Christianity Today asks three contributors whether Christians should shut down their social service programs when the state commands them to act against Christian belief. In line with my advice in response to Obama’s gay marriage announcement, Ryan T. Anderson offers a stirring “no”:
Christians should not stop their adoption and foster-care programs, but neither should they comply with laws that would force them to place children with same-sex couples. Christians should continue operating their charitable organizations according to their principles, and they should continue serving the least among us until the state coercively shuts them down.
But why should Christians take a stand here? It is not as though authorities won’t allow us to celebrate the sacraments:
When Jesus commanded us to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, heal the sick, and care for the widow and orphan, he meant it. He meant it when he said we should love our neighbor, but he didn’t mean that we love them according to secularist liberal values or the dictates of the state. We should love them as Christ loves them. [ . . . ]
The truth of the matter is that long before the state of Massachusetts or Illinois existed, long before the United States existed, Christ’s church was ministering to the poor. Christians should continue to stand on biblical principles in the face of laws that unjustly usurp the authority of voluntary charities and grant government power to regulate their activity even when they cause no harm.
This is an usurpation of the authority and privileges of the Church, which are prior to those of the state. Of course, Christians must practice (to borrow a phrase) charity in truth. We cannot put our desire to conform to the prevailing culture over the real needs of brothers and sisters. It is better by far to be kind than to seem nice:
Two people of the same sex are not the equivalent of a married mother and father. Any law that says that they are gets the family wrong. This does a great disservice to children, and the church should oppose this injustice to children.
Now that is social justice. Contrast this to the response to the Christianity Today symposium by Paul Shrier, “a professor of practical theology at Azusa Pacific University” and, we find, a practitioner of situation ethics. Shrier first dissembles about the data showing problems with same-sex parenting, ignoring, among other issues, that same-sex unions are much more unstable than opposite-sex ones, with one major study showing that 82 percent of men in relationships with men had sex with someone other than their main parter as opposed to 26 percent of men in relationships with women. He then scoots around the Christian teaching on marriage, telling his reader to just “pray and see what God has to say about your individual situation.”
It pains me to see Evangelicals turn away from their commitment to biblical truth. It was my introduction to Christ in the Evangelical community that later allowed me to receive him in the Eucharist in the fullness of faith as a Catholic. Yet even as some try to relaunch the liberal Protestant project from within Evangelicalism, I take hope in people like Lynn Marie Kohm whose response to the same symposium suggests that few Evangelical will be inclined to go down Shrier’s dead-end path.
May 14th, 2012 | 7:15 am
Two people of the same sex are not the equivalent of a married mother and father. Any law that says that they are gets the family wrong. This does a great disservice to children, and the church should oppose this injustice to children.
In 30% of adoptions from foster care, children are placed not with opposite-sex married couples but with single parents. Catholic Charities of Illinois was among the many local Catholic Charities adoption services that placed children with single parents. I have no quarrel with those who maintain that, ideally, adoptive children should be placed with married opposite-sex couples. However, that is no reason to make the perfect the enemy of the good. There are not enough opposite-sex married couples available and willing to adopt all of the children in the foster care system. Two men or two women in a committed relationship may not be the equivalent of a married mother and father, but a single man or a single woman is certainly not the equivalent of a married mother and father, either.
If Matthew Schmitz or Ryan T. Anderson want to argue that same-sex couples are unfit to be adoptive parents under any circumstances, then they should do so. Hiding behind the argument that all children being adopted deserve to be placed with a married mother and father is deceptive. It is the job of those handling adoptions to place children in the best available home, not to hold them in the foster care system until some theoretically ideal home becomes available. If a single woman or a single man can be a good adoptive parent, then two men or two women can be good adoptive parents as well, unless one maintains that gay people are unfit parents. This is, of course, the position of the Catholic Church, and I suspect it is the position of Matthew Schmitz and Ryan T. Anderson, and if it is, they should just say so. There is no conflict at all between believing that a married mother and father are the ideal adoptive parents and, when faced with the reality that no married mother and father wants to adopt a particular child, placing that child with a single parent or a same-sex couple.
May 14th, 2012 | 7:26 am
. . . ignoring, among other issues, that same-sex unions are much more unstable than opposite-sex ones, with one major study showing that 82 percent of men . . .
Adoptive children are not placed with statistical couples. They are placed with real couples, whom those in charge of adoption services thoroughly investigate and interview. Judging individuals by citing statistics about the various classifications they belong to is a key characteristic of bigotry.
May 14th, 2012 | 8:52 am
All loyal citizens should take a stand because the government does not have the right to impose humanist beliefs on people.
The argument is that since humanism “isn’t a religion” (unlike the recognized religion Unitarian Universalism, which happens to have beliefs identical to humanism), that somehow it’s okay for the government to impose its beliefs and views on the populace, and it supposedly does not count as imposing a religion on people.
But whether the humanists who want their beliefs counted as a religion win or lose their debate, it remains true that humanism is incompatible with most religions – maybe every other religion? – when it comes to its teachings on sexuality, family, and the sacred bonds that hold social units together, so there is no way to force humanist teachings on the populace without also in effect banning all teachings that contradict humanist articles of faith.
May 14th, 2012 | 8:53 am
Not to minimize religious beliefs there is an issue of dealing with the whole society. That whole society includes glbti indivdiuals that often for long lasting couples. The fedility issue is a red herring, arguing a denial of an institution to people who do not have it because they do not have it is dsiingenuous. Committment is a funny thing, many straight marriages have similar problems with infedility, yet no one is arguing for removing marriage from them.
The concept of marriage has previously not been on the radar screens for glbti couples ut now it is. Behaviors contrary to a committment are not islated with glbti couples and can not be honestly used against them. In time more glbti couples will embrace monogamy, as much as the straight community has.
To invoke a denial of same-gender marriage on the grounds that children may be harmed is yet another red herring, pschological studies to day show that children do as good in glbti families as they do in straight ones.
It is far better to be truthful and acknowledge that the problem that Evangelicals have with gay marriage is their animus toward them.
May 14th, 2012 | 9:24 am
When Mr Ryan T. Anderson speaks of “laws that unjustly usurp the authority of voluntary charities,” he raises the question of what “authority” that is. The great principle of democracy is that “No body nor individual may exercise any authority which does not proceed directly from the nation.”
This should remind us that, before talking of “unjust laws,” we should reflect that, as Mirabeau pointed out, “property is a social creation. The laws not only protect and maintain property; they bring it into being; they determine its scope and the extent that it occupies in the rights of the citizens.”
After all, the endowments of a charity are not the property of any individual. It is only because the state is prepared to compel those in whom they are vested to perform their duties that charities can exist at all. No private individual has standing to object, if the officer-bearers simply pocket the money. Hence, the maxim of the Civilians is that a fideicommissum depend on the imperium of the magistrate, not the act of the parties.
May 14th, 2012 | 9:29 am
‘They will do these things to you because they do not know The Father ‘ john 15-21 ;
and not seeing the Father in our Lord – ‘if you have seen Me , you have seen The Father .’
The Holy Father’s intention for this month is for Bl.Mother to accompany all missionaries ..and we too are so , in one sense , since what we do in His perfect will , gives great power , to accomplish His will, of allowing the Holy Spirit to fill may hearts , to know who The Father is …
Thus, Catholic and other Christian institutions now have one more reason , to turn even more deeply , into the source of our power ..
asking the Bl.Mother to come in , into lives of many clients , to help to convert hearts , with the tender , compassioanate Mothelrly love ..and at every Holy Mass and Eucharist , the believers bringings all in their lives – including our President , into His mercy and Resurrection power , to be freed from hatreds that keep persons in bondage of wanting to destroy each other , in the lie of carnal lust and intentionally or otherwise , promoting the reign the liar who would like to see us , as even less than animals !
Come , O Holy Spirit come , through the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary !
May 14th, 2012 | 9:59 am
David Nickol
There is a world of difference between adoption by one single person and by two, for what is to be done, if they disagree about some important decision, such as residence or education? In the case of a married couple, one has the patria potestas, as a casting vote to break the deadlock.
May 14th, 2012 | 10:13 am
David Nickol,
Statistics won’t settle this debate one way or another. But they shouldn’t be abused, which is why I called out Shrier for his abuse of them. I’m surprised his column got by the Christianity Today fact-checkers.
May 14th, 2012 | 11:06 am
In the case of a married couple, one has the patria potestas, as a casting vote to break the deadlock.
Michael PS,
I do not believe patria potestas has any legal significance to marriage in the United States in the 21st century. Some Christian and Muslim married couples may agree that the husband has the ultimate authority when decisions are made in the marriage, but even for these couples, I am doubtful that things work that way in practice. I really don’t believe that in mature relationships, one partner has to be designated as the “decider.”
May 14th, 2012 | 11:26 am
David,
The condition that is being placed on these agencies is not simply that they be willing to give a child to two men or two women. It is that two men or two women be regarded as essentially the same as a man and woman when adoption decisions are being made: that is, there can be no distinction at all. Of course, this is meant to lead to a barrage of lawsuits that will shut down Christian agencies anyway because they reject this state-imposed ideology.
May 14th, 2012 | 11:43 am
Matthew Schmitz,
Shrier says:
This in no way contradicts statistics that allegedly show “same-sex unions are much more unstable than opposite-sex ones.” What is important to adopted children of same-sex couples is not statistics about the stability of same-sex relationships, but rather the stability of the relationship of their adoptive parents. If there were data that showed same-sex couples who adopt children are significantly more likely to separate than married husbands and wives who adopt children, that might be relevant.
Here are statistics for divorces for women per 1000 first marriages, by ethnicity.
Asian – 10
White – 16.3
Hispanic – 18.1
African-American – 30.4
Statistically, married couples with Asian wives should be strongly preferred over married couples with African-American wives in adoption situations. After all, the couples with African-American women are 300% more likely to divorce than couples with Asian women and 187% more likely to divorce than couples with white woman. But is this how we expect adoption agencies to work? Of course not. We expect them to interview all potential adoptive parents, investigate their backgrounds, talk to their families and their neighbors, and make decisions based on the people as individuals. We would be outraged if adoption agencies said they would not consider married couples in which the woman was African American as adoptive parents because of divorce statistics. Nondiscrimination is about treating people as individuals, not about making decisions about individuals based on statistics about the groups they belong to.
May 14th, 2012 | 11:47 am
Michael PS –
And married heterosexual couples never get divorced!
Oh, wait…
(Actually, so far as I understand it, pater potestas applies only to property, not things like “education”. And, hey – would you be okay with a heterosexual pagan couple that believed in a matriarchal system, so long as only one individual has a ‘deciding vote’?)
May 14th, 2012 | 11:55 am
David Nickol,
In the same article I linked to it shows that children are in fact more likely to be same-sex attracted if they come from homes constituted by same-sex unions. However, this is not a major anxiety of mine (though it seems to be for Shrier). Nor, again, do I think statistics settle the debate. But if Shrier is going to introduce them to the conversation he ought not to commit basic errors.
Let’s steer the conversation to the substantive moral questions, those inescapable first things.
May 14th, 2012 | 12:30 pm
Ray Inglis
“And, hey – would you be okay with a heterosexual pagan couple that believed in a matriarchal system, so long as only one individual has a ‘deciding vote’?)”
Yes, of course, which is why I am happy with adoptions, in appropriate cases, by a single person.
After all, in guardianship cases, there is no preference for males over females, but joint guardians dative (as opposed to testamentary guardians) are virtually unknown.
May 14th, 2012 | 2:00 pm
It is that two men or two women be regarded as essentially the same as a man and woman when adoption decisions are being made: that is, there can be no distinction at all.
Mike P.,
I can find nothing to cause me to believe this is true. Do you have any basis for saying this? Suppose, for example, an adoption agency is trying to place a girl child who was sexually abused by her father, and the caseworker feels that a married heterosexual couple or a same-sex lesbian couple would be most appropriate because the young girls is afraid of men. Would antidiscrimination laws require the caseworker to say a male-male couple, a male-female couple, and a female-female couple are all exactly the same? Certainly a caseworker would be able to take into consideration every relevant fact that had a bearing on the best interests of the child. Requiring adoption agencies to follow antidiscrimination laws is not the same as requiring them to assign children by lottery.
What Catholic Charities insisted on was not the right to decide each adoption situation on a case by case basis. It insisted on the right not to consider same-sex couples at all. It was declaring, in effect, that without even interviewing same-sex couples who wanted to adopt, it considered each and every one of them unfit parents for any child at all. Catholic Charities is saying, for example, that a same-sex couple both of whom are physicians and work with special needs children would be unfit to adopt a Down Syndrome child so cognitively disabled that he or she could never comprehend what homosexuality was. That is simply prejudice. To say there is no possible situation where any same-sex couple would be the best available parents to any child is bigotry.
May 14th, 2012 | 2:13 pm
Thus demonstrating once again the inherent evil in democracy, and why they are “as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.” And why our Founding Fathers wisely opted for a republic instead.
May 15th, 2012 | 3:25 am
Adoptive children are not placed with statistical couples. They are placed with real couples, whom those in charge of adoption services thoroughly investigate and interview. Judging individuals by citing statistics about the various classifications they belong to is a key characteristic of bigotry.
A good parent is one that does what is right for the child.
A parent who forces the child to do without a father or mother, so that the parent can prioritize a personal need over the child’s needs, is not a good parent.
Being gay does not change what is best for your child. Any parent who can’t understand that is not ready to adopt.
May 15th, 2012 | 9:19 am
Blake –
Y’know, even in the movie “The Kids Are All Right” – a fictional story that you seem to believe was a documentary – that didn’t happen. I’ve asked you (at least three times before) to quantify exactly how many ‘gay parents’ actually do what you’re worried about. Yet you never have.
May 15th, 2012 | 9:26 am
Michael PS –
The fact remains, as David Nickol points out, patria potestas is not legally significant today. Heterosexual married couples do, in actual fact, cite ‘irreconcilable differences’ regularly when divorcing. And the court takes them at their word and does not enforce patria potestas – even in disagreements about education.
So, we have a legal system to resolve such cases already. One that’s put to use every day, rather more than anyone would like. It would seem, then, that ‘irreconcilable differences’ between gay couples wouldn’t add anything new to the current legal mix. Why are you dead-set against it? (Or would you ban divorce?)
May 15th, 2012 | 10:42 am
Ray Inglis
It is very simple: I favour a system in which one person can take decisions on the upbringing of the child, without making every child, in effect, a ward of court.
This can be achieved, in the case of joint adopters, only if there is a juridical bond between them that regulates the decision-making process, which the civil codes of most countries do.
May 16th, 2012 | 8:33 am
I’ve asked you (at least three times before) to quantify exactly how many ‘gay parents’ actually do what you’re worried about. Yet you never have.
What, you want me to name people I actually know, from real life?
Or do you want me to cite statistics, so that you can reject them based on the idea that they’re not peer reviewed?
I don’t get what you’re asking. YouTube is full of videotapes of kids telling the camera how happy they are to have two mommies or two daddies. There’s no shortage of this testimony. There are entire ‘studies’ – being touted as being “proof” that the kids are all right – that are built out of nothing more than kids being ‘interviewed’.
So I don’t see why you are constructing obviously artificial barriers, as if to suggest that what I am concerned about isn’t really happening. I actually was something of a gay activist, based on a couple of friendships with people who weren’t gay when I met them but who later “came out”, and it was the behavior of both individual gays and also the community as a group that turned me against gay marriage as an “institution”.
As far as “The Kids Are All Right”, I think its very existence – right along with other films, such as “The Birdcage” – is evidence that these kids are exposed to pressure.
And not just subtle pressuring, but crude, heavy-handed, “if you don’t carry the narrative you are the equivalent of a nazi sympathizer” sort of pressure.
Pressure so heavy it qualifies as emotional abuse.
And, unfortunately, these narrative-building films are not the only pressure these unfortunate children are forced to endure.
May 16th, 2012 | 8:42 am
Or do you want me to cite statistics, so that you can reject them based on the idea that they’re not peer reviewed?
Incidentally, I don’t tend to pay attention to peer reviewed stuff in the social sciences as a general rule, because it is so obvious that the scientific community is not applying the scientific method faithfully in issues involving values, ideology, partisan beliefs, and so on.
I think the real kicker for me was when I read a report that acknowledged that the “evidence” they were relying on did rely mostly on interviews – some with inadequate and others with NO attempt to control for bias, incentive, or motive either on the part of the interviewer or the interviewee – but that this methodological problem “doesn’t matter” because it is just apparently self-evident that the studies came to the right conclusion.
That was what set my alarm bells off. And since then, I started actually paying attention to how often supposedly “peer reviewed” literature slipped in values and partisan assumptions dressed up as facts. Whether the resulting mistake is ignorance or intent to mislead doesn’t matter; the important point is that
is being presented as
Not all studies do this, of course, but since the “scientific community” has started permitting such studies to share its prestige, then the community itself can no longer be treated as a reliable expert – and peer review no longer carries much weight.
May 16th, 2012 | 10:32 am
Michael PS –
So, in this case, the U.S. is an exception? I mean, the ‘juridical bond’ of, say, marriage doesn’t mandate that one specific person (male or female) gets to decide. Essentially, what happens is, the courts get involved only if they can’t come to an agreement, and one of them asks the court to intervene.
So, again… what specifically does same-sex marriage add that’s new in this respect?
May 16th, 2012 | 10:54 am
Blake –
Frankly, at this point – over a year in – I’d settle for anything beyond your say-so. That’s all you’ve ever come up with to date.
How interesting! Speaking of “NO attempt to control for bias” and “it is just apparently self-evident that the studies came to the right conclusion”… I’ve asked you several times before to explain how you know all those kids are being forced to say such things.
Your response was, essentially, that you ‘just knew’ they were. You’ve got your conclusions, and the data has to be jiggered to fit.
May 16th, 2012 | 1:26 pm
Your response was, essentially, that you ‘just knew’ they were. You’ve got your conclusions, and the data has to be jiggered to fit.
How do I know kids are forced to say such things?
That isn’t my argument.
My argument is that it is decided before they are born how they will feel, and they are exposed to a high-pressure narrative – complete with hardcore propaganda created apparently for the express purpose of persuading people that “the kids are all right” – and that this is itself proof of unhealthy parenting.
I admit the fact that the children of gays have told me about the evil “Christofascists” who will come and hurt their parents if they don’t cooperate has led me to suspect duress. Because it’s been my experience that normal healthy parents try to banish bogeymen from under the bed – not deliberately create them.
But whether the kids would have chosen this or that opinion if they’d had freedom in the matter is irrelevant for two reasons – the first being that children are not capable of informed consent when it comes to judging what is in their own best interest (it’s actually common for the children of abusive parents to testify vehemently in favor of their parents’ supposed “loving” nature).
But equally important is the fact that we’ll never know. We will never know because your gay community exerts huge amounts of time, energy and money on biasing the witness.
We can make some pretty good guesses – given that the same evidence that gays wave triumphantly as evidence that the children of gays are “better adjusted” than other kids suggests that these children are in fact parentified, there is reason to suppose that one or two truly unbiased studies could very well have the power to bring the whole narrative crashing down on its head.
Parentified children are children who are forced to become preternaturally mature, to accept responsibility for their parents, creating an inverted effect – instead of the parents worrying about what is best for the child, the child is instead forced to concern himself with what is best for the parent. (This is actually held up as an ideal in the film The Birdcage, where emotionally needy, irresponsible parenting is depicted as adorable and loveable, and we are given the strong message that it’s normal for a child to sacrifice so that a parent can continue to stay infantile.)
But we don’t know what these kids would actually think or feel if their parents didn’t have such intense anxieties (and feel the need to act on those anxieties – however inappropriately), because the gay community does have anxieties and does let itself be ruled by them: the community as a whole is so afraid of the truth that it has to mess with the evidence.
May 16th, 2012 | 1:42 pm
Your response was, essentially, that you ‘just knew’ they were. You’ve got your conclusions, and the data has to be jiggered to fit.
That is more accurate a description of how gays “just knew” their kids wouldn’t mind having two mommies/daddies instead of an intact family.
You can argue that you don’t think my evidence is adequate or you don’t find it persuasive, but at least I have evidence.
May 17th, 2012 | 10:27 am
How about kids who witness on Youtube? Think their parents decided how they’d feel about Jesus before they were born?
Guess we’ll never know about those youth evangelist campaigns, either. For the same reasons, right?
Y’know, you’ve brought up the ‘parentification’ thing before. And I’ve asked you a question – in fact, twice before. Somehow you never responded.
You take the evidence of (a tendency for) greater maturity among children raised by same-sex couples as evidence that they are ‘parentified’. Yet, there’s similar evidence of (a tendency for) greater maturity among children that are homeschooled. (E.g. http://learninfreedom.org/socialization.html or https://www.hslda.org/docs/nche/000000/00000068.asp )
So, my question to you: Are homeschoolers emotionally abusing their children, too?
I’d appreciate an answer. Pretty please.
Speaking of evidence and unanswered questions. Once upon a time I asked you: I’ve asked you to provide evidence that such kids have to ‘pretend’ [that they don't feel grief about being raised by same-sex couples], but none was forthcoming. It seems the main support for that was your vigorous assertion of it. So, let’s turn it around. What evidence would persuade you that a particular kid wasn’t pretending?
I’d love to hear your answer to that one, too.
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