I suppose that I am very likely to get in some hot water for saying this, but it’s inevitable.
I am not anti-homosexual. I have slammed and will continue to slam anyone who preached anti-homosexual views. Even when I was a Christian, I refused to believe any line in the Bible that preached the idea that homosexuality is immoral.
For quite a long time, I supported gay marriage. I mean, why not, right? It seemed to me that any two people who wanted to get married should have a right to get married. As far as I know, privacy is still an inalienable human right.
However, I no longer support the legality of gay marriage, and, in truth, for a single reason. Through discussion with other people, I have come to believe that it would be very unfair for any homosexual couple to be able to adopt children. I think that a child has the right to a mother a father, as the parental roles played by both are quite different and important for the upbringing of a child. For example, the role of a father in the maturing of a young male is irreplaceable, in my opinion. I believe this largely has to do with why the government of New Zealand ruled it illegal for a gay couple to adopt kids.
I support civil unions which gives homosexual couples virtually the same rights (say, financially) as a married couple. Other than the issue of adoption, I am not opposed to the legality of gay marriage, and many homosexuals will hold weddings and refer to their partner’s as their husband/wife regardless of what the law says, which is a good thing. However, even though I consider myself a staunch liberal, I keep getting told over and over that I must be prejudiced and hate homosexuals because of this view.
What do all of you think? Are there any of you who share the same sentiment? Am I totally and unbelieveably wrong on the adoption thing?
I can see essentially where you’re coming from. Putting a child’s best interest in mind. However I think that the definition of a “real” man and a “real” woman are the same. Responsible, honorable, compassionate, strong, et al. That sort of thing. A straight dad can cook or care about fashion or knit or whatever and a straight mom can fix the car, mow the yard, ad infinitum.
By your logic, and I’m not being facetious, then single parent families should also be outlawed.
But I do think most people against homosexual marriage would like for homosexuality to be illegal as well. Thank democracy that’ll never happen.
I thought about single-parent families, but I figured that homosexual couples have the same chances of breaking up as straight ones, so it shouldn’t make such a difference.
Ya know one thing I still can’t fathom is how heterosexual married couples feel threatened by homosexual marriage. Something about how it demeans them or some such. It would seem like divorce is more of a threat to marriage but no you can’t illegalize that. Or is that on their agenda down the road? How about maybe marrying the wrong person to begin with could be illegal.
So if a heterosexual couple has a strong, loving bond, how could anyone else’s marriage, straight or gay have any affect on their marriage?
I believe that it is essential for a child to have good male and female influences. However, I don’t see why both sexes need to be represented in the child’s parents – a teacher or a close family friend would serve that purpose. A pair of extremely misogynistic homosexual men who refused to have any contact with women would probably make bad parents, but they are far from the norm.
Yes you are. You wish to restrict homosexuals from having the same rights as heterosexuals. You might not be in the same league as Fred Phelps, but you still wish for them to remain second class citizens. The reasons for your decision might seem logical and rational to you, but you are still discriminating.
I’m not intimately familiar with NZ’s adoption laws, but here in America, it is legal for a single parent to adopt in all 50 states. If single parents are good enough, so are two people of the same gender.
I think hatred is an awfully strong word, and I don’t get that impression, but you are showing prejudicial tendencies on this issue.
In other words, I think that your heart is in the right place (unless you have hidden issues and are subconciously coming to these conclusions for that reason), but that you’re mistaken.
I actually was able to determine that it is legal in New Zealand for a single person to adopt, so that rules out the above given reasoning for restricting the rights of gay couples.
You’re against gay marriage because you don’t think homosexual couples should be able to adopt children? I thought ability to marry and ability to adopt were independent from each other. Why not allow marriage but forbid adoption?
Setting aside that single parents are legally capable of adopting, and that gay couples not only can adopt in some areas, but are occasionally even involved in raising the biological children of one of them, yes, I think you are. But then again, I live somewhere where same-sex couples were adopting well before they were legally able to marry.
I tend towards the opinion that if kids aren’t getting adult role models from teachers, family and family friends, and their community, they’re being deprived of the breadth of experience that they will need to become functional adults. “But a kid needs male and female role models” is silly from this view – the kid has them, unless it’s being raised in a remote monastery or locked in the basement all the time or something.
I’d like to say, right off the bat, that I do not necessarily support adoption by single parents, and I don’t think that that should be a key argument in this issue. “If this is legal, this is legal” arguments never make much headway. They don’t address the issue at hand.
I’d also like to thank you for letting me know that I am anti-homosexual. I went my whole life without knowing that. I would like you, however, to read the rest of my post, and make another response, so that I may be relieved of my anti-homosexuality. The way a child grows up is important, and if by showing my concern for that I can be labeled as discriminatory, so be it. I think that we should be concerned about gay marriage affecting children just as we should be concerned about blind drivers not being able to drive well. They’re both discriminatory concerns, I guess.
My opinion is not based on any prejudice towards homosexuals, it is based on concern about children.
Therefore, I believe that countering with proof that it is legal for a single parent to adopt is an appropriate rebuttal to your opinion. If they just wanted all kids to have a male and female parent, singles wouldn’t be allowed. In your opinion, is two mothers worse than a single mother?
I read the rest of your post, and it still doesn’t change anything. People who want homosexuals to have none, some, most, or even all but one of the rights of heterosexuals are anti-homosexual in their stance. Sure, the degree varies, but the outcome is the same. Homosexuals are second-class citizens if they do not have the same rights as you and I.
I agree that it’s important, but there are so many other important factors that your focus on this one seems misguided. I’d much rather a child have two good fathers than a bad father and mother, for example. Aside from that, you haven’t shown any demonstrable evidence that a child would in fact suffer in any way by having gay parents.
Gay couples (married or not) can have their own children (through various means), single people can adopt children, single gay people can presumably adopt children and then get married. In other words, gay people can and do have children right now, even adopted children. Not allowing them to marry doesn’t change that, it just introduces hurdles.
Shouldn’t you at least start with a search for evidence that it has a negative impact on the children before taking that opinion as your own, if that is the case?
I’ll think about that. You may have changed my mind. I do still believe it is damaging to not have a parent of both genders, but that is kind of irrelivent in the face of the fact that homosexuals already have or adopt children.
Kudos to myself for knowing jack shit about adoption laws.
Somehow I think I’ll trust the AAP [American Association of Pediatrics] and APA’s [American Psychological Association] judgement on my ability to raise children if I so desire, thanks. Google for the cites if you want them, they’re all over the place.
If you’d really like to “help the children”, how about removing the roadblock between them and the caring people who want to adopt them?
Oh. Can’t have that. Johnny might grow up to wear dresses. :rolleyes:
What exactly are you proposing that a male child is going to miss if he’s raised by myself and my wife instead of a heterosexual couple? That he should shake after he pees? Thanks, I think we could handle that. Alternately, what is a female child going to miss if she’s reared by two males? The ability to insert a tampon? The box has instructions, homes, in case you weren’t aware. That aside, the average child [read: one not locked in a cellar] has more than ample time with people other than his parents. If there are some super-special gender rules they need to learn, they’ll pick them up, I’m sure.
I’m very sorry if I’m coming across as hostile, but here’s an idea – stay out of my life, including the life of my could-be children, and I’ll do the same. No one requires you to justify why you’re capable of raising children, so do me a favour and be gracious enough to repay me in kind.
That was my first thought too. Being married doesn’t give you the automatic right to adopt. However, on the gay parenting issue:
I do actually agree that children need role models from across a broad spectrum of society. For me this includes race, culture, politics (ad infinitum) as well as gender.
If only one gender is available in the parents, because they are gay or because of single parenthood (including widowhood), then the parent(s) should try to ensure the child has steady contact with someone of the ‘missing’ gender. That is, not just meeting the occasional friend of that gender, but having regular contact with them throughout their childhood. It’s not so much what ‘men’ and ‘women’ do that counts; as jimpatro said:
I think kids need stable contact with people of different genders so that they can see that men can be tough, or gentle, men can like rugby and reading, and so on. Get a balanced picture of society. But all the lesbian parents I know do make an effort to include male role models in their child’s life. (I don’t know any gay male parents personally, but I presume they do the same). My daughter sees her Grandad every other weekend or so, she sees my male friends very often and one babysits regularly.
Specifically relating to adoption: many kids available for adoption aren’t babies and toddlers, they’re older kids. Even if you think a child would suffer from not having two genders in their parents, surely that’s better than not having parents at all. There are also a few cases where a child *benefits from not having one gender in the home - where the child has been sexually abused before.
Parenting just isn’t that simplistic - and neither is gender.
What matters is whether the parent / parnets are giod, honest, caring people. Gender has nothing to do with that. There are plenty of hetero couples that are a disaster, and who should never be allowed to parent. Having the “right” gender mix is not what matters.
Looks like DMC posted a real good answer. Well, the best I can do is to provide a cite for chatelaine’s post. Well, it is more of an faq, but you get the point. Linky.
You’ll find it’s customary around here for us to ask people to back up their opinions with authoritative citations (so much that the call, “Cite?” is a cliche and almost a joke round these parts).
You say that: “the parental roles played by both [mother and father] are quite different and important for the upbringing of a child.”
I have a few questions for you.
Cite? That is, can you point to an authoritative source that agrees that having both a man and a woman in parenting roles is important for the upbringing of a child? This may seem like common sense to you, but it doesn’t to me. Specfically, there are many ways in which a child interacts with adults other than through parenting roles, and I do not necessarily believe that a child who (for example) is raised by a single dad whose sister visits the house several times a week is going to be traumatised by the lack of womenfolk in his life. An authoritative cite is necessary to buttress your argument.
Stipulating that you find this authoritative cite, I wonder what other social measures you’d be willing to take “for the children.” Would you be willing to outlaw divorce when the couple has children, in order to protect the children’s “right to a mother [and] a father”? Would you be willing to remove children from homes in which one parent has left, re-homing the children with a new family? Would you be willing to refuse adoptions to single parents? Would you be willing to penalize a parent whose spouse has died and who refuses to re-marry within a reasonable period of time?
Surely, as well, there are other issues more important to a child’s welfare than having two parents of opposite sex. I’d wager that it’s more harmful for a child to grow up with a parent with ongoing serious mental illness (e.g., depression), or with a parent dependent on alcohol or other drugs, or a parent who believes medical care is anti-biblical, or a parent who believes vaccinations harm the child’s health. Would you be willing to outlaw all of the above people becoming parents?
If you are unwilling to take any of these measures to protect a child’s “right to a mother [and] a father” or other presumed rights to a productive chidhood, why are you willing to deny marriage to same-sex couples to protect those rights?
Stipulating that you are able to come up with strong answers to #1 and #2, you’ve still not addressed same-sex marriage. All you’ve done is come up with a rationale for disallowing same-sex parenting. I don’t think you’ll come up with such a rationale, but if you do, it’d be perfectly consistent to approve of same-sex marriage while disapproving of same-sex parenting. By what means do you equate the two?
You have a child, boy or girl, you pick. For the example, I’ll use a girl. You love her more than anything. You would give your life for hers in a second. You want the best of everything for her. Health, education happiness. Nothing can lessen the love you feel for her one iota, certainly not the sex of a partner she might choose to spend the rest of her life with. and, for this example, same-sex couples would suffer no type of discrimination whatsoever.
Now, if you could choose her sexual orientation for her, which would you choose?