Posted on 09/14/2003 2:54:25 PM PDT by Byron_the_Aussie
Two men and a baby... Tony Wood and Lee Matthews playing with baby Alexander.
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An extraordinary documentary about how two gay men flew to America and hired a surrogate mother to have a son is set to rekindle the debate about what constitutes an Australian family.
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In the US they call it the "gayby boom".
In Australia, where laws vary, it is still the centre of emotional and ethical controversy.
Tony Wood, 40, and Lee Matthews, 34, are an upper-middle-class professional couple who decided five years ago they wanted to be parents.
The men each donated their sperm to fertilise eggs donated by a young American woman they chose after studying a catalogue in a process "very cut and dried, like retail shopping".
The resulting embryos were then impregnated into another American woman, who gave birth to a 2.8 kilogram boy, Alexander, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, last December.
In a process which is banned in most countries around the world, the men used a California-based surrogacy and egg donation firm, Growing Generations, which is dedicated to the gay and lesbian community. The firm's website says it has assisted with the birth of at least 196 babies in cases from around the world.
There is no law prohibiting surrogacy in NSW (New South Wales, Australia’s most populous State.) But no contract between parties to undergo surrogacy would be recognised in the courts and the legal status and the nationality of a child born overseas would be under question.
The Melbourne couple brought Alexander back to Australia and now plan to raise the boy, who Mr Matthews said he hoped would grow up "straight" rather than gay, in a two-father family.
Despite the fact that the woman who carried Alexander, Junoa, is flying to Australia in December for his first birthday, Mr Wood and Mr Matthews do not consider her the boy's mother.
"She is not actually the mother . . . at the end of the day you have two dads, you don't have a mum," Mr Matthews said.
The men, who have been a couple for 14 years, initially encountered some "vehement" opposition from within the gay community to their plans to parent.
But they said increasing numbers of gay couples, particularly lesbians, were opting for parenthood.
"We believe our family is entitled to the same recognition as other families," Mr Wood said.
The men's story is expected to stir up a controversy when it airs as an SBS (government-funded, left-leaning TV network) documentary, Man-Made: The Story Of Two Men And A Baby, on September 30.
Community division on the subject of gay unions was highlighted by Prime Minister John Howard's recent comment that "if the same status is given in our society to gay unions as is given to traditional marriage, we will weaken that bedrock institution".
A spokesman for the Catholic Church said yesterday gay male parents were denying a child its natural right "to the love and nurture of a mother".
"With stolen children (children allegedly taken by Australian government authorities from their aboriginal parents, earlier this century), adoptions and all those things of the past 40 years, we have seen the problems that come with family situations than couldn't be avoided.
"What are we creating with these children? This is a case of adults fulfilling their own desires, but it is the children who suffer."
Bill Muehlenberg, vice-president of the Australian Family Association, said one of several concerns was "the commodification of children, the idea of baby-buying and all that goes with it". He said surrogacy, "with or without homosexual couples", was problematic.
"We may be placating the whims and fancies of adults but too often the very real interests of children are being overlooked in the debate," he said.
But Dr Justin Oakley, director of Monash University's Centre for Human Bioethics, said: "I don't see there's any particular problem with it and I think it's a shame [Mr Matthews and Mr Wood] have had to resort to such means in order to become parents or to become fathers."
Mr Matthews said he believed he and his partner had become parents "for all the right reasons . . . because we thought we could offer . . . a nurturing, protective and supportive environment.
"Parenthood isn't right for everyone. There's a huge lobby that sees surrogacy, and surrogacy in particular for same sex couples, as devil worship."
Mr Wood said they went through with it "because we love kids and thought we'd get a lot out of it ourselves and . . . hasn't it turned out better than you could have imagined".
"We have the perfect child. Every parent probably says that.
"He's an absolute delight, just amazing and he's got the most wonderful nature."
The couple said yesterday they were not necessarily advocating surrogacy and costs would be prohibitive to many gay couples.
Mr Matthews said he knew of "a handful of gay men" in Australia with their own babies. It had become far more common in the US.
In the documentary film, William Halms, of Growing Generations, says costs are so high he calls his own three children who were born in the program, "$75,000 babies". A first- time surrogate mother is paid $US20,000 ($30,130), a second-time one is paid $US25,000 and so on.
Egg donors, mostly college students, received an average $US5000, he said.
Mr Matthews and Mr Wood declined to reveal how much they had spent. The St Kilda men have maintained frequent email, mail and telephone communication with the surrogate mother.
Junoa, herself a mother of two, says in the documentary that she had long wanted to be a surrogate mother.
"I wanted to give someone who really wanted children the chance to parent," she says.
"To imagine not being able to have children destroys me."
After the birth, she says the process has left her with "a little fear, a little heartbreak, but a lot of pride".
"I thought, 'him leaving is going to break my heart', but then I am so proud his daddies will get to take care of him and raise him," she says.
But nevertheless she looks wistful and depressed before parting with the child.
Mr Matthews and Mr Wood have not ruled out having more children.
Noone? Peter Noone? Drat, don't these celebrities ever show up on time?
Too busy in the studio recording with Herman's Hermits, perhaps.
"Let him who is without sin cast the first stone." The Stones? Different group, man.
Were they?
with references
Those who object to pornography have pointed out the obvious. Some children exposed to pornographic images will be terrorized. Some will become coarsened and brutish. Even former ACLU executive Barry Lynn, admitted during a speech at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C., that some people will commit copy-cat sex crimes based on a media experience. On the evidence, some adults and children will sexually experiment on younger siblings and other family as well as neighbor children and schoolmates.
The NIBRS [July 2000, U.S. Department of Justice, National Incident-Based Reporting System] admission that 67 percent of all sex assault victims were reported as children 0-17 years old and that 37 percent of these attacks were made on children under 12, largely excluded from FBI "forcible rape" data, undermines any claims of a safer society.
Girl delinquency increased 186 percent from 1987-1996; over 2.7 million children were reportedly criminally attacked in schools in 1997; we have roughly 1 million runaways (more than half enter prostitution) and 550,000 children in foster care, often battered and abused, and a helix of child victims of cyberporn since 1999.
These real world data are not reflected in the FBI numbers.
...all sexual abuse of children under age 12 had been systematically purged by the national data collecting agencies.
Moreover, while 67 percent of all sex abuse victims are children under 18 years of age, with roughly 4 percent of males identified as either bi- or homosexual, this small cadre is largely responsible for NIBRS data finding 64 percent of all forcible sodomy victims to be boys under age 12, most under age 5. Given that, the problems inherent in homosexuals as guides and mentors to youth looms large.
The 348 percent increase in child abuse reports -- using data from the American Human Association and NCANDS, 1990 to today -- confirms the NIBRS boy-abuse data. Previously, the AHA documented a 1,028 percent increase in child sex abuse reports in six years from 1976 to 1982.
And, regression estimates for the year 2000 find a 4,169 percent increase in child sexual abuse. Even if the statistical data are lower by 1,000 percent, which is statistically unlikely, the increase is incendiary and establishes institutional malfeasance and/or amazing indifference by state-supported researchers and administrators toward children....
Were they?
I don't know. Do you think the "tree ring" method of determining age would work with Keith's face?
Uh...
Erickson, W.D., Walbek, N.H., & Seely, R.K. (1988). Behavior patterns of child molesters. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 17 (1), 77-86.
More References:
Gay advocates correctly state that most child molesters are heterosexual males. But this is a misleading statement. In proportion to their numbers (about 1 out of 36 men), homosexual males are more likely to engage in sex with minors: in fact, they appear to be three times more likely than straight men to engage in adult-child sexual relations Freund, K. and R. I. Watson, The Proportions of Heterosexual and Homo sexual Pedophiles Among Sex Offenders Against Children: An Exploratory Study, Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy 18 (Spring 1992): 3443.
While no more than 2% of male adults are homosexual, some studies indicate that approximately 35% of pedophiles are homosexual. K. Freund et al., Pedophilia and Heterosexuality vs. Homosexuality, Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy 10 (Fall 1984): 197.
Homosexual pedophiles victimize far more children than do heterosexual pedophiles Freund, K. and R. I. Watson, The Proportions of Heterosexual and Homosexual Pedophiles Among Sex Offenders Against Children: An Exploratory Study, Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy 18 (Spring 1992): 3443.
It is estimated that approximately 80% of pedophilic victims are boys who have been molested by adult males Schmidt, Thomas (1995). Straight and Narrow? Compassion and Clarity in the Homosexuality Debate. Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity Press, p. 114.
Excellent reference. Here's a summary:
Sexual Abuse of Boys, JAMA. 1998;280:1855-1862.
"Data Synthesis.— We identified 166 studies representing 149 sexual abuse samples. Studies were methodologically limited and definitions of sexual abuse varied widely. Prevalence estimates varied widely (by definition used and population studied), ranging from 4% to 76%. Boys at highest risk were younger than 13 years, nonwhite, of low socioeconomic status, and not living with their fathers. Perpetrators tended to be known but unrelated males. Abuse frequently occurred outside the home, involved penetration, and occurred more than once. Sequelae included psychological distress, substance abuse, and sexually related problems. Evaluation of management strategies was limited.
Conclusions.— Sexual abuse of boys appears to be common, underreported, underrecognized, and undertreated. Future study requires clearer definitions of abuse, improved sampling, more rigorous data collection, more sophisticated data analyses, and better assessment of management and treatment strategies. Regardless, health care professionals should be more aware of and sensitive to the possibility of sexual abuse in their male patients."
"Pedophilia Chic" Reconsidered (The taboo against sex with children continues to erode)
"This social consensus against the sexual exploitation of children and adolescents, however—unlike those against, say, animal sex or incest—is apparently eroding, and this regardless of the fact that the vast majority of citizens do overwhelmingly abominate the thing. For elsewhere in the public square, the defense of adult-child sex—more accurately, man-boy sex—is now out in the open. Moreover, it is on parade in a number of places—therapeutic, literary, and academic circles; mainstream publishing houses and journals and magazines and bookstores—where the mere appearance of such ideas would until recently have been not only unthinkable, but in many cases, subject to prosecution.
Dramatic though this turnaround may be, it did not happen overnight. Four years ago in these pages, in an essay called "Pedophilia Chic," I described in some detail a number of then-recent public challenges to this particular taboo, all of them apparently isolated from one another.1 Plainly, as the record even then showed, a surprising number of voices were willing to rise up on behalf of what advocates refer to as "man-boy love," or what most people call sexual abuse.
This social consensus against the sexual exploitation of children and adolescents, however—unlike those against, say, animal sex or incest—is apparently eroding, and this regardless of the fact that the vast majority of citizens do overwhelmingly abominate the thing. For elsewhere in the public square, the defense of adult-child sex—more accurately, man-boy sex—is now out in the open. Moreover, it is on parade in a number of places—therapeutic, literary, and academic circles; mainstream publishing houses and journals and magazines and bookstores—where the mere appearance of such ideas would until recently have been not only unthinkable, but in many cases, subject to prosecution.
Four-plus years and many other challenges to the same taboo later, it is clear that this hypothesis got something wrong. For one thing, no sustained public challenges have arisen over other primal taboos. Even more telling, if nihilism and nihilism alone were the explanation for public attempts to legitimize sex with boy children, then we would expect the appearance of related attempts to legitimize sex with girl children; and these we manifestly do not see.2 Nobody, but nobody, has been allowed to make the case for girl pedophilia with the backing of any reputable institution. Publishing houses are not putting out acclaimed anthologies and works of fiction that include excerpts of men having sex with young girls. Psychologists and psychiatrists are not competing with each other to publish studies demonstrating that the sexual abuse of girls is inconsequential; or, indeed, that it ought not even be defined as "abuse."
Two examples from the last few weeks will suffice to show the double standard here. In the November 12 New York Times Book Review, a writer found it unremarkable to observe of his subject, biographer Gavin Lambert, that when "Lambert was a schoolboy of 11, a teacher initiated him [into homosexuality], and he 'felt no shame or fear, only gratitude.'" It is unimaginable that New York Times editors would allow a reviewer to describe an 11-year-old girl being sexually "initiated" by any adult (in that case, "initiation" would be called "sexual abuse"). Similarly, in mid-December the New York Times Magazine delivered a cover piece about gay teenagers in cyberspace which was so blasé about the older men who seek out boys in chat rooms that it dismissed those potential predators as mere "oldies." Again, one can only imagine the public outcry had the same magazine published a story taking the same so-what approach to online solicitation, off-line trysts, and pornography "sharing" between anonymous men and underage girls.
No: As was true four years ago, contemporary efforts to rationalize, legitimize, and justify pedophilia are about boys. Forget about abstractions like nihilism; what the record shows is something more prosaic. The reason why the public is being urged to reconsider boy pedophilia is that this "question," settled though it may be in the opinions and laws of the rest of the country, is demonstrably not yet settled within certain parts of the gay rights movement. The more that movement has entered the mainstream, the more this "question" has bubbled forth from that previously distant realm into the public square. It should go without saying, though under the circumstances it cannot, that many, many leaders and members of that movement draw a firm line at consenting adults, want no part of any such "debate," and are in fact disgusted and appalled by it. Then there are other opinions...."
Professionals in the field know better. Fifteen years ago, for example, in his careful research volume Child Sexual Abuse, noted authority David Finkelhor was already drawing attention to the "body of opinion and research [that] has emerged in recent years which is trying hard to vindicate homosexual pedophilia." To read Finkelhor's sources on the subject—or, for that matter, to read the notes in the heavily sourced "Meta-Analytic" itself—is to see exactly what he means. In their call to redefine "abuse" as "contact," for example, Rind, Bauserman, and Tromovitch were merely resurrecting research and conceptual work stretching back over two decades; similarly, their distinctions between boys' and girls' supposed experiences of abuse have a pedigree that begins with Kinsey and branches out dramatically in professional publications of the last 25 years. The authors of "Meta-Analytic" may have made their points boldly enough to get noticed; but that is the only academic novelty to which they could truly lay claim. The real news about the normalization of pedophilia displayed in "Meta-Analytic" was that nothing about it was conceptually new...
In some of the clinical and therapeutic literature on pedophilia, it has become customary to distinguish between "ephebophilia," or sexual attraction to postpubescent children and teenagers, and "pedophilia" proper, meaning attraction to prepubescent children. Both forms are exhibited more than occasionally in another part of the written world, namely gay fiction. "Fiction" here emphatically does not mean pornography as such, but the kind of literature authored by self-consciously gay writers, published by reputable houses, and reviewed respectfully in the mainstream press. Again, it must be emphasized that numerous gay authors of note do not positively portray sex between adults and minors, and ipso facto are not part of this discussion.
Of course, this opus that "gay studies" bookshelves now reserve space for did not spring from nowhere. The book itself grew out of two issues of the American Journal of Homosexuality (Vol. 20, Nos. 1/2, 1990) dedicated to the pondering of "male inter-generational love." Here again, an ostensibly mainstream gay vehicle was put to the service of advocating pedophilia. In fact, the case of the Journal of Homosexuality is particularly interesting as a case study of how a pernicious idea can spread. The editor of this reputable gay journal, John P. DeCecco, is a psychologist at San Francisco State University. DeCecco is favorably quoted in the introduction to Male Inter-Generational Intimacy for having praised the "enormously nurturant relationship" that can result from pedophile-boy contact. DeCecco is also on the editorial board of Paidika..."
The Problem with Equivalence: "Pedophilia Chic" defended
"...In 'Pedophilia Chic Reconsidered,' Eberstadt raises questions about the mixed messages on appropriate sexual behavior for minors given out by the youth websites of many gay organizations. Eberstadt is concerned that these sites are encouraging young boys and girls to think sexually at ever younger ages. The parents disturbed by the Outright Vermont program agree. During the campaign, these parental groups complained loudly about graphic pictorial illustrations of, and instructions for, gay oral sex, fisting, and "rimming" ("mouth to ass," as the pamphlet describes it) made available to young people by Outright Vermont. Interestingly, supporters of Outright Vermont were, by their own account, "visibly shaken" by these attacks. What so shocked the partisans of Outright Vermont was that anyone could be horrified by the act of distributing to youngsters the sort of "safe sex" material gay organizations now ignore as commonplace.
The cultural fault line here is profound, and no aberration. The gay adults who operate gay-straight alliances and organizations like Outright Vermont seem to have a very different view than most heterosexual parents on the extent to which sexually explicit material ought to be made available to young people. And to be sure, explicit material about homosexual sex is even more disturbing to most parents than explicit material about heterosexual sex. With good reason. The most disquieting thing of all is that programs like Outright Vermont are now targeted at GLBTQ's. That's an acronym for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered, and Questioning youth. A "questioning" youth, of course, is uncertain about his or her sexual orientation. But it's entirely commonplace for children who end up heterosexual to go through a youthful phase in which they question their own sexual orientation. Will these children now be told they have a gay gene, be handed a dental dam, and directed to an adult gay porn site?
Tammy Bruce: Protect New York's Children from the Gay Elite
"In my book The Death of Right and Wrong I warn about the sexualization and targeting of children by the radical gay fringe. The announcement that a school in New York will open in September and be the first publicly run “gay high school” is a testament to that vile and loathsome agenda.
Do not be cowed with arguments that if you’re against this you’re a “homophobe.” In fact, the unforgivable crime is if we remain silent allowing children to be sacrificed on the altar of political correctness, as we sit and watch gay malignant narcissists make a wild grab for children. Well, it won’t be done in my name, and I contend that every decent hetero- and homosexual person out there should be equally outraged by this hideous action.
Not all of this, however, is inexplicable. As I outline in detail in DRW, there is a sick movement among the homosexual academics and the radical gay fringe to change the age of sexual consent in this nation to 12-years-old. As sexually transmitted diseases for both hetero- and homosexuals increases and HIV/AIDS runs rampant, the goal by some to have access to children (untouched virgins, free of disease) has increased.
Consider this: Accepting the “gay high school” demands you accept the notion that there are “gay and transgender kids,” which on its face is simply ridiculous. The argument is that children as young as 13 and 14-years-old somehow know, in their immature little kid minds, what their sexuality is, including if they’re a “transgendered youth,” which is a child who believes he or she should be the opposite sex. Frankly, if there is a 14 year-old boy who wants to have his penis removed to become a “girl,” that kid needs to be in a psychiatrist’s office, not a high school created just for him.
Think about it: we’re talking about children who are not psychologically mature enough to decide what to have for dinner, let along comprehend the intricacies of sexuality and all its physical and psychological repercussions. But the Gay Elite want us to believe that somehow these children know they prefer to have anal sex or need their breasts removed to find their “true” selves. Yeah, and I’m Anna Nicole Smith.
I cannot even begin to express my rage at a radical gay fringe and leftists who now are openly and willingly sacrificing children in a vain and self-obsessed drive to quench their own appetites for the young. That’s all this amounts to—adults indulging themselves, and others made too mute by political correctness to step up and say "No."
Even supporters of the gay school concept admit that the so-called gay kids they’re dealing with suffer from sexual acting-out, suicidal tendencies, drug abuse, and homelessness. The fact is, all of these symptoms are indications of sexual molestation, not homosexuality. So, instead of helping these kids deal with a serious trauma, they’ll be called “gay” and sent to a school to become a chef.
Welcome to the Left’s progressive world.
Really, do you honestly think if a child is actually sexually confused because his priest or Uncle Joe molested him, that anyone at the “gay school” is going to tell him that he just might need psychological help dealing with the trauma, and may be heterosexual and not gay at all?
Of course not. We’ll throw that kid on the garbage heap so gay malignant narcissists can feel more “normal” by making kids be just like them. While the gay establishment refuses to address the impact our histories have on our sexual identity, I refuse to let that cowardice take children as its next victims...
Seven Steps to Recruit-proof Your Child
Right is right. Wrong is wrong. All gay adoption is child abuse.
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