Posted on 07/10/2004 2:11:58 PM PDT by annyokie
ADULT CHILDREN SPEAK OUT ABOUT SAME-SEX PARENTS
It was the TV pictures that first got to Bronagh Cassidy. Same-sex couples marrying in San Francisco: "They were so proud of themselves. And then they had these little children with them." Cassidy, a 27-year-old married mother of two, sighs. "Something inside of me wants to be able to help those kids, because I know they are going to have problems." Sound ignorant, maybe even bigoted? This week, as the Senate is expected to begin debate on a constitutional amendment to protect marriage, many voices will try to convince you that people like Cassidy are, as Cheryl Jacques, head of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights group, put it in a recent letter, "hate-filled people who will stop at nothing to achieve their discriminatory, offensive goals."
But Cassidy knows better: She is one of the first generation of "gayby boom" babies, raised by two moms. Adult children of same-sex parents are rare. I recently came across Cassidy's story by accident, after she e-mailed a friend of mine who is a family scholar.
Back in 1976, Cassidy's mom had a religious ceremony with a woman named Pat. To make Cassidy, they did artificial insemination at home, mixing the sperm of two gay friends "to make sure nobody would ever know who the father was," says Cassidy. (That was in the days before widespread DNA testing.) The two women stayed together for 16 years, until Pat died. Three years later, Cassidy's mother married a man.
What was it like for Cassidy being raised by two women she called "Mom" and "My Pat"?
"When growing up, I always had the feeling of being something unnatural," Cassidy says. "I came out of an unnatural relationship; it was something like I shouldn't be there. On a daily basis, it was something I was conflicted with. I used to wish, honestly that Pat wasn't there."
Why does she oppose same-sex marriage? "It's not something that a seal of approval should be stamped on: We shouldn't say it is a great and wonderful thing and then you have all these kids who later in life will turn around and realize they've been cheated. The adults choose to have that lifestyle and then have a kid. They are fulfilling their emotional needs -- they want to have a child -- and they are not taking into account how that's going to feel to the child; there's a clear difference between having same-sex parents and a mom and a dad."
Sounds judgmental in print. But up close, Cassidy comes across as fiercely protective of her mom (Cassidy is a pen name she's adopted to protect her mom's privacy). Like many children of same-sex parents, she was expected to defend and protect her mothers from society's homophobia. Her own troubled feelings about her family life were clearly unacceptable to her parents. Even now, the prospect of speaking about her own experience gives her the shakes.
Cassidy's story is not science. It's just her own feelings. Many researchers say most kids do just fine in these alternative family forms. Cassidy doesn't buy that research, though. "I don't think a fair study could be conducted because children currently in that family wouldn't necessarily be open to speaking their true feelings about it."
A few years back, she watched "20/20" interviews with children like her. "They were asked questions like: 'Are you happy? Do you love your parents?' I don't think it's fair to ask them those questions. These are their parents. They aren't going to say they are suffering, because they don't want to make their parents feel bad."
Some people will say if Cassidy's mom and "my Pat" had been legally married, everything would have been fine. Cassidy doesn't think so. "Even if society were open to it, there's just the whole issue of your self-identity. I always had the feeling I was in a lab experiment."
She feels driven to do something, say something to protect other children like her. "Whenever I see it on TV, something inside of me says NO. I don't think it's fair that the kids are being put in this situation. They don't have a choice about it."
Do any other adult children with same-sex parents feel the same way? Will we allow any space in this intense debate between adult combatants for something as simple as one child's feelings?
(Readers may reach Maggie Gallagher at MaggieBox2004@yahoo.com.)
COPYRIGHT 2004 MAGGIE GALLAGHER
Actually, in the pursuit of brevity, I left out that my lawyer neighbor and her partner had gone to a fertility clinic to conceive the little boy. (I wasn't trying to be co;, I don't know if the donor was anonymous or a friend).
I have known many single career women who let the clock tick too long who took the same option.
The drive to have children is very strong with many, I'd guess most, women.
They seem to be loving parents and he is a darling child.
I will suffer the flames for saying that he is better off than the children of the children (15 year olds) up the street at the time. At least he was wanted and has a comfortable home with a stay-at-home mom who was 28 when he was born.
Man, are you tolerant.
This what would really screw with a kid's mind.
First, Cassidy's is told she doesn't have a 'dad' (like all her friends and neighbors do), but that she has a "Mom" and a "My Pat". After years of getting used to her unusual 'parentage', her Mom and My Pat have no doubt told her "everything's OK, you're not weird, lesbianism is natural", (can you imagine what kind of self-talk a person (kid) would go through with just the idea that she doesn't have a dad like the others), she sees her "My Pat" die.
Then Mom decides she's not a lesbian and marries a man! Geeeeez, Louise... she must totally distrust her Mom, knowing that she lied to her the whole time she was growing up about the whole "it's natural, lesbianism is natural" bullshit she was fed. To compound things, she is told how she was a turkey baster mix'em up good time in the kitchen 'creation'.
I feel so sad for this lady. I am so angered by the selfish decision her mother made to bring her into this world in that manner and those conditions. That is why I said earlier that the homosexual agenda does anything to justify their legitimacy. There is no consideration for the child.
And yes, the MAJORITY if the homosexual agenda pushers are politically DemocRAT. Yes I am sure you can cite a lesbian or gay couple here or there that aren't, but I guarantee there will be a bay and lesbian and gay adoption workshop at the DemocRAT convention in Boston in couple weeks. I wouldn't be surprised that even perform same sex weddings at the convention and even get it televised!
cyborg is right that we can't choose or parents, (cancerously), and we do have to rely on our own self determination to make the best of our situation, ALL of that pain could have been spared if the mom had had some degree of selfLESSness, instead of selFISHness. My kids are mixed race Caucasian (me) and Filipino (wife). They know who they are. They know they have a Mom and a Dad. They know that they can get away with stuff on their Mom, 'cause they are boys, and she is overprotective of them, but they better not try anything with dad, as I will drop the hammer on 'em! They LIVED a natural state of BALANCE. What I have told them since they were knee high to a duck, is that they are HUMAN beings, a perfect mixture of their Mom and my genes, and that they were wanted and we tried again even after miscarriages. Being a Dad means much more than being a sperm donor.
We are all free to interpret our Faith, of course.
I have a gay cousin and a gay niece, both raised in loving Christian homes. The struggle they have faced has been a trial for them and their families.
I can't believe that God would make them "wrong". One when so far as to marry and have a child to prove she was "normal."
The gays I have known and still know over the years who are accepting of their fate are much better off.
I think homosexuality may indeed be a birth defect. I am epileptic and my eldest son is as well as was my great-grandfather. I didn't choose it, but I have learned to live around it. Including not telling many friends and co-workers. Living with a secret makes for a furtive life.
Your gif is cut, BTW
This is the problem. I don't go around telling people that I am straight. Homos go around letting everyone know what they do in their bedroom.
This is why society cannot accept them.
I agree with you Smart A. It's in the Bible that man not lay with man and woman not...., etc.
God gave us 'freewill' and we do not have to tolerate those who use it in imoral ways.
"Actually, in the pursuit of brevity, I left out that my lawyer neighbor and her partner had gone to a fertility clinic to conceive the little boy. (I wasn't trying to be co;, I don't know if the donor was anonymous or a friend)."
However, of those two accomplices in sodomy, only one conceived. The other was superfluous to the process.
"I have known many single career women who let the clock tick too long who took the same option."
That really should be a crime.
"The drive to have children is very strong with many, I'd guess most, women."
Men, too, but there are no shortage of voices calling for men to be responsible in scratching that itch. Where are the voices calling for single women, sodomites or not, to exercise responsibility? This presumption that a woman alone--or two women together, or two men together--can properly raise a child is nothing less than toxic.
"They seem to be loving parents and he is a darling child. I will suffer the flames for saying that he is better off than the children of the children (15 year olds) up the street at the time."
That's what longitudinal studies are all about. Things are not always what they seem, as I'm sure you know.
"...(15 year olds)...At least he was wanted and has a comfortable home with a stay-at-home mom who was 28 when he was born."
Stay-at-home is good, but who says 28 is better than 15? Statistically, most of us here have grandparents who were children of 15 year olds...or perhaps 15 and 13, or 30 and 15, or 25 and 13, or any number of options that our dysfunctional society with its overflowing prisons, skyrocketing illegitimacy, metastasizing divorce rates, and glorification of the abomination of sodomy thinks undesirable.
Let's see, now: previous generations did it their way and had a pretty healthy society.
We do it our way and are turning into a loathsome pile that will make Sodom and Gomorrah look like Mayberry R.F.D.
Suppose there's a connection?
Maybe girls *should* be becoming parents at 15 in a society that forbids divorce. Maybe that's the way it's supposed to work.
I lived next door to her and saw her efforts to harbor her alchohic and pregnant older sister and later niece. And still later, making them decamp after she bought sis a car.
It wasn't idle chatter over the 1099.
My grandmother was married at 15 to a man who was 33 and a chronic whoremonger. She gave him three children by the time she was 19 and told him to hit the pike.
I worshipped her for her spine.
My post was in general and not toward you or her. I am sorry if it appeared that way.
My apologies to you!
There are a number of self appointed moralist on this thread. I didn't mean to jump on you since I know from past experience that you are not a zealot.
FRiends?
We should always remember that the words, "You are intolerant," are only *half* a sentence.
The other half is, "...of something **I** think should be tolerated."
That's all. "You are intolerant of something *I* think should be tolerated."
And yet, when you leave off the second half of the sentence, "You are intolerant," becomes an accusation of moral turpitude, like "You are dishonest," or "You are a child-molester."
Thing is, it's not really that kind of accusation. It merely notes a difference of opinion on what should and should not be tolerated.
Same-sex attraction disorder is a mental problem like any other. Sufferers should be pitied, and charity requires that we encourage them to seek help. It is a curable disorder, after all.
Wrong thinkers can insist that right reason requires us to regard it as healthy and good, but they can make no case for that position. The evidence is all against them. And even if it weren't, God's word is against them.
Intolerant? Yeah, of things God calls abominations. If somebody has a problem with that, well, then I think we can truncate that sentence too: they have a problem.
My "Post" is "Pro-Active;" "Picking Up the Pieces AFTER the "Damage Is Done" is our "Lot in Life;"--PREVENTING the "Wreckage" is our Best Goal.
A "Normal Human Being" REQUIRES the Psychological Input of BOTH a "Human Male & Female."
If this "Premise" is INACCURATE;--There NEEDS to be a WHOLE LOT of DATA to PROVE IT!!
TO DATE, NO ONE has proven that a "Homosexually-Raised Individual" is the "Cultural Equal" of ANY person with "A Dad & a Mom!!"
We Need Several Generations to "Prove That" our Species Needs ONLY a "MOM"--or a "DAD"--to Prosper & Survive.
I would NOT be surprised if "BIOLOGY" is more important than "Ideology" here...The "Lib's" simply CANNOT ACCEPT THAT we "Are What we Are--Biologically"
No Matter How "Noble" our "Beliefs," Human BIology IS WHAT IT IS---Sometimes, we will Inherently "Back" an Endeavor (We will Go Back to the Moon--& ON to Mars)--But we will ALSO DEFEND OUR YOUNG; There can be NO "Entity" which Threatens our Young that we WILL NOT OPPOSE!!
Until "ISLAM" "Sorts Itself Out," ALL "ISLAM" will be Considered "Inimical!"
"Western Culture" has NO OTHER CHOICE.
"ISLAM" has been ALARMINGLY RELUCTANT to "Police Itself."
There has been an AMAZING LACK of "True Believers of Islam" WILLING to "Turn In" the Suicide Bombers & Murderers now Operating in the Middle East--DESPITE the FACT THAT these psychopaths are KNOWN TO Many.
Many of Us--In the West--are Fearful That these "Tribal Loyalties" may Create a DEVASTATING WORLDWIDE CONFLAGRATION brought on by IGNORANCE.
We Fear that TOO FEW of the "Local Leaders" understand that their "Tribal Antagonisms" are, Globally, TRIVIAL,--& WORLDWIDE THERMONUCLEAR ANNIHILATION is NOT a way to "Settle Old Scores!!"
Doc
"My grandmother was married at 15 to a man who was 33 and a chronic whoremonger."
One case, or a hundred or a thousand, say nothing about a rule that offers the best chances to the hundreds of millions over millennia.
:O yes sir
No worries!
Takes more than that!!
Takes more than that!!
***You look like Bill Clinton.
CS Lewis says there is nothing wrong with divorce, Why be chained to misery?
If your family were some of the thousands who were too chicken to blow off a faithless husband or wife and move on then that is your demon, not mine.
"Gee, I have that new Pontiac, I can put up with Bob banging his secretary on Tuesdays and Thursdays.""
You have a great weekend!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.