Culture,  Politics

Children in Favor of Same-Sex Marriage

The New York Times reports that the New Jersey state house welcomed children to speak out in favor of gay “marriage.” Ten-year old Kasey Nicholson-McFadden talked about the sadness he feels that his mothers aren’t allowed to marry:

“It doesn’t bother me to tell kids my parents are gay,” he said in a clear voice. “It does bother me to say they aren’t married. It makes me feel that our family is less than their family.”

Why would anyone want a child to speak-out in a public forum in this way? It’s a new strategy on the part of supporters of same-sex “marriage.” They are trying to reframe the debate about how such marriages affect children. Many assume (or at least know instinctively) that homosexual “marriage” works against the best interests of children. Proponents of same-sex “marriage” are trying to dislodge that assumption with appearances like this one. They want to plant this question in the popular consciousness: “What about the children now being raised in families headed by gay men and lesbians? How does the lack of marriage benefits for their parents affect them?”

The strategy is clear. Let’s pray that it doesn’t work. Read the rest here.

21 Comments

  • Nathan

    Yes, let’s pray that children not receive survivor benefits (along with his nasty remaining parent).

    Let’s pray that children of gays not have a stable home life.

    Let’s pray that we can tax gay families more, so we can spend that money on ourselves.

    Let’s pray that we can teach children with gay parents to hate their family.

  • Jordan

    Nathan, there is such hatred and anger in your words. (And if it’s not hatred and anger, then it must be sarcasm … but you didn’t denote that.) To the first: a child should have survivor benefits. Children of “gays” will never have a truly stable homelife in which they are brought up in the truth of God’s Word if their parents are so blatantly rebelling against God. On your last point, it’s not teaching them to hate their family … we must rather teach children with gay parents about the gospel so that they can share the good news of salvation with their gay parents.

  • russware

    Denny, I have no doubt that we are on the same page when it comes to the definition of Christian marriage. But, your consistent usage of quotes around the word in this context is really annoying. I know the point you are trying to make, but surely this isn’t necessary. I don’t think it serves the point, and I don’t think it does anything to elevate the dialogue or further the cause. It’s just obnoxious.

  • Nate

    Russ: The reason is because the homosexual community is attempting and has succeeded to some degree of absconding the word marriage. I find it annoying that a group of people can rewrite the definition of something and because they shout loud enough and long enough others tire of the process. That is how we get to a point of having to dialogue instead of doing the right thing. What other words and definitions are you willing to cede?

  • russware

    Nate…

    I totally get that. And I still find the “quotes tactic” obnoxious and unhelpful to positive dialogue. In the end it really isn’t about the word.

    Having a dialogue and doing the right thing are not mutually exclusive. We should always do the latter and always be willing to do the former.

  • Nate

    I guess I would respectfully have to say that you can have dialogue with the “quotes” to emphasize that there will be no cessation on this definition. But I do understand your thoughts better.. Thanks!

  • Dawn

    So you’re going to decide what this child actually thinks? You’re going to be the one to say that he doesn’t really like his 2 moms? Who the hell are you, anyway? I highly doubt that they MADE him say these things. What makes you think a heterosexual couple would necessarily be a better fit for him? There are plenty of heterosexual couples who routineley beat and neglect their children- he doesn’t seem to be beaten, neglected, or otherwise affected by the homosexuality, just that his parents aren’t married. Why shouldn’t they be allowed to marry?

    Is it because they don’t have a ‘father figure’? What about single parents?

    The good thing is that more kids are growing up without the hate that this poster has. Even kids of extreme homophobes are flipping the script and supporting gay marriage. Bigots like this will slowly die out, and no one will want to remember them. The country will be someday taken over by people more tolerant than we are, because we teach them love. What this poster tries to preach is the opposite of love.

    This kind of bigotry is on it’s way out, and there’s absolutely no stopping it. Thank GOD.

  • Brian Krieger

    Interesting, Dawn. While being on opposite ends of the spectrum on God would make a discussion of homosexuality an impasse, a comparison of the vitriol on your linked site (presumably yours) demonstrates hate to be clearly falling in your camp (insult masquerading as being “painfully honest”).

    While I also vehemently disagree with Nathan (one of them, anyway), he has a modicum of decency.

  • Jordan

    Dawn, it is about principles. For me, I cannot/will not support homosexual marriage because I would be being a hypocrite. The Bible clearly calls homosexuality a sin, and I would be being a hypocrite by supporting the marriage of two homosexuals. How can I say, “you’re living in sin, repent and believe the gospel” if I support their marriage?

  • Darius T

    Dawn, would you not agree that having a mother and a father is the ideal situation? If not, did you have a mom and dad? If so, then you are implying that one of them offered nothing to you that you couldn’t have gotten from someone of the opposite gender of themselves. I doubt you honestly believe that.

  • Nathan

    Jordan,

    I didn’t mean to sound hateful or angry, but those things are some of what I see to be the logical conclusions to “Let’s pray that gay marriage won’t be legalized.”

    A. If there are any survivor benefits to be given, the best way to make sure someone gets them is to be legally married and to be legally a child’s parent. These are more difficult for non-traditional families. See the list of things given in the link below.

    B. Married people enjoy all sorts of things that stabilize their home — take a look at a list here http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/article-30190.html Under your logic, no one of unregenerate parents can enjoy a truly stable home life, so maybe only Christian can get married…

    C. See the tax benefits I referred to in B.

    D. Stigmatizing a family to the degrees espoused by Denny and his supports can only have two consequences — 1. The child hates Denny and the supporters for hating his family. 2. The child hates his family. Lovely

  • Brian Krieger

    So, just curious, but speaking out against (or praying for repentance of a sin) is hateful? I guess I don’t quite make the leap of logic from “let us pray that gay marriage won’t be legalized” to “hate”. I love my uncle who abuses alcohol yet I pray fervently for him to repent. I love my buddy who think it’s OK to pilfer product from his deliveries, but I pray for him to repent. I love my family members who are gay very dearly, but I also pray fervently for their repentance. In every single case, I love each one of those but I vehemently disagree with (and pray for repentance of) their sin. In fact, I hate the sin and love the sinner.

    Saying Dr. Burk or Christians “hate” because they disagree seems more of a canard to invoke the emotional card than a logical connection.

  • Nathan

    I say, “Pray for the repentance of each person. If they don’t repent, they will perish.”

    Praying for the repentance of sinners is different than praying and working to stigmatize and suppress a people. One is love and the other one is vindictive and controlling.

    If the effects of an action truly harm a person’s life or property, then it should be limited, but if not, liberty should prevail. Please don’t come back with “all sin is harm” because we allow a lot of sinful things some of which you probably participate in.

  • Ryan K

    Hey Nathan, honest question; why hate and stigmatize those that would like to practice insect or polygamy? Are you not just arbitrarily drawing the moral line where you like it? If we are going to change the definition of marriage from heterosexual unions why not expand it further?

  • Nathan

    Arbitrary? Hardly.

    I don’t care if we legalize polygamy. I don’t understand how allowing polygamy would hurt me or my property.

    A reason to exclude polygamists from a legal partnership because there are more than two people. Part of a good law is the tractability of that law. If it can be proven that there can be a set of rules that treat each person within a polygamist relationship fairly and tractably under the law, I would say we should allow it.

    Another reason to not legalize polygamy would be an attempt to exclude people gaming the system. It’s not a good idea to allow people to create ad hoc groups at whatever frequency in order to get more benefits. If we can create a set of rules that precludes this type of gaming, then I would say we should allow it.

    Another reason to not allow polygamy is that it is, in ways, financially riskier than true partnerships. Let’s say that 10 spouses are reliant on a single spouse to bring home the bacon. If that spouse dies, then the survivorship benefits of ONE person is split 10 ways between 10 spouses and their children. It’s a bad situation. The flip side is increasing survivor benefits to cover all those people — it’s a huge concentrated risk. One person dies and the government (us) could potentially be on the hook for 100s of times the benefit amount of those within a traditional marriage.

    It is reasonable to create a set of rules that mitigate these issues.

  • Brian Krieger

    Well, as far as harm to society, the health and vitality of society seems impacted given the lack of procreation. Studies have also shown marked increases in suicide and lower educational scores among children of homosexual parents and actively homosexual people are less mentally healthy. Additionally, disease-wise, children of homosexual are more sexually active and at an earlier age. There is also the reduction of gender recognition in children of homosexual homes. Something that also has little investigation but seems that we’ve seen associated with mental and social instability. The other interesting thing was the concept of committed and monogamous relationships in the gay community. It seems to be an open relationship, seen as long, but still temporary not a committed relationship. The problem is that I think that is simply the outworking of the destruction of families. Increasingly, most see relationships that way. Very sad. And very deleterious.

    One challenge is (to both sides of this argument) that there isn’t a glut of information on it. Only a handful of studies (many studies cited to support traditional family values point to studies on fatherless homes) are completed. To ask the question, if there was a broad, long-range study (both sides wag fingers at the other’s studies right now…..rightly in many cases) that showed instability, increased violence, etc., in or against children of homosexual homes, would that suddenly be an argument for traditional marriage advocates in the political sphere or otherwise (in your opinion)?

    Also, since rules can be put in place for polygamy, could there simply be laws drafted to allow survivor/health benefits, etc.? Is it about the legal benefits of marriage? Or is it more than that?

  • Lindsey

    I know I said some time ago that I would no longer comment, but I spend so much time on the SBTS website that headlines like this just grab my attention unavoidably.

    Brian–can you provide a link to an objective study that supports the claims you just made? If not, then we have no way of knowing that you didn’t just invent those studies as you wrote the comment.

    I actually think that Nathan is making a great deal of sense and explaining the perspective I have in a way that is far better than any I have attempted. Aside from his first comment, he’s had very little sarcasm unlike most of the other commenters.

    I worry that this, like every other discussion of homosexual rights on this blog in which I have participated, will descend into $5 word-riddled arguments filled with vitriol. I hope that won’t be the case.

  • Brian Krieger

    promiscuity – Paul Van de Ven et al., “A Comparative Demographic and Sexual Profile of Older Homosexually Active Men,” Journal of Sex Research 34 (1997): 354.

    Education – Sotirios Sarantakos, “Children in three contexts: Family, education and social development,” Children Australia, Vol. 21, No. 3, (1996), 23.

    mental illness and suicide rates: Archives of General Psychiatry, Oct. 1999, Vol. 56, No. 10

    Gender confusion: That was one from the news that homosexual activists were championing, I didn’t catch the citation.

    I’ve never been accused of using $5 words (I typically limit my word spending to the dollar store). If you want a .02 ridden post of vitriol, check out Dawn.

  • Nathan

    I discount the use of any and all studies that show the things that you cite, Brian because those studies were / are done in an a negative atmosphere (at best) toward the type of nontraditional people /families you mentioned. If I cited studies that said similar things about families of some specific race, your conclusion (hopefully) wouldn’t be to ban those families. There are reasons why specific groups face certain problems. The problem may come from the characteristics of the group, but how the groups with those characteristics are treated by society.

    Regarding procreation — it seems silly to me to assume that homosexuals are going to procreate under the current system and not under a new one. Granting homosexuals the right to marry will have negligible impact on their procreation rate. If anything, the rate will probably increase.

    Remember that we are talking about an extremely small part of society. In these discussions about homosexuality, the naysayers like to say that the percentage of homosexuals is 2% or less. OK, so you think that society is going to swing one way or the other based on whatever percentage of 2% of society decides to get “gay married?”

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