to shape future gender polarisation:

    Although both biological and social factors play a role in gender role development (Ruble, Martin, & Berenbaum, 2006), there is no real consensus as to if and how the different factors interact and whether there is a specific point in time at which social or cultural factors might, in fact, overrule potential biological influences. Parental behavior may strengthen biologically based differences, augmenting small differences present at 13 months. However, parents may also modify individual preferences, and overrule biological predispositions, for example in the case of very feminine boys.

    (Cornelieke van de Beek, Stephanie H. M. van Goozen, Jan K. Buitelaar and Peggy T. Cohen-Kettenis, ‘Prenatal Sex Hormones (Maternal and Amniotic Fluid) and Gender-related Play Behavior in 13-month-old Infants’, Archives of Sexual Behavior, Published online: 13 December 2007)

    Interestingly enough, in this study, amniotic testosterone levels were not found to play any role in masculine or feminine play behaviour. However, the study I quoted before established that lesbians tend to frame their children’s environments in less gendered terms, which can shape task efficacy building and later-developed task preference in gender terms (the study did not include gay male parenting).

  135. Fitz,

    While the “jury may still be out” concerning same-sex child rearing: It seems multiple relevant findings have been conceded as to the well established (yet still controversial) social scientific consensus about optimal family formation.

    I’ll say this for the third time- the evidence we have to-date shows that kids raised in same-sex parent households are as “healthy” as kids raised in opposite-sex parent households. We don’t know that opposite-sex households are OPTIMAL for raising children, just that they can be good. That doesn’t mean there aren’t other GOOD environments in which to raise kids.

  136. Warren,

    Interesting – does is say when the study was performed?

    Here are some questions and my own observations.

    1. Society is not static. At the time of the study, what was the divorce rate, the food resources of the girls (did resources change or dietary health change). Diet is huge on menarche as well as social expectations (in a thousand years our young girls are no longer mentally nor emotionally ready to marry at the age of fourteen or sixteen) Our social expectations may be influencing the onset of menarche, too.

    2. How many young girls from previous times in history had no father nearby? Father’s were at times almost completely removed from the familial relationships and was primarily a provider.

    3. Has menarched been studied and reported in girls belonging to the state vs girls in a stabile home (regardless of couples gender?)

    I’m sure there are more points to highlight.

  137. Warren,

    That is interesting. But I don’t see it as relevant to the discussion.

    It appears that paternal disfundtion and family disruption is related to the timing of a daughter’s menarche. But I don’t see how paternal disfunction or family disruption is related to same-sex parenting.

    It appears that Ellis was discussing the extraction of a father from a male-female relationship. It does not seem as though he was discussing either two fathers or two mothers actively involved in the family.

    Just as we cannot use single parent v. married as an argument against same-sex couple parenting, so too does the Ellis study appear to be a faulty argument.

  138. I think it is salient to note what different courts have ruled concerning the social scientific evidence to date concerning family formation. Advocates of both positions can be expected to have culled the relevant social science for the best possible arguments.

    When the Iowa trial court struck down Iowa’s Defense of Marriage Act a close review of the ruling illustrates that those advocating for same-sex “marriage” did not dispute, and offered no evidence to contradict, two salient findings:

    1. “Social science literature demonstrates the children who are reared by a married natural mother and father have more positive outcomes in a wide variety of important factors compared to children in other adequately studied family structures.”*

    (* Such structures include divorced homes, single parent homes, step families, adopted children, etc.. Note – they do not include homosexual same-sex couples)

    2. “Children reared in a stable married natural family are likely to do better on various measures of educational attainment; exhibit fewer behavioral problems, including conduct disorders, alcohol and drug abuse, and juvenile delinquency; will not be as likely to engage in criminal behavior as adults; engage in sexual relations as teenagers, and to experience an unwed pregnancy; have a decreased risk for mental/emotional illness; have a decreased risk of physical illness and infant mortality; experience decreased risk of suicide; have a greater life expectancy; likely to benefit from high levels of parental investment, commitment, and closeness (particularly with their fathers); be victims of physical and sexual abuse; experience higher levels of family stability as adults, including a decreased divorce risk.”

    Here we have a “friendly” court that ultimately ruled in favor of same-sex marriage in a decidedly dramatic fashion. Nevertheless that very same court presented finding’s that went undisputed from advocates of same-sex “marriage”: that child well-being is maximized through natural family structures.

    Multiple Courts have accepted these finding for evidentiary purposes & not had them disputed. It seems that as a point of law, even advocates of same-sex marriage have been willing to concede a social scientific consensus on family formation.

    While the “jury may still be out” concerning same-sex child rearing: It seems multiple relevant findings have been conceded as to the well established (yet still controversial) social scientific consensus about optimal family formation.

  139. I’m not one for arguing scientific theories so you’ll find no links to studies in this comment. I know Dr. T. specifically warned against using anecdotal evidence as argument here….and I really don’t have much of that either as it pertains to gay adoption.

    I can’t even say if it’s generally good or bad for kids to be raised by gay parents. But I can remind you of the fact that we have WAY too many kids “thrown away” in our society. Kids who appear to have no worth or value because they haven’t had even one single person take the time to take good care of them and love them for just being who they are. Lots of these kids already live with two adults of opposite sexes, one of which may or may not have breast fed them as a baby, and some who’s mothers seem to have breast-fed them with drug-laced milk.

    How does a society respond when it’s people turn against their own flesh and blood?

    Maybe we respond by allowing things like single-parent adoptions or same sex parent adoptions. No one has mentioned that a single person can easily adopt a child as well. What harm is there in this?

    I think my point must be….that these children who are being adopted are not being pulled kicking and screaming from two loving opposite sex parents. They are simply being placed in a nurturing environment. And that’s basically what they need most.

  140. The variables are so great and the criteria for determining “well-being” so low that I don’t think we can come up with objective studies for what is in the best for rearing children. We are not defining “best interest” but only some comparative, average child developments that appear to be more or less the same.

    If the child is raised by six men, or four women, or in a commune of men and women in which parents are unidentified, or any number of combinations, you might find that the children from each appear to be more or less equally “well-balanced.” When we cannot identify objectively what is the ideal well-being hoped for in child-rearing, as we live in an amazingly confused, neurotic society bursting with dishonesty and crime, where indeed dishonesty and crime can be justified through clever sophistry and ethics deconstruction verbiage, how can we devise meaningful studies to determine individual well-being? We just don’t know what that means and we often immediately dismiss as irrelevant the very conditions and behaviors that demonstrate well-being.

    We argue mumbo-jumbo when the obvious facts stare at us right in the face, so confused are we.

    Question: How can two men nurse a baby better or as well as its lactating mother? Let’s begin our reality check right there.

  141. Warren,

    Timothy, however the contexts of societies have rendered family forms, there appears to be good theoretical reasons and of late with empirical support to predict that a father’s investment in his daughter provides advantages to the daughter. These advantages are somehow biological with real world implications. Certainly, girls can survive if they have a period at 12 versus 13 but I am struck by the way we are made whereby a father’s investment in the home changes something as basic as his daughter’s biological clock.

    I think we are going to have to figure out first if what it is a father gives can also be given by a mother and second, figure out if girls can also grow up just fine without it 🙂

  142. Warren- if the research is important, then look at it from the opposite direction. Are there ANY studies purporting to demonstrate that children raised by same sex parents have been negatively impacted as a group vis a vis children raised by opposite parents (minus fake Paul Cameron ones, of course)?

    Is there ANY objective evidence to back up your concerns about same sex parents?

  143. I may include this in a later post of its own but I will also mention here while discussing the contributions of gender in parenting, the work of Bruce Ellis. Dr. Ellis has a line of research demontrating that the more invested in the home a father is, the later his daughter’s menarche. Read the link for implications.

    Ellis’s most recent work adds to his view that paternal investment actually delays puberty in girls, on average.

    Impact of Fathers on Daughters’ Age at Menarche: A Genetically- and Environmentally-Controlled Sibling Study by Jacqueline M. Tither, University of Canterbury, New Zealand & Bruce J. Ellis, University of Arizona.

    Girls growing up in homes without their biological fathers tend to go through puberty earlier than their peers. Whereas evolutionary theories of socialization propose that this relation is causal (i.e., that girls’ sexual development is responsive to the father’s role in the family), behavior genetic models contend that it is spurious. To distinguish between these competing explanations, we employed a genetically- and environmentally-controlled sibling design that examined the effects of differential exposure to family disruption/father absence within families. As specified by evolutionary causal theories, younger sisters had earlier menarche than their older sisters in biologically disrupted (N = 68) but not biologically intact (N =93) families. This effect was superseded, however, by a large moderating effect of paternal dysfunction. Younger sisters from disrupted families who were exposed to serious paternal dysfunction in early childhood attained menarche about a year earlier than either their older sisters or other younger sisters from disrupted families who were not exposed to serious paternal dysfunction. These data indicate that early exposure to disordered paternal behavior, followed by family disruption and residential separation from the father, can substantially advance age at menarche.

    Timothy, however the contexts of societies have rendered family forms, there appears to be good theoretical reasons and of late with empirical support to predict that a father’s investment in his daughter provides advantages to the daughter. These advantages are somehow biological with real world implications. Certainly, girls can survive if they have a period at 12 versus 13 but I am struck by the way we are made whereby a father’s investment in the home changes something as basic as his daughter’s biological clock.

  144. Evan,

    It does take more than a mom and dad to raise a child. I know many young girls who have surrogate moms (usually a friend of the family) with whom they talk when they feel they cannot talk to their own mom or when mom is not there. Nothing is perfect. Death, divorce, jobs, health etc… take parents away from children. As a society and in each community we need to find ways to help children along rather than impede the possibility of a family ( gay adoption etc…) I know I am the answer lady for two young teenage girls on our block. And their mother has spoken her gratitude. Hate to be so cliche here – but it takes a village.

  145. Warren,

    Thank you for expressing that, I was starting to think I was the only one supporting such views.

    Jayhuck: it is possible that attributes we attribute to particular genders can also be found in the other, thereby providing that unique something needed for raising healthy kids. We tend to stereotype people and genders and we shouldn’t.

    Sorry for being crude here, Jayhuck, but how would two gay men support an adolescent girl during her first periods? Maybe that’s why nature provided a child with both gender instances, to secure life experience from both sides helping to nurture a child’s way into human life and society. Any accidental event that deprives a child from having support from both a father and a mother I think will leave marks, even if it doesn’t readily show in “measurable outcomes”, to use Warren’s expression.

    As a side note, I have lately become aware of the status social science enjoys in the US and the feedback it is allowed to have in society. I hope you all are aware that this is very much specific to your culture. In fact, as far as I can see, there is a stirring mixture of religion and science involvement in your society that underlies all these debates you are caught in. It’s hardly the same case in Europe, where public space is more secular and people tend to keep their religious beliefs more to themselves. I had to say that, because the way you are willing to let scientific studies lead the way to establishing social practices is rather disquieting for me. We tend to take every new idea with a pinch of salt.

  146. Warren,

    I think finding a long term study over the various stages of child developement in gay homes vs straight homes – right now is going to be difficult since it has only been a generation (and maybe a half) since homosexuality has been removed as a disorder and therefore been out and measurable as a group without legal consequence to their family. Sort of like saying to women fifty years ago – well if your so good at business why are there more of you? It wasn’t really acceptable as it were and so many women did not pursue that choice (or their stocks/bonds and other investments were held in secret and privacy for the most part) – same with gay families, and ex gay people today.

  147. Warren,

    I think that if we look evolutionarily, the model of one father – one mother with children as a separate unit is a fiction. The best information we have suggests that for the predominance of human pre-recorded history, children have been raised communally or at least in extended families consisting of multi-generations and with input from a host of individuals.

    Even in recorded history, there seems to be very little evidence of the type of nuclear family that many people currently presume. Granted, history tells the stories of the rich and the powerful. But what stories do get to us suggest that fathers had little direct interaction with children and in the more wealthy and powerful, the raising of children was almost entirely separate from their parents.

    And what little we know of the “common man” suggests that paternal interaction was quite different than today.

    I’m not sure that an evolutionary model is the best argument against same-sex parenting.

    Secondly, Jayhuck is right.

    Same-sex parents exist. A wise society tries to determine the best legal framework in which they can function.

    And abandoned and unwanted kids exist. A wise society recognizes that a same-sex household is preferable to institutionalized care.

  148. Warren,

    I will reiterate this – There are ALREADY gay parents out there parenting. How can we help these couples/parents be the best parents they can be. Its one thing to have this discussion, which, admittedly is good, but we also have to deal with the present reality which is that gay parents already exist.

  149. Warren,

    So let’s park there awhile; how does it make evolutionary and/or theological sense for gender to be important in the making of children but insignificant in the rearing of them?

    I don’t believe I or anyone else has said that gender is insignificant when it comes to raising children. What we’ve been trying to say is that gender is not a REQUIREMENT for raising happy, healthy, well-adjusted kids. Evolutionarily speaking, I would think there would be more than one single solitary type of environment that is good for raising kids.

    AND – it is possible that attributes we attribute to particular genders can also be found in the other, thereby providing that unique something needed for raising healthy kids. We tend to stereotype people and genders and we shouldn’t.

  150. Jayhuck – What you have provided are not studies but reports of studies and statements of associations. This is interesting to a point. However, what I would like to focus on is research. Meezan and Rauch believe we have 4 good studies. Are there others? Actually there are many other studies and I could support the argument that gays raising kids creates more gay kids with at least two studies. However, I am reluctant to because the quality of the studies are not good enough to make such arguments. The whole arena is so politicized that I care very little about what professional associations say. I know how they make policy and it is not pretty.

    Support for normative same-sex parenting seems to me to be support for the hypothesis that gender of parents does not account for a significant amount of variance in important outcome dimensions in child development, generally speaking. Limited research has found that some gay couples and/or gay people raise their children with similar outcomes on certain measureable outcomes. However, nothing that I have seen has been able to do representative sampling of children and family forms over the various stages of life with a measurement of socially important outcomes.

    Biologically gender matters since it take a female and a male to create a child. It seems theoretically plausible that two genders would contribute something important to children moving forward. If that turns out not to be so, then I am at a loss for a theological or evolutionary rationale for that outcome.

    So let’s park there awhile; how does it make evolutionary and/or theological sense for gender to be important in the making of children but insignificant in the rearing of them?

  151. I disagree with the entire premise of the research.

    The court in Brown v. Board of Education did not examine “outcome based research” to determine whether or not separate is really equal — no, the court found that racial separtism is inherently unequal regardless of the outcome.

    The same holds true for children. Each one of us is the result of the union of exactly one man and one woman. To claim that “two moms” or “two dads” (convienently aligned to support one’s “sexual oreintation” or “gender bias”) is to deprive children of the equality inherent in Mother Nature’s design for humanity.

    In short, separate is simply not equal, regardless of how “well adjusted” these kids may turn out in the end.

  152. Just a side note. There is something almost automatic in how we expect sexual opportunism in our culture. So much so that I think we miss the altruistic value of integration. IN other words, people are expected to act in their horny self interest so much, that we fail to see the humanitarian value of gender integration. The ability to, instead of banding together in a gender segregative model, to integrate and love honor and cherish someone of the opposite sex. Love is love, but there is something of that stretch of tolerance and understanding that happens when you choose integration rather than segregation that has been one of the most important social monuments of the 20th century. It is a shame to not note that mating and parenting has had this as its central requirement (and by extension marriage) since before history began.

    Gay people don’t “segregate” from the opposite sex by mating with the same sex any more than str8 parents “segregate” from the same sex by mating with the opposite sex. What do you think, gay parents, like, forbid their kids from seeing the other sex or something? You learn to stretch tolerance and understanding by sharing your life with another PERSON, regardless of sex. Falling in love with someone of the same sex is no more and no less about “horny self interest” than falling in love with someone of the opposite sex.

    Adoption is something more than just raising a child. It is a deference to the child’s rights being taken away to have their parents raise them in love and support of all involved. It follows that model as closely as it can. Adoption without such deference is to easily turned into a commercial enterprise. In fact the only way to truly supplant the natural model of parenting is to produce a commercial enterprise of having kids. Where it winds up two people enlist someone to father or mother a child, and then pay them to abandon the child to them and remain anonymous to them forever.

    Which is what my grad school chaplain had to do when he found out he couldn’t get his wife pregnant. Don’t worry though, I have faith that you can employ enough pretzel logic to twist this into something that will be applied only to gays.

    Children inherently assume biological relationships, and natural parent bonds are only shared with the natural parents (by the nature of what natural parent means).

    And what exactly is the nature of this “natural parent bond” you’re talking about? And again, you’re going to need a bit more pretzel logic to get this to where it only attacks gay parents and not str8 adoptive parents as well.

    Of course, that does not mean there are no natural bonds between children and others. I think it just means that we are pointing to a particular inherent interest a child (even as an adult has) with their heritage and past and identity (being shared with their natural parents) which we could coin as “natural parent bonds”. And it is always a tragedy when a child loses the opportunity for such a bond. I feel my greatest worry about same-sex parenting is not found in the same-sex parents themselves, but in a general push at the moment in the name of same-sex parenting to paint that obligation to that bond as impossible and inconvenient — and completely throw it out. Which is something that completely flies in the face of what science has identified as important to parenting.

    Whoops, yet another overly broad attack that implicates all nonbiological parents as well. (Unless you think gay couples should adopt but not create children? Is that it?) Come on man, twist that pretzel harder!

    Oh, and what “science” would you be referring to, if it isn’t a secret?

  153. David,

    The duty to prove the health of the child is on those who wish to modify the traditional institution.

    No, David, not quite. The duty to prove the claim about the health of children is on those who make the claim. So far, I see the claims about the fitness of same-sex couples to raise children coming from those who believe them inadequate.

    Gays do not raise the issue of their fitness to raise children out of some desire to prove they can – any more than lithuanians run about proving they can be good parents. They raise the issue in response to claims (such as those of Dr. Dobson) that they cannot.

    It appears – based on what info is available – that all information we have at present suggests that the anti-gay claims are unsubstantiated.

  154. Regarding a study listed by Fitz above:

    If anyone would like to read up on what the researchers Judith Stacey and Timothy Biblarz really found and said in their study –

  155. Fitz,

    Just to get you up-to-date:

    Here is one article

    Here’s another

    Here’s another

    A nice Wiki Article on LGBT Parenting

    And finally – a statement from the APA:

    “First, homosexuality is not a psychological disorder (Conger, 1975). Although exposure to prejudice and discrimination based on sexual orientation may cause acute distress (Mays & Cochran, 2001; Meyer, 2003), there is no reliable evidence that homosexual orientation per se impairs psychological functioning. Second, beliefs that lesbian and gay adults are not fit parents have no empirical foundation (Patterson, 2000, 2004a; Perrin, 2002). Lesbian and heterosexual women have not been found to differ markedly in their approaches to child rearing (Patterson, 2000; Tasker, 1999). Members of gay and lesbian couples with children have been found to divide the work involved in childcare evenly, and to be satisfied with their relationships with their partners (Patterson, 2000, 2004a). The results of some studies suggest that lesbian mothers’ and gay fathers’ parenting skills may be superior to those of matched heterosexual parents. There is no scientific basis for concluding that lesbian mothers or gay fathers are unfit parents on the basis of their sexual orientation (Armesto, 2002; Patterson, 2000; Tasker & Golombok, 1997). On the contrary, results of research suggest that lesbian and gay parents are as likely as heterosexual parents to provide supportive and healthy environments for their children.”

    And here is a link to an APA site that has more information on gay parenting:

    And lets not forget – There are gay couples out there right now BEING parents. I think we should ask ourselves how we can help them be the best parents they can be!

  156. Fitz,

    I suggest you read the studies I listed above. None of them are talking about single parent households and most of them are more recent than the quote you left us from Charlotte Patterson.

  157. MJF,

    What they endorse is that a child does best when raised by their natural parents. The endorsement of same-sex parenting is that it is not detrimental to a child

    That is not true. The studies so far suggest that children of gay parents are no better and NO WORSE than children of straight parents. It is not just that it is not detrimental.

  158. Warren Throckmorton, – (you wrote)

    I hope that commenters will add specific references to studies which I should consider adding to future posts.

    Even scholars enthusiastic about unisex parenting, such as Stacey and Biblarz, acknowledge that “there are no studies of child development based on random, representative samples of [same-sex couple] families.” 1

    1 – Judith Stacey and Timothy Biblarz, 2001. “(How) Does The Sexual Orientation of Parents Matter?”, American

    Sociological Review 66:159, 166.

    In 1995, prominent Berkeley sociologist Diana Baumrind reviewed various parenting studies, including the work of Charlotte Patterson and David Flaks

    In her review, Professor Baumrind evaluated, among other things, the claim that children of homosexual parents suffered no adverse outcomes, and were no more likely to develop a homosexual sexual orientation than were children not raised in such homes.

    Problems Baumrind found with the research she reviewed included “the use of small, self-selected convenience samples, reliance on self-report instruments, and biased study populations consisting of disproportionately privileged, educated, and well-off parents.” 2

    Due to these flaws, Baumrind questioned the conclusions on both “theoretical and empirical grounds.” Id. at 133-134.

    2 – Diana Baumrind, 1995. “Commentary on Sexual Orientation: Research and Social Policy Implications,” Developmental Psychology 31(1): 130.

    Another review, prepared by Robert Lerner and Althea Nagai in 2001, looked at 49 separate parenting studies before concluding that “the methods used in these studies are so flawed that the studies prove nothing.” 3

    3 -Robert Lerner & Althea K. Nagai, 2001. No Basis: What the Studies Don’t Tell Us About Same-Sex Parenting (Washington, D.C.: Marriage Law Project): 6.

    But perhaps the most serious methodological critique of these studies, at least with reference to the family structure debate, is this: The vast majority of these studies compare single lesbian mothers to single heterosexual mothers.

    As sociologist Charlotte Patterson, a leading researcher on gay and lesbian parenting, recently summed up, “[M]ost studies have compared children in divorced lesbian mother-headed families with children in divorced heterosexual mother headed families.” 4

    “Most of the gay parenting literature thus compares children in some fatherless families to children in other fatherless family forms. The results may be relevant for some legal policy debates (such as custody disputes) but, in our opinion, they are not designed to shed light on family structure per se, and cannot credibly be used to contradict the current weight of social science: family structure matters, and the family structure that is most protective a child well-being is the intact, married biological family. Children do best when raised by their own married mother and father.” 2

    2 – Charlotte J. Patterson et al., 2000. “Children of Lesbian and Gay Parents: Research, Law and Policy,” in Bette L. Bottoms et al., eds., Children and the Law: Social Science and Policy 10-11 (available from lead author at [email protected]); see also Charlotte J. Patterson, 2000. “Family Relationships of Lesbians and Gay Men,” Journal of Marriage and Family 62: 1052-1069.

  159. > Kevin: The list of mainstream professional bodies endorsing same-sex parenting far exceeds the APA and “Pediatrics group”.

    A statement like this should also be put into context. What they endorse is that a child does best when raised by their natural parents. The endorsement of same-sex parenting is that it is not detrimental to a child, not meaningfully more so than single parenting and step or foster parenting — which they also endorse.

    > Kevin: It notes that the research focused on parenting by lesbians, not gay men.

    Which has always been curious to me.

    > Mary: We know that you can get very screwed up in a home with instability, drug and alcohol abuse, poverty, etc…

    You can also get screwed up in the so called perfect family.

    And you can get screwed up if you don’t have a place to call home.

    Quite a quandary then. Science to the rescue. We know that some children can be raised in abject poverty with almost no parenting whatsoever and still turn out okay (this mirrors Rauch’s comment above that same-sex fostering can do as well a job as heterosexual headed households). We know that the best parenting around can still produce some of the worse people. In the middle are children who do seem to show responses to certain conditions over others. This shows up as skews, where the average skews to one side or another.

    What do these skews tell us? Not that children can or cannot be raised successfully in these conditions. But that certain conditions produce disadvantages that need to be overcome. We see such conditions in the alcoholism of the parents, their sexual promiscuity, their commitment to a low-hostile environment, and whether or not the care givers are their parents or not.

    Parents, as opposed to care givers, are less likely to be abusive both sexually and physically. Children are more likely to identify and have a healthy sense of self identity when they wee the two people who shared their identity with the child love, and care for each other. Nothing teaches a child’s self worth better than seeing the parents who share their identity value each other and the child they have together.

    Any lack of these conditions can still be overcome, and I hope they are. But they are detracting factors that are best to avoid whenever possible.

    > JayHuck: What IS ultimately right and good for children: Love and support or two separate genders?

    This reminds me of the Simpsons episode where Homer buys Snake’s car in a police auction. Of course, he skimps and buys low-octane fuel. Of course the car runs, but in some ways worse than if he had a much less souped up car with the same gasoline. I will let cooler heads work out whether the car or the fuel in this analogy is love and support, and which is opposite gender parents. For me it is important just that the most potent is the combination of the two, not the dilemma between them.

    The most potent combination is love and support from the parents who gave them live. And to answer about gender composition of the family foundation, and adoption, I see that the closer to that ideal we are the fewer obstacles there are to the quality of the child’s life and their maturity into adulthood.

    > Kevin: he would “most definitely” not allow same-sex parents to adopt children because:

    Just a side note. There is something almost automatic in how we expect sexual opportunism in our culture. So much so that I think we miss the altruistic value of integration. IN other words, people are expected to act in their horny self interest so much, that we fail to see the humanitarian value of gender integration. The ability to, instead of banding together in a gender segregative model, to integrate and love honor and cherish someone of the opposite sex. Love is love, but there is something of that stretch of tolerance and understanding that happens when you choose integration rather than segregation that has been one of the most important social monuments of the 20th century. It is a shame to not note that mating and parenting has had this as its central requirement (and by extension marriage) since before history began.

    Adoption is something more than just raising a child. It is a deference to the child’s rights being taken away to have their parents raise them in love and support of all involved. It follows that model as closely as it can. Adoption without such deference is to easily turned into a commercial enterprise. In fact the only way to truly supplant the natural model of parenting is to produce a commercial enterprise of having kids. Where it winds up two people enlist someone to father or mother a child, and then pay them to abandon the child to them and remain anonymous to them forever.

    This is an industry we see growing today, in the name of both heterosexual and homosexual relationships. Sadly, but more understandably, the most court action in creating a legal bulwark for such an industry is coming by far from the homosexual participants.

    > Boo: Are you saying all little kids automatically understand biological relationships AND automatically assume that natural parental bonds can only come about through them?

    I switched the order above, Boo, to segue into your comment a bit nicer. Please read the above.

    If I were to restate that sentance, I would say…

    Children inherently assume biological relationships, and natural parent bonds are only shared with the natural parents (by the nature of what natural parent means).

    Of course, that does not mean there are no natural bonds between children and others. I think it just means that we are pointing to a particular inherent interest a child (even as an adult has) with their heritage and past and identity (being shared with their natural parents) which we could coin as “natural parent bonds”. And it is always a tragedy when a child loses the opportunity for such a bond. I feel my greatest worry about same-sex parenting is not found in the same-sex parents themselves, but in a general push at the moment in the name of same-sex parenting to paint that obligation to that bond as impossible and inconvenient — and completely throw it out. Which is something that completely flies in the face of what science has identified as important to parenting.

    In that way, same-sex parenting is following the same path as no-fault divorce did 20 years ago. And we see its effects on parenting.

  160. It seems to me there are (at least) two distinct questions that don’t contradict one another.

    #1. Whether same-sex couples can do an adequate job of raising children.

    #2. Whether adopting same-sex marriage will undermine the standard necessary to maximize the number of natural families.

    It seems multiple pediatric groups (and others) are not equipped to answer the second question. Groups and individuals who support same-sex “marriage” want to make the answer to question #1, somehow; the decisive & exclusive answer to the question of same-sex marriage.

    The law, (rightfully) is concerned with the common good, rather than the periphery.

  161. Warren,

    To make the same point a little differently, those who say the evidence shows that many same-sex parents do an excellent job of parenting are right. Those who say the evidence falls short of showing that same-sex parenting is equivalent to opposite-sex parenting (or better, or worse) are also right.

    This may be true, but in order to help those gay parents already out there, or to aid gay couples who are trying to adopt, do we need to know anything more than “many same-sex parents do an excellent job of parenting”???? We should continue to study this – I agree – but we also need to help those gay parents who are parenting right now!!!

  162. Kevin,

    there are hundreds, if not thousands, of articles and studies in the journals that show that children do best when you have a mother and a father

    Here’s a great article on that outlandish claim by James Dobson. It sheds a little more light on those alleged “thousands of studies”.

    Read the article here

    A quote from the Media Matters article:

    “Froelich noted that Holt’s “10,000 studies” figure is often cited by Focus on the Family founder James Dobson and that Holt “relied on that statistic and other data when he co-sponsored a failed bill seeking a ban on gay foster parents.” Indeed, Dobson has cited the 10,000-study figure without explaining the source of his data. He made this claim in his book Marriage Under Fire: Why We Must Win This Battle (Multnomah, June 2004), in which he asserted that “[m]ore than ten thousand studies have concluded that kids do best when they are raised by loving and committed mothers and fathers” (Page 54). According to a Media Matters for America review of Marriage Under Fire, the footnote for this particular claim states that “[m]any of these studies are either presented or represented in the following,” subsequently listing a number of books and articles. Dobson did not provide any evidence documenting all 10,000 studies, but titles he did cite include: Growing Up with a Single Parent: What Hurts, What Helps (Harvard University Press, October 1994), Single Mothers and Their Children: A New American Dilemma (University Press of America, March 1988), “Long-Term Effects of Parental Divorce and Parent-Child Relationships, Adjustment, and Achievement in Young Adulthood,” and “Children Who Don’t Live with Both Parents Face Behavioral Problems.” These examples suggest that many of Dobson’s purported “ten thousand studies” did not examine parenting by gay individuals or couples at all but, rather, addressed child development in a single-parent home versus a two-parent home.”

  163. Parents are not just caretakers of humans — however good they may prove to be (which is what you quote as evidence here); every child assumes that his or her parents have a natural bond with them, even if they eventually find out they were adopted. It’s an implied natural bond that could never be replaced by same-sex ‘parents’. In fact, in all rigour, there are no same-sex parents. We’re playing on an exceptional meaning of parenting, translating the case of opposite-sex couples adopting children to same-sex partners.

    So all the kids out there who assume their same sex parents have a natural bond with them are what, lying? Are you saying all little kids automatically understand biological relationships AND automatically assume that natural parental bonds can only come about through them? And people in same-sex couples who are biologically related to their children are still not parents “in all rigour”?

    You wanna maybe try taking this back to the drawing board?

  164. Evan,

    My point is that no study can ever elucidate what is or what is not equivalent to opposite-sex parenting. That would be concluding our understanding of what nature means in all respects. Why do we need two sexes after all — is it just contingency of nature or a reason which will always remain incompletely clarified? This is more serious than completely eliminating a gene from the human genome: in this case you will never know whether the calculated and known benefit comes without any future cost. We’re doing that with same-sex parenting, we are creating children whose world outlook on sexes must be hard if not impossible to evaluate for all future consequences.

    I’m not sure Evan – What about all those straight couples that have adopted children – or the straight couples that have no children – or the straight couples that physically and verbally abuse children? What IS ultimately right and good for children: Love and support or two separate genders??????

  165. Ken,

    I agree with you. The issue isn’t really whether social conservatives/Evangelicals are able to show that same-sex parents aren’t equipped to deal with children, but whether or not Evangelicals are able to accept that they (same-sex parents) are currently raising healthy kids 🙂

    Evan,

    My point is that no study can ever elucidate what is or what is not equivalent to opposite-sex parenting.

    Your bias is showing 🙂

  166. And then there’s James Dobson, who said he would “most definitely” not allow same-sex parents to adopt children because:

    “there are hundreds, if not thousands, of articles and studies in the journals that show that children do best when you have a mother and a father providing role modeling for those kids and who are committed to each other… Children who are raised in homes where there are homosexuals, first of all, have only one role model, whichever it is, male or female. And they also tend to be confused in their gender. There are a lot of studies like this. I mean it is really not just speculative. This one is definitive.”

    Source: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0203/07/lkl.00.html

    Coming from the leader of Focus on the Family, this is a much more extreme position than Warren’s gloss on the social conservative position (“we are not inspired to make national policy based on the positive results obtained thus far”).

    A side note: with few exceptions, family law is determined at the state, not national, level (of course, there will be national adoption agencies, etc. — but Congress and the federal government usually will not be involved in same-sex parenting law).

  167. We know that you can get very screwed up in a home with instability, drug and alcohol abuse, poverty, etc…

    You can also get screwed up in the so called perfect family.

    And you can get screwed up if you don’t have a place to call home.

    Who cares if you are more likely to be gay if you are raised by gay parents?? Only intolerant heterosexuals.

    If the so called conservative groups are so damned concerned about the welfare of orphaned children – then why are they not stepping up to the plate to adopt??? Then they would have the opportunity to raise a child in this society in their value system. Instead, it seems to me that they would rather have a society of orphaned children (please see new testament on on our role and duty to such individuals) than bring them home or let them go home with other loving people of a different value system.

    The proof that we are better in a loving home than orphaned is obvious.

  168. A 2006 report prepared by the Canadian Department of Justice summarizes the available research and concludes: “Almost uniformly, research has documented the absence of differences in social competence and adjustment across studies describing the behaviours and experiences of children with gay or lesbian parents, and comparing children with gay or lesbian parents to children with heterosexual parents.”

    It goes on to make the point that children from two-parent families (gay or straight) on average show better social competence that children raised in single-mother families.

    It notes that the research focused on parenting by lesbians, not gay men.

    Available here: http://www.samesexmarriage.ca/docs/Justice_Child_Development.pdf

  169. The list of mainstream professional bodies endorsing same-sex parenting far exceeds the APA and “Pediatrics group”. The list includes:

    American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (1999)

    American Academy of Family Physicians (2002)

    American Academy of Pediatrics (2002)

    American Bar Association (1995, 1999 and 2003)

    American Medical Association (2004)

    American Psychiatric Association (1997 and 2002)

    American Psychoanalytic Association (2002)

    American Psychological Association (1976 and 2004)

    Child Welfare League of America (1988)

    National Adoption Center (1998)

    National Association of Social Workers (2002)

    North American Council on Adoptable Children (1998)

    Voice for Adoption (2006)

    The positions statements are available here: http://www.hrc.org/issues/parenting/professional-opinion.asp

  170. I find issue with building certainty on uncertainty, creating social realities based on scientific evaluations. Is this how things should come into being in society, based on scientific studies?

    We all agree that the focus should be on the child. Do children need same-sex partners/spouses as a substitute for parents? Or do same-sex partners need a new status more? Parents are not just caretakers of humans — however good they may prove to be (which is what you quote as evidence here); every child assumes that his or her parents have a natural bond with them, even if they eventually find out they were adopted. It’s an implied natural bond that could never be replaced by same-sex ‘parents’. In fact, in all rigour, there are no same-sex parents. We’re playing on an exceptional meaning of parenting, translating the case of opposite-sex couples adopting children to same-sex partners.

    This is playing social engineering, in my opinion, going against most basic meanings… (By the way, parere means to give birth, not to engraft. Should we also not call them parents, but otherwise?)

    Parenting is something that affects more than two consenting adults, actually in this case I see a problem with growing people with a certain world outlook which is based on artificial, conventional premises, on institutions created by people without any natural support. I think it’s a great error to play God with human relations, especially when children are involved. Should a child grow up with a meaning that having (had) a man and a woman as parents is something particular to some people?

    My point is that no study can ever elucidate what is or what is not equivalent to opposite-sex parenting. That would be concluding our understanding of what nature means in all respects. Why do we need two sexes after all — is it just contingency of nature or a reason which will always remain incompletely clarified? This is more serious than completely eliminating a gene from the human genome: in this case you will never know whether the calculated and known benefit comes without any future cost. We’re doing that with same-sex parenting, we are creating children whose world outlook on sexes must be hard if not impossible to evaluate for all future consequences.

  171. One item of interest, the body of evidence for parenting that is referenced to suggest that there are issues with same-sex parenting seem is two-fold as I see it,

    1) There seem to be identifiable and significant impact on certain aspects of a child depending on which gender is absent from the household leadership. For instance, promiscuity and early puberty are associated with the absence of a father more than the absence of a mother.

    2) There is also identifiable impact for children who are raised by their parents, rather than secondary parents (step-parents, foster-parents, etc…).

    I am unaware of the same-sex parenting studies say that challenges those observations in their equivalences.

  172. I agree with David Blakeslee and (I think) Warren that the topic warrants exhaustive research.

    But like some other commenters, I am unclear as to what you all think the status quo for parenting is supposed to be in the meantime.

  173. Oi! A lot of material to read and look over! But, I will when I as time permits. Issues that deal with children I get very much interested in–as an educator.

    Someone said:

    “Christians will be bound by their values to heterosexual unions and the marital ideals that accompany them, which the larger culture is free to emulate, ignore or reject.”

    I think it should be clarified that not all Christians hold onto the values of heterosexual unions. I know Christian same-sex couples who are parents! Let’s not cookie cut. 🙂

    Shalom,

    Grethel

  174. You all are not reading this in the same way I am:

    We believe that both sides of that argument are right, at least partially. The evidence provides a great deal of information about the particular families and children studied, and the children now number more than a thousand. They are doing about as well as children normally do. What the evidence does not provide, because of the methodological difficulties we outlined, is much knowledge about whether those studied are typical or atypical of the general population of children raised by gay and lesbian couples. We do not know how the normative child in a same-sex family compares with other children. To make the same point a little differently, those who say the evidence shows that many same-sex parents do an excellent job of parenting are right. Those who say the evidence falls short of showing that same-sex parenting is equivalent to opposite-sex parenting (or better, or worse) are also right.

  175. “Dismiss Psychology”…tempting, at least in the area of undervaluing marriage and the family, during the 70’s through 90’s.

    The duty to prove the health of the child is on those who wish to modify the traditional institution. Many asserted (Carl Rogers) in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s that traditional marriage and the family as an outmoded institution; oppressive to women, an artifact of patriarchy.

    Although a reasonable theory, it has since been proven much to simplistic and women and children have suffered “on average” more than women and children in marriage.

    There are always exceptions, and that is the endless argument of the “innovators” in marriage; exceptional cases.

    Longitudinal studies comparing divorced and reconstituted heteroseuxal marriages and childrearing with same-sex partners and childrearing is an “apples and apples” comparison. Let the data fall where it may and let the culture decide.

    Christians will be bound by their values to heterosexual unions and the marital ideals that accompany them, which the larger culture is free to emulate, ignore or reject.

    This would be no threat to Christianity, or to the cause of Christ.

  176. Good point, Jayhuck. Social conservatives base their opinions on their faith — not studies.

    Why limit such a study to same-sex parenting? If we really want to know what’s best for the children, all sorts of living arrangements should be studied (i.e. heterosexual couples, single heterosexual men, single gay men, single heterosexual women, single gay men, conservative Christian, liberal Christian, Muslim, Jewish, atheist, etc.).

  177. Warren,

    AND – in the meantime, while social conservatives are trying to figure out if there are enough studies or if the studies are “good enough” for them, what are gay parents supposed to do? Fight for every scrap of help and protection they can? What about gay couples who really want to adopt? Do they wait until social conservatives make up their mind? I’m sorry, but I think it’s a bit of a cop out to say that there just isn’t enough information yet.

  178. Warren,

    This seems to be about as good a summary as I could write. We have precious little to go on and I believe social conservatives are correct to say we are not inspired to make national policy based on the positive results obtained thus far.

    I don’t believe that social conservatives will ever be swayed by any study, no matter how many there are. It seems as if most social conservatives are also conservative Christians, and for a study, regardless of how good it is to suggest that gay parents raise kids that are as well-adjusted as straight parents smacks them where it hurts – their belief system. Look at how much science is out there now regarding evolution – any educated person would find it difficult if not impossible to refute it, yet the belief systems of some prevent them from being able to accept it.

    So the question is: How many studies would it take for social conservatives to accept the fact that gay parents can raise happy and healthy children? I think this is a valid question that deserves an honest response. Since when has science EVER been able to change the strongly-held religious beliefs of people?

  179. I don’t know Meezan, but Rauch is thoughtful and thorough in his reasoning.

    If we put reliance on Meezan and Rauch, we can state that same-sex families do not, de facto, disadvantage children. Whether they do so on average is something that has yet to be determined.

    I guess you’d say that the evidence isn’t convincing, but yet is suggestive that children of same-sex couples fare as well as opposite-sex couples. Thus opposition to same-sex families based on “the good of the children” are invalid, or at least not adequately supported.

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