"Children who are robbed from part of their heritage so that two mommies or two daddies can pretend to be a complete marital unit might not have that benefit."For starters, "Lawn's" latest reminds me that June 2 is official Blogging for LGBT Families Day the purpose of which is to honor families who do not fit the traditional model of one mother and one father. I look forward to showing the world how I pretend to have a family.
Because the bigotry in "Lawn's" statement is likely not apparent to him, let's walk the fellow through it. "Lawn" indicates that children of gay parents "are robbed" of their "heritage" in order for gay parents to create make-believe families. Using the un-incriminating passive voice, it is unclear who "Lawn" believes is doing this insidious robbing, but I'll venture a guess that it's probably the gays.
But aside from this mystery robber, the most deafening indicator of "Lawn's" bigotry is his silence with regard to heterosexual couples who raise non-biological children. While informing us that children of "two mommies or two daddies" are robbed of their genetic heritage, he makes no mention of whether non-biological children of heterosexuals are robbed as well. Perhaps in "Lawn's" world, it's just a fact that only children of gay parents are "robbed" of their genetic heritage. For magical reasons, non-biological children of heterosexual parents are not.
If it wasn't so obviously mean-spirited, "Lawn's" insistence on relating every article, study, and blog he reads to opposing gay marriage would be amusing. I mean, if he truly is concerned about the lack of cancer screening opportunities for adopted/donor-conceived children, I sincerely hope he improves his "analysis" and expands it to include children raised by heterosexual couples. I think it's pretty clear to anyone who isn't "Lawn" that all he's doing here is opportunistically showing concern about cancer screening, something that affects children of gay and straight parents, for the sole purpose of taking a swipe at gay parenting.
I mean, let's think this through. Is "Lawn" suggesting that children should remain in orphanages rather than be raised (and robbed!) by non-biological parents? Does he mistakenly believe that all gay couples use anonymous donors to conceive children? Is he advocating a ban on the use of egg and sperm donors? If so, would such a ban only apply to same-sex couples? What is the solution? Oh my! I think I've thought this through more than "Lawn" himself did when he whipped up his latest ignorant "blog post."
In fact, if "Lawn" would remove his anti-gay-marriage goggles for a quick second, he could perhaps see how merely blaming this "problem" on selfish gay couples constitutes a woefully inadequate analysis. For, access to birth certificates, genetic information, and data of biological parents is part of a much broader discussion involving a complicated, thoughtful weighing of individual rights, confidentiality laws, health law, and civil rights. While in "Lawn's" head, the issue is a simple (to paraphrase!) "gay parenthood robs children of their genetic heritage," the reality is that it is confidentiality laws that "rob" children of their genetic heritage- whether their parents are gay or straight. Why "Lawn" has blamed this complicated issue, with his flippant comments, on gay parenthood is strongly indicative of bigotry. It is also indicative of how he so willingly settles on "easy"-yet-ignorant explanations.
The second key indicator of Lawn's bigotry is his word choice. First there's his laughable use of the word "robbed," which invokes images of greedy gays stealing children in some queer Raising Arizona scenario. Such inflammatory word choice and obvious attempt to appeal to emotions pretty much automatically discredits a person's argument. And that goes double for the for the rightwing's creepy tendency to use baby talk in their anti-gay-parenthood "analyses." It's cute and all that grown men still call parents "mommies" and "daddies," but it'd be refreshing if they would at least try to speak in a non-emotionally-manipulative manner. Speaking of which, let's look at "Lawn's" use of the word "pretend" in reference to same-sex families. In true authoritarian fashion, "Lawn" lets us know that our relationships, families, and parenthood are just make-believe. I mean, he's only telling it like it is. He knows the truth, after all. Especially when it comes to "defending marriage on the firm ground of reason and respect for human dignity."
[Insert laughter]
That's right, everyone. Children of gay parents "are robbed" and gay families are just "pretend." Deep thoughts, buddy. Deep thoughts.
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