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Using Children to Advance the Progressive Agenda
One of the latest attacks on religious freedom comes from a demand of the New York State Office of Children and Family Services, that all adoption agencies must approve adoptions to gay and lesbian parents.
New Hope Family Services is the adoption agency that has filed a lawsuit against the state, protesting that this requirement is inconsistent with their faith. This is the background of the lawsuit:
New Hope Family Services is a religious adoptive provider and pregnancy center that has served Syracuse women, children, and families since 1965. Founded by a group of local Christian ministers, the organization has found over 1,000 forever homes for children since opening its doors. In 1986, New Hope added a pregnancy center to provide pregnancy tests, medical referrals, and counseling to anyone in need, in addition to its comprehensive adoption services. Because of New Hope’s belief in marriage as the union of one man and one woman, New Hope places children only in homes with a married mother and father, while referring unmarried couples, same-sex couples, and others to nearby adoption providers.
New Hope clearly articulates its beliefs to clients and has faced no formal complaints from prospective clients due to its policy. Yet, the New York State Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) sent New Hope a letter in October 2018 describing its policy as “discriminatory and impermissible.” OCFS gave New Hope an ultimatum that it either revise its policy or it would be required to submit a close-out plan for its adoption program.
Clearly these legal requirements being forced on New Hope have nothing to do with the welfare of the children. The government agency points to the research that same-sex couples can be just as effective as heterosexual couples at raising children. The OCFS explained their 2013 policy in this way:
The amendments also promote fairness and equality in the child welfare adoption program by eliminating archaic regulatory language that implies the sexual orientation of gay, lesbian, and bisexual prospective adoptive parents — but not of heterosexual prospective adoptive parents — is relevant to evaluating their appropriateness as adoptive parents.
Moreover, OCFS is charged with the welfare of children, and protecting the children of same-sex couples accomplishes that [my italics].
Again, the religious and moral issue is completely ignored in this policy; the fact that children being adopted by gay couples is outside the norm of religious doctrine and relationships is irrelevant. I wonder ( in the sentence italicized just above) what the OCFS is promising to protect the children from?
Catholic Charities, an organization also highly respected for their adoption services, is considering the shutting down of their adoptive services rather than serve same-sex couples. Catholic Charities of Buffalo suspended its adoption work this past August.
The tide is rising against those organizations that choose to serve children within a Christian framework. Congress, however, is considering protection for child welfare agencies following nine states that passed legislation in 2017 and 2018: Alabama, Texas, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Kansas, Michigan, Mississippi, North Dakota, and South Carolina; to shield organizations from requirements that conflict with their religious beliefs. By the way, New Hope receives no government funds for its operations. And it only places approximately ten children per year.
I’m encouraged that legislation is being considered by Congress to take steps against government intrusion and anti-religion actions. Still, there is the question of whether this kind of issue should be resolved at the state level. Clearly, the actions against adoption agencies are being taken to further the gay rights agenda.
It has nothing to do with the children.
Published in Culture
Divorced parenting is already suboptimal. But, there is definitely something to men being boundary enforcers that ultimately works to kids’ advantage. These “outcomes” were high-school and secondary graduation rates, staying out of jail, earning ability, etc. Desirable outcomes as adults. I think the evidence that single motherhood (fatherless children) is disastrous for a lot of kids is pretty substantial. Larry Elder, for example, talks about it being the number one problem to fix if you want to help black kids (and society in general). That’s what I’m trying to get at.
Men and women are different. They respond differently to life situations. Women can certainly be heroic single moms, but many (most?) divorcee moms will trash talk the dad, become bitter and resentful, and impose their emotional issues onto their kids. They (we) also lack the authority-figure boundary enforcement abilities of men — speaking from personal experience. Women generally do a poor job of this. We have other desirable parenting qualities, which is why it is ideal to have a two-parent, male/female household. But, kids benefit tremendously from guardrails.
I hope they find a middle way. I hope that activists on both sides will treat each other with compassion as we seek to find families for these children.
All excellent points, @marcin! Thank you!
Extremely important to making the point, @westernchauvinist. I think that boundary management overall in society is deficient to the extreme, and it’s not getting better soon!
I was a single mom, and I never, ever trash talked about their fathers. My parents were divorced and each trashed the other, my father and his parents as well as my mother and her family about my dad.
The father of my older child had died at age 27, no point in trashing him. I did all in my power to facilitate a loving relationship with my younger daughter and her dad. I have met other divorced couples who encourage a close relationship with the other parent.
I’ve no doubt you were a good mom, @kayofmt. For the record, someone else made that comment, not me.
I do want to make a point with you, @zafar, and you (as always) can accept or reject it. We’ve respectfully discussed issues back and forth and I think we have a certain rapport, even though we often disagree. I don’t know what it’s like to be gay, or to fight for equal rights or for fair treatment. I try to be balanced in most of my assessments (although I do a lousy job of it with Israel!) and I think that your argument doesn’t ring true (in terms of being valid). All of us face some kind of discrimination in our lives; sometimes it’s obvious, sometimes it’s not. I know that when I was a consultant, there were men who likely didn’t hire me because I was a woman. And you know what? That was fine with me. They never said so, of course, since they would have been accused of discrimination. I didn’t care what their reasons were; they didn’t want to work with me. Fortunately there were lots of other clients in the sea (bad play on words), and I moved on to find them.
This situation isn’t about giving children the best outcomes or the most options. I think you are continuing the battle to make sure that gays have rights in every area, with every potential opportunity. In this case, where the pool of potential heterosexual adoptive parents is huge (and they may not all be well-suited but I’d wager many of them are) and because pool of potential gay parents is tiny, and many organizations will serve them, I just don’t think this is battle field to die on. I can understand if you worry that every limitation could start a slippery slope, but I think we are far beyond your needing to consider that.
I would hope that on balance, you can see the wisdom of respecting the religious convictions of the Christian organizations, knowing that the gay population can be well-served elsewhere.
I’m not surprised, Kay. Interesting how some people build good character off of bad (childhood) experiences and some don’t. My parents were both from very dysfunctional homes (Mom’s parents separated, but never divorced — they were Catholic. Dad’s parents divorced and remarried twice each! When divorce just wasn’t done!), and decided from the start to have a happy marriage. They succeeded as you did being a single mom. Good on you and good for your kids!
Adam Carolla took a lot of flak for saying “all things being equal, he would rather have his children raised by a momma and pappa than two mommas and two pappas.” He emphasized, which many ignored, “all things being equal.” I am with you on this. There are also gay people who think children benefit from mothers and fathers. Rupert Evert from a Telegraph sept 2012 interview:
“The star of the 1998 film Shakespeare in Love blazed a trail for gay actors when he came out as homosexual 20 years ago.
However, he has been criticised by gay rights groups after giving an interview in which he decried same-sex couples who have children.
The 53-year-old told the Sunday Times Magazine that his mother Sara had met his boyfriend but “still wishes I had a wife and kids.”
“She thinks children need a father and a mother and I agree with her,” he said. “I can’t think of anything worse than being brought up by two gay dads.
“Some people might not agree with that. Fine! That’s just my opinion.”
Perhaps he’s been chastised lately and has changed his mind (or had it changed for him).
Two lesbians? Seriously, I felt so bad for that girl on American Idol a few years ago whose “mothers” were obviously damaged people who were politicizing her life for their purposes. Sad.
I would presume that adoption of non-biologically related children by gay male couples is far more common than similar adoption by lesbian couples, due to simple biology – lesbians are capable of having a child (either “naturally” or through AI) themselves, while men do not have that option.
Yabbut one or the other still has to “adopt.” My daughter’s chemo doc was half of a lesbian couple planning to adopt, and neither of them were giving birth. So, it happens.
And gay guys can be (and often are) biological dads who’ve divorced their wives. There is no limit to how screwed up human relations can be and how we inflict it on our kids.
There was also the lesbian couple that adopted 3 or 4 kids and drove them all off the cliff earlier this year. Really drove them off a cliff in California killing them all.
Reminds me of Nassim Taleb:
“Pedophrasty
Definition: Argument involving children to prop up a rationalization and make the opponent look like an (expletive deleted), as people are defenseless and suspend all skepticism in front of suffering children: nobody has the heart to question the authenticity or source of the reporting. Often done with the aid of pictures.”
That’s two radically different types of adoption – adopting the biological child of your partner is a different process from adopting an infant who is biologically unrelated to either parent.
I don’t know if it’s radically different–it’s just different. Depending on the age of the child, he or she could see be affected by growing up with same-sex parents. In fact, in some ways it could be more complicated with hetero spouses in the background.
It’s just legalistic. The couple already has the kid, it’s just a question as to whether the non-biological partner is legally considered the parent.
It’s not like if the adoption doesn’t go through the kid gets taken away from the biological parent [absent some *highly* unusual circumstance, I suppose].
I worked in Social Services for 25 years, and saw so much misery. I remembered how bad is was for me to hear all the nasties about my parents, and then listen to parents in my office stating crap about their ex spouse in front of their children. I tried to stop it every time. What was really bad was having a parent state to their child, “You are going to grow up being the same kind of #### just like your dad or mother.”
25 years is a very long time . . .it had to be tough.
Of course, the actual number is 36. As in, 72 people who want to be parents of a healthy infant competing with each other to get the birth mother to pick them, at the cost of thousands of dollars in home inspections, parenting classes, and gifts to the birth mother (and that have no right to be returned if the birth mother decides to not put the child up for adoption after all)
So no, I don’t think keeping gay couples from adopting will reduce the number of children being adopted. The normalization of out of wedlock births is the driving factor there. Abortions have been declining for decades, after all.
NY State rivals any state as the most Liberal in the country. Governor Cuomo was the first to get legalized gay marriage in the United States. He has bragged that he has expanded abortion rights to the fullest, making NYS the butcher capital of the country. There was once a strong conservative minority that could counterbalance the left wing ideology, but in the last ten years or so that minority has completely collapsed. The Libs have no opposition whatsoever, and so have pushed every conceivable social item on their agenda. This issue does not surprise me. Yes, I think we need national legislation on this to counteract this horrid law. Anyone that thinks that gay parents are a good thing for children are living in a left wing reality.
And don’t be fooled into thinking all studies show no issues with children raised from same sex couples. First, Heritage shows that a lot of those studies are flawed. And this from Dailywire cites studies that don’t show positive outcomes. That article also cites D.C. McAllister, who I believe was a member here at Ricochet at one time.
I have heard-tell that in some Muslim countries the women raise boys up to X age and then the fathers take over. I don’t imagine that it’s 100% mom and then 100% dad. There may be some wisdom in this.
You are right about the guardrails. Women can do it, but it is not in their nature.
God (or Mother Nature if you prefer) designed human beings to be the product of a Female Mother and a Male Father. Every human child is designed to be best raised in a household with a married Mother and Father. Any other family type has to be less optimal for the natural raising of children. The Homosexual Lobby has been attempting to tear down this family structure for decades, and they have been fairly successful at it. Sorry, Zafar, but you are wrong. The best interest of any human child is represented by a family with a married Mother and Father.
Although, if you think about it most if not all homosexual relationships have a “male” and “female”-type partner. Even same-sex relationships divide up the characteristics so as to resemble a heterosexual man/woman partnership. Even homosexuals can’t avoid this kind of division of labor. Funny.
In the case of divorce boys stay with their mothers till the age of seven and then go to their fathers. Girls stay with their mothers till the age of the 13 and then go to their fathers. At least that’s the theory
ty for clarifying.
I don’t think we’re supposed to notice this. The counterfeit nature of same-sex unions. It wouldn’t be prudent in these PC times.
I don’t know if this is true or not. I had one gay friend many years ago, and I asked him if he and his partner took the part of husband and wife or “male and female.” He looked at me puzzled, shook his head and the conversation moved on.
Are you saying this whole ‘gay thing’ is my Israel?
Nooooooo!!!Perhaps….it is?How does removing gay couples from the mix not reduce the options for a child up for adoption? Of course it does that. Inevitably, unless we’re talking about the equivalent of a magic pudding.
I don’t believe couples (or individuals) have a right to adopt. It’s a privilege. Approaching it is a matter of gay rights or religious rights misses the point.
The person with the rights in this situation is the child.
To my mind that fudges the essential question of our duty.
If gay couples can provide children with homes that are as good, all else being equal, as the homes straight couples can provide, then it’s our duty to make that option available to children up for adoption. Regardless of our personal biases and politics.
If gay couples cannot provide children with homes that are as goood etc. then it’s clearly our duty to make sure that adoptions are limited to straight couples, or that straight couples get priority. Again regardless of our personal biases and politics, and whether we are gay or straight.
I understand that people genuinely differ on this “can/cannot” thing, which is why one needs to look at outcomes for the child ([using measures] which are not circular, eg “family formation” is a reasonable measure, “has a father and a mother role model” is a circular measure).
Like almost everything else, it seems, this issue is becoming another proxy for the culture wars – which imho are all about who holds social power and says what goes and what doesn’t go. Which is a pity, because it shouldn’t be about that, it should be about best outcomes for adoptees. Amirite?
Mutual respect, open minds, and introspection?
Yer doing internet the wrong way.