And What of the Children?

I do not recommend reading the UK's Daily Mail, but this article was circulated on an American news wire and caught my eye. This is wrong on so many levels (religious, economic etc), but few people discuss in concrete terms what bringing a child into an abnormal living situation does to him or her in time.

Let me introduce my friend Jack (a pseudonym). Jack self-identifies as a bisexual and grew up in a lesbian household, though he does see his father periodically. The son of an elite child psychologist in the US, he rightly points out that children take their cues as to how the sexes behave, and in turn how one is to behave given one's sex, from the parents. Moreover, the parents provide complimentary kinds of care that cannot be quantified. Yes, a child raised by two gay men can still get all the nutrients breast milk provides by using formula, but the bonding with the mother, the understanding of nurturing, and the trust of the female is all gone. Some will point out that children raised by gays do not statistically differ from their straight-reared counter-parts, but would one expect them to? With 50%+ of marriages ending in divorce and 40%+ of children conceived out of wedlock, the traditional straight and married for life household is the exception and not the statistical norm.

Jack has had an exceptionally difficult life, especially during his childhood, and most of the drama he faced would have been avoidable had the parents sought a more normal setting to rear him in.