Posted on 06/14/2010 8:31:11 AM PDT by markomalley
“Kids Do as Well with Same Sex Parents,” the headlines screamed. I crossed swords with Judith Stacey, one of the authors of this most recent study, at a debate at Bowling Green State a few years ago. I asked her point blank if she believed men and women were completely interchangeable as parents. In front of that very friendly audience, she said absolutely: the gender of parents doesn’t matter. And so she says now, in this new article the media loved. But midway through the article, her argument shifts from a “no difference” argument to my favorite definition of feminism: men and women are identical, except women are better. Her article ends with an intimation that I believe tells strongly against same sex marriage. Redefining marriage will create a cultural climate that will drive men out of the family, and lead to the belief that the only good man is a gay man.
The claim that the gender of parents doesn’t matter is a crucial argument for same sex marriage advocates. Treating same sex unions like marriage amounts to saying that mothers and fathers are interchangeable. It is a coin toss from a child’s point of view, whether they have two moms, two dads, or one of each. So here is how Judith Stacey and Timothy Biblarz show that “Two Mommies are as Good as Mom and Dad.”
What the Evidence Says
They say that the evidence purportedly showing that children need mothers and fathers doesn’t really prove any such thing. That research conflates five factors that are conceptually distinct: the number of parents, the gender of parents, sexual identity, marital status and “biogenetic relationship to children.” Children with married couple parents have one straight male and one straight female parent who are married to each other and both biologically related to them. To prove that heterosexual marriage is uniquely good for children, and superior to same sex parenting, we really need studies that separate all these factors. So, Stacey and Biblarz gathered 81 studies that compare families in these various dimensions.
But hold it right there: before we enter into this argument, look at what we are being asked to take on faith. The “biogenetic relationship to the child” is a ten dollar phrase meaning that the adults in the couple are actually the parents of the children. We have always taken for granted the idea that kids are entitled to a mom and a dad because a mom and a dad is what it takes to have a “biogenetic” origin, in the first place. By breaking marriage down into its constituent elements, Stacey and Biblarz are asking us to break ourselves and our children, into pieces. The children in my household need not be products of my sexual union with anybody in particular, or even a sexual union at all. The birth parents can be different from the legal parents can be different from the caregiving parents.
And the kids are supposed to be ok with all this.
But put that to one side. Let’s also put to one side the question of whether the interpretative scheme that Stacey and Biblarz construct around the 81 studies they summarize is really the one and only possible interpretation of all that data. It would take another whole article to deconstruct that issue. Instead allow me a few quotes, from “How Does the Gender of Parents Matter?” to illustrate my point that fatherhood itself is at stake in the same sex parenting debate.
See what I mean? Men and women are identical, except women are better.
“Gender nonconformity” used to be considered a negative trait, something, which if found, provided an argument against same sex parenting. But listen to Stacey and Biblarz turn “gender flexibility” into a positive trait.
Interchangeable?
The bottom line is not really that mothers and fathers are interchangeable, but that masculinity is a bad thing.
Same sex marriage is being sold to the public as a small change, with “marriage equality” as the only important issue. I believe there is much more at stake in redefining the law and the culture surrounding marriage and parenthood. This article supposedly showing that “kids do fine” with lesbian parents, has proven my point for me. The drive for same sex marriage will marginalize men from the family, and lead to the belief that the only good man is a gay man.
My wife can not stand feminists. Ask my kids if they like having a mommy and a daddy.
“By breaking marriage down into its constituent elements, Stacey and Biblarz are asking us to break ourselves and our children, into pieces.” Deconstruction, thy name is postmodernism. Geez, think Stacy and Biblarz (is this a real name?) went to the ivy leagues? Such a heavy dose of intellect, not.
Another byproduct of this emasculation of men is that now we see women rising up in politics, and justly so, because the men are no longer able or willing to do it!
As C.S. Lewis said “We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise.”
The problem, as alluded by the article, is that too often those arguing against same-sex parents try to argue that it's simply a matter of having two sexes, rather than admitting that the ideal situation is biological parents. The problem being that once you admit that biological parents are the best for the children, you have to admit that all the special acts taken by people to have kids (surrogates, adoption, fostering, sperm donations) are less desirable from the child's point of view. Sure, being adopted is better than being an orphan, but it's not as good as having your biological parents raise you. Biology matters -- that's why so many adopted kids try to find their biological parents.
More junk science by libs w/an agenda.
Pray for America
“it was a rotating door on “life partners”...”
Stability probably is the key factor. We know a lesbian couple who raised the son of one of them. He’s an exceptional young man, now married with a baby of his own. The ‘parents’ have been together 19 years & other gay friends are always asking how they manage to stay together.
A counselor I knew years ago told me once that all young teens go through a homosexual phase that they grow out of. I doubt that’s politically correct for a counselor to say now. But it seems that most every gay person I’ve known (including the couple) are rather juvenile in many ways. It is a wonder they’ve stayed together!
Is there data suggesting “the ideal situation is biological parents,” or are you arguing from a gut feeling?
I suspect outcomes data would show the opposite of what you suggest. 100% of adopted children are wanted, this is far from the case for biological children.
When I meet two lebians with a kid, I’m going to nicely ask them who the FATHER is. I’ll never relinquish this reality.
““Thus, it may not be fatherlessness that expands gender capacities in sons but heterosexual fatherlessness. When gay men, lesbians or heterosexual women parent apart from the influence of heterosexual masculinity, they all seem to do so in comparatively gender-flexible ways that may enable their sons to break free from gender constraints as well.””
See. Having a Mother and a Father ‘forces’ boys to be boys and girls to be girls.
Can’t have that... ./s
I know a couple who divoriced and after that the woman moved in with her girlfriend. The two daughters did not do well and begged for years to go live with their Dad. The girls will tell you how awful it was to always be stared at and not be invited anywhere. Those two I think are the most outspoken anti gay people I’ve ever seen but they know first hand about what goes on.
It can be found at: http://www.amazon.com/Women-Who-Make-World-Worse/dp/1595230092/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top
Such great insight into NOW and the demands of the members who will never be satisfied!
“For the past 20 or so years, I have seen it in the commercials on TV.... the children or the wife dominates/castrates the father/husband who is made to appear as a weak stupid jerk....harmless but silly”
I totally agree and have commented on this observation myself. I call them “stupid-husband commercials.” I see them on TV and hear them on radio all the time. The hapless husband, ALWAYS a white male, cannot so much as chew gum and walk without his shrewish wife correcting and informing him. I’m a woman, and I feel like slapping some of these acid-tongued witches!
the couselor is full of something, and it ain’t wisdom. I can honestly say that I never went through a homosexual stage, not unless it occurred before age 6, when I first fell in love with a little blond-haired girl in first grade. I can’t remember her name, now. but she filled my dreams for a year.
I ain’t never looked on the other side of the fence. the very thought makes me squirm in discomfort.
so, so much for his “everybody”
Bill Ayers and the Weather Underground engaged in sexual experimentation (Bill Ayers boffed men and women in the Underground).
His stated purpose in this was to “Smash Monogamy”.
When they ask “how does this threaten the institution of marriage, look to the words of Sex Positive advocates who long believed that marriage itself is an outdated structure.
Wth did that rambling, pseudo-intellectual nonsense even mean anyway?
#2?
“boys growing up without fathers ENABLED them to have greater gender FLEXIBILITY”!!!!!!????
I am reminded of a scene in Slap Shot where Paul Newman tells the owner of the Charlston Chiefs that her son is going to have something in his mouth before you can say Jack Robinson.
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