From: steven@cray.com (Steven Levine)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Re: Homsexuals rasing children(question)
Date: 9 Nov 92 22:09:22 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Cray Research, Inc.

In article <1992Nov8.045344.5979@meaddata.com>
king@meaddata.com (Mike King) asks the wrong questions:

>...I'm a little concerned about the notion of homosexuals
>raising children(i.e. same gender parents).

I, personally, would first question why you are concerned about
other people's families in the first place, without some specific
experiential reason to believe that a problem exists, but I'll
leave that aside for now.

> I was wondering if
>somebody could provide me with information that could remove my concerns.

I suspect that the only thing that might actually remove your
concerns (whatever anybody on this newsgroup says) is becoming
close with many gay and lesbian couples who are raising children.

The reason I said that you are asking the
wrong questions is that you have set up the wrong
category of evaluation for judging parents -- that
category being "homosexuality."  There are more
significant categories.  And even more important,
if you are going to judge whether a couple (or a threesome,
or an individual, or a quartet, or a group home) would
make good parents, the only useful question is whether
that couple (& c) would make good parents.  

What makes for good parents is a long and possibly fruitless
discussion all by itself, and has no specific connection
to homosexuality.

You ask:
>Do homosexual relationships have the long-term stability necessary to
>raise children?

If you accept the premise that long-term stability is
necessary to raise children (I know any number of people who
were raised without this "necessity" being met), then the
question you should be asking here is "Does this couple
have the long-term stability necessary to raise children?"
(Not "Is this couple homosexual?")

>Are "children" of homosexual parents ostrisized by the other children?

Are children of Jews in Christian neighborhoods?  Are poor children
in middle class neighborhoods?   Children of Democrats in Republican
strongholds?  Depends.  Mostly, in my experience,
it depends on the attitudes held by the parents of the other children.  

>If so, how do the parents deal with it?

How do any parents, gay or straight, single or encoupled,
build in their children the emotional resources to maintain
their self-esteem?  And do any two children ever need the
same thing, even in the identical circumstances?
I grew up in one of the only Jewish families in a Christian
community.  As did all three of my brothers, at pretty
much the same time.  We have four different sets of experiences
that we, and my parents, dealt with in four separate ways.

>Do the "children" grow up normal?  And no, by normal I don't mean
>heterosexual.  In other words, do they have any emotional problems or
>problems with relationships?

I have no studies at my fingertips, just a host of anecdotal
experiences and friendships with couples who have raised gay
children and children who have grown up in a home with same-sex
parents (yes, this has been going on for a long time).  What
I have seen does not point to any disproportionate difficulties.

But as I say, this is only anecdotal, and how many people do
we really know well enough to evaluate their basic emotional
health?  My question, though, is why you would think that
children growing up in such homes would be more likely to
have such problems as you describe.  What assumptions
do you hold that cause you to look for these difficulties in the
first place?

-Steven Levine
 steven@cray.com
Newsgroups: soc.motss