Anglican Mainstream

“If we were asked to design a system for making sure that children’s basic needs were met, we would probably come up with something quite similar to the two-parent ideal. Such a design, in theory, would not only ensure that children had access to the time and money of two adults, it also would provide a system of checks and balances that promoted quality parenting. The fact that both parents have a biological connection to the child would increase the likelihood that the parents would identify with the child and be willing to sacrifice for that child, and it would reduce the likelihood that either parent would abuse the child.”  Sara McLanahan and Gary Sandefur, ’Growing Up with a Single Parent: What Hurts, What Helps’ (Harvard University Press, 1994), p. 38.

I am putting this up to stimulate our British readers to respond to Andrea’s plea to contact members of the House of Lords as soon as possible (see end).  The following decalogue notes the impact of SSM (same-sex marriage) upon family structure and the conceiving and rearing of children but also the benefits of the traditional family more broadly. David Blankenhorn’s ‘The Future of Marriage’ (Encounter, 2007), invests heavily in these matters, if you wish to know more. 

Perhaps David’s most worrying comment is about the actual impact of these developments upon marriage but especially parenthood for all children, not just those of gay and lesbian (and now bisexual and transgendered) couples.  ’When I say, “Every child deserves a mother and a father,” I am saying something that almost everyone in the world has always assumed to be true, and that many people today … still believe to be true.  But a society that embraces same-sex marriage can no longer collectively embrace this norm and must take specific steps to retract it.’ (p. 201) Though we do not have SSM (yet) this latest push for gay rights in terms of reproduction means that as a society we will be claiming that children neither need nor deserve to have their own mother and father.  Two of either will do just as nicely (that is, if this is what they want!) – and the child can forget about any inherent biological connection too.  In fact it could become illegal to assert such views – a girl’s or a boy’s need for the two people who created her or him - for it discriminates against children from ‘alternative’ families and makes them feel marginalized and ‘different’.  This impacts all children – and all mothers and fathers – in fact.  This is not just about gay people having the right to normal happy settled family life. 

I am saying that this issue is far bigger and more ominous than it appears initially to most people.  I am aware of complaints about all the fuss - in fact, I keep hearing them! Of course, nothing simply dreadful has happened yet.  Moreover, the sky will not fall whatever transpires on this or other gay/sexually ‘alternative’ fronts.  Just take a look at the liberated Netherlands or Scandinavia.  Things still tick over, life goes on; they are still fascinatingly beautiful places to visit. However, profound, far-reaching, and I would say, deeply-alarming social transformation has and is continuing to occur in relation to how people in those countries perceive matters of family, marriage and sexuality and the subsequent impact of that thinking upon daily life and behaviour.  Norms have shifted massively.  Ours have too but to a lesser extent.  There is still just time:  please write.       

And now, the decalogue.
1. Children hunger for their biological parents
2. Children need fathers
3. Children need mothers.
4. Inadequate evidence on SS couple parenting
5. Children raised in SS homes experience (greater) gender and sexual disorders
6. Vive la difference
7. Sexual fidelity
8. Marriage, procreation, and the fertility implosion
9. For the sake of the children.
10. Women & marriage domesticate men.

For the article in its entirety see http://saveelca.blogspot.com/2006/05/top-10-social-scientific-arguments.html

Bishops in the House of Lords:  Canterbury; York; London; Durham; Winchester; Southwark; Manchester; Salisbury; Rochester; Chelmsford; Portsmouth; St Albans; Peterborough; Chester; St Edmundsbury & Ipswich; Newcastle; Liverpool; Leicester; Exeter; Ripon and Leeds; Sheffield; Coventry; Truro; Worcester; Southwell; Norwich.

See http://www.anglican-mainstream.net/index.php/2007/11/12/urgent-action-required-on-embryology-bill/ for other important information.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.