Andre Van Mol MD

In the current debate over gay marriage, a popular protest goes like this: if procreation is a qualification for marriage, what about sterile heterosexuals?

Sterile heterosexuals.  That would be my wife and I.  Our children came slowly and with much prayer, then much prayer and fertility drugs, and then foster parenting.  Even if we had never produced, fostered or adopted children, we still would have a marriage providing the two sexual role models children need to see for proper development, even if those children were watching us from our neighborhood and were never our own.

Gilles Bernheim, Chief Rabbi of France, asserts, “. . . the role of parents extends beyond the love they feel for their children. . . . All the affection in the world will not suffice to produce the basic psychological structures that address the child’s need to know where he comes from. . . Even adopted children know that they originate from the love and the desire of their parents, even when these are not their biological parents. Father and mother represent a genealogy for the child. The child needs a clear and coherent genealogy in order to find his place as an individual.”[1]

Infertile heterosexual marriages without hope of procreation or lacking the desire for such provide not only the sexual role modeling, but the benefits to the couple and the community of what one sex brings to the other – heterosexual complementarity.  Former Harvard professor and social scientist James Q. Wilson said, “The vast majority of people do better if men marry women. The sexes complement each other. Having a woman in your household makes men better, and having a man in your household makes women better.” [2]

The late Emory University professor Elizabeth Fox-Genovese put it this way:  “Marriage is an intrinsic good in itself because it bridges the difference between the sexes, uniting man and woman in “one flesh.” . . . marriage acknowledges the reality of sexual difference even as it works to bridge that difference and lay a foundation for a vital and, yes, grown-up social life.”[3]

Canadian physician and academic Dr. John Patrick and philosopher Dr. Edward Tingley note that the state endorses marriage not due to rights, equality or feelings, because it is a specialized and vital instrument of general welfare. [4]

These are two among the ways in which marriages are foundational for a society and are in the public interest as instruments of general welfare – heterosexual role modeling and heterosexual complementarity.

Andre Van Mol, MD

A recent news item titled, “Dad’s Touching Note To Gay Son Nate Worried About Coming Out Goes Viral,” was all over the press last week. Reportedly first released on a site called FCKH8 (ironic how hateful that sounds), it detailed a dad writing this note to his son, “Nate, I overheard your phone conversation with Mike last night about your plans to come out to me. The only thing I need you to plan is bring home OJ and bread after class. We are out, like you now. I’ve known you were gay since you were six—I’ve loved you since you were born -Dad PS: Your mom and I think you and Mike make a cute couple.”

Loving your children is a must. Being an enabler and co-dependent encouraging one’s child in gay sexual practice is not.  Love does not necessitate enablement, and enablement is neither benign nor compassionate, but naïve.

Per the Gay Lesbian Medical Association web site, those practicing gay sex have

higher rates of HIV/AIDS, substance abuse, depression/anxiety, hepatitis, STDs, cancers, alcohol abuse, tobacco use, eating disorders, and (in subsets) obesity. Men who have sex with men (MSM) lose 25 to 40% of their lifespan.[1] For a fuller detailing of the negative health consequences of same-sex sexual behavior see my report.[2]

One might ask how the father knew his son was gay at six. Judging from appearances, perhaps. But all kids are same-sex preferring at that age — the opposite sex is all cooties and yuck. Regarding adolescents the 1994 National Health and Social Life survey completed by the U. of Chicago, the biggest and best study available, found that eight percent of 16-year-olds thought they were gay; by age 18 only four percent did; and by age 25, only 2.8 percent still thought so – two-thirds changed their minds from 16 to 25 years of age.[3][4] Perhaps parents should be encouraged not to label their children too soon, and children should avoid the same rush to judgment about themselves. That is love, too.

You are right to love your children, period. But what about rejection and the harm it causes? In a 2010 interview about one such study, I offered this observation, “A parent can fully love and accept their [LGBT] teen, give them a safe home where they know that they as a person are accepted, and still have it be known that their parents feel that acting out on that sexual orientation will be an inherently negative thing . . .”[5]  Furthermore, there is a certain emotional blackmail in telling parents that failing to bow to GLBT ideology results in children who are depression, drug addled, or suicidal, and a deficit of good faith in failing to inform parents and children that those engaging in the GLBT lifestyle are already shown to have higher rates of those problems (see footnote 2).

Yes, love you children regardless. And know that sexual orientation is not inborn nor is it immutable. People can and do change. My article on the evidence for both claims is cited here.[6]

Back to FCKH8. We’ve seen for years that any failure to accept, celebrate, and advocate GLBT social-political mandates is met with reflexive and harsh accusations of ignorance, hate, bigotry, and phobia – all of which starts to sound like projection from the accusers. Disagreement is neither hatred nor the rest.  There is such a thing as compassionate confrontation – loving children without calling wrong right or harm good.

Love your children unconditionally. But think twice before licensing and encouraging sexual behaviors with predictably harmful consequences. Love your children, but be aware that regarding sexual orientation, change is possible.

Andre Van Mol, MD