|
Looking for a
Surrogate Mother or an egg donor?
This book
is a moving real-life account of one woman's struggle
with infertility and her journey through surrogacy to
have the family she desperately wanted.
Click here
for more details
Latest Surrogacy News
The Gay Baby Boom is a
Sign of the Times
December 10, 2003 Albert
Mohler
Crosswalk.com
Most commonly, a major
shift in the culture occurs over a considerable period
of time, with incremental steps building towards
fundamental change. Other shifts come with lightening
speed, riding the crest of cultural change and building
momentum with swift measures.
The rapid success of
the homosexual movement amounts to something of a
cultural Blitzkrieg. As the society changes its
view of homosexuality, the fundamental institutions of
marriage and family are also being unavoidably
rearranged. A radical alteration in a culture's moral
framework inevitably transforms the most basic
institutions of social structure.
Recent evidence of such
a fundamental rearrangement was announced by New
Yorker magazine in its November 3, 2003 cover story
on the "Gay Baby Boom." The cover featured a male
homosexual couple holding two, presumably adopted
children. The cover promised an article that would
explain, "How kids are shaking up gay life in the city."
The article, "Gay with
Children," by David Usborne begins with this
declaration: "Even ten years ago, the only certain thing
about a gay couple's future was that it wouldn't include
children. But gays and lesbians are now becoming parents
in record numbers, and its changing how they think about
themselves--and each other."
Usborne takes us to the
Bleecker Street playground in Greenwich Village. This
playground in the West Village area "may not be
representative of all city playgrounds, but it arguably
the epicenter of a seismic change in gay New York, as a
growing number of same-sex couples have been plunging
into parenthood."
With or without gay
marriage, these homosexual couples, made up of
homosexual men and lesbians, are adopting or producing
children at a rate that has captured media attention.
Of course, these
children cannot be produced by normal reproductive
means, which requires heterosexual union. Usborne
explains: Typically, "the men are either adopting or
hiring surrogate mothers, the women buying donor sperm
and being inseminated or adopting."
According to the
article, this is becoming so common in New York that
residents are no longer shocked or surprised. David
Schutte and partner Rob Levy have adopted Ethan, now
five years old. "You cannot overestimate the savviness
of New Yorkers," remarked Schutte. "Gay or straight they
get it immediately. Women come up to us and say, 'Oh,
did you guys adopt?'" The New York article is
primarily concerned with the changes children are
bringing to the gay lifestyle. Rob Levy remarked that
Ethan has become the "mascot" of their neighborhood.
The cover story in
New York magazine comes over a decade after the
emergence of another major cultural symbol, the
children's book Heather Has Two Mommies.
Written by Leslea Newman, Heather Has Two Mommies
emerged as a colorful and controversial signal of a
cultural revolution. The idea of gay adoption and the
innovation of lesbian couples having children by
artificial insemination was still considered exotic at
that quaint time--but no more.
Newman wrote her book,
intending to help children parented by gay couples to
come to terms with their family status. As she later
explained, "a woman stopped me on the street and asked
me to write a book about a family like hers: two happy
dykes and their daughter. I fulfilled the woman's
request with a book about little Heather, who has two
elbows, two earlobes, two kneecaps, and two mommies."
Indeed, Heather's two
mommies, Mama Jane and Mama Kate, decided that Jane
would become a mother. Mama Kate is a doctor, while Mama
Jane is a carpenter. At age three, the book tells us
that Heather's mommies "take turns taking care of her."
She plays with both mothers and they do many fun things
together.
After joining a
playgroup, Heather discovers that some of the other
children have daddies. "I don't have a daddy," reports
Heather. "She'd never thought about it before. Did
everyone except Heather have a daddy? Heather feels sad
and begins to cry." Mama Kate and Mama Jane comfort
Heather with the assurance that "Not everyone has a
daddy." As the children begin to relate their various
families' structure, Stacy proudly reports, "I don't
have any mommies. I have two daddies." Other children
draw pictures of various family structures, ranging from
heterosexual families to every conceivable homosexual
alternative.
At the end of the
story, Heather rejoices in her two lesbian mothers and
gives them each kisses. "Mama Jane takes Heather's right
hand and Mama Kate takes Heather's left hand and then
Heather and Mama Kate and Mama Jane ... all go home."
The publisher of
Heather Has Two Mommies also released Daddy's
Roommate and Daddy's Wedding, written and
illustrated by Michael Willhoite. In the first story, a
young boy named Nick experiences the divorce of this
parents and deals with his father's newly chosen
homosexual lifestyle. Daddy moves in with Frank, and Mom
explains that "being gay is just one more kind of love."
In the second story
Nick comes to terms with the fact that Daddy and Frank
plan to get "married." Nick is understandably confused.
"Can men get married to each other?," he asks. It's a
"commitment ceremony" Frank explains. "That's like a
wedding."
In this picture of
postmodern bliss, Nick's mommy and her new husband share
the nuptial joy of Daddy and Frank as they plan their
ceremony. Mommy even declares, "It sounds like a lot of
fun. Nothing's better then a wedding in June."
In due time, Nick
becomes best man for his father's homosexual wedding. At
the event, "Reverend Powell," a woman minister, allows
the two men to share vows they have written for each
other. Daniel, Nick's daddy, turns to Frank and says,
"I'm looking forward to spending the rest of my life
with you". Frank then assured Daniel of his love and
promised to take care of him "in sickness and in
health." The capstone of the ceremony is when Frank
turns to Nick and reminds, "and we already have a son to
share." It's all very progressive, you understand.
These books for
children are lavishly illustrated and look just like the
children's literature you would expect to find at your
local trade bookstore. The message is packaged so that
children will see themselves, and their "families" as a
normal and natural part of the culture.
Taking stock of the
present moment, one can only reflect with amazement that
the arrangement depicted in Heather Has Two Mommies,
Daddy's Roommate, and Daddy's Wedding
are now becoming commonplace in America's urban centers
and beyond. Relationships and arrangements that were
considered bizzare just a decade ago have now moved,
thanks to the culture of political correctness, to the
confused mainstream of American society. Major
newspapers like The New York Times now accept
gay unions along with wedding announcements.
A remarkable feature of
the Usborne article is the frankness with which he
discusses the awkwardness of the whole concept of gay
parenting. He explains that many older gay couples find
the idea of gay parenthood to be repulsive and
unsettling. Some gay couples are breaking up over the
idea, with one partner wanting to have children and the
other resistant.
Furthermore, the
article is also honest about the unnatural technologies
and arrangements necessary for gay couples to "have"
children. One male couple whose experience is traced in
the article found an egg donor in Indiana described as
"smart and athletic." Her eggs were then frozen until
the two men could find a surrogate mother. They
eventually found a woman outside Chicago and implanted
two viable embryos in her womb. One was carried to term;
the fate of the other is not discussed. Lesbians Amy
Zimmerman and Tonya Wexler, on the other hand, chose a
sperm bank in California. They later had the sperm
cryogenically frozen and shipped to New York. "They dip
into the supply when ever they need it."
Unintentionally, this
article serves as an eloquent testimony to the moral and
physical rebellion that lies at the center of
homosexuality, calls for homosexual marriage, and
demands for recorganization for homosexual "families."
The use of donated embryos, surrogate mothers, and sperm
banks--all chosen with concern for preferred genetic
traits, is proof positive that we have entered a Brave
New World of inverted morality.
The New York
magazine cover story is a significant sign of the times.
What comes next?
back to top |
