the child protector wolf in sheep’s clothing
Christians who realise they can’t persuade the rest of the world that homosexuality is ‘wrong’ simply because it says so in the Bible (that’s the book where beating slaves and children are both encouraged, and eating pigs is ‘wrong’), shift their focus instead to manufactured concern for children affected by the existence of gay relationships.
For instance, it seems that these Christian ‘child-protectors’ would prefer that children are told there is only one model family and are horrified at the thought that children could be exposed to understanding that all families come in different shapes and sizes.
small toddlers as young as four are being targeted for the purpose of brainwashing them with LGBT etc propaganda. They’ll be taught that it is OK to have two daddies, two mummies (Catholic Truth)
Is it really ‘LGBT propaganda’ to educate children about the reality of actual family structures in their community? Or should we return to the ‘good old days’ of shunning children who come from family structures that aren’t biological mother and father? Children who are from single-parent families, children who are adopted and children who are from same-sex parent families all need to be acknowledged by our education systems, to combat the kind of ignorance that leads to bullying and social exclusion for kids perceived to be from ‘different’ homes.
Things crank up a gear when anti-gay Christian campaigners start projecting the worst of all family experiences for each and every child brought up by gay parents.
Growing up, I loved staying at my friend’s house who had a mom. Sometimes her mom would get out her wedding dress so we could be princesses, and I would feel jealous of my friend because I wished there was a wedding dress in the attic at my house. In elementary school, I had some “adjustment issues,” and they started me on Ritalin for ADHD in fourth grade. I was pretty connected to my genetic dad, but not so much to my other father and I felt guilty about that. I struggled with identity issues. (Katy Faust on the The Federalist)
Don’t we all wish we had had ‘normal’ parents? I’ve lost count of the number of messed up adults I’ve met who can trace all their depression, identity issues and general life anxiety directly back to their parents. And many of them as a direct result of religious brainwashing in their childhood … but that’s another story.
The fact is that we don’t get to choose who becomes parents, and it’s obvious that no parents can give children the ‘perfect’ home in every respect. I’m much more concerned about the welfare of the many neglected and resented children born by accident to heterosexual parents who don’t really even want to be together, than the welfare of children who will never get to try on a mother’s wedding dress because two dads moved heaven and earth and ensure their child could exist.
You only have to read one of the many research summaries or articles evaluating what we know about children brought up by same sex couples to know there is nothing to worry about. The only place you’ll read anything different is from people with a religious agenda to push.
Well said.
I do wonder when they will come around. This all reminds me of the horror stories I have heard adults tell of growing up with only one parent. Not of their parent, but of the other children and people that would call them “bastard” and ostracize them. It sounds so similar.
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The Christians pushing this agenda think nothing of the children they are harming (gay children and the children of same sex couples) by pushing this kind of misinformation. All their words do is feed ignorant attitudes and make often marginalised lives more difficult.
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Red, just popped over to your blog, but you donb’t seem to have comments enabled. Just wanted to say, the cats are gorgeous. The roadtrip must have been hell, though.
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Thanks for taking a look! I did not know I could enable comments on pages – I thought they were just for blog posts. I’ll have to play around with the settings.
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Isn’t yours a blog?
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Yes, but I’ve got it organized into multiple sections, each of which is headed with a webpage 🙂
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Up until the 19th century or so people thought that nature acts for an end, but nowadays no one, not even the Christians you are arguing with, can see that. If nature acts for an end, the assertion that homosexual acts are wrong is a rational statement, but if nature does not act for an end, the assertion sounds like an arbitrary imposition. So in a way you are right, “for the children” is sort of grasping at straws because the unspoken premises of the argument are no longer understood by most people.
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There’s so much nonsense in that comment dp, I don’t know where to begin. What do you think happened in the 19th century that destroyed this fictitious assumption of yours? If nature did act for an end, why would homosexuality be wrong?
Homosexuality is and always has been a minority trait, that’s why people thought it was ‘wrong’. In times of ignorance, people feared behaviour that didn’t fit with majority expectations. It’s a key part of herd instinct and tribalism. Now we’re in an age where people struggle to find any tangible harmful outcomes to two consenting adults choosing to express their mutual love – simply because we know more. The only people still going against the tide of actual facts are people with ‘holy’ books written in times of ignorance that say otherwise.
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Hate and ignorance all the way down, huh?
That “Spaniard” fellow from your last post says you hate God and can’t imagine you might have coherent arguments; a fundamentalist and an ex-fundamentalist, reading everyone’s hearts and throwing around out-of-context Bible verses.
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Sorry about the earlier bitchy response.
Of course we switched to a different metaphysics, I’ve often argued that the reason why people can’t believe in god is because we first changed how we interacted with nature.
But it is pretty obvious that our reproductive organs have a reproductive function. Pre-modern or semi-modern man would take that as carrying a meaning about the “ought”, modern man says no “ought” can be derived from the “is”. But even we modern people feel guilty about what we have done to nature with that mentality, but that is a separate topic, more complex than this one.
What you think is “rational” and obvious would have seemed quite irrational to someone living a couple of centuries ago, because he had different presuppositions. It did not make him an ignorant hater, he lived in a different mental world.
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I have no idea what you were trying to convey in the first comment – something to do with being jealous of Ark presumably.
You’re confused. I mean ‘ignorant’ purely in relative terms – lacking knowledge we have now. In two hundred years time everything we are discussing here will be considered to be lacking knowledge and even I might be labelled ‘ignorant’ 😉 Anyway, it’s not an insult, it’s a fact about the relative levels of information available about the impact being gay has on individuals and society.
Nature is often beautiful and a thing of wonder to most of our tiny brains. We feel guilty when we as a species spoil it or exploit by using it to fulfill our whims for fast cars, pretty tables or cash crops, and neglect to see what additional impact it has both on ecosystems as a whole, losing both potentially valuable knowledge and resources, and losing the things of beauty we can no longer behold. There’s nothing odd about the feeling of ‘ought’ in terms of protecting our own environment – both for practical and aesthetic reasons.
Again, you’re losing sight of logical analysis of outcomes and wrapping up your suppositions in archaic religious frameworks.
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“it’s a fact about the relative levels of information available about the impact being gay has on individuals and society”
A 10th or 16th century European never would have thought of it in terms of “impact”. He would not have seen it as having social impact at all. He probably would not have thought about it at all. He might have had a more visceral reaction than you or I, say disgust or making a dirty joke, and if you asked him why it was wrong he would say “because it is a sin against nature” or something similar.
His attitudes have nothing to so with data or information, and everything to do with how he interprets the relationship between what a reproductive organ “is” and what it “ought” to be used for. We moderns tend look at what a reproductive organ is and can’t figure out what it ought to be used for, because modern thought categories do not allow us to make the connection.
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Stuff and nonsense dp, where’s your head at? Not even in the fake Middle Ages of your imagination.
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Yes and no. There’s a theory (with substantial evidence) that homosexuality thins the herd. It helps limit family units where there’s too much fertility.
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As soon I as figure out the cause of gayness I’ll run over to France to administer you the antidote.
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I promise I’ll render you the equivalent service should I isolate the cause for Catholicism!
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Then we’ll team up and turn Liberace into a straight Baptist!
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LGBT should not be allowed to abuse children leftist propaganda.
Human nature is male and female.
That is obvious.
If the leftist is going to fault the Bible for stating the obvious, maybe she should take a look in the mirror.
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Ever heard of Log Cabin Republicans</?
“Log Cabin Republicans is the nation’s original and largest organization representing gay conservatives and allies who support fairness, freedom, and equality for all Americans. Log Cabin Republicans has state and local chapters nationwide, full-time staff in Washington, DC, a federal political action committee, and state political action committees.”
Time has moved on. You might want to update your Reagan era talking points to assimilate this new information.
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Ron
I think that’s great!
But I just have trouble with LGBT groups imposing their politics and lifestyles on children.
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My Gay Lifestyle 🙂
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Ron,
We’re all proud of your lifestyle.
Now if you would only leave the rest of us alone to live ours – especially our children.
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Our children will be fine, so long as they’re kept away from men in church robes.
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Yikes!
That was a low blow.
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My Gay Lifestyle
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/domenick-scudera/my-gay-lifestyle_b_1063570.html
Hilarious! I have to put that out in full so more people click on it.
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He’s fab. He wrote that ages ago. Definitely not 2016 as implied by the article update date!
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It sounds amazing, I’m thinking about updating my lifestyle choices. 😀
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What obvious Bible statement are you referring to SOM?
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Violet,
Talking Bible to atheists is useless.
So I resort to common sense (simple reasoning) with atheists, which is also useless.
But I always hope the atheist will experience a moment of lucidity and notice that there is much in common between the Bible and common sense.
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I love how The Ancients ‘liked’ your comment here SOM. You make a sweeping statement about things being obvious in the Bible, can’t back it up with a single verse, and one of your blogging buddies ‘likes’ it. Great illustration of how much attention some of you pay to evidence. 🙂
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Violet,
Common sense is a faculty of the mind, not a Bible verse.
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No link, it is too horrible, but from a post in December I read, Make sure to give your white parents white grandchildren folks, they are deserving of nothing less. Hate comes in many forms.
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With so many children to protect, it’s a wonder anyone is allowed to be a parent …
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With so much wrong in the world, it’s a wonder anyone is allowed to do anything at all.
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If I’m not mistaken, one church (https://www.washingtonian.com/2016/02/14/the-sex-abuse-scandal-that-devastated-a-suburban-megachurch-sovereign-grace-ministries/) had this emphasis on heterosexual marriage and it didn’t go so well for some of the children in their midst:
Q: . . . [A]s a pastor, when you become aware of sexual child abuse, did you have a responsibility to report that to the police department? That’s a yes or no.
A: I believe so.
Q: And you didn’t do it.
A: No, sir.
So when Christians play the: “think of the children!” Card, it rings a little hollow given how many delicious ways the Bible has been used to justify ignoring all sorts of harm that has happened to children.
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I read some of that link, but it just got too horrible. Absolutely shocking. Christians are often trying too hard to follow too many contradictory rules: revile gay people, love everyone; don’t judge, don’t let your brother sin; beat up your children, protect the little children; never get divorced (stay with a child abuser in the case of that link), protect children ….
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It’s all in a flawed understanding; after all, to them, to properly protect a child, a heterosexual couple acting in the role of the father being the head of the household and the wife modeling proper submission is ideal; how this protects the child from the mysterious threat that lurks in other kinds of homes is a mystery; it also doesn’t matter because whatever is God’s ideal gets a more fully realized blessing than any kid who grows up in the wrong situation. So many people whose marriages are on the rocks tend to stay together for the sake of the kids, it’s only when the kids are fully grown and out of the house does their fractured relationship worsen. So maybe in a round-about way, in as much as it’s “for the kids” it’s also “for the marriages” of their parents. They don’t want kids growing up with two moms or two dads outperforming the Christian kids (being out-blessed?) and so they try to poison the well.
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I was brought up by a devout Christian Orthodox grandmother. When I was five, she saw me getting molested by a handyman that worked for her. She never told anyone, not the police, not even a relative. She kept employing this handyman and every day she would point at a picture of Jesus above the kitchen table and tell me to behave.
Someone once told me that they have committed horrible sins but now, 40 years later, they’re going to church for atonement. My response to them was that I don’t need to go to a church to atone for my sins, because I just choose to be a good person every day. It’s all in the choices you make every moment of your life.
My Christian mother didn’t choose to have me and that could explain why she hated me so much. The gay couples prepare meticulously for a child because they want children, not because the condom broke.
I saw a gay couple with their newly adopted newborn baby trying to get out of Thailand (during the Thai surrogacy debacle). I have never seen more caring, loving parents in my life! The way they looked at that child was as if it was the most precious thing they have ever seen.
People can preach whatever they want but it’s their choices and actions that make them good or evil. And it doesn’t matter how they utilize their wee-wees and hoohaas.
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Thanks for your comment. It’s so true that we can’t guess how good parents will be guessed on the combination of their genitals, or based on their approach to religion.
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I hope one day that I will have children with my girlfriend. I plan to be the best mom out there and I know a lot of same sex families do as well.
Religion works for some, for others it doesn’t. It upsets me to see so many of the lgbtq youth affected by religion (I run a lgbtq friendly blog and some of my followers have religious parents). If a parent abandons there child due to their sexuality, they really need to wake up, sadly it’s not the case!
Hopefully one day, the LGBTQ community won’t be seen as living in sin, it’s already a lot better and I can’t wait to see how my generations changes the community.
Thank you for your amazing post, I loved reading it!
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I wonder if you have paused to consider what a child of a gay parent might think / feel about not having had a father and a mother. This is where you will discover the truth … it is their experience which matters, not the parents.
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Thanks for your comment. I think it’s a good point to consider what children (or adults reflecting on their childhood) feel was missing, or even ache for, in their families. It’s interesting to note that society puts many expectations on us to have what’s normal. Could we start to promote and end to breeding in later life, because longer generational gaps are meaning children don’t have the close bond with grandparents that is natural to our species? And we should certainly put pressure on single parents, more than anyone, to feel atrocious about the fact that they are not in a partnership (because they never were, or it fell apart, or someone died) given the experience a child might have.
The truth is that no family experience is ‘perfect’, whatever bonds we long for and imagine would have been perfect ‘only if’. So if you go looking for the voices of children brought up by gay parents who feel something was missing, you will find them.
However, if you choose to take the scientific, factual route, you’ll find that every significant body of experts in the western world has concluded that the children of same sex parents have the same range of experiences as the children of heterosexual parents. So, while I completely agree we need to consider the experiences of children, in terms of trying to vilify same sex parents, you’ll find that anecdotes are ten a penny, but the evidence show their experiences in general are the same as anyone elses.
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