Gay Marriage and Gay Parenting

 

Whenever 'reasonable people', want to score easy homophobic points, they claim to be 'protecting children' which remains a powerful weapon in the bigot's arsenal. The change in New York's Gay Marriage law has left Catholic Archbishops and a list of "fundamentalists" reeling and upset, so it is no surprise that the "What about the children?" argument is being trundled out again.

I don't doubt that for SOME gay couples, a child is the ultimate fashion accessory, but I doubt they're a significant percentage of the total number in any country where it is possible and that is certainly not a phenomenon reserved to Gay and Lesbian couples. -Consider the pressure to parent: heterosexual couples who marry and decide NOT to have children are still looked down upon as if they are letting down the side. Same sex couples have usually had to do a lot to get to the point where they can look after children, much more thought than most heterosexual couples. In reality: children brought up by lesbian and gay couples are more often than not valued for who they are and are likely to become rather than being crammed into shapes and sent down paths set for them before they were even born.

The claim that being brought up by a same sex couple leads to greater instances of homosexuality has never been proven despite claims by people like Walter Schumm who think that "Homosexual practice is injurous to society". This (stupid) suggestion fails to account for Gay and Lesbian children of heterosexual couples: to follow 'Schummian' logic; gay and lesbian people shouldn't exist. In  reality; gay and lesbian couples are more likely to be concerned if their children exhibit overtly homosexual tendencies- if only out of fear of that they themselves will be "blamed"  for implanting their sexualities onto their children.

For some: paedophilia and homosexuality remain synonymous despite information to the contrary. To be crude I'll share this colloquial quote with you: "There are two sorts of Gay Men: 'Size Queens' and Liars!"- [work it out for yourself] and in addition, BECAUSE of this constant mislabelling, you'll find some of the most aggressive anti-paedophiles in LGBT communities. 

"Its a fact that many gay men would make great fathers, its just a rotten consequence of natural logic so few of them get the chance"

From "Ashes" by David Rudkin

The (few) same sex couples I know personally who have parenting responsibilities, take them extremely seriously, are aware that they are under greater scrutiny than their heterosexual counterpartand and are at great pains to support their children to become who they want to be, rather than to  fulfill predetermined parental expectations. Prejudices still prevail: my own brother arrogantly stated is discomfort with allowing me to take my turn in the child-minding rota to look after my first nephew when he was born. I reacted furiously; calling him a fool, and predicting the time when there would be no one else to mind the child, and he would have no choice but to contact me at which time I would take pleasure in reminding him of that conversation... In the event: of course that day came, but although I remembered what I said, I made my brother GROVEL before spending an enjoyable afternoon carrying my nephew around London with me.

My brother is a pretty typical Jamaican male who, like our father; felt it more important to 'spread his seed' than to nurture his children. The number of children he has sired is of more importance than his relationship with any of them. -In what way is that anything but contemptable? -Yet it is the norm for too many men.  Despite the number of children living without two parents, or in state care - or in too many parts of the world- living on the streets, people who claim to be "religious" believe that those children would be better off than if they were being cared for by same sex couples. When Elton John was refused his request to adopt a 14 month old Ukranian orphan I remember the righteous indgnation that suggested that the child would be somehow better off in an orphanage than being doted upon by one of the richest men in UK. -It may be distasteful to see celebrities amassing broods of adopted children, but are the needs of the children really bein considered by critics who seem more obsessed by the fact that money and celebrity can get even the most exclusive accessories.

- I am reminded of leaflets distributed in Lewisham in South London in the mid 1980s by the Icthus Christian Fellowship in response to the council's acceptance of gay and lesbian people as potential foster carers: these leaflets actually said that the council's policy would lead to an increase in cases of HIV/AIDS!! What the fuck did they think gay and lesbian foster parents would be doing to the children in their care?

It seems clear to me that the biggest problem for the children of same sex couples is Other People and that providing protections in law is a good starting point to address that problem. And 'yes' Children can be cruel and sieze on what is different about one of their peers as the basis for bullying and unpleasantness, but those attitudes are not innate they are learned and it is the duty of anyone caring for the development of a child into an adult that they help and encourage those children to think for themselves.