There are perhaps a hundred different things, small and large, that are negotiated between parents and kids every week. Moms and dads interact differently with their children. To give kids two moms or two dads is to withhold from them someone whom they desperately need and deserve in order to be whole and happy. It is to permanently etch “deprivation” on their hearts.

 
I just read one of the most remarkable stories I’ve ever seen. It’s an article by Doug Mainwaring, and its title captures the gist of his surprising testimony, “I’m Gay and I Oppose Same-Sex Marriage.” In a nutshell, this man has been gay for as long as he can remember. Nevertheless, he married a woman as an adult and adopted two children with her. After their marriage ended, he spent ten years finally exploring homosexual relationships while raising his children. He writes:

At first, I felt liberated. I dated some great guys, and was in a couple of long-term relationships. Over several years, intellectual honesty led me to some unexpected conclusions: (1) Creating a family with another man is not completely equal to creating a family with a woman, and (2) denying children parents of both genders at home is an objective evil. Kids need and yearn for both.

He elaborates:

There are perhaps a hundred different things, small and large, that are negotiated between parents and kids every week. Moms and dads interact differently with their children. To give kids two moms or two dads is to withhold from them someone whom they desperately need and deserve in order to be whole and happy. It is to permanently etch “deprivation” on their hearts.

Mainwaring also reflects on the experiences of others in a similar situation to his own. Here’s what he concludes about them:

Here’s a very sad fact of life that never gets portrayed on Glee or Modern Family: I find that men I know who have left their wives as they’ve come out of the closet often lead diminished, and in some cases nearly bankrupt, lives—socially, familially, emotionally, and intellectually. They adjust their entire view of the world and their role within it in order to accommodate what has become the dominant aspect of their lives: their homosexuality. In doing so, they trade rich lives for one-dimensional lives. Yet this is what our post-modern world has taught us to do. I went along with it for a long while, but slowly turned back when I witnessed my life shrinking and not growing.

This is a fascinating article. I don’t agree with all of it. Nor do I think it’s written from a Christian perspective. It’s just written by a gay man who’s convinced that having same-sex parents is not equal to having a mom and a dad. That is an unusual and significant admission in our day—indeed, a nearly impossible one.

Wisdom cries aloud in the streets (Prov. 1:20), and I am sometimes surprised by those who hear her.

Read the rest here.

Denny Burk is Associate Professor of New Testament and Dean of Boyce College, the undergraduate arm of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminar. He blogs on matters concerning politics, theology and culture. This article is used with his permission.