In good fah? U.S. legal battle over gay adoptn tensifi | Rters

Contents:

• GAY ADOPTN QUOT
• AGAST GAY ADOPTN QUOT & SAYGS
• IN GOOD FAH? U.S. LEGAL BATTLE OVER GAY ADOPTN TENSIFI
• 18 ANTI-GAY GROUPS AND THEIR PROPAGANDA
• OUR PARENTS ARE GAY. ARE OUR FAI GOOD ENOUGH FOR THE SUPREME COURT?
• WHAT DO THE BIBLE HAVE TO SAY ABOUT GAY ADOPTN?
• 10 ANTI-GAY MYTHS DEBUNKED
• POPE FRANCIS LLS FOR END TO ANTI-GAY LAWS AND LGBTQ+ WELE OM CHURCH

GAY ADOPTN QUOT

”FOSTER PARENTSAdvot fear excludg LGBT+ upl om adoptn or foster re uld lim the number of potential hom for needy children, particularly given gay men and lbians are far more likely to adopt and foster children than their straight 400, 000 children are foster re the Uned Stat, about a quarter of whom are wag to be adopted, acrdg to U. Supreme Court legalized gay marriage natnwi 2015, while a seri of subsequent urt lgs have ma adoptn by same-sex upl legal all 50 LGBT+ parents ntue to face wispread discrimatn when to adoptg or raisg children. A 2019 study om Tufts Medil Center found that almost two-thirds of gay fathers the Uned Stat experience stigma as homosexual dads, most often relig a 2015 Universy of Oregon survey of 19, 000 studi related to same-sex parentg found that children raised by gay and lbian upl were no different than those raised by parents of the oppose relig groups, the qutn is not whether gay men and lbians are f to be parents, but rather their relig objectn to homosexual unns the first place.

I thk the way that you do that and see people for more than their surface value is, say, you're readg somethg the news: the genr pay gap, or gay adoptn, anythg that volv a group of people beg margalized. Even as some well-known anti-gay groups like Foc on the Fay morate their views, a hard re of smaller groups, most of them religly motivated, have ntued to pump out monizg propaganda aimed at homosexuals and other sexual mori. The book mak a seri of claims that virtually no ser historian agre wh: that Hler was gay, that “the Nazi Party was entirely ntrolled by aristic homosexuals, ” and that gays were pecially selected for the SS bee of their nate btaly.

Takg a page om the anti-gay fabulist Stt Lively (see Abidg Tth Mistri, above), Fischer claimed a blog post last May 27 that “[h]omosexualy gave Adolph Hler, and homosexuals the ary gave the Brown Shirts, the Nazi war mache and 6 ln ad Jews. A one-time reporter for the nservative Washgton Tim, LaBarbera has been an energetic mpaigner agast “the radil homosexual agenda” sce at least 1993, when he lnched The Lambda Report, which claimed to do first-hand reportg to expose s gay enemi.

AGAST GAY ADOPTN QUOT & SAYGS

DeMar has modified that dictum slightly the past, sayg that homosexuals wouldn’t all be executed unr a “renstcted” ernment, but that he did believe that the ocsnal executn of “sodom” would serve society well bee “the law that requir the ath penalty for homosexual acts effectively driv the perversn of homosexualy unrground, back to the closet. It has lled the ia of allowg gays to serve openly the ary “evil”; opposed hate crim legislatn (which many relig-right groups falsely assert would make easy to send pastors to prison for nmng homosexualy); and raged agast a judge’s overturng of California’s Proposn 8, which had validated same-sex marriag. Although is somewhat benign by parison, the CADC has an advisory board that clus some of the untry’s most hard-le anti-gay activists: Lou Sheldon, head of the Tradnal Valu Coaln (see below); Donald Wildmon, the founr of the Amerin Fay Associatn (above); and O’Neal Dozier, a pastor who wrote his 2008 book that “[h]omosexualy not only spreads disease and ntraliz God’s mand, ” but also “stroys fai.

IN GOOD FAH? U.S. LEGAL BATTLE OVER GAY ADOPTN TENSIFI

In 2001, she hired proment anti-gay propagandists Robert Knight (now wh Coral Ridge Mistri; see below) and Peter LaBarbera (now wh Amerins for Tth About Homosexualy, above) to lnch CWA’s Culture and Fay Instute. ” Last year, CWA acced the Gay, Lbian, and Straight Edutn Network (GLSEN), a group that works to stop anti-gay bullyg schools, of g that missn as a ver to promote homosexualy schools, addg that “teachg stunts om a young age that the homosexual liftyle is perfectly natural … will [e them to] velop to adults who are sensized to the harmful, immoral realy of sexual viance. In one recent say on the CRM webse, he argued agast allowg homosexuals to serve openly the ary, sayg that “Bible-believg Christians would quickly fd themselv unwele Barney Frank’s new pansexual, cross-drsg ary.

In 2002, before jog CRM, Knight wrote that gay marriage “entic children to experiment wh homosexualy” and that acceptg homosexualy leads to “a loss of stabily muni, wh a rise crime, sexually transmted diseas and other social pathologi. Both Dailey and Sprigg have phed false accatns lkg gay men to pedophilia: Sprigg has wrten that most men who engage same-sex child moltatn “intify themselv as homosexual or bisexual, ” and Dailey and Sprigg voted an entire chapter of their 2004 book Gettg It Straight to siar material. In a 1999 publitn (Homosexual Behavr and Pedophilia) that has sce disappeared om s webse, the FRC claimed that “one of the primary goals of the homosexual rights movement is to abolish all age of nsent laws and to eventually regnize pedophil as the ‘prophets’ of a new sexual orr, ” acrdg to unrefuted rearch by AMERICAblog.

30, 2010, bate on MSNBC’s “Hardball wh Chris Matthews” between Perks and the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Mark Potok, Perks fend FRC’s associatn of gay men wh pedophilia, sayg: “If you look at the Amerin College of Pediatricians, they say the rearch is overwhelmg that homosexualy pos a danger to children. ” AMERICAblog also reported that then-FRC official Yvette Cantu, an terview published on Amerins for Tth About Homosexualy’s webse, said, “If they [gays and lbians] had children, what would happen when they were too by havg their sex parti? Started 1987 by psychologist Pl Cameron, the Fay Rearch Instute (FRI) has bee the anti-gay movement’s ma source for what Cameron claims is “cuttg-edge rearch” — but is, fact, pletely discreded junk science phed out by a man who has been nmned by three profsnal anizatns.

18 ANTI-GAY GROUPS AND THEIR PROPAGANDA

In 1985, the Amerin Soclogil Associatn adopted a rolutn sayg Cameron “has nsistently misterpreted and misreprented soclogil rearch on sexualy” and “repeatedly mpaigned for the abrogatn of the civil rights of lbians and gay men”; the followg year, the same group formally nmned Cameron for that misreprentatn of rearch. They clu the Amerin Fay Associatn, Amerins for Tth About Homosexualy, Concerned Women for Ameri, Coral Ridge Mistri, the Fay Rearch Council (see above for all five) and, until recently, the Illois Fay Instute (see below). In 2006, then-Executive Director Peter LaBarbera (see Amerins for Tth About Homosexualy, above), told a relig-right gatherg hosted by Visn Ameri that homosexualy was "disgtg" and mand the closg down of all "homosexual tablishments.

” The rponse of Lrie Higgs, IFI’s belligerent director of school advocy, was that Daly was showg “surprisg naïveté, ” g the same language as pro-gay “homosexualists, ” and failg to nont “the pro-homosexual juggernt. In 2009, Higgs pared homosexualy to Nazism, likeng the German Evangelil Church’s weak rponse to fascism to the “Amerin church’s failure to rpond appropriately to the spread of radil, heretil, stctive views of homosexualy. Matt Barber, formerly wh Concerned Women for Ameri and Amerins for Tth About Homosexualy (see above for both), joed Liberty Counsel as director of cultural affairs (also beg Liberty Universy’s associate an for reer and profsnal velopment).

A year earlier, Barber had argued that given “medil evince about the dangers of homosexualy, ” should be nsired “crimally reckls for tors to teach children that homosexual nduct is a normal, safe and perfectly acceptable alternative. ” Later, MassRistance charged that groups like the Gay, Lbian and Straight Edutn Network (GLSEN), which support school anti-bullyg programs, actually want to lure children to homosexualy and, very possibly, sadomasochism.

OUR PARENTS ARE GAY. ARE OUR FAI GOOD ENOUGH FOR THE SUPREME COURT?

Durg legislative ttimony supportg the amendment, Camenker falsely claimed that no homosexuals died the Holot and that the pk triangle the Nazis forced imprisoned gays to wear actually signified Catholic prits.

Camenker, who has long foced on the purported “homosexual agenda” the schools and equently claimed gays are dangero to kids, has repeatedly ced discreded claims om anizatns like the Natnal Associatn for Rearch and Therapy of Homosexualy that lk homosexualy and pedophilia. Former Prbyterian mister Lou Sheldon has been warng Amerins about the “gay threat” sce 1980, when he found the Tradnal Valu Coaln (TVC), which also is ncerned wh abortn and natnal secury and tak on liberal activists on a range of issu.

” Wh regard to LGBT teen suicis, TVC, unr the headle “Homosexual Urban Legends, ” claims that “[t]he ld, hard fact is that teens who are stgglg wh homosexual feelgs are more likely to be sexually molted by a homosexual school unselor or teacher than to m suici over their feelgs of spair. The TVC also mak assertns on s webse about disproportnate homosexual pedophilia and attacks the ia that people are born gay and the claim that gays want the right to marry for the same reasons that heterosexuals do — the TVC suggts the real purpose of marriage equaly is to stroy the ncept of marriage and ultimately replace altogether wh group sex and polygamy.

WHAT DO THE BIBLE HAVE TO SAY ABOUT GAY ADOPTN?

While the benefs of adoptn are clear, gay adoptive parents will likely also face many of the same challeng that heterosexual adoptive parents experience: addrsg their children’s racial or cultural inty, managg birth parent relatnships an open adoptn, talkg to their child about adoptn and simply adjtg to parenthood. In addn, there are no signifint differenc the velopment of genr inty and sexual orientatn between children of gay and lbian parents and children of heterosexual parents, acrdg to rearch prentg gay adoptn facts and same-sex adoptn statistics.

But the gay slurs, hostile glar, and bullyg paled parison wh the realizatn that our ernment did not stand behd and our fai—forbiddg marriage and curbg parental rights, passg state nstutnal amendments exprsly nyg our parents equal protectn, and even crimalizg their sexual relatnships.

As Robert Lerner noted his book No Basis: What the Studi Don’t Tell Us About Same Sex Parentg, most studi on same sex parentg do not al wh actual gay adoptn but rather the natural children of one same-sex partner, or children who are the rult of artificial sematn. The cisive moment me on June 26, 2015, when the Supreme Court removed all rtrictns and prohibns on gay marriage the Uned Stat, which was closely followed by the Feral District Court’s cisn to lift Mississippi’s ban on gay upl om adoptn on March 31, 2016.

10 ANTI-GAY MYTHS DEBUNKED

Most stat lack legal protectns to guard agast favorg heterosexual parents over gays and lbians adoptn and foster re placements, and the landspe has historilly been uniendly toward same-sex upl as parents. Soclogist Steven Nock of the Universy of Virgia, who is agnostic on the issue of same-sex civil marriage, offered this review of the lerature on gay parentg as an expert wns for a Canadian urt nsirg legalizatn of same-sex civil marriage:.

In the first edn of his book fense of same-sex marriage, Virtually Normal, homosexual mentator Andrew Sullivan wrote: "There is more likely to be greater unrstandg of the need for extramaral outlets between two men than between a man and a woman. It is plsible to spect that legal regnn of homosexual civil marriage would have siar nsequenc for the stutn of marriage; that is, would further stabilize the norm that adults should sacrifice to get and stay married for the sake of their children. Pope Francis' willgns to clu gay, trans and HIV+ prisoners his luncheon and to allow an LGBTQ advocy group on the para route, but not mentng eher of them his talks, shows the plited approach he is takg to LGBTQ issu.

While the Pope's welg tone of acceptance is a step the right directn, the Catechism of the Catholic Church [#2357]3, the "homosexual acts" Catechism exprsed by our LGBTQ children ntue to be characterized as "trsilly disorred... Ever sce born-aga sger and orange juice pchwoman Ana Bryant helped kick off the ntemporary anti-gay movement some 40 years ago, hard-le elements of the relig right have been searchg for ways to monize gay people — or, at a mimum, to fd arguments that will prevent their normalizatn society.

POPE FRANCIS LLS FOR END TO ANTI-GAY LAWS AND LGBTQ+ WELE OM CHURCH

But addn to hawkg that myth, the legns of anti-gay activists who followed have add a panoply of others, rangg om the extremely doubtful claim that sexual orientatn is a choice, to unalloyed li like the claims that gay men molt children far more than heterosexuals or that hate crime laws will lead to the legalizatn of btialy and necrophilia.