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Whose rights are they anyway? The children's?

By Bill Muehlenberg - posted Friday, 3 September 2010


The push for same-sex parenting rights is constantly on the boil. Right now the New South Wales government hasjust passed a homosexual adoption bill in the Lower House. As usual, the well-being of children is not the focus, but the selfish wants of adults. Children are just guinea pigs in this radical social experiment.

Indeed, one must recall why adoption laws have been established in the first place. Because young children are so vulnerable, the aim of adoption has been to provide the child in question with a secure, permanent, legal family. The paramount concern in adoption has been the best interests of the child. Thus only the best families have been allowed to adopt, not just “good enough” families. The issue of homosexual fostering is really all about homosexual rights, not the interests and needs of children.

Can a homosexual couple love and nurture a child? Undoubtedly many can. But that is not the issue. As the former vice president of the National Council for Adoption in the US has put it, “providing a nurturing environment is not enough. A homosexual parent cannot provide the parental experience of a parent of the opposite sex, and this is as critical to the child as anything else. When discussing a child’s needs, it is not just a discussion of what a particular parent can provide - it is just as important to consider what a parent cannot provide and, in this case, it is half of a child’s needed parenting experience.”

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The simple truth is, there exists a mountain of social science research which demonstrates that children do best when raised in a biological, two-parent household, cemented by marriage. The evidence is so overwhelming that the reader is advised to look at recent summaries of the data. However, several recent academic studies can be mentioned here, which demonstrate the importance of children growing up with their married biological mother and father.

One American study of 19,000 young people conducted by the Bowling Green State University (Ohio) found that teens fare best when living with two married biological parents: “Adolescents in married, two-biological-parent families generally fare better than children in any of the family types examined here, including single-mother, cohabiting stepfather, and married stepfather families. The advantage of marriage appears to exist primarily when the child is the biological offspring of both parents. Our findings are consistent with previous work, which demonstrates children in cohabiting stepparent families fare worse than children living with two married, biological parents.”

Another large-scale American study found that there are “overall disadvantages” in not living with both biological parents. The author concludes, “My analyses have clearly demonstrated some overall disadvantages of living with neither parent. Among adolescents from all six family types, those in non-biological-parent appear to rank the lowest in academic performance, educational aspiration, and locus of control. Further, they appear to fare less well in the remaining outcome areas (self-esteem, behavior problems, and cigarette smoking).”

The evidence is quite plain. Children deserve a biological mother and father, preferably cemented by marriage. The emotional appeals of homosexuals and their own selfish adult demands must be balanced by the interests of the child, and the right of every child to be raised by a mother and a father.

Yet critics might argue that in many other situations children are already being raised without a mother or a father. True, but there is a big difference in dealing with an existing crisis and the creation of a new crisis. That is, when one parent dies or is deserted by his or her spouse, society does all it can to help the children get through such difficult periods. But it is another matter altogether to deliberately create those sorts of situations.

As two family experts and child psychologists put it: “While a compassionate and caring society always comes to the aid of motherless and fatherless families, a wise and loving society never intentionally creates fatherless or motherless families. But that is exactly what every same-sex family does and for no other reason than adults desire such families. No child-development theory says children need parents of the same gender - as loving as they might be - but rather that children need their mother and father.”

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But too often the well-being of children is not at the forefront of homosexual concerns. For many homosexuals, the demand for adoption rights, like the demand for marriage rights, is really about seeking legitimacy and acceptance. That is, these are symbolic demands as much as anything. They are part of the attempt to seek the complete public acceptance and normalisation of their lifestyle, something which many societies are rightly hesitant about. “For the homosexual rights movement the right to adopt is a symbol - a goal which must be achieved in order to achieve broader victory … Clearly, adoption as a political statement does not take into account a child’s needs at all. And an individual parent, whether heterosexual or homosexual, who is seeking to adopt principally to meet narcissistic needs is also not concerned about the best interest of the child,”

And the desire for children may even spring from more sinister motives. Consider this revealing quote from someone who should know. Tammy Bruce is the former president of the LA chapter of the National Organisation of Woman. She is also a pro-abortion feminist and a lesbian. But she is greatly alarmed by homosexual activism. This is what she says about the issue of children and the homosexual agenda: “Today’s gay activists have carried the campaign a step further, invading children’s lives by wrapping themselves in the banner of tolerance. It is literally the equivalent of the wolf coming to your door dressed as your grandmother.”

She continues, “The radicals in control of the gay establishment want children in their world of moral decay, lack of self-restraint, and moral relativism. Why? How better to truly belong to the majority (when you’re really on the fringe) than by taking possession of the next generation? By targeting children, you can start indoctrinating the next generation with the false construct that gay people deserve special treatment and special laws. How else can the gay establishment actually get society to believe, borrowing from George Orwell, that gay people are indeed more equal than others? Of course, the only way to get that idea accepted is to condition people into accepting nihilism that forbids morality and judgment.”

Now that enough time has passed to see some of the negative impacts of homosexual parenting, the results are starting to come in. Some book-length treatments of what it is like to be raised in a homosexual household are now appearing. These provide real life stories of what the studies are telling us: children suffer greatly in these alternative lifestyle families.

One very important new book in this regard is Out From Under by Dawn Stefanowicz. It is a shocking story of a child thrust into the world of male homosexuality. It is a story of abuse, betrayal, loneliness and suffering. The book tells it all: her dad’s multiple male lovers and sexual escapades; the abuse she suffered at the hands of her dad; the string of boyfriends her dad had at the house; the emotional, psychological and physical dangers she experienced growing up.

No one can read this moving story and not see how destructive homosexual parenting is to a child. It is an important book, but because it speaks the truth about homosexuality, do not expect it to be featured in the mainstream media, except as a dismissal of it.

Finally, it needs to be stressed that homosexuals themselves are quite divided on the issue of same-sex parenting. While it appears that lesbians want to have children more than homosexual men, it seems that in general most homosexuals do not even want to have children. As two homosexual “parents” admitted, “We have to be careful sometimes that we don’t give the appearance of crusaders trying to convert gay men into breeders. And we do totally understand that probably most gay men don’t aspire to parenthood.”

And a recent major article in the homosexual press admitted that there were deep divisions in the homosexual community over both marriage and parenting issues. As one long-time homosexual activist admitted: “There is little point in chasing access to IVF, ART and getting parenting reforms if the vast majority of us are never going to have children. These issues are important but they are not the whole game.”

But the media is quite happy to pick up the cause of a very small percentage of homosexuals, who make up a very small percentage of all adults, who do want children, and turn it into a major campaign. But for the sake of our children, we need to proceed with great caution here.

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About the Author

Bill Muehlenberg is Secretary of the Family Council of Victoria, and lectures in ethics and philosophy at various Melbourne theological colleges.

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