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December 12, 2005

Better cast away than gay

Here's an interesting twist to the "should same-sex couples be allowed to adopt" issue:

Lynette Burrows, an author on children's rights and a family campaigner, took part in a discussion on the Victoria Derbyshire show on [BBC] Radio Five Live about the new civil partnerships act.

During the programme, she said she did not believe that homosexuals should be allowed to adopt. She added that placing boys with two homosexuals for adoption was as obvious a risk as placing a girl with two heterosexual men who offered themselves as parents. "It is a risk," she said. "You would not give a small girl to two men."

Now, I happen to believe that a blanket ban on gays adopting children does a terrible disservice to the thousands of children in state and/or foster care, who outnumber willing adoptive parents by an enormous margin. A happily married man and woman are the ideal parents, obviously, but here on earth, where ideal situations are often not available, we must make do with alternative good situations. Even if I believed that two doting homosexuals were very likely to "turn" their adopted son or daughter gay, I'd sooner "risk" that than the myriad social afflictions that befall so many children who are raised by no parents at all (or terrible ones).

This Burrows creature has upped the ante considerably in claiming that it's not about homosexuality, but rather about male sexuality — I don't believe I've heard this argument before. Her analogy seems to go like this: a boy being raised by two homosexual men is at the same sort of risk as a girl being raised (why, I have no idea) by two heterosexual men. You wouldn't expect two heterosexual men to turn a little girl into a lesbian, would you? (Insert lame 1980s lady-comic joke here.) So what risk is she talking about? It must be the risk that men who like women's genitalia are every bit as likely to molest a young girl as men who like other men's genitalia are to molest a young boy.

I find myself torn by this sentiment, since you'd never get most rabid anti-gay adoption folk to express it — to them homosexuality is the deviance and pedophilia is an offshoot thereof (viz. Ratzinger et al, 2005). But, given that men of all genital preferences are overwhelmingly unlikely to molest young boys and girls, it's not relevant to the debate at hand. It's also male-bashing at its stark, raving worst.

The police opened a file on Burrows' ostensibly homophobic remarks, which is absurd — firstly because it's miles short of any threshold the coppers would have to meet before they went after free speech, and secondly because what she said was far less homophobic (if at all) than it was sexist. Gay, straight or bi, it appears that any man is a threat to children in Lynette Burrows' universe — egalitarianism perhaps, but of a rather unpalatable sort.

(Cross-posted to the Shotgun.)

Posted by Chris Selley at December 12, 2005 11:21 PM

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Comments

It's kind of homophobic, since it's saying that all gay men are probable pedophiles, but you're right -- it launches itself into the category of blatant, stupid sexism by saying that all men, period, are probable pedophiles towards children of whatever gender they're attracted to...

Posted by: matthew at December 13, 2005 12:15 AM

Very weird (as in, "demented and sad"). I'd wager, however, that her problem is neither with gays nor with men, but with people.

Regrettably, a common characteristic among "campaigners" for anything seems to be a belief that, without appropriate laws and rules, people are generally horrible. I seriously doubt Ms. Burrows trusts women all that much either.

Posted by: Matt at December 13, 2005 12:54 AM

Chris,

You write: "A happily married man and woman are the ideal parents, obviously." Why?

Posted by: Joel Kropf at December 13, 2005 10:24 AM

"A happily married man and woman are the ideal parents, obviously."

Because, God knows (and Burrows confirms), if my wife weren't around to restrain me, I would be molesting my son and daughter endlessly. What a twit

Posted by: Deaner at December 13, 2005 11:41 AM

Joel, I don't know what to tell you. I'm not saying that a lone man or woman, or two men or women in combination, or a man and two deer, or whatever combination of man, machine and beast you want to come up with can't do an exemplary job of raising children — better, even, than millions of happily married men and women — but all other things being equal, children are best raised by a man and a woman because children are created by a man and a woman. I think the burden is yours to prove otherwise.

Posted by: Chris Selley at December 13, 2005 09:47 PM

Chris,

Thanks for responding. For the record, I agree with you that a happily married man and woman are the ideal parents. Just always curious about people's rationale for that or the contrary position. Recent experience suggests that what is "obvious" at one point is often "obviously untrue" a decade later. So it's nice to know what's going on underneath our intuitions at a given point in time.

Posted by: Joel Kropf at December 13, 2005 10:11 PM

I came across your article during a search on my name, which as you can see, is identical to yours.
Congradulations on this well written piece. Your
thoughts are echoed throughout the Miami Beach, Florida Community in which I live.
Thank you for helping inform so many about this important issue.
Joel Kropf
Miami Beach, Florida

Posted by: Joel Kropf at February 20, 2006 03:27 PM