Libertarian converted by “transcendent” arguments at VFR

(Below the initial entry is a further discussion of the difference between adopted children and children raised by homosexual couples.)

A libertarian blogger, Mark at Western Survival, says that Laura W.’s beautiful explanation of the importance of our biological connection with our relatives and of a child’s natural need for a mother and a father has persuaded him that his previous libertarian attitude toward homosexual parenthood was wrong.

- end of initial entry -

Mark P. writes:

Not to rain on the parade, but how does this argument affect those heterosexual couples who can’t conceive children and either adopt or use surrogate parents? Does that disconnect the child from his biological parents and all whole lineage that resembles him?

LA replies:

“Rain on the parade” implies I’m engaged in some triumphalist celebration that is closed to other opinions rather than a discussion—of which there has been quite a bit on this topic——and an effort to persuade. If someone wants to challenge something I’ve said, he ought to challenge it, not suggest I’m conducting a parade.

To reply to Mark’s substantive point, being raised by one’s married, biological parents is the norm and the ideal. Of course, often in life things don’t work out. Parents die or are not willing or prepared to care for their child, and so the children need adoptive parents. Adoptions often work out very well. But no one would say that as a general principle—all other things being equal—it’s not preferable to be raised by one’s own natural parents. Mark’s question bespeaks the modern attitude that we cannot say that there is a desirable norm such as being raised by one’s biological parents, because that means putting down adoptive relationships. And of course, we know that many adopted children do long to know their natural parents and go searching for them.

But what we have with homosexual couples as parents is the deliberate creation of families in which children lack a natural relationship with their parents.

As for the use of surrogate parents or sperm donors by heterosexual couples who want a child, I think it is wrong and unnatural and should not be encouraged. Such couples should adopt instead. If they did adopt, abortion would decline.

Laura W. gets at the essence of the point that I was trying to get at concerning the difference between adopted children and the children of homosexual parents. She writes:

There has been an enormous movement in the last forty years to recognize the psychological burden of adoption. I think most states have changed their laws to make it possible for children to find their biological parents and adoptive parents have revolutionized the raising of their children with a new openness. It is now standard practice for adoptive parents to present the facts to their children when they are still very young so that they can begin to come to terms with the idea and they may even arrange for regular meetings with a biological parent. Why has this revolution occurred? Because of a widespread recognition of the emotional pain of adoption.

Does this mean adoption is not a good thing? Does this mean adopted children are somehow less human? The very idea is repulsive.

However, there is an essential difference between an adopted child and a child raised by homosexual parents. In the former case, it is recognized that the ideal could not be achieved and yet the pain will be confronted and overcome. Love is accompanied by honesty and openness. In the latter, there is no recognition that the ideal is not being met. Hence a child is lied to and told he has everything he needs. But children are not fools. The child raised by homosexual parents will not suffer trauma because, as is commonly believed, he might be teased for being different. He will suffer an indescribable ache, a mysterious longing, and a silent conviction that somewhere, somehow, he has been deceived.

LA writes:

Laura’s magnificent comment shows the difference between the traditionalist belief in an ideal and the modern liberal denial of an ideal. When it is recognized, without liberal egalitarian resentment, that the ideal is to be raised by one’s married, biological parents, then any situation falling short of that ideal can still try to conform to it and partake of it as much as possible. Take for example the common statement that adoptive parents make to their children, “I love you as much as if you were my own child.” How could the parents say this unless they recognized that there is an ideal, that this situation falls short of the ideal, but that through grace this situation has become like the ideal?

By contrast, when the very existence of the ideal is denied (because an ideal leads to a notion of inequality between the ideal and everything else), then there is nothing to aim for. If all situations are as good as all other situations, there is no such thing as the good.

Stephen F. writes:

This discussion shows how, contra Jonah Goldberg, gay marriage and gay adoption are intimately related.

I am also reminded of Andrew Sullivan’s arguments for gay marriage made on the grounds that heterosexual couples who are old, sterile, or don’t intend to have children are still allowed to marry.

The two issues, marriage and adoption, come together in your exchange with Laura. Marriage is a transcendent relationship which gives rules, form, symbolism, and public recognition to the mystical relationship between man and woman. The yearning for a monogamous relationship is natural; the temptation to stray is also natural, but marriage protects and sanctifies the former and rejects the latter.

The mystical relation between man and woman (which can’t be proved; you have to SEE it, and any normal person not blinded by liberalism will see it—even homosexuals can see it) still informs the relationship of childless couples, which is why a childless marriage is possible and good though not ideal. While I see no reason why couples who can’t conceive shouldn’t be able to marry, it is hard to see how a couple actively committed to NOT having children could be said to be fully participating in the experience of marriage. This is why in a Catholic wedding the couple has to promise that they are open to having children.

Now, given that the natural fruit of marriage is children, and that all children yearn, first, to know their biological parents, and second, to be raised by parents who love each other exclusively, then isn’t it pretty obvious that adoption of children by a normal married couple offers the chance to transcend the deficiencies of biology and fate, to create a normal family, for both the adoptive parents and the child?

This would mean, among other things, that heterosexual married couples should get ABSOLUTE priority over other individuals/groups in adoption decisions.

So, the recognition of a transcendent ideal makes it possible to transcend temporal limitations. But liberalism, in trying to destroy inequality by destroying ideals, makes achieving the good impossible for EVERYONE.

A topic for another time is this peculiarly American way of spreading liberalism, not through imposing socialism and egalitarianism from above, but by undermining traditional institutions from within.

Instead of doing away with marriage right out, it’s undermined by “including” other groups. (But why is it unfair to deny health insurance to a gay partner, but not to a non-sexual partner?) Instead of socialized medicine, which Americans reject, we pressure employers to insure their workers, which radically alters the medical system as well as the workplace, until socialized medicine appears necessary. And instead of directly doing away with freedom of speech and freedom of association, lawsuits undermine these things from the ground up.

Ron K. writes:

So I’m unhappy to have to single out some counterproductive terminology in otherwise excellent comments made this month by two of your readers named Stephen.

On the 12th, Stephen F. asks, “But why is it unfair to deny health insurance to a gay partner, but not to a non-sexual partner?”

Er, excuse me, but a “gay partner” is by definition a “non-sexual partner”. In arguing that marriage is between a man and a woman, traditionalists are missing a deeper point— that sex requires a man and a woman. Marriage is the regulation of sex, and what Adam and Steve (not Stephen!) do is not sexual, so their calling it so in order to reap the benefits tied to that regulation is simply fraud.

(But then, all liberalism is fraud, all fraud all the time.)

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 12, 2006 04:18 PM | Send