Sunday 24 November 2013

Why Same-Sex Marriage Is Like Opening Pandora's Box by André Jenkins



André Jenkins

I oppose same-sex marriage.
Unlike the vast majority of cases against same sex marriage I am not going to use arguments of procreation, or compare same-sex parenting to heterosexual parenting. I will use neither religious arguments, nor natural law arguments, nor arguments based on preference.
Rather this case, which is a secular case, made by a secular writer, emphasizes overlooked aspects of the empirical costs of legalizing same-sex marriage.

Some of the overlooked aspects include the ways in which same sex marriage expands the marital institution to include gender identity, transgender individuals, transsexual individuals, bisexual individuals who want a same-sex marriage, and how these new dimensions will impact the marriage institution.
The marriage institution will be impacted not because same-sex couples can’t procreate within their union, but rather quite the opposite: the fact that there are many same-sex couples raising children will change family law within the marriage institution.

How Transgender, Transsexual, and Bisexual Identities will Impact the Marriage Institution

The legalization of same-sex marriage opens the door for the final blow to sex distinctions within marriage and within society. The combination of the legalization of SSM (same-sex marriage), the legal acknowledgement of transgender identity, transsexual transitions, bisexual individuals, and reverse transsexual transitions, has created new dimensions to the marriage institution that will now include not only heterosexual, but also homosexual, bisexual, transsexual and transgendered individuals.

Individuals who were once husbands in a marriage can now become wives, and wives can now become husbands either with or without a sex-change operation “within” a marriage.
A male can become a female, and a female can become a male, a boy can be a girl, a girl can be a boy, a mother can now become a father with or without a sex-change operation “within” a marriage, a grandfather can now become a grandmother or a grandmother a grandfather, an uncle can become an aunt, and an aunt can become an uncle.

Darren Rosenblum, a gay man who identifies himself as a “mother” writes in his paper "Unsex Mothering: Toward a New Culture of Parenting":
"In the actual act of parenting, biology plays no necessary role. Unsexed mothering is relational, not biological, and it is an act, not a fixed identity. While biological elements may undoubtedly further that relationship, one need not engage in these functions in order to mother a child. A male parent could say to others, “I am the child’s mother.”
In his debate against Dennis Prager, Perez Hilton echoes a similar thought process. He argues that males and females are only different in relation to their body parts, but overall males and females can accomplish the same things."

In other words males and females, in principle, are not pre-disposed to having certain essential and unique qualities different from one another that make them better suited as mother or father. Hilton stated:

"I believe that men and women are the same… I believe that I am the same as my sister…We may havdifferent body parts, but we're...[we] make equal contributions to society." [Typically he confuses sameness with equality.]

Dennis Prager responded to Perez by stating:
"Perez, I actually respect your intellectual honesty here. See, a lot of people I debate on this acknowledge that men and women are profoundly different. Perez thinks that we are, except for body parts, identical. If you believe that, then it doesn't matter what gender you marry." [Haha! No need then for same sex marriage!]

In her paper “When Children Are Better Off Fatherless,” Michele Weldon argues that children don’t even need male fathers. In support of her case she quotes Joseph Pleck’s (of the University of Illinois) book “Fathers in Cultural Context,” in which Pleck writes: “The notion that fathering is essential to children’s social and personality development seems to be a uniquely American preoccupation. Current research actually provides little support for … this popular conception of paternal essentiality.”

Even in same-sex parenting research, biology is downplayed. Professor Douglas Allen notes in his assessment of same-sex parenting studies:
"One element of feminist theory that crops up within this literature is the irrelevance of biology — a major theoretical competitor to feminist theories of the family. The importance of gender over sex has already been mentioned. Males can make good parents if they parent “like a female.” Another area is in the role of “social mother,” the mother not biologically related to the child. Goldberg et al. (2008) claim that by the time a child is 3.5 years old, children are indifferent between the biological and social mother. Based on a biased sample of 30 couples and some very soft questions they conclude: “These women demonstrate the power of “social motherhood” in creating maternal connections that transcend biological relatedness over time" (432).

The Iowa Supreme Court also echoed that a parent’s sex doesn’t matter when they concluded:
"The research appears to strongly support the conclusion that same-sex couples foster the same wholesome environment as opposite-sex couples and suggests that the traditional notion that children need a mother and a father to be raised into healthy, well-adjusted adults is based more on stereotype than anything else." In Varnum v Brien Supreme Court of Iowa, No. 07–1499, Filed 3 April 2009 (54 fn. 26).

From the above quotes it is reasonable to conclude that if one is to accept same-sex marriage, one must also accept the premise that male and females and all of the manifestations that traditionally derive from male and female distinctions (man, woman, mother, father, husband, wife, boy, girl etc.) are not biologically binding. 

I provide additional support for this contention with the following examples of transsexual and transgender individuals who transitioned “within” their marriages and still maintained their marriage.

One example is the case of Jonni and Angela Pettit in Pacifica, CA.


Angela used to be David but underwent sex-reassignment surgery. He decided he wanted to live as a woman, and Jonni still wanted to stay married to David even after his SRS operation. Here we see the transition not just from a male to female, but from a husband to a wife, and from a heterosexual marriage to a same-sex marriage.

In an article entitled “A Mom Becomes A Man, And A Family Sticks Together,” Les, who was born a female and married to her husband, felt like a man inside and wanted to transition into a man.
After she told her husband Scot about how she was feeling, Scot was surprised at first but was supportive of the transition and wanted to stay married. Scot and Les had 2 daughters before Les’s transition. In this case we not only see the transition from a female to a male, but also the transition of a wife to a co-husband, a mom to a dad, a heterosexual marriage to a same-sex marriage.

Laura Lang tells the story of Alyson Meiselman who was born Alan and transitioned “within” his marriage:
"Alyson Meiselman, born Alan Meiselman, started taking hormone treatments last year and now dresses in women's clothing. Her driver's license, her birth certificate, and all her other important documents say she's a woman. In the next few months, she'll take a trip to Canada, where a doctor will perform gender-reassignment surgery--completing her transition. It's a big change, but Meiselman and her family like to say that nothing else, really, about their lives in North Potomac, Md., is different. She remains spouse and "Dad" to her wife and three kids. She's also continuing a family law practice in Montgomery County, despite snubs from colleagues and a judicial bench that's hardly greeted her with open arms. In this case we see the transition from male to female, but there is a curveball in this case in that there is no transition from dad to mom. The children still see their now female parent as “dad."

The example of Thomas Beatie is actually a transgender case due to the fact that Thomas never fully transitioned into a male and he still became pregnant even though his “gender identity” was legally changed. Before his marriage Thomas (who was and still is a female) had undergone a double mastectomy, and had taken testosterone since 1997: 
He changed all his legal paperwork to reflect his transition from female to male, but he retained his female reproductive organs and bore three children during his marriage to Nancy; he had stopped taking testosterone around 2006 in order become pregnant, as Nancy had had a hysterectomy. In late March a judge in Arizona ruled that Beatie and his wife, Nancy Roberts Beatie, could not be granted a divorce because they could not be considered legally married. Maricopa County Family Court judge Douglas Gerlach said there was insufficient evidence that Beatie was male when the couple married in Hawaii in 2003, although Hawaii considered them a legally married, opposite-sex couple; they moved to Arizona in 2010. Beatie is appealing the ruling, saying it fails to recognize his gender identity, that he wants his children to know their parents were legally married, and that he fears complications if he wants to marry again.
 [He fears complications?  Oh my God, what a mess!]

The added dimension of transgender identity to the marriage institution was specifically emphasized when New Zealand legalized same-sex marriage. Elizabeth Mcdonald writes:
"The legislation, does not just provide that same-sex couples may marry. Section 5 of the act amended the interpretation section of the Marriage Act 1955 to read: "marriage means the union of two people, regardless of their sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity" (emphasis added). This definition is significant as it allows the marriage of any two people, without the need for either person to define themselves as either the same or different sex as their partner, or to be legally recognized as either male or female. The definition therefore will allow a transgender man (someone born with a female body who has a male gender identify) to legally marry a cisgender woman (someone born with a female body and a female gender identify) without having to first establish his legal sex. It allows a person who identifies as intersex (a general term used for a variety of conditions in which a person is born with a reproductive anatomy that does not seem to fit with the typical biological definitions of female or male) and whose birth certificate records their sex as indeterminate to marry any other person."

In Italy, a Bolognese couple, Alessandro and Alessandra Bernaroli, had their marriage dissolved by the State against their will when the “former” husband and now co-wife, Alessandro, changed sex and became Alessandra. The local marriage registry took note of her name change and automatically dissolved their marriage because it was a same-sex marriage.

Darren Rosenblum writes: “We now know, based on social science, theory, and practice that the identities of 'male' and 'female' are not irrevocably attached to biosex. Men can become women and women can become men. Furthermore, gender itself shifts; 'women' can be 'masculine' and 'men' can be feminine.”

If what Rosenblum writes is true, then many questions need to be posed. For it seems that supporting the seemingly modest demands of the LGBT movement -- such as same-sex marriage--necessitates accepting a whole host of existential changes that were neither presented to the public in good faith, nor scrutinized closely for their potential collateral damage.

SSM is both a battering ram and a bridge.

Since the institution of marriage has a high status and recognition in society, the legalization of same-sex marriage acts as both a battering ram and a bridge to open the door for the annihilation of existing sex distinctions and gender distinctions, as well as the manifestations of an entirely new sexual system.

There are many manifestations throughout society that have risen to the surface as a result of blurring the lines of sex distinctions and the entrance of transgender identity. (Keep in mind that a transgender person has not physically or will not physically change their body, but still identifies as the opposite sex, whereas transsexuals have changed their bodies to the opposite sex.)

Examples of this can be seen most clearly in Massachusetts (the first state to legalize SSM), Canada (the second country to legalize SSM), and California (the most populous state to legalize gay marriage).
Lindsey Tanner reports that there is an increase of children in Massachusetts who are undergoing sex transitions:
His report (Dr. Norman Spack) details a fourfold increase in patients at the Boston hospital. His Gender Management Service clinic, which opened at the hospital in 2007, averages about 19 patients each year, compared with about four per year treated for gender issues at the hospital in the late 1990s. 
The report details 97 girls and boys treated between 1998 and 2010; the youngest was 4 years old. Kids that young and their families get psychological counseling and are monitored until the first signs of puberty emerge, usually around age 11 or 12.


The Huffington Post has a page full of examples of the increase in people “coming out of the closet” as transgendered.
In the UK, same-sex marriage has also been legalized. The country is also seeing a growing trend in transgendered children: The number of children wanting a sex change in 2012 saw an increase of 50 per cent compared to the previous year. According to The Royal College of Psychiatrists people are coming forward at a younger age as the internet fuels increasing knowledge and acceptance of transgender people. Campaigners have called for more routine use of puberty-delaying drugs for children who feel from a young age that they are in the wrong body.

Massachusetts has also made it legal for transgender children who “psychologically” identify as the opposite “gender” to use the restrooms, locker-rooms, changing rooms, and participate on sports teams of individuals’ of the opposite “sex.” Here we see the confusion between “sex” and “gender.” Massachusetts public schools (junior high and high schools) also have transgender workshops promoting the transgender lifestyle. Many more examples of the annihilation of sexual distinction in Massachusetts are thoroughly documented by Mass Resistance pages such as this one and this one.

In Canada, Bill C-279 will soon be legalized which lets transgendered individuals use private female spaces such as restrooms, locker-rooms, communal showers, etc.  In California, where same-sex marriage has also been legalized, The California State Assembly passed a bill mandating that schools permit transgender identified individuals to participate on athletic teams and use locker-rooms of the “gender” they identify with regardless if they are of the opposite “sex.” The bill’s author was a gay activist by the name of Tom Ammiano.

In her article entitled “Shape-Shifters are Changing America” Fay Voshell describes the above trans accommodations by making the following points:

"Mostly unbeknownst to most of us mortals, a modern day shape-shifter can become the opposite of the sex he or she was born as, transforming into a man or woman in an instant. It doesn't matter if the biological assignment given at birth remains. Proclamation of one's sexual identity is enough. One's gender can be established by fiat. Even children may change sex just by proclamation, as the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary School guidelines affirm, stating that even if a child physiologically resembles a boy in every respect, but decides to be a girl, his new identity is to be acknowledged as the "real" one. The modern-day equivalent of the gods visiting unsuspecting women unawares in areas where they thought they were safe from male predators just might be the ladies' public bathroom, now open in an ever increasing number of states to any man who self-identifies as a woman. The 6'4" hairy guy who just came into the women's bathroom to relieve himself is not at all what he appears to be. No; no! He is a sort of god in disguise. He has by mere will transformed himself into a woman. Move along, lady. There's nothing to see -- or fear. Don't believe your lying eyes."

All of the above example are manifestations of what happens when a country’s central institution is desexed and the individuals within such an institution can morph back and forth between sex, gender, mother and father, husband and wife, boy and girl, male and female, heterosexual marriage and same sex marriage.

Deeper Implications

The following questions have been summoned by feminist writer Elizabeth Hungerford:

"The maxim “trans women are women” is a false equivalency that means at least three things. First, it means that being raised as girl from birth is not an important or relevant aspect of being a “woman” because one can be a woman without these formative experiences. Second, it means that having a female body is not an important or relevant aspect of being a “woman” because one can be a woman without being female bodied. And third, it means that to be a “woman” simply reflects an individual’s desired relation to the social category “woman;” rather than serving as shorthand for the physical and cumulative experiential realities specific to female-born (and certain intersex) people around the globe.
To be a “woman” is to have been assigned the girl/woman social position at birth;[YES Abaolutely right] subjective identification with that social position is irrelevant and varies wildly. Reducing the experience of womanhood to a subjectively defined “inner knowledge” that is “inclusive” of anyone who claims to have such inner womanly knowledge erases the lived realities and material constraints placed on women and girls from birth– regardless of whether women enjoy being “women” or not, and regardless of whether they “identify” with other women or not."

Hungerford’s argument that to be a woman is in part, to have the social experiences that women face every day due to their biology that males don’t have, is strengthened by a transsexual individual that was once a male but is now a female when asked, “How differently are you treated now that you are a woman from when you were considered male?" Here was the answer:

"Wow, there’s a whole book in answer to this question, I think the first thing that was noticeable was that overnight people stopped automatically assuming that I was right about stuff, my factual advice was treated as suspect, whereas emotional advice was taken more seriously. People also seemed to not be able to tell when I was joking as quickly, there was an expectation that I would be serious, that any sarcasm, or pretending not to get something for comic effect was me actually not getting things. The pressures to behave were changed, before I transitioned I was very skinny and I remember my mum telling me that I needed to bulk up because “what if you were on a bus and a woman got on with a baby, you’d need to be able to help her with her pram, what sort of a man wouldn’t be strong enough to do that?” as soon as I transitioned it was suddenly not an issue.”

Another feminist writer by the name of GallusMag takes her readers down the dark road that denying “sex” distinctions leads to when she writes:
"But they (transgender women) do more than deny female reality and make kooky claims: They are using the political capital of Lesbians and Gays to pass laws enforcing their male-centric female-phobic sexist views. “Gender Identity Protections” are laws that eliminate sex-based protections for females.
Examples of such protected areas are: bathrooms, hospital bed assignments, prisons, locker rooms, sports competitions, statistical data collection, Title IX endowments, women’s health resources, statistics and research endowment, sex-based crime statistics, support groups, rape crisis centers, communal showers, children’s sleepover camps, women’s shelters, and women’s colleges.
One of the tropes Transjacktivists use to promote and legalize their desire to eliminate female spaces is to assert that males with GID are speshul snowflakes or claim that males wouldn’t adopt transgenderism in order to prey on women. Or that males who are arrested repeatedly for getting off on watching women perform intimate activities (in places they assume they are free from males) wouldn’t go through the trouble of putting on a wig that makes those same activities legal. Whut??? Are you out of your mind? Why wouldn’t a guy who risks arrest repeatedly to invade women’s space comply with measures which make his activities legal?? It’s considerably less inconvenient to put on a skirt and some lippy than to be arrested and processed, make bail, go before a judge, etc. etc. "

Transjacktivists claim that arrest statistics for peeping and perving don’t show a sharp increase in states where men are allowed in women’s spaces. Of course they don’t. Making a formerly illegal behavior legal seldom results in more arrests for (now legal) behavior. Duh! The truth is that guys do this all the time. And they’ll do whatever it takes to perv on females.

Here are some of the things they’ll do to get into female spaces: Hide cameras and microphones in female spaces. Crawl through ventilation ducts to view female spaces. Install double mirrors to view female spaces. Drill holes in walls to peep at women’s spaces. Place cameras in shopping bags next to females wearing skirts. Risking arrest –and repeat arrest- sneaking into women’s restrooms. Dress up as and try to pass as female. Claim they are female. Try to pass laws permitting men who claim they are female to legally enter spaces where females do not want men. Try to pass laws that state that females don’t actually exist. Force law enforcement and media outlets to report male crimes against women as woman-on-woman crime, if the male is diagnosed with GID.

So what does all of this have to do with same-sex marriage? Thus far I have demonstrated that in order to accept the premise that same-sex marriage should be legalized, one will have accept that there are no inherent differences (besides mere body-parts) between males and females. One must presume that they don’t have different natures, or thought processes, or behavioral patterns.

If one thinks that there are no inherent differences between males/females then, one also must accept that it doesn’t matter for a child to have a biological male and biological female as parents, just any two loving, responsible people with parenting skills will do.

Thus since there are no distinctions between males and females, then a man can become a woman, a woman can become a man, a mother can become a father, a husband can become a wife, an uncle can become an aunt, a grandmother can become a grandfather. More importantly, a child doesn’t need a male parent or a female parent in particular because both sexes don’t offer anything unique and essential to the child “in principle”. Both sexes are interchangeable.  Thus if nothing is different then what is the difference if a non-op or a pre-op male uses a female restroom, locker room, or rape shelter; or is included on a woman’s athletics team?

Biology on Trial in Same-Sex Custody Cases

If nothing is different, then what is the difference if there is no legal primacy given to a responsible, biological parent in three way, gay and lesbian custody battles? For example in Australia when “a sperm-donor/hands-on dad has his parental rights terminated in favor of those of a lesbian mother with no biological relationship to the child"?

If nothing is different, then what is the difference if a gay sperm donor (to a lesbian couple) who played an active role in his child’s life, doesn’t get acknowledged by law as a parent and therefore cannot see his child because the lesbian couple moved far away?

If nothing is different, then what is the difference if a sperm donor decides not to pay child support to a lesbian parent in the event that the lesbian and her partner broke up and when no doctor was involved in the insemination process (which would have discounted the sperm donor as a parent)?

If nothing is different, then what is the difference if a bisexual woman who had a child through IVF in her lesbian relationship, broke up with her lesbian partner, started a romantic relationship with the original sperm donor, attempted with the sperm donor to get full parental rights of the child, and the sperm donor doesn’t get parental rights, but the non-biological ex-lesbian partner of the bisexual gets parental rights instead?

If nothing is different, then what is the difference when a man who was once married to his wife for 20 years, comes to the conclusion that he is gay, gets divorced from his wife with whom he had a 12-year-old son, and his ex-wife tries to deny him overnight visitation because his cohabitating partner is gay and she thinks that her 12-year-old boy will have a difficult time understanding his father’s sudden switch of sexual orientation and cohabitation with a same-sex partner?  Is it in the child’s best interest for his father with a recent drug-addicted past to keep him overnight when he cohabits with a same-sex partner, especially when the child is accustomed to seeing his father with his mother?

Moreover, if Arkansas was a state that legalized same-sex marriage and the father was married to his same-sex partner, would this be an issue? What are the negative impacts on the institution of marriage from cases like this? Most importantly, even if Arkansas legalized same-sex marriage, and this particular situation wouldn’t be an issue, the question remains: “is it in the best interest of the child who has known his father as being in a heterosexual relationship with his mother, to stay overnight in the context of his married father’s house?"
I ask this question assuming that the father’s companion is a harmless person, but yet at the same time emphasizing the child and the child’s understanding of the situation.

Bizarre situations like this which are unique to (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual, transgender, unions) will continue to arise in the court systems.
Some courts have tried to tap dance around these issues by making three or more legal and equal parents, such as in Pennsylvania, Florida, and California.

Three or more equal, legal parents is something that is "in principle" a homosexual circumstance due to the fact that gays and lesbians "always" need a 3rd party and sometimes even 4 parties to have a child. The bill signed by Governor Jerry Brown of California was a reflection of a circumstance that arises when things go bad between homosexual couples that have children.

 Family law will change for all due to the inclusion of three or more equal parents, especially in the circumstance of gay divorce since their union "in principle" required a third party.

"In principle," hetero and homosexual families are not situated the same.

Guro Hansen Helskog made an insightful statement when he claimed that “Parents used to have lots of children - now children have lots of parents.” Indeed, as families in Western countries have less children more laws are being put into action that give a child more than two parents.  Family scholar Elizabeth Marquardt addressed the 3 or more parent laws by stating:
Supporters of the rulings argue that if two parents are good for children, aren’t three better? True, some three-parent petitions are brought by adults who appear deeply committed to the child in question. In the Ontario case, the two women and the father all seem devoted to the boy. But in Pennsylvania, the sperm donor, whom the children called 'Papa,' was ordered to pay child support over his objections, and the lesbian co-mothers have already ended their relationship.
What is the harm if other American courts follow Pennsylvania’s example? For one thing, three-parent situations typically involve a couple and a third person living separately, meaning the child will get shuffled between homes, and this raises problems […] Conflicts will undoubtedly arise when three parents confront the sticky, conflict-ridden reality of child-raising, often leading to a nasty, three-way custody battle. Even if they part amicably, they may still want to live in three different homes. In that case, how many homes should children travel between to satisfy the parenting needs of many adults? Finally, why should courts stop at assigning children only three parents? Some situations involve a couple who wants the child, the sperm donor, the egg donor and the gestational surrogate who carries the pregnancy. If we allow three legal parents, why not five?

Family scholar Jane Adolphe addresses the 3 or more parents laws by noting: "If two parents are better than one, then shouldn’t three be better than two? 'Legal parent' becomes an umbrella notion for various subsets of parents, all stakeholders with no preference for one individual or set: natural/biological parents; adoptive parents, step parents, grandparents; social parents; psychological parents; intentional parents, gestational parent, sperm donor parent, egg donor parent and so forth. With the redefinition of marriage and the separation between biology and bond, the trend toward multiple parents is legitimized.Adoption laws, previously an exception to the natural family and natural parenthood, now become a discrete set of rules unmoored from their foundation. This translates into the rejection of the general principles that biology and relationship ought to be in the same two persons and that a child ought to have one set of parents. The end result is that natural or biological parents become just one of many stakeholders in a child’s life based on the idea that it takes a village to raise a child. This is a marked departure from the principle that primary care rests with the natural family (including the extended family) which assistance and support from others based on the principle of subsidiarity (eg religious, Communities, neighbors, friends, and State). These dramatic changes are driven by a rhetoric of adult rights, spearheaded by the needs of same-sex couples, without any serious discussion about whether this is good for children."

Why is this so? How is this so? As previously noted, the adoption system has been developed as an exception to the natural family. The underlying assumption is that biological parents are more likely to better care for their own children. Therefore, before adoption is possible, parental consent is required and the prospective new parents must meet requisite standards of fitness. Since, it is better for children to be raised in stable, two parent, married families, preference has been given to placing children in this environment.

Lawyer Nancy Polikoff explains the new multiple parent law:
"This statutory authorization, however, is most likely to impact heterosexuals, given how much divorce and remarriage there is. The provision will mean that if both the custodial and the noncustodial parent agree, then the custodial parent's new husband will be able to adopt the child without terminating the rights of the noncustodial parent. I have been advocating such a possibility for years, but this is the first law explicitly sanctioning such arrangements. The divorce rate of second marriages is at least as high as that of first marriages, which means that down the road we will be looking at multiple-parent custody and visitation arrangements on a regular basis."

The central problem is not that same-sex couples cannot reproduce!
On the contrary, the central problem is that they can. It's how they reproduce that poses such a lethal threat. Social harm is inherent to the way same-sex (as well as bisexual, transgendered and transsexual couples) “raise” children in their households.
The central problem has nothing to do with whether or not same-sex couples are good parents or not, but rather the fact that the architecture of the family institution of marriage and divorce has been designed, tailored, and developed over 200 years in the U.S. specifically for children in the context of heterosexual, monogamous relationships.

Regardless if one thinks marriage is no longer about children, the fact still remains that the family institution of marriage is designed and still primarily functions as a safety-net to protect children. The architecture of the institution of marriage and family law isn’t designed or tailored for issues that arise in same-sex couple’s households and divorces, or for the new dimensions of bisexual, transsexual, and transgender households that raise children and their divorces.
The present architecture for the institution of marriage is designed in the framework of heterosexual, monogamous, static gender identities, static sex identities, static sexual orientations, not homosexual orientations, or bisexual orientations, transgender identities, transsexual identities, or for situations in which three or more parents are used to create a child “in principle.”
Such a law (three or more equal, legal parents) defeats the purpose of monogamy and there isn’t really any reason why there cannot be group marriage or polyamorous marriage especially since bisexuality is being nationally recognized.

So how will the inclusion of same-sex couples into the family institution of marriage hurt heterosexual marriages and divorces?
Professor Douglas Allen answers that question by making the following points:

"Once legal decisions on these issues are made, the question is, what impact will they have on the elephant in the room: the vast majority of heterosexual marriages? After all, all three relationships (heterosexual, gay, lesbian) will be regulated by the same law. If we return to the theory that marriage is an efficient institution designed around the needs of heterosexual couples, then only one conclusion follows: To the extent marriage is changed to accommodate the demands of same-sex couples, these changes will hurt heterosexual marriages. To the extent changes are not made, same-sex couples will find marriage laws unsatisfactory and inefficient for their needs. As a practical matter, it seems unlikely that same-sex couples would be ignored by the courts, and courts will recognize the different types of families along the spectrum of cases. Once the constraint of a definition of marriage based on biology is removed, these changes will occur with little notice, and minimal immediate effect. Issues will come up, courts will struggle with how to manage them, the common law will evolve, but the sun will still rise the next day. But the bottom line is that these new common laws will apply to heterosexual couples covered under the same family law, and over time the loopholes and areas of poor fit will be exploited by husbands or wives seeking to better themselves at the expense of other members of the family. The value of marriage as an institution will fall, fewer people will marry, more will seek private methods to protect themselves from ex post marriage exploitation, and the final result will be lower fertility rates and more children raised in single-parent homes. It is this feedback that presents the fundamental danger to heterosexual marriage."


http://englishmanif.blogspot.com/2013/11/la-joie-de-vivre-14-why-same-sex.html

Monday 18 November 2013

Child Bought by Homosexuals Speaks out against Same-sex Marriage and Adoption

[From English Manif website] In this edition of La Joie de Vivre, I present a translation of a manifesto written by a teenage boy in Europe, who was conceived through an illegal transaction between a homosexual man and a surrogate mother. 
The boy goes by the name of Manuel Half. To protect him I have scrubbed any references to his real name, his city, his language, or his nation. One day, I am sure, he will come forward and speak publicly. But for now, he is vulnerable and must finish school without dealing with the backlash from LGBT militants and his controlling homosexual father.
He wrote to me upon the recommendation of Hommen, the radical children's rights movement, composed entirely of young men, which arose in response to Femmen and against homosexual adoption in France. Since its inception, Hommen spread quickly to other nations. 

Manuel Half has been struggling painfully with his home situation, for he feels deep anger at his homosexual father for buying him, for erasing the role of his mother, and exposing him to homosexuality in the home, which Manuel feels compromised his masculinity and caused confusion in him. As his manifesto explains, he had a breakdown one night and did an internet search on his computer, looking for resources for disenchanted children of homosexual surrogacy contracts.
He found Hommen and was immediately lured by the courage and idealism of the young men's movement, which he correctly viewed as pro-children's rights rather than "anti-gay." But Hommen has a strict rule that males must be twenty years old before joining their group, so someone in the organization forwarded Manuel Half to me for mentorship and help. 

When Manuel contacted me, I wanted to help him but felt fearful of his father's backlash. Like other children of same-sex couples who have contacted me, he is torn between self-preservation and self-expression. This is the dilemma that children of gays and lesbians can understand better than anybody else: Having been, so often, groomed explicitly for the purpose of vindicating our parents against their own sense of inadequacy, we learn that our whole reason for being is to protect the people who raised us from judgment and criticism. The rage and resentment we feel is something that years of emotional blackmail have usually taught us to suppress and modulate. It is crucial to choose the right time to come forward and declare one's independence from the homosexual ideology that framed and dictated our psychological relationship to the world around us.

In communicating with Manuel Half, I found that he poses a particularly difficult case. While my counsel is usually to stay away from the public eye, to avoid the wrath of homosexual extremists and one's own parents, I realize that he is different from other children of same-sex couples I've come into contact with. He does not want to wait. He is not content with having me protest on his behalf. He feels the urge to come out of the closet with his true feelings, and fight for the rights of other children not to be created in the kind of bondage he has known.

He reminds me in many ways of my mother, the daring Puerto Rican lesbian who would not be told how to live back in the late 1960s. Manuel is not a person who can live in silence, in a closet, or inside lies. But as a means of compromise, to keep him from exposing himself to too much hurt, others and I have convinced him to accept at least, the "mask" of a pseudonym and cautious internet anonymity. 

I know that for him, to keep his feelings at bay and not leap into the fray alongside Hommen, publicly denouncing the wrongs he has experienced, is a heroic act of restraint on his part. It takes courage, sometimes, not to be too courageous. And so, in honor of him, to pay homage to the strength he has in living through his torment without exploding, I have translated his manifesto below. I invite you to read it.

The Manifesto of Manuel Half, and Ode to Hommen
by Manuel Half

It is an October evening.
There you are, along with me and my dread of hearing you scream at the computer, as you are prone to do.
Against the the TV and the radio too. You do it all the time.
It changes you, the anger, when it surges. The anger when people do not listen. The people, they are something else -- they are all wicked, you say, those who want to hold your head under the water.

The air is hot outside, and it is hot inside. Inside and out it is hot, for it is October in ----------------. The sound of something flung close by, in your rage, upon the ground, I hear it. In fury you shout and you stomp around and you curse your own hide.
People are wicked you say, yet they obey. And you shield yourself with you and your jokes, which you have turned into poison darts.

I asked you nothing. You replied only to my face, which has always been waiting for this. They are bastards, you chanted and repeated, just in the time that you fled to your room.
This was enough for me. But then, changing gears, you explained to me the meaning of my life. I listened to you, sitting down, and you, shrugging, were speaking in rapid-fire bursts, shooting at air targets with your arms.
People are wicked, you scream, those people who say you are not equal. Those whose love they say your love cannot equal. Those who say your boyfriend is worth less, and those for whom even less your son is worth.

People do not understand a homosexual father. Because of this, you make me call you by your name. It's more practical, more plausible. Maybe, by calling you Papa, some feeling would be kindled inside me.

But it's good night, and then that is enough, and off you went to bed.

What now? I turn on my portable radio, which I use to block out your screams.
I cannot sleep. I cannot sleep.

You were screaming at your PC. I move the mouse and away goes my face, which I use as a screensaver. There -- because of your scream, it appeared on the screen. I block myself off, focusing only on what I have found on the net: that logo, those colors, twenty seconds, adrenaline, which fix everything in my mind, and I turn around the room, on that October night, in ------------. So it goes all night.

The name I find is new, men of a new world, as new as the thoughts and the words brandished. Eager, as one who jumps and grabs at banknotes falling from the heaven in the millions, I save as many words as possible. This drive to know, to know all, cannot be quenched.
And that is how I spent the night, watching them -(The Hommen)- proud and strong, unstoppable warriors. White masks to wear, all of them, as they strut in the street. You fighters give me the will that did not exist before, the will that wasn't in me yet. Defenders of the future, as nobody like you has understood, you go to the source, to try to cover the poison wells.
And where the others, for defense, build up holy and true words, you go for the attack, to stop the bloodletting by the destroyers. And there I go with you, me too. As a warrior in the face of his wounded father.

And there--I meet my father! To call out his crimes! He is small and lisping, clawing and clinging to the man he is not.
I say to him: Your invented world stands firm on a foundation of lies: And if you only lie and if you only lie more still, you will array that world of slaves and slavery, with painted and glittering shackles. I am not, and am, only your trophy to piece together and take apart again, to show and hide as it suits you. I come to tell you this, to scream at you, my torso bare, clothed with words of truth, to tell you all this and strike a blow against you, with a fist raised between poison and the future. For there is a future, now. 

You stand up for the idea of a father without a mother, which is, without a mother, no father at all, but something else. And it, that mother, you say, matters for nothing--don't think of her at all: And don't look for her among people made from fathers and mothers, since you say they suffer with their fathers and mothers.

And you say that I am the example and model that proves your full and healthy wholeness, which you built at the cost of my my full and healthy wholeness.

I am Manuel Half, half a man.

I come from a homosexual father, who boils, who fights, who laughs at women's wombs, another mother of another world--my reality, where there is neither father nor mother.

I am Manuel Half, half a man, from a homosexual father.

I wear my mask, white for truth. I craft my tear, black for lies. I wave my fist, red for pain.

I come against you, father, ready to stop you. To shout against you, I am the half who filled your void.

Fight with me, Father, to discover that love that you say was always denied you, to find the man that is man only if there is woman. And father only if there is mother. It is this new world I have found, overflowing with a love not extorted, not half but rather complete. That world is the true one. 

I am he who stands before you, masked and true, to stop the bloodletting and the poisonous lies. You can touch me. Erase with one blow the hardened tear that is printed unmovingly and yet speaks.

A son does not see things as a son, cannot scream of the right that by man was taken away.

I am Manuel Half, half a man, from a homosexual father. I will never give up.


MANUEL HALF

http://englishmanif.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/la-joie-de-vivre-13-manifesto-of-manuel.html

Sunday 17 November 2013

Homosexual Intellectual Explains Why We Don't Need Same-Sex "Marriage"

Gay, Atheist, and Militant, Xavier Bongibault explains why he is AGAINST same sex "marriage":


"First I want to explain my point of view. The gay couple is not better, not worse. It is different and it is this difference that must be respected. Do not be afraid of difference. Humanity is humanity [in] that it has differences. " (Hooray   -isn't that exactly what we conservatives keep trying to explain? But we always get shouted down and abused as "bigots"!)

"The legislature can not deny this difference by trying to create the laws of reality all over again. The greatness of man is in the acceptance of his condition. The homosexual union is not fruitful." (Yes that is the reality we keep trying to explain). "Marriage is - and must remain - the foundation of the protection of children and parentage." (Bravo! A man with some moral sense).

"And this is an important principle, that we should not cut children off from their biological parentage, their genealogy. The child is not something you have by "right", the child cannot be claimed like property...." (Well said  - this is exactly why La Manif Pour Tous is opposed to human trafficking, the odious outcome of bogus same-sex "marriage").


Xavier Bongibault is one of the many intelligent, highly-educated homosexuals who campaigns with La Manif Pour Tous against same-sex "marriage". He is pictured above at a LMPT rally in the company of its leaders.

http://xavierbongibault.fr/plus-gay-sans-mariage-et-gay-pour-la-vie/

Sunday 3 November 2013

First French Homosexual Divorce Already

Only six months after same-sex marriage was so contentiously pushed through in France, the first same-sex couples have started to file for divorce.
Just as in America and Canada, the pattern is that homosexual relationships do not last. They break up sooner and more acrimoniously than heterosexual ones...and no wonder. There is no basis in mutual complementarity to give them any stability.
The first couple to apply for SSD is a pair of females whose intention in getting "married" was bogus from the outset. They had gone through a wedding ceremony already in the USA in 2011 and by 2013 were living apart! They then carried out the ridiculous sham of a second marriage under French law, just so that they could apply for a divorce in France!!!
      The only reason they wanted this travesty of "marriage" was so that the courts would adjudicate their financial problems, such as shared debt.
       It is all so romantic isn't it? Marriage and family being trashed by politicians and trivialized by litigious lesbians.


http://m.thelocal.fr/20131029/france-sees-first-gay-divorce-since-new-law-marriage