The Jolie Pitts

The Jolie Pitts

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Mike Huckabee's recent comment on same-sex adoption has been the cause of quite a bit of controversy over the last week, and I can't say that I completely agree with him, but I can't say that I completely disagree with him either.

I will explain.

I have an older friend, lets call him Doug, who's kids were playing with some of their friends at Doug's house. One of Doug's children's friends, lets call him Jimmy, decided he wanted to "conduct an experiment" with Doug's family dog. Jimmy took the dog up to the second floor, held the dog over the staircase and dropped him! Nothing happened but the dog got the wind knocked out of him and the fear of God put in him.

When Doug asked Jimmy why he hurt the dog, Jimmy answered that he wanted to see what would happen.

On the one hand, homosexuality is clearly an unnatural relationship for the simple reason that gay couples cannot naturally have children. I'm not putting a value on the issue, I am just stating that I don't think it is natural because it doesn't lead to the continuation of the species.

So from this perspective raising children in an environment that is fundamentally unnatural seems to me like an unnecessary experiment. I am not particularly curious to find out what happens.

I'm not particularly concerned with seeing what happens when you raise children in an unloving heterosexual relationship, or in homes where there is abuse, or infidelity. These are all "experiments" I would rather not be conducted in society.

This is the ideal.

On the other hand, I recognize that each situation has its own unique set of considerations that no overarching socially-defined norm could possibly "blindly" prescribe solutions for. Moreover, I don't doubt same-sex couples ability to provide loving and caring homes for their children. Furthermore, I recognize that taking a child out of an orphanage and putting him in the home of loving parents is in some cases the best thing to do for the child.

I also disagree with one person defining for another what is or is not "valid," or "acceptable."
Thus, as I said, I don't fall on any one side of the discussion, but rather try to extract the elements of truth that make each argument valid.

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