Has anybody asked the children?
CommentsIn all these studies of gay parenting, it seems that nobody has asked the children what kind of family structure they want. I would be interested in a survey of orphans asking them if they want a mother and a father, two moms, two dads, a single mom, a single dad, or it doesn’t matter. My hunch is most orphans want both a mother and a father.
Do we really think they don’t know what they’re talking about, and we will “re-educate” them to accept the two Dads they’re getting even if they really want a mother’s touch?
I’d like to ask the children what they want, at try to respect that in placing them in homes.
(This post obviously does not refer to infant adoption.)
DB: “My hunch is most orphans want both a mother and a father.”
Very possibly. And if so, it’s a preference which should be accommodated to the extent possible. So what? What on earth does that have to do with same-sex marriage? How exactly do you envisage banning same-sex marriage having the slightest effect on the number of kids brought up by same-sex couples?
1. I don’t think that David has advocated banning SSM. His perspective produces quite a different outcome than you have represented, Mark.
But David can clarify for himself.
2. Based on the available social-scientific evidence, people should pause long before assuming parity of outcomes between the intact low-conflict married household (ie. husband and wife) with comparable households comprised of two sexually involved men or women.
3. Why, Mark, do you emphasis “the number of kids”?
The advocates of “same-sex parenting” tend to be one and the same as advocates of “same-sex marriage”. In jurisdictions where SSM has been enacted or imposed, in whatever form, adoption agencies have been denied the discretion to prioritize prospective adoptors who’d provide married mom-dad families.
Frankly, that denial is a political affirimative action program for “same-sex parenting”. As such, it promotes the false notion that there is an adultcentric right to adopt orphans. It is window dressing for the false premise that adoption is primarily to serve needy adults rather than children in need.
“How exactly do you envisage banning same-sex marriage having the slightest effect on the number of kids brought up by same-sex couples?”
It’s very simple. SSM advocates consistenly remind us that children of (unmarried) SS couples are at a disadvantage. Of course, these SS parents knew this going in, so if their children are deprived of anything it’s by choice — SS couples don’t have children by accident.
But surely there are a number of SS couples who do not have children — by choice — because they know that their children would be at a disadvantage because their parents cannot marry. Legalizing SSM would therefore result in more children, not less, being deliberately deprived of a mother or father — according to the particular bias of their SS “parents”.
I don’t know if this is a mistake, but if it isn’t I take a bit of offense at Marty’s sneer quotes around same-sex “parents.” Of course a gay Mom is a parent, even if not biological. Would you call John McCain a “parent” because his daughter is adopted? Just my two cents.
Marty: “But surely there are a number of SS couples who do not have children — by choice — because they know that their children would be at a disadvantage because their parents cannot marry.”
Sure, a few same-sex couples will probably think like that, just not very many. Partly that’s because while many gays and lesbians do think that the protections for children are a legitimate benefit of SSM and worth mentioning but not a show stopper if not available. (Compare poverty: poverty strongly tends to produce all sorts of social dysfunction in kids, both directly and indirectly, and everyone* would like to reduce poverty in part for that reason, but no one* suggests that the poor are morally at fault for having kids or tries to put legal impediments in their way.) And partly that’s because like any one else, gays and lesbians get ornery when they’re blackmailed, especially when they’re blackmailed through their kids and prospective kids by bigots misrepresenting the science. (Of course I get it that you don’t think you’re a bigot, but the people you’re trying to influence and I do.) Whether you think they should or not, gays and lesbians are not going to accept more than a tiny fraction of the moral responsibility for difficulties for their children that you inflict on them for no reason that they can see.
* Give or take a few nutters, at least directly. Of course, poverty is the main underlying reason why single-parent families don’t do as well.