Hefferlump

Simon Heffer mentioned in passing:

the laughable claim that all partnerships bringing up children are equal, whether married, unmarried, homosexual or lesbian

What on earth does the word "equal" mean in this context? I don't have the strength to google "equally valid" again, but this phrase has also been used to suggest that homosexual relationships are less... what? I was googling to try to find out what they mean but, beyond the facts that homosexuality is not procreative, and is banned by many religions, I am none the wiser. By these criteria, two house-sharing celibate priests eating oysters are "less valid" than a married couple enjoying a quick knee-trembler in a side alley followed by a kebab.

What people normally mean by this formulation is "I hate poofs". As it happens, I share the gut-reaction that says a man and a woman are better as parents than two people of the same sex, but am pretty sure that's prejudice. Certainly, I can't stand it up intellectually. A lack of role models of both sexes? Rubbish - children have influences from outside the family and not all of us have parents who provide good role models.

But in any event, in the context of adoption this is all beside the point. Nobody is suggesting that children be wrenched from their heterosexual parents and handed to homosexual couples. The choice, in a world where there are more children in need of adoption than there are prospective adoptive parents, is between state institutional care and adoption by gays or lesbians, as well as by hetero couples.

The profound need children do have above all is for stable, life-long (at least, childhood-long) caring relationships with protective, loving, parental adults. This waffle about "equal" relationships boils down to the proposition that hatred of queers takes precedence over the interests of children, it leads directly to children living unnecessarily in institutional care, to the damage, hurt and loneliness that this leads to, and is deeply contemptible.