Which is better: kids growing up in a foster home or kids growing up with gay parents?

[nguirado]

This is a false choice in today’s society. There are no shortage of adoptive parents. People have to go to other countries to find kids to adopt.

 

[Elizabeth502]

The discipline of sin has been very much arbitrary. We saw it in some cleric abuse cases, we see it in some annulment cases, etc. He who is without sin may cast the first stone. We tend to see others sins worse than our own.

This thread is not about “sin.” Do you see that in the title? I love how people like to change the very subject of the thread to fit a completely different personal agenda of their own. We are not discussing sin – gay sin, straight sin, clerical sin. Nor are we ordering, prioritizing which sin is worse in the eyes of God. If sin disqualified people from becoming parents, the human race would have ended with Adam & Eve.

This thread is specifically about the appropriateness, the desirability, of a gay “couple” as adopting parents of a foster care child, “versus” that child staying in the foster home. Yet, as I pointed out, even that is a false dichotomy. It disregards lots of other options as potential adopting parents of a foster child: a divorced man or woman adopting that child; a widowed heterosexual man or woman adopting that child; a never married heterosexual man or woman adopting that child. So, 6 options, in addition to the possibility that there just might be a heterosexual couple interested in adopting that same child.

a generalized policy doesn’t seem to apply to our discussion.

Except that what can be accurately generalized is that every gay “couple” excludes the other gender in the primary raising of the voiceless child.

The mantra of a true bureaucrat

What an unfair remark. Actually, standards are the “mantra” (sign) of the true moral person, and the true ethicist – whether a religious believer or not.

Now Jesus was without sin and a gay person has sin; yet, Jesus looked at the person.

And so are practicing Catholics commanded to look at gay people, and love them, and welcome them. Becoming parents is a completely different subject, because dependents are involved.

To dismiss the premise with a generalization misses an opportunity for healing in my opinion. When we say repent it must be with understanding.

Again, you’re confusing a lifestyle with the opportunity for religious conversion (healing). Social experiments which involve dependents are not the appropriate avenue to hope for “healing.” Personal conversion has nothing to do with the appropriateness of a household where the child has a lopsided pair of role models, with an imbalanced (and therefore unhealthy) pattern on which to base his or her understanding of the completeness and complementariness of human love. A gay couple may be complementary in personality and in role, but they can never be complementary in gender. Children deserve both genders. No matter how passionately an inappropriate straight couple wants a child, they will not be granted adoption rights by an agency if they are not good role models, either. Even adoption agencies apparently care more for the well-being of children than many posters on CAF do.

Wouldn’t you better like it if they would dialogue out of understanding?

They don’t need to adopt foster children in order to engage in dialogue with the heterosexual community. That’s a giant excuse.

 

[gtrenewed]

This thread is not about “sin.” Do you see that in the title? I love how people like to change the very subject of the thread to fit a completely different personal agenda of their own.

Wow! Look back at the post, I was responding to what manualman wrote. The context was discipline of denying even a hearing for adoption for homosexual sin so it was in context with this thread.

The post said in catholicism sin is not arbitrary. True, but the real question is discipline of sin and my point was that is arbitrary and I gave a few brief examples. I did not go on and on about those examples because that would be off thread.

I guess everyone who posted on this thread anything but picking a side posted too much of a personal agenda I thought we were allowed to say why we feel a certain way about a position.

As for the rest of your post, I would suggest you read my entire post. I am not favoring gay adoption, I am saying that generalized standards are not a solution for complex problems. I am not against standards for accountability, I am against generalized standards that eliminate entire segments of people with a broad brush. The Pharisees did that and Jesus opposed that. We don’t know if they all repented after having dinner with Jesus, we just know that He had dinner with them.

 

[Newbie2]

Yes, it is a highly unlikely scenario. It’s clear to most people that I was trying to be humorous and sarcastic, not serious.

As I recall, there have been similar discussions within the past year in other threads where someone posed this as a likely scenario.

 

[Elizabeth502]

As I recall, there have been similar discussions within the past year in other threads where someone posed this as a likely scenario.

Yes, that is it exactly. It is repeatedly brought up as an exaggerated likelihood, when it is highly unlikely that such extreme dichotomies occur IRL. Unless, of course, you buy the KoolAid from the Activist Gay Lobby which propagandizes the world into believing,

Gay = Saintly
Straight = Pathetically impaired, dysfunctional by definition, and possibly even Evil

And if you think that is an exaggeration, you should listen to some of the rhetoric within the gay Talking Points. Some of that rhetoric is actually, blatantly, carried into Catholic Churches, pronounced by priests in homilies. I posted about this a couple of months ago, on a thread about ‘gay liturgies,’ I believe. The priest in his homily, at a conventional Sunday Mass I attended (one that was not a ‘gay liturgy’) literally said that gays are spiritually & morally superior to straights, as a category. I kid you not. It was stunning. The example he cited was his own gay brother, who apparently unbeknownst to all of us will be instantly canonized at death, or possibly assumed into Heaven. ***Because the guy is gay ***(said the priest).

The point is that Newbie is correct. These same false assumptions and equations have been offered repeatedly on CAF over the last 2 years minimum.

 

[Elizabeth502]

I am not favoring gay adoption, I am saying that generalized standards are not a solution for complex problems. I am not against standards for accountability, I am against generalized standards that eliminate entire segments of people with a broad brush. The Pharisees did that and Jesus opposed that. We don’t know if they all repented after having dinner with Jesus, we just know that He had dinner with them.

And we have dinner with gays, at least I do. I accept their hospitality and offer them mine. When I meet a gay couple who advertise that they live together, I treat them with respect and kindness, offering no judgment, even silently. Nor do I confront them, without an invitation, about my personal views (and the Church’s views) on gay “marriage” and gay “parenting.” That would be rude, uncharitable, and serve no purpose. In the context of everyday living and interactions, it doesn’t matter what my opinion is, unless they specifically ask for it, at which time I would (should that happen) charitably tell them why I disapprove of gay adoption, but also tell them I respect them as individuals.

If you’re saying that generalized standards cannot be applied to adoptive parenting, I very much disagree, for all the reasons I’ve previously stated. And be very clear that adoption agencies have standards, too. They have standards of (1) a psychologically healthy home; (2) a financially healthy home, etc. In my opinion, and in the opinion of the Roman Catholic Church of which I am a member, a gay household is not a psychologically healthy home for a child.

 

[estesbob]

Yes, that is it exactly. It is repeatedly brought up as an exaggerated likelihood, when it is highly unlikely that such extreme dichotomies occur IRL. Unless, of course, you buy the KoolAid from the Activist Gay Lobby which propagandizes the world into believing,

Gay = Saintly
Straight = Pathetically impaired, dysfunctional by definition, and possibly even Evil

The point is that Newbie is correct. These same false assumptions and equations have been offered repeatedly on CAF over the last 2 years minimum.

Iit is interesting that in homosexualthre homosexual threadshomosexual apologists all seem to know the perfect monagomus homosexual couple whose children are honors students and to spend their days working for world peace and their nights discovering a cure for cancer. In fact the only problem it seems these homosexual couples have is dealing with their beer swilling, adulterous, lousy parenting neighors.

 

[kdragonfly]

Loving parents whether they are straight, gay, Klingons or Romulans are better for children than being bounced from foster home to foster home to group home to the next institution. As a high school teacher, I see (with much sadness) what happens to kids who are treated like a bouncing ball. Let me see, would I rather see a child in the “system” or raised by my nephew and his partner who are both well respected physicians…Yep, that’s a hard one.

Amen.

 

[kdragonfly]

I know of a mixed-race baby who was found by police on a barroom floor at 2am, wearing only a diaper, in the middle of winter, while bioparents sat stoned in the corner.

The baby was adopted by 2 (white) gay men and is now raised in a loving family.

I mention the races, because many gays adopt the kids no one else wants. There are a lot of “John & Jane Whitebread”-types who will not adopt a non-white baby, let alone a nonwhite 4 year old.

So although every case varies, I’d have to say that if a loving gay couple wants to adopt, that would be preferable. The minute we start disqualifying parents because we think they are sinners…we all get disqualified.

Another good post.

 

[kdragonfly]

I know some of you will be disappointed to hear this, but children of same sex couples turn out just as well adjusted as children of heterosexual couples.

Link

 

[Elizabeth502]

I know some of you will be disappointed to hear this, but children of same sex couples turn out just as well adjusted as children of heterosexual couples.

And I know that others will be “disappointed to hear this,” but the “study” you linked has been challenged often, and recently.

 

[Elizabeth502]

Loving parents whether they are straight, gay, Klingons or Romulans are better for children than being bounced from foster home to foster home to group home to the next institution. As a high school teacher, I see (with much sadness) what happens to kids who are treated like a bouncing ball. Let me see, would I rather see a child in the “system” or raised by my nephew and his partner who are both well respected physicians…Yep, that’s a hard one.

Another false dichotomy. There aren’t two solutions:

(1) bouncing ball
(2) gay household

There are at least 7 other solutions. They’ve been posted. Read them.

 

[Elizabeth502]

I know of a mixed-race baby who was found by police on a barroom floor at 2am, wearing only a diaper, in the middle of winter, while bioparents sat stoned in the corner.

The baby was adopted by 2 (white) gay men and is now raised in a loving family.

I mention the races, because many gays adopt the kids no one else wants. There are a lot of “John & Jane Whitebread”-types who will not adopt a non-white baby, let alone a nonwhite 4 year old.

So although every case varies, I’d have to say that if a loving gay couple wants to adopt, that would be preferable. The minute we start disqualifying parents because we think they are sinners…we all get disqualified.

Another bad (illogical) post.

The majority percentage of those adopting biracial children, including those from the Third World, are heterosexual. The most preferable parenting of choice by gay “couples” is by high-tech reproduction, or by insincere mating with a heterosexual friend, strictly for utilitarian purposes.

 

[Elizabeth502]

Also, kdragonfly, since you state you are a “Catholic-in-training,” it would be best if you understand what the Catholic Church position is on this topic. Neither gay marriage, nor gay parenting, nor gay cohabitation is approved.

 

[kdragonfly]

Also, kdragonfly, since you state you are a “Catholic-in-training,” it would be best if you understand what the Catholic Church position is on this topic. Neither gay marriage, nor gay parenting, nor gay cohabitation is approved.

Thanks so much for the advice!

 

[commoncents]

Pish Posh.
The fact of the sin and the non-repentence involved in it disqualifies the person from specific tasks. Like it or not, there are certain jobs that require a certain morality to be qualified to do.

One job specificly is the parenting of a child.

So who one chooses to have sex with effects how good of a parent they can be? Seriously, that is what you believe?

 

[commoncents]

This is a false choice in today’s society. There are no shortage of adoptive parents. People have to go to other countries to find kids to adopt.

There are not shortage of adoptive parents for babies. For a 9 year old whose parents were killed in a drug deal gone wrong that now got shipped to a group home, there aren’t a lot of prospective foster homes.

 

[Newbie2]

So who one chooses to have sex with effects how good of a parent they can be? Seriously, that is what you believe?

Well, that’s pretty much what the Church teaches…but we all know it goes further than just “who one chooses to have sex with”, don’t we?

We know that a stable, monogamous relationship i.e. a married couple provide children what a homosexual couple simply cannot; a mom and a dad.

Anyone who thinks that a homosexual man can provide a motherly influence or a lesbian woman can provide a fatherly influence on their adopted kids is sadly mistaken.

But that’s not the point of this thread; the point, methinks, is to compare an abusive, heterosexual household with a non-abusive homosexual household and decide which is better for a child. Sort of like asking whether physical abuse or psycological “abuse” is preferable when given the choice.

And yes, I used the term “abuse”. Purposefully placing a child in a permanent situation where “Heather has two mommies” or two daddies is abuse i.e. depriving them of a male or female parent influence.

Temporary sheltering them there away from a physically abusive household is a different matter, and IMHO could be considered when no other options were available. However, we’ve discussed how rare a situation like this might be.

 

[buffalo]

Here is one who writes about her own experience.

Dawn Stefanowicz - Out From Under

Are the kids really all right? What research actually shows about the parents children need
focusinsights.org/article/marriage-family/are-kids-really-all-right?utm_source=Insights+Nov+2010-A&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Insights+Nov+2010-A_READ+MORE+Lead
Man and wife? That’s best for baby
smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/man-and-wife-thats-best-for-baby-20100715-10c2b.html
The other story about same-sex parenting
Research showing the risks of lesbian and gay parenting is ignored in the race to make a political case.
mercatornet.com/articles/view/the_other_story_about_same-sex_parenting/

EXAMINING THE RESEARCH LITERATURE
ON OUTCOMES FROM SAME-SEX PARENTING
Glenn T. Stanton, Senior Analyst for Marriage and Sexuality, Focus On The Family
citizenlink.org/pdfs/fosi/marriage/examining_research_on_ss_parenting.pdf

More prone to suicide: Children adopted by same-sex couples suffer “diverse trauma and behavioral disorders,” psychologist’s research reveals
calcatholic.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?id=ab3efae8-b9bf-4269-828b-13604acaa059
Healthy Childhood Sexual Development
focusonthefamily.com/parenting/sexuality/healthy_childhood_sexual_development.aspx UNITED FAMILIES INTERNATIONAL: A Guide to Family Issues: The Marriage Advantage
unitedfamilies.org/downloads/Marriage_Guide.pdf
IMFC: Families Matters
Private choices, public costs: How failing families cost us all
imfcanada.org/article_files/Cost%20of%20Family%20Breakdown%20finalHR.pdf “Donor Offspring” Redefining Family
humanlifereview.com/2008_fall/2008_fall_burger.pdf

Alabama High Court Should Uphold State Sovereignty to Protect the Welfare of Children – Filed Brief
lc.org/index.cfm?PID=14100&PRID=793 and
lc.org/media/9980/attachments/brief_alsct_nb_ssa.pdf Dr. Byrd Provides Testimony In English Court Case
Regarding Same-Sex Adoption

Same-Sex Unions and Adoption: Placing Adults, Children, and the Culture at Risk
By Dr. Richard P. Fitzgibbons
cathmedphila.org/resources/documents/SameSexUnionsandAdoption.pdf
Marriage, Procreation, and Incarceration: A Defense of Common Sense, Federalism, and the Constitution
alliancealert.org/2008/12/15/marriage-procreation-and-incarceration-a-defense-of-common-sense-federalism-and-the-constitution/
Without Our Consent: The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
parentalrights.org/blog/courts-the-law/without-our-consent-the-un-convention-on-the-rights-of-the-child

A Family Law Revolution: Changing Attitudes About Parentage in Nontraditional Families’ Use of Collaborative Reproduction
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1304284#
21 Reasons Why Gender Matters
gendermatters.org.au/
Science, myths and same-sex parenting
http://www.mercatornet.com/
Family ‘diversity’ unpacked
To pretend that all families are equal denies the truth of the child’s experience
mercatornet.com/

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[buffalo]

Don’t Mess With Mother Nature
beta.coralridge.org/

IBM heir’s adoption of lover annulled
boston.com/

Love Isn’t Enough: 5 Reasons Why Same-Sex Marriage Will Harm Children
http://www.drtraycehansen.com/
A Review and Analysis of Research Studies Which Assessed
Sexual Preference of Children Raised by Homosexuals
By Trayce L. Hansen, Ph.D.
www.drtraycehansen.com
Pro-Homosexual Research ers Conceal Findings:
Children Raised by Openly Homosexual Parents More Likely to Engage in Homosexuality
By Trayce L. Hansen, Ph.D.
NEW Scientific studies on same-sex parenting are flawed: Final Amended Declaration of Dr. Sharon Quick, M.D.,

    [Good News About Adoptive Parents - But Not About Same-Sex Couples -        ](http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=19769)

Focus On The Family’s Dr. James Dobson Defends Mother-Father Family -

The Marriage Debate: We’ve Moved On. But to What? -

Outcome of Three Parent Case - Court of Appeal for Ontario -

Poll: Canadians (89%) Say Children Should Be Raised by Parents or Heterosexual -

Replication of Quotation ErrorsReplication of Quotation Errors
americancollegeofpediatricians.org/Marriage-Rights-for-Homosexual-Couples-Not-the-Best-for-Children.html
Quick Declaration Exhibit I - Quotation Accuracy - FINAL pdf

Experts Worldwide Find Gay Adoption Harmful for Children -

Evidence Found for Childhood Family Factors Influencing Sexual Orientation -

Bringing the State Back Into the Bedrooms of the Nation: Is Freedom as Important as Equality? -

‘Science’ Games Activists Play On an article by Wainright & Patterson (Journal of the Family, 2006) -

Should Homosexuals Adopt? Why Adoption is Not a Homosexual “Rights” Issue. -

Homosexual Urban Legend: False: The Claim That 6-14 Million Children Are Reared In Homosexual Households -

The Revolution in Parenthood - The Emerging Global Clash Between Adult Rights And Children’s Needs -

Homosexuality & Parenting -

Homosexual Parenting Resources
cmda.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&CONTENTID=9127
Homosexual Adoption and Children
cmda.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&CONTENTID=9126

http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/sep/06092805.html
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