I’m working on this advertisement. It features a photo of a sad, freckle- faced kid asking, “Why Don’t Colorado Sen. Wayne Allard and Focus on the Family Believe Every Child Needs a Mother and a Father?”
I stole the idea from a paid political ad Focus ran Wednesday in this newspaper and in newspapers in 12 other states. The ads attack U.S. senators, including Colorado’s Ken Salazar, who likely will not vote for Allard’s proposed constitutional amendment to outlaw gay marriage.
My ad concerns a much more serious threat to American families, a threat that Allard, Focus founder James Dobson and their gay-bashing tribe ignored:
Single-parent families.
We all know a bunch. We know most moms or dads in these households do the best they can. We know the majority love their kids as we love ours. But to steal again from Focus on the Family’s ad: “A compassionate society would not deliberately deny a child a mother or a father.”
Because single parents are exponentially more common than same-sex parents, a greater need exists to constitutionally ban them in order to save marriage.
The fact that Allard and Focus on the Family are not trying to do so proves that they don’t believe every child needs a mother and a father. So please, call or fax their offices today.
If you find this reasoning as absurd as I do, then you’ll understand why Allard’s amendment and Focus’ current ad campaign are such hypocritical cheap shots.
“This is all fueled by homophobia,” said Dr. Ellen Perrin, chief of behavioral and developmental pediatrics at Tufts-New England Medical Center.
Perrin chairs a group called Pro-Family Pediatricians, which includes 1,300 physicians. The organization is sending a letter to senators to explain the risks to children being raised in households headed by same-sex couples. They are at no more risk than kids with a mother and a father, Perrin said.
“There are many children whose parents are divorced,” the doctor said. “There are many children whose parents are single from the beginning. There are many children who are abused and neglected or in foster care. Those situations are far, far worse – by anybody’s research – than the situation of children raised in a family that is headed by gay or lesbian parents.”
The Census Bureau estimates that America has 235,535 family households headed by same-sex partners. This number pales in comparison with an estimated 22 million children in homes headed by single women or men. Unlike Allard or Focus on the Family, Perrin doesn’t presume to judge either living arrangement. She wants only to find out how parents of all types can raise healthy kids.
A Focus on the Family spokeswoman told me that “we know from social science” that children living with same-sex parents are worse off than those raised by heterosexual, biological parents.
Science does not support that conclusion, said Perrin, who has studied child development for decades. Research, she said, finds few, if any, distinctions.
“No data show that the gender of parents makes a whit of difference,” Perrin said. “What matters is that parents are warm, nurturing and provide children with a sense of security.”
There are heterosexual, biological parents who can’t nurture, just as there are same-sex and single parents who can’t.
If you insist on talking about statistical risks to children, studies show children of single parents are more at risk than others. Which brings me back to my new ad. It is based on better science than Allard’s marriage amendment or Focus on the Family’s ad. It is also a sick joke.
If the U.S. Senate wants to save the American family, it should muster the political will to help all parents. It should guarantee every kid quality health care. It should mandate and fund school classes with no more than 15 students per teacher. It should pay for stem-cell research that might cure juvenile diabetes. It should do a whole bunch of things.
But above all, to sustain its domestic heritage, this country must infuse its children with tolerance, not bigotry.
Jim Spencer’s column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He can be reached at 303-820-1771 or jspencer@denverpost.com.
