I was curious about the logistics. How did Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka have kids?
In an interview with Oprah Winfrey, they explained. “It involved two embryos, one for each of them—and a surrogate who Burtka said was ‘more like the oven.’ The couple knew the surrogate, but the egg donor—who they found through a donation bank and thus were able to research her personal and medical history—was anonymous.” (Daily Mail, June 1, 2012)
In another interview with Barbara Walters, Harris further elaborated. “We inserted one of my sperm and one of David’s sperm into two eggs with the hope that would both take, just because we both wanted to be dads biologically. Both took, miraculously.” The twins, a boy and a girl, call Neil “dad” and David “poppa” because “the couple decided it would be too confusing for (the children) to have two dads, and neither wanted to be called Mom.” (Celebrity News, May 8, 2015)
When I read through several articles about this, the comments overwhelmingly were positive about the love the couple has for their children and how beautiful their family is. The few comments which noted the ‘elephant in the room’, however, were met with derision and anger. “Long as kids are getting all the love and care they need, who cares what sex the parents are.” “That should show all the haters out there that even a gay couple can give children a fantastic home.” “Love makes a family.” “OK—waiting for the homophobic, ‘children need a mother’ brigade to chime in—Every child does NOT need a mother.”
There was one final comment, interestingly, to which no one replied: “Hmmm….maybe the children may want to know?”
It has been clearly proven that single parenthood (typically the mother) has a negative impact upon children. Multiple studies have shown that children raised by a single mother suffer higher rates of poverty (4 times more than married couples), achieve less education, have greater mental and physical health issues, are sexually active earlier, and result in much high rates of incarceration. (www.fatherhood.org ). Children of divorced parents, depending upon the outcome of the divorce, suffer similar disparities when compared with children raised with both mother and father.(www.emoryondivorce.com). Just because some children are successfully raised by a single or divorced parents does not negate the overwhelming evidence that these situations are not best for children.
Some situations obviously cannot be helped. Children are taken from abusive homes where their biological mother and/or father do not provide a healthy home life for them. Foster care or adoption by non-biological parents in these cases is a much better outcome for those children. Divorces are sometimes necessary. Parents die.
But we should never use these exceptions to initiate, promote, or celebrate the purposeful denial of two biological parents to each child. It’s not good for children; it’s not fair to children. Every child wants and needs to know who his/her biological parents are and their history, even those who are happy with adoptive parents. And even if a “made-to-order” child is raised in a wealthy home with every advantage, there are nagging questions: Are children objects to be designed and created as items of possession? Is this what we should teach that love is?
Then what will happen, one day, when these children read an interview in which a surrogate mother was referred to merely as “an oven” and their biological mother merely an anonymous donor of eggs? How will girls see themselves in light of these portrayals? How will children of both sexes view the worth of women and the nature of relationships? Will they wonder how or even if their fathers met their mother?
At least with the TV show, the central question was considered important. It is imperative that it be important for us, too.
28 thoughts on “How I Never Met Your Mother: Single Sex Parenting and Children”
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At least you don’t explicitly lump children raised by two SS parents in with children raised in single parent homes, so I suppose that’s something. Though, since that is what you imply, perhaps you should acknowledge that this is not an apples-to-apples comparison.
This is a sweeping claim that presupposes a number of things, not least of which the child knowing they are adopted.
Perhaps you could be clearer about when you mean by “made-to-order” and “designed” in this case. To a certain extent, the entire process of selecting a mate, deciding when to conceive, the lifestyle / environmental choices made during pregnancy, the vaccines you give your children, schools you enroll them in, etc – all these things can not only be considered “designing” them, but in many cases you would be viewed as irresponsible, if not immoral, for not doing these things for your child.
I mean, there’s no reason for us to agree with or similarly characterize women that choose to be surrogates or donate eggs in the same way as they have. We might choose to elevate them as people willing to help bringing about one of the greatest joys to those who cannot, for a variety of reasons, conceive children of their own.
Hi Andre,
Several points:
1. Anyone who purposely chooses to deny a child his/her biological parents is in the same barrel. Whether one is a single mother (and the father who does not stand by her) who has a baby or the couple (same sex or not) who arranges for a surrogate with donor eggs—-the thought here is definitely not what is in the best interest of the child. Rather they are all concerned with their own desires: to have sex outside of traditional marriage or to create a baby outside of the traditional family structure. Anytime a child is denied his or her biological mother and/or father, it is not good. And while there are exceptions, most don’t end well for the kids. Obviously, this is the only way in which same sex couples can have babies, so this article applies to them most clearly.
2. All the things which you cite re: “made-to-order” are those things which are done after conception (lifestyle, vaccines, etc.). Making one’s body as healthy as possible prior to pregnancy is a good health choice for baby and mom. A made-to-order baby, on the other hand, is one which is specifically created to fulfill certain criteria for the parent—and often if the baby does not come out the way the “purchaser” planned, it is refused. (E.g., Children of surrogates who are disabled are often refused; extra embryos which are not wanted are destroyed, embryos of a certain sex are preferred, etc.) The child is seen as an object for the enjoyment of the purchaser.
3. Re: surrogates and donated eggs/sperm: Again, whose interest are we looking out for here? Donating eggs and sperm for money? Renting your womb for money?
The bottom line is this: It is wrong to treat a child as a commodity to be created, sold, and owned like American girl dolls or build-a-bears. Children deserve their biological mom and dad, preferably married to one another. That is what is best, and always has been, for children. It’s not about the adults. It’s about the kids.
I’ll have to give you the benefit of the doubt that what you wrote isn’t what you meant here. Parents who abandon their spouse/partner and children are definite *not* in the same barrel as SS couples seeking to have a child, and it seems extremely uncharitable to suggest it. I don’t understand the argument that the desire for children – when felt by fertile married OS couples – is somehow inherently good and selfless, but when felt by any other group, it’s somehow a sign of selfishness. I really can’t wrap my head around it.
I’m confused. In response to me asking what you meant by “made-to-order”, you seem to say that you mean post-conception care, but then you say you mean “specifically created to fulfill certain criteria for the parent”. Which is it? Your suggestion that all surrogate children are mere objects for the enjoyment of the purchaser is, again, an incredibly uncharitable characterization of the many couples (including married but sterile OS couples) who have likely already endured years of pain and frustration and now view this as their only chance to have biological children.
Those who cannot conceive.
No arguments from me here, other than your blanket characterization that anyone who cannot conceive naturally is guilty of doing so.
I am sorry if I am not being clear.
Any couple who purposefully denies the child his/her biological parents,is not acting in the best interest of the child. The key word is purposefully. Obviously, if a parent dies, or both parents are unable to care for a child and adoptive parents take over, that is a different matter.
But if two people purchase donor eggs or donor sperm to create a child, then this is selfish. They will choose (as in made-to-order products) sperm/eggs of men/women with certain hair color, body types, etc.so that their child is designed the “right way.” Their desire to be parents, no matter how loving they may be, does not override the child’s right to be with biological parents. .
Similarly, two people who select certain embryos that they have created because they wish to have a certain kind of child, and then kill off the other embryos are also selfish and not acting in the best interest of those children whom they have killed off. This is no different than an abortion based upon the sex of the child or because a child has disabilities.
How much better it would be if couples who could not conceive would adopt those children who are already here and desperately want a mother and a father because theirs are dead or unable to care for them.
Any couple, whether they are same sex or opposite sex, who puts their own interests ahead of the needs or life of a child, are wrong. We, as adults, must focus on children’s needs ahead of our own. It is this selfless love which truly “wins.”
Hope this helps.
I have news for you, most people implicitly (if not explicitly) choose spouses/partners based on hair color, body types, etc. Do you think that none of that has to do with the potential children they will have? I don’t see how it’s anymore selfish than the varying degrees to which couples choose which donated sperm or eggs to use.
Since I don’t view IVF and surrogacy as necessarily immoral, I’m in no position to say whether or not people who cannot conceive naturally should have only adoption as a recourse.
So, am I to understand that you’re in favor of SSM adoption?
Andre
I support Catholic teaching and for good reason: it promotes the best interest of the child who has no power to choose or protect his/her interests.
So I support adoption by a married man and woman as being in the best interest of a child. I do not support adoption by a same sex couple.
There are two points that I think should be brought up.
1. Don’t dismiss the study by Marc Regnerus that concluded (scientifically approved study, btw) that children raised in same sex parent homes did NOT fare as well as children raised with their natural parents.
2. “surrogate who Burtka said was ‘more like the oven.” This is, plainly put – the shameful exploitation of another human being and is SIN.
Are you talking about the study that claimed a sample size of 3,000 SS parent homes, when the real number was 2?
Andre,
You misrepresent the study. Regnerus clearly stated that he was evaluating the differences among adult children of parents who had same sex relationships while they were raising the children.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0049089X12000610 There were nearly 3000 adults who were interviewed. The parents were in a wide variety of situations: some married but having same sex relationships, some unmarried but having same sex relationships, some in a series of monogamous same sex relationships. The relationships were overwhelmingly “fluid” over the course of the child’s upbringing, but the one common denominator was the presence of a same sex relationship while the child was being raised. Regnerus discusses the wide range of relationships among parents who have same sex relationships or commitments in the study. He compared adult children in those upbringings with those who were brought up in an opposite sex, still married environment. The study overwhelming showed that children brought up by a married mother and father were better off, using 40 different criteria, than adult children who had been raised by parents who were involved in same sex relationships.
As you know, there are very few numbers of children who have been raised for their entire lives by a same sex couple who has stayed committed in that singular relationship. That is why it is so difficult to study the effects of that upbringing: it does not happen very often. More commonly, biological children of one member in current same sex couples were products of divorce by one partner from his/her heterosexual spouse, and those children often have very fluid and unstable family situations throughout the life of their childhood.
Hence, the study is a good one which the LGBT community denigrates because it does not include “only” those lesbian or gay monogamous relationships which most closely mirror an always married mom and dad. The reason is because there are very, very few same sex families which fit that description. Almost all current same sex families (not including adoptions here) where one parent is a biological parent began with a heterosexual relationship/marriage which was ended.
It’s a very well done study.
Please, stop being ridiculous.
Therese responded to a discussion you and I were having where it was clear we were discussing same-sex married couples. She then chimes in with a study whose results were based off of just about anything but the effects of raising kids in a SSM household.
That the study only found 2 cases that could be reasonably approximate a SSM household doesn’t stop people like Therese (or apparently, you) from using it as a stick to beat SSM over the head with. Leaving aside that it’s very telling that this study is the *only* one that SSM opponents seem to cite, it’s ridiculous that anyone could think that looking at a sample almost entirely made up of not-SSM data could give you any indication of what the effects of SSM are, or why it should be indicative of SSM vs. OSM.
I also find it amusing that you, un-ironically, bother pointing out how hard it is to find stable, long-lasting examples of SSM households raising children, while at the same time fighting against any/all efforts to allow SS access to either marriage or adoption, let alone even acknowledging all the societal and legal restrictions SS couples have historically faced in these areas.
Andre,
The US Census recently reported that there are approximately 252,000 same sex married couples in the U.S. That is 1/2 of one percent of all married couples. Of those, it is not clear how many have children because the census relies on self-reporting, but the number is very small. So we are starting with a very, very small pool of people to study.
Additionally, how do we define “children being raised in a same sex family?” That is the problem that Regnerus and others have encountered. The two cases you refer to are two same sex families in which the children have been raised for their entire lives with the same married couple. These two families most closely resemble never-divorced, opposite sex married couples with whom their children have lived their entire lives, EXCEPT for the fact that a same sex couple can never have both parents be the biological parents of a child. Because of the nature of same sex biology, it is impossible for a child to have been raised for his/her entire life within that same sex household in which both adults are biological parents. Lesbian mothers most often had prior heterosexual relationships, either married or unmarried, which resulted in pregnancy, then separated from the father of her child, and raised the child with a same sex partner. That child was not raised solely in a same sex marriage household. Most gay men who have biological children either were married to a woman at one point, or had to do what Harris and his partner did: arrange for a donor and a surrogate. So if we are comparing, should we compare children in same sex households to heterosexuals who are divorced and remarried? It is a very difficult thing to do, and Regnerus clearly states in the beginning of his study that he interviewed adult children who had parents involved in some sort of same sex relationship.
Which brings me back to the point of my article: Basically, all children who are raised by a same sex couple do not have the benefit of being raised by one of their biological parents. (I am not speaking of adoption here.) In a sense, all of these children are brought up in what we would traditionally call “broken” homes—-one biological parent is primarily present and raising the children while the other sees the child less or not at all. I am giving no value judgment here regarding the amount of love, stability, and care that is given in either situation: a same sex household or a household of divorced/step-parents. I am just stating the facts and asking the question: Is this what we want to promote for our children?
I believe that the answer is no. Kids deserve to have, as much as possible, the benefit of both biological parents during their upbringing and we as a society should promote that.
Look, we’re obviously not going to agree on a lot of this, that’s fine.
On the other hand, you accused me or misrepresenting the Regnerus study when I pointed out that his sample size of 3,000 contained only 2 cases that could be considered as a child having been raised in a same-sex household their entire life. I can’t imagine that you’ll argue the 2/3000 point, which leaves us with the whole same-sex household vs. same-sex relationship angle.
Please recall that I made my observation in response to Therese’s claim that “children raised in same sex parent homes did NOT fare as well as children raised with their natural parents”. Please also recall that this was made in the context of our discussing SSM, so I hope that we can agree that the context was same-sex households.
Here’s the introductory paragraph from the study (not the abstract you linked to), emphasis mine:
So, all throughout the intro it’s ‘marriages’, ‘family structure’, and ‘household composition’…until the very end when all the sudden he switches to whether or not either parent had ever had a SS relationship (and not only that, but opposite sex couples that had remained married despite having a SS relationship were left out of the study!!). Unsurprisingly, opponents of SSM almost never make the distinction, and act as if this study shows negative outcomes for children raised in SSMs. So, if you want to accuse somebody of misrepresenting the study, I believe you should have a word with Therese.
I’ll leave this as my last word.
EDIT formatting
Dr. Richard Fitzgibbons M.D. says, “Research shows that same sex unions suffer a significantly higher prevalence of domestic abuse, depression, substance-abuse disorders, and sexually transmitted diseases. This is not a good environment for children.” http://www.womenofgrace.com/blog/?p=13252#sthash.QwYlpes4.dpuf
Psychiatrist Dr. Greg Popcak says, “Traditional marriage has 5 benefits to children that same-sex “marriage” doesn’t have:
1. It unites children to their natural mother and father like no other institution. Divorce, co-habitation, adoption, surrogate parenthood, laboratory produced children, all of those are offenses against the child’s rights. Some of them grave offenses.
2. Children raised by natural parents fare better than those raised in same-sex households. All the studies confirm those. Those that don’t are just too few and sketchy and contain too many variables to be accurate. Such as, most children raised in same-sex households are from a previous marriage, or things like whether the couples are married or co-habituating.
3. No other institution protects the financial security of women better. While many women do have careers only 37% of women have college degrees. In divorce women usually fare much worse financially. As divorce and co-habitation increase, family poverty increases.
4. Marriage socializes men. This may sound laughable but studies show that 69% of violent crime against women is committed by single men. Only 9% of married men commit violent crimes against women. When couples are married there is more at stake and crime goes down. In same-sex marriages violence against intimate partners is significantly higher. Marriage doesn’t have the same effect.
5. Traditional marriage sustains fertility rates. Married couples have more children than any other group. Today de-population is the most serious social problem affecting the west.
Dr. Popcak also added these perspectives:
6. That marriage first held an exalted position in society in 1800 BC. Then pagan Babylonia was very liberal sexually but King Hammurabi saw the same benefits that traditional marriage had for his kingdom that we see today. That it helps children to know their natural parents and it sustains the population. He made marriage protections and laws and exalted it to the highest relationship in his kingdom.”
Dr. Popcak is a psychiatrist and the Executive Director of the Pastoral Solutions Institute. He is frequent quest on TV shows, host of a radio show, and the author of Broken Gods: Hope, Healing, and the Seven Longings of the Human Heart, http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=dr+gregory+popcak&tag=googhydr-20&index=aps&hvadid=51377297323&hvpos=1t1&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=3581616425554916861&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_3z1g9rn7c4_b
These quotes were taken from the Kresta in the Afternoon radio show June 29 (Hour 2). https://avemariaradio.net/resources/archives/?media=all-types&catslug=kresta-in-the-afternoon&month=06&yr=2015
Thank you Jamey! Your data is so helpful!
Andre, as a teacher and a mom who has raised 5 kids, I see every day and in so many ways the deep longing that children have for their biological parents—children of divorce suffer so much and children whose parents have died, even though there was a loving, intact marital relationship, also suffer depression, though not to the extent of divorce. It’s heart breaking. And while I am merely giving anecdotal “common sense” information, I think that, deep down, all of us know that this is true.
It’s the whole “emperor has no clothes” story. In our rush, for some of us, to be politically correct and, for most of us, to be supportive of gay friends, we are ignoring the elephant in the room. This is not the right way to raise kids and we know it.
I love how most of the citations for Fitzgibbons’ claim are prior to legalized marriage being available to SS couples in the US (ie. pre-2004).
To address some of the claims made using more modern sources:
This seems completely in line with the US general public divorce rate.
This is my favorite part though:
I trying to research the source material – a paper by one Dr. Sirota – used to suggest that women with gay/bi fathers will suffer re: their ability to form intimacy, trust, etc., I stumbled on this:
Now, where have I heard ‘Fitzgibbons’ before…oh, right! He’s the guy writing the blog post on a Catholic website trying to convince everyone that gays are bad for kids. Now I remember.
Anywho, Dr. Sirota goes on to explain how Fitzgibbons is misleading people – that she studied women who’s fathers, in a heterosexually organized families, were gay or bi. I hope I won’t have to explain why this is different from the suggestion that male SS couples will be harming any women they raise.
The National LGBT Cancer Network says, “Anal Cancer, HIV and Gay/Bisexual Men: Current estimates are that HIV negative MSMs (males having sex with males) are 20 times more likely to be diagnosed with anal cancer. Those with HIV positive are 40 times more likely… Anal HPV is present in approximately 65% of HIV negative MSMs and 95% of MSMs who are HIV positive.”
http://www.cancer-network.org/cancer_information/gay_men_and_cancer/anal_cancer_hiv_and_gay_men.php
“One in 5 active gay or bisexual men are carrying the HIV virus and half of them don’t know it. Center for Disease Control 2013 Dale O’Leary
“LGBT people suffer higher rates of anxiety, depression and depression-related illnesses and behaviors like alcohol and drug abuse than the general population. (Southern Poverty Law Center 2010)
http://www.maneyonline.com/doi/full/10.1179/2050854913Y.0000000015
“Not the best environment for children,” says Dr. Popcak.
Dr. Fitzgibbons a consultant to the Vatican Congregation for Clergy cites a vast number of sources in his works. He has been writing about this long before Dr. Sirota’s survey came out. Her own survey states, “Daughters of gay or bisexual fathers reported significantly higher rates of divorce 51.5%among their parents than daughters of heterosexual fathers 20.6%.” Sirota, T. (2009). Archives of Psychiatric Nursing, 23, 289-297.
Dr. Popcak (read link in my first comment), and Dr. Janet E. Smith http://www.drjanetesmith.org confirm that “Violence against spouses is significantly higher in same-sex ‘marriages.’”
Dr. Popcak states, “Not the best environment for children.”
jamey,
For the life of me I can’t understand why, if you’d bothered to take the time to read the Dr. Sirota’s response to Fitzgibbons, you would persist on implying that Sirota’s work can tell us anything about the effects of being raised by gay fathers on women.
Let’s take it nice and slow so that nobody gets lost or confused. Dr. Sirota’s study was of women who had been raised by gay or bisexual fathers…in a heterosexually organized family. Do you understand this bit? These women were raised by a mother and (gay/bi) father. This is essentially a study of the effects that sham marriages have on women. As Dr. Sirota goes on to explain:
Red herring. Straw man.
What do you say to this:
Here’s some quotes our readers might like from Ryan Anderson’s jaw dropping No.1 NY Times Best Seller, Truth Overruled: The Future of Marriage and Religious Freedom. Released today on Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Truth-Overruled-Marriage-Religious-Freedom-ebook/dp/B00XTB2LCC
1. If you check into a hospital in labor, you care which baby they give you when you check out. You don’t want to leave with a child but your child.
2. David Popenoe, the Rutgers sociologist, “We should disavow the popular notion that ‘mommies can make good daddies,’ just as ‘daddies can make good mommies.’ . . . The two are different to the core, and each is necessary—culturally and biologically—for the development of a human being.’”
3. Biology, sexual complementarity, and stability, are the 3 reasons that marriage matters. So with respect to two of the three main child-rearing advantages, same-sex parenting cannot provide what a married mother and father can.
4. The scholarly standards of family studies seemed to decline. Some methodologically inadequate studies are touted in the media and courtrooms today that supposedly found “no differences” between same-sex “marriages” and heterosexual marriages. These were flawed and relied heavily on studies of wealthy and highly educated women and were not representative.
5. The absence of a father harms children being raised by single mothers; or by divorced women. But the absence of a father makes no difference for children in lesbian households? That didn’t seem right.
6. [More accurate studies show] that girls with two fathers and boys with two mothers had the poorest outcomes.
7. Reliable studies show that children raised by same-sex couples fare substantially worse—most measures found they had at least twice the level of distress—than do children with opposite-sex parents on psychological, developmental and emotional outcomes.
8. Outcomes for children with same-sex parents were notably worse if their parents were married. . . .Same-sex parents, changing from unmarried to married substantially degrades child well-being.
9. The longer children reside with same-sex parents, the worse the outcomes.
10 .An amicus brief filed in the Obergefell case by over one hundred scholars of marriage (the “scholars’ brief”)—stated that where marriage has been redefined, the institution of marriage has been damaged, and this damage affects the children of heterosexuals. After the adoption of same-sex marriage the opposite-sex marriage rate declined by [at] least five percent compared to a national marriage rate that, in the past few years, has been fairly stable.
11. Professor Londregan, “A picture emerges: in a cross-section of children raised by parents in same-sex relationships, life outcomes tend to resemble those of children raised by single or divorced parents.”
From children from same-sex households:
12. Adults in this scenario satisfy their heart’s desires, while the child bears the most cost: missing out on one or more of her biological parents.
13. This is about the “missing parent.” Structure matters, and same-sex marriage institutionalizes missing parents.
14. When one is absent, that absence leaves a lifelong gaping wound.
Just because children are raised under the rainbow doesn’t miraculously wipe away all the negative effects and pain surrounding the loss and daily deprivation of one or both parents.
15. Do not fall prey to the false narrative that adult feelings should trump children’s rights. The onus must be on adults to conform to the needs of children, not the other way around.
16. It is strange and confusing thing to walk around with this deep-down unquenchable ache for a father, for a man, in a community that says that men are unnecessary.
17. A psychologist who told him [a child raised by same-sex couple] that his aching sadness on Mother’s Day was the result of homophobia.
18. The younger generation of children of gays has lived with an enormous amount of surveillance and speech policing. Contacting friends and relatives to apply pressure on them and alienate them from social support.
More on Ryan Anderson https://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/confessions-of-a-millennial-marriage-apologist
Jamey,
I’ll let this be my last reply.
Seems to me that you either don’t understand the meanings of these terms and/or you don’t understand what I’m pointing out. I can’t imagine how pointing out that a specific claim you cited was mis-representing a study could qualify as an attempt to mislead…but it’s certainly a clever way for you to muddy the waters.
I’m not going to waste my time reading more gibberish and/or following links to biased blogs that rely on outdated information and misrepresenting studies for their own porpoises.
“porpoises”…??? They’re not doing research on same-sex attracted porpoises. Ha ha. Here’s a few of the links to Dr. Ryan Anderson’s quotes. (There are 37 links):
1.My Daddy’s Name Is Donor: A New Study of Young Adults Conceived through Sperm Donation (New York: Institute for American Values, 2010).
1.“The Health and Well-Being of Adopted Children,” Pediatrics 119, no.
supplement 1, (February 1, 2007).
3. “Family Structure and Child Well-Being: The Significance of
Cohabitation,” Journal of Marriage and Family 66, (2004).
10. Brief of Amici Curiae 100 Scholars of Marriage in Support of Respondents, Obergefell v. Hodges, 2015.
http://www.supremecourt.gov/ObergefellHodges/AmicusBriefs/14-556_100_Scholars_of_Marriage.pdf.
12. Katy Faust, “Dear Justice Kennedy: An Open Letter from the Child of a Loving Gay Parent” Public Discourse (Witherspoon Institute),2015, http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2015/02/14370/
As a Christian, I want to give you something that you might pass along to someone who needs it. God bless, Andre:
“Psychologically, homosexual attractions and acts arise from a number of very specific emotional hurts and conflicts in childhood, adolescence, and adult life. These wounds were not clearly and fully identified in the past by mental health professionals, nor were they healed in the majority of cases. The reasons for this are because the mental health field in its early stage of development has failed to understand and incorporate forgiveness to remove the significant betrayal anger in these individuals and has not provided Christian spirituality to resolve their sadness, mistrust, low self-esteem, and addictive behavior. Fortunately, Catholic spirituality, combined with good psychotherapy, can result in a complete healing of those with this disorder.” http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=3112
Thanks for being a great wing man, Jamey! This research is awesome!
God bless you!
Cindy
Thanks, Cindy, but I just pass on the great stuff I read. Ryan Anderson’s new book “Truth Overruled” is amazing. Can get it on your computer for $10. The chapter on the victims—the children—can just shake one’s foundations.
Thank you for your fine article and comments. They are a prize!
Good one, Cynthia.
Thank you.
God bless these children and always hold them safe in the palm of His hand. Calling two men “father” does not make them both father. “From The Weekly Standard [Raleigh, North Carolina], 29 October 1862.)OLD
ABE GETS OFF ANOTHER JOKE. — A couple of Abolitionists having called
upon Old Abe to persuade him to issue his Emancipation Proclamation —
that is, before he issued it — he got off the following good thing and
knock down argument against his own act:”You remember the slave
who asked his master — if I should call a sheep’s tail a leg, how many
legs would it have? ‘Five.’ ‘No, only four, for my calling the tail a
leg would not make it so.’ Now, gentlemen, if I say to the slaves, ‘you
are free,’ they will be no more free than at present.” Guy McClung, San Antonio
The “oven” analagy is the height of insanity. What really confounds me is the insistent desire of a couple be they heterosexual or gay to have biological offspring at any cost. There are thousands of children awaiting adoption, especially disabled children. Children are too often viewed as trophies for the mantle. Adopted kids with special needs are not perfect for the mantle but they are pure and they are gifts where unconditional love is learned.
While recent large scale research studies indicate that hetero or gay couples raise equally physically and psychologically healthy kids, the issue is the failure to choose adoption instead of mechanically created children, although I do not view IVF as intrinsically wrong. Adoption is intrinsically right..
I hear you. My heart aches whenever I read the stories of the baby being carried by a surrogate who is rejected by the parents because he/she has a disability.