Posted on 03/22/2015 5:15:44 AM PDT by xzins
Heather Barwick, who was raised by her mother and her mother's lesbian partner, wrote in an essay this week that same-sex "marriage" is not the same as normal marriage between a man and a woman, that the traditional family is best, and that while growing up she "ached every day for a dad."
Heather Barwick, who was raised by her mother and her mother's lesbian partner, says "gay marriage" not only redefines marriage but also parenting and that "as a little girl, I so desperately wanted a daddy." (Photo: The Federalist.)
Barwick, who is 31 now, married, and has four children, said that "same-sex marriage and parenting withholds either a mother or father from a child while telling him or her that it doesn't matter. That it's all the same. But it's not."
"A lot of us, a lot of your kids, are hurting," wrote Barwick in her essay for The Federalist website. "My father's absence created a huge hole in me, and I ached every day for a dad. I loved my mom's partner, but another mom could never have replaced the father I lost."
"I grew up surrounded by women who said they didn’t need or want a man," said Barwick. "Yet, as a little girl, I so desperately wanted a daddy. It is a strange and confusing thing to walk around with this deep-down unquenchable ache for a father, for a man, in a community that says that men are unnecessary."
Barwick stressed that she loves her gay mother and gay people in general but that "the nature of the same-sex relationship" is what caused her to come out of her own closet and write the essay about why she does not support gay "marriage."
"Gay marriage doesn’t just redefine marriage, but also parenting," she says. "It promotes and normalizes a family structure that necessarily denies us something precious and foundational. It denies us something we need and long for, while at the same time tells us that we don’t need what we naturally crave. That we will be okay. But we’re not. We’re hurting."
The traditional man-woman marriage and family "can break down and cause kids to suffer," said Barwick, through "divorce, abandonment, infidelity, abuse, death, etc."
"But by and large, the best and most successful family structure is one in which kids are being raised by both their mother and father," she said.
Children of divorce can note how the divorce affected them, or adopted kids may yearn to know their biological parents, but children of same-sex parents do not have that "same voice."
"It’s not just me," said Barwick. "There are so many of us. Many of us are too scared to speak up and tell you about our hurt and pain, because for whatever reason it feels like you’re not listening. That you don’t want to hear."
"If we say we are hurting because we were raised by same-sex parents, we are either ignored or labeled a hater," she wrote.
At the end of her essay, Barwick appealed to the gay community and its apparent tolerance and openness to diverse ideas, stating, "I know this is a hard conversation. But we need to talk about it. If anyone can talk about hard things, it’s us. You taught me that."
According to her bio at The Federalist, Barwick is a "former gay-marriage advocate turned children's rights activist" and is "a wife and mother of four rambunctious kids."
You are SO right! Because I had a loving father there was NOTHING I could have done to hurt him. I wish all men who are fathers knew what good they bring into a child’s life, and pay attention to them.
Know full well what its like to grow up without one.
Its pretty damned hard and has lasting effects.
Hooray for Heather speaking out - it’s an honor to have her as a resident here in Columbia, SC. SO glad Heather and others are refusing to be bullied into silence. I’ve been blogging about the issues - search “Same-sex ‘marriage’ propped up by the LGBTQQIAAP gang’s psychotic agenda”.
Thanks for the ping to this important testimony.
It doesn’t say “formally”. It says “former”.
Huge difference.
Eh, lots of people whose fathers went to war or got buried in a mine or whatever “ached every day for a dad”. That’s life.
IBTZ!
Hi, Troll. You are an extreme newbie, and extremely anti-conservative from your short posting history.
You felt it necessary to blast a woman who was taught fathers weren’t necessary, and try to defend it by stealing the honor of fathers who had passed away fighting for their country or laboring for their families?
You are a piece of work
Yes, the American people have no use any more for ‘’Father Knows Best’’ or ‘’The Donna Reed Show’’, which had been first considered for the name “Mother Knows Best”.
Looking at your posting history I can see that you are a typical liberaltarian who knows almost nothing about conservatism.
Here it seems that you are mocking those of us who oppose the homosexual agenda. Is this the case?
... as opposed to two bull-daggers adopting a kid. That ISN'T life. That's perversion.
You freakin no-good lousy leftist troll.
He’s a troll. Zot his ass.
Destroy him.
My dad is a leftist ex union thug, yet he was a wonderful dad and my biggest influence. We parted company politically when I became a Christian but we still get along. I still remember being eleven years old and realizing how much I loved him after not getting in trouble for a mistake I made with the van.
Doesn't like Cruz, doesn't like Cruz, and doesn't like Cruz.
And doesn't like anything associated with Cruz. That pretty well covers it.
Huh? Where did that come from?
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