Always putting family in quotes when it involves lgbt folks is so petty ;)
I point it out because it's evidence that people do treat these families differently. Your stated concern is for children, so I wonder how you think a child growing up with gay parents is affected when they can tell a subset of society interacts with them differently than children growing up with straight parents.
What some call petty, others call truth. The "families" you are talking about required loss of a mother or father. Pretending like they were created the same way erases the pain these children have experienced.
And to be fair, these children WERE treated differently by society. Our culture allowed them to be acquired by unrelated adults, bought and sold, deprived of a fundamental relationship.
So, no. We won't change our language to make the adults happy.
Ok, so what is your definition of family? It's only folks related by blood? It's both parents? Please share your definition and lets see who else it excludes. Just looking for consistency here, Josh!
Tim, the article you’re commenting on answers this directly. The campaign defends children from the intentional deprivation of a mother or father by the post-Obergefell regime. You want to know who’s being excluded? The answer is the child, cut off from her own mother or father by adults who decided in advance she didn’t need one of them.
Josh, I understand your moral objection. That's not what I asked. I asked what your definition of family is (since you suggested the quotes reflect truth, not rhetoric).
I also don't think you answered my other question, so I'll restate it here: how does publicly signaling to children in LGBT households that their families are less legitimate serve their well-being? Note, I'm talking about children, not adults here.
If you do, then you know that if any young child knows about this campaign it is because their parents have brought attention to it or their parents allow them a lot of unsupervised internet time.
There are many topics which adults need to talk about that are not appropriate for young children to know about beyond something age-appropriate if the child inadvertently hears something about it.
In this case, if a young child brings it up because they overheard a conversation, their parents can easily say, "Some people think every child should live with their mommy and their daddy." And then bite their tongue and not ask leading questions like, "But we don't and you're totally fine, right?" which a child might (because of their love for their parents) feel obliged to give a positive answer.
And any older child will have noticed that some children have a mom and dad and they don't and (if they feel safe) ask why they don't. Hopefully, those parents would give an honest answer and if the child expressed a desire to know more about their missing parent, help them to find out or work through their feelings instead of making them feel like they are wrong to want to know their missing parent.
I don't think we actually disagree here, because I was never suggesting children are reading this Substack.
My point is that the scare quotes reveal an attitude, and attitudes like that don't stay neatly contained to comment sections.
Regardless of moral concerns about family formation, Josh/TBU are not the arbiters of which households get to count as "real" families. That kind of linguistic gatekeeping has real social consequences for children living in those homes.
It's very difficult to stay kid-centric; thanks for the perspective and prayers are with Katy Faust and TBU.
Thank you for all TBU does...light in the darkness.
I still had a great Mother's Day! <3 Thankful for all of you here supporting this work!
Praying for your safety.
Excellent response.
Thanks for covering this and for advocating on behalf of children. I didn’t realize this advocacy was happening. It’s badly needed.
Always putting family in quotes when it involves lgbt folks is so petty ;)
I point it out because it's evidence that people do treat these families differently. Your stated concern is for children, so I wonder how you think a child growing up with gay parents is affected when they can tell a subset of society interacts with them differently than children growing up with straight parents.
What some call petty, others call truth. The "families" you are talking about required loss of a mother or father. Pretending like they were created the same way erases the pain these children have experienced.
And to be fair, these children WERE treated differently by society. Our culture allowed them to be acquired by unrelated adults, bought and sold, deprived of a fundamental relationship.
So, no. We won't change our language to make the adults happy.
Ok, so what is your definition of family? It's only folks related by blood? It's both parents? Please share your definition and lets see who else it excludes. Just looking for consistency here, Josh!
Tim, the article you’re commenting on answers this directly. The campaign defends children from the intentional deprivation of a mother or father by the post-Obergefell regime. You want to know who’s being excluded? The answer is the child, cut off from her own mother or father by adults who decided in advance she didn’t need one of them.
Josh, I understand your moral objection. That's not what I asked. I asked what your definition of family is (since you suggested the quotes reflect truth, not rhetoric).
I also don't think you answered my other question, so I'll restate it here: how does publicly signaling to children in LGBT households that their families are less legitimate serve their well-being? Note, I'm talking about children, not adults here.
Tim, do you have children?
If you do, then you know that if any young child knows about this campaign it is because their parents have brought attention to it or their parents allow them a lot of unsupervised internet time.
There are many topics which adults need to talk about that are not appropriate for young children to know about beyond something age-appropriate if the child inadvertently hears something about it.
In this case, if a young child brings it up because they overheard a conversation, their parents can easily say, "Some people think every child should live with their mommy and their daddy." And then bite their tongue and not ask leading questions like, "But we don't and you're totally fine, right?" which a child might (because of their love for their parents) feel obliged to give a positive answer.
And any older child will have noticed that some children have a mom and dad and they don't and (if they feel safe) ask why they don't. Hopefully, those parents would give an honest answer and if the child expressed a desire to know more about their missing parent, help them to find out or work through their feelings instead of making them feel like they are wrong to want to know their missing parent.
Hi JT!
I don't think we actually disagree here, because I was never suggesting children are reading this Substack.
My point is that the scare quotes reveal an attitude, and attitudes like that don't stay neatly contained to comment sections.
Regardless of moral concerns about family formation, Josh/TBU are not the arbiters of which households get to count as "real" families. That kind of linguistic gatekeeping has real social consequences for children living in those homes.