Children will be
victims as parties declare war on the natural family
By Hermann Kelly, reporter
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Major
articles by journalist Hermann Kelly have also been printed in The Sunday
Business Post and Magill Magazine.
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IF THE Government gives a damn about the welfare of
children it can easily demonstrate this by supporting the natural family based on
marriage and putting a complete halt to gay adoption.
As things stand now, the political elites in Ireland
have declared war on the natural family.
On Tuesday, the Labour party told us it wants to bring
in gay civil unions and allow homosexual partners to adopt and foster children.
Fine Gael, the PDs, Sinn Féin and, less stridently,
Fianna Fáil have all voiced support for the legalisation of gay civil unions
while Sinn Féin has also tied its colours to the mast of gay adoption.
While these parties all claim to support children’s
welfare, they fail to recognise basic facts upon which this depends.
There is a raft of comprehensive studies showing the
best and safest environment for the upbringing of a child is in a stable
natural family based on marriage. Compared to any other form of relationship
involving a child, this is the very best.
This stands to reason because the public commitment to
marriage helps to increase its stability, and the natural sexual union of a man
and woman leading to procreation provides the child with its identity, which is
so essential to self-understanding.
In a natural family, the mother and father who raise
the child born of their lovemaking have a commitment to it that is frequently
stronger than their attachment to their own lives.
If this is the best environment for the upbringing of
children, it should follow that when a vulnerable child is put up for adoption
or fostering, then it is surely in the interests of that child to be placed in
a loving, stable and natural family based on marriage.
Not so according to many of Ireland’s political
parties. They all mouthed empty words in support of children’s welfare this
week, but at the same time some pay homage at the shrine of gay adoption
rights. They can do one of these, but they can’t do both.
If the natural family based on marriage is the best
place for children, then to place them in the midst of a homosexual household
is to put them in a place which is less good, which is deficient and lacking in
the complementarity of a man and woman.
The parenthood of a man and a woman ensures that
vulnerable children are brought up in a home where they experience the
complementary psychological attributes of a man and a woman.
This complementarity is absent in a homosexual
relationship, so this environment is inferior to that of a married couple.
There are American studies which show that when compared to heterosexuals,
homosexual relationships demonstrate higher rates of violence, higher
incidences of mental health problems and reduced life expectancy.
This being the case, it would be quite irresponsible
of society knowingly to place a vulnerable child in a situation which places
him or her statistically at a greater risk of harm.
Indeed, in 2004 the American College of Paediatricians
said they believed it “inappropriate, potentially hazardous to children and
dangerously irresponsible to change the age-old prohibition on homosexual
parenting, neither by adoption, by foster care, nor by reproductive manipulation.
This position is rooted in the best available science”.
At a time when a growing number of married couples
experience the pain of infertility, is it not sensible and right that they
should be helped in every possible way to adopt or foster?
It is absolutely imperative that the welfare of
children is paramount in all cases. It is also essential that they should not
be used as guinea pigs in a sociological experiment; nor as passive instruments
in an ideological campaign to further some political agenda.
The thing is, children are not a right, they are a
gift. Two homosexuals do not have a right to someone else’s children. They have
made a choice to take part in homosexual acts. These acts, by their very
nature, are sterile and incapable of creating children.
If Adam wants to lie with Steve, or whoever, that is
his choice; but the final consequence of that choice is an absence of children.
AS THIS country’s birth rate goes through the floor, the
last thing the State should be doing is legalising and subsidising gay unions
which are incapable of giving the good of children to society.
Homosexual activists may want the benefits of
marriage, the tax breaks, the legal protections, etc, but they don’t give
society the benefit of children in return.
Their agenda started off with wanting to share in the
financial and legal benefits of marriage enjoyed by heterosexual couples, but
it is now clear, highlighted by Labour’s call for adoption rights, that
homosexual activists now want the children of heterosexual couples as well. And
it won’t end there.
In the last few weeks, the Scottish national health
service has published a directive insisting that nurses and other healthcare
professionals should avoid using the terms ‘mother’ and ‘father’ to refer to
family relationships since the terms could be offensive to homosexual couples
with children. When talking to children, the directive says, consider using
‘parents’, ‘carers’ or ‘guardians’ rather than ‘mother’ or ‘father’. Along the
same lines, it points out, using the terms ‘husband’‚ ‘wife’ and ‘marriage’ are
not acceptable since such terms exclude lesbian, gay and bisexual people.
In a nutshell, stop using the terms ‘mother’ and
father’ or be classed as homophobic. Scottish doctors must now speak as if a
natural family based on marriage does not even exist. And all in the name of a
spurious ‘equality’.
Perhaps you thought my earlier description of a
declaration of war on the natural family was too strong.
Well, think again.
And think quickly because the rate at which the
Government, the Labour party and others are suggesting measures to undermine
the traditional family in the last few months is quite incredible. Actually
breathtaking.
As the constitution currently stands, the State can
already intervene in the best interests of the child when there is a
demonstrable problem within a family.
However, the proposed wording for a new referendum,
unveiled in the Dáil on Monday, goes much further that this. If passed in its
present form, the constitutional amendment will allow the State much greater
power to interfere and intervene in family situations.
You may remember the Cleveland child abuse scandal in
Britain during the late 1980s when, on the word of one mistaken doctor, social
workers raided many good homes to take children from parents with whom they
were perfectly safe. This should give us all pause for thought.
If the Government’s constitutional proposals are
passed, parents will have handed social workers more power to take children
away from their families and into State care.
Under Labour’s proposed Bill on Civil Unions, children
under the State’s social work care system will be handed over to homosexual
couples to be adopted or fostered with greater ease.
Any parent with an ounce of sense, or any person who
holds the welfare of children as paramount, must ensure both these crazy
proposals are made absolute non-starters by using the ballot box.
The
parents said ‘we want help’ the state responded ‘we want your children’
By Hermann Kelly
How to control adults by means of
'children's rights'
By Lynette Burrows
The Fight for the Family
By Lynette Burrows
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