How should a Catholic respond to growing evidence against church teachings on LGBT parenting?

[Jen95]

I personally believe that if there were scientific evidence that mom + dad are the best (most effective) parents, then that would be suppressed due to political correctness.

 

[Jen95]

Rau:

Children are not dumb Thor. Is it your expectation that same sex parents ought to eschew any forms of behaviour that May reveal the nature of their relationships. No hugs, no sitting close on the couch, no kiss goodbye, separate bedrooms.

What do hugs and kisses goodbye tell us? I hug my parents, including my Dad, goodbye. I hug my straight male cousin goodbye. My Mom hugs her female friends goodbye. My Mom kisses her female friends on the cheek. I’ve kissed my French friends, including male friends, on both cheeks. I kiss my mother on the cheek. In public, my Dad usually gives my Mom a peck on the cheek. And I know a lot of straight couples who have separate bedrooms (probably because one of them snores).

Okay, you know “a lot” of straight couples with separate bedrooms. The norm is that Mom and Dad sleep in a bed together, and kids see that. Friends don’t sleep with friends (not in my world anyway).

 

[Annie]

And it may be that others underestimate what children learn from their parents. Have you read the testimony of the adult children for whom being raised in a homosexual household was not a great experience?

 

[Thorolfr]

And it may be that others underestimate what children learn from their parents. Have you read the testimony of the adult children for whom being raised in a homosexual household was not a great experience?

Just imagine! There are children who had bad parents!

I know lots of people who grew up with bad parents, all of them heterosexual. They definitely didn’t have a great experience. One straight friend of mine was raped by her stepfather. Another straight friend grew up in a conservative Christian family and went to a Christian school and still had parents who were physically and emotionally abusive. Even as a child, his mother frequently whipped him with a riding crop and constantly told him how worthless he was. Another friend had a horrible mother who told him once that she wished she had had an abortion. That’s just a few of the worst ones.

 

[Thorolfr]

Okay, you know “a lot” of straight couples with separate bedrooms. The norm is that Mom and Dad sleep in a bed together, and kids see that. Friends don’t sleep with friends (not in my world anyway).

So, what happens when kids see that? Until they get older, they probably think that all their parents do in bed is sleep which is not a bad thing to do in bed.

 

[Annie]

My point was that all we hear is that being raised by a homosexual couple is fine. And that is not the case. We already know that there are abusive parents among heterosexual couples.

 

[Thorolfr]

My point was that all we hear is that being raised by a homosexual couple is fine. And that is not the case. We already know that there are abusive parents among heterosexual couples.

Should anyone be surprised that there are bad gay parents just like there are bad straight parents. No one has ever claimed that all gay people are paragons of virtue and never make bad parents. But I don’t know of any evidence that gay people are automatically bad parents because they’re gay.

 

[Jen95]

Jen95:

Okay, you know “a lot” of straight couples with separate bedrooms. The norm is that Mom and Dad sleep in a bed together, and kids see that. Friends don’t sleep with friends (not in my world anyway).

So, what happens when kids see that? Until they get older, they probably think that all their parents do in bed is sleep which is not a bad thing to do in bed.

It establishes hetero relationships as the norm. The children learn that the normal situation is that Mom and Dad sleep in the same bed. Not that Dad and Fred sleep in the same bed. Or whatever.

 

[Annie]

But I don’t know of any evidence that gay people are automatically bad parents because they’re gay.

The problem is that “bad” is a moral term and our ideas of bad differ.

 

[Tommy999]

The norm is that Mom and Dad sleep in a bed together, and kids see that.

That reminds me of an exchange on a rerun of ‘Happy Days’ that I saw yesterday on MeTV.

Potsie and Ralph were forced to share a queen bed at a hotel during a school trip to Chicago.

Potsie: “Make sure to stay on your side of the bed.”
Ralph: “Why would you say that?”
Potsie: “I don’t know. That’s just what my mom tells my dad”.

 

[o_mlly]

but children still have one mother and one father.

And always have and always will. How else do we come into existence?

Where do the children adopted by gay partners come from? Are they true orphans or are they tragically given up by a widowed parent who cannot provide? I think not.

The family as the core unit of society has been under attack for decades. The breakdown of the family began with the loosening of divorce laws, accelerated with the irresponsible “free love” movement, was solidified by a welfare system that rewarded fornication, and perpetuates with surgeries and drugs that disrupt the command to “be fruitful and multiply.”

Allowing gay couples to adopt unwanted children only puts a non-sterile bandage on an open sore. The gay couple are not a safety-net for these children but more like a backstop that reinforces the evilness of the irresponsible lifestyles that brought these children into the world outside of loving parents. Yes, the child may be materially better off than otherwise. Spiritually we handicap them. God brings goodness out of evil but He does not use evil as His instrument in doing so.

 

[MarkRome]

Children have the fundamental right to his/her mother and father. Any institution or arrangement that actively impedes that right harms children. This isn’t about how much love a person can give a child, it is about the child’s fundamental rights.

 

[Tecnologgamer]

Also those research receive some cash to please lgbt lobby to said They can play like dad and mom, too.

 

[Mac]

The Catholic Church condems sodomy as an abomination. The matter is settled for Catholics.

 

[KMC]

That reminds me of an exchange on a rerun of ‘Happy Days’ that I saw yesterday on MeTV.

Hmmm…wondering if you added this fact to hide your age

I probably saw the original episode! (nice reference)

 

[Tommy999]

Ok, full disclosure… I also watched it live as a teenager when it was a new episode in the 1970’s.

 

[Thorolfr]

Children have the fundamental right to his/her mother and father. Any institution or arrangement that actively impedes that right harms children. This isn’t about how much love a person can give a child, it is about the child’s fundamental rights.

I’ve never understood this notion of a child having a “fundamental right to his/her mother and father.” Sometimes, it’s in the child’s best interest not to have one of the two or even both of them if they are bad or abusive parents. In that case, someone else might make a better parent.

 

[Jen95]

MarkRome:

Children have the fundamental right to his/her mother and father. Any institution or arrangement that actively impedes that right harms children. This isn’t about how much love a person can give a child, it is about the child’s fundamental rights.

I’ve never understood this notion of a child having a “fundamental right to his/her mother and father.” Sometimes, it’s in the child’s best interest not to have one of the two or even both of them if they are bad or abusive parents. In that case, someone else might make a better parent.

It’s a teaching of our church.
Look up Vatican charter on the Rights of the family. I think it’s in there. It’s also in the compendium of the catechism, question 499. CCC 2376

 

[Rau]

I’ve never understood this notion of a child having a “fundamental right to his/her mother and father.” Sometimes, it’s in the child’s best interest not to have one of the two or even both of them if they are bad or abusive parents. In that case, someone else might make a better parent.

There is no conflict. Delivery of a right can’t be guaranteed, but we should feel obligated not to create circumstances that lead to loss of the right. Eg. Certain artificial means of procreation can have that effect.

 

[Thorolfr]

Thorolfr:

I’ve never understood this notion of a child having a “fundamental right to his/her mother and father.” Sometimes, it’s in the child’s best interest not to have one of the two or even both of them if they are bad or abusive parents. In that case, someone else might make a better parent.

There is no conflict. Delivery of a right can’t be guaranteed, but we should feel obligated not to create circumstances that lead to loss of the right. Eg. Certain artificial means of procreation can have that effect.

To me, it would make more sense to say that a child has a right to good and loving parents. I would think that that would be more important than a right to biological parents regardless of whether they’re good and loving or bad and sadistic. Biological families (parents, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, cousins, etc.) can often be kind of disappointing. Sometimes it’s better to make your own “family” which might be made up of close friends.