Are children born to and raised by lesbians more likely to engage in same-sex sexual activity? Law professor Eugene Volokh reports on an interesting study that address that question:
There’s long been something of a debate about this question, and I thought I’d note an interesting and apparently quite credible article touching on it, Nanette K. Gartrell, Henny M. W. Bos & Naomi G. Goldberg, Adolescents of the U.S. National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study: Sexual Orientation, Sexual Behavior, and Sexual Risk Exposure, Archives of Sexual Behavior (2010). (I learned of it because one of the coauthors is affiliated with the Williams Institute for sexual orientation and the law here at UCLA School of Law.)
The study was part of an ongoing study that, at this stage, involved 77 families, “31 continuously-coupled, 40 separated-mother, and six single-mother families,” and 78 17-year-old children (one family had twins). Of the girls, nearly 50% described themselves as at least partly homosexual in orientation, though 30% out of that 50% were “predominantly heterosexual, incidentally homosexual.” (None of the girls, though, identified themselves as predominantly or exclusively lesbian.) Of the boys, a bit over 20% described themselves as at least partly homosexual in orientation, though 13% out of that 20% described themselves as “predominantly heterosexual, incidentally homosexual.” (Two of the boys identified themselves as predominantly or exclusively gay.) “The … Kinsey self-identifications [of the girls in the study] and lifetime sexual experiences were consistent with Stacey and Biblarz’s (2001) and Biblarz and Stacey’s (2010) theory that the offspring of lesbian and gay parents might be more open to homoerotic exploration and same-sex orientation.”
Nothing too surprising, but interesting to see it confirmed by an empirical study. Here’s a related data point from the study that is worth citing:
Of the 73 couples who were co-parenting when the index offspring were born, 56% had separated, and the average age of the index offspring at the time of their mothers’ separation was 6.97 years (SD=4.42 years). There was a significant difference between the parental divorce rate (36.3%) of the 17-year old adolescents in the 6th Cycle of the U.S. National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) and the maternal relationship dissolution rate in the NLLFS (v2=12.32; p=.001).
In other words, all things being equal, a child born to a lesbian couple is 20% more likely to live in a broken home than a child born to heterosexual parents. Again, not a surprising finding. I’m not sure where the myth that lesbians “mate for life” originated, but it’s just that—a myth. As one study found, lesbian relationships are “not as likely to endure as relationships between heterosexuals, either married or cohabiting, or between gay men.”
May 23rd, 2011 | 10:29 am
I have only had time to skim the study, but I look forward to reading it and encourage others to do so. It is filled with positives that you have not mentioned. For example:
May 23rd, 2011 | 10:31 am
What’s interesting to me is not the data on broken “families”, but the data on self-identification.
“Of the girls, nearly 50% described themselves as at least partly homosexual in orientation…Of the boys, a bit over 20% described themselves as at least partly homosexual in orientation…”
Those are both numbers tremendously greater than the percentages obtained by countless psychological studies of the general population (which have claimed 1-10%, with most falling in the 3% range). In other words *gasp* sexual orientation seems to predominantly be a matter of nurture, NOT nature–it tends to be what is modeled to us or done to us (in the case of sexual abuse).
Why is it that so many homosexual advocates continue to beat the drum of sexual determinism? Of course I know why, it’s the only way the lifestyle can truly be justified, but the data proves the claim false.
May 23rd, 2011 | 10:57 am
In other words *gasp* sexual orientation seems to predominantly be a matter of nurture, NOT nature–it tends to be what is modeled to us or done to us (in the case of sexual abuse).
I don’t know how you conclude that from the study. Of the girls, 51.4% considered themselves exclusively heterosexual, and of the boys, 78.4%. Of the girls, none considered themselves exclusively homosexual, and of the boys 2.7%. So of 39 boys and 39 girls raised by Lesbian mothers, there were 3 girls who identified as truly bisexual, 1 who identified as more homosexual than heterosexual, and none who identified as exclusively homosexual. There was only one boy who could be classified as gay, and one who was “predominantly heterosexual, but more than incidentally homosexual.”
How do people become exclusively homosexual if only 1 boy and no girls raised by lesbians turn out gay?
May 23rd, 2011 | 10:58 am
David,
Is it possible the sample size of kids with divorced/separated homosexual parents is so small as to fail the requirements of statistical significance?
I’m skeptical there are thousands of kids in those circumstances, let alone available for longitudinal double-blind studies.
Time will provide that data, just not sure we have it yet. Of course, that holds for the opposite, too. If we don’t have enough data to reach a conclusion as to the lack of injury with homosexual separation, neither would we have enough to show injury.
May 23rd, 2011 | 11:11 am
Artaban,
If the sample size is too small to demonstrate the things you don’t want to believe, it is also too small to demonstrate the things you do want to believe.
May 23rd, 2011 | 11:12 am
“Partially homosexual” sounds like “totally confused.”
Which is probably the true major problem about these poor kids.
May 23rd, 2011 | 11:19 am
One other obvious point. If you don’t see it as a negative that people are homosexual, you won’t see it as a negative that the offspring of same-sex couples are more likely to be “partly” homosexual. If you aren’t, say, an anti-Semite, it doesn’t bother you that when Jews marry, they will produce more Jews when they have children.
May 23rd, 2011 | 11:35 am
Perhaps what we have here is a greater willingness to acknowledge homosexual feelings and so to identify as “partly homosexual”
The point about the sample size is well taken. I do not know of an study of unrelated children adopted by same-sex couples. I doubt the number is very great – most studies seem to deal with a biological parent and their same-sex companion.
May 23rd, 2011 | 12:05 pm
“Partially homosexual” sounds like “totally confused.”
Carlo,
Have you never heard of the Kinsey Scale?
I really rather doubt that anybody is totally, 100% heterosexual or homosexual. It’s difficult to find reliable statistics, but many men and women who would consider themselves heterosexual have nevertheless had homosexual experiences. (Some estimates are as high as 30% or more.) I think almost everyone has at least some capacity to respond to both the same sex and the opposite sex.
May 23rd, 2011 | 12:14 pm
That strikes me as rigging the definitions. If having a particular appreciation for certain female attributes and the ability to be attracted to certain aspects of other women makes me “partly lesbian,” then I am. But who said it does? If it’s Kinsey, I wouldn’t trust Kinsey as an authority on the nature of dog breeds, let alone the nature of human sexuality.
May 23rd, 2011 | 12:43 pm
David:
yes, I heard of the Kinsley scale, and I consider it perfectly idiotic, thank you! Actually, worse that that: I regard it as pseudo-science largely driven by ideology (namely Freudo-Marxism: are you familiar with the works of Wilhelm Reich?)
May 23rd, 2011 | 12:48 pm
pentamom,
Nobody said anything about being “partly lesbian.” I don’t think it should freak anyone out that sexual orientation can be measured on a spectrum rather than by classifying everyone neatly in one of three distinct groups (heterosexual, bisexual, or homosexual). No matter what they think of Kinsey, I don’t think anyone disagrees that sexual orientation is so simple that there are only three categories.
May 23rd, 2011 | 12:55 pm
Considering how blighted by political correctness the new definitions of what constitute “social problems”, “Rule-breaking” and “aggressiveness” are, I am not surprised that these kids of lesbians, who were raised with precisely this system in mind, would rate higher. After all, these are the kids such a system was tailor-made for. I’m actually surprised its just 20% better.
Your average, well-adjusted boy raised in a heterosexual Christian family will probably already tick all those aggressive rule-breaking behaviors boxes just for wearing a cross around his neck.
May 23rd, 2011 | 1:03 pm
[...] Study: Children Raised in Lesbian Familes Likely to Identify as Partly Homosexual – FT [...]
May 23rd, 2011 | 1:03 pm
“One other obvious point. If you don’t see it as a negative that people are homosexual, you won’t see it as a negative that the offspring of same-sex couples are more likely to be “partly” homosexual.”
David, that does NOT logically follow, for the very simple reason that a person who identifies as bisexual is more likely to be 1) not monogamous, with all the negative effects that brings and 2) susceptible to a greater incidence of STDs, as those come with the territory when promiscuous.
May 23rd, 2011 | 1:07 pm
I don’t think you can be partly lesbian. You can be bisexual, though. Amazing how studies and arguments always ignore bisexuality.
May 23rd, 2011 | 1:08 pm
[...] raised by gay parents are more likely to be gay or bisexual themselves, a study shows. Also, those children are more likely to have their families break [...]
May 23rd, 2011 | 1:41 pm
Artaban –
It may be more obvious to Woody Allen (“The good thing about being bisexual is that it doubles your chance of a date on a Saturday night.”) but I confess to a doubt.
Has it actually been established that “a person who identifies as bisexual” actually is “more likely to be… promiscuous”? If so, where?
(Besides, a bisexual female might be expected to have a lower incidence of STDs; lesbian STD transmission is vastly more rare than heterosexual. But that’s a side point.)
May 23rd, 2011 | 1:41 pm
“Nobody said anything about being “partly lesbian.”
What do you mean? This whole discussion is predicated on the notion of kids being “partially homosexual,” which you then went to explain could refer to a sliding scale whereby nearly everyone feels more or less attraction to either sex. I was just applying it to my particular case which would, if it held true, obviously be specifically lesbian in relation to other women. If you’re making a significant distinction between partly and partially, I stand corrected on my mistake, but it doesn’t really alter my point.
May 23rd, 2011 | 3:39 pm
“One other obvious point. If you don’t see it as a negative that people are homosexual, you won’t see it as a negative that the offspring of same-sex couples are more likely to be “partly” homosexual.”
Sorry, no such thing as “offspring” from a same-sex couple. They might have children in their family from any number of different methods, but at no point did a sperm and egg from their complementary pairing join together to form a child of their union, an offspring, biologically related to them both.
Too much language has been hijacked already, let’s not continue.
May 23rd, 2011 | 3:46 pm
Sorry, no such thing as “offspring” from a same-sex couple.
Therese Z,
It was a careless error, not an attempt to claim a male couple or a female couple can conceive without some outside help!
May 23rd, 2011 | 4:39 pm
What do you mean? This whole discussion is predicated on the notion of kids being “partially homosexual,” which you then went to explain could refer to a sliding scale whereby nearly everyone feels more or less attraction to either sex.
pentamom,
What you seem to object to is the notion that sexual orientation is on a continuum or spectrum, but that is widely (I would guess universally) accepted in psychology and psychiatry. If you can find anything authoritative to contradict it, I would love to take a look at it.
The reason I objected to “partly lesbian” is that I take gay and lesbian to be self-identifications, not sexual orientations. Say a man or woman is truly bisexual—equally attracted to the same sex or the opposite sex. If they choose to settle down in traditional marriages, they are certainly cannot be described as a gay man and a lesbian. If the man partners with another man, and the woman partners with another woman, they may very well identify themselves as gay and lesbian. How do we classify a married man who has children but occasionally has furtive sex with other men? He wouldn’t call himself gay, and I wouldn’t call him gay either. What about people who have one homosexual experience in a lifetime. Are they gay or lesbian?
Dr. John Money, a sex researcher, has said there are as many orientations as there are people. It is just crazy to think everyone can be described with three labels.
May 23rd, 2011 | 6:46 pm
“What you seem to object to is the notion that sexual orientation is on a continuum or spectrum, but that is widely (I would guess universally) accepted in psychology and psychiatry. ”
No, I object to the notion that being attracted to one or the other sex in any sense equates to a level of “sexual orientation.” To the extent it is true that sexual orientation is on a continuum or spectrum, that is not necessarily the same as saying that “capacity to respond to both the same sex and the opposite sex” is a measure or indicator of sexual orientation. We respond (positively) to people of both sexes, or feel attraction to them, in a myriad of ways, not only sexual. Too easily lumping “responses” with “sexual responses” is misleading. Maybe you didn’t intend to do that, but your language left the door open, and I suspect the methodology of the Kinsey Scale is biased toward treating nearly all human responses and feelings toward others as sexual on some level, Kinsey being Kinsey. So my real point is that while it may be true that sexual orientation occurs on a continuum, I find anything coming out of Kinsey that purports to demonstrate it about as useful as a bicycle for a fish.
May 23rd, 2011 | 7:19 pm
I think it’s a common sense observation — something for which we don’t need Kinsey — that there is a continuum of sexual orientation. That human nature is pretty strongly heterosexual in its slant. That a very small % (2-3%) appear to be exclusively homosexual. But that some sizable double digit of any given population have flexible tendencies. There is nothing new here. Though it’s understandable that a child raised by homosexuals or lesbians might be more inclined to be open to homosexual experiences and experimentation.
If one is an adult, I think one should responsibly experiment with one’s dating life, in accordance with one’s acceptable moral parameters. How else do you know what you are looking for unless you give it a try.
If one is under 18, whatever one does while dating, I don’t think sex is appropriate (that’s just my opinion). Because sex has adult like consequences, it is behavior that should be reserved exclusively for adults. That is, people 18 or over.
May 23rd, 2011 | 9:04 pm
Artaban:
“In other words *gasp* sexual orientation seems to predominantly be a matter of nurture, NOT nature”
How do you figure that? If a child is “born to a lesbian couple,” then he or she is presumably the biological offspring of a lesbian woman. That being the case, how do you disentangle nature and nurture?
May 23rd, 2011 | 9:49 pm
“and I suspect the methodology of the Kinsey Scale is biased toward treating nearly all human responses and feelings toward others as sexual on some level, Kinsey being Kinsey. So my real point is that while it may be true that sexual orientation occurs on a continuum, I find anything coming out of Kinsey that purports to demonstrate it about as useful as a bicycle for a fish.”
It could be that Kinsey being Kinsey, the well is poisoned and you will not take him seriously. But I would suggest looking beyond the fact that Kinsey coined the continuum and considering that the continuum is a reality.
May 23rd, 2011 | 9:59 pm
I am glad to see other commenters make the obvious point that “sexual orientation” is a contemporary cultural construct that tries to reduce the complexity of human relationships to a simple one-dimensional scale, which can then be the object of bogus “scientific measurement.” The goal being, of course, to back up the ideological dogma that male-female differentiation is just accessory to the nature and purpose of sexuality…
May 23rd, 2011 | 10:27 pm
“If one is an adult, I think one should responsibly experiment with one’s dating life, in accordance with one’s acceptable moral parameters. How else do you know what you are looking for unless you give it a try.”
(Sarcasm) Oh sure! Men, women, menage a trois, orgies, animals, now we’re even starting to see objects popularized (NG’s Taboo, the podcast “Stuff Your Mom Never Told You”).
“Dr. John Money, a sex researcher, has said there are as many orientations as there are people. It is just crazy to think everyone can be described with three labels.”
It’s seemed to work pretty well for all the rest of human history. Besides, seems like it’d be pretty hard to find a match on a dating sight if we ascribed to the “as many orientations as there are people” nonsense.
As I’ve stated before elsewhere, the “How else do you know what you are looking for unless you give it a try?” mentality is ridiculous, immoral tripe. How do I know I wouldn’t like murdering someone? “Like” is hardly justification for actions, and curiosity far from justification for immorality.
Look, this may be TMI, but as a male I may be physiologically aroused by the sight of two attractive women kissing. That doesn’t mean I’d approve of my girlfriend doing it or ever try and bring “another girl” into the relationship. Nor does it mean I suddenly need to get a sex change so I can live out that temptation/experience from the inside. We need to start calling the absurd what it is. When we don’t, we’re just like the citizens who told the emperor without clothes that he was magnificently clad.
People do have moral compasses that don’t need to be violated in order to know right from wrong, and we’re actively harming youth by pushing the experimentation mentality.
May 23rd, 2011 | 10:28 pm
It will only get “worse” as I sit here having to put up with the PSA commercials during NBA playoff games trying to condone homosexual behavior in the teenage years. GLSEN has infiltrated the NBA. I wonder what professional sport they will infiltrate next? I guess I’m done watching and going to NBA games.
May 23rd, 2011 | 10:51 pm
I don’t think I need to point out that comparing a voluntary sexual act between consenting adults to murder (something that not just violates the harm principle, but in the worst way) is a very bad analogy. Your false analogies are “ridiculous” and “absurd.”
And I don’t doubt you are aroused by two attractive women kissing. I don’t think there is anything wrong with two adult women kissing and if one woman finds that she works better in a lesbian relationship than a heterosexual one, so be it.
Human nature is overwhelmingly heterosexual in its slant; until we change the human genome no amount of experimenting with homosexuality will change that.
May 23rd, 2011 | 11:20 pm
Science is the perfect god of the left, the deviant. Once corrupted, she will tell you anything you want to hear.
Satan is beneath despicable. He takes what is inherently good, science, the search for truth nurtured in the church, turns it into a god then uses it to sell his lies.
This is all as old as humanity.
We are not the first civilization to embrace filthy sodomy. Hopefully we’ll be the last.
May 23rd, 2011 | 11:38 pm
I just don’t understand all the anti-gay rhetoric. Is it just a need to feel better than a certain class in our society? It’s interesting how people who are happy with their jobs and families don’t seem to have so much resentment toward gays.
May 24th, 2011 | 3:44 am
Artaban wrote
I”t’s seemed to work pretty well for all the rest of human history.”
Did it? My own reading suggests that the whole notion of sexual orientation first appears in the 19th century. The ancients distinguished sharply between passive male homosexuals, who were though of as a sort of third sex (I am relying particularly on Juvenal here and the gossip about Caesar – “Every man’s woman and every woman’s man”) and the active party, who seems to have attracted no particular opprobrium.
In the Middle Ages and Early Modern period, “sodomite” was a pure verbal substantive, like “listener,” or “adulterer,” with no suggestion of someone possessing a special or distinct personality. It was viewed as a sin and, if habitual, as a vice, but certainly not as a “condition.”
The “pederast” emerged as a figure of medical interest, early in the 19th century and, with it, the idea of his sexual preference as something pervading his whole personality. A similar process occurred in the 20th century, when the drunkard became the alcoholic.
May 24th, 2011 | 4:17 am
In addition, on the standardized Child Behavior Checklist, the daughters and sons of lesbian mothers were rated significantly higher in social, school/academic, and total competence, and significantly lower in social problems, rule-breaking, aggressive, and externalizing problem behavior than their peers in the normative sample of American youth (Gartrell & Bos, 2010).
Do the same “advantages” that appear in studies where self-selected lesbian-headed families reappear in random, representative samples?
Do the same “advantages” that appear in studies where self-selected lesbian-headed families reappear in families headed by gay males?
Not that it really matters, for four reasons:
1. most of the tests being used to “confirm” that kids don’t mind being robbed of one of their parental relationships are obviously and visibly skewed in the direction of the desired outcome
2. these tests avoid the real questions – for instance, are these kids parentified? is a far more pressing question than whether they “perform” well. Of course they’re going to “perform” well: they were raised knowing they are to be the number one exhibit in their family’s political presentation, fer goodness sake.
3. even if these tests were asking the most relevant questions (instead of avoiding the obviously relevant questions in favor of the questions that sound good), there are still too many variables that need testing to draw any conclusions. Dysfunctional patterns are easy to hide until the kids grow up and have families of their own – at that point, we will have to see what issues reveal themselves (I’m guessing: grief, rage or anger issues, identity issues, communication issues, trust issues, and the problems associated with parentification – that is, the problems associated with having to “grow up too quickly” in one or more ways, associated with having an emotionally needy parent).
4. The real reason it does not matter, of course, is because the real question is not whether kids “perform okay” – kids are not products.
The question is whether we are taking something from them which they have reason to value.
Do people value having a mother-relationship?
Do people value having a father-relationship?
Do people find that mothers and fathers are interchangeable?
How many people simply voluntarily choose to talk about their sexual awakening (wet dreams, etc) with their opposite-sex parent, even though they have a good relationship with their same-sex parent?
How many girls simply voluntarily choose to dance with their mom, instead of their dad, at their wedding?
What we are asking of these kids is, first, to do without something that they are entitled to – something that is valuable, and they have reason to value – then, further, we are asking them to play out a fiction that says there is no loss involved, they don’t mind being asked to do without what was taken from them.
That is as much “living a lie” as anything gays have ever been asked to do.
May 24th, 2011 | 6:47 am
It’s seemed to work pretty well for all the rest of human history. Besides, seems like it’d be pretty hard to find a match on a dating sight if we ascribed to the “as many orientations as there are people” nonsense.
Artaban,
Well, I guess we can’t accuse you of not being literal-minded enough. The remark was not meant to imply that people can’t be reasonably classified as gay, straight, or bisexual, or by Kinsey’s 0-6 scale. It means there are an immense number of variations within those classifications. One woman may be attracted to older men. Another woman may be attracted to younger men. A third may be attracted to men her own age. They are all three heterosexual, but they are all three different. There are men who find “pleasingly plump” women attractive. There are other men who consider them to be overweight and unattractive. They are all heterosexual, but what they find sexually appealing is different. There are people who like to be aggressors, and there are people who like their partners to “take charge.”
The reason dating sites exist is because everyone is different, not because everyone is the same. If everyone were the same, any man would be a match for any woman. Dating sites (if they existed) would not include photos.
May 24th, 2011 | 9:00 am
“But I would suggest looking beyond the fact that Kinsey coined the continuum and considering that the continuum is a reality.”
I’m not denying that possibility, I’m denying the likelihood that we discover it using Kinsey’s methods, and therefore, that it exists *in the way* that Kinsey describes it — namely, that we can assess it by thinking about things as simple and as common as whether we “respond” in some way to each sex. It can be a reality, and yet an entirely different sort of reality from the kind of reality Kinsey thinks it is.
May 24th, 2011 | 9:47 am
pentamom,
Do you have even a vague idea as to how Kinsey rated people on his scale or how others use it?
May 24th, 2011 | 10:06 am
Actually, my knowledge of it didn’t exist before yesterday. But since I know Kinsey’s fundamentally wrong on sexuality, I need to know about as much about it to assume it’s misguided as I need to know about some specific aspect of Lamarck’s theories to know we don’t want to base anything on them.
May 24th, 2011 | 10:44 am
David Nickol,
Here you are again! David, I thought my advice to you on an earlier post was useful, didn’t you see it? Stop making these ridiculous, long winded arguments, dear! You are a sentimentalist. Remember? Like Huck, we both need to do what we feel in our heart is right. You’re better off (and more honest) singing people a song, or weeping uncontrollably, while screaming out words like “justice” or “bigotry.” Maybe then, others may feel things like you do. As a liberal Protestant, you should know better. And as one of my fans, it’s a requirement!
May 24th, 2011 | 11:25 am
Stop making these ridiculous, long winded arguments, dear!
I can’t help it. I was, um, born this way.
You’re better off (and more honest) singing people a song . . . .
If given a choice between hearing me sing and hearing me argue, people who have heard me sing would much prefer that I argue.
May 24th, 2011 | 11:32 am
I just don’t understand all the anti-gay rhetoric. Is it just a need to feel better than a certain class in our society? It’s interesting how people who are happy with their jobs and families don’t seem to have so much resentment toward gays.
It’s not anti-gay.
I have no problem with gays.
I have a problem with people who are committed to violating other peoples’ boundaries. Whether they are gay or straight is really quite beside the point.
You can have any vice you like, and I’ll leave you alone. But when your vice starts affecting the people around you – or you have to drag kids into destructive games – or you even start trying to rope me into playing an unwilling part in your fantasies – then it becomes my business.
I know some people are very committed to believing that it has to do with their sexuality, because they really want it to. Why is that? Why do they need to have their sex be the center of everything?
May 24th, 2011 | 12:13 pm
Blake:
Are you saying gay is “a vice”? And by the way… who is obsesed with others sexuality here? If your concern is with the kids…then can I also use your same standard for kids whose fathers teach them religious fundamentalism and what I consider to be authentic vices (bigotry, intolerance, ignorance concerning scientific matters)?
May 24th, 2011 | 2:00 pm
“But since I know Kinsey’s fundamentally wrong on sexuality,…”
Pentamom: You are engaging in the logical fallacy known as poisoning the well. A broken clock is right twice a day. Even if Kinsey was wrong on a lot of things, the sexual orientation continuum is a reality.
May 24th, 2011 | 3:10 pm
pentamom,
Just to add to what Jon Rowe said, we are discussing an article in a thread that Joe Carter saw fit to name Study Finds Children Raised in Lesbian Familes More Likely to Identify as “Partly Homosexual”. If you think Kinsey’s notions of sexual orientation are wrong, shouldn’t you be criticizing the researchers who used the Kinsey scale and Joe himself for characterizing the results “nothing too surprising”? If Kinsey’s ideas are bunk, then the study is pretty much bunk, too, insofar as it is based on Kinsey’s concept of sexual orientation being on a continuum.
May 25th, 2011 | 7:01 am
If your concern is with the kids…then can I also use your same standard for kids whose fathers teach them religious fundamentalism
I have no problem with with parents teaching their kids their values.
The part I have a problem with is when they actually step over the line into abusing their children – for instance, there’s a difference between a child not having a mother for reasons that are not preventable, vs. deliberately arranging to have a child rendered motherless. Taking away a child’s relationship with his mother is child abuse (and has been recognized as abusive in other contexts, legally – it’s only a matter of time before “equality under the law” catches up to the loophole gays are exploiting).
Likewise, adoption has been likened by actual adoptees and by adoption experts as being like amputation. A significant part of the child is severed. To do this for the health and well-being of the child is one thing, but “gay reproduction” actually supports the idea that a parent’s desires can be adequate justification for treating this amputation as an elective procedure – done not for the well-being of the child, but to feed the emotional neediness of the parent.
You’re welcome to your own interpretation on what sexual behavior is or is not a vice, but coveting what isn’t yours is a vice. Gay marriage is built on coveting other peoples’ kids.
Because the central “truth” of their family is not a truth at all – but a lie – it is like all other lies: it “weaves a tangled web”. This is where gays drag other people into their fantasy. They cannot stand the truth – they need the child to not only be motherless (or fatherless), but to actually play out a role that accepts the second gay parent as the absent mother or father, which means they need the child to pretend there is no loss involved, that they aren’t really motherless. In order to get a child to play along with such an obviously deranged fantasy requires a lot of coercion. The kids must be pressured from birth. Everyone must be bullied into playing along, because a single kid yelling about emperors with no clothes undoes the whole fantasy.
Hence the reason for “gay rights” movements that are really about trying to shame or punish anyone who doesn’t play along with the fantasy. Truth is not compatible with gay marriage, hence gay marriage has to be built on Orwellian doublespeak – holding two contradictory thoughts in your head at the same time, and believing both of them. “It is evil to force anyone to live a lie, but there’s no harm in forcing this child to pretend he’s got two daddies”. “Men and women are interchangeable – but you cannot possibly expect me to love my child’s mother when I prefer males.” “Marriage is not about procreation, except that founding a family is what marriage is all about.” And so on.
May 25th, 2011 | 9:59 am
“I have a problem with people who are committed to violating other peoples’ boundaries. Whether they are gay or straight is really quite beside the point.”
Sounds like a good argument for same-sex unions. Why are so many conservatives intent on dictating the legal, financial, interpersonal, and home lives of homosexuals?
May 25th, 2011 | 10:11 am
Blake,
About a third of children adopted from Foster Care go to single parents, with many of them being older, hard-to-place children or “special needs” children. We must stop this outrage immediately.
May 25th, 2011 | 9:53 pm
Blake,
About a third of children adopted from Foster Care go to single parents, with many of them being older, hard-to-place children or “special needs” children. We must stop this outrage immediately.
Having single parents or gay couples adopt children is fine, if no committed families are available.
But we should not pretend that they’re just as good. A family that is both willing and able to see to the child’s needs is superior to a family that argues that the child will be just fine without having a mother/father/whatever the parent doesn’t feel like providing.
May 26th, 2011 | 11:31 am
“But we should not pretend that they’re just as good.”
Who’s pretending? When we adopted our daughter, all the social workers said that married couples were optimal. Problem is: not enough married couples want to adopt. The waiting list of kids is very, very long.
May 26th, 2011 | 1:56 pm
Blake:
“Because the central “truth” of their family is not a truth at all – but a lie – it is like all other lies: it “weaves a tangled web”. This is where gays drag other people into their fantasy. They cannot stand the truth – they need the child to not only be motherless (or fatherless), but to actually play out a role that accepts the second gay parent as the absent mother or father, which means they need the child to pretend there is no loss involved, that they aren’t really motherless. In order to get a child to play along with such an obviously deranged fantasy requires a lot of coercion. The kids must be pressured from birth. Everyone must be bullied into playing along, because a single kid yelling about emperors with no clothes undoes the whole fantasy.”
Blake, we have discussed this to many times and its becoming boring. Even if valid (and its not) your whole argument still does not apply against gay adoptions of orphans, or in the case a gay person has a biological child (for example, that gay person having it in a marriage before comming out of the closet), ect…At least of course you want to apply an exception only in the case of gay people, which is what I suspect your tiring and bigoted tirades are about.
May 26th, 2011 | 3:50 pm
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May 26th, 2011 | 6:10 pm
Blake, we have discussed this to many times and its becoming boring.
Well, sure you’re bored; instead of addressing the content of my arguments, you just keep launching ad hominem attacks: I’m “bigoted”, I’m “boring”, blah blah blah.
Try thinking through the problem and actually addressing it honestly. Maybe when you stop relying on intellectually lazy talking points (i.e. mischaracterizing my position, trying to drag the argument back to the same old tired argumentum ad hominem/ad misericordium emotional appeals, etc.), and perhaps when you rise to the challenge of actually speaking to the real conflict, you will find you are not bored at all.
Let’s start with this one: Children have a fundamental, very basic, very non-negotiable right to freedom from exploitation. Freedom from exploitation is a very, very fundamental right.
Now the problem is this: when a custody decision is made regarding a child, the child’s “best interest” needs to be the number one priority. Anything less than that violates the child’s right to be free from exploitation, because as soon as you have a child’s circumstances and a child’s life being arranged around the needs of anyone other than that child, you have exploitation.
This is the difference between adoption vs. child trafficking. If two families are available, or potentially available, adoption’s justification and legitimacy require that the child’s well-being be the criteria that distinguishes which family should take the child. The family that can best serve the child’s needs should be prioritized.
The problem is, this is fundamentally and inevitably in conflict with what gays are demanding, because gays require nothing less than to have “gay rights” prioritized over the child’s rights.
This means, among other things, that we start from the premise that gays should be granted the same rights as other couples – even if that means that a child is not only deprived of a same-sex parent relationship, but also forced to submit to pressuring to pretend (and play a role publicly) that says the child does not mind being deprived of this relationship.
Children’s needs don’t change just because the parents in the case happen to be emotionally needy.
Gay adoption is better than a foster home, if a more suitable family is not available. But there is no reason to play along with the politically correct fantasy that having “two dads” or “two moms” is as good as having both parents. It’s not “as good”. To suppose that genders are interchangeable is just nonsense (if sex didn’t matter, then gays wouldn’t have to marry same-sex partners, would they?).
Ultimately, the problem with gay marriage isn’t that I’m a bigot, it’s that gay marriage is built on people lying, and forcing other people into lies, and committing very public forms of fraud, because they covet what isn’t rightfully theirs.
The problem is, the lies they must tell come into “zero sum” conflict with a child’s right to not live a lie.
I can see why you would find that “boring”, since the entire gay argument is based on the gay person being the only one with rights, needs, feelings, or a point of view; anyone other point of view MUST be dismissed out of hand or else the entire argument falls apart.
So go ahead: think about real answers to those concerns – or just call me a bigot again, yawn.
May 26th, 2011 | 6:24 pm
Who’s pretending? When we adopted our daughter, all the social workers said that married couples were optimal. Problem is: not enough married couples want to adopt. The waiting list of kids is very, very long.
Yes, it is sad that we have so many unwanted children.
I blame the sexual revolution – for creating unwanted babies in the first place, and for breaking up the families so that many families who do want to keep their children end up losing their children because they don’t know how to be good parents, and the traditional supports – family and community – are wrecked, courtesy of left wing social experiments (“hey let’s pay women to have babies, but only if there is no man in the house!”).
The cure is not more selfishness.
The cure is to put the kids first for a change.
I am sorry for gay people, having this huge conflict between what they want vs. what is right. But if you love your child, you will recognize that your child needs and wants and deserves a real mom and a real dad all his own. Your sexual problems should not be his problem.
May 27th, 2011 | 11:39 am
Blake –
Let’s assume you’re right, and a mother and a father are optimal – all else being equal.
The problem is, not all else is necessarily equal. It’s still entirely possible for two particular dads or moms to be superior parents for a child than many traditional couples, no?
Having a mother and a father may be optimal, but that’s only one consideration. What if – in particular cases – other considerations outweigh that? Is that a possible case?
May 27th, 2011 | 5:02 pm
Your argument goes like this:
1. Gay couples can´t give children what they are require to grow up as healthy adults. That because children require to grow up as healthy adults can only be given by heteroxual couples.
2. Gay couples do not deserve the same adopting rights than heteroxual couples for the exposed in 1.
3. Thus gays that demand those rights are demanding the right to “exploit” their children.
The problem of course is that, to put in your terms (“not politically correct”) you haven´t provided a shred of evidence to sustain the point expressed in 1. Children do not need a man and women to raise them. They need people (1, 2 or more) that love them and that are willing to give love and everything they need to grow up. Being man, woman, 1 or 2, heterosexual or homsoexual have NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.
So yes, excuse me if I call you the bigot you are.
May 27th, 2011 | 9:57 pm
1. Gay couples can´t give children what they are require to grow up as healthy adults. That because children require to grow up as healthy adults can only be given by heteroxual couples.
It’s not because they’re gay.
It’s because they’re prioritizing their own desires over their child’s well-being.
They are more committed to playing out a fantasy that they are “just like” procreative couples – that is, living a lie – than they are committed to their child’s well-being.
BTW there are lots of gays who are not the least bit interested in forcing their child into playing out dysfunctional parody-fantasies. That the “gay community” pretends to represent all gay people is just one more of its lies.
May 29th, 2011 | 1:26 am
“I am sorry for gay people, having this huge conflict between what they want vs. what is right.”
that’s the problem with this whole debate. gay rights advocates seem to think the fact that most people who’re homosexual feel incapable of changing orientations means that there absolutely cannot be any inherent advantage of a child being raised in a traditional family. in a parallel universe where every gay person had made a conscious decision to be that way, i doubt most people would be questioning the idea that having parents of both sexes, all else being equal, is a benefit, and that the two sexes are distinct in a way that different races are not.
no one seems to ever want to admit that reality could ever be unfair — maybe there is something unique about traditional families that gay couples, through no fault of their own, can’t provide.
May 30th, 2011 | 9:28 am
“It’s not because they’re gay.
It’s because they’re prioritizing their own desires over their child’s well-being.”
Excuse me, HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT? Or you are just making your balatant and bigoted generalization cause well…they are gay?
May 30th, 2011 | 12:15 pm
Excuse me, HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT? Or you are just making your balatant and bigoted generalization cause well…they are gay?
The act of forcing a child to pretend he does not mind not having a mother is selfish, hateful, mean, and just plain evil. Every gay man who does that to his child should be shamed publicly. Every lesbian who deliberately deprives her child of the chance to know a real father should be shamed publicly.
Not because they’re gay, but because anyone who would pressure a child to pretend that he is happy to “have two daddies” instead of having a mother and a father is a bad person.
May 31st, 2011 | 8:31 am
Blake –
How do you know that? That the child is ‘pretending’, and really isn’t happy, in every case?
May 31st, 2011 | 1:04 pm
How do you know that? That the child is ‘pretending’, and really isn’t happy, in every case?
The same way I know that every child who gets beaten with a baseball bat isn’t really happy.
Even though children from severely abusive homes frequently defend their abuser.
May 31st, 2011 | 11:08 pm
How do you know the situations are equivalent? (I freely admit I’m… dubious.)
June 1st, 2011 | 6:04 am
How do you know the situations are equivalent? (I freely admit I’m… dubious.)
They’re not equivalent in all respects.
Only in this one respect: if you take something of value from someone, or assault the integrity of their person, then that is going to cause harm, and the person who is the victim of that action is going to be hurt by it.
June 1st, 2011 | 11:20 am
Blake – Forgive me, but you seem to be arguing in circles. Letting ‘the gays’ adopt is harmful because it ‘assaults the integrity of a person’… and it ‘assaults the integrity of a person’ because it’s harmful.
How might we cross-check that harm is being done?
June 1st, 2011 | 5:13 pm
It’s really quite simple.
We know – it is well documented – that having a mother is valuable, and that being deprived of this relationship is harmful to a child.
Ditto fathers.
In the absence of some evidence suggesting that having homosexual desires somehow changes what your child needs, I will believe that the children of homosexuals have the same needs and feelings as other children.
And that the barrage of YouTube videos where gay parents film their children testifying to their parents’ political agenda is therefore coercive, as are all the other – numerous – examples of the “gay community” presuming these kids will feel a certain way, pressuring them to produce evidence toward the desired result, and then trying to produce (highly questionable) test results “proving” the desired outcome.
Which proves that these people know there is a problem, and are deliberately subverting the well-being of their children in their desire to cover up the problem by producing evidence – by using their children in fraudulent, abusive ways in order to cover up a “hole” in the logic of their argument.
June 2nd, 2011 | 8:51 am
Blake –
It’s also documented that eating fatty, high-cholesterol foods increases risk for heart disease. Ditto lots of carbs leading to risk of obesity.
And yet, rates of heart disease and obesity are lower in Italy and France than in the United States, despite a pasta and butter-rich diet.
The problem is looking at only one factor. More exercise, moderate but regular consumption of wine – a multitude of other factors can not only compensate, but actually counteract a putative risk factor.
So the fact that having both a mother and a father is a good thing does not automatically mean that having ‘two mommies’ or ‘two daddies’ is a bad thing. The conclusion does not follow – or at the very least, that conclusion must be demonstrated, not assumed.
June 2nd, 2011 | 1:11 pm
So the fact that having both a mother and a father is a good thing does not automatically mean that having ‘two mommies’ or ‘two daddies’ is a bad thing.
No child has two mommies.
They have a mother, a stepmother, and a father they’re not allowed to ask about.
When you have to drag your children into your fantasies, your family is dysfunctional. I give it a decade – maybe, maybe two – before gays are “called out” (that is, publicly ridiculed and shamed) by their children in just the same way gays once “called out” their own parents. Only the difference will be: the children of gays will be able to judge their parents by their parents’ own standards.
Statements like “it is wrong to force someone to live a lie” are two-edged swords. The fantasy that a child can “have two mommies” is a lie.
The whole lifestyle is a lie – a lie that is necessary because there is something so inherently ridiculous about arguing, on the one hand, that one’s gendered preferences and meanings are somehow “innate” – but at the same time, holding up the idea that your child isn’t going to suffer being part of some selfish, parasitic social experiment, because “gender is irrelevant, it’s whether the child is loved that matters”.
If you “loved” your child, you wouldn’t make him be the one to go without – since, after all, sex is irrelevant, you should be the one to marry a man if you’re a woman, or a woman if you’re a man – so that your child can have his own real biological father or mother….because, remember: gender doesn’t matter – it is irrelevant – it’s whether you are loving that counts!
Ah, but we are talking about the sort of “love” that is more like Lady Gaga loving attention than the sort of love that is actually about putting the other person’s well-being first, aren’t we? Go on – defend away, why a “loving” parent is “justified” in taking valuable things, relationships and experiences away from their child. The parents’ needs are what matter, eh?
June 3rd, 2011 | 7:53 am
And you know “they’re not allowed to ask about” their father because…
So, the damage is being done now, though it’s only clear to some, and we have to act to mitigate it – but the effects won’t be obvious to everyone for decades?
Are you by any chance a devotee of global warming?
June 3rd, 2011 | 11:27 am
So, the damage is being done now, though it’s only clear to some, and we have to act to mitigate it – but the effects won’t be obvious to everyone for decades?
Yep, that is how civil rights work.
In the early stages, people point out that a particular group – in this case, children – are being treated differently, held to a different standard.
Then the people who don’t care (who like their privilege) pooh-pooh and nay-say, arguing that Those People don’t really count as much. Justifying and minimizing anything that they don’t feel like confronting.
It’s going to be a shock the day certain gay people wake up and realize they’re on the wrong side of a civil rights debate – and that they’re going to be held accountable.
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