<p>Donna, a question. I was troubled a while back when I read an article about children expressing an opposite gender identity and parents very quickly allowing the child to change names, clothing, identity, etc. – I’m talking about age four, five, six, not after years of feeling that way. One of my kids, a girl, would only wear her brother’s clothes around age three and insisted that she, too, could pee standing up (although she quickly figured out it didn’t work well.) We let her wear whatever she wanted and six months later she would wear nothing unless it was pink. There was no further talk or behavior that indicated any desire to be a boy and I think it was mostly about being like her brother. I think a lot of kids go through a phase where they really want to try on being the other sex, etc. Anything below six seems very fluid to me in terms of development and understanding. So I was a bit startled that parents would encourage kids to make such a major decision at such a young age and go so far to call them by a different name, etc. when they might not really have gender identity issues. What are your thoughts? Do you think there should be a wait and see approach or do you think it’s correct to move quickly?</p>
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<p>It IS very fluid. There is no ‘seems’ about it. It’s always been that way. Part of normal childhood development: experimentation is part of development (trying on roles, trying on personalities, even). Not a reason for assuming a gender identity “problem.”</p>
<p>“You are correct that the Church’s current position is not dependent on cause, but that does not mean that if a cause were determined in the future that the Church would not rearticulate its position in light of the unitive as well as procreative aspects of human sexuality.”</p>
<p>There is simply no basis for that assertion. None. Quite obviously, the procreative aspects of human sexuality can NEVER be realized in a homosexual relationship. And, in any event, the section of the Catechism on homosexuality makes clear that homosexual activities are condemned even though homosexuals do not (necessarily) choose their orientation.<br>
Just wondering, on what do you base your statement that the Church might change its teaching if, say, the existence of a “gay gene” could be established without a doubt?</p>
<p>“Neither family situation may be ideal, but both have a right to exist, and both would benefit from the support of the community.”</p>
<p>A married couple has a natural right to the children they conceive (assuming that they are not using IVF or other problematic methods). Children are the result of heterosexual relations. Same-sex couples have no equivalent “right” to a child, and this is especially true in the case of couples who turn to third parties for donor sperm or eggs.</p>
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<p>And if the children of that marital union were physically abused by their parents, would you rather see the abuse continue than allow those children to be adopted by a same-sex couple?</p>
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<p>Would that be the only or first option, Mary, that you think should be considered? How about the radical idea of a different-sex couple – one of the thousands waiting to adopt children – being the logical choice?</p>
<p>There seems to be an undercurrent in the discussion of same-sex vs. different-sex parenting that says this:
Dual-sex couples will in most/all circumstances abuse more than single-sex couples will <em>probably</em> abuse. Therefore, single-sex adoption is “better”; therefore, they deserve priority over a traditional couple.</p>
<p>…Except that that’s not the way we work in American civil practice. The way we work is not by statistics or predictions. We don’t say we’re going to deny you adoption privileges because “your class” (of straight couples) includes abusers as parents, and instead prefer a new class as a class, assuming they will rarely/never abuse. </p>
<p>Particular children are removed from particular abusive situations, whether that’s a single parent, a hetero couple (married or cohabitating), or a gay single person or couple. Adoption decisions are based on a number of factors, the overriding one of which is: Which environment as a whole offers the probability of the greatest overall health (physical, financial, mental, social) for a particular child, based on what this particular seeker or seekers brings to the arrangement.</p>
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<p>I absolutely agree. My point (obviously misunderstood) was that same-sex couples can sometimes provide that environment of “greatest overall health” for a particular child, and they should not be summarily excluded from adopting.</p>
<p>I don’t know about “summarily excluded,” but it is difficult for me to believe that in most adoption cases there is not a waiting, interested hetero couple available to that child with just as much to offer as any interested gay couple – the only significant difference being that in one case the child gets two genders to relate to and form an identity with; in the other case, he or she is limited to one gender. Given two environments that are healthy in other ways, it seems to me that the tie-breaker is the advantage of the second gender, to make the family experience more truly complete and not “pretend” (“I’ll play mother; you play father.”) Gender is not role, lest anyone be confused about that.</p>
<p>I guess the religious right must have included an instruction to keep repeating the word “pretend” in their latest set of talking points.</p>
<p>Repeat it all you like. It doesn’t make it so. </p>
<p>In most cases there’s a waiting, interested hetero couple available? I don’t know what world you’re living in, but it isn’t the real one.</p>
<p>Besides, we’ve had this discussion before. Endlessly. (Didn’t we have hundred of posts debating Bay’s theory of “birthrights”? And debating her contentions, made in terms almost word-for-word identical to Claremarie’s, about how awful it is to “deprive” a not-yet existing child of that so-called birthright?) And it’s been made very clear that people like you have no actual evidence, just rigid ideology, to support your “different sex couple is inherently better for children than same sex couple” mantra. </p>
<p>Fortunately, we don’t live in a theocracy. And we don’t make “civil practice” (?) decisions based on ideologies that aren’t borne out out by the extant research on the best interests of children. (Namely, to be loved and supported by their parent or parents.)</p>
<p>All I know is that if I, or my son, had been raised by a parent (or, God forbid, two parents) with thinking as skewed as some of what’s been presented on this and some other threads here, it would have been tantamount to a death sentence. As has, unfortunately, been the case for all too many children. </p>
<p>Not to mention that you seem to have injected yourself into this thread for the purpose of hijacking it and changing the subject. As I said, we’ve had innumerable threads about same-sex marriages and parenting. Why don’t you go take up one of those threads again? I can even find you the links if you want! </p>
<p>Gender identity and sexual orientation are separate concepts, even if they have a number of issues in common.</p>
<p>If I have time tomorrow, I’ll try to answer some of the questions concerning what I think should or shouldn’t be done to help gender dysphoric children. There are no easy answers, and I don’t envy the parents. (I certainly don’t envy the children, since I was one of them and know how hard it is.)</p>
<p>I would rather see the children placed in a temporary foster home while their parents receive treatment and support to enable them to regain custody of their children. The next best alternative would be placement with relatives. Then adoption by an unrelated married heterosexual couple with experience in working with abused children. </p>
<p>One could argue, correctly, that placement in a bare-bones but non-abusive orphanage would be preferable to allowing such children to remain with their natural abusive parents, but that’s hardly a ringing endorsement of orphanages as being in the best interest of children, is it?</p>
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<p>I base my statement on belief in the power of the Holy Spirit, claremarie. The Church has reacted in the past to new scientific information- albeit slowly. Therefore it is possible for the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, to change, in some cases, and in any case, re-articulate its teachings in light of new scientific discovery.</p>
<p>“I base my statement on belief in the power of the Holy Spirit, claremarie. The Church has reacted in the past to new scientific information- albeit slowly. Therefore it is possible for the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, to change, in some cases, and in any case, re-articulate its teachings in light of new scientific discovery.”</p>
<p>Yet, if Church teaching on homosexuality is based on the natural law and Scripture, and NOT on the biological or psychological basis for homosexuality, how could “new scientific discovery” have any bearing on this teaching?</p>
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<p>A number of the Church’s moral doctrine’s have in fact changed over the years. An interesting article by John T. Noonnan Jr. gives details of explicit, radical changes in the Church’s position on usury, marriage, slavery and religious freedom. For example:</p>
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<p>In other words: “What was required became forbidden.”</p>
<p>Regarding the formerly mortal sin of usury:</p>
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<p>But no more. What was forbidden became permitted.</p>
<p>On slavery:</p>
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<p>But then “what was permissible became unlawful”.</p>
<p>According to Noonan, what led to such changes? It was experience, “suffered or perceived in the light of human nature and the gospel”.</p>
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<p>According to Noonan, experience, assessed in the light of the person and teachings of Jesus Christ, can lead to changes in the Church’s moral doctrine.</p>
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<p>John T. Noonan, Jr., “Development in Moral Doctrine”, Theological Studies %4:4 (December 1993), 662-677.</p>
<p>The article is available here:</p>
<p>[Theological</a> Studies, Inc.: Downloadable Articles (vols. 50-54)](<a href=“Theological Studies Journal | A journal of academic theology”>Theological Studies Journal | A journal of academic theology)</p>
<p>claremarie- I’m not going to give you a theology lesson here. Sufice to say that the majority of the Church’s teaching in the area of moral theology and human sexuality are not considered infallible. Science can certainly play a role to inform the articulation of the teachings, in addition to natural law and Scripture.</p>
<p>With that said, I hope we can return to the subject of the thread.</p>
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<p>I do not know enough about Roman Catholicism to comment on this, but I do think it’s important to understand that for those Evangelical Christians who believe the Bible is infallible (original language/texts), this will not be the case, because their faith is predicated on the premise the Holy Spirit cannot and will not contradict Scripture – that God is incapable of contradicting Himself.</p>
<p>No, Donna, I have not “injected myself into the thread,” let alone for the purpose of “hijacking it.” I was responding to arguments others brought up, actually – others who brought up tangents and questions. Fortunately, you are not the dictator of who does and does not get to respond to an open public forum because you want to silence them. Hmmm.</p>
<p>I never said that I wanted a theocracy. Nor do my statements anywhere here support the concept of theocracy, and you know it. You must be confusing me with others who use religious teachings to support concepts discussed on this thread. Mine is not a religious argument; mine are societal and biological arguments. Others, not me, asked questions about certain church thinking; I responded to those questions; that’s all. My responses were not statements that that was good or bad teaching, merely that it was.</p>
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<p>Nope. Not an enemy. But naturally to you, anyone who does not support every desire of either group is an enemy of both. (The same black-and-white category thinking of those on the extreme right.) Furthermore, I have in no place on this thread conflated gender identity & sexual orientation. They are indeed two different things. However, when two people of the same gender want to start a family, that is unquetionably one gender heading that household, not two.</p>
<p>Donna, I’m just as guilty of drifting off-topic as epiphany or anyone else–sometimes these threads just take on a life of their own. Besides, I want to hear how the other side thinks–even if I don’t agree at all–because I have a feeling that even though some posters’ views are in the minority in the CC forum, that’s not the case in the real world.</p>
<p>But back on topic, in the Chaz Bono celebrity stuff mode, here is tonight’s installment of “Out and Proud in Chicago”:</p>
<p>[WTTW</a> - Schoolboy to Showgirl: The Alexandra Billings Story](<a href=“http://www.wttw.com/main.taf?p=43,7,1]WTTW”>http://www.wttw.com/main.taf?p=43,7,1)</p>
<p>Does a “flashy” celebrity story about someone like Alexandra Billings help or hurt your cause of educating others about transgender issues?</p>
<p>People Magazine has an article on Chaz this week.</p>