Gender Difference and Gay Marriage

I thought I'd share an exchange that came at the end of my post, "Kids Need Opposite-Sex Parents."

Conservative Ken Davenport is exasperated:

The left wants to rewrite history, biology and physics to fit their ideological orthodoxies. Unfortunately, it seems to be working. They've been doing it in Europe for generations, and we now see a continent in denial about its past and its present. Now it seems to be coming to America in all its secular revisionist glory.

We have same sex marriage and parenting in the name of tolerance, because the left believes that there is no real difference between boys and girls - only the presence of "love" is needed.

Puhhhhlease.

Anyone who has had kids knows two things: 1) that boys and girls are wired differently from birth and require the influence of both mothers and fathers to develop fully and 2) that moms and dads bring decidedly different (and important) parenting skills to the child's life. Men and women are not interchangeable just because the left wishes it to be so. This isn't an issue of same sex equality - its an issue of what is best for children. And on that score, traditional marriage wins hands down.

We are headed to an America where the minority is in charge, largely because the majority is disorganized and lacks the courage of its convictions. Any reasonably educated person knows that kids belong in a stable family with a mom and a dad. But in the face of the culture wars, where everyone is afraid of being labled "sexist", "racist", "homophobic" or worse, we've been reduced to jelly. Its a shame.

Sadly, common sense is dead. How do I know? Because Al Franken will be the U.S. Senator from Minnesota.

Need I say more?

My occasional lefty commenter, JBW, responds:

Jesus Ken ... Nobody of any psychological or anthropological repute on the left is saying that "there is no real difference between boys and girls" ...

Of course boys and girls are wired differently: it's how we've evolved as a species. And yes, the ideal situation is obviously for every child to have a loving and supportive mother and father. Was your childhood ideal? Because mine wasn't and I would wager that most people can say the same of their own.

If the left's argument was that we should remove children from families with straight parents and force them to be raised by gay parents then I can see why you would get so bent out of shape but no one is suggesting that at all.

What they are suggesting ... is that absent your happy idyllic fantasy world, children having loving parents of the same sex is still preferable to having stupid, racist, abusive, prejudiced or crazy parents of the opposite sex or even worse, no parents at all.

And if you think the minority gay, leftist agenda or even Al Franken are the only things keeping kids out of stable families with a mom and dad then you'd better pull your head out of the sand because the reality is a lot uglier than you can possibly imagine.

All people like you accomplish with your archaic and outmoded views of what constitutes an acceptable society is to destroy dedicated and loving families. I hope your own children have it a lot easier than those of the families you would tear apart in the name of "traditional values"; I truly do.

Shorter JBW: Abuse isn't the problem, gender and hetero stereotypes are...

Now, check out Helen Rittelmeyer's more complex analysis of gender differences and gay marriage, "If She Says She Wants “Equality, Not Sameness,” She’s Lying," especially this part:

A culture that cannot acknowledge gender differences has hobbled itself: it can’t speak the truth and, if we know one thing about truth, it’s that it always comes out one way or another. If we can’t talk about gender, we can’t develop helpful ways to deal with it; if we can’t deal with it, we guarantee that, when gender differences do surface, it will be in unhealthy ways. If gay marriage consigns us to that slow, unpleasant declension—and it does—it’s something to think twice about.

That's snipping out a whole lot of Rittelmeyer's context, but what can you do in a quick link-love post like this.

See also, Robert Stacy McCain and Memeorandum.