In response to last week’s article on Banned Books Week, multiple homosexuality-affirming websites have been apoplectic about the five story ideas about homosexuality and gender confusion I mentioned, particularly the hypothetical picture book about a bird who experiences joy when, after the deaths of her fathers, she is adopted by a father and mother.

These websites make two errors: They twist what I actually said (no surprise there) and ignore the fact that I wasn’t recommending any of the hypothetical books. Rather, I was wondering aloud whether librarians would apply consistently their own anti-book-banning propositions. I was wondering if they would request those kinds of stories in order to fill gaps in their book collections. I was wondering if librarians would include stories in their book collections with which some children may identify but that convey ideas “progressives” don’t like. I was suggesting that “progressives” engage in a more absolute form of “book-banning” than the kind of which they accuse conservatives.

The anger of “progressives” on these websites demonstrates that they are far more, shall we say, “passionate” in their opposition to books they don’t like—including even book ideas—than are conservatives. “Progressives” become enraged in the presence of a story idea—including book ideas that haven’t even a suggestion of hatred. Their anger confirms my point. When conservative parents challenge an actual book, “progressives” ridicule them (which includes librarians ridiculing their own patrons). When I merely describe hypothetical stories, the Left goes ballistic.

Homosexuals have once again revealed their hypocrisy. In response to the story ideas I described, they are howling in rage: How dare I even propose a story that suggests some child somewhere may want a mother and a father or that a teen may not like the promiscuity of her fathers or the emotional and relational instability of his mothers. If this is how homosexuals respond to a story idea, imagine if such a story were published and purchased and displayed in a library? Librarians better be ready for the jackbooted agents of change—you know, the anti-censorship crowd.

Ah, how the liberal ironies abound.

I also received a few colorful email messages from critics that reveal a lot about the Left’s inability to read closely; the nature of their commitment to diversity, tolerance, and truth; and their lack of understanding of Scripture.

** Caution: Vulgar Content **

Email from Jason Boro:

(Mr. Boro quotes from my article), “Will they ask for picture books that show the joy a little birdie experiences when after the West Nile virus deaths of her two daddies, she’s finally adopted by a daddy and mommy?”

How anyone can wish the death of parents is a vile c***. I can only imagine that when this despicable, poor excuse of a human being dies there will be thousands dancing on her grave to celebrate that she can no longer can spew forth her hate. How sad it must be to be filled with so much hate and venom. 

You as an organization are so far from Christianity it is frightening. 

Email from Grant Lange:

(Mr. Lange begins with same quote), “You have gone WAY too far and crossed some serious lines.  Do not EVER call yourself a “christian” or a “pro-family” person…as I can finally see you that display the characteristics of neither.  Advocating the death of any person you deem unworthy or putting any child through that scenario you describe is abhorrent and certainly NOT “pro-family”.

I will in fact thank you, however, for opening my eyes.  This shock has allowed to me to see you and this organization for what it is….nothing but hateful prejudice disguised as “faith”. 

Email from John Lockwood:

I just wanted to take a moment to express my disgust and disappointment with the current article by Laurie Higgins. 

What kind of sane person spews the divisiveness and hatred, like she does and did?  Certainly not a religious, god-fearing person.  Anyone with even a tiny bit of knowledge of the bible and the teachings of Jesus, would see just how far off the mark she is.  She claims to be a happily married mother and wife, and yet her pre-occupation with the sexual behaviors of others, is disgusting, and frankly, a bit concerning.  Why does she feel it is her duty to deny others, get into their lives, and dictate what people read and how parents raise their children?  At the very least, taking the scriptures to heart, she should be loving, caring, and if you really believe, subservient.  Instead, she prattles on, dispensing hateful advice on what our children should and should not read.  Dictating how our schools and libraries should be stocked.  She has no excuse for her behavior, and your employing of her, and publishing her filth, is tacit acceptance of her behavior. 

Enough!  Walk the walk, or shut up.  You either believe and love your god, or you act like this woman.  Hypocrisy is evident, and that takes away from the legitimacy of your organization. 

Email from anonymous critic:

F*** you. You are evil. How dare you wish teens identify with loss instead of love.

My thoughts:

The claims that I wish “the death of parents” and advocate the deaths of people I “deem unworthy” are both peculiar and false. I described a story in which a bird lost her homosexual parents and was subsequently adopted by a father and a mother. There was nothing in my description that expressed a wish for or advocated the deaths of parents. The bird’s joy results from her adoption—not the deaths of her parents. If I were to suggest a picture book about a child who experiences joy at being adopted by a young mother and father after the deaths of her grandparents who had been raising her, would I be accused by anyone of wishing for or advocating the deaths of grandparents? I suspect not, which points to the kind of ideological oppression the Left seeks.

And I don’t deem homosexuals unworthy. Quite the opposite. I consider their lives—both temporal and eternal—of infinite value. My moral opposition to homoerotic activity does not diminish my recognition of their infinite value, because I don’t believe their identity or worth is defined by their sin.

The hypothetical story I described suggests, rather, that children deeply and inherently long for both mothers and fathers. Are Boro and Lange asserting that there exists no child adopted by two men or two women who longs for the mother or father of which they have been intentionally deprived?

And if telling a story that includes a painful experience for a child constitutes “advocating” such a painful experience—as Mr. Lange argues—then our libraries and publishing companies have been “advocating” death, divorce, disease, drug use, rape, bullying, beatings, molestation, and torture for children for quite some time.

While the Left claims to want stories with which children and teens identify, my anonymous critic believes that it’s the task of authors to direct children to feel a certain way. He doesn’t want any books published that reflect children’s feelings about same-sex parenting that the Left doesn’t like. Instead, he wants only books in libraries that direct children on how to feel about the absence of either mothers or fathers.

My critics suggest that I express hatred, but is the claim that children have a right to be raised whenever possible by a mother and father a sign of hatred? Is the claim that some children may feel sadness about the absence of a mother or father an expression of hatred? And is the claim that libraries should include stories about children who—though loving their adoptive homosexual parents—wish they had both a mother and father a sign of hatred?

A word about love: To treat someone with love requires first an understanding of what is true. If homoerotic activity is, indeed, immoral, unhealthy, and destructive to both temporal and eternal lives, it is the very antithesis of love to affirm homoerotic activity and relationships.

When Mr. Lockwood suggests that I demonstrate little knowledge of Scripture and that I should “walk the walk, or shut up,” he ignores the biblical truth that while loving his creation, God hates much that we humans choose to engage in, including homoerotic activity. That is made clear in both the Old and New Testaments.

Is “the walk” to which Lockwood refers, the walk of God who says that homoerotic activity (among other behaviors) is detestable and that none who engage in it will see the kingdom of Heaven? Or is “the walk” the walk of Jesus who says that marriage is the lifelong union of one man and one woman? Does the walk include God’s mandate that his followers should expose the “the unfruitful deeds of darkness,” declare “the whole counsel of God,” and be willing to be hated because the world first hated Jesus?

Or did Mr. Lockwood mean I should walk the walk of a heretic, denying those parts of Scripture that are difficult, counter-cultural, inconvenient, and will make the world hate me?

For most of my life, I paid little attention to either the private or public activity of homosexual activists, but then their activities became too troubling to ignore:

• They started infiltrating public schools, demanding that their non-objective assumptions about the nature and morality of homosexuality and theirs alone be taught as objective, unassailable truths.
• They began imposing their redefinition of marriage on all of society through specious, incoherent arguments.
• They began attacking First Amendment rights.
• They began robbing children of their right to be raised whenever possible by a mother and a father.
• They  began hurling epithets at anyone who dared to express ontological and moral beliefs with which homosexual activists disagreed.
• And then they began their quest to make it impossible for dissenters to work in America.

In other words, they began demanding the entire public square to themselves.

Mr. Lockwood is wrong: It is “progressives,” not conservatives, who seek to dictate what people read and how children are raised. It is the Left that imposes their values and assumptions about homosexuality on all families through public schools, while censoring all resources that dissent from their homosexuality-affirming dogma.

It is the Left that believes that kindergartners should be exposed to Leftist assumptions about homoeroticism and gender confusion in public school.

It is the Left that engages in defacto censorship in library book collections.

Perhaps the resentment generated by my book ideas is evidence of the claim Robert Oscar Lopez—who was raised by two lesbians—makes in his article “Same-Sex Parenting: Child Abuse?“:

“Normalization” [of same-sex parenting] demands a kind of silence from multiple parties in a child’s life. The child’s lost biological parent(s) must keep a distance or disappear to allow two gay adults to play the role of parent. Extended family must avoid asking intrusive questions and shouldn’t show any disapproval through facial expressions or gestures. Schools and community associations have to downplay their celebrations of fatherhood or motherhood (even canceling Father’s Day and Mother’s Day in favor of “Parenting Day”). The media have to engage in a massive propaganda campaign, complete with Disney productions featuring lesbian moms, to stifle any objections or worries. Nobody must challenge the gay parents’ claim that all is being done for love. Does the silence of so many surrounding parties reverse the sense of loss?

No. The child still feels the loss, but learns to remain silent about it because her loss has become a taboo, a site of repression, rather than a site for healing and reconstruction.

I’ve learned that truth and accuracy is less valued by “progressive” ideologues than are lies and distortion in the service of their unholy cultural quest for ideological conformity to false and destructive ideas.

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Illinois Family Institute
Faith, Family and Freedom Banquet

Friday, September 19 , 2014
The Meadows Club – Rolling Meadows, IL

Secure your tickets now – click here or call (708) 781-9328.

Of these two, which headline about the same “study” do you guess was seen by more people?:

1. Children with same-sex parents happier and healthier than those from traditional families, study shows

2. Is Same-Sex Parenting Better for Kids? The New Australian Study Can’t Tell Us

BarbWire, the conservative news website, is posting an excerpt from #2, which is an article by Mark Regnerus published at the Public Discourse website. But the liberal press went gaga over this junk science news item and headlines like #1 were a lot easier to find. BarbWire contributor Bill Muehlenberg, who lives in Australia, also addresses this controversy on BarbWire today.

If too many Americans remain low information voters it’s not for a lack of good information — the problem is one or reach. Those of us who know how the political left and the liberal media lie must continue to reach more of our fellow citizens with the truth. We must fight harder in the information war.

On this topic of same-sex parenting, by the way, on the web page where the #2 article is posted are found these important articles — they’re all well worth your time and need wide dissemination:

The Kids Aren’t All Right: New Family Structures and the “No Differences” Claim
By Ana Samuel

Mark Regnerus and the Storm over the New Family Structures Study
By Matthew J. Franck

The Vindication of Mark Regnerus
By Matthew J. Franck

A Married Mom and Dad Really Do Matter: New Evidence from Canada
By Mark Regnerus

Here are two more articles at the Public Discourse website written by BarbWire contributor Robert Oscar Lopez:

Same-Sex Parenting: Child Abuse?
Single-parenting and divorce have always been understood as a breakdown of the married mom and dad ideal, but the demand to view same-sex parenting as “normal” imposes a silence on children about the wound caused by the loss of one parent or the other.

Growing Up With Two Moms: The Untold Children’s View
The children of same-sex couples have a tough road ahead of them—I know, because I have been there. The last thing we should do is make them feel guilty if the strain gets to them and they feel strange.

It’s the same on every single issue — conservatives have plenty of ammo — they need only use it more effectively.

For the homosexuality-affirming movement to hold culture tightly in its foul grip, those for whom same-sex attraction and activity define “identity” must capture the hearts and minds of children who are our future. Hence the unholy clutching and scrabbling to rule public schools, even at the expense of intellectual freedom, diversity, and exploration.

They must also capture the hearts and minds of men—who are by nature leaders of culture. Hence the unholy scrabbling and clutching to transmogrify bastions of masculinity: the Boy Scouts of America, the military, and sports.

Those who find the video of homosexual NFL draftee Michael Sam “endearing” have had their consciences seared and values deformed. While it is a good thing that the rigid taboo against men expressing emotion has weakened, the image of a man tearfully stroking the arm of a weeping male lover and a celebratory homoerotic kiss between two men should provoke strong reactions—none of which should be “aw, isn’t that sweet.”

While pundits and the worldly wise celebrated the homoerotic predilections of Sam, Miami Dolphins defensive back Don Jones tweeted “OMG” and “horrible.” For those quickly deleted politically incorrect words, Jones is being fined and sent to re-education camp. “Horrible” means “dreadful; very unpleasant; and disagreeable.” Sentiments properly ordered should find homoerotic kissing “horrible.” God destroyed a city in large part because of homosexual activity, and God calls homosexual activity “abominable” and “detestable.” We should not find such acts “endearing.”

And a society that values diversity, tolerance (which means to endure that which offends you), religious liberty, and freedom of speech should not punish and “re-educate” those who dissent from “progressive” dogma or tweet one politically incorrect adjective

Click here to read this important article by English professor Robert Oscar Lopez who was raised by two lesbians. In it he provides a truthful overview of the history of and damage done by the homosexuality-affirming movement. This movement’s  disproportionate influence within our culture-making institutions accounts for the perverse cultural response to the Michael Sam video.  

Lopez predicts that a phenomenon as profoundly anti-nature and anti-culture as this one cannot last forever. One day the scales will fall from the eyes of America, and they will see what their ignorance and cowardice have birthed. The suffering of children who are being sacrificed on the altar of adult sexual desires will finally become known. There will be more tragic stories like that of 66-year-old French attorney who specializes in humanitarian law, Jean-Dominique Bunel, who shares what he thinks about being raised by two lesbians:

It is not therefore the taboo against homosexuality that made  me suffer, but rather, gay parenting….[E]quality cannot be applied rashly to the ‘right to a child’ which exists nowhere and can be drawn from no text at all.
…

I suffered from the indifference of adults to the intimate sufferings of children, starting with mine. In a world where their rights are each day rolled back, in truth, it is always the rights of adults that hold sway. I also suffered from the lack of a father, a daily presence, a character and a properly masculine example, some counterweight to the relationship of my mother to her lover. I was aware of it at a very early age. I lived that absence of a father, experienced it, as an amputation.

Divorce does not deprive a child necessarily of its parents, who normally are given shared or alternate guardianship of the child. Especially, divorce does not replace the father with a second woman, exacerbating even more the affective imbalance, both emotional and structural, for the child. All psychiatrists ought to recognize that the latter does not depend on a woman the way it depends upon a man, and that the ideal for the child is that the two accompany each other in an equal, complementary way.

…My father, who had abandoned my mother when I was three, precisely due to the [lesbian] relation she was engaged in, was never around, notably when I needed him. Also I turned as much as possible to the men of my surroundings, who begged for an oversized and sometimes unhealthy place in my life.

…All my life as an adult was thrust out of whack by this experience…. I doubt that many children of gay couples will open themselves up easily and honestly to journalists on this very delicate matter. It’s traumatizing to speak of suffering that one would rather silence.”

…As soon as I learned that the government was going to officialize marriage between two people of the same sex, I was thrown into disarray…. by the fact that we would be opening, necessarily, this code to adoption, institutionalizing a situation that had scarred me considerably. In that there is an injustice that I can in no way allow.

…I oppose this bill [to legalize same-sex “marriage” in France] because in the name of a fight against inequalities and discrimination, we would refuse a child one of its most sacred rights, upon which a universal, millenia-old tradition rests, that of being raised by a father and a mother. You see, two rights collide: the right to a child for gays, and the right of a child to a mother and father. The international convention on the rights of the child stipulates in effect that “the highest interest of the child should be a primary consideration” (article 3, section 1). Here this ‘higher interest’ leaves no doubt.” But it is the wounded man who concludes: “If two women who raised me had been married prior to the adoption of such a bill, I would have jumped into the fray and would have brought a complaint before the French state and before the European Court of the rights of man, for the violation of my right to a mom and a dad.”

Those whose inherent right to a mother and father is being stripped from them will someday tell their stories. It is hoped that when that day comes, there will remain some with a conscience to feel sorrow and shame.

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