Putting a Child's Needs Over Adults' Desires is Not Discrimination

[Prodigal_Son]

At best that’s a theory.

Name for me a single long-lived human culture that did not have AT LEAST one man and one woman intimately involved in raising each child. There simply are no examples. The Greeks and Romans had unusual sexual mores, but they certainly made sure that kids had a male and female parent. If my idea is “just a theory”, it is the only theory that has been tested. Yours is the new idea, the idea that may be using children as test subjects, essentially.

And I’d disagree. A child who grows up without two moms or two dads, but only grows up with one mom or one dad, could just as easily be missing out.

Fathers are not the only source of male influence. Sometimes they’re not even the best source. Mothers are not the only source of female influence. Sometimes they’re not even the best source.

My dad lost his mental capacities, largely, when I was six. I know what life was like with him, and without him. In some ways, I wish I had died instead of living without him, as I have. You cannot convince me that in our culture most children of gay parents truly do have a person of the opposite sex who stands in that gap.

Show me a boy without a dad, and I will show you a boy confused by the world of men. A boy like I was.

Show me a girl without a mother, and I will show you a girl confused by the world of women.

Not to mention, there are lots of adults today who were raised by same sex couples. A very small handful have actually come out and said they’re against same sex parenting.

I don’t know what point you’re making here. A loving and grateful child would be VERY unlikely to publicly shame their parents by calling out the way they were harmed by them in public. Children keep quiet about actual abuse; of course they would (and possibly ought to) be quiet about this.

I guess I just reject the notion that, by default, a mom+dad arrangement is the best arrangement.

I also reject that notion. I think that situations with live-in grandparents and uncles and aunts and tons of adult influences are in fact better than one mom one dad. If gay couples raise kids in such a household, I think they are showing a lot of love and concern.

 

[Finite]

Name for me a single long-lived human culture that did not have AT LEAST one man and one woman intimately involved in raising each child. There simply are no examples. The Greeks and Romans had unusual sexual mores, but they certainly made sure that kids had a male and female parent. If my idea is “just a theory”, it is the only theory that has been tested. Yours is the new idea, the idea that may be using children as test subjects, essentially.

My dad lost his mental capacities, largely, when I was six. I know what life was like with him, and without him. In some ways, I wish I had died instead of living without him, as I have. You cannot convince me that in our culture most children of gay parents truly do have a person of the opposite sex who stands in that gap.

Show me a boy without a dad, and I will show you a boy confused by the world of men. A boy like I was.

Show me a girl without a mother, and I will show you a girl confused by the world of women.

I don’t know what point you’re making here. A loving and grateful child would be VERY unlikely to publicly shame their parents by calling out the way they were harmed by them in public. Children keep quiet about actual abuse; of course they would (and possibly ought to) be quiet about this.

I also reject that notion. I think that situations with live-in grandparents and uncles and aunts and tons of adult influences are in fact better than one mom one dad. If gay couples raise kids in such a household, I think they are showing a lot of love and concern.

The person a child raised by two men or two women becomes is not going to be predetermined by the fact they were raised by two men or two women. It’s just going to be one factor among many factors.

This is what matters: a child is raised knowing he or she is loved and accepted, is exposed to a plethora of different personalities, and is instilled with a finely tuned moral compass.

Children aren’t meant to be programmed by what any one person decides is the “correct” upbringing. They should be raised to be good people.

I say this as a parent and a grandparent with a lot of experience. Are you a parent?

 

[MaryT777]

The person a child raised by two men or two women becomes is not going to be predetermined by the fact they were raised by two men or two women. It’s just going to be one factor among many factors.

This is what matters: a child is raised knowing he or she is loved and accepted, is exposed to a plethora of different personalities, and is instilled with a finely tuned moral compass.

Children aren’t meant to be programmed by what any one person decides is the “correct” upbringing. They should be raised to be good people.

I say this as a parent and a grandparent with a lot of experience. Are you a parent?

I am a parent and even a divorce leaves a hole in a child’ heart as they long to live with both parents instead of sharing time
.
A child need a mother and father and God ordained it that way within the context of the marital embrace; not surrogate, IVF, sex just for creating a child by a gay couple, etc.

Mary.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

I say this as a parent and a grandparent with a lot of experience. Are you a parent?

Let me start here. I am a father of five children. I would rather cut off all four of my limbs without anesthesia than have them raised without a mother, or without a father.

I find it inconceivable that you would read my post above, and not comment on my own personal experience of not having a dad. It was the central thing I was saying. I was a boy without a man nearby to show him how to live, and how to fit into the world of men. It’s a pain that has never left me.

The person a child raised by two men or two women becomes is not going to be predetermined by the fact they were raised by two men or two women. It’s just going to be one factor among many factors.

Sure. Just like poverty is a factor, or being abused is a factor, or living with leukemia is a factor. None of these things determine the future of the child, and some of them are just things people have to cope with. Nevertheless, I think it is unkind of a parent to have a child when they are in poverty that has no remedy, and similarly it is unkind for a parent to have a child when they expect the child to lack either a mother or a father.

(Again, I certainly make exceptions for adoptions of children who would otherwise be homeless).

This is what matters: a child is raised knowing he or she is loved and accepted, is exposed to a plethora of different personalities, and is instilled with a finely tuned moral compass.

That definitely does matter! But it doesn’t mean that nothing else matters.

Children aren’t meant to be programmed by what any one person decides is the “correct” upbringing. They should be raised to be good people.

I’m not sure this is coherent. Presumably the “correct” upbringing is whatever most reliably raises a child to be a good person. You think that this can be reliably done with two gay parents of the same sex. I don’t.

 

[Peter_J]

Presumably the “correct” upbringing is whatever most reliably raises a child to be a good person. You think that this can be reliably done with two gay parents of the same sex. I don’t.

I’d say there are some same-sex parents who can be relied upon to do that and some who can’t (and there are some opposite-sex parents who can be relied upon to do that and some who can’t).

 

[Peter_J]

Let me start here. I am a father of five children. I would rather cut off all four of my limbs without anesthesia than have them raised without a mother, or without a father.

If I may say (and I don’t mean to be a “back-seat driver”) I wouldn’t say things like that I on this forum because I wouldn’t want to fan the flames of hostility toward gay parents.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

If I may say (and I don’t mean to be a “back-seat driver”) I wouldn’t say things like that I on this forum because I wouldn’t want to fan the flames of hostility toward gay parents.

Well, I didn’t mean it in the way people might misunderstand it. After all, in a way that is pretty real to me, I **am **a gay parent! I have absolutely no doubt that gay parents are capable of everything straight parents are capable of.

My issue has absolutely nothing to do with the sexual orientation of parents, and everything to do with the NUMBER of parents OF EACH SEX. I think that number must be at least one. I don’t even really care about polygamy/polyandry situations, as long as they aren’t massively dysfunctional. But kids need a mom AND a dad. That’s my firm belief.

Moreover, my comment about my own kids was simply an expression of how crushed I think they would be to lack one of us, myself or my wife. If I did die, and – though she would never do this – my wife married a woman, I think it would help her to manage things better, as opposed to being single. I think marrying a man would accomplish the same thing, while giving our sons a male role model. And maybe she would stay single, and make the best of a bad situation. But losing me would be a loss, in each of these cases.

And you CAN lose what you never had, in these cases. Not having a dad (or a mom) is very often experienced as a loss.