In the next couple of weeks, NSW parliament will vote on ammendments to the adoption act of 2000. The recommendations being put forward are to allow same-sex adoption.
Not surpsisingly, churches are discussing how to respond. My old church forwarded around some documents about it. There were 6 talking points. I'll include the first sentence of each in the vain hope that you'll get the gist of what the rest of the paragraph must say, and then my brief response. Spoiler alert: at the end of the day, I think in a secular society, I am pro-Same-Sex Adoption.
1. Best interests of the child paramount.
This is very important of course, and is perhaps accidentally neglected at times in the discussions (on the parliamentary level or otherwise). An extremely important point really. We mustn't allow our sympathy for would-be parents sway our decision.
2. Same sex relationships are not marriages.
This is either a legal technicality or a religious distinction. Besides, property law already blurs the boundary, as I believe it should.
3. Recognition of same sex adoption may lead to recognition of same sex marriage.
This is irrelevant.
4. Marriage provides the best environment for raising children - thousands of years of human history demonstrate this
This is not necessarily true: see the next point. Thousands of years of human history are completely irrelevant. Firstly we cannot account for the entirety of human history. Secondly, if Christians are taking the Bible seriously, there are cultural reasons why it is this way, which are irrelevant to a secular nation. Thirdly, from an evolutionary point of view, the particular survival of predominantly heterosexual cultures is plain, and the development of certain prevailing opinions about homosexuality, unavoidable.
5. Fitness of potential parents - Homosexual people have more emotional problems on average.
This may be true but the data is undoubtedly swayed by the effects the prevailing culture has on people who are homosexual. Therefore I don't think one can say this is intrinsically true. So then, people who are homosexual have a higher incidence of particular problems, but many will not. As adoption is treated on a case-by-case basis (as it must always be), then it is simply a matter of considering each same-sex couple individually. If they fulfill the adoption criteria, you cannot possibly make this argument cogently.
6. Precedent in other jurisdictions.
Universal suffrage would never have happened if we actually thought this were a valid point of view.
I can't get past point 5. There are plenty of abusive and unfit heterosexual couples. We must treat each case on it's own merits, and so at the end of the day we are stuck with our own opinions of the 'appropriateness' of same sex parenting, which I just don't have any data against except that God doesn't like it. That's good enough for me, but I can't enforce it on a secular community....
Any thoughts?
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It is a difficult issue, particulalry for the church! And I think I have to agree with you about being pro-same-sex adoption in a secular society. Particularly because I am pro adoption by people who have potential to be good parents and I just don't think that there is any combination that is full-proof. There are some fabulous single Mums and Dads and some awful ones!I met a lady who had adopted her brothers Down Syndrome son and was raising him with her lesbian partner and doing a great job! On the other hand years ago I taught a boy who lived between 2 houses with his Dad with his male partner and his Mum with her lesbian partner and he was a severly emotionally disturbed child.
ReplyDeleteI don't know! Lots of people yearn desperately to be parents and have the means and committment and compassion to be good parents. It seems terribly cruel to deny them the opportunity to be parents in a legitimate and legal way.
Very difficult issue!!!
Tony,
ReplyDeleteI think that I will have to disagree with you on this one. Whilst I agree with your reasons for rejecting what your church sent you, I think that we should still actively seek to see the parliament reject this legislation.
I think that adoption into a homosexual family can be a barrier to hearing the gospel. I think that more sin is always worse in a society and I think that this is more sin. I agree that there are many heterosexual parents who are terrible parents, but that is largely irrelevant on this issue. I think that the church should always encourage God's norative behaviour to be followed by society as it makes the process of moving into Christian society much easier.
So it is that I think we should encourage couples living together to get married. I don't think Christian ministers should conduct christian ceremonies for non Christian people, but I do think that the church should encourage all couples that are living as though they are married to get married as it removes a barrier to living as a Christian. I also think that the church should seek to support marriages and encourage couples to stay together where it is appropriate, as that is God's expectation for normative behaviour and it is better that way.
So I also think that homosexual couples should not be allowed to raise children, not because they are incapable of being good parents, but because I think that they will put in place stumbling blocks to the gospel in the childrens' lives that are difficult to overcome.
So I am against it, but not because I hate homosexuals. I just think we should actively encourage a decrease in sing and a move toward society looking like what God expects, whether or not that society is Christian.
I think there a lot of barriers! I think that laws that exclude and deny and will be perceived as hateful will also serve as barriers. It is pretty easy for people to have kids if they really want them.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting.
ReplyDeleteOn the one hand I agree with you completely Graham. More sin is worse than less sin, and it is perhaps more helpful for people to be living as close as possible to God's norms, in terms of potential barriers to 'transitioning' into Christian living, and perhaps other things too.
However, I don't know if that's always the case. Many people live what they consider to be moral lives (which often means a life that largely reflects normative Christianity), and I think that is often a big stumbling block for them. In short, I'm not sure that perceived stumbling blocks are a valid argument in this case.
Also, I'm not sure about your argument concerning marriage. You're talking about people who, if you were a minister, you would not give a 'Christian Wedding', and yet you want society to encourage them to marry because it's 'normative'. But if it's not Christian marriage, then are you saying that secular marriage is still in some sense in line with God's idea of marriage? Surely not fully, though I would argue not at all.
I mean, people get married with the expectation that divorce is an option. So they get married, have kids, split up, and have shared custody. Is that marriage? Would God 'prefer' that kids were raised by this non-couple, or by a lifelong committed homosexual couple? You seem to be choosing one and not the other.
Of course, at the time of marriage the heterosexual couple has no intention to divorce (in most cases). So in some sense they're slightly better off than the homosexual couple in God's eyes. But then again, there will be a million other aspects of their lives that sit somewhere in the spectrum of naughty to rampant evil. I don't see how one can distinguish between homosexual sin and other sins (apart from that one verse :)).
Which brings us back to the screening. If the secular screening process decides that the homosexual couple are nice and caring and kind and generous and would make excellent parents, then is that not more in line with God's ideals than a heterosexual couple that lacks those things or worse?
This doesn't condone homosexuality, but it argues that other sins can be just as bad or worse.
I worry about this normativeness. From a mental health and authenticity point of view I would rather that people were living openly gay lifestyles than having dark secrets and lying to people (often including their wives and children). I think that people are closer to being able to accept the magnitude of the gospel and it's huge implications for healing and transformation if they are being honest and being able to talk about their lives in an authentic way. And whilst I am not pro-divorce it concerns me when couples are encouraged or even pressured to stay together by their churches particulalry when there is real misery or violence in the marriage. It is totally weird to me that the "choosing to divorce" is seen as a major sin and the verbal and physical abuse etc that some people perpetrate on their partners is not!!! I had one friend who endured nearly a decade of verbal abuse from her husband and there was evidence he had had liasons with other women and the church stuck by him when his wife choose to leave him as though he was the victim and she was the sinner. And he had confessed to the minister that he hadn't been treating her well.
ReplyDeleteI think Divorce, Disease and Death are all more consequences of sins rather than sins in thmeselves!
And I don't really buy this transitioning into Christian life concept Graham. I don't think that God needs people to be behaving Christian-like so that they can easily become members of a uniform subculture when they get saved. I don't think God needs things to be that neat and calm. He can and does save people out of seriously depraved lifestyles and renews them.
I think I fundamentally disagree with that extractional model of church, I don't think it is Biblical. ie people become Christians and we extract them from their communities and bring them into a new community. In the Bible a person would become a Christian and their whole community would be impacted and others become Christians and church would happen there.