Comment from “MidGaGuy” at National Review:
As a gay man who is an adoptive father — can’t we all agree that children raised by caring loving parents are better off than those in unstable, broken systems or institutions. My three children were adopted from the foster care system but part of what opened my heart to adoption was spending time in Eastern European orphanages. No child should ever be subjected to that life. When my partner and I were training for adoption we met many couples who came from a conservative religious perspective, I hope we found some common ground during those 30 hours because a caring parent regardless of religious affiliation or sexual orientation beats instability or an institution hands down any day. This ought to be an issue that unites the right and the left.
The comment came as part of the discussion of a post by David French responding to suspicions of evangelicals’ supposed “orphan fever.” Relatedly, Ramesh Ponnuru at National Review has responded to my recent post on the adoption-unfriendly tone taken by certain social conservatives in denouncing gay parenthood, and I’ve added a brief addendum to my post indicating some of our areas of agreement or otherwise.
4 Comments for “Adoption as Bridge Across the Culture-War Divide”
posted by Houndentenor on
Do you actually know any Evangelicals?
I swear sometimes when talking to Republicans it’s as if they’ve never met the base of their own party.
posted by Lori Heine on
I know a few Evangelicals these days, though I’ve lost touch with most of the ones I knew in college.
Generally, I think those in a major city like mine (Phoenix) will be somewhat different than those in rural backwaters, especially in the Bible Belt. I also think there’s a difference between the rank and file and the leadership of their movement.
Their leaders are largely self-appointed, they’re ambitious and self-seeking careerists, they’re greedy to rake in the dollars, and they rely almost exclusively on scaring the hell out of people.
If their minions start (A) no longer fearing gays or believing wacky things about how evil we are and (B) start thinking for themselves, they will then (C) no longer consider the self-appointed shepherds as credible leaders. It is this chain of events that the leaders fear, and it’s behind most of the outrageously hateful things they say.
Adoption is generating all this heat (and so little light) because IT’S ALL ABOUT THE CHILDREN. Kiddies, little puppies, shiny objects must be waved around in front of the minions to get them stirred up. It’s hard to pass out chill pills to an entire mob. Thus we get the temper-tantrums in France.
posted by Clayton on
“…part of what opened my heart to adoption was spending time in Eastern European orphanages. No child should ever be subjected to that life.”
Too bad that Vladamir Putin has just announced he will no longer allow Russian children to be adopted by people living in countries that allow gay marriage.
Good thing that MidGaGuy got his children while it was still possible to do so.
posted by JohnInCA on
… um, have you listened to the gay marriage debate, at all? About half the time it’s about adoption, in which detractors constantly argue that no, we *aren’t* better then foster care or (in the case of surrogacy) not existing.
Hell, apparently half the deal with the riots in France are over adoption.