In response to Patrick Miller’s “A license to discriminate in Kansas” July 5, 2018
Dear Patrick,
I understand your compassion for LGBT peoples. No one likes to see people suffer, and people with same sex attraction suffer immensely. In the short term, we can alleviate a person’s immediate suffering by giving them license, but by doing so, in the long term, they will generally end up in loneliness, emptiness and a shell of the person they were created to be. It is possible to live joyful and fulfilling lives by having chaste relationships with people you love. ‘Courage’ is a group of Catholics who experience same-sex attractions and who are committed to helping one another to live chaste lives marked by prayer, fellowship and mutual support.
Your article is biased towards the inferred gay rights, over the constitutionally stated right of religious freedom. (That’s o.k., I’m biased in my opinion too). The adoption laws in Kansas, as they stand, do not give one side and edge over the other. As in other states, where anti-discrimination of LGBTQ laws were enacted, private adoption agencies like Catholic Charities have closed down rather than go against their faith or against the good of the children.
I do hope that you can find equal compassion in your heart for children that are being deliberately placed in a situation where they will not have either a father or a mother. I feel that placing them into an artificially constructed homosexual family is not for the good of the child, but rather, to fulfill the fantasy of a homosexual family, which naturally does not exist. Do you really need to experiment on children forty or fifty years for scientific proof, only to show that these children will suffer from such an arrangement? We already have data based on 50 years of easy divorce that shows children from single family households fare far poorer in all areas of life compared to children from a two parent family. Workers experienced with adoption, say it is not in the best interest or good of the child to be adopted into homosexual situations. I cite, the web article, Sexual diversity in the Netherlands – Holland Alumni network (a pro-gay network), summarizing the Health and well – being of LGB study by the Netherlands Institute for Social Research (SCP), 2012, in English. The reason I use this study is because LGBT has been legal and accepted in the Netherlands for some fifty year, and I didn’t want to hear that the results were from the U.S. where there is bigotry and discrimination against LGBT. So, can you justify putting adopted children into this type of environment where there is: High rate of suicide.. The mental health of bisexuals is worse than that of homosexuals. A large number of bisexuals use drugs and suffer from psychological problems. Gay and bisexual men have a relatively greater risk of falling victim to sexual violence. Gay and bisexual men have an increased risk of STDs and HIV, despite their more frequent use of condoms. This is not in the study, but from my understanding, a homosexual marriage commitment means they stay with their partner, but partner infidelity is common and acceptable..
I also hope you consider the feelings and requests of birth mothers who give up their child to go to a family with a mother and father, because they can’t provide that environment. In states that made homosexual anti-discrimination laws, Catholic Charities had to shut down, denying an avenue for such women to be guaranteed their child is going to a home with a father and mother. Furthermore, Catholic Charities is the most affordable organization to provide adoption. All this would be gone: that which is in the child’s best interest, the mother’s desires for a mother/father family, and affordability for common families.
So, as the adoption laws stand in Kansas, both sides don’t get totally what they want. LGBTs can’t get service at every adoption agency, and religious groups can’t save every child from being adopted into a LGBT artificially constructed family.
Michel Werth, Hays