Why are Catholics are against Gay couples adopting?

[St Francis]

Originally Posted by Seeker1961

Divorce is a dissolution of a contract. That's really all it is-it's not much different than the breaking up of a corporation. Assets are divided, estimations of income with and without the corporation are taken into account in respect to alimony...it all boils down to a contract between two consenting adults.

Once we let that happen-we gave up the high ground. We acquiesced that marriage was little more than a business deal. There was no outcry about the family then, we simply let it happen. The barn door is closed and the horse is out.

The fact that people did not protest a change which they did not foresee the results of at the time it was made means they cannot point out the deficiencies of the change, nor can they protest a further change in what is now clearly the wrong direction?

We actually have horses. they have "gotten out." Did we kick back and say, Ah, he horses have gotten out, oh, well?

No, we went out, corralled those horses, and brought them back in.

Duh!

Marriage without children is not the Catholic way, but it is the way for people outside the Church. It is a choice people make in many societies.

It is a choice that is very much encouraged these days, both by cultural conditioning and by high rates of taxation. Cui bono?

Even Catholics marry for love, so I don't understand the disdain I keep seeing here for it.

It is one thing to marry someone whom you love, it is another to "marry" just to get the benefits which were set up for people raising children and having sex.

[Poseidon]

Originally Posted by fix

Dueling studies are not needed to prove what is right or wrong. Every study can be picked apart for or against. It depends on what parameters are chosen among other variables.

This is not an issue exclsuively about some utilitarain notion where the only significant issue refers to not living in a drug house and having food. There is this reductionist idea that children should be placed anywhere as long as the term love is used. The problem with that is that anything goes.

No. Gay couples would still have to go through the rigorous background checks and such that straight couples go through, thus eliminating the "anything goes" mentality. Certainly love should not be the only factor - things like financial stability, criminal records, mental health and all that need to be checked before allowing someone to adopt.

[fix]

Originally Posted by Poseidon

No. Gay couples would still have to go through the rigorous background checks and such that straight couples go through, thus eliminating the "anything goes" mentality. Certainly love should not be the only factor - things like financial stability, criminal records, mental health and all that need to be checked before allowing someone to adopt.

All those parameters mean nothing if one subjects children to this unnatural living condition.

[Poseidon]

Originally Posted by fix

All those parameters mean nothing if one subjects children to this unnatural living condition.

Oh, I forgot, because we always reject things that are unnatural, especially living conditions. That's why I never see Christians using air conditioning, driving cars, using ipods, wearing polyester, getting plastic surgery, using medicine, eating GM foods, wearing clothes at all, using electricity, hunting with rifles, using computers, or any of those unnatural things.

Anticipating the counterargument, I think that people are going to argue that these things are somehow different than the "unnatural' of homosexuality. Therefore I ask the question: how is it any different, and where do you draw the line?

[Poseidon]

Originally Posted by St Francis

I re-arranged your post so as to better address the issues you brought up.


This has actually not been established, in fact, just the opposite has been established. Children who grow up in "broken" homes are more likely to exhibit all sorts of bad outcomes unrelated to other aspects of their lives. they are more likely to get in trouble in school, they are more likely to engage in pre-marital sex, they are more likely to attempt or commit suicide.

Should we then not allow single parents to keep their children? Single people are allowed to adopt, so should we ban that too?

Children raised in "never married" families have worse outcomes than children of divorce.

While children from divorced or never-married families can turn out "fine," it takes a lot more work on the part of the parent to "fill the gap" left by the absence of the other parent.

You are taking a correlation and implying that it is causation. That is not true. While it is true that a stable mother/father home is known to be better than single or divorced parenting, I don't think it's been established (not in this thread at least) that it's the fact that it's a single parent that causes the trouble. Isn't it just as likely that it's the relative emotional immaturity or damage of the single parent that causes it, instead of the lack of a father/mother? It could be the greater stress placed on the parent because they have to both be the breadwinner and the homekeeper, and single mothers are more likely to have lower-paying jobs because they lack opportunity to further their education. It's not the fact that there's a father/mother missing, it's the fact that many single parents are stressed out, had their kids too young, have no opportunity to get better jobs, and just overall aren't properly equipped to taking care of kids.

So, what is best for children is to be born to parents married to each other, who end up staying with each other.

But that's not an option here, because we're talking about adoption. We're talking about kids whose biological parents gave them up, or died. So the ideal situation (by your account) is not available to them.

Now, it is bad for children to live in families where one parent is absent. Why would someone propose that the addition of another adult of the same sex solve the problem? The difference in outcomes for children living with only one parent related to gender (of the children, of the parent) would show that part of the problem is the very lack of the parent of the opposite sex.

This is the crux of the problem. That has not been established as a fact. We don't know for sure that it is the lack of a parent of a particular sex that causes the problem, or if it is the issues I listed above. If that could be solved then our debate would be nearly over.

This is the problem with, say, a stable homosexual couple raising a child: the problem is in the make-up of the couple itself. There is an inherent problem.

If that can be established as a definite fact then I'll agree with you, but I don't think it has been yet.

Look at it this way: the most ideal homosexual couple is sometimes said to be better than a really rotten crummy heterosexual couple for raising children.

But if the heterosexual couple decides to get its act together, they will then become ideal, right? If they quit drinking or doing drugs or committing adultery or whatever it is that makes them un-ideal, then they will be ideal.

Well, I'd say that particular couple has a long way to go before they become ideal. But I'd say that they are one of the ideals. We haven't established that they are better than the homosexual couple. However, for a moment, let's assume that a straight couple is in fact the ideal: so what? There are loads of children in foster care that need to be adopted, and not enough people to adopt them. Wouldn't it be better to have the second or third best situation (a gay couple) than one of the worst (moving from foster home to foster home, never developing a real relationship with any parent figure)? Wouldn't it be better to have two fathers and no mother than no parents at all? We know that a mother can raise a son and a father can raise a daughter, even if it's more difficult for them. But isn't that situation better than endless fostering?

But if the homosexual couple decides to fix the aspect which makes them unideal, the couple will cease to exist as such. Thus, they cannot become an ideal couple. The very nature of the problem for the child is unfixable.

This is a logical fallacy: You're basically saying that gay couples are bad because they are gay. I forget which fallacy that is (begging the question maybe?). Correct me if I'm wrong though.

[St Francis]

Originally Posted by Poseidon

Should we then not allow single parents to keep their children? Single people are allowed to adopt, so should we ban that too?

First, no one is talking about anyone's taking children away from anyone; we are talking about placing vulnerable children in our care in less-than optimal circumstances.

You are taking a correlation and implying that it is causation. That is not true. While it is true that a stable mother/father home is known to be better than single or divorced parenting, I don't think it's been established (not in this thread at least) that it's the fact that it's a single parent that causes the trouble. Isn't it just as likely that it's the relative emotional immaturity or damage of the single parent that causes it, instead of the lack of a father/mother? It could be the greater stress placed on the parent because they have to both be the breadwinner and the homekeeper, and single mothers are more likely to have lower-paying jobs because they lack opportunity to further their education. It's not the fact that there's a father/mother missing, it's the fact that many single parents are stressed out, had their kids too young, have no opportunity to get better jobs, and just overall aren't properly equipped to taking care of kids.

This is the deal: there are limited grant dollars for doing these studies, and the whole process tends to be very skewed.

Thus in the 1970s, study after study came out showing that divorce nor working mothers had no negative effect on the children. Study after study showed that children raised by only one parent were just as well off, if not slightly better because of the independence that situation encouraged. Etc. It wasn't till a couple of decades later that it started coming out that, actually, divorce was not all that great for kids, and that many of those children had problems into adulthood, some of which were not apparent until adulthood such as more difficulty maintaining romantic or marital relationships.

But that's not an option here, because we're talking about adoption. We're talking about kids whose biological parents gave them up, or died. So the ideal situation (by your account) is not available to them.

However, situations closer to the ideal are.

This is the crux of the problem. That has not been established as a fact. We don't know for sure that it is the lack of a parent of a particular sex that causes the problem, or if it is the issues I listed above. If that could be solved then our debate would be nearly over.

And this has not been studied, and it would be very difficult to study. The reason is that people are individuals.

If I take several plants and raise them in different situations, I will be able to draw some conclusions about how various environments affect that type of plant, no? That's science.

The reason that the fields of study related to humans are called "soft sciences" is that it is really impossible to study them scientifically. Why? Because even in the same environment, those studied bring different qualities to the table.

Add to this the fact that the whole process is terribly political, and you get something which cannot really be called science at all. For example, cite any "anti"-homosexual study in many places and you will get the run-down on those who carried out the study, the organization they were associated with, and the same for those who funded the study, as well as a critique of the why the study was conducted and what that process can and cannot show.

Cite a study favorable to the aims of homosexual organizations, and not a word will be said about any of the above; instead, it will be taken as having proven what "everyone already should have known."

However, what little information we are able to glean from these soft-science studies shows that fathers affect children greatly. For example, there is a study which shows that something like 3/4 of children with church-going dads go to church themselves, even if the mother does not attend. The number of children who attend is depressingly low if it is only the mother who attends.

Boys and girls react differently to the absence of their fathers, and boys and girls also react depending on the quality of the relationship they have with their fathers, in both divorced and together situations.

No, there are not yet studies on how having two "parents" of the same sex affects children, because this is completely unstudiable at this point. There are so few situations like this, there have been so few situations in which children were raised in a stable SS situation, that there simply is not enough information.

If that can be established as a definite fact then I'll agree with you, but I don't think it has been yet.

This will never be established as a definite fact through soft-scientific study.

Well, I'd say that particular couple has a long way to go before they become ideal. But I'd say that they are one of the ideals. We haven't established that they are better than the homosexual couple. However, for a moment, let's assume that a straight couple is in fact the ideal: so what? There are loads of children in foster care that need to be adopted, and not enough people to adopt them. Wouldn't it be better to have the second or third best situation (a gay couple) than one of the worst (moving from foster home to foster home, never developing a real relationship with any parent figure)? Wouldn't it be better to have two fathers and no mother than no parents at all? We know that a mother can raise a son and a father can raise a daughter, even if it's more difficult for them. But isn't that situation better than endless fostering?

Most children in foster care who are available and suitable to be adopted are adopted. It's changing now, but for a long time there was such an emphasis on family reunification that it took a lot to get a child released for adoption.

For a while, another problem was that the social services in charge of all this wanted all the children to be placed in families of the same race, or at least black children with black parents.

This is a logical fallacy: You're basically saying that gay couples are bad because they are gay. I forget which fallacy that is (begging the question maybe?). Correct me if I'm wrong though.

Not exactly. What I'm saying is that the nature of a homosexual relationship makes it unsuitable for placing children with homosexual couples for adoption or fostering.

The thing is, if you spend a lot of time as an adult in a family with children and parents of opposite sexes, you see that a lot of so-called facts are flat-out wrong.

In the 1970s, studies "showed" that there was no biological reason for boys and girls to be different; it was just the different ways that boys and girls were treated. OK, explain this: I did not carry a purse, yet my daughter wanted to carry a purse when she was less than a year old.

My daughter did not want to wear plain sneakers, she wanted to wear the shoes with flowers on them.

My son exhibited a fascination with men's work from the time he was 15 months old; he built things with legos before he could walk; he swaggered! My daughter did none of those things!

Those studies were wrong, just as so many parents said they were!

[St Francis]

Originally Posted by Poseidon

....But that's not an option here, because we're talking about adoption. We're talking about kids whose biological parents gave them up, or died. So the ideal situation (by your account) is not available to them. ...

Now, I want to emphasize one point to which I alluded in my previous post.

there are vulnerable children out there: they have no parents of their own to protect them. We take responsibility for them and find families who will raise them.

This is a huge responsibility. We are talking about a child's life--the effects are enormous and cannot be undone. There is no do-over when it comes to raising a child.

Who is the most important person in this equation? The child. Whose interests must we consider the most? The child's.

Would we give the child to a lab so they could perform medical experiments on the child?
I think not!!!!!

And yet we propose to place vulnerable children in a situation about which we do not know. A situation which seems on the face of it to be lacking at least, or at best, two elements of the ideal situation: two sexes of parents raising the child, and two sexes of the adults in the home interacting with each other.

There are those who propose that we change the time-honored principles of placing children, on the basis that SS households are the same as 2S households.

The burden of the proof is not on those who would place the interests of the child at the top of the list of priorities to consider; the burden of proof is on those who support placing children with couples which are so very different in composition from the ideal.

Placing children with homosexual couples is an experiment. Should we use these unprotected children in our charge to conduct this experiment with? How could this possibly be seen as taking the interests of the child as our number one priority? It is not. It is making a tremendous change, not for the benefit of the child, but for the benefit of the adults. Hello? where did that come from?

No one has a "right" to adopt a child, the adults who want to adopt must prove themselves to be good enough to adopt. The type of situation must be known to be good enough to even consider placing a child in.

Adults who are standing on some fallacious idea of their "right to adopt" are not being truly loving people who want the best for the child. They are thinking of themselves and what they want. I am sorry that they cannot have children on their own due to the nature of their relationship, but that does not justify experimenting with children.

[andrewstx]

One thing I have noticed in this thread (I have read it all to now) is the hostility to homosexauls.

One other thing I have not noticed is the dogma that SSA attraction is not a mortal sin, just a disorder. Eveyone here has disorders and sins.

It is only same sex physical acts that are sinful and no more so than the sins that regular normal people commit.

But it seems that no-one will give homosexuals the benefit of the doubt, it's like they are all without exception comming sodomy. But that is not true.

We have read posts from celebate chaste homosexuals and lesbians in these fora. But they never stick around. Could it be the hostility directed at all people with SSA? Chaste or not?

[St Francis]

Originally Posted by andrewstx

One thing I have noticed in this thread (I have read it all to now) is the hostility to homosexuals.

I do not want to comment on this as it might be that you think I am one of those people showing hostility to homosexuals. This is a very general charge, perhaps you could be more specific, or perhaps address it with the poster via pm?

One other thing I have not noticed is the dogma that SSA attraction is not a mortal sin, just a disorder. Eveyone here has disorders and sins.

Same sex attraction is not sinful; however, I have not heard that there are homosexuals out there who want to marry and adopt children who are not active homosexuals, which is the topic of this thread.

It is only same sex physical acts that are sinful and no more so than the sins that regular normal people commit.

Are you suggesting that there are homosexuals who "marry" yet remain chaste?

But it seems that no-one will give homosexuals the benefit of the doubt, it's like they are all without exception comming sodomy. But that is not true.

We all agree that there are homosexuals who do not engage in homosexual behavior. We also all agree that homosexual inclinations are not sinful.

However, since the topic of the thread is adoption by homosexual couples, the general idea is that we are talking about sexually active homosexual couples.

We have read posts from celebate chaste homosexuals and lesbians in these fora. But they never stick around. Could it be the hostility directed at all people with SSA? Chaste or not?

Could it be that they have certain issues and concerns which they prefer not to address on a forum as public as this one is?

[Zosimus41]

Originally Posted by ThePuppyTurtle

Why is that? It's never been explained to me. I don't know to what extent "Gays cannot adopt" is the official catholic position but is there any reason to believe it hurts the child? Is there any evidence it turns them Gay? And what is to be said of those statements that we should kidnap the children of Gay couples? http://www.goodasyou.org/good_as_you...something.html

The act of homosexuality is an abomination in the sight of God.

[Zosimus41]

[quote=St Francis;9639250]
We all agree that there are homosexuals who do not engage in homosexual behavior. We also all agree that homosexual inclinations are not sinful.
QUOTE]

I know what the church teaches about homosexuality but have a very difficult time wrapping my brain around it.

Seems like a very thin line. The bible tells us homosexuality is an abomination. A very strong word.

Jesus tells us sexual sins of the mind are as bad as actually commiting them.

How do we reconcile Gods strong warnings about sexuality with "its ok to have the inclinations for commiting an abominable act" against God himself?

[gntlmnr]

Originally Posted by St Francis

It is one thing to marry someone whom you love, it is another to "marry" just to get the benefits which were set up for people raising children and having sex.

I am not sure exactly what you mean by this statement, but I hope that I am not taking it out of its context.

What bothers me about it is that any time we talk about homosexuals, homosexual relationships, "gay" marriage, or what have you, all we hear about is JUST to get BENEFITS and to have SEX.

I am a homosexual, and I don't consider myself as a sexual robot without any feelings. I am very capable of loving a man just as any other man is capable of loving a woman in the real sense of love.

The fact that we describe homosexuality as an attraction to same "gender" person, doesn't mean at all that there is no love to same "gender" people.

Can anyone deny that any heterosexual love started initially by an "attraction" to the opposite gender?

[gntlmnr]

[quote=Zosimus41;9639386]

Originally Posted by St Francis

We all agree that there are homosexuals who do not engage in homosexual behavior. We also all agree that homosexual inclinations are not sinful.
QUOTE]

I know what the church teaches about homosexuality but have a very difficult time wrapping my brain around it.

Seems like a very thin line. The bible tells us homosexuality is an abomination. A very strong word.

Jesus tells us sexual sins of the mind are as bad as actually commiting them.

How do we reconcile Gods strong warnings about sexuality with "its ok to have the inclinations for commiting an abominable act" against God himself?

In order to understand Christianity, one has to use common sense, otherwise we are all condemned to hell without any exceptions.

But Like I said in a previous post. Heterosexual love does not start automatically from the first instant as love. It does start with an attraction. While the term attraction does not have to be completely sexual attraction, it definitely has sexual connotation.

So when a heterosexual couple are attracted to each other to start a love relationship, are they committing a sin by their attraction to each other?

[St Francis]

Originally Posted by gntlmnr

I am not sure exactly what you mean by this statement, but I hope that I am not taking it out of its context.

What bothers me about it is that any time we talk about homosexuals, homosexual relationships, "gay" marriage, or what have you, all we hear about is JUST to get BENEFITS and to have SEX.

To be perfectly honest, I have no idea why I included having sex in that sentence I certainly did not mean that homosexuals "marry" just to have sex... that seems to have been happening without legal recognition for a really long time!

Homosexuals have been "marrying" without legal benefit for some time now. They don't have legal recognition, but they had sometimes even a ceremony in a church. Certain social circles consider them married.

On the other hand, the reasons put forth for homosexuals to have their relationships legally recognized have centered around benefits: hospital visitation & medical care issues, house-buying and ownership issues, and the big one was health insurance--a huge one when AIDS was causing so much suffering. All the other issues could be resolved, but back then--less so now--the health insurance issue had no resolution. And once there were arranged through civil unions, the issue of adoption started coming up.

Even if the sole reason put forth by homosexuals to have their relationships to be legally recognized were love, that still drastically changes the legal perception of marriage. There is no getting around the fact that marriage confers benefits, and that all heterosexual married people receive these benefits whether they are likely to have children or not. The legal basis for these benefits has always been the procreative nature of the relationship, whether or not in the individual case procreation occurred or not. the legal basis for marriage is that it is the starting of a family. This is simply impossible due to the nature of the homosexual union. There is no reason for extending the benefits which are to support and encourage people to have and raise children under optimal circumstances to those who by the very nature of their relationship cannot provide that.

I am a homosexual, and I don't consider myself as a sexual robot without any feelings. I am very capable of loving a man just as any other man is capable of loving a woman in the real sense of love.

I am not saying that homosexuals cannot love each other. I have a relative who had a very loving romantic relationship with someone we all liked very much for over 20 years--much longer than some heterosexual marriages.

However, in the realm of law, we cannot take into account these types of individual considerations except for proportionate reasons. For example, if I am speeding, does the fact that I am running late reduce the fine? Even the fact that I am running late for an appointment with a cancer specialist I have been waiting a long time to see? Even the fact that the reason that I am late is that there was a traffic accident? No. If I am driving a woman in labor or having a heart attack, then maybe. That's proportionality.

We are talking about changes in the law. We are talking about potentially affecting vulnerable children (remember the thread topic). Is the desire of those whose relationship is inherently non-procreative to enter into marriage proportionate to the change we would be making? No.

The fact that we describe homosexuality as an attraction to same "gender" person, doesn't mean at all that there is no love to same "gender" people.

I apologize that my focus on the principles involved obscures that.

[St Francis]

[quote=Zosimus41;9639386]

Originally Posted by St Francis

We all agree that there are homosexuals who do not engage in homosexual behavior. We also all agree that homosexual inclinations are not sinful.
QUOTE]

I know what the church teaches about homosexuality but have a very difficult time wrapping my brain around it.

Seems like a very thin line. The bible tells us homosexuality is an abomination. A very strong word.

Jesus tells us sexual sins of the mind are as bad as actually commiting them.

How do we reconcile Gods strong warnings about sexuality with "its ok to have the inclinations for commiting an abominable act" against God himself?

It may be helpful to understand that until the late 1800s, there was no idea of "homosexuality" as a state of being. There were no words in the language for that--in fact, our word still has a dual meaning (homosexuality meaning the state of being attracted to members of one's own sex, and homosexuality as the activities involved).

Look at how Church teachings relate to any other temptation: the mere fact of having a temptation is not sinful: temptations cross our minds all the time, no? I feel like getting drunk, I feel like cussing this person out, I feel like telling a lie... What matters is whether we invite them in and entertain them, and whether we then go further and act on them.

The state of being a homosexual is simply one who suffers an attraction to members of his or her own sex. Just as the attraction a single woman might feel for a married man needs to be treated as any other temptation to sin, so does the homosexual's attraction to another person of the same sex.

Scripture tells us that homosexual activity is a sin which cries out to Heaven for vengeance. There are three other sins which also cry out to Heaven--murder, defrauding the worker of his wages, and oppressing widows and orphans.