This post is a personal sort of Rubicon for me. A bunch of my former UU colleagues are going to strike me off their Christmas lists after they read this (heh!)
I left my former Unitarian Universalist congregation in 2000, largely due to political, not religious, concerns (I wasn't even a believer then, but I was moving there real fast). The next year they decided to adopt a Welcoming Congregation resolution, meaning they were going to actively adopt a pro-gay program. My leaving was not solely due to this policy, but I was bothered by witnessing a child dedication by two gay men who had adopted a baby daughter. My thought then was "how are they going to teach this daughter how to be a woman when she goes through adolescence? She isn't going to have a clue." I don't care what studies the gay-rights advocates put forth, I do not think that children of gay parents will grow up with the necessary education to interrelate with people of both sexes as they grow up. I think they will have problems caused by imcomplete parenting and exposure to homosexual activity. They will be miss an important element of what families with moms and dads will provide, namely the little things that only a mom or dad can each uniquely provide. I have no doubts that I will be labeled as a "homophobe" by UUs, including those from my former congregation. That's a cheap shot, designed to deflect attention from the ill effects that normalization of homosexuality will bring.
Here's what some ministers in the UUA are doing to further their extremist gay-rights agenda: Some UU Clergy will not sign marriage licenses, and are encouraging gay-activist-ministers in other faiths to do likewise. This is real sad, discriminating against what is right to accomodate what is wrong. One thing my former congregation did before I left was to put up a "family wall" in one of their meeting rooms, where people were invited to bring in pictures of their family and put them on a wall celebrating families. They were in the middle of a big push to remind everybody that there lots of different kinds of families, including couples who weren't even married, and gay couples. One thing I remember them saying was something like "pictures of families headed by gay couples are especially welcome". My reaction to that was that my wife and I, as a heterosexual couple, were not especially welcome.
What Senator Santorum said recently was point-blank true, and extends to the concept of marriage as well. If the procreative nature of marriage is denied, and gay marriage becomes legally recognized, what reason would there be for not extending the legality of marriage to marrying one's own sister? or brother? or indeed, any number of people of either sex? Marriage will have no social meaning or value whatsoever.
Posted by joelfuhrmann at May 20, 2003 10:18 PMHow does a single mother who's raising a son whose father left them teach the son to be a man??? And how does a single father raising his daughter because the mother ran out on them teach his daughter to be a women??? In all honesty and my opinion, a baby girl raised by two fathers has a better shot at a "normal" life than one raised by a single father. At least with two, the odds of one of them being there 99% of the time is there. Same goes for two lesbians raising a son. I think he would have just as good chance of turning out "normal" as a single mother raising a child.
Your argument is flawed in that you say that by being raised by two parents of the same sex, a child misses out on "the little things that only a mom or dad can each uniquely provide." Think about the hundreds of thousands of kids raised by single parents and then think about what you're saying.
I was raised by my Mom. My father was never in the picture longer than a month or so at a time, once a year. That was it. And yes, I am gay. But it's not because I was raised by my mother as I would presume you think. Anyway, sorry to go on and on here.
I just happened upon your journal while searching for some things on the Internet.
Robert
Posted by: The Poet at November 11, 2003 11:26 AMThank you for your comments, and for arguing your case thoughtfully. Nice job.
I agree with you that children raised by single parents also miss out on many of the benefits of a married couple. I disagree however, with your opinion that they would be better off with gay parents. Gay parenting is too new of a phenomenon to evaluate its long-term consequences.
Good points Joel. I don't think there are too many things in the Bible that are more explicit than God's distaste for homosexuality. Homosexuals are welcome in our church. They are not allowed to hold any office. They are welcome in hopes that God's message will reach them, and they will repent. Many of the references in the Bible and homosexuality are now being attacked by the homosexual movement, and they are rationalizing pretty straight forward dialog given by God regarding this. Remember Jesus said in Matthew 5:37, ""But let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No.' For whatever is more than these is from the evil one."
When you rationalize and try to say that we're smarter than they were back then, and know better, you're walking on thin ice. We're not as smart as we think we are. We're only smart within our narrow focused context. Remember how smart so called astronomers thought they were when Ptolemy put that the earth was the center of the universe until Copernicus came along and proved him wrong. During that time, even though there were observations that disproved the theory, it was accepted as fact. Now we have so called intelligentsia that says gays don't have any choice in the way they are. All I have to say is see Ptolemy...