It is actually bigoted for the left to suggest that biological families are not important, or less important, than a non-biological family that has been cobbled together. To imply that my biological mother and my biological father, my siblings, cousins, etc., should not be that important to me, and that I am inconsiderate or selfish to think otherwise, is bigoted.
My feelings toward my biological family are not valid? Is that what they are saying? So, the feelings of an LGBTQ+ person are valid, but the feelings of conservative people are not? Society is supposed to redefine family, re-engineer pronouns, and accept whatever they feel is right...while my feelings don't matter? I get it...their feelings MATTER MORE THAN MINE? So much so, that they are suggesting everyone else should sacrifice children for their feelings. Yikes.
Children's feelings don't matter, either? Because the children have spoken and it is clear that biological families DO MATTER to them. I'd like to see the leftists explain how they have spent the past several decades trying to convince people that feelings matter more than anything else (trannys feel like acting as if they are the opposite sex, gay people feel like getting married, gay people feel like becoming parents)...it's all about the feels, right? And we have to accept whatever your feelings are, right...or we're bigots, right? Biological families are the most important, strongest bond you will ever form in life, providing societal stability over any other form of association...that's what children and adults have stated that they FEEL, and it's been proven by research. If they do not accept this, they are, by definition, bigots.
This is not what the left is saying. We are saying if one parent discovers they are gay, lesbian, then at that point there is no alternative that the child will not be raised by two bioparents. Now how the child will be raised is a matter of custody, not a matter of marriage.
you are being a bit disingenuous here; you're simply talking about the outcome of ordinary divorce, (which is bad for kids on its own), not they children's outcomes in regards gay homosexual adoption or pairings in general.
It also doesn't change the Regenerate study results. If these were abided by, then the kidz should go with the divorced parent who is not the gay
I knew a woman who knew she was gay but got married to a fellow anyway and had kids because she wanted them, then divorced the husband. From what she told me, this is not terribly rare for gay folx to follow this plan, thereby duping naive str8's.
And then they lose confidence with the opposite sex, thinking they turned their spouses gay. It's sad, but kinda funny at the same time, not gonna lie here.
at any rate, the notion that ppl just "discover" they're gay and get divorced afterward probably has less to do with this apparent self-discovery than other factors. In people married young, I can see this subsequent gay awareness happening more authentically as they mature and bloom into full gayhood.
I've heard this study cited many times. While I understand that the mother-father household is the ideal, life does not often cooperate with the ideal. As a current single mother, I recognize that the situation is not ideal for my kids, but it is a better quality of life than living in a high-conflict home with married parents. I think that is the key word here- quality. It's the quality of the environment. A stable home environment is of better quality than a chaotic, abusive environment. This is where I disagree with movements such as yours. I have heard conservatives say that parents should stay together no matter what, even in abusive relationships. This creates a dangerous environment for children. So you would have to give up the two parent household ideal in order to provide safety. Again, its the quality of the parents, not necessarily the sex of the parents. My two cents.
When we start comparing abusive biological parents to perfect and rich same-sex or single parents, sure...
We don't make public policy recommendations based on adult feelings to justify their choices. We look at what is best for kids and we should all be able to agree everything in our culture, technology, and laws should incentivize/protect/promote what is best in every way possible. -Jenn
How is denying 1138 federal + hundreds of state benefits, rights, protections and incentives advantageous for children being raised by same-sex couples?
God heals all brokenness, and proper therapies can and do help heal the trauma of abuse. Forgiveness has miraculous results in healing the broken-hearted. 🎚💔❤️🩹❤️🎚
Did you read the studies? Have you looked at the longitudinal data of those families? Your situation was not refuted in this post. Rather, this writing describes the intentionality of same-sex marriage as harmful to children as documented in the studies. First, you cannot replicate biology, and secondly, children thrive with both sexes as parents…not two of the same. That’s a fact not an opinion. And your statement, " I have heard conservatives say that parents should stay together no matter what, even in abusive relationships”, that’s a strawman rock you’ve thrown and does not belong here, and is counterintuitive to Do No Harm…isn’t it? Why would you give an ear to that?
How did you end up in a high-conflict home, as an adult? Why did you choose an abusive partner? You slept with an abusive person...why? Maybe you didn't know any better because you were raised that way. In that case, you need to learn how to act in an emotionally mature way to avoid being abused and exposing your children to abusive situations. You need to FIX the situation, not run away and start another chaotic situation for your children. You said "Life does not often cooperate with the ideal"...no, it was YOU who did not cooperate with the ideal. YOU slept with an abuser...at least twice...you said "my kids".
We must ask why progressives are so resolute to loosen sex, marriage, and family from all natural and social constraints. It is because they are nihilists, who believe there is no inherent meaning in human life other than whatever personal meaning one chooses to give it. To such people hedonism, the pursuit of pleasure -- and its corollary the avoidance of pain -- offers as much meaning as can be had in this life. The maximization of pleasure demands the removal of restraints, especially those imposed by custom, tradition, morality, law, and the needs and rights of others. They might call this "freedom" or "liberation" or "empowerment." It is only selfishness. Thorough studies like this one from the indefatigable Mark Regnerus threaten all that make-believe. End Obergefell, yes, and raise up real marriage.
Of course the only meaning of life is whatever one gives it, and whatever peculiar pursuits that individual ends up drawn to. People are widely varied, by nature and nurture, and the idea that YOU forcing OTHER PEOPLE to live according to YOUR DESIRES and YOUR PREFERRED TRADITIONS is just stretching each human upon your procrustean bed for your sociopathically selfish desires and comforts.
And then engaging in the most odious projection of all by claiming that the progressive desire to ensure ALL people live fulfilling lives on THEIR OWN TERMS... is somehow "selfish."
What absolute rubbish. There are numberless heterosexual families where parents, mostly fathers but some mothers too, abuse, beat and abandon their children. There are also numerous single, divorced and widowed heterosexual parents, some of whom remain single but many of whom remarry so the children have to live with step parents. Your fantasy that all heterosexual parents live in perfect nuclear families is just that - a fantasy. 50 percent of American heterosexual marriages end in divorce. And children of same-sex parents are chosen children, either biological children or adopted orphans. They are almost never accidents and most of them are just as well adjusted as children of heterosexual parents. Throughout history, children have been raised in all kinds of families - nuclear, but mostly extended families and also by single parents, by grandparents and yes, by same-sex couples. But carry on with your hateful propaganda. Our kids are all right. By the way, I am the author of a book on same-sex unions, marriage, parenting in India since the 14th century. It's called Love's Rite (from a Shakespeare sonnet). Published by Penguin 2005 at a time when marriage was legalised in only one country, and updated editions issued in 2001, 2002.
Ms. Faust never claims that all traditional nuclear families are perfect, or even happy. That's why she cites the large sample size of the study (3,000 participants) in support of her claim. When you look at large numbers of families of different types, the traditional nuclear family is best for kids on a variety of metrics. Which should not surprise anyone. It's common sense.
It's only "common sense" to those who don't know history and don't observe what is going on around them. Throughout history, large numbers of men were away in armies or working, and many still work as migrant labour. Children were mostly raised by women in groups - mothers, aunts, grandmothers. And most families were not nuclear; they were joint or extended families.
Sure, historically many children were raised with very little father involvement, but that was imposed on them by necessity. The family was still of a traditional structure, the man was the provider (which is why, in the case of soldiers or sailors, he had to be away for long periods of time) and the mother stayed home to raise the kids. It was only natural that she would receive help from extended family and neighbors, and most of them were women since often their husbands were away working as well. But this is a totally different thing than today's lesbian couple having a baby by a sperm bank because they are rich enough to indulge in crazy social experimentation.
Ruth you are missing the point of the study which has been verified recently. Which is that spiritually, culturally, socially we all understand that a child needs a mother as a role model as well as a father. Arguing for second best won’t help you win your fight.
I have come across thousands of children with a father and mother (both at present and historically) in several different societies, who have been deeply damaged, and plenty of children of single parents or same sex parents who are much better adjusted. So I don’t agree with the illusion that children with a father and mother do better. But I understand that opponents of same sex marriage need to keep repeating the illusion because it sounds good. One can prove pretty much anything with a sociological study. The results depend on the questions asked, which are almost always slanted and the results almost always confirm the bias with which the researcher started out. Social sciences are not the same as hard sciences. Auden was wrote when he wrote “Thou shalt not commit a social science” :)
My assertions are not unverified. I am the author of a book on same-sex unions, marriage, parenting in India since the 14th century. It's called Love's Rite (from a Shakespeare sonnet). Published by Penguin 2005 at a time when marriage was legalised in only one country, and updated editions issued in 2001, 2002.The study is not rigorous. It contrasts broken same-sex homes with intact cross-sex ones. My assertions are verified by many major historians as well as by data. Check the data on how many heterosexual marriages in America end in divorce. Read John Boswell’s book The Kindness of Strangers, on adoption in classical and medieval Europe. However, continue your hatred of marriage equality. That is a battle you have lost. Thailand has recently established same-sex marriage. So has Nepal.
Plenty of same-sex couples adopt as well. You probably consider that crazy too. While a one night stand between heterosexuals that produces a child is not crazy? Take a look at the stats on single mothers in the U.S. and in Europe. Well, we have a well-adjusted and happy 19-year-old training to be a pilot. Thanks for the hate and bye bye.
I married into an adopted family it certainly wasn’t a crazy thing it matured me instead. The point is a child needs role models from both heterosexual parents.
There are plenty of adult role models that all children have - teachers, family friends, uncles, aunts. Some children unfortunately have no good role models even when they have two hetero parents. I am the author of a book on same-sex unions, marriage, parenting in India since the 14th century. It's called Love's Rite (from a Shakespeare sonnet). Published by Penguin 2005 at a time when marriage was legalised in only one country, and updated editions issued in 2001, 2002.
While they witter on about their "human rights" it has been forgotten that babies have human rights too and one of these is to be cared for by their parents, not purchased as a commodity.
I was raised by two women in partnership. It didn't work for me, as one that lived it, I can say I deeply missed the male influence and struggled, not to say that single parent heterosexual parents fare better, as on reader says there are many negative circumstances that influence one's childhood. But I don't believe it's without harm, it's certainly not ideal, and the children suffer. We need intimate relationships with both sexes in childhood.
Thank you for sharing that. I'm donor-conceived but was born into a family that struggled with fertility. Were you able to find your biological father?
I never met anybody campaigning for same-sex marriage that believed in marriage. The main thing it brought us is the final transition of marriage from an institution mainly about providing stability for raising children to a recognition of adult relationships.
Have you interacted with gay/lesbian couples in debate about this study? Could a study be done showing a comparison of child outcomes and psychological status for all types of families? Biological, adoptive, same-sex, single parent, fostered or orphan? Perhaps even, relative (aunt, uncle, grandparents) raised?
I was going to say, it's obvious that having a stable two-biological-parent household is best, but I'd be very curious to see comparisons between other common models.
We should do the best we can to keep biological families intact, but we also have to accept that when they break, there is often a good reason for that. Let's have realistic discussions about the next best things.
The original Regnerus study did exactly that. The results were what you would expect: the further from biological parents married to each other you go, the worse the outcomes for kids. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0049089X12000610?via%3Dihub I'm sorry I can't figure out how to upload images to comments. Otherwise, I would show you Tables 2-4. And this link I just provided seems to be paywalled. Sorry about that. I may try to make my own post about this.
I just gave an interview to Catholic News Agency that I think Them Before Us will appreciate:
"“This new analysis completely vindicates Dr. Regnerus,” Jennifer Roback Morse, founder and president of the Ruth Institute, told CNA. “In my opinion, however, he never needed ‘vindication.’ There was never anything wrong with his study. It was the best and most thorough of its type, during an era that was jammed with junk science.”
“The studies that claimed ‘no difference’ between same-sex parents and opposite-sex parents made sweeping universal claims based on unrepresentative samples,” she continued. “Dr. Regnerus collected his own data that was by far the most representative dataset anyone had used up until that time. He also survived multiple ideologically-motivated ‘investigations.’ In fact, the University of Texas ultimately promoted him to full professor.”
Ultimately, said Morse, who founded the Ruth Institute in 2008 as a means to defend traditional Christian sexual ethics, “the saddest thing about this whole ideologically distorted debate is that ordinary people are making life-altering decisions based on junk science.”
“Ordinary women are concluding that having children with another woman will be the same sort of experience as having children with a husband. When they figure out from experience that this is not really the case, it is too late to change course,” she said, adding: “They already have a child who really truly does need a father, which she is in no position to provide.”
How good it is to see the Church supporting the idea that it is important for children to be with their biological family! it's not like they ever historically participated in facilitating the separation of children from their biological mothers in different countries and different cultural contexts... Right?
I'm an auntie to children my gay brother adopted. They were removed from their mother due to drug use and neglect. May their end outcomes be worse compared to the children of married parents? Considering their background and early exposures, I'd be surprised if they were not. But is it fair to compare these children to children of married, stable parents, and assume that my brother being gay is the problem?
"Didn't cause the loss" in what scenario? If you're only speaking about adoption, let's talk about that and you'll agree we ban suerogacy and egg/sperm purchase which IS people causing the loss. -Jenn
I good point I've not seen an answer for. If all the sudden, Obergefell was gone, gay folks would still have children. Their families just wouldn't have the benefits, responsibilities and rights of legal marriage. How does it make those children's lives better?
Without conceding your empirical argument, but assuming it is true, your premise doesn’t support the conclusion. Whether or not same sex couples should raise children is a different question from whether they should be able to marry. Unmarried same sex couples can adopt and many married same sex couples don’t have children. That is why your argument failed in court, not because of a conspiracy against a study.
"No, government’s concern with marriage is not nearly as sentimental. Rather, the state’s interest stems from a biological reality that judicial fiat is powerless to change—the reality that heterosexual sex produces babies. When Congress enacted the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in 1996, they made that interest abundantly clear: “At bottom, civil society has an interest in maintaining and protecting the institution of heterosexual marriage because it has a deep and abiding interest in encouraging responsible procreation and child-rearing. Simply put, government has an interest in marriage because it has an interest in children.”
There is no requirement to intend to, or even be able to procreate in order to legally marry. Likewise, there is no requirement to get married before procreating. they are different things. And if you got Obergefell overturned tomorrow, there would still be gay parents with children. You'd have just disrupted their families and their rights. Is THAT good for their children?
Laws and policies are being made right now using Obergefell as a justification…if you don’t provide gay men an egg and a surrogate, you’re violating their rights. Do you have a problem with that? Commodifying women and children for adult desires?
I think I'd very much like to see what laws you are talking about, and whether or not you've characterized them correctly. I also take issue with the notion that children's rights ALWAYS trump those of adults. And, finally, I don't see surrogacy and other arrangements entered into with free will to be "commodifying" them.
I didn't see anything in there (admittedly, eventually I was skimming) that was objectionable, or that "commodifies" people. Was there something that stood out to you, that bugged you more than the rest? Because this just seemed like equal treatment under the law to me.
Your vision of marriage is so dystopian. If possibility of procreation were a necessary precondition of marriage, the state could annul or prohibit the marriage of sterile individuals, since procreation is not a possibility for them. Perhaps the state should require you demonstrate a minimum sperm count before it issues you a marriage license.
You go into marriage with the hope you will have children not on condition you will have children. Marriage is the coming together of man & woman in love to create & protect a child in that unit. That’s why we have the choice of a church wedding. Not everything is run by the state.
Maybe that’s why you went into marriage, but that’s not why I got married, which is the whole point. Marriage is necessarily about procreation and it’s definitely not legally about that.
You’re entitled to your opinion regarding the normative justification for marriage, but the legal right to marry had never been contingent on a couple’s ability to procreate much less their potential fitness as parents, especially as determined in an aggregated statistical sense. Taking your analysis, a state could find that on average children of affluent couples have better outcomes than those of poor couples and condition marriage on income level.
A man and a woman have the required gametes to create new life. Every child has one mother and father. It's best for the child and society at large if the children who are produced are cared for by those two adults (dad and mom) because they are genetically/biologically predisposed to their well-being in a way non-bio-related adults and a faceless state are not.
Homosexuality is "biological" in what sense? It's not a genetic predisposition, it cannot genetically create anything, and two-men or two-women aren't the ideal when it comes to raising non-related children (and which other children could they have) because it's missing the complementarity that a man and woman offer. (Our culture claims women matter on a Fortune 500 company's board but not to her child being raised by two men?)
So yes, marriage came to be because society should acknowledge that's best for the child. It's not men going and creating a bunch of children they don't care for at home every single day. It's not a woman who doesn't know who the father is. It's not a child just being raised by whatever assortment of adults feel like it in the moment. One man, one woman, united to each other and to any children they produce. That's marriage. - Jenn
Hasn't the argument always been that two non-ideal parents are better than the none-or-one? The alternative for the kids in these situations is no parents at all, not a well-formed and stable nuclear unit.
I'll be honest, when I read this article, it doesn't feel like children are the main concern. It feels more like you're pushing a certain ideology and agenda while using children as an emotional lever.
Well, both sides are using someone as an emotional lever. The LGBT-ideology just used adults and their feelings. We're just centering the actual victims of all these policies and they cannot speak for themselves: children.
Well, what is "gay marriage" exactly? You mean re-configuring a social institution to be something it's not, to please a tiny subset of adults, in a way that's resulted in the violating of children's rights to a degree never before seen in human history? Yes, we have a problem with that. - Jenn
Perhaps "gay" marriage is the wrong term it should probably just be called marriage whether it is between a man and woman or a same sex couple. Marriage has already been reconfigured, many many times. People have reconfigured every social institution from the structures of governments to religious organizations as the people those institutions serve changes over time. I don't believe that this is something marriage should not be only something you don't want it to be. We all have our own beliefs.
Children's right are violated in a disturbing amount of ways by biological parents and society at large. And I very much agree that everyone should have a problem with that. But it is by no means limited to marriages with parents of the same sex.
You could call it "marriage" but that means something already and it doesn't mean two men or two women or one man with 3 women, or a single person who "married him/herself" (Hallmark movie reference, lol).
You have to call it gay marriage because people won't know you mean two-men or two-women, otherwise.
Divorce redefined and degraded marriage and we have a HUGE issue with that (see our latest article).
Societal institutions aren't up for personal definitions based on shifting politics. We're talking about one of the most essential human institutions in civilization. -Jenn
It is actually bigoted for the left to suggest that biological families are not important, or less important, than a non-biological family that has been cobbled together. To imply that my biological mother and my biological father, my siblings, cousins, etc., should not be that important to me, and that I am inconsiderate or selfish to think otherwise, is bigoted.
My feelings toward my biological family are not valid? Is that what they are saying? So, the feelings of an LGBTQ+ person are valid, but the feelings of conservative people are not? Society is supposed to redefine family, re-engineer pronouns, and accept whatever they feel is right...while my feelings don't matter? I get it...their feelings MATTER MORE THAN MINE? So much so, that they are suggesting everyone else should sacrifice children for their feelings. Yikes.
Children's feelings don't matter, either? Because the children have spoken and it is clear that biological families DO MATTER to them. I'd like to see the leftists explain how they have spent the past several decades trying to convince people that feelings matter more than anything else (trannys feel like acting as if they are the opposite sex, gay people feel like getting married, gay people feel like becoming parents)...it's all about the feels, right? And we have to accept whatever your feelings are, right...or we're bigots, right? Biological families are the most important, strongest bond you will ever form in life, providing societal stability over any other form of association...that's what children and adults have stated that they FEEL, and it's been proven by research. If they do not accept this, they are, by definition, bigots.
Every one is equal but some are more equal than others, duh.
Not true.
But just because one is religious, that doesn't make one superior to others.
nobody is saying that except you
This is not what the left is saying. We are saying if one parent discovers they are gay, lesbian, then at that point there is no alternative that the child will not be raised by two bioparents. Now how the child will be raised is a matter of custody, not a matter of marriage.
you are being a bit disingenuous here; you're simply talking about the outcome of ordinary divorce, (which is bad for kids on its own), not they children's outcomes in regards gay homosexual adoption or pairings in general.
It also doesn't change the Regenerate study results. If these were abided by, then the kidz should go with the divorced parent who is not the gay
I knew a woman who knew she was gay but got married to a fellow anyway and had kids because she wanted them, then divorced the husband. From what she told me, this is not terribly rare for gay folx to follow this plan, thereby duping naive str8's.
And then they lose confidence with the opposite sex, thinking they turned their spouses gay. It's sad, but kinda funny at the same time, not gonna lie here.
at any rate, the notion that ppl just "discover" they're gay and get divorced afterward probably has less to do with this apparent self-discovery than other factors. In people married young, I can see this subsequent gay awareness happening more authentically as they mature and bloom into full gayhood.
Religion does more harm to children than allowing gay people to marry does.
show me the data so I can confirm this
Spoken like a true unbeliever.
I've heard this study cited many times. While I understand that the mother-father household is the ideal, life does not often cooperate with the ideal. As a current single mother, I recognize that the situation is not ideal for my kids, but it is a better quality of life than living in a high-conflict home with married parents. I think that is the key word here- quality. It's the quality of the environment. A stable home environment is of better quality than a chaotic, abusive environment. This is where I disagree with movements such as yours. I have heard conservatives say that parents should stay together no matter what, even in abusive relationships. This creates a dangerous environment for children. So you would have to give up the two parent household ideal in order to provide safety. Again, its the quality of the parents, not necessarily the sex of the parents. My two cents.
When we start comparing abusive biological parents to perfect and rich same-sex or single parents, sure...
We don't make public policy recommendations based on adult feelings to justify their choices. We look at what is best for kids and we should all be able to agree everything in our culture, technology, and laws should incentivize/protect/promote what is best in every way possible. -Jenn
Katy...
How is denying 1138 federal + hundreds of state benefits, rights, protections and incentives advantageous for children being raised by same-sex couples?
Glenn.
Pray to have less conflict with proper counseling. All things are possible with Love, especially for your children. 🎚🙏❤️🩹💔❤️🙏🎚
no, that is not true. counseling does not fix abuse, and you have no business telling this abuse survivor otherwise.
God heals all brokenness, and proper therapies can and do help heal the trauma of abuse. Forgiveness has miraculous results in healing the broken-hearted. 🎚💔❤️🩹❤️🎚
Did you read the studies? Have you looked at the longitudinal data of those families? Your situation was not refuted in this post. Rather, this writing describes the intentionality of same-sex marriage as harmful to children as documented in the studies. First, you cannot replicate biology, and secondly, children thrive with both sexes as parents…not two of the same. That’s a fact not an opinion. And your statement, " I have heard conservatives say that parents should stay together no matter what, even in abusive relationships”, that’s a strawman rock you’ve thrown and does not belong here, and is counterintuitive to Do No Harm…isn’t it? Why would you give an ear to that?
How did you end up in a high-conflict home, as an adult? Why did you choose an abusive partner? You slept with an abusive person...why? Maybe you didn't know any better because you were raised that way. In that case, you need to learn how to act in an emotionally mature way to avoid being abused and exposing your children to abusive situations. You need to FIX the situation, not run away and start another chaotic situation for your children. You said "Life does not often cooperate with the ideal"...no, it was YOU who did not cooperate with the ideal. YOU slept with an abuser...at least twice...you said "my kids".
Ahh, the wonderful welcoming community of the typical broken ahh evangelical yankee. So lovely and comprensive as always <3.
We must ask why progressives are so resolute to loosen sex, marriage, and family from all natural and social constraints. It is because they are nihilists, who believe there is no inherent meaning in human life other than whatever personal meaning one chooses to give it. To such people hedonism, the pursuit of pleasure -- and its corollary the avoidance of pain -- offers as much meaning as can be had in this life. The maximization of pleasure demands the removal of restraints, especially those imposed by custom, tradition, morality, law, and the needs and rights of others. They might call this "freedom" or "liberation" or "empowerment." It is only selfishness. Thorough studies like this one from the indefatigable Mark Regnerus threaten all that make-believe. End Obergefell, yes, and raise up real marriage.
Of course the only meaning of life is whatever one gives it, and whatever peculiar pursuits that individual ends up drawn to. People are widely varied, by nature and nurture, and the idea that YOU forcing OTHER PEOPLE to live according to YOUR DESIRES and YOUR PREFERRED TRADITIONS is just stretching each human upon your procrustean bed for your sociopathically selfish desires and comforts.
And then engaging in the most odious projection of all by claiming that the progressive desire to ensure ALL people live fulfilling lives on THEIR OWN TERMS... is somehow "selfish."
What absolute rubbish. There are numberless heterosexual families where parents, mostly fathers but some mothers too, abuse, beat and abandon their children. There are also numerous single, divorced and widowed heterosexual parents, some of whom remain single but many of whom remarry so the children have to live with step parents. Your fantasy that all heterosexual parents live in perfect nuclear families is just that - a fantasy. 50 percent of American heterosexual marriages end in divorce. And children of same-sex parents are chosen children, either biological children or adopted orphans. They are almost never accidents and most of them are just as well adjusted as children of heterosexual parents. Throughout history, children have been raised in all kinds of families - nuclear, but mostly extended families and also by single parents, by grandparents and yes, by same-sex couples. But carry on with your hateful propaganda. Our kids are all right. By the way, I am the author of a book on same-sex unions, marriage, parenting in India since the 14th century. It's called Love's Rite (from a Shakespeare sonnet). Published by Penguin 2005 at a time when marriage was legalised in only one country, and updated editions issued in 2001, 2002.
Ms. Faust never claims that all traditional nuclear families are perfect, or even happy. That's why she cites the large sample size of the study (3,000 participants) in support of her claim. When you look at large numbers of families of different types, the traditional nuclear family is best for kids on a variety of metrics. Which should not surprise anyone. It's common sense.
It's only "common sense" to those who don't know history and don't observe what is going on around them. Throughout history, large numbers of men were away in armies or working, and many still work as migrant labour. Children were mostly raised by women in groups - mothers, aunts, grandmothers. And most families were not nuclear; they were joint or extended families.
Sure, historically many children were raised with very little father involvement, but that was imposed on them by necessity. The family was still of a traditional structure, the man was the provider (which is why, in the case of soldiers or sailors, he had to be away for long periods of time) and the mother stayed home to raise the kids. It was only natural that she would receive help from extended family and neighbors, and most of them were women since often their husbands were away working as well. But this is a totally different thing than today's lesbian couple having a baby by a sperm bank because they are rich enough to indulge in crazy social experimentation.
Ruth you are missing the point of the study which has been verified recently. Which is that spiritually, culturally, socially we all understand that a child needs a mother as a role model as well as a father. Arguing for second best won’t help you win your fight.
I have come across thousands of children with a father and mother (both at present and historically) in several different societies, who have been deeply damaged, and plenty of children of single parents or same sex parents who are much better adjusted. So I don’t agree with the illusion that children with a father and mother do better. But I understand that opponents of same sex marriage need to keep repeating the illusion because it sounds good. One can prove pretty much anything with a sociological study. The results depend on the questions asked, which are almost always slanted and the results almost always confirm the bias with which the researcher started out. Social sciences are not the same as hard sciences. Auden was wrote when he wrote “Thou shalt not commit a social science” :)
My assertions are not unverified. I am the author of a book on same-sex unions, marriage, parenting in India since the 14th century. It's called Love's Rite (from a Shakespeare sonnet). Published by Penguin 2005 at a time when marriage was legalised in only one country, and updated editions issued in 2001, 2002.The study is not rigorous. It contrasts broken same-sex homes with intact cross-sex ones. My assertions are verified by many major historians as well as by data. Check the data on how many heterosexual marriages in America end in divorce. Read John Boswell’s book The Kindness of Strangers, on adoption in classical and medieval Europe. However, continue your hatred of marriage equality. That is a battle you have lost. Thailand has recently established same-sex marriage. So has Nepal.
Well said!
I was answering your defence of it.
"common sense" isn't real.
Plenty of same-sex couples adopt as well. You probably consider that crazy too. While a one night stand between heterosexuals that produces a child is not crazy? Take a look at the stats on single mothers in the U.S. and in Europe. Well, we have a well-adjusted and happy 19-year-old training to be a pilot. Thanks for the hate and bye bye.
Stick around and you'd know that no one at Them Before Us thinks "one night stands" are great for children's natural rights. :) - Jenn
I married into an adopted family it certainly wasn’t a crazy thing it matured me instead. The point is a child needs role models from both heterosexual parents.
There are plenty of adult role models that all children have - teachers, family friends, uncles, aunts. Some children unfortunately have no good role models even when they have two hetero parents. I am the author of a book on same-sex unions, marriage, parenting in India since the 14th century. It's called Love's Rite (from a Shakespeare sonnet). Published by Penguin 2005 at a time when marriage was legalised in only one country, and updated editions issued in 2001, 2002.
That is why some children "do better" in same-sex households.
Because heterosexual parents are not all perfect.
Only fertile.
No parent can be perfect.
Correct.
But being gay doesn't mean you are flawed.
Exactly
How do I disable email notifications?
I was answering your defence of it and your characterization of my statements as unverified
You're saying Wikipedia doesn't like Regnerus so that's a reason to discount everything?
Katy...
How many same-sex couples in that "study" raised children from infants?
Do you know why the Regnerus "study" was debunked and dismissed?
Glenn
When you cite Wikipedia as a reliable source on a politically charged topic, you lose all intellectual credibility.
That what this man and his male partner are doing to this little girl is beyond shameful: https://lucyleader.substack.com/p/queering-babies-is-there-no-escape
While they witter on about their "human rights" it has been forgotten that babies have human rights too and one of these is to be cared for by their parents, not purchased as a commodity.
Tragic.
But not illegal.
I was raised by two women in partnership. It didn't work for me, as one that lived it, I can say I deeply missed the male influence and struggled, not to say that single parent heterosexual parents fare better, as on reader says there are many negative circumstances that influence one's childhood. But I don't believe it's without harm, it's certainly not ideal, and the children suffer. We need intimate relationships with both sexes in childhood.
Thank you for sharing that. I'm donor-conceived but was born into a family that struggled with fertility. Were you able to find your biological father?
I did know my father, but he died when I was ten, from then on I had no male role models.
To think that a gay family is a better role model for children is as mentally skewed as saying a person can change their sex.
I don't think they're implying it is better.
People can change sex.
Thank you!
I never met anybody campaigning for same-sex marriage that believed in marriage. The main thing it brought us is the final transition of marriage from an institution mainly about providing stability for raising children to a recognition of adult relationships.
Have you interacted with gay/lesbian couples in debate about this study? Could a study be done showing a comparison of child outcomes and psychological status for all types of families? Biological, adoptive, same-sex, single parent, fostered or orphan? Perhaps even, relative (aunt, uncle, grandparents) raised?
I was going to say, it's obvious that having a stable two-biological-parent household is best, but I'd be very curious to see comparisons between other common models.
We should do the best we can to keep biological families intact, but we also have to accept that when they break, there is often a good reason for that. Let's have realistic discussions about the next best things.
The original Regnerus study did exactly that. The results were what you would expect: the further from biological parents married to each other you go, the worse the outcomes for kids. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0049089X12000610?via%3Dihub I'm sorry I can't figure out how to upload images to comments. Otherwise, I would show you Tables 2-4. And this link I just provided seems to be paywalled. Sorry about that. I may try to make my own post about this.
I just gave an interview to Catholic News Agency that I think Them Before Us will appreciate:
"“This new analysis completely vindicates Dr. Regnerus,” Jennifer Roback Morse, founder and president of the Ruth Institute, told CNA. “In my opinion, however, he never needed ‘vindication.’ There was never anything wrong with his study. It was the best and most thorough of its type, during an era that was jammed with junk science.”
“The studies that claimed ‘no difference’ between same-sex parents and opposite-sex parents made sweeping universal claims based on unrepresentative samples,” she continued. “Dr. Regnerus collected his own data that was by far the most representative dataset anyone had used up until that time. He also survived multiple ideologically-motivated ‘investigations.’ In fact, the University of Texas ultimately promoted him to full professor.”
Ultimately, said Morse, who founded the Ruth Institute in 2008 as a means to defend traditional Christian sexual ethics, “the saddest thing about this whole ideologically distorted debate is that ordinary people are making life-altering decisions based on junk science.”
“Ordinary women are concluding that having children with another woman will be the same sort of experience as having children with a husband. When they figure out from experience that this is not really the case, it is too late to change course,” she said, adding: “They already have a child who really truly does need a father, which she is in no position to provide.”
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/265683/analysis-vindicates-study-showing-children-with-same-sex-parents-fare-worse
Awesome!
How good it is to see the Church supporting the idea that it is important for children to be with their biological family! it's not like they ever historically participated in facilitating the separation of children from their biological mothers in different countries and different cultural contexts... Right?
https://whatweknow.inequality.cornell.edu/topics/lgbt-equality/what-does-the-scholarly-research-say-about-the-wellbeing-of-children-with-gay-or-lesbian-parents/
And old saying: the greatest gift a man can give his children is to love their mother
How does allowing gay people to marry stop a man from loving his wife?
I'm an auntie to children my gay brother adopted. They were removed from their mother due to drug use and neglect. May their end outcomes be worse compared to the children of married parents? Considering their background and early exposures, I'd be surprised if they were not. But is it fair to compare these children to children of married, stable parents, and assume that my brother being gay is the problem?
What gay couple could have children without the children losing bio mom/dad or both? - Jenn
None, but the gay couple didn't cause the loss. Now that the loss has occurred, where do we go from here?
"Didn't cause the loss" in what scenario? If you're only speaking about adoption, let's talk about that and you'll agree we ban suerogacy and egg/sperm purchase which IS people causing the loss. -Jenn
Katy...
What does that have to do will same-sex marriage being legal?
Glenn.
I'm talking about traditional adoption.
Great. Do you agree that adoption agencies should *prioritize a mother and father* to adopt a child whenever possible?
Yes.
Katy...
You first have to ask why the child "lost" his/her mom or dad in the first place.
You are positing a false premise that allowing gay people to marry causes divorce, and that is simply not the least bit true.
Why did your parents divorce Katy?
Because of Obergefell?
Please explain how Obergefell caused your dad to leave you.
Glenn.
I good point I've not seen an answer for. If all the sudden, Obergefell was gone, gay folks would still have children. Their families just wouldn't have the benefits, responsibilities and rights of legal marriage. How does it make those children's lives better?
*Crickets*
Without conceding your empirical argument, but assuming it is true, your premise doesn’t support the conclusion. Whether or not same sex couples should raise children is a different question from whether they should be able to marry. Unmarried same sex couples can adopt and many married same sex couples don’t have children. That is why your argument failed in court, not because of a conspiracy against a study.
Incorrect. Marriage is about children.
"No, government’s concern with marriage is not nearly as sentimental. Rather, the state’s interest stems from a biological reality that judicial fiat is powerless to change—the reality that heterosexual sex produces babies. When Congress enacted the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in 1996, they made that interest abundantly clear: “At bottom, civil society has an interest in maintaining and protecting the institution of heterosexual marriage because it has a deep and abiding interest in encouraging responsible procreation and child-rearing. Simply put, government has an interest in marriage because it has an interest in children.”
https://thembeforeus.com/marriage-isnt-about-making-adults-feel-nice-its-about-raising-children/
There is no requirement to intend to, or even be able to procreate in order to legally marry. Likewise, there is no requirement to get married before procreating. they are different things. And if you got Obergefell overturned tomorrow, there would still be gay parents with children. You'd have just disrupted their families and their rights. Is THAT good for their children?
Laws and policies are being made right now using Obergefell as a justification…if you don’t provide gay men an egg and a surrogate, you’re violating their rights. Do you have a problem with that? Commodifying women and children for adult desires?
I think I'd very much like to see what laws you are talking about, and whether or not you've characterized them correctly. I also take issue with the notion that children's rights ALWAYS trump those of adults. And, finally, I don't see surrogacy and other arrangements entered into with free will to be "commodifying" them.
This post takes you through the child-commodifying laws that have resulted from Obergefell:
https://thembeforeus.substack.com/p/gay-marriage-wont-leave-the-kids
I didn't see anything in there (admittedly, eventually I was skimming) that was objectionable, or that "commodifies" people. Was there something that stood out to you, that bugged you more than the rest? Because this just seemed like equal treatment under the law to me.
Katy...
Is your definition of marriage Man + Woman = Baby?
Yes or no.
Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh say yes.
What do you say the definition of marriage is?
Glenn.
We define marriage as the permanent, complementary, and exclusive union of one male and one female (of-age, consenting of course).
Your vision of marriage is so dystopian. If possibility of procreation were a necessary precondition of marriage, the state could annul or prohibit the marriage of sterile individuals, since procreation is not a possibility for them. Perhaps the state should require you demonstrate a minimum sperm count before it issues you a marriage license.
You go into marriage with the hope you will have children not on condition you will have children. Marriage is the coming together of man & woman in love to create & protect a child in that unit. That’s why we have the choice of a church wedding. Not everything is run by the state.
Maybe that’s why you went into marriage, but that’s not why I got married, which is the whole point. Marriage is necessarily about procreation and it’s definitely not legally about that.
You’re entitled to your opinion regarding the normative justification for marriage, but the legal right to marry had never been contingent on a couple’s ability to procreate much less their potential fitness as parents, especially as determined in an aggregated statistical sense. Taking your analysis, a state could find that on average children of affluent couples have better outcomes than those of poor couples and condition marriage on income level.
It's not contingent on procreation. It's contingent on procreation even being *possible* in kind.
>>" It's contingent on procreation even being *possible* "<<
Katy....
Are you saying that procreation must be possible in order to comply with your definition of marriage?
Glenn.
Basic biology.
No, the argument would be like this:
A man and a woman have the required gametes to create new life. Every child has one mother and father. It's best for the child and society at large if the children who are produced are cared for by those two adults (dad and mom) because they are genetically/biologically predisposed to their well-being in a way non-bio-related adults and a faceless state are not.
Homosexuality is "biological" in what sense? It's not a genetic predisposition, it cannot genetically create anything, and two-men or two-women aren't the ideal when it comes to raising non-related children (and which other children could they have) because it's missing the complementarity that a man and woman offer. (Our culture claims women matter on a Fortune 500 company's board but not to her child being raised by two men?)
So yes, marriage came to be because society should acknowledge that's best for the child. It's not men going and creating a bunch of children they don't care for at home every single day. It's not a woman who doesn't know who the father is. It's not a child just being raised by whatever assortment of adults feel like it in the moment. One man, one woman, united to each other and to any children they produce. That's marriage. - Jenn
Hasn't the argument always been that two non-ideal parents are better than the none-or-one? The alternative for the kids in these situations is no parents at all, not a well-formed and stable nuclear unit.
If you were only talking about fostering and adoption. But in the brave new world, we have folks buying and selling children.
Katy...
I thought that the only acceptable parenting configuration is biological birth parents.
Are you accepting of non-biological birth parenting of children?
Glenn
I'll be honest, when I read this article, it doesn't feel like children are the main concern. It feels more like you're pushing a certain ideology and agenda while using children as an emotional lever.
Well, both sides are using someone as an emotional lever. The LGBT-ideology just used adults and their feelings. We're just centering the actual victims of all these policies and they cannot speak for themselves: children.
It seems like you have a problem with gay marriage in general, as the title of this article kind of suggests.
Well, what is "gay marriage" exactly? You mean re-configuring a social institution to be something it's not, to please a tiny subset of adults, in a way that's resulted in the violating of children's rights to a degree never before seen in human history? Yes, we have a problem with that. - Jenn
>" in a way that's resulted in the violating of children's rights to a degree never before seen in human history"
thankfully necromancy doesn't exist because right now you would have thousands of Victorian children zombies climbing over you. LMAO
>>""gay marriage" is re-configuring a social institution to be something it's not,"<<
Katy...
What has your marriage, and all other heterosexual marriages been "reconfigured" into?
Glenn
Perhaps "gay" marriage is the wrong term it should probably just be called marriage whether it is between a man and woman or a same sex couple. Marriage has already been reconfigured, many many times. People have reconfigured every social institution from the structures of governments to religious organizations as the people those institutions serve changes over time. I don't believe that this is something marriage should not be only something you don't want it to be. We all have our own beliefs.
Children's right are violated in a disturbing amount of ways by biological parents and society at large. And I very much agree that everyone should have a problem with that. But it is by no means limited to marriages with parents of the same sex.
You could call it "marriage" but that means something already and it doesn't mean two men or two women or one man with 3 women, or a single person who "married him/herself" (Hallmark movie reference, lol).
You have to call it gay marriage because people won't know you mean two-men or two-women, otherwise.
Divorce redefined and degraded marriage and we have a HUGE issue with that (see our latest article).
Societal institutions aren't up for personal definitions based on shifting politics. We're talking about one of the most essential human institutions in civilization. -Jenn
Katy...
Did gay marriage end heterosexual marriage?
Did gay marriage create child victims that you can positively identify and absolutely attribute to same-sex marriage being legal?
Glenn
Katy...
Please explain what "LGBT ideology" is.
I tried to look it up but got no results.
Glenn
B-b-b-bingo.