Violating the Valentines

American leftists, when  it suits them, will speak vehemently about collective responsibility and everyone's actions affecting everyone else. If you eat meat, you're starving poor people; if you drive a car, you're poisoning Mother Gaia.  But the _same_ leftists, when it suits them, will suddenly switch to a highly _individualistic_ view of right and wrong. Hold that thought, it will be expounded further.

I am writing this on Valentine's Day. Homosexuals are using this day as an occasion to promote their unilateral redefinition of the very _most_ fundamental human relationships. And it's worth noting who is _helping_ them do so.  This morning, the _conservative_ radio station I routinely listen to, KNUS-AM of Denver, did a broadcast _praising_ same-sex couples to the skies. This makes utter nonsense of the claim by gays that they are still an oppressed, persecuted minority; the _reality_ is that the gay minority is close to enjoying an absolute _monopoly_ on being able to say anything about what marriage is.

The gay spokesman invited to speak on KNUS did the individualistic thing, by arguing that the one-on-one love between two gay partners is, all by itself, enough to constitute marriage. As long as there's love, love love, love, love, there _can't_ be any problem for society at large. But now remember the meat-eater and the car-owner: _they_ are not allowed to be so simplistic in self-justification. The meat-eater _isn't_ allowed simply to tell the angry vegan, "It's just about my being hungry;" and the car-owner _isn't_ allowed simply to tell the angry environmentalist, "It's just about my wanting to go someplace." Why, then, should _homosexuals_ be specially immune to challenge over the possibility that _their_ actions might affect the world adversely?

Until technology advances farther than it has yet, human reproduction will still require _both_ a male gene-source and a female gene-source. Therefore, any child raised by a same-sex couple will, by definition, be raised _without_ one of the biological parents being a _primary_ caregiver. Yes, that biological parent who _isn't_ in the gay couple may still be _present_ in the child's life; but unless we're talking about a commune, the child won't have both birth parents in a _central_ custodial role. Now, _even_ in the present collapsing condition of education, a child _will_ eventually learn how he or she came into existence.... which means that the child raised by gays will _know_  that his or her actual mother or father _didn't_ step into the primary parental slot (and in  some cases, felt no interest).

Yes, the custodial gay couple may have good intentions; they may love the child to pieces. But it will _still_ be a fact that the child is aware of one _actual_ parent being at a distance, if not completely absent. Add up millions of children growing up this way, and the specific bond of _biological_ parents to their children will be eroded. These children might nonetheless grow up feeling as loved as anyone else; but what they might NOT have is the full sense of obligation to any future children _they_ may beget. Which adds to the tidal trend in which self-contained natural families are ever less and less valued in society. And in turn, Big Government has less need to worry about anyone being _loyal_ to anything other than Big Government.

Gays will now harrumph at me, "Well, by _your_ homophobic reasoning, _every_ adoption, including by straight couples, is _also_ disrupting the natural order!" They will believe themselves to  be right when they say this, because their enslavement to their own emotions will have prevented them from thinking the issue all the way through. But there IS more to it.

When my now-deceased Mary and I adopted our daughter, we were adopting a girl who had already _been_ deprived of conventional biological parenting, by circumstances which Mary and I had not in any way created. So what we were doing was providing the nearest possible _substitute_ for the ideal model of husband, wife, and blood-related offspring. But we are now being asked -- actually, we are being _commanded_ by the pampered homosexual elite -- to accept arrangements in which gay couples intentionally _cause_ a child to live without the most normal of parenting. And that makes a difference, because the children _will_ eventually realize what was done.

So no, saying "Love, love, love!" _isn't_ a complete answer to this large-scale social concern. There _will_ be far-reaching  consequences from training a new generation to believe that the _genetic_ parent-child connection is trivial and easily dispensed with. Possibly most gays honestly _haven't_ considered this.... but you can bet that there are some arrogant, narcissistic, cynical social engineers who _have_ considered it, and who _desire_ the damage to occur.