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The above graphic supplied by my blogging comrade Jeremy Hooper has me thinking about children and the religious right
It is from the National Organization for Marriage and encompasses a standard religious right talking point used when the organization attempts to stymie marriage equality, i.e. claiming that allowing gays to marry would deprive children of the “right” to have a mother and a father.
I have heard that same talking point used extensively by other religious right organizations such as the Family Research Council and politicians and public figures who carry their water, so to speak, such as Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee.
I am of the personal belief that a child needs a good home, regardless of whether that home encompasses the mother/father dynamic, single parent dynamic, or the gay parent (s) dynamic. No matter how much research groups like NOM can manufacture or cherry-pick, the fact is a home with love and support is what matters most.
And it’s better than no home at all, which brings me to my point.
According to several groups involved in the adoption of children, there are over 120,000 children waiting to be adopted. In fact, one group, Children Awaiting Parents, says:
Most are school-aged or older. There are brothers and sisters who need to stay together. More than 60% of the children come from minority cultures. The majority are boys. Many have emotional, physical, learning disabilities or mental retardation. All are waiting for the love and security that only a permanent family can offer.
For all of their pronouncements that “every child has a right to a mom and a dad” and “children need homes with mothers and fathers,” I am not aware of any effort by NOM, FRC, or any religious right group or their supporters working to get children out of the foster care system and into that mother/father dynamic they preach so fervently about.
No initiatives. No sponsorship of legislation. Nothing
The only time I hear these groups and individuals suddenly care about children having decent homes at all is when they are attempting to keep them away from gay households.
That tells me either these religious right groups and their supporters are willfully forgetting children in foster care or that they don’t really care about whether or not children actually are placed in good homes.
Just as long as they aren’t placed in gay homes.
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To quote Al Franken from his pre senate days….. Brian Brown is a big fat idiot!
He says, “to try and compare in any way the attempt to redefine marriage with the Civil Rights movement is simply false.”
Since he calls the movement for racial civil rights “the” civil rights movement instead of “a” civil rights movement, he is implying that only rights based on race are “civil” rights.
Then he goes on to claim that children have the “civil right” to have both a mom and a dad.
He doesn’t seem to understand that women’s rights are “civil” rights. Or, that Civil Rights legislation was written, not just as rights based on race, but on race, gender, religion, etc. Even Caucasians have “civil rights”. Civil rights are not in limited supply and only available to racial minorities. Every human being is entitled to civil rights and to be treated equally under the law.
And, finally what he doesn’t understand is that the movement for the rights of the LGBT community is about more than marriage equality. It’s about ENDA, it’s about access to housing. It’s about including sexual orientation and gender identity to existing civil rights laws.
1. $$$$$$$$$$$$
2. Catholic Charities and other religious adoption groups get lots (and I mean LOTS) of public money ($$$$) for acting as a clearinghouse for adoptions
3. CC and others hate it when public dollars are put out there with the caveat that they must serve all of the public (even the LGBT community) cause they hate having to provide a service to the “dirty” people
4. CC, FRC and NOM hate it when their bigotry is exposed, so they try to use bluster to obfuscate their hate.
An FYI Brian:
Millions of Americans supported restrictions on Catholics in America once and burned Catholic Churches and Convents
Millions of Americans supported the American version of Aparthied, Segregation.
Millions of Americans supported slavery, some even died protecing it.
Millions of Americans supported Prohibition and repented of it later.
Just because Millions of Americans thought something does not make it a good idea-
The cynicism of the “religious” right seems to have infinite depth. Of course, they don’t care about children — children are a tool, just like everything else. As for the “civil right” of children to have both a mom and a dad — well, I caught David Blankenhorn on that one once, before his transfiguration, when he cited the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child as stating that children have a right to be raised by their biological parents. I read the convention. It didn’t say that. What children do have a right to is a loving, supportive, nurturing, stable home. Well, we can do that. (In fact, if you read between the lines on the research, we probably do better than the “biological parents.”)
As for Brian Brown — he’s really working overtime to become the next Tony Perkins. If he says the sky is blue, I’d advise you to duck outside and check.
The response I find most interesting to this particular line of “thinking” is to ask for a concrete, real world example of how marriage equality deprives any child of either a mother or a father. The opposition will splutter and say something like, “Isn’t it obvious? Two women means no father”. To which I say, “Do you honestly believe that if this loving couple isn’t allowed access to the protections of marriage that they will split up, and forget all about their dreams of raising children?”. Clearly the only people who the haters want to exclude from marriage are gay people, and since gay parents have kids with other gay parents, then clearly there’s no positive impact by continuing this discrimination. It only creates unmarried gay parents. Nobody can ever give me an example of how kids acquire additional opposite gender parents by keeping gay parents unmarried. Nor can anyone show me how straight parents have less kids if gay people get married. Simply put, there is no scenario in which a direct cause and effect can be established between the banning of marriage for gay people, and the reduction of either single parenting, or the increase in two opposite gendered people having children. None, not one example.