If you and your friend can truly have thoughtful discussions, I might say something like this. Both easy divorce and gay marriage are centered around the desires of adults and discount the needs of children. When easier divorce laws were being debated in the early 1970s, some people said that it would be good for children because they wouldn't have to hear their parents fight. The child would also benefit from having two rooms, more toys and more brothers and sisters to play with. These arguments were obviously false. It will similarly take some 30 years before we really know how large numbers of children react to having been raised in lesbian/homosexual households.
Gay rights supporters frequently point to the divorce rate as a reason to support gay marriage, but both liberals and conservatives can find common ground in backing stricter divorce laws. You may tell your friend that heterosexuals have not treated marriage well over the past 40 years, but this is not a reason to back gay marriage. Heterosexuals needs to do better.
I have no doubt that homosexuals or lesbians can love their children, just as other people do, but not all of these loving situations (and I'm not being vulgar) put the interests of children first. To give extreme examples, members of the Mafia and el-Qaida probably love their children.
Children should not be used to support some agenda. Gay families entering the Easter egg event on the White House lawn are an example of this
Every gay family that deliberately brings a child into the world is placing his/her own desires first. My same-sex relationship is so important to me that you are going to go without a father or mother, in other words.
You might also point to the website of a Canadian women who was raised in a homosexual household: http://www.dawnstefanowicz.com/
These are some ideas. The web site might be good.
You are absolutely right. When homosexuals point to the divorce rate of heterosexual couples as a justification for gay marriage, the truthful response is that the divorce rate is deplorable. To demand gay marriage by attaching it to the bad behavior of those who made lifelong committments to another and broke those vows amounts to a weak argument. Two wrongs don't make a right.
PLEASE NOTE: I am NOT referring to those who have divorced for very good reasons. No one would expect a person to stay with an abusive spouse, and the abuse might not necessarily mean physical abuse.
But 50%? I don't believe they're all abuse cases. Maybe we should be looking at the wife who wants her job/career and the husband who wants the same. BUT, they also want a baby! A baby they give over to one of the Moms or to a daycare. Neither wants to stay home and be the prime caretaker of their own child! The career comes before the baby they HAD to have. In other words, they want it all.
If it's true that some (who?) touted the idea that divorce would be good for children (in some instances it would be the lesser of two evils, for sure), citing the two rooms, more brothers & sisters to play with, I never heard that nonsense.
While some of us had the insight and saw the consequences to children, due to divorce, amazingly it must have taken some others many years to wake up to it, and some still wear their selfish blinders.
What is their mantra? "If I'm happy, then my kids have to be happy." Unbelievable!
I would hope you're wrong that some children will be made to live with homosexual couples for a long time until it's proven that they have been messed up. Again, many of us already see the bad outcome, but we do not decide.
It's all very sad. Can we do more?