Back to David Blankenhorn again, and, picking up where we left off, he comes up with this howler:
For these reasons, children have the right, insofar as society can make it possible, to know and to be cared for by the two parents who brought them into this world. The foundational human rights document in the world today regarding children, the 1989 U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, specifically guarantees children this right.
This is beyond misrepresenation -- it's an outright fabrication. The Convention on the Rights of the Child is quite exhaustive, and nowhere does it specify that a child has the right to be raised by his or her biological parents. In fact, one can argue quite effectively that this is not the case, since the Convention routinely includes "legal guardians" as legitimate caretakers and has an entire section on adoption, all of which can quite easily be interpreted as including families headed by same-sex parents. (I might also note that the Convention also recognizes the role of single parents, through its use of the form "parent(s).")
Blankenhorn's arguments are full of holes, as well. A couple of examples:
Do you think that every child deserves his mother and father, with adoption available for those children whose natural parents cannot care for them?
If every child has a right to be raised by his or her biological parents, any child offered up for adoption has had its rights violated. Blankenhorn is attempting to cast the blame on those who are trying to rectify that situation -- i.e., same-sex couples.
Do you suspect that fathers and mothers are different from one another?
Oh, lordy, not this one again. In what way(s), please? Be specific. And prove that those qualities that you ascribe to mothers cannot be found in fathers, and vice-versa.
The liberal philosopher Isaiah Berlin posited that, in many cases, the real conflict we face is not good vs. bad but good vs. good. Reducing homophobia is good. Protecting the birthright of the child is good. How should we reason together when these two good things conflict?
They don't conflict, and Blankenhorn hasn't made the case that they do. Reducing homophobia, if it leads to acceptance of same-sex marriage, and protecting the rights of children to be raised (and I'm quoting from the Convention here) "in a family environment, in an atmosphere of happiness, love and understanding," seem to me to go hand in hand. (And do keep in mind that those who adopt children actually want them: they aren't "accidents" or unlooked-for consequences or just something that you create without thinking about it -- they are specifically sought out by people who want to love them and care for them.)
Here is my reasoning. I reject homophobia and believe in the equal dignity of gay and lesbian love. Because I also believe in the right of the child to the mother and father who made her, society should seek to maintain and to strengthen the only human institution - marriage - that is specifically intended to safeguard that right and make it real for our children.
Legalized same-sex marriage almost certainly benefits those same-sex couples who choose to marry, as well as the children being raised in those homes. But changing the meaning of marriage to accommodate homosexual orientation further and perhaps definitively undermines for all of us the very thing - the gift, the birthright - that is marriage's most distinctive contribution to human society. That's a change that, in the final analysis, I cannot support.
Given what I've discussed above, this statement is worthy of Lewis Carroll at his best. Since he hasn't substantiated this "right of the child to the mother and father who made her," this is pretty much empty posturing, as well as being internally contradictory: Blankenhorn claims to believe in the equal dignity of gay and lesbian love, although he spent his first couple of paragraphs denying the customary legal and social recognition of that love, and tries to tie marriage to a right of children that he's created out of whole cloth. I suppose, in Blankenhorn's world, heterosexual couples get married with the idea first and foremost of having children, no unmarried couples have children, there are no unwanted children, and gays and lesbians are welcome to have their relationships ignored by the law (and should be grateful for that much, I guess). Regrettably, from Blankenhorn's standpoint, that world doesn't exist (and I think I would still support same-sex marriage, even if it did). And then, based on his completely specious idea that marriage is all and only about providing children with biological parents, rejects the idea that same-sex relationships are as worthy of recognition and support as their opposite-sex counterparts.
His argument is pure tripe, as well as being dishonest on a fundamental level. And that's about as polite as I can be when presented with something this egregious.
Earlier posts are here:
Part I
Part II
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