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Published: August 6, 2007
Your tax dollars at work
California Women’s Commission asked to make artificial insemination easier for lesbians
“I know that the status of lesbians is of little or no concern or no interest to most people,” said Elaine Suranie, second vice chair of the California Women’s Commission at its International Briefing at the state capitol on July 26. The commission is a state government organization, formed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
 In her opening speech, Suranie said, “The status of lesbians is the status of women.” The “institutionalized discrimination of lesbians and gays is a form of sexism that seeks to control anyone who steps out of their narrowly defined male and female roles,” she said, praising the commission “for its longtime support of gay rights.”
“Homosexuality is not a crime,” said Suranie. Why, then, “do so many heterosexuals, most practicing the same sexual behaviors that most homosexuals engage in, impose their moral disapproval by demanding that the state enforce their personal or religious prejudice against us?”
According to Deborah Wald with the National Center for Lesbian Rights, who also addressed the briefing, “The face of the American family is changing.” On average, she said, heterosexual marriages last only seven years, and “children in large numbers” are being raised outside of traditional two-parent families. Women, too, “are giving birth to babies conceived with donated eggs, donated sperm, and even carried in donated wombs.” Given these facts, she said, “we owe it to our children to take a long, hard look at what we mean when we talk about ‘parents’ and ‘families.’”
Wald, who with her female partner raises two boys in San Francisco, praised California for assuring that “children born into intact lesbian homes had two legal mothers from birth, without adoptions.” But all is not well, she said. “Assisted reproduction and adoption are how we [lesbians] have children.” But lesbians cannot inseminate themselves with sperm without the aid of a doctor, she said, because, in such cases, “the donor is legally the father.” The state Family Code, said Wald, “needs to be amended to recognize the ways that lesbians and gay men have children.”
“Figuring out who parents are is no longer just an issue of genetics,” said Wald. She urged the state to adopt two articles of the 2002 Parentage Act, which would specify that donors are not parents of children conceived by artificial insemination. “By taking doctors out of the loop, this statute would reduce the complexity and expense for lesbian couples wishing to use donor insemination.”
The commission’s support for “gay rights” is not surprising. Openly lesbian state Sen. Sheila Kuehl (D-Los Angeles) is one of its members, as well as Assemblywoman Julia Brownley (D-Woodland Hills), whom Kuehl has praised as a “progressive.” The other two legislative members are both Democrats: Senators Gloria Negrete McLeod (Chino) and Jenny Oropeza (Carson). The commission supports a bill currently before the state legislature that would recognize same-sex marriage.
On Aug. 1, Gov. Schwarzenegger announced three new appointments he made to the commission. All are Democrats. The state senate must now approve the commissioners-elect.
Posted Monday, August 06, 2007 4:11 AM By stlouisix
Why should taxpayers subsidize behavior that is contrary to the common good? How is denying children a mother and a father due to the selfish demands of a radical fringe promoting the common good? The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) reported in its January 2001 issue - citing a government-sponsored study of 5,998 adults in the Netherlands aged 18 to 64 - that “people with same-sex sexual behavior are at greater risk for psychiatric disorders” - including bipolar, obsessive-compulsive, and anxiety disorders, major depression, and substance abuse. Yet the AMA sees nothing wrong with putting children at risk in such an environment, thus violating the principle of non-contradiction in that something cannot “be” and “not be” at the same time in the same respect. Per
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/118/5/2261b?ijkey=6nlcW4RtRpiao&keytype=ref&siteid=aapjournals, Heterosexual marriage is a unique and natural institution from which new life arises and within which new life naturally flourishes. Historians have noted that marriage between a man and a woman is an essential characteristic of civilization and, as such, is the "seedbed" of society.26 Society will always depend on heterosexual marriage to provide for future generations. The child receives protection and nurturance by the natural affection and attachment of the biological mother and father. Civil unions of homosexual caregivers cannot possess this natural chemistry for the child. The heterosexual marriage is a legal and social commitment of unique importance to the child and society and, therefore, is deserving of exceptional privilege and protection. It is dangerously shortsighted to experiment with diluting this distinction.
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Posted Monday, August 06, 2007 4:15 AM By stlouisix
Continuing with previous ref. - Studies have consistently shown that family structure does matter, with children from traditional, intact families (2 heterosexual, married parents and biological children) faring better than those reared in nonintact families (single, step, or cohabiting parents).27 The beneficial effects include better behavior, higher literacy, higher grades, lower truancy, lower depression/anxiety, better physical health, lower antisocial behavior, lower adolescent substance abuse, closer attachment to parents, lower adolescent sexual activity, and closer monitoring of the child by parents of intact families. Research indicates that most children in nonintact families are at an educational and social disadvantage compared with children in intact families. With little or no legal benefit to children and the clear possibility of imposed health risks, it would seem the AAP agenda to grant legal marriage status to homosexual couples is primarily about privileges for homosexual adults. Advocating for such a bold, historic change in family law without indisputable evidence of benefit to the child places children in a dangerous position as subjects within an adult, politically motivated experiment. Do we really want to place children in a sort of adoptive vivisection experiment and argue that this practice is really for their benefit? To grant legal marriage rights to domestic partnerships or any combination of adults other than the heterosexual couple would begin a slippery slide toward complete dissolution of marriage. The unintended consequences to society may be profound. If 2 homosexual adults are deemed as worthy to care for a child as the biological parents, then what about a marriage of 3 or 4 adults? What about granting married status to an adult and a child? As peculiar as these possibilities may seem, modern-day groups have championed their realization.28
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Posted Monday, August 06, 2007 4:23 AM By stlouisix
The case against the oxymoronic concept of same-sex marriage is irrefutable by anyone still capable of rational thought, which, of course, does not apply to those who selfishly demand that society make them comfortable with their vices under force of law. Society is not obliged to do that! See http://www.personal.psu.edu/glm7/m177.htm
Let us get back to the historical understanding of marriage’s primary end. In recent generations, we’ve seen the belief evolve that the overriding purpose of marriage is the spouses’ mutual pleasure. This is what enabled Sally Lieber (D-San Jose) to say, “I don’t see how my marriage is any more moral than the same-sex couples I know.” This claim, of course, only makes sense if companionship and sexual pleasure are matrimony’s preeminent ends. But this deviates from what every culture in history has recognized as the heart of marriage: the begetting and education of children. The happiness of the couple is vital, to be sure, but it’s not the only or primary purpose and never has been. Why? Because “happiness” produces no definitive benefit for society, whereas the rearing of children clearly does. As the Vatican recently noted, “Society owes its continued survival to the family, founded on marriage.”Because of this, it makes sense for society to support traditional marriage alone. Conversely, allowing same-sex spousal unions makes no sense. Indeed, we can only allow homosexual spousal unions if the central purpose of marriage is the spouses’ happiness. If that’s true, then heterosexual-only wedlock is indeed discrimination. But if marriage has a higher purpose, then anything that undermines its traditional framework also threatens to undermine its desired result—the rearing of healthy, productive, contributing citizens. This is not possible given the considerable evidence to the contrary previously presented re homosexuals?
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Posted Monday, August 06, 2007 4:32 AM By stlouisix
Moreover, it puts children at grave risk, knowing the well known correlation between homosexuality and child sexual abuse. See http://www.personal.psu.edu/glm7/m166.htm. Granted, many marriages don’t produce children. Most soldiers don’t face combat and yet are still eligible for veterans’ benefits. But the state rewards each institution based on its ability to provide society with a valuable function. Governments favor historical marriage and seek to strengthen it in its policies because virtually everything that happens in society, for good or ill, can be traced back to families and family life. To argue that because there are problems with the institution of marriage means that the ultimate basdardization of same with its proven adverse consequences is the solution are the rants of the insane! By equating homosexual partnerships with marriage, society’s attitudes toward marriage will be cheapened to an even greater degree. As Canadian TV show host Michael Coren notes, “If marriage is suddenly fundamentally altered to include people of the same gender, it loses its genuine meaning to the rest of us. We may include the earthworm in the cat family. Does this make worms feline? Of course not. But it destroys the definition of cat.” Instead of being recognized as the crucial, indispensable building block of society—through which most of its benefits flow—marriage will simply be another choice among many. “What’s the big deal about marriage?” our children and grandchildren will ask. In the Sixties, this was a fringe sentiment. If gay marriage goes through, it will become the norm.
And as that happens, our society will slide with ever greater speed down the slope of social chaos. Why? Because it will only further encourage marital instability and broken homes, and children growing up in these situations are more likely to exhibit a variety of antisocial behaviors.4.
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Posted Monday, August 06, 2007 4:34 AM By stlouisix
Children growing up in traditional homes, on the other hand, have these problems to a significantly diminished degree.5 They have better emotional health, engage in fewer risky behaviors, are less likely to engage in premarital sex, and do better educationally and economically.6 Finally, a recent Utah study found that divorce costs the federal, state, and local governments $33 billion per year. For all these reasons, the state has a vested interest in promoting stable traditional marriages. Furthermore, these marriages provide the natural complementarity between the sexes, which benefits children. Studies show mothers devote special attention to their children’s physical and emotional needs, whereas fathers devote their primary efforts to character traits. David Popenoe of Rutgers University’s National Marriage Project writes, “Both dimensions are critical for an efficient, balanced, and human child-rearing regime.” Left unsaid is the fact that same-sex couples can never provide this complementarity and thus cannot provide an optimally “efficient, balanced, and human child-rearing regime.” Still, some would argue, since gays will continue adopting, shouldn’t we encourage same-sex marriage? Wouldn’t this help give children the stability they need? No, because studies by even homosexual researchers reveal that same-sex couples are fundamentally different from their straight counterparts. They are more promiscuous, have greater physical and mental health problems and shorter life expectancies, and the average duration of relationships is woefully short.7
And these differences don’t produce a healthy environment in which to raise children.8 Any number of indicators prove this; indeed, they prove that it would be detrimental and possibly even dangerous.9
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Posted Monday, August 06, 2007 4:41 AM By stlouisix
For instance, the journal Adolescence reported that researchers found a “disproportionate percentage—29 percent—of the adult children of homosexual parents had been specifically subjected to sexual molestation by that homosexual parent, compared to only 0.6 percent of adult children of heterosexual parents having reported sexual relations with their parent.... Having a homosexual parent(s) appears to increase the risk of incest with a parent by a factor of about 50.”10 Same-sex marriage would not promote the general welfare, which arises from raising healthy, balanced children who have all the interior resources necessary to become contributing citizens. The final reason that same sex marriage would have a detrimental effect on society comes from those inclined to homosexual acts themselves: Many freely admit they want to redefine marriage, not only to include same-sex couples but to change its very scope and meaning. Patti Ettelbrick, former legal director of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, once said, “Being queer is more than setting up house, sleeping with a person of the same gender, and seeking state approval for doing so…. Being queer means pushing the parameters of sex and sexuality, and in the process transforming the very fabric of society.” Michelangelo Signorile, homosexual activist and writer, says the goal of homosexuals is to “fight for same-sex marriage and its benefits and then, once granted, redefine the institution of marriage completely, to demand the right to marry not as a way of adhering to society’s moral codes but rather to debunk a myth and radically alter an archaic institution…. The most subversive action lesbians and gay men can undertake…is to transform the notion of ‘family’ entirely.”
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Posted Monday, August 06, 2007 4:42 AM By stlouisix
The response of a sane society to this attack on both faith AND reason should be the following. "We do not recognize the legitimacy of your promotion of proven changeable, aberrant behavior in the name of "civil rights," which apply solely to innate, immutable characteristics such as ethnicity and skin color - or constitutionally protected religious freedoms. We do this to prevent anarchy, which is the inevitable result of your selfish demands for "special rights" to accommodate vice. We do this for eternity's sake in the light of the marriage, not divorce, of faith and reason, which is something that the Constitution guarantees that we can do. We especially do this in formal recognition that all man-made laws are subsidiary to God's for man's natural well-being leading ultimately to his final supernatural salvific end."
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Posted Monday, August 06, 2007 7:26 AM By stlouisix
What is reported in the link http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/324009_sperm18.html "If two parents are good for children, aren't three better?" are the consequences of ignoring the Natural Law of God, in particular, its presentation via Traditional Catholic Magisterial Teaching on Faith and Morals. It is the inevitable result of insanely redefining marriage to accommodate sodomites, i.e., "anything goes." Children are not trophies for the “junk science” mainstreaming of unnatural lifestyles. The Church unequivocally condemns the oxymoronic concept of same-sex marriage in
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20030731_homosexual-
unions_en.html "Considerations regarding proposals to give legal recognitiion to unions between homosexual persons." See http://www.personal.psu.edu/glm7/m074.htm
"The Dignity Of The Human Person Is Violated By Some Reproductive Technologies." It is to be recognized that our bodies are Temples of the Holy Ghost, i.e., gifts from God, in accord with His Divine plan for His creation - to procreate to populate Heaven, not hell. Thus, we are the landlords, not the tenants, when it comes to taking care of this gift. "Or know you not, that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, who is in you, whom you have from God; and you are not your own? For you are bought with a great price. Glorify and bear God in your body." [1 Corinthians 6:19-20] however natural and good it is that spouses desire children, it cannot be said that they have a "right" to children. Therein lies the problem with the new reproductive technologies. This "skewed right to have children" is a derivative of "freedom confused with license". Authentic freedom is doing what you ought as opposed to license which is doing what you want.
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Posted Monday, August 06, 2007 7:36 AM By stlouisix
If moral precepts were a function of doing what you want in a Kantian sense, then on the horizon awaits an iceberg of autonomous universal precepts created by another individual as a function of his unique rights standing directly in the way of the Titanic of your unique rights. The truth of the matter is that the orchestra on your "ship of rights" is not playing "Nearer my God to Thee", but "Further away my God from Thee" with your selfish approval. What needs to be kept in mind is that procedures that are acceptable for the treatment of other animals are not acceptable for human beings; we may sterilize animals, cross-breed them, and create new life in test tubes, but we may not do these things to human life.The reason why we may not do these things to human beings is that each and every human life is the result of a special act of creation by God. This is necessary because human life is immortal; it is ensouled by God at creation with the immortal soul being the form of the body. Only God can bring immortal life into existence. Although God is the true creator of human life, the role of the spouses in cooperating with God in His creation is not to be minimized; it is neither unimportant nor simply mechanical. As The Instruction On Respect For Human Life teaches, the creation of human life should be the result of a deliberate and willing act of sexual intercourse between two spouses. Medical "advances" such as abortion, contraception, and the new reproductive technologies all developed in the name of compassion, have made it possible to separate sexuality and baby-making. But now we find ourselves in a "Brave, New World" where sexuality and child-bearing are far removed from their natural and proper meaning and human life itself has come to have little value in the eyes of many.
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Posted Monday, August 06, 2007 9:33 AM By izzy
Women want babies without a man........But they also want you to understand......Two women raising a baby is ideal..........and sperm donations are no big deal.
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Posted Monday, August 06, 2007 9:54 AM By izzy
Women want babies without a man........But they also want you to understand......Two women raising a baby is ideal..........and sperm donations are no big deal.
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Posted Monday, August 06, 2007 9:57 AM By FDB
Obviously your limitation of 1500 characters to comments is meaningless. This is not a comment but an article. Do not assume this statement is favorable to any aspect of the subject. However, not words but only concerted planned actions in opposition to this godless movement will result in a return of our country to a moral, God loving society.
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Posted Monday, August 06, 2007 10:22 AM By Christopher Zehnder
As acting editor this week, I have to agree wtih FDB. Please keep responses within at most a couple of posts. There is a better chance, too, that one will read the post[s] if it is kept within bounds. I shall from now on delete parts of items if they go beyond the limit I've specified.
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Posted Monday, August 06, 2007 10:49 AM By Philip
I can quite clearly see where this entire situation has been a major pressing issue confronting humanity for over the past 6000 years of recorded human history. I am quite certain the govenor's new commission will get to the bottom of this very complex and delicate issue. To make sure this issue is properly dealt with the governor has appointed three democratic commissioners to deal with this matter in a fair and unbiased way as can possibly be accomplished. After all that Beverly Hillsbillies theme song from the famous 1960's classic comedy television series did say: "California is a place you ought to be so they loaded up the truck and they moved to Beverly."
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Posted Monday, August 06, 2007 12:08 PM By Jose Healy
Suranie is right: homosexuality is not a crime. It cannot be simply catalogued as a civil crime. It is a denigrated and unnatural practice that inevitably destroys the inherent statutes that God has given us through his creation for nothing less than our eternal happiness. Calling it a civil crime is way too much of an understatement.
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Posted Monday, August 06, 2007 3:03 PM By Mike
I don't understand why lesbians need a doctor to assist them to get pregnant. Can't they meet a nice man, fall in love, get married and have a family like everyone else? Why do they have to be so anti-social about everything?
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Posted Wednesday, August 08, 2007 11:25 PM By Jason
Freepers ruin everything they touch.
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Posted Wednesday, August 15, 2007 12:24 PM By Steve
Governor Schwarzenegger was wrong to appoint liberals to this commission. I appreciate the Governor's stand against gay marriage, but he should do more to protect Californians from the ravages of homosexuality. Keep up the pressure on him, conservative Californians.
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© California Catholic Daily 2007. All Rights Reserved.
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