SSM AND PARENTING: Mary Catelli replies to Lucia Liljegren

Lucia Liljegren offers: "'These critics would disagree with: "Genetic parents ought to be married to each other." They would agree only with: "Parents who take on the legal responsibility to raise and care for children ought to be married.'

"Imagine! Now, I find I do not agree my statement 1! I agree in a statistical sense. However, in some cases, I disagree vehemently. For instance, suppose a 14-year old-girl were to be raped and impregnated by an unmarried male neighbor. These two genetic parents ought not to be married to each other. I would, in fact, support laws forbidding the marriage of any 14 year old girl to anyone!"

Actually, let us amplify her first interpretation of "Parents ought to be married."

How about, "People who conceive children ought to be married"? This, of course, means, "People who are not married -- and especially those who ought not to get married -- should not conceive children." Whereupon one looks at her case, and sees it is not a counter-example to "Parents ought to be married," but an example of it. Raping and impregnating a fourteen-year-old is not just fine as long as the rapist and the victim don't marry. The act that conceived the child ought not to have happened. And a part of the crime he committed was fathering a child who must be provided for while being kept from him.

Lucia states that she supports laws forbidding the marriage of fourteen-year-olds. I would be a little surprised if she supported decreasing the age-of-consent laws simultaneously.

Because a homosexual couple can not, of course, conceive a child, this interpretation can not apply to them.

Which leads into Mr. Rosenberg, who states, "First, marriage make this legal responsibility automatic and immediate for children born into the marriage." Basic biology shows that children are not, in fact, born into any homosexual marriages. A person in such a union could use artificial reproductive techniques to conceive a child and, unlike someone married to a heterosexual, would have to use donor gametes, or could adopt. Which leads to three points.

First, "Gay people are parents" is not exactly "Homosexuals might, theoretically, use reproductive technologies or adopt."

Second, homosexuals in couples are not the only people who might, theoretically, use reproductive technologies or adopt. Literally anyone could. Should anyone who wishes to do that someday and would like to secure another parent now be permitted to marry?

In Anne of Green Gables, to offer a fictional example of a real-life happening, a brother and sister adopt Anne from an orphanage. Should siblings be allowed to marry on that grounds? Any siblings, not just those who intend to adopt right now.

In real life, the Shakers adopted children -- as a community, not as individuals. Should polygamous marriage be allowed on that grounds? After all, if one other parent is good, would not two, or three, or four be better? He informs us, "the child may benefit immensely by being covered by her parent's health insurance," and the more parents you have the less likely it is that none of them will have insurance. He also tells us of "its immense value in helping a family to raise children," and I have heard of an polygamously married woman telling that it is of immense value to her career, because her co-wives look after her children when she is too busy -- real-life nannies who will not walk away.

I should add that some homosexuals have formed foursomes, in which the men in one couple have donated sperm to inseminate the women in the other. Polygamous marriage may be the next demand.

Third, the children that Mr. Rosenberg later describes as "brought into the marriage" presuppose that heterosexuals will be irresponsible. Even gamete donation --sperm donors are not chiefly young men because their sperm contains fewer defects; it is also because young men do not think seriously about many things, from beer to cars to sperm donation. This is not a random jab; when sperm donors were surveyed decades, many who had grown up and, especially, married and fathered children, regarded their own actions as foolish. But artificial reproduction for homosexuals relies on men who will be willing to walk away, and women who will be willing to donate eggs and, as surrogates, carry the child to term (even if the egg donor and the surrogate are not the same woman, there must be both functions filled), and walk away.
posted by Eve at 7:31 PM | link

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