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Same Sex Marriage
First and foremost, I would like to make clear that I have no issues with people being homosexual. I believe that no one should ever feel frightened to be who they are so long as it does not interfere with or damage another person's life. I am also all for marriage equality. I do not buy into the argument that allowing homosexual people to get married undermines the significance of marriage as an institute. I am not a religious person, and so I do not believe marriage is a sacred sacrament. I see marriage as a symbolic (and legal) gesture by two individuals through which they accept responsibility and respect for the relationship they share. It is an expression of commitment, loyalty and (often) love - and thus is a formality that can exist between any two consenting, adult parties who are not already bound by close familial ties. And most importantly, it is a personal affair - so why would one person's marriage undermine another's? That's a silly connection to make. Furthermore, if homosexuals can openly share a household and opt for a civil union, what is wrong with marriage? Seems like neither one is a very Christian choice to begin with.
On that note, I should also add that I do not understand the logic behind gay people wanting a Christian wedding. If God is truly loving and merciful, He/She/It will bless a marriage no matter how it is done - one does not require approval from pretentious clerics for the marriage to be legitimate. The concept of God is built around omnipresence, so a marriage does not need to take place in a Church for God to oversee it. Being an agnostic, I see clerical hierarchy or authority as undermining the universality of God, and as being detrimental to one's personal connection with the transcendent - if there such a thing really exists at all.
Same Sex Couples and Children
From personal experience and some reading, I understand that adopting children or giving birth to children by sperm donation or surrogacy does not face much legal restriction in Australia. I personally know two lesbian households who have children without being married, so I understand that bringing up the question of children has no real implications on the marriage debate. Despite this, I will still raise some points that LGBTI activists will not like.
I understand that research will be against me on this issue, with most results showing that gay parenting is just as great as conventional parenting. Homosexual people make extremely attentive and committed parents as they tend to have children by choice, and work hard to establish their families. Research has also shown that children from gay families are just as competent in all aspects of life (social, physical and mental) as their counterparts in straight households, and often have a more mature approach to global issues.
I have no doubt that these conclusions are correct. I am also sure that many of these children love their parents, gay or not, and feel lucky to have them. But if a person could choose, in retrospect, what kind of family to be born into, would they say "one with homosexual parents"?
It is true that every couple deserves to have children, whether they can or cannot through conventional means. And whether or not they have this child "naturally" is not really important. The greater question is whether it is "normal". According to Wikipedia (not the best source I know, but they have a reference), only about 1.6% of men in Australia are gay and 0.9% bisexual. These numbers are 1.4% and 0.8% respectively for women. Between 8 and 15% of men and women reported having sexual experiences or feelings of attraction towards a member of the same sex, but identify themselves as heterosexuals despite this fact. So there is no doubt in saying that an overwhelming majority of people are of a heterosexual orientation in Australia.
But LGBT activists often compare homosexuals with children to infertile heterosexual couples who find alternative ways to have children but do not face the same societal prejudices. This is not a fair comparison for obvious reasons. Children of homosexual couples will always be deprived of one biological parent and will undoubtedly be outnumbered by children with heterosexual parents - a fact that they must come to terms with at some stage in their lives. How an individual copes with these facts may vary, for some it's easy, for some it might not be.
I recently read an article by a man raised by lesbian parents who voiced his true feelings regarding the matter. He wrote about others he knew who held similar attitudes about gay parenting but were reluctant to speak up:
"Those who contacted me all professed gratitude and love for the people who raised them, which is why it is so difficult for them to express their reservations about same-sex parenting publicly.
Still, they described emotional hardships that came from lacking a mom or a dad. To give a few examples: they feel disconnected from the gender cues of people around them, feel intermittent anger at their “parents” for having deprived them of one biological parent (or, in some cases, both biological parents), wish they had had a role model of the opposite sex, and feel shame or guilt for resenting their loving parents for forcing them into a lifelong situation lacking a parent of one sex.
The richest and most successful same-sex couple still cannot provide a child something that the poorest and most struggling spouses can provide: a mom and a dad. Having spent forty years immersed in the gay community, I have seen how that reality triggers anger and vicious recrimination from same-sex couples, who are often tempted to bad-mouth so-called “dysfunctional” or “trashy” straight couples in order to say, “We deserve to have kids more than they do!”
But I am here to say no, having a mom and a dad is a precious value in its own right and not something that can be overridden, even if a gay couple has lots of money, can send a kid to the best schools, and raises the kid to be an Eagle Scout.
It’s disturbingly classist and elitist for gay men to think they can love their children unreservedly after treating their surrogate mother like an incubator, or for lesbians to think they can love their children unconditionally after treating their sperm-donor father like a tube of toothpaste."If I were homosexual, I would be terrified of bringing a child into this world knowing that they might silently resent the situation I've forced onto them to fulfill my own desires and for choosing a lifestyle for them that applies only to a tiny percentage of the population.
Having said that, I am more accepting of gay parents who ensure that the child's biological parents are well and truly involved in their lives. That way, a child has a clear picture of their beginning, or their origin, and would not feel detached from or deprived of a parent. The surrogate or sperm-donor should not be absent and shrouded in mystery, and should be a person the child knows and interacts with. I am also encouraging of adoption, where the children are often in need of a family to raise them.
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I think it's important that we make people who are different feel comfortable with living the life they choose for themselves without facing discrimination. But we must be careful when our own choices begin to dictate the course of another individual's life as well.
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