Why the religious right fear same-sex families

To hear the National Organization for Marriage, the Family Research Council, and the rest of the religious right tell it, lgbts are selfish people who want to destroy the "time-honored" institution of family for their own purposes.

It's a vindictive, hateful, but at times, effective meme which dehumanizes the lgbt community, and especially our families. As Equality Matters points out, this meme is a lie in the face of a stark reality that more lgbts are adopting children

Adoptions by gay and lesbian couples are on the rise across the U.S., despite significant legal obstacles that leave many of these couples and their families unprotected. A June 13 New York Times article reports that, according to new census data, a growing number of same-sex couples are starting families even if they can’t legally marry:

Same-sex couples are explicitly prohibited from adopting in only two states -- Utah and Mississippi -- but they face significant legal hurdles in about half of all other states, particularly because they cannot legally marry in those states.

Despite this legal patchwork, the percentage of same-sex parents with adopted children has risen sharply. About 19 percent of same-sex couples raising children reported having an adopted child in the house in 2009, up from just 8 percent in 2000, according to Gary Gates, a demographer at the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law at the University of California, Los Angeles.

“The trend line is absolutely straight up,” said Adam Pertman, executive director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, a nonprofit organization working to change adoption policy and practice. “It’s now a reality on the ground.” [emphasis added]

Equality Matters then compares these facts to the statements made by several religious right figures:

Maggie Gallagher, chairwoman of the National Organization for Marriage:

Marriage is our most basic social institution for protecting children. Same-sex marriage amounts to a vast social experiment on children. Rewriting the basic rules of marriage puts all children, not just the children in unisex unions, at risk. [Townhall.com, 1/8/04, emphasis added]

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council:

[I]t is the powerful dynamic of a mother, father, and children that creates those bonds of family that form the bedrock of all societies and provide the best environment for raising children—as social science has clearly demonstrated. Children need both a mom and a dad, not just two adults. These are compelling, scientific reasons to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman. They expose the arguments of same-sex advocates as self-serving talking points with no basis in human nature and American history. [U.S. News & World Report, 3/14/11, emphasis added]

An Alliance Defense Fund brief on the “specific harms” of same-sex marriage:

Who is not necessary to raise a child: the father or the mother? The significant social programs that President Obama decries in the inner city come from children lacking fathers. They are living out the full consequences of the norm that “personal sexual fulfillment is the ultimate goal for each individual.” [ADF Brief, accessed 6/14/11]

 My guess is that you probably won't hear a word about this New York Times article from members of the religious right. And this would be odd. Usually when something pro-gay comes out in the press, one can always count on FRC or NOM to make a statement attempting to delegitimize said article.

But not this time.

While the religious right smears the lgbt community with impunity but they fear actually talking about lgbt families because they know that any mention of these entities destroys all of their myths of the selfish, hedonistic homosexual.

And exposes them for the mean-spirited homophobes they are.