Having now seen it, I like her less than I did from the reviews. She totally does not see any connection between her beliefs and these people’s lives does she? And the gay couple was far nicer to her than I’d have been.
I think that when churches and other organizations petition for gays not to be adoptive/foster parents that they should require themselves (I’m speaking of moral requirements, not legal ones obviously) to find out exactly how many gays are currently serving in that capacity and supply, from their own ecclesiastical ranks, at least that many families to open their homes. For that matter I don’t think you yourself should be an activist about who should be foster parents unless you yourself have foster children, because otherwise it doesn’t make a damned bit of difference in your life but it’s of fundamental importance in the lives of other people.
I was more irked at how the day spent with group home alumni so moved her, but didn’t make the teeniest dent in her “better run down group home in a violent neighborhood than the suburbs with gays” philosophy. Either those were crocodile tears she was shedding or she’s a true fanatic.
(I wonder why Josh, one of the kids in the gay couple’s home, was removed from his bio-family; I would suspect drug addiction or perhaps mental illness in the family or perhaps Josh is special needs somehow, since his bio family didn’t seem particularly evil or impoverished. His bio-sister was actually a nice looking kid and fairly well spoken even.)
I think they should now send her to spend 30 Days with Kathy Griffin. Not that she’s a foster parent or has any great philosophical insight or anything, but just because I think it’d be a far more entertaining 42 minutes.
I think she’s just not seeing the disconnect between what she WANTS reality to be and what reality actually is. Every time she was pressed on whether she wants kids to go to gay foster and adoptive parents or if she wants kids to stay in group homes until they’re dumped at 18, she keeps trying for the nonexistent third option of “I want a married straight couple to adopt them.” Every time. She’s had it explained to her that a) there aren’t enough of those couples looking to adopt, and b) those couples generally are looking to adopt babies, not special-needs preteens and teenagers, but she doesn’t internalize those facts, at all.
My partner and I watched this a couple nights ago. It was his first time watching 30 Days (I followed up last night with the episode from the first season which had the “happy” ending).
I kept watching this episode with the expectation that she’s going to change. I’ve seen most of the episodes of this show and the person always changes even just a little bit. They grow to understand the issue from outside of themselves. Even if they don’t “convert”, they at least learn to respect the differences. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case.
The one thing that REALLY bugged me that hasn’t been mentioned is the gay couples decision not to be friends with her after this experiment. It’s one thing to think that, but they really closed the door on her when they announced it.
I cannot be friends with someone who wants to destroy my family. Period. What she was really asking for was forgiveness without repentance. “Can we be friends, despite the fact that I would, given the legal pretext to do so, tear your family to shreds in the mistaken assumption that I know what’s best for these children I never met before a month ago?”
A rock doesn’t become smooth after 30 days in a river either.
My partner’s father doesn’t like me and it’s going on a couple years. My SO was married to a woman who left him and he (we) have full custody of the three kids. His father used to make some nasty comments specifically in my presence like “where’s your wife?” or one time when we had them over for dinner “XXXXX cooks much better than this, why not have her do it next time?” He’s even said “I hate fags” to his son more than a couple times. He couldn’t handle the fact that his son is gay and now has a partner. The guy was a complete ass.
Well, he’s now seen how good I am with his son and his grandkids. He’s stopped saying nasty comments too as he noticed how the family reacted to his bigotry and insensitivity. The man is extremely headstrong and refuses to admit defeat in any sense. But he has changed a bit. Not a lot, he’s got a long way to go.
As much as he’s tried my patience and I’ve bit my tongue til it’s practically bled, I think I’m doing the right thing by being persistent in being myself and the rewards are coming slowly. So, from personal experience, I wish the couple on the show would haven’t been so quick to close the door.
Sure, but you had no choice concerning your partner’s father, so that’s going to figure into the equation. This was a loving couple with good friends who invited this stranger into their home and family for a month. And, as JayJay said, she wanted “forgiveness without repentance”. The show didn’t explore the whole “reason” why she believed these things, other than her repeated insistence that it was her “morals”, and none of their friends, including the pastor of the gay-friendly church, was apparently allowed to discuss all the other things denounced and permitted in the Bible.
Yeah, I think she said as much at one point, questioning the idea that the kids not adopted by gay parents won’t end adopted by (presumably) straight parents. Her beliefs are so rigid, that there’s no room for the idea that the gay parents are the best (and maybe only) option. She just can’t wrap her mind around that idea. It’s sad and to be pitied. But meanwhile it’s an attitude that’s led to much unneeded suffering. I find it hard to pity her too much.
The most relieving moment in this episode was when the housewife was crying, saying she didn’t have all the answers because she is not god. Like she knows for sure that this is god’s will and that these new people are not arguing against her, but against god.
For her to accept same sex parenting would be for her to admit that god can be wrong. I can see how efforts would fail from people who don’t understand how she views god. Maybe someone with an understanding of LDS doctrine could have convinced her.
It seemed like there was no way for her to accept same sex parenting without her giving up her religion. I blame her church.
I finally watched this episode last night (as part of a marathon catchup).
It really amazes me the way that there’s this one big religion that seems to be based around nothing except for trying to get rid of everything that is gay. I mean, there’s at least 1000 pages in the Bible full of other dos and don’t, and yet all some people want to focus on is one line about a man laying with another man. As far as I’m aware, there’s nothing in the Bible that says that children must be raised by a man and a woman, and considering how often death of a mother occurred during pregnancy in the time the bible was written, I’d imagine there was A LOT of single sex child raising going on – not necessarily a gay couple, but two friends who both lost their wives to child birth and who are helping to raise their new children. This insane woman kept saying how it was against her religion for children to be raised by anything but a man and a woman, but this isn’t any religion I’ve ever heard of. It also particularly bothered me when the woman mentioned how “OMG! There are two men having sex right down the hall from where 4 children are sleeping. This is so wrong.” and I keep thinking about how I’m sure she has sex with her husband in the same house where her children sleep, so isn’t that equally as wrong?
Her whole “think of the children” argument (which was pretty much the ONLY reasoning for her views that she shared, aside from just the “it’s immoral” and “my religion is against it”) was total bullshit too. She thinks that children shouldn’t have gay parents because then they might actually have to understand what being gay is? So it’s worse to talk to your children about sex and love than it is to send them off to a group home? I don’t plan on ever having children, but if I ever do, I’m not going to talk down to them or try to hide them from the real world. It’s parents who are afraid to talk to their kids which are mucking up the morals in this country.
One of the gay parents makes a great point at the end of this episode - there’s a line between disagreeing with someone else’s morals, and trying to stop someone else’s morals from happening. This is exactly why I am so fed up with laws being passed in the United States trying to prevent gay couples from getting married. I mean, if you have something against gay marriage, then don’t marry someone of the same gender as you, and leave everyone else the fuck alone!