Obscanity: You'll know it when you see it

There is no constitutionally protected fundamental right to have a mom and a dad. If there were, divorce would be outlawed, single mothers could be sued by their children, grandparents and other relatives would not be allowed to take custody when a child’s parents died, and men would be forced by law to marry women they impregnated. Every time. No matter what. Oh, and the government would be allowed to place random parentless children in married couples’ homes against their will (and not accounting for ability to support them), because they would have to shut down the foster care system since that would violate the childrens’ rights. And since they can’t have a foster system, they certainly can’t take children out of abusive and dangerous homes, because that would endanger their right to have a mom and a dad.

So like, you’re cool if the government wants to stick a kid with you, right? Even if you aren’t ready? Even if you already have kids? Even if you can’t afford it? And it’s fine with you if that kid is a non-responsive physically and mentally disabled child who will need thousands upon thousands of dollars in medical care, along with your 24-7 attention, for the rest of her life? Or a child who has severe behavioral problems? Or a child who is prone to violence? Or a child who is already almost an adult? Or a child who happens to come along with four siblings? Because that describes many of the children that the government is caring for because nobody will adopt them; they are stuck in the foster care system, in group homes, or in institutions. But you claim those kids have a constitutionally-protected right to a mom and a dad, so it’s nice to see that you’re volunteering to fill that role. Oh wait – you’re not volunteering? Too late. The kid’s rights supersede your personal rights. Welcome to parenthood.

Are you in favor of all of this being enforced as public policy? Because if you are not, then clearly you favor personal rights over a child’s right to have a mom and a dad.

In actuality, a child fares best when she is raised by the parents who chose to bring her into the world. The problem comes when parents abandon their children. If a child has two mothers, she hasn’t lost anything. If a single woman chooses to go through artificial insemination and raise a child herself, that child hasn’t lost anything either. If she has a mother and a father – or a mother and a mother for that matter – and one of them leaves? Now the child has been abandoned, and THAT is the problem, and that is when the children suffer. The children of LGBT parents don’t lack male and female role models; they just happen not to be their parents.

But of course, without marriage protections, the child *is* the one who suffers. After all, children fare better when they are raised in a two-parent home in which the parents are married and therefore legally committed to each other and to the child. To vote in *favor* of Prop 8 is to tell children they are *not* important, and that hateful politics and bigotry supersede their right to a secure family home, regardless of who their parents are. Of course, it also tells them that marriage is not an important component of a family, since plenty of LGBT parents will continue to build and raise their beautiful families even without marriage rights. It is their children who will suffer most, but only at your hands.