Flipping through my Google Reader this morning, I found a press release from Regina Griggs and PFOX explaining why the epic burlesque show of repression, pain and shame that is her career is somehow a good thing. In doing so, she attempts to explain why she, who rejects her own gay child, is a better parent than Ohio Republican Senator Rob Portman, who loves his gay child. Let’s go line by line:
As the mother of a homosexual child, I understand how Sen. Portman feels.
Apparently not. He’s done the math and decided that accepting reality and supporting his son’s life and the life he will build with another human being outweighs starting an anti-gay nonprofit for the sole purpose of judging his son and others like him on a national level.
It is not easy, but as a responsible parent I must stand firm in my belief that marriage must remain as that of a man and a woman.
Nope! It may make her life choices feel better to cloak them in “beliefs” and “morality,” but really, she’s just rejecting her kid.
To deliberately deny children a mother or father by supporting genderless marriage will create grave consequences. All children do best who live in a society where healthy relationships come from living with and being exposed to both genders.
That’s not what the science says. The real science, I mean. The kind that wasn’t funded by the Witherspoon Institute.
What I, like tens of millions of Americans, think is best for society may seem like lack of support for homosexual people. Not so. We must look to what is best for the culture as a whole. All of my children, homosexual and heterosexual, benefit by living in a free society that is made possible only by legal and cultural encouragement of strong, mother-father-based families.
It is a lack of support, Ms. Griggs, and you’re hurting your own child the most. And we’re being forced to watch it. Moreover, there is nothing about encouraging strong mother-father-based families that automatically precludes a person from also supporting strong father-father-based families or mother-mother-based families. And there is nothing that Ms. Griggs can say or do that changes the reality that there already are thousands upon thousands of healthy, happy children in this country being raised in strong families by loving gay couples. Why she feels the need to cast aspersions on those families, I have no idea, but I’m assuming it’s something she could work through with a decent reality-based therapist.
Which parent would Sen. Portman have missed if he had been raised by male homosexuals or a lesbian couple? Would he rather give up his Mom or his Dad? As adults looking back on our childhood, would any one of us have forfeited our mother or father and not have noticed? Yet children manufactured with anonymous sperm sellers or rent-a-surrogates and acquired by same-sex couples for self-gratification live with this kind of discrimination from the moment of conception.
That’s really not a sane question, and quite frankly, I don’t think many people look back on their childhoods and attribute their good memories directly to the fact that their parents had different genitalia. Kids need unconditional love, structure and support , and if you grew up with that, that is what you remember.
Also, it’s adorable that Regina accuses gay couples of having children for “self-gratification” purposes, considering the fact that when a gay couple decides to have a child, it is planned and thought out one-hundred percent of the time. Now, I’m not saying that straight people shouldn’t have kids (ha!), but a good many of their children fall under the category of “whoops.” Just sayin’.
As the executive director of PFOX, I believe parents do not have to approve of everything their children do and say. Responsible parenting means loving and respecting our children in spite of our differences.
The gay lobby insists that parents can love their children only if they affirm same-sex “marriage,” and, sadly, that’s what they are teaching our children.
Because it’s true. Being gay is not a “bad habit.” To the Religious Right, homosexuality is all about sexual acts, but the rest of the population is really starting to understand that it’s a state of being that permeates every aspect of life, just like heterosexuality. So, when a parent fails to support their gay child wholly, it means that they are not supporting:
1. Their child when she meets the love of her life and decides to marry her.
2. Their child when he and his husband decide to start a family of their own.
3. Their child’s family when they are victims of discrimination, simply because of the composition of the parents’ genitals.
4. Their child when her wife gets sick and is in the hospital, and really, it would be a big help for the grandparents to step in and look after the kids while she’s recovering.
And so on and so forth. Pardon me, but none of the above has much of anything to do with sex, and if you think it does, you’ve got issues.
An organization comprised largely of parents of homosexual children, PFOX knows that parents and children can love one another unconditionally, without stipulations or strings attached. Parents like Sen. Portman and me can love our children without having to support genderless marriage.
At least that’s what they tell themselves when they come together to raise their bigoted lamentations together in song and wonder aloud to each other why their kids have stopped calling them, permanently.
We continue to respect the way the Portmans have handled this, and I think any person on either side of the aisle can see that Rob Portman is a great dad who loves his son. Sadly, we can’t say the same about Regina Griggs.
