78 thoughts on “Thoughts of Donor-conceived Children of Gay Parents in Their Own Words”

1. OK. Would you claim then that donor-conceived children of opposite-sex parents never have the same issues? If they do have issues, do you still have this argument against SSM? And, by the way, same sex couples would still be having donor-conceived children, whether they are married or not. But marriage brings more stability to the child-rearing. Is it a positive or negative thing?

   • FyVa. Many donor conceived children of heterosexual couples absolutely struggle. Here’s a friend of mine sharing her story: http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2014/11/13993/. And if you look through the other stories from Anonymous Us nearly every entry from donor-conceived persons, with gay or straight parents, share the same refrain: why can’t I know my missing half. I share the stories from children of same-sex couples specifically because there is such pressure, even on them, to not appear “anti-gay.” It amazes me that many of the stories are prefaced by how they don’t hate gay people, or they love their gay parent, but they sure wish they knew their father. They cannot deny the pain that has resulted from the narrative that “love makes a family” which undoubtedly many of them have been told since infancy. And why would any of us be surprised? Their stories sound just like kids from single parent or divorced homes, who we all know. Because it *is* like that story.

     One organization that I work with (http://www.internationalchildrensrights.com/) is actively trying to highlight the human rights violations involved in this “marketplace of children” known as third-party reproduction. I oppose gay marriage because it normalizes families where children are separated from their parents. I oppose third-party reproduction because it’s a violation of child rights- it’s not cute when Neil Patrick Harris does it or when Jimmy Fallon does it either. Tell me, how “stable” is the lives of the children listed above? Non-biological care-giver statistically are not as connected/committed/attached to children, whether or not they are married. Even if the family did have more “stability” in many of the stories above, the marriage (assuming that the above parents aren’t/weren’t married which they may well have been) are attaching the child to an adult that they don’t feel is equally “parent” and excluding someone that they desperately want as parent. Just accept it. Kids want their moms and dads. If your argument is based on a gaslighting approach of telling children that they really are happy with any adult arrangement then you are truly looking through a selfish, political filter.

     • You seem very reasonable but what do you mean by gay marriage normalizes situations where children are separated from their parents? So does any type of unmarried parenthood and so does divorce and since those are both perfectly legal its hardly a sound basis for attempting to make same sex marriage illegal. It’s just a flaw in the logic. If we took away marital presumption from every spouse and made everyone prove who they were before certifying that birth certificates were true it would be a very fair approach to stopping black market adoption once and for all. It would also be of great benefit to public health as our vital records are now so mired in error that there seems no point to bothering recording who a person’s parents are anymore.

       • @Marilynn your comments are like a breath of fresh air, so un-homophobic, so reasonable, so true. Please shine your light, and please keep letting the world know that the children’s rights movement is not a conservative and directly anti-gay rights. I’m sure there will be many gay parents, who may seek having a child without the use of donors and surrogates, who will appreciate your inputs 🙂

         • Oh my gosh it’s nice to be understood! I am personal friends with Alana who runs AnonUS – like she comes to my house with her kid and I help her search for her Dad. I’m a searcher for free for all kinds of separated families and love the idea of legalizing same sex marriage I’m a San Francisco Democrat who thinks sexual orientation has NOTHING to do with meeting obligations to care for one’s offspring. The obligations that come with the parent child relationship are non-sexual and are not supposed to be dependent upon parental marital status – so says the Uniform Parentage Act. I am all for legalizing same sex marriage it will bring stability to the lives of gay people’s kids through the legal status of step parenthood. Identical insurance, death benefits, access to vital records all kinds of stuff for step families are awesome so long as the marriage is intact. Bonus points for step relationships not erasing the obligation of either parent. Millions of minors have unmarried parents who are legally bound to support them AND their parent’s spouses income is taken into account when determining the amount of support that parent can afford. No draw back for the kid there. It’s unfortunate the kid’s parents are not a couple but they don’t have any obligation to be a romantic couple – their obligation is to the child they made together. I had a boyfriend whose mom was a lesbian and he referred to her girlfriend as his other mother. She outlived his mother and they remain close. That did not mean his father did not need to care for and support him, is everyone high? He loves his father and father’s family. His dad was not daily caregiver but he met his legal responsibilities and also loved him and included him as family. So lots of people follow the normal rules of family law all the time cause its the law for everyone else but people classified as donors. It’s terrible they are exempt from parental obligation it means their kids won’t have the same rights other people’s kids have. It’s horribly unfair. I wish my friends and everyone else would never again use the word gay or straight when attempting to describe how this process violates the rights of minors and their estranged relatives. It’s distracting and makes them sound like hillbilly bigots easy targets and they’ll never make any headway on their actual concerns if they continue to talk about gays and singles or frankly even infertile. Their problems start with parental abandonment and the law looking the other way because there is tremendous money to be made in making it sanitary and efficient for good looking college educated people to have and abandon illegitimate kids off the record. Their problems continue with the law looking the other way as millions short cut the due process of court approved adoption by writing their name as parents on the birth records of other people’s kids. Their problems are escalated by industry terminology that prevents them from saying “My dad abandoned me and my step mom black market adopted me – please help me”.
           If a magic politically correct fairy can erase the word father from the conversation maybe the same fairy could erase the words gay/straight/infertile/conception/reproduction from the conversation as well then the injustice becomes so clear.

     • >>>”Someone asked me what if… two Moms co-raised me with two gay masculine acting dads who’d live next door? One would be biological, the other would basically adopt me as if you were his own. Its a beautiful idea and I wish the best for anyone who loves their children so much that they would be willing to do this. Whoever thought of that has a lot of love in there heart and they were clearly thinking of how it would be for the kids. I wish someone had thought of me with so unselfishly”<<<

       This was a quote made by the author of 'Love Is Hate'. You just wrote me in your last blog post saying that having a gay and lesbian couple co-parent their children together (in a foursome or threesome parental arrangement) wouldn't be enough for the children because their parents needed to be heterosexuals and monogamously married to each other. How do you respond to this girl who admits she doesn't have a problem with her parents being gay, or in a lesbian relationship, she solely has a problem with not knowing a father, and not having a father?

       Similarly the author of "Just Figured Out My Aunt Is My Mom ect…" also wrote saying she doesn't have any issues with gay marriage or her two lesbian moms, just the fact she doesn't have a relationship with her dad.

       So again, how do these children correlate to your political anti-gay rights, and anti-gay parenting agenda? It's very easy to be against third party reproduction and still not have any qualms about gay marriage, gay adoption and gay bio-parenting. I'm totally fine with lesbians and gay men choosing to have biological children just as long as their children have a relationship with their birthfather or birthmother, and as long as the children's needs/wants/desire and respect as human being is put before the parents' wants.

       • You’re totally fine with people having kids with those whom they know they will never marry? Well, I’m not. I wouldn’t be okay with it if someone had intentionally brought me into the world like that and I would never put the expectation on anyone else that he or she must be okay with it. Anyone who has kids like that is not putting their children’s needs (or wants or desires most likely) ahead of their own.

         • Yes I am. And I don’t think your opinion matters since you aren’t a child of a same-sex couple.

         • @candygurl2013

           Are arguments born from surrogacy or in vitro fertilization? That’s like arguing ESPN’s Doris Burke has no grounds to provide color commentary on the NBA because she is a woman and has never played in the league.

         • candygurl

           obviously, you will make your own decisions, but my advice is to be REALLY careful about telling people their opinions don’t count….that’s a super slippery slope that may come back to bite you in the a@# one day. Democracy is based on the fact that every person is given the “right” to have an opinion….and to have that opinion COUNT.

         • @Modus Pownens ??? More like someone who already hates gay people and gay families making a statement based on those pre-established biases.

         • Sorry candygurl2013 but Joanne is right. But actually the only true issue here is a moral one. Children of gay parents are children of confusion. The unfortunate products of the godlessness of this age. All kids deserve better, the least of all being a MALE father and FEMALE mother. That is God’s order of things. If it was not then He would have said so. Really quite simple. But then the bible says that He has hidden wisdom from the foolish … so let the foolish rage on.

         • @ Lyn “Children of gay parents are children of confusion. The unfortunate products of the godlessness of this age”

           And that’s your conservative opinion coming from someone who’s never grown up in a same-sex household and who already has a biased agenda against gay marriage and gay parenting. Why do you think your opinion actually has any weigh at all?

           PS: do you honestly think your bible is the ultimate moral authority?
           

         • I don’t THINK that my bible is the only moral authority – I KNOW IT IS.
           And that is not my opinion…it is GOD’S. If you have a problem with that…. speak to HIM

         • Candygurl,

           Have you ever committed murder? If not, how do you know it is good or evil? Do you know what is Evil? How do you know the difference between Good & Evil?

           Furthermore, the video posted was filled with so much poor theology, that you’ve wrecked your own thesis. Only two New Testament verses in that entire video, one of them missing important context, the other ignoring historical context. It should have been titled ‘Are Jews Evil?’, since the commentator consistently referred to the Judaic Covenant as opposed to the Christian covenant.

           You’ve claimed the Bible is not the ultimate moral authority, that others are infected by pre-established biases. What evidence do you have that you are or have knowledge of the ultimate moral authority or free from such biases?

           PS. Again, I ask that you refrain from Ad Hominem attacks. I believe you can be better than that.

       • I love you keep writing. Here is the best part about what you wrote. There is already a law for that! The law does not have different rules for gay people with offspring. Why? Because being gay won’t erase a man’s legal parental obligations to his offspring nor will being a lesbian change a woman’s parental obligations to her offspring. Imagine if minors whose parents were either gay or lesbian had no right to have their names recorded on their birth records as parents and had no right to their financial care and physical support. That would be unfair denial of rights for a reason totally outside their control and for a reason that had nothing to do with ability to meet parental obligations. So WHY is it even an issue? I mean if it’s a religious issue fine they can speak freely on the topic without it impacting the law – free country and all but church and state are neighbors not bedfellows. They will succeed in convincing all the straight people that it’s great to be straight and will isolate themselves from knowing lots of interesting people, their loss.

       • @Stalwart Sam

         “How do you know murder is bad?”

         — so are you telling me the crux of your moral and compassion is that a 2000 year old book of legends told you that killing is bad, tells you so? It isn’t the understanding that the person who you are killing is innocent, helpless, frightened, and doesn’t desire to die? If not, then you really need to re-evaluate your own morals. Humans are compassionate by nature. We are suppose to make those emotionally responses to others, and are evolved to make connections with others, not harm them.

         A true moral person is one who does charity, good towards others, and nonviolence, with the understanding that they’re not going to get a doggy treat after they die. If you are only a “good” person because you know you are going to get a treat for your efforts, then your entire religious moral compass is self-serving.

         “Only two New Testament verses in that entire video, one of them missing important context, the other ignoring historical context.”

         — why does it matter if it were in the old testament or new Testament? In any context, whether its 200 BC, or 2015 AD, WHY would a loving compassionate long-suffering god order the savage unmerciful slaughtering of innocent women, CHILDREN , young people and elderly? Can you explain that? Why in ANY circumstance would he allow slaves be killed at the hand of their masters? Why would he ever punish rape-victims? Would you excuse the actions of a man who slaughtered untold millions, simply because all of those actions happened in the year 2000? No? Then why doesn’t that logic apply to the fictional deity you worship?

         “What evidence do you have that you are or have knowledge of the ultimate moral authority or free from such biases?”

         I have never said that I was the moral authority, so this entire statement was merely a display of your rabid insecurity, confusion and angst. I’m sorry I had to tell you that you’re worshiping nonsense, but you can’t bury your head in the sand about the hebrew god forever.

         • Candygurl,

           Once again, you’ve made an assumption about me, swung for it, and missed. Not unexpected, but still disappointing. Even more so, after I specifically brought up the danger of Ad Hominem fallacies. So, I will repeat explain my post and then will not reply afterwards until you’ve admitted to the logical fallacy.

           I will explain that first. Imagine my statement as said from an older, curious student to a younger, very confident student. I was specifically using the Socratic Method, was trying to help you examine the very basics of your worldview and to learn from it. If you’ll notice, at no point in my post do I actually tell you what my views are. I never said I was a Christian, I never said what my moral stance on murder was, and, at most, I pointed out the errors inherent in the video you used.

           So, since I am acting as a scholar, to accuse me of suffering from ‘rabid insecurity, confusion and angst’ is a bit off, no? I understand that it is hard to hear tone from text, but I avoided using all caps which is the equivalent of shouting, so, at the very least, I am not rabid as I am in control of my ‘volume’.

           Moving onto the actual points, I asked you about murder because earlier you stated, “And I don’t think your opinion matters since you aren’t a child of a same-sex couple.” The principle you are pushing is that one can’t judge an action or a situation, unless one has experience said situation. By the logic of that principle, you can’t say murder is either morally good or evil until you have committed murder or experienced it. Unfortunately, my point was missed.

           Your argument that ‘humans are compassionate by nature’, worse, you cite evolution as. Evolution does not care if a person is compassionate or is cruel. If anything, using the historical record, I can make a strong argument that is cruelty that will ensure a person’s greatest chances of survival, and humanity can be characterized by cruelty.

           “why does it matter if it were in the old testament or new Testament?” Because the video was explicitly aimed at Christianity, and not at ancient Judaism, but then catered its argument against ancient Judaism. If one is going to debate the merits of a religion, one must understand the teachings of said religion. Otherwise, the entire argument falls to pieces because its evidence does not support it.

           I’m combining these two statements together for this next point. “I have never said that I was the moral authority” & “A true moral person is one who does…” These two statements are contradictory, at least superficially. You claim to not have moral authority, but then make an objective moral statement. And I specifically asked if you were or had knowledge of ultimate moral authority. In other words, I was okay if you merely said you knew an absolute moral truth, which I would’ve agreed with. I believe you know some of the differences between right and wrong. (Note, this is not sarcasm. I am giving us both a foundation to enable future dialogue.)

           Finally, as I mentioned, I will not reply to your next post, until you’ve admitted the Ad Hominem attack. I want to explain why. For proper intellectual discourse, there must be mutual respect on both sides. Right now, you are not discussing with me, but a caricature of me. I want you to discuss with me, and not some fake-strawman of me because that is the only way we can make progress to mutual and enlightenment. As I’ve said before, feel free to counter my positions, my arguments, and my declarations, that’s a natural part of debate. But when one moves to attacking arguments to attacking people, it destroys any possible chance of intellectual understanding or growth. That is what this blog is for, to promote respect and understanding, even if people disagree.

           Sincerely,
           Sam

         • @Stalwart Sam (or really Strawman Sam)

           — “Once again, you’ve made an assumption about me, swung for it, and missed.”

           Again, angst, confusion and insecurity. These aren’t assumptions these are assessment of your character based on the over-the-top rants you sent me when intruding upon a conversation that wasn’t even directed towards you. And “again”? When was the first time? No one was talking to you to begin with. You intruded in the usually Christian “I’m going to make myself the victim as much as I possible can” way, and to be honest it’s really pathetic.

           —- “Because the video was explicitly aimed at Christianity, and not at ancient Judaism,”

           What a child. So when two four-year-olds are caught stealing cookies, you’d encourage them to point the finger at each other instead of taking responsibility of their own actions? Rather the Jews or Muslims believe the same violent sadistic misogynistic collection of self-contradictory nonsense, Christians still worship the God of the Hebrews, and yes the same wonderful god who ordered the slaughter of children, and innocent people, AFTER making the commandment “Thou Shalt Not Kill”

           If that wasn’t enough, the old testament is not your get out-of-jail-free card, at least not according to Yeshua (the son of god) himself

           Matthew 5:17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”

           2 Timothy 3:16 “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,”

           And yes, the same video author did write an entire video piece about religion in general. So don’t worry, your Jewish buddies and Muslim buddies, were publicly scorned too. Does that make you happy?

           —“Only two New Testament verses in that entire video, one of them missing important context, the other ignoring historical context.

           As I have previously already said in WHAT historical or political context does a LOVING MERCIFUL God tell his prophets to slaughter kill, rape, and destroy hundreds of innocent elderly people, women and children? Would you follow the teachings of a person who was a serial child-killer who raped and ate his victims, under the pretexts of him saying: “I only committed those crimes last year. And during that time, I was upset because my girlfriend dumped me. However i DO NOT regret anything I have done.” No? Then why would you follow a deity who even in the fictional paradigm of the christian ideology of history, drowned millions of people and animals, burned entire cities alive, enabled incest, slavery, forcible prostitution, raping virgins, with the pretext that he only enabled those things in a certain time in Christian history? It’s the SAME god, the SAME god who is not remorseful or apologetic about how he treated the very people he created.

           The New Testament was marked as Christian time line where Jesus returned. That’s it. It doesn’t say that God transformed into a new deity, it doesn’t say “disregard everything that happen previously”, it’s simply a part 2. Its still the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob.

           —- “Your argument that ‘humans are compassionate by nature’, worse, you cite evolution as. Evolution does not care if a person is compassionate or is cruel.”

           Would you have rather me cite from a book that talks of talking snakes and flying humanoids?

           Humans are compassionate by nature, according to science –>
           http://www.news-medical.net/news/20091210/Social-scientists-say-compassion-is-humans-strongest-trait.aspx

           —-“These two statements are contradictory, at least superficially”

           Then where is your argument if the contradiction was superficial?

           —“You claim to not have moral authority, but then make an objective moral statement”

           You are a desperate moron, carping and using the straw-mans in a pathetic attempt to win an argument no one asked you to apart of. But to answer, are you saying that at any time when anyone negatively comments on a rapist, a murderer, a thief, or a child-molester, they all think that they are the moral authority?

           If your motives to doing the right things is self-serving, then its not genuine and it’s not out of truly caring about others around you. That’s both dishonesty and selfishness, not by my own moral dictatorship but by the very definition.

           –“Finally, as I mentioned, I will not reply to your next post, until you’ve admitted the Ad Hominem attack.”

           No one asked you to be part of this debate in the first place, and no one made an ‘ad hominem’ attack. if anyone made such an attack it would be your christian buddies who called the children of gay parents “confused and godless”.

           And on the other hand, lol? You must think highly of yourself if you think that anyone would be punished by not being able to talk to you. I wouldn’t dream of ever having the displeasure of talking to a aggressive self-victimizing, attention-seeking bratty personality such as the one you have, ever again. And if your delusions of a so-called ‘Ad Hominem’ attack is what’s going to keep your grossly uneducated fallacious mouth shut, so be it.

           Have a good day.

   • I am in favor of legal recognition being granted to marriages of same sex couples. I believe that having separated biological parents is not the end of the world so long as they are both held accountable to their offspring as parents regardless and if either or both are married to other people then the child has the added benefit of the legal step parent relationship. Yes there is stability in having that step parent relationship be legal because benefits cannot be denied step children it’s all equal as if the child were their very own even down to social security or military death benefits if the child is the dependent of them and their spouse when they pass prior to the child’s 18th birthday. The step parent relationship ends when the marriage dissolves; people should not be left permanently legally connected to their parent’s ex spouse unless that ex spouse is related to them as their parent.

     This is absolutely the same for straight as gay and lesbian. Straight couples have been messing kids up with black market step parent adoptions (sometimes outright paternity fraud sometimes collusive) for centuries with and without the label of donor conception attached and its f-d up. This has nothing to do with conception it has everything to do with people abandoning their kids because they think the illigitimate ones don’t count and can be sold or given away as a favor to people who want to pretend their spouses and them had kids together.

     It’s really not our business whether our parents are gay or straight and they don’t owe it to us to be married to each other or to other people. They do owe it to us to be accountable on record for us as our parents and they do owe us their care and support while we are minors. We do have every right to expect them to behave like responsible adults and cooperate together in raising us whether or not they happen to be married to each other – that’s the law for everyone whose parents were not gamete donors and should be the law for everyone period. We should have every right to expect them not to buy each other out of their parenthood so that one of them can go it alone or raise us with a person they prefer over our parent. They should just have to cooperate and if their spouses want to stay married to them they should have to cooperate without expecting that their spouse’s child must be abandoned by the other parent. It’s childish. Be alternative in family form live with whomever you wish but don’t try and erase half a person’s family to make it seem more like the alternative living situation fits a biological model of family life.

     • ???”Someone asked me what if… two Moms co-raised me with two gay masculine acting dads who’d live next door? One would be biological, the other would basically adopt me as if you were his own. Its a beautiful idea and I wish the best for anyone who loves their children so much that they would be willing to do this. Whoever thought of that has a lot of love in there heart and they were clearly thinking of how it would be for the kids. I wish someone had thought of me with so unselfishly”<<<

       This was a quote made by the author of 'Love Is Hate'. You just wrote me in your last blog post saying that having a gay and lesbian couple co-parent their children together (in a foursome or threesome parental arrangement) wouldn't be enough for the children because their parents needed to be heterosexuals and monogamously married to each other. How do you respond to this girl who admits she doesn't have a problem with her parents being gay, or in a lesbian relationship. She solely has a problem with not knowing a father, and not having a father?

       Similarly the author of "Just Figured Out My Aunt Is My Mom ect…" also wrote saying she doesn't have any issues with gay marriage or her two lesbian moms, just the fact she doesn't have a relationship with her dad.

       • Shoot! Sorry marilynn, this was a glitch. I was suppose to be asking this to AskTheBigot

         • Whew

     • Children feed off the love a mommy and daddy have for each other. I grew up with mom and dad but did not see love between them, so having the other biological parent visit is not enough. Children feed off seeing their mom and dad show affection for each other and dwell with each other day-by-day . Even how they resolve conflicts because it teaches them how to interact as an adult when they have a relationship of their own. I have personally suffered for it. I am almost thirty and am unable to form a good relationship with a man without fear, I’m also just plain ignorant and not confident in myself as a woman, but I am slowly coming around because I try to find good, older married couples to take wisdom from. I do not support deliberately putting kids in my position. It is the height of unfairness and I still feel the pain in my heart and even my body as I type this…

2. Hi again – you have probably heard the saying – count to ten before saying anything. It is a word of wisdom to try and convey that wisdom to another. Problem is the unwise count quicker and respond from the storm in their mind.

   I feel that you have a storm in your mind – like Elijah – don’t just count to ten, let it pass.

   You have chosen an enemy to vent your storm on – not a great idea – it is a popular one though – I hear the sighs of relief in your comments sections as you say what the world wants to hear and calm people’s fears and justify their own storms.

   There is a reason Jesus points to the log in our own eye. Because that is where it is.

   Seriously, sit in the cave with Elijah and wait for the storm to pass, there is a lot of work to be done and a lot of pain in this world – it would be nice not to add to it.

3. The letter from the girl who wants her Dad – she’s overstepping. She has no say in what her mother wears or who her mother dates, it’s none of her business. She does however have a very reasonable complaint in saying that her act like anyone else is her father but her father – regardless of gender. If her mom were straight and wanting to pretend her husband were her father it would be just as unfair and ridiculous. People don’t need “a father figure” they deserve their own father’s attention and support whether he’s married to their mother or not. That’s the law for everyone else but offspring of donors so we need to stop calling these people’s parents donors so that they can have their rights equal to the rest of the population. She has no say in her father’s behavior. She has no choice in her father being a man, he is one.

4. I firmly believe that donor offspring are being discriminated against. The only way to get equality is to ask to be treated equal and to expect to treat others equally as well. Trying to gain rights and be treated equal while trampling the rights of others is a loosing proposal. Trying to stop the recognition of gay and lesbian marriages is unfair. It does not matter if there are a percentage of gays and lesbians who are not caring or concerned about the fact that people are loosing half their family by exempting some people from parental responsibility by labeling them as donors; still approach the situation with an eye towards fairness and equality. It’s ethical and it’s balanced and nobody can call you a hypocrite. If everyone with offspring is equally accountable as parents the problem solves itself without hurting anyone’s rights and without preventing anyone from reproducing because they are gay or single or whatever. We just have to do more to prevent people from forcing others to pretend that single people reproduced alone or that people who are infertile can reproduce or that people can reproduce with members of the same sex.

5. Katy,

   Excellent post. Though I’m starting to suspect many on the other side have so castrated procreation — an ability to procreate within a type of relationship, that is — from marriage that these testimonies, as honest fall on deaf ears. In their minds, single-parent and step-parent households and the like are so proliferated that it’s already the norm. Child-rearing is not essentially associated with marriage for them, so they don’t make the connection, unfortunately, that institutionalizing same-sex marriage is the nail in the coffin for the traditional family. If government is in the marriage business to just bestow rights and entitlements with no directed purpose toward the creation and socialization of the next generation, then all means to obtain children to raise are equally viable and no different. The desires to be a parent outweigh the needs of the child.

   • “In their minds, single-parent and step-parent households and the like are so proliferated that it’s already the norm.”

     Whether it’s the norm or not, those households exist, and the state and government should support those households for the sake of the child. Furthermore, same-sex parenting exists (…regardless if those couples ever get married — So I have no idea why preventing gay couples from getting married will prevent them from raising children. It won’t.), and the children in those households deserve the same support that all other household receives.

     If Katy doesn’t want gay couples to raise children, that has nothing to do with whether the couple is married or not. There are plenty of straight couples raising children that aren’t married. Considering that straight couples don’t have to pass any type of parenting test in order to raise children, it would be virtually impossible to prove that all straight people are inherently superior to all gay people when it comes to child rearing. It just isn’t reasonable to assume that all biological parents will raise their children properly. If that were the case, there wouldn’t be hundreds of thousands of children waiting to be adopted.

     “If government is in the marriage business to just bestow rights and entitlements with no directed purpose toward the creation and socialization of the next generation, then all means to obtain children to raise are equally viable and no different.”

     The government already does this. The state/government have no problem issuing marriage licenses to all sorts of non-procreative straight couples. But now all of a sudden it’s wrong to dole out marriage licenses if the non-procreative couple happens to be gay. If both groups are non-procreative, what difference does it make what sex organs each person has?

     • David,

       According to the Williams Institute, a sexual orientation law and public policy think tank at UCLA, there are roughly about 9 million people who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender in the United States — 3.5% of the population. Even less than that figure are couples. Granted it’s from 2000, but there were 594,391 same-sex unmarried partner households out of 59,969,000 households (rounding up, that’s 1%), according to U.S. Census Bureau. That same report also recorded that approximately 66,225 of those same-sex households had children. That’s 8% percent of the entire the gay population of the estimated 4,000,000 living in the United States (Black, 2000). Plausibly, I don’t see how 15 years on that the proportion would be significantly varied even if you factor in an increase in public acceptance. According to a Washington Post article from last year, the U.S. Census Bureau there are 252,000 same-sex married couples out of 56 million married couples, and that’s nearly up 100% from 2012. Plus, even if the bureau clarifies its questionnaire and same-sex marriage is legalized in all 50 states, I doubt you’re going to see much of a difference. You’re arguing that we should throw the baby out with the bathwater. That, law and public policy should cater to a remote statistical outlier, a small minority within another small minority. In other words, you’re advocating making the rare exception to the rule, the rule.

       (http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/censr-5.pdf;
       http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/Gates-How-Many-People-LGBT-Apr-2011.pdf;
       Black, “Demographics,” 141; Census 2000 Special Reports, 4.;
       http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/09/22/married-same-sex-couples-make-up-less-than-one-half-of-one-percent-of-all-married-couples-in-the-u-s/)

       But I also find your “those households exists/for the sake of the child” principle as justification lacking. If in principle it’s sound, then then polygamous households, with Newsweek putting the number at 500,000, also deserve “marriage equality” and the concomitant benefits for their children. By the same reasoning, any sort of domestic relationship, even if it’s two nuns who live together and raise orphans, should be married. Are you advocating for equality in all of these exceptional cases? In order for law to be effective, it cannot be weighted down by ad hoc tailoring to exceptional cases. You make the state and government bigger, which you seem to think is a good thing. But you are right that “the children in those households deserve the same support that all other household receives;” they deserve the ideal of a mother and a father. Crafting public policy to deliberately not try to promote the ideal will likely proliferate further deviation away from it regardless of the sexual orientation of adults.

       I also notice you cannot and or refuse to look at this whole thing through a non-anti-gay lens. That, the fundamental issue boils down to gay versus straight for you. Katy and the most of the other “bigots” view this through the frame of what is best for children, which, in it of itself, is not anti-gay. The statement, “A child deserves a mother and father” is not inherently homophobic. You literally have to add premises about same-sex marriage and gay parenting to formulate an argument to make a case that it is. Moreover, parenting skill is not at what’s at issue. Sexual orientation has nothing to do with how one cares for a child. The testimonies above show that mere love does not cure all the ills of a child. It’s a question of environment. The social science is being collected to see which types of households are best, with a good, random sample-size of the statistically minute same-sex household demographic hard to come by. In my opinion, the evidence collected through the years that doesn’t compare opposite-sex versus same-sex, shows that biological fathers and mothers are important to the well-being of their children. Why make public policy that diminishes that? What good is there in that? Sure, there are 101,666 children up for adoption, but does that justify legalizing same-sex marriage at the expense of making mothers and fathers optional in culture and policy for the 74 million children living in the U.S. and every single future child in this country? I think not.

       Lastly, I’ve already explained to you multiple times why the the infertile opposite-sex couple gets the wedding license and the gay couple doesn’t. The only plausible reason why government is in the marriage business is to promote and regulate the type of relationship that can procreate. If it isn’t, you have failed to provide a sensible alternative; so I ask, what is the reason that government decided to hand out marriage licenses in the first place? Love? It’s nice? What is it? The infertile opposite-sex couple is again the exception to the rule — heterosexual relationships produce children through sexual relations. Importantly, it’s likely that only one member of the opposite-sex pairing is infertile. The license helps ensure that the fertile member of the sterile couple won’t go off and have children out of wedlock, as marriage has a norm of monogamy. Categorically, same-sex relationships are always infertile, and likely they’re unions of two potent males or two fertile females. Same-sex relationships are fundamentally different than opposite-sex ones. That is an irrefutable reality of biology.

       • > there were 594,391 same-sex unmarried partner households out of 59,969,000 households (rounding up, that’s 1%)

         So 30 % of gay people then live in same sex unmarried partner households? That’s pretty good figure. This shows that they need the protection of marriage. And their children need that protection, too.

         >The only plausible reason why government is in the marriage business is to promote and regulate the type of relationship that can procreate.

         How does government promotes the procreative relationships? It doesn’t require proof of ability and intent of procreation. It doesn’t require proof of ability to raise children. It doesn’t require to marry to have children. It doesn’t revoke marriage privileges from people who were shown unfit to raise children. The only factor is that they appear to be able of PiV coitus, by their outward appearance (which may not be the case if one spouse is transgender, by the way). Actually, even when and where same sex marriage was still invalid, a transgender man could legally marry cis-woman (or a transgender woman marry cis-man). Even though there was no possibility whatsoever for this union to be procreative.

       • “Katy and the most of the other “bigots” view this through the frame of what is best for children, which, in it of itself, is not anti-gay. The statement, “A child deserves a mother and father” is not inherently homophobic.”

         No, it’s arbitrary. There are over 20 million children being raised in single-parent families in our country right now. They get a free-pass because the child’s parent happens to be straight. Katy isn’t putting her name on Amicus briefs that want to place those (obviously harmed) children into two-parent families. That doesn’t even include children that are being raised by grandparents, or relatives, or older siblings, etc. Only gay people are being targeted as the ones that are responsible for the emotional destruction of children’s lives. It reeks of hypocrisy and antigay animus. Gays are an easy target because they can be separated from the rest of society based on their sexual orientation. Try to promote any policy that negatively impacts the lives of straight people and I guarantee it will fail.

         “Lastly, I’ve already explained to you multiple times why the the infertile opposite-sex couple gets the wedding license and the gay couple doesn’t.”

         Again, your rationale is arbitrary. The government shouldn’t care that the couple getting married is having PiV intercourse. Since that seems to be the only remaining rationale for allowing the likes of Rush Limbaugh to be on his fourth non-procreative marriage. In federal court most states have argued that the ONLY reason why states are interested in marriage is to direct knocked up women into marriages with their condom-less boyfriends. That way their “happy little accident” will have a mommy and daddy. Meanwhile, all sorts of non-procreative straight couples continue to receive marriage licenses without issue. So obviously the state’s argument is highly suspect — which is a nicer way of calling them flat-out liars.

         “Categorically, same-sex relationships are always infertile, and likely they’re unions of two potent males or two fertile females.”

         It doesn’t matter. Fertility has NEVER been a requirement to get married. Rush knows that. I’m fairly certain you know that too.

         • >The government shouldn’t care that the couple getting married is having PiV intercourse. Since that seems to be the only remaining rationale for allowing the likes of Rush Limbaugh to be on his fourth non-procreative marriage.

           I somehow even doubt about PiV in Rush’s marriage.

   • No that is not true at all. The needs of the child must legally be met by the biological parents who caused their dependent existence. Being unmarried or gay or lesbian should not interfere with the rights of their dependent minor to the care and support of both their biological parents. To truly focus on the rights of our offspring is to obligate their biological parents regardless of their personal preferences or their sexual orientation or their marital status. Its lovely if a child’s parents are married and in love however it’s not something the law can mandate because if the law married a person permanently to anyone they had a child with it would cause rampant bigamy. Such a mandate would be far to complex and burdensome for government to manage. Also imagine the outrage at people being forced into marriages with people they did not want to marry; we can however hold them accountable for care and support of their offspring. It is very reasonable and logical to say that a person must be accountable for supporting the dependency of a life they caused by their own reproductive action. That burden cannot reasonably be assigned to any other person unless they volunteer for it and real parental obligation is not something a person can legally pass upon if they have offspring – not without a court proceeding anyway.

     • Marilynn,

       Are you specifically responding to me? I don’t see how your post is relevant to mine.

       • Hi Modus Powens! Yes, I was responding to your writing in this comment: “In their minds, single-parent and step-parent households and the like are so proliferated that it’s already the norm. Child-rearing is not essentially associated with marriage for them, so they don’t make the connection, unfortunately, that institutionalizing same-sex marriage is the nail in the coffin for the traditional family. If government is in the marriage business to just bestow rights and entitlements with no directed purpose toward the creation and socialization of the next generation, then all means to obtain children to raise are equally viable and no different. The desires to be a parent outweigh the needs of the child.”

         First I think once a person has offspring the fact that they obtained their offspring through an act of gamete or embryo donation is absurd – they are parents and should be held to the same requirements as any other parent. The end result of that is the same as ending gamete donation only without interfering in people’s lives prior to when they have kids and have a social responsibility. Anyway you were saying that the government is not considering the needs of minors by recognizing marriage between members of the same sex and I’m saying that is not true. The government entitles minors to the care and support of their biological parents regardless whether they are married or not – to the other parent or to someone else. If the government cares about the welfare of minors to care and support of bio parents it cannot support the black market step parent adoptions that occur with straight or same sex partners. It’s wrong and it ruins lives.

6. Blocking marriage won’t stop people from having children, it will only be bad for the rights of the children. And why only try to stop same-sex marriage while not stopping singles/couples with fertility problems? Also while some DC do want to have contact with their donor, others (including me) don’t, however bias will be created because people with problems search and talk more about it than those who are happy with it. I’m in favor of allowing DC to choose to have contact or not by open donations (and to be clear that it’s about helping: no money paid to donors). But I can understand some people are completely against DC. But very strange to target only the same sex couples.

   • People with fertility problems have a medical condition. Is gay a medical condition that should be treated? LBGT normal is not reproductive. That is biology and not a social justice issue. For them to have children they de facto take basic human rights away from the child and if they use 3rd party then others as well. For women this is dangerous–women do not lay eggs or jerk off into a cup–it is an invasive to harvest eggs and women have to tanked up on dangerous super ovulation drugs that have not been testes long term in women who ovulate normally. If gays want to claim they are abnormal because they can’t reproduce I think that is whole different topic but I am betting it not an argument they want to make but when they say they are like infertile people it is what they are saying. The world does not owe them other peoples children so the can feel “happy”

   • It is strange to target same sex couples. Tell me why do you think the law should exempt you from the right to the care and support of both biological parents the right to have both bio parents named on your birth record the right to be the legal kin of both families the right to access the vital records of your maternal and paternal relatives when that is not the law for everyone else. It really does not matter whether you want to know your biological parents or not the law should be identical for you and your relatives as it is for everyone else whose bio parent is not classified as a donor. A donor is just a human being. And besides the word donor is a title that describes something they addid for charity or money – might as well be a baker or a lawyer or a red cross worker. What does that have to do with the obligations a person has when they are a biological parent? What if someone said baker’s kids don’t get child support and their kids can be abandoned without due process of adoption in court? That sounds dumb right? What if all the kids of the red cross workers were disqualified for social security death benefits and kinship in the family of the red cross worker? It’s dumb. Why are we exempting anyone from the obligations of parenthood for their own offspring how can that possibly be good for society or for their offspring or the rest of their family? Why don’t gamete donors have to play by the same rules? So someone wants to raise their kid – so what? There is a legal process for that and going to court and being named on their kid’s birth record before having their authority terminated is kind of sobering which is why we don’t see many adopted kids with 50 or 60 siblings also adopted out there. Holding people accountable for their actions works pretty well for the rest of society. Don’t you deserve at least equal treatment? If not why are you unworthy. Even if you don’t mind your situation describe what makes you unqualified for equitable treatment.

7. voorgangermenno, sounds like a practical realist. On many levels I agree with him. Perhaps that is because I too am ‘donor’ conceived? But, philosophically, I’m much more in line with Katy Faust – although I am not a Catholic nor am I, by definition, Christian. I think we all have and come from a biased place but that bias also brings with it and offers much wisdom. As Katy Faust mentioned in the video (above the paygrade) she linked to, we should all have a toe on both sides of the fence while speaking Truth with love. Thank you Katy!

8. Thanks for writing this. A few years ago I spoke with a chaplain of an ivy league school who shared stories of students who grew up in same sex homes and are now feeling a void and sadness because something was missed in their childhood. I know this is a touchy subject and many same sex couples are gracious and loving to take up children but at the end of the day our society risks many of the same side affects that come from a single parent home. The problem is that we can’t even agree that children really need a mom and dad from a heterosexual perspective. I am not talking as someone that read some conservative article but I am talking from experience. Not having both your parents is like some alien with 8 fingers trying to teach you how to use your 10 fingers. You miss a lot of implicit teachings of roles in a family, standards for picking a mate and your self esteem is greatly affected. Since my dad wasn’t there as the oldest I stepped up emotionally, because its not one person’s job. It’s impossible. From that I had a blurred sense of responsibility and became a burden bearer. I then didn’t play the role fully as a child but also as a pseudo-parent and psuedo-spouse. By my early twenties it was what the psychologists call emotional incest. I also grew up under a matriarchal model. I am sort of feminist but at least a eglatarian model would have been better because then I had to learn how to look for and accept a real man that had it together. I have done a lot of Christian therapy, and read books an searched the Bible and have gotten a lot of healing but for those that aren’t healed its painful and some haven’t really mapped out the relation to their childhood. They are mad at their dad for example but the problem is bigger than that. So I can imagine *some* same sex children have the experience like us who grew up with one functioning parent.

9. One fundamental problem about any conclusions from the stories in anonymousus.org is that there is no way to verify *any* of them. I’m sure that some are legit. I’m even more sure that a significant number are not. There is a copying of language, tone, and precisely the same misspellings in similar entries that give the show away (unless the material validates your opinions so strongly that you ignore that evidence).

   But again, there’s no way to verify it either way.

   • There a similarity in tone and misspelling among tumblr posts and Facebook posts, especially among young teens and kids. Some of these stories, if you google them, actually pop up on other websites. The 18-year-old who wrote Love Is Hate, openly admitted that her story came from the Experience Project. The person who wore I Have Two Moms, also wrote this to Yahoo Answers and talked to another person who had two moms, longing for a father too (that person was adopted). The person who wrote Where Can I Find My Dad? wrote several similar questions on Yahoo Answers, one even blatantly asked if it were wrong that she hates her lesbian moms. And lastly the person who wrote I Am The Product of My Mom’s eggs And A Man’s Sperm, wrote the same thing on a comment in response to a news Article. The news article featured a lesbian couple who are picking out a sperm donor for their perspective child. She was actually attacked several times in the comment sections by adopted parents and other lesbian parents. Sad.

     Just google them. I did. They pop up in several other places.

     • Hi candygurl2013 – thanks for the reply. Two thoughts –

       1) Look at one of your examples – say, the author of “I am the product of my Mom’s eggs and a man’s sperm”. This person copied and pasted *precisely the same text, misspelling, slang and all, 18 months apart* between the yahoo comments in March, 2013 and the anonymousus.org entry in October, 2014. This doesn’t exactly inspire confidence (in me, at least) that the material is a genuine submission from a young woman.
       2) My larger point is that critics of some academic studies (that conclude that children of same sex parents do well) say they are flawed due to their sampling bias. But at least those are known to be groups of real people!

       Anonymous writing has value that’s connected to readers’ reaction to its content. What’s incorrect is trying to use it as a counting mechanism (i.e., by those who say – look at all these stories on anonymousus.org, and they all say the same thing!). In this case, I think a good number of these anonymous stories are not written by the people they are purported to be from.

       • 1) >>”*precisely the same text, misspelling, slang and all, 18 months apart”<< yes, because she probably copied and pasted her entry verbatim onto the anonymousus project. The author of 'Love is Hate' copied and pasted her story from the Experience Project, and openly said she wasn't going to check the grammar, spelling or the mistakes.

         2) "Between the yahoo comments in March, 2013 and the anonymousus.org entry in October, 2014. This doesn’t exactly inspire confidence (in me, at least) that the material is a genuine submission from a young woman." <<< so it would have been better if random strangers had typed in whatever they wanted and there not be a source? The main criticism for this website is that there is no possible way to prove that these children existed, but now you have proof that these stories are coming from sources with more public identities, and not identities completely concealed.

         I personally think that someone is collecting these stories from various other websites and putting them on the Anonymousus website so it can be convenient for others to see how these kids are feelings without having to hunt for it on the deep web. In which case, I would revere that person solely because most people do not know this website exists, so when they express their views about their circumstances, they may either internalize it or share it through other social networks. Alana is condemned. The only other place for kids of sperm-donors to express their opinions is usually on the Donor Registry. Parents of cryo children run the entire website, usually monitoring what their children are saying. Usually they criticize Alana, and reiterate (speaking for their kids) on how their children are so grateful for their sperm donors, and happy to be alive. It's bullying and intimidating, so usually you get skewed stories. You get kids admitting that sometimes they wish they knew how having a father feels like, but will quickly counter what they say by adding how their mother(s) are the best, and they have all the uncles that they need to fill the void of their missing fathers.

         That aside, this is the best way we can truly tell how these kids are feeling when they aren't being shadowed by their gay/single-by-choice/infertile parents, and I really wish people would stop being so suspicious. When we get overjoyed stories of kids with gay parents saying they excelled academically, had no family problems whatsoever, no desire for a opposite sex parent, no one bats an eye. No one is suspicious on how these children are used by their parents to fight their political battles. But when kids speak against their parents, we're over analyzing their grammar and the time they submitted their stories? It's insanity.

         • Hi I care very much about Alana she is my personal friend and I have been helping her search for her Dad a very long time. I pretty much know I’ve found him this is a tedious process. Alana has had the guts to say things nobody else was saying and her ideas and thoughts on the matter continue to grow and change influenced by the words written by contributors to the Anonymous Us project. Those stories are powerful and influential. My opinions have changed drastically from reading those stories and from reading scholarly papers on the subject and from reading numerous blogs.

           The bottom line here is that there is a segment of society who don’t have the same legal rights as the rest of the population. You can study that all day long collecting stories and counting heads and crunching numbers it’s still not equitable treatment under the law. It is not necessary to prove harm to a donors offspring through stories or answers to questionnaires and it’s not necessary to speculate on their liklihood to do drugs or commit suicide – they don’t have the same legal rights as other human beings and that is harm enough. People just skip the court approved adoption process that protects minors from trafficking and write their names down as parents on the original birth records of other people’s children – not only is that the essence of black market adoption and child trafficking but it is also an enormous threat to public health when you consider it undermines the accuracy of the nation’s vital statistics and negates the validity of medical research on heritable disease based on those statistics. We don’t need to wait for more studies on people’s feelings to see that treating people equal is better for them and society and also public health.

10. Couldn’t this just as easily be titled, Thoughts of Donor-conceived Children of Straight Parents in Their Own Words? I checked out about a dozen stories on the AnonymousUs website, and I didn’t come across a single one involving gay parents. Most were stories about being the result of a sperm donor, and feeling the loss of not being able to find out who the father was. Others were about the mother getting knocked up (either intentionally or accidentally) and dumping the sperm-supplier, or the supplier dumping them.

    Here’s a sample:
    Born to a single mother, i am the youngest daughter of three children. I have two older brothers who were both conceived differently than I. None of us know our real fathers. My mother has never had a man in her life, ever. My grandparents i never had a connection with before my grandfather died and my grandmother got put in a nursing home. I do not have connections with ANY other family members/relatives due to incidents in the past. So its just me, my mom, and my brothers. and let me say, I feel completely alone, oh, did i mention i don’t have good relationships with what little ‘family’ I have?

    So (based on the sample above) if I were to “protect the rights of children”, society should force opposite-sex couples into long-term marriages regardless of the feelings of the parents involved — because “Won’t someone think of the children?” It really doesn’t matter if the couple is in love with each other, or hates each other, or even cares about each other — a child needs to be raised by their biological mother and father if at all possible, right?

    There seems to be this assumption that if these people had only been raised by both of their bio-parents then they would have had a utopian upbringing. Rest assured, no one has that. Regardless of who raises them.

11. Your blog is very articulate, well thought out, and compassion centered. Unlike other conservative blogs, I haven’t found any dishonest argumentation or bigotry. I’m very–no deeply–impressed.

    I have a couple of questions. You may answered these elsewhere on the blog. If so, sorry to repeat the questions, and I’ll go look wherever on the blog you point me to.

    Somewhere you said that you supported a child being raised by a lesbian couple rather than at an orphanage. Yet, as I understand it–correct me if I’m wrong–you are also against same sex marriage on the grounds that (1) it normalizes or opens the door to third party reproduction, and (2) that it’s better for the child to have a mother and a father.

    At least in this scenario, wouldn’t the adopted child benefit from the greater security that a same sex marriage would provide?

    The second question is, would you support a legal regime in which same sex marriage and adoption were legal, but not third party reproduction? Or, a more refined version, would you support a legal regime in which same sex marriage is legal, and same sex adoption is legal as well, but only in the absence of available heterosexual married couples?

    Disclosure: I’m a post-operative transsexual and strong supporter of civil rights for sexual minorities.

12. Before I jump the gun on praising your site, I think I’d better read more of your blog. (But what I read I did like.)

13. So-called gay “marriage” is about connecting two adults of the same sex. It totally violates the dignity of any children involved, because it undermines their right to a mother and father, joined to them in love and kinship.

    • If a same sex couple with children cohabits without being civil marriage, is dignity of the children still violated, or it’s the civil marriage that does it? If such couple is denied the possibility to protect common interests by means of civil marriage, does it makes the children’s situation better or worse?

    • “Any” children involved? Even a child adopted from an orphanage not related by blood to either parent?

14. … I feel so sad… In the process these kids are put in a position where they have to choose between loyalty to same-sex parents who are the biggest part of their lives and their own natural desires, which is a sense of self-violation.

    Like someone here posted earlier, there is already so much suffering in the world. Let’s not create more…

15. Anecdotes from a self selected group of people seeking an emotional outlet on the internet. This type of evidence does not stand up to the strength of case control studies. It is understood that there may be negative outcomes in each group of a case control study, and statistically significant differences in the frequency of outcomes between the groups is what gets published.

    • THANK YOU.

      Katy: there are unhappy teenagers on the Internet. Therefore, we should legally prevent other people from living the way I, myself, do.

      Katy, what do you think should happen to the existing children of gay unions? Should their families be unprotected for the sake of future social engineering, because you don’t want to encourage gay families to have children?

      Gay families aren’t going to wait for your approval. They’re going to have children with or without your blessing. The only choice you have is whether or not to leave those children vulnerable, or whether to protect their families the way straight families are protected.

      If you choose to leave those families vulnerable, I don’t know how you can pretend to yourself that you’re interested in children’s rights.

    • I think you are correct. It’s junk science. Do you think that all people should be legally obligated to the care of their offspring as parents? Any reason why some minors should be denied the care and support of both bio parents at birth? Cause donor offspring are excluded specifically called out in the Uniform Parentage Act as not being entitled to the care and support of both their biological parents when every other person in this country whose bio parent is not a gamete donor has that right. Why are donor offspring unworthy of both bio parents care and support? Legally speaking.

16. I don’t understand the logic that’s offered here. If there’s a problem at all, it seems to be with third party donors of all kinds, not with same sex parents. Also, a child of a gay parent from the parent’s prior heterosexual relationship or marriage would seem to be in the same position as a child of a heterosexual parent who remarries. Unless step-dads or step-moms are perfectly fungible by virtue of their maleness or femaleness.

    This site is called “Ask the Bigot”, and the blog’s author uses “askme” as a handle. I hope she’s willing to address this question, or point me to a page where she’s answered it before. 🙂

    I do very much appreciate that she gave me insight into the worldview of children in the families of remarried couples and children whose parents were third party donors. I just don’t understand why she’s singling out gay couples. That seems to belie her interest in children’s welfare.

    • Hi, puritangirl1970. Thanks for posting!

      I can’t speak for Katy, with whom I sometimes disagree, but let me see if I can explain the logic.

      Yes, having children through third party donors is problematic. Katy discusses this in her response to FyVAProLid’s comment, the first comment made in this thread. Divorce is also problematic, and although it’s not a major topic on this blog, Katy has here and there expressed support for reform of the no-fault divorce laws, although exactly what reforms she might favor I’m not sure of.

      Why does she “single out” same-sex couples in this blog post? Probably because this is part of a conversation that you’re joining in the middle. Katy has publicly opposed same-sex marriage and has been attacked by activists for it, who say that her situation offers no insight into the lesbian couples who use a sperm donor to bring a child into the world, thus depriving the child of one of its natural parents.

      Recognition of same-sex marriage by the government and by society encourages or incentivizes same-sex couples to have children who lack a father or a mother. This is different from step-families, because when a couple gets married, they generally do so with the intention of staying together and raising their kids together. The law provides divorce as a remedy for an extreme situation.

      Same-sex marriage is all about intentionally creating a broken family.

      • >Same-sex marriage is all about intentionally creating a broken family

        Is a family with two mothers or two fathers more or less broken than a family with single mother or father?

        Is a family with two unwed mothers or two unwed fathers more or less broken than a family with two mothers (or two fathers) in civil marriage (you can call it “civil union”, if you like)?

        • Yes it is more broken the way a mother with a man who is not the father is broken–step parents. They force the child to pretend they are a parent so that nobody ever says the truth–people only ever have one mother and one father. Forcing a child to “have affections” in order that the adults publicly present some false constructed relationship is not good for kids. They are required to live in a delusion so they do offend the adults. Imagine some crazy community where everybody pretends they are brother or sister. It is coercion and the children feel it.

          • > Imagine some crazy community where everybody pretends they are brother or sister

            Like a religious sect? OK, how about a big step family?

        • FyVa,

          Your response confuses me. At no point, do you argue that any of the family structures are not broken. Which, you are correct, all of them are broken, and thus, all of them should be discouraged. All you try to do is argue that there are degrees of brokenness. Why encourage any kind of brokenness?

          • And by ‘any’, I refer to the family structures mentioned in your last reply.

          • If you acquire some reading comprehension skills, you’ll figure out that “broken” claim comes from Steve, and I just wanted him to clarify whether marriage mends that brokenness or makes it worse, and whether having a single parent is better than having two parents of same sex.

        • Every child has two parents, a mother and a father. If a child is told that he has two mothers or two fathers, he is being lied to.

17. Steve,

    Thanks for replying. Yes, I’m definitely joining the conversation in the middle and trying to play catch up. Since she prefers to use a handle on here, I’ll follow suit and refer to her only as “Askme”.

    As you explain it, now I see the way of thinking behind her position. However, I still very much disagree. By narrowing her focus to third party reproduction, it would seem that she could capture more widely the best interests of similarly-situated children from a donor parent in both heterosexual and homosexual relationships–for which she makes this very compelling case.

    But, like other conservative commentators, it seems like she’s trying to walk back the sexual revolution. This ends up being messy and problematic, both practically and ethically, because (1) you end up having to argue a one-dimensional view of marriage as being solely about children, which it’s obviously not, any more than eating is solely about enjoyment or solely about staying alive; (2) you end up having to deny homosexuals (and sometimes transsexuals) the benefit of those aspects of marriage which are not about child-bearing; (3) you end up permitting, inevitably, as a result of denying marriage equality–though I understand traditional marriage advocates such as Askme do not hold bigoted views of sexual minorities–the stigmatization of gays and transgender people; (3) you end up diminishing the stability of homosexual households who might otherwise adopt children not from third party donors–i.e., children not related to either parent; and (4) as I already noted, you end up unfairly focusing on the children in homosexual marriages, because homosexual marriages conform less to your ideal, though a third-party donor homosexual family and a third-party donor heterosexual family are in every practical respect parallel to one another.

    In other words, she seems to me to be taking the long way around the barn, with a lot of collateral damage, on her way to defend children’s welfare.

    I agree with the broader natural law arguments that biology produces incentives and that public policy should track these incentives if it is to be successful. I would argue, however, that there’s a less blunt, more nuanced way to do that, a way that can account for the naturalness of homosexuality and the naturalness of biological parents being more connected to their offspring.

    I was going to add more–about the naturalness of homosexuality–but I’ll stop here. It might be easier to communicate if we speak in small chunks.

    Best wishes,
    PG

    • You really can’t add anymore about the ‘naturalness’ of homosexuality- is isn’t a natural behavior exhibited any animal species. It is an aberrant behavior when practiced to the exclusion of heterosexuality.

      And, same sex unions, that can only pretend to mirror opposite sex unions, are less favorable environments in which to rear offspring, regardless of the child’s biological origins, than are opposite sex unions for the obvious reason- they are same sex, therefore, eliminating the model upon which future generations of heterosexuals will base their own opposite sex pair bonding.

      Be content that homosexuals have all the humans rights they, and all humans, are granted per natural law. Anything that intends to elevate the homosexual union or degrade the heterosexual union is harmful to all procreating species.

      Homosexual marriages are less than the ideal-in reality, ‘marriage’ required redefinition to accommodate the very concept of ‘ same sex marriage’. Authentic marriage is a natural result or outcome from the natural, biologically-necessary pair bonding and ultimate monogamy and procreation and rearing of progeny practiced by heterosexual pair bonds in order to optimize evolutionary success.

      • Jae,

        Respectfully, I beg to differ. Of course, under the broadest definition, anything that happens in life is “natural”, but for purposes of classifying human behavior, we usually define “natural” to be anything that’s not the product of conscious human intention and “unnatural” to be anything that IS the product of conscious human intention. As you know, however, the terms are not purely descriptive; they’re function as descriptors is contaminated in some sense by our normative judgments. We’re always happy to do unnatural things we approve of. We reserve the label of “unnatural” for those things we disapprove of. Thus we engage in the pretension that the ideals we seek to impose on the world are merely our observations. Thus we smuggle in our judgments.

        But there’s the rub. Homosexual desire wells up organically within people, just as heterosexual desire does. I know, it happened to me, when I was a middle school-aged boy. You might say it’s unnatural because it doesn’t further reproduction, at least in the narrowest view of natural selection. The thing is, people who say so have got nature the wrong way around. Nature has events of high probability and events of low probability, and events of varying degrees of probability in between. Thought biases cause people to observe high probability events and derive rules from them, which they then impose on events of lesser probability, declaring them to be “unnatural”. But this labeling is a sort of phantasm that’s happening in the human mind, one that has no bearing on the natural world. What difference does it make to the naturalness of a four-leaf clover if I declare, as a human observer, that it is somehow “unnatural” because its leaf number fails to correspond to that of the majority?

        There’s much more to say. I’ll stop here, and wait for your response.

        Sincerely,
        Puritan Girl

        P.S. Sorry about my hideous numbering errors in my prior comment.

        • PG- so long as your four leaf clover isn’t expecting all the little three leaf clovers to redefine the rules that propagate the very best (fit) three leaf clovers, the clover that over time has very successfully exhibited the very best chance of survival to propagate other little three leaf clovers- I’m all good with it.

          What I don’t understand is why your rare four-leaf clover feels the need to force the occupation of the very same, and very unique niche of the very successful three leaf clover?

          Our four leaf clovers should be happy just being very good four leaf clovers.

          Nothing about your comment is hideous- not even your numbering.

          • I don’t think I can respond to your comment without straying too far from the main topic of this thread, so, I’ll leave it at that.

            Thank you so much for your gracious compliment! 🙂

            PG

      • No actually there is no redefinition. It’s a property contract. Their marriages should be legally recognized. It’s not same sex marriage as opposed to opposite sex marriage – its marriage and the two spouses genders are not germane to the civil aspects of being treated as a family for tax purposes etc.

    • Hi Puritangirl.

      What’s on the table right now, and is being imposed by Federal courts, is same-sex marriage, which means children being told lies about how they have two mothers and no father, lies that everybody knows is a lie, falsified birth certificates, courts ordering children taken away from the natural mother and given to a completely unrelated person.

      If you support same-sex marriage, you support all of this stuff. There might be some other, more benign system of same-sex marriage, but these are more theoretical than actual. Persons who think that fathers and mothers are important have to decide where to stand based on what is currently on the table.

      I don’t know how you’re going to have a ban on third-party reproduction, because the most common form is the extramarital affair. You’d have to criminalize adultery, and I don’t see that happening anytime soon. Or you can do what Heather’s two mommies did, and use a turkey baster. With the same-sex marriage laws enforced the way they are, the kid would still be told a lie, that he had two mothers and the law would back him up.

      Let’s go through your other points:

      >>(1) you end up having to argue a one-dimensional view of marriage as being solely about children,

      I have never heard anybody seriously argue that. Please read askme’s response to Rachel in the comment thread on the post marked Gay Marriage, and you’ll see that she doesn’t argue that, either.

      People are saying that forming families is the most important function of marriage, and historically, the reason the state has in interest in protecting marriage.

      >>2) you end up having to deny homosexuals (and sometimes transsexuals) the benefit of those aspects of marriage which are not about child-bearing;

      No, you don’t.

      The way around this, of course, is to set up sort of civli union or domestic partnership arrangement. That would give them what they needed. This was championed by gay activists a few decades back and was considered quite radical. Now, if you support it, you’ll be called a hater and a bigot.

      >>(3) you end up permitting, inevitably,–the stigmatization of gays and transgender people;

      No matter who you are, there will always be some people who don’t like you. In a liberal society, this is permitted. Remember the slogan of Queer Nation? “We’re here! We’re queer! Get used to it!”

      This attitude was far preferable to the victim card that today’s activists are fond of playing. Instead of taking responsibility for their own actions, they acta like their a vicitm.

      The truth is, almost everything that early gay groups like the Mattichine Society and the Gay Activists Alliance wanted to achieve was in place thirty years ago.

      The well-being of the next generation depends to a great extent on men and women getting together, staying together, and raising their children. The truth is that homosexual couples are not going to be able to contribute to society in that way.

      • Steve,

        Thanks for your reply. Sorry for my rather late response. I had to fly halfway around the world, among other things. Everyone should eat at the McDonald’s in Detroit airport. The staff were truly amazing!

        Something I really wanted to say: There’s a conservative complaint that’s misplaced. Things–in particular, moral questions–seem to ‘flip’ in America–all one way, or all the other. I’d guess this pattern ultimately derives, if one could thread their way back through the legal and cultural history of the West, to Abrahamic monotheism’s absolutism. But who knows. In any case, there seems to be no stable equilibrium for half-measures. If there’s SSM, conservatives are demanding a return to civil unions. If there are civil unions, conservatives demand a return to non-state endorsement of homosexual relationships. If there’s non-state endorsement of homosexual relationships, conservatives are demanding criminalization. In the opposite direction, if homosexuality is criminalized, sexual minorities are demanding decriminalization. If decriminalization is achieved, then the demand is for civil unions, etc. I don’t think you can simply ascribe this to gay avarice. There’s a larger pattern here.

        I have a half-formed idea that a legal regime that held gamete-donors liable for child support would likely to end all but the seediest third-party donation and, what’s better, wouldn’t arbitrarily single out the children of a homosexual parent. But I haven’t thought about it enough and don’t know enough to say for sure whether this is true.

        Sorry not to reply to your other responses. I’m falling asleep right now.

        PG

        • Run with that half formed idea it is the one that is the appropriate course of action

18. Askme,

    I know this site is very civilized, and I know you want to keep it that way. If my language ever comes off as too strong. Just let me know. I would be happy to re-write my post, in a toned-down way.

    I would like to say, “side effects” in the above post, rather than “collateral damage”.

    Respectfully,
    PG

20. Pingback: Homoliittojen ilot ja surut | Ohnon Keisari

21. Jessica, eight, was born James but has been living as girl since the age of three.

    The child has shoulder length hair, plays with dolls and wears girls’ clothes. The youngster’s mother and lesbian partner say their same-sex relationship has nothing to do with the child’s transgender feelings.

    But family members have accused them of ‘conditioning’ the child to be a girl. The father has told the youngster that age eight is ‘too young’ to want to change sex.

    The child started school aged four wearing trousers but was later allowed to wear skirts and dresses after the head teacher made an announcement in assembly. Pupils and teachers were told from now on, the child would be called Jessica and wear a girl’s uniform.

    Jessica – a pseudonym to protect the family’s identity – said: ‘I really didn’t want to be a boy. I just don’t feel like I should be a boy, I feel like I’m in the wrong body.’

    Jessica’s mother said: ‘I can’t disregard what my child’s saying just because they’re five, six, seven.’

    The mother added: ‘She’s a typical eight-year-old girl. She’s a delight.’

    A very confused little boy. Same sex parents damage children. This is a truth!!!
    You can buy into the LGBT brainwashing or you can make a stand for all the babies yet to be conceived. LGBT you have the right to live a fulfilling sexual life, but you have NO right to subject a child to such awareness of sexual appetites. . You impart a knowing into a young mind that is not able to fully process the information, you mess with the psyche, you confuse the natural growth, you distort natures laws, you want the same right as a male female couple yet you cannot as a gay couple have children in the natural biological way, that throughout time has worked. So if there had have been a better way for HUMAN Adults to do what they were born to do which is ‘reproduce’ nature would have found it. The law of the jungle SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. Heterosexual Homosapien are your only hope of naturally born ofspring. The rest are like GM food MAN MANIPULATED.

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