Let me also say, the ads are weirder than usual in this thread today - first all anxiety ads, now criminal record ads. 
Not really, although I have nightmares every time Gloria Allred makes the news. The whole thing doesn’t really make me angry. It’s more like the feeling I get when I see a nine-foot inflatable Grinch in someone’s yard this time of year. Kind of a “What the hell are you thinking!?” But yeah, maybe a little anger, because it’s like they’re saying, “Aw, hell, anybody can raise a kid – I’m gonna’ have me a baby just because I can!” Although there is no rational basis for making people justify having children, either. That’s just stupid.
I’m taking a close look at the links about raising children. Like I said, somewhere I latched onto the notion that we humans are hard-wired to be raised by hetero couples, and screwing around with that is dangerous. I really think that’s the fundament here. Gotta’ take a hard look at that.
I never said single parents couldn’t do the job, although it is harder. And I mean more than twice as hard – it’s like harder cubed. But I think **Dangerosa ** hit the nail on the head. I admire someone who has lost his or her spouse and raises the children alone. I admire a single woman who finds herself pregnant and opts against terminating the pregnancy (although I vehemently support her right to do so.) I mean, bad stuff happens; unexpected things happen. But having raised kids with my wife, I believe that single parenthood is a tremendous challenge, and not one to be sought. But I think that’s different from the gay/lesbian parenthood thing. For one thing, I believe I need to work out my negative emotional response to gay/lesbian parenthood. I have no such inclination when it comes to people who deliberately seek single parenthood.
I’ve been thinking about this a bit lately.
I can see how one might think that two opposite-sex parents is the only way to go. There are a lot of important behaviours that people learn about by seeing them modeled by their mothers and fathers. But a lot of the things we see as part of “how to be a man” or “how to be a woman” actually don’t have to depend on sex. How does the physically stronger person in a relationship treat the physically weaker person? How does the person who usually cooks dinner treat the person who usually doesn’t? How does the person who brings in more money treat the person who brings in less money?
Yup, and I think that there was a time when the traditional man-woman partnership in child-raising was more important – back when everybody chopped firewood, hunted for food and repaired harness during the winter months. But in just three generations, we’ve gone so far beyond that family model that it’s viewed as an anachronism. Nothing says a boy’s “other mother” can’t teach him how to fish or drink beer, although it’ll be interesting to see how the coming-of-age conversations turn out. When I was a lad and my mother tried to tell me how to show respect for girls/women, I took it all with a grain of salt. But when Pop told me that a real man treats a woman with respect and dignity – well, that was truly a no-shit moment, because Pop was a real man, and he ought to know how a real man acts. Now, I’m not saying this kind of perception is necessary in the healthy development of a boy’s mind (mostly because I still haven’t had time to study the links referenced above, but I certainly will.) One has only to talk briefly with the son of an abusive husband to realize that fathers are not unfailingly good role models for sons.
Lots of good insight and information.
…That also seems to be assuming that, even allowing for other ways of raising a child, you’d want the proper outcome of raising the kid to be roughly the same (i.e., like you ended up as an adult, within tolerances); and that all children are such blank slates that only parental action influences the kind of perosn they become (ignoring such things as, say…culture, the time period, individual brain chemistry, psychology, and/or soul, etc.). Or, to be less charitable, that you think, on some level, that most children have to be so much like you that there can be very few ways of raising them properly.
See? I’m not just a jester—I can be snarky and judgmental, too! 
Well, I agree with Sunrazor here.
The idea of Republicans raising children just makes me sick to my stomach. Especially a hypocritical, self-denigrating one like Mary Cheney. Just imagine how messed-up those kids will turn out.
Sunrazor, all admiration for your wanting to understand your prejudice of mind here.
For your further thought: I’m hetero gal, and raised liberally, but not radically, and have never felt anything wrong with same sex marriage, nor raising kids with same sex couples. Just not any, ever, none and nada. That’s to show it’s not an absolute ingrained trait to show that sort of doubt. I suppose my wild card might be have being raised without church religion.
Second: I’ll hold up two good friends of mine, two fine men, both professors, very proficient and acclaimed in their field, and, a long-term, loving couple. They both have very busy lives, a good part devoted to community efforts. In their spare time, right, they open their home to foster children, and , especially since they are fluent in Spanish, to Hispanic kids in need. I cannot say how much I admire them; they are way more excellent parents than I’ve seen with most people who go there by biology. They’ve thought about adopting, and a child couldn’t be more blessed with devoted parents there.
It’s about being loved, and wanted, and paid attention to with children; whatever sexual “bits” the parent has is small consequence. The heart the person has is what’s important.
But your squick factor doesn’t turn on when its a single woman seeking parenthood. So there is more to this than “lack of a male role model” or even “men as sperm donors.” It seems to be (to be blunt) “lack of a PROPER male role model instead of a dyke stand in.”
I would suggest that instead of worrying about this right now, you meet/talk to people who were raised by gay parents or gay parents who are raising children. That way you can see for yourself how it works out.