We were expecting to see this: rants on "Fathers' Day" -- with the apostrophe moved one letter to the right. Sure enough, WorldNetDay links to a wacky piece out of Seattle. And our very own Boston Globe Magazine's monthly homosexual "Coupling" columnist writes about how tough things still are in Massachusetts for families like his: two homosexual "married" men who have adopted a baby girl.
The Globe columnist uses that old, dishonest analogy that same-sex parents are no different from mixed-race parents. But race -- an inborn and normal identifying factor -- cannot be equated with chosen abnormal, homosexual behaviors. Even to equate the homosexual couples' adoptive circumstances to a single mother adopting a baby from Africa is dishonest. The African child, if left in Africa, would have been consigned to a neglected life in a poor orphanage, so surely a single parent in the U.S. is preferable -- and not unnatural. But there were HUNDREDS of normal, heterosexual married couples anxiously waiting to adopt a child like the little girl placed with these two homosexual men in Arlington.
Speaking as an adoptive parent of a child of a different race, I am particularly offended by the mixed-race family comparison. Yes, this Arlington "family" will be stared at as different, as ours still is! But the difference is (again) that the stares our family sees are related to unsettled popular attitudes about RACE (and even adoption), whereas the stares in their direction are connected to people's gut sense that this girl is in trouble. How will she grow up, what will she be exposed to? Clearly she'll be taught that homosexuality (in all its "diversity") is normal. The "daddies" admit they plan to take her to Provincetown events. Later, if not already, we'd expect they'll involve her in Boston Pride parades and gay clubs at her school. They say they will raise her with a "fierce pride."
No matter what attempts are made to make life "normal" for adopted children, the pain of their early loss (never knowing their biological parents) is always there for them. That is enough of a challenge. Why add the element of unnatural homosexual "parenting" to the package? Not long ago, social workers would have had the sense to protect this child from that extra stress. But now, thanks to the dominance of radical leftists and homosexual activists in our social service professions, normal parents are overlooked in favor of a placement furthering GLBT social re-engineering. How sad for this child -- and many others like her.
(From Coupling: "Happy Fathers' Day," by David Valdes Greenwood, 6-18-06:)
Even as we try to raise Lily with love and a sense of safety, she's always going to see that her family isn't the established norm. Is it any wonder, then, that we get dreamy-eyed over ads for Rosie O'Donnell's R Family cruises, designed for gay-parented families? Or that we plan to make an annual tradition out of Family Week in Provincetown in hopes that, for at least a few days a year, Lily will see her family as the yardstick, not the exception to the rule?
But we don't plan to live the rest of our lives on a cruise ship or in a beach town. We plan to raise Lily at home in her own community, where, if she looks closely enough, she'll see as many configurations of families as there are constellations in the sky. Two moms packing their girls off to school. Two dads and their son welcoming a new baby. A mom and a dad redoing their backyard so their toddler has a place to play. A mixed-race couple singing lullabies in two languages. A single mom raising the daughter she went to Africa to adopt.
We want Lily to see all of this and to keep it in her heart for those times when the world stubbornly insists there is only one family picture. We cannot shield her from people who would erase us, whether from storybooks or society, but we can teach her to celebrate Fathers' Day, and every day, with unfettered joy and fierce pride.
