Friday, September 15, 2006

Children at the center of the gay marriage debate


http://calsun.canoe.ca/News/Alberta/2006/09/15/1843520-sun.html

Children are being sacrificed to social re-engineering with Canada's same-sex marriage experiment, say advocates for children.
United Mothers president Michele Dow said parliamentary debate on the controversial issue has focused only on the rights of adults and ignored those of children and the harm imposed on them by same-sex unions.
"Canadians care about children and we believe Canadians want to hear how same-sex marriage will affect the children," the mother of five said at a panel discussion yesterday.
"Canadians believe children are best served by having a mother and father committed to each other."
Roman Catholic Bishop Fred Henry and MLA Ted Morton were among several speakers that also included Syed Soharwardy, founder of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada.
The bishop called same-sex marriage legislation the worst betrayal of children he's ever seen -- even more so than Catholic church sex scandals


If Bishop Henry is accuratey quoted as saying that gay marriage is worse than the sex abuse scandals then I am most disappointed. I think that anytime that that scandal is brought up it should be done in the spirit of acknowledging what a tragedy it was for the affected children and not used as an example of something small in comparison to a greater injury. The children damaged by those events should not have to read, even as adults, about a Bishop minimizing this event in their life. It was in poor taste to use that as a frame of reference.

I also will acknowledge that my whole life I have primarily been exposed to two parent, married for life, large families with lots of siblings kind of homes. I have had minimal exposure to gay and lesbian families. I am not quite sure that I have a good sense of how they operate and function. I am not sure how families other than the ones I was surrounded by growing up operate. That doesn't mean that I get to say that they can't exist.

My understand is that most families where the parents are gay have children through previous relationships with a heterosexual partner. These are genetic and biological children. Nobody is going to separate a parent-child over this issue alone. Only a small minority of families are created through other means.

I am chronically curious as to what gay and lesbian

It is also perplexing to me the degree of concern that is involved. We are often hearing that only 1-2% of the canadian public is gay and that activists have over-stated the number of gay and lesbian people in the community. We also hear that gay and lesbian couples gravitate towards short term relationships and a small number desire the stability of marriage. If both of those things are correct we are talking about one person in a thousand. It is also true that most gay and lesbian partners do NOT have children created from their gay unions. How can we justify the undue amount of attention that is being given to such an allegedly small group?

Heterosexual led families represent the majority of families and their difficulties greatly impact more children. Given the rate of divorce among straight couples, the risk factors that remarriage creates for children, and the failure of a significant number of families to create the environment that Bishop Henry admires I am not sure why our criticism seems to begin and end with gay marriage.

People who are divorced should have no biblically entrenched opinion on gay marriage.
People who co-habitate before marriage should have no biblically based reason for opposing gay marriage.
People who are married and do not reflect biblically traditional roles with man and wife should have no biblically based reason for opposing gay marriage.

Instead they should be focusing on their own marriage and ask themselves whether or not it reflects the image that God would want them to to the world.

Concentrate on your own marriage - not others.




2 Comments:

Blogger Suzanne said...

Hailey, you focus too much on WHO should have an opinion and not enough on the substance of the debate.

People in a state of sin may be hypocritical in denouncing gay marriage, but hypocrisy doesn't prevent them from being right.

The number of gay marriages may be small, but it will have a major effect on society on a whole, due to the fact that the PRINCIPLES behind marriage are changed-- it is no longer considered a place for sexual complementarity with the ultimate goal of raising children. These change of principles will definitively have an effect on non-gay people, because they will have to live as if they are true-- or otherwise possibly face prosecution and/or social ostracism. As it is, schools are being required to teach homosexual behaviour is positive and students will be forced to learn it.

If you read Bishop Henry's Letter (available on my blog) you will see there is plenty of effects on non-gays. He lists a number of examples.

And frankly, the notion that you're okaying gay marriage as biblically compatible is ridiculous. Homosexual behaviour is an abomination in the Bible: through both the Noahide Covenant and the Mosaic Law. Christian Tradition resoundingly rejected it. I don't know what it is that makes you cling to this false belief that homosexual behaviour is acceptable, because the prophets didn't think that, Jesus as God didn't think that, the Early Church didn't think that, so what gives you the right to go against all that authority?

3:32 AM  
Blogger MissHailey said...

I am not suggesting that people who are hypocrites can't be right. They can be. It's too bad that they don't focus more on their own marriage though.

I somehow missed that letter and I'd like to read it so thanks for the heads up that it's on your sight.

I don't think that it would be appropriate for the school to teach a religious perspective on homosexuality but I would also not want a secular person unfamiliar to me to be teaching my child about sex - straight, gay or otherwise.

If you walked away from reading that paragraphy saying that gay marriage is compatible with the bible than I communicated poorly - it is not. I do not think that you can argue a biblical basis for gay marriage at all. You also can't argue a biblical basis for divorce and remarriage, premarital sex, etc none of which the state prevents.

5:33 AM  

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