I thought this was pretty good. I think some of the no religious people here may disregard these views because most articles that are pro-traditional-family have a Christian theme.
If you take the concept of religion out entirely, I still think that most people would agree that children are healthiest in the nuclear family. But I feel like the last twenty or so years we've had the whole gay culture pushed on us to the point we don't even recognize what's happening. Yes, some heterosexual parents are bad parents. Many divorce and it hurts the children immensely. Some are abusive. But healthy married parents really should be recognized as the gold standard of parents.
I really feel that gay parents could be the most loving and well meaning but their children would still be unjustly deprived of a mother or a father. Shouldn't little boys and girls have a male role model and a female? That seems like common sense to me, and there are tons of statistics out there showing the negative correlations between the well being of the children and the absence of fathers in the home.
I'm reminded of the book Conversations with God here, which I'm sure is controversial within Christian circles for being so open and forgiving, but one of the things that was discussed was the notion that one can determine how helpful vs harmful a behavior is by asking the question, "what if everyone did that?" So this works in a lot of scenarios. What if everyone recycled and reused instead of being wasteful? That would be good. What if everyone married and had 2.1 children? That would be good and fine for sustaining life (assuming we had a population that we wanted to preserve- actually a limit of two kids would probably do some third world countries some good). What if everyone became gay? Umm, humanity would end pretty soon and the kids raised by opposite gender parents wouldn't have the right role models.
Now that concept may sound silly, but when you think about how the gay culture is so over represented in our media, it's like our society is trying to undo the notion that the nuclear family has anything good to offer society. We are supposed to value this anything-goes family, all in the name of being loving and accepting, but we are hurting children as a consequence .
I really don't blame gay people for being gay. Really if they can't help themselves and truly feel happier in same-sex relationships, fine, although you all know I think at least a good portion of them are being self destructive. What I take issue with the most is the push for the rest of society to offer them the same benefits that we have at the expense of the well being of children.
Plus this gets into the whole nature vs nurture thing but I do believe kids can be influenced by the pop culture. I know many would disagree with me but I think society has a huge impact on our personalities and in some ways homophobia may serve a purpose in helping adolescents develop their attractions. I think it played a role in me being heterosexual, as I have always found women attractive as well. But I was telling a lesbian in college that I don't want to be a lesbian because I want marriage and children. She told me she wants and plans to have the same thing-with a woman. I was pretty shocked because the notion had not even occurred to me before. But children today are raised to think all styles of family are just as good as any other, so they shouldn't strive for anything. They don't feel they have to choose between one or the other.
I'm sure some may disagree and say if a gay person really wants kids he/she should have that option. I'd say maybe that person should find an opposite-sex person to marry and have kids with if it's so important. You could say the same thing to people who are bored in their marriages and want to divorce. Should they have that right? Well we want to think of the adult's happiness but maybe as a society we should place a bigger priority on the child's well being and make parents feel more of a responsibility to work things out for the sake of their children.
We have to make choices all the time. We can't have everything. Straight people who are party animals have to give up that part of themselves if they want to be good parents. If they don't want to give up a certain lifestyle, they shouldn't have kids.