Comments on: Prop 8 Amicus Brief Filer Calls For “International Intervention,” Charges Gay Parents With “Slave Trade”

By: Mike

Mike — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 00:53:59 +0000

When a reader alerts you to a story, the classy thing to do is give them a hat tip.

By: iDavid

iDavid — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 01:37:38 +0000

In the judge’s chambers…… I see a waste basket aglow with flames.

By: Jon Trouten

Jon Trouten — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 14:21:10 +0000

Neil: It’s easy to dream up an ideal version of an absent parent. We struggled with this with our adopted son. He was happy with us, but would still imagine how things might be better if he remained with his birth parents.

Then the birth parents each contacted us for occasional visits and phone contacts. Our initial instinct was to say “absolutely not”, especially b/c of the reasons that they each lost parental rights in the first place. But we ultimately agreed to some supervised contact.

And it fell apart because of broken promises, poor decisions, and a return to prison. The positive part of these contacts is that he knows that his birth parents are generally safe and alive. But he also has moved from fantasy imaginings of what might have been to realistic understandings of what led to him being placed in our home when he was a young child.

By: gsingjane

gsingjane — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 12:24:21 +0000

I’m wondering, also, whether Ben’s comments couldn’t be directed at anybody who didn’t have a dad at home while growing up. I have to assume this group (of kids raised without a dad in the home) is hundreds if not thousands of times bigger than the group of people raised by same-sex parents. Why isn’t he out there campaigning against divorce, if he’s really upset by the idea of kids growing up without a dad? It would have a much, much greater impact.

By: Regan DuCasse

Regan DuCasse — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 04:59:19 +0000

Neil, makes a very good point. Lopez DOES heap all of the blame of bad parenting on his lesbian mother and her partner, but not his father.
We go to great lengths analyzing the structure of families and their impact on the adjustment of their children.
The difference is, blaming the gay sexual orientation for EVERYTHING that’s maladjusted, on gay parents and virtually nothing else.
The FRC and other anti gay orgs, cited the research done on prison inmates and the impact of absent fathers on children. This, they said was why lesbians shouldn’t raise children. Because children needed both genders in the home.
However, the study didn’t say any of the inmates had been raised by LESBIANS. Whether single or with another woman.
Nor was the orientation of the inmates a corresponding part of that research either.
In other words, sexual orientation had NOTHING to do with the impact on the lives of these inmates.
The issue was about abandonment by fathers some of them HAD known. Fathers they knew were criminals or addicts. Or had been killed by violence.
Disaffected fathers, is a very different issue, than a father you don’t know because your ss parents have competent surrogates in your life.

By: Rick L.

Rick L. — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 03:33:48 +0000

I too, find Mr. Lopez bizarre.

By: StraightGrandmother

StraightGrandmother — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 03:05:41 +0000

Did you read what ROL wrote to Karen Ocamb at LGBOV?

“Yes, my family was an embarrassment to the gay community. We were loud and uncouth. My mother was a manly stereotype who liked to take us to a trailer in a tacky park smelling of sulfur everywhere. She was born under a tree in Puerto Rico without a doctor and the midwife dropped her on her head, which was why everyone said she acted like a man all the time. She knew how to fight with a machete and loved getting drunk. She had a big broken front tooth that she thought was funny. Our house was a complete mess. I was a freak.” (BTW he also claims his mother was a physician).

http://lgbtpov.frontiersla.com/2012/08/19/bisexual-csun-prof-robert-oscar-lopez-explains-support-for-regnerus-study/

By: markanthony

markanthony — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 03:04:25 +0000

Bizarre or greedy, his writings made more sense to me if you read them as something a deeply wounded man writes in a journal for therapy.

The details of his childhood are convoluted, but growing up a gay as a poor minority, early death of mother, being without family or close friends during his twenties right when he is coming out…sounds like it could be pretty tough.

By: jpeckjr

jpeckjr — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 02:52:20 +0000

My guess is that the clerks who will read and review these briefs for the Justices will set them aside as irrelevant to the cases before SCOTUS.

One must make a cogent legal argument if one expect to prevail in a court of law. These are not cogent legal arguments. They aren’t even persuasive emotional ones. They are random rants of fearfulness.

By: Markanthonydog

Markanthonydog — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 01:40:40 +0000

Glad to see BTB turn its critical eye towards Lopez. NOM has been highlighting his story for a while now and he seems to be on the verge of playing a bigger role in this movement. Getting the straight facts of his life story would be useful.

An interesting counter-point to the paper referenced above is an earlier publication in American Thinker where he seems to urge the larger gay community to encourage adoption as a kind of pro-life measure.