Gay Families (and why they’re not so bad); The entire paper

   Recently, the fight for equality for same-sex couples has brought up an unresolved issue. Are gay families harmful to children? Unless you are a religious person or you feel morally wronged by homosexuals, the consensus is no. Homosexual parents are no worse than heterosexual parents. In most cases, homosexuals are even better parents than heterosexuals. The biggest argument for that is that unlike heterosexual beings who can procreate just by forgetting to use a condom, homosexuals have to plan and go through a legal process to either adopt a child or use in vitro. Meaning in all cases of homosexual parenting, the child was wanted and thoroughly planned for. How often can you say that happens for heterosexuals? As a product of a missed birth control pill, I have gone through more emotional trauma than most wanted children.
  One argument that has been thrown around quite a bit is that gay parents create gay children. Pause and take a step back to think about this. Gay parents create gay children…just like straight parents create straight children right? If that’s the case then it is safe to assume that either everybody in the world is straight and every single queer is an acting genius or everybody in the world is gay and they just don’t realize it yet. Common sense is not so much a common trait anymore. I am as queer as a three dollar bill and my father is a homophobic heterosexual. When I have children eventually, I will not force them to be gay and I won’t force them to be straight. Learning to accept who your children are instead forcing them to be a preconceived notion in your head is the first step to being a real parent. If my son came up to me one day and said he wanted to wear all pink to school, then by a man I don’t believe in (God), I would let him. To force a child into something they are not is to destroy their individuality, their humanity. In most instances a parent is trying to do what is best for their child but what they do not understand is that maybe what you think is best is not the same as what the child needs. “A lot of parents will do anything for their kids, except let them be themselves” (Banksy).
   The next argument conservatives run to is their newfound belief that children need both a father and a mother. I don’t seem to recall this coming up when women or men become widows, one parent leaves the family inexplicably, single parents, and teenage mothers. In fact, today we glorify teenage pregnancy with ‘reality’ television shows. Most single parents have to take up both roles as mother and father and that does not mean the child turns out wrong. Society has stigmatized that the father is the strong hand and the mother is the soft, caretaker for the child. Surprisingly what conservatives seem to not realize is humans can adapt relatively well to any changes to their ‘normal’. A woman becomes the authority for her child as well as the nurturer after her male counterpart either dies or leaves. A man can change to become the shoulder his daughter needs to cry on and still be the father to protect her in a harmful situation. Just because a person is homosexual does not make that any different. Instead of having one dad to cling too, now the child has two protectors ready to defend her at any cost. It matters not what your gender is or your sexual preference but whether you are willing to be everything your child needs. Children are not born with notions of social norms. They are born with the need for unconditional love and a pillar to support them. Any good parent will be just that for them no matter if they are heterosexual or homosexual.
      Of all the different oppositions to gay marriages and gay families, the ability for homosexuals to reproduce offspring is the most contradictory. The anti-gay groups are trying to invalidate homosexual marriages all because they cannot procreate a child of their own given meaning to said marriages. By doing this they also directly attack any families, such as former Governor Mitt Romney’s Sons’ family, who could not conceive by natural means. They attack families who have had to adopt children, like Chief Justice Roberts, claiming that adoption is second best. Almost saying that adoptive children are close to second class citizens. A majority of families that had to adopt were either infertile or sterile. So by denying homosexuals the right to marry based on the ability to conceive, would be to deny any adoptive family or foster family their marriage as well. On the same note, what does one consider in vitro fertilization to be? The procedure uses donated sperm to create life in the womb of a woman. It is not a natural way to conceive but is widely used among couples who, for some reason or another, cannot conceive on their own. Are they being discredited as bad parents unworthy of the title as married couple because they could not conceive naturally? In the end how does all of this affect the child or children in question? It can be assumed that the children being adopted are quite exultant about getting out of the social system and into a home that can love and care for them properly and children conceived through in vitro would not go through the social stigma of being adopted (adoption bringing a psychological aspect because the child had to go through being abandoned by their biological family).
   On the same line of thought, how are children with gay parents worse off than children with divorced parents? The answer is, they are not. Study after study (mostly done in the 1990’s) prove that children suffer psychologically worse than most other children. They suffer abandonment issues along with placing the blame of their parents’ divorce on their shoulders. More often than not, the parents pressure the child into choosing sides, or blaming the child for their ruined marriage. So explain how homosexual parents are worse than divorced parents? In ALL cases of homosexual families the child was always chosen and planned for. If a homosexual couple didn’t want to stay in a relationship for the rest of their life they would not bring a child into that relationship. In one case, a homosexual couple started the process to adopt but ended up not agreeing with each other so much that they called it off before it was too late (From ‘I do’ to ‘I’m done’, Nymag).
  How are children with gay parents different with those that have straight parents? Essentially, there is absolutely no difference. Once you start getting down to the grit of it though it seems that children with gay parents tend to turn out far more successful and psychologically better than those with straight parents. Gay parents do not force their child to their specific point of view (or sexual preferences. Children with gay parents tend to be heterosexual more often than not) nor do they limit them to doing what the social normal for their gender. Kids are not regulated to just ‘boy-things’ or just ‘girl-things’.

“They are more self-aware, more adept at communicating their feelings, and exhibit more empathy for people different from themselves. They learn early how to negotiate the outside environment, gauge other people's motives, and assess how open they dare to be in specific situations. They are strong. In my work, I routinely saw how, with enough support from their families, children of gay parents developed skills at thinking independently and standing up for what they believed which distinguished them from many children with straight parents. In my study boys of two-moms families spent more time with a parent than the boys of mom and dad couples who more readily relegated childcare responsibilities to babysitters.”**

In the end, all the really matters when it comes to being a family is how well you raise them. No matter if you are gay straight or transgender, if you can love your child unconditionally and take care of them than you have every right to the child and that family.

“Many studies have demonstrated that children’s well-being is affected much more by their relationships with their parents, their parents’ sense of competence and security, and the presence of social and economic support for the family than by the gender or the sexual orientation of their parents,”*** (Siegel)