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Support for Gay Marriages


"Even if you consider yourself a liberal minded person, you might still find yourself bristling at the thought of sanctifying gay marriages." This was the opening sentence to the 1987 edition of this book. I was advocating for it almost twenty-five years before it came a reality. We have certainly come a looooooooooooooooong way in regards to gay marriage. There are some states that now sanction gay marriages and perhaps soon they all will or there will be some federal legislation granting gays the right to marry. The battle for acceptance is far from over though. In the hearts and minds of some people, gay marriage is still not something they see as morally acceptable. So I want to include some of my original arguments in support of gay marriage for proponents of gay marriage to use when discussing the topic with people who have not yet reached a sense of acceptance about granting gays the right to legally marry.

Perhaps the most common arguments still used by people opposed to legalizing gay marriages is: "Gay marriage is detrimental to society because gay couples do not produce offspring, and procreation is at the root of the survival of the species." This line of reasoning may have made sense in the 1800's when we were trying to populate this continent, and a large percentage of children died before reaching adulthood, due to the harshness of life. However, the absurdity of applying this line of reasoning to present day life is obvious. The planet is grossly overpopulated. Many heterosexuals are choosing not to parent for this very reason. Due to our own ignorance, we are unable to even provide decently for a large number of children that are already here. Certainly we do not need to call upon all able bodied men and women to spew forth children! There are probably enough adoptable children on this planet to supply all gay couples with a ready-made family!

But perhaps gay couples raising children is, in fact, what is at the root of some people's fear: "If you give gay couples children to raise, via adoption or artificial insemination, they will bring more gay people into the world!" I sincerely hope that as more and more people from all walks of life, all religions, and all political orientations discover that a percentage of their offspring and relatives turn out to be homosexual, they will become less and less concerned about whether or not gay couples will produce gay children. I hope that we soon evolve to a state of mind that gayness will not be seen as a scourge that needs to be removed from the world. Secondly, I question the accuracy of this assumption that gay parents necessarily raise gay children.

Studies of gay parenting couples do not bear out the hypothesis that gay parents produce gay children. Likewise, consider the flip side of this: gay children come out of heterosexual families! After considering this matter at length, I am convinced that it is impossible to definitely link any environmental factor to gayness. Gay adults come out of a wide range of family situations. Likewise, a given family situation that produces a gay child almost always produces several heterosexual children as well.

A related argument against gay parenting I want to address is the idea that children raised by same-sex parents will have difficulty forming close relationships with the opposite sex in adulthood. I would totally agree that if children are denied the opportunity to emotionally bond with persons of one sex when they are young, they will experience great difficulty in forming close, trusting, relationships with whichever sexed persons were absent from their experiences. I think this would be very detrimental to the children's well being. If a given gay couple was into a weird, neurotic trip of hating and discounting the value of all persons of the opposite sex and refusing to allow their children to form any relationships with men/women, this would be a pathological way to bring up children. However, this extremist and unhealthy philosophy is very uncommon. Most gay parenting couples have a variety of close friends and relatives of the opposite sex, with whom they encourage their children to have close relationships. It is not imperative that opposite sex bonding happen with a parent figure; there are millions of children raised in single parent homes who likewise only have a parent of one sex.

I'd say I know more gay parents than most heterosexuals do. The gay parents I know operate from the premise that children develop most optimally when allowed the freedom to interact with a variety of adults, not only of different sexes but people with different values and philosophies as well. This allows children to get needs met that their parents cannot meet, due to their own limitations and shortcomings, which all parents have.

Another issue that concerns people about gay parenting is the idea that male children need a male parent for role modeling purposes, and female children likewise need a female parent. I believe that this is an obsolete concept. In less advanced societies where the roles and characteristics of males and females were polarized, this issue was relevant. However, our modern day society has recognized how rigidly defined sex-roles unnecessarily limit options for both men and women, both in terms of personal development and career possibilities. Thus, we have evolved to a situation where both men and women are encouraged to be strong, assertive, and analytical, as well as gentle, nurturing, and intuitive. Likewise, both men and women can be doctors, engineers, lawyers, as well as nursery school teachers, nurses, and librarians! Children do not need to be indoctrinated nor subtly encouraged to think, feel, or live in certain ways because they are male or female, nor direct their career choices in certain ways because of their sex. Thus, whether a child has same-sex parents will not preclude him/her from assuming an appropriate role in society as an adult. I would agree that there are some psychological differences between men and women, and that it is important that children have opportunities to have close, intimate relationships with people of both sexes. I simply do not believe that it is necessary for children to have two opposite sexed parents to develop properly.

Of course, not all gay couples will choose to parent, just as in this day and age, not every heterosexual couple chooses to have children. Even if there were enough adoptable children available, and gay male couples and gay female couples were permitted to adopt, some couples would quite likely decide that their unique contribution to humanity is not to raise children. Some gay couples would choose to work at alleviating social problems, enriching human existence through the arts, etc., instead of parenting. But the point is, people should not be prohibited from becoming parents because of their sexual preference. Adoptable children should be placed into homes on the basis of a couple's ability to meet a child's needs for love, nurturing, guidance, financial support, etc.

In summary, it is my sincere hope that we, as a society, continue to move towards accepting gayness as a perfectly normal state of being. Gays want to be able to bestow titles of honor and love such as husband/wife upon their partners like everyone else, and they need the same legal rights and protection in the event of death, incapacitation, and divorce as everyone else. As far as gay couples raising children goes, sperm banks and adoption agencies should use the same criteria in granting children or sperm to gay couples as to everyone else: Does this couple have the emotional maturity, commitment, mental health, and financial security to be good parents? I suggest that people concerned with the emotional health and well being of children focus their attention and energies on truly abusive family situations.

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