What Will Happen If America Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage? - Program 3

What Effect Will Same-Sex Marriage Have on Our Children?

Introduction

Ankerberg: Welcome to our program. We’re talking about the truth about same-sex marriage. And I know that we have a diverse audience. Many of you that are watching, you haven’t made up your mind on this topic. There are others of you that are actually practicing homosexuality right now and you wonder what we’re going to say. You’ve got others that are saying, “Hey, I know, I’m totally against it.” I think we’ve got something for all three of you, and I hope that you’ll stay tuned and listen to what is being said, because this is important, this is really important.

We’re going to take the question today from the vantage point of our children. If we legalize same-sex marriages, what effect will this have on our children? Have you even thought about that question?

We’ve got two experts with us here and they are terrific guests. Glenn T. Stanton is Senior Analyst for Marriage and Sexuality at Focus on the Family. And he’s written a book, Marriage on Trial, and it’s a terrific book with a lot of the research from the social science. And then, Dr. Erwin Lutzer, who is pastor of Moody Memorial Church in Chicago, has written the book, The Truth About Same-Sex Marriage—Six Things You Need to Know About What’s Really at Stake. I highly recommend both these books.

Guys, let’s start this off. Erwin, you have actually had two lesbians that have come up, and when we say that as Christians, we are opposed to same-sex marriages, they throw a list of objections at you, including the fact of, “Look, who are you guys to talk about [this]? Heterosexual marriages are so messed up today, the divorce rate is so high; and we know of heterosexual couples that, if you put a kid into that home, the kid would turn out terrible”—which is true— “and it would be better to put them into a loving, lesbian home.” So, how do you answer the question to the two lesbians who say, “Listen, you ought to put them in our home, because we can actually be more loving. And for you to say that we aren’t as loving as those heterosexual couples, forget it!” What do you say to them?

Lutzer: Well, first of all, let me say very pointedly that, of course, it would be better if a child were raised by two loving lesbians than raised by an abusive heterosexual couple. There’s no question about that. The question, though, on the table today is, “Is that what we should strive for in society? Is that what we should legalize? Is that what we should institutionalize?”, when the fact is, the research—as we’ll be illustrating on this program—shows that, of course, children do better if they have a mother and a father.

And could I say to you, John, and to all who are watching this program, let me ask this question, “Is anyone seriously saying that two gay men can take the place of a mother’s love? Or that two lesbians can equal a Dad?” I don’t think so. And so, what we need to do in society, in a broken society, with broken homes, is strive toward helping those couples, those heterosexual couples, where there is abuse, where there are divorces, and we take care of that as best as we possibly can, but recognize that to be an aberration.

Our goal should always be a mother and a father taking care of their own children. And at this point, it’s important to emphasize, there may be some people listening who say, “Yes, but you know, you are Christians, and you believe this because of the Bible.” Of course the Bible is important to us. And on this program, I’m sure that we will be quoting verses of Scripture, but also, we need to point out that natural law teaches this, as well.

There are countries that are non-Christian. I’m thinking, for example, of Japan. And yet there in Japan you have marriage as a man and a woman. Now even though the marriage vows may be broken in many instances, as it is also in this country, the fact is that the ideal is always there. Even natural law—the anatomy of a man and a woman, help us here—even natural law teaches that marriage and a family should be a man and a woman taking care of their children. This is actually part of the Creator’s design manual. We’re all born with a Designer’s label and it cannot be chiseled out of the human race.

Ankerberg: Glenn, when we talk about the fact of having stable, monogamous, homosexual relationships, either between gay men or lesbians, that’s a myth. Let’s talk about the statistics, first of all, in terms of how stable those relationships are, just according to what we’ve found out in the social sciences.

Stanton: Yes. Well, if we just look at the evidence, we don’t find a whole lot of stability in gay relationships. And the instability is different in gay male relationships and in lesbian relationships. In gay male relationships, we find more sexual unfaithfulness. Men, typically, are going to be more sexually adventurous. And it’s interesting that you hear quotes from a number of people in gay relationships. They say, “You know what, monogamy is not a big idea for us, as monogamy is typically defined.” They define monogamy as “we’re in this relationship, but we are going to agree to have other outside relationships.”

Ankerberg: Yeah, now, let me give you one of the statistics. Now this was San Francisco, and of course San Francisco is notorious, but not to this extent. I mean, you just can’t fathom this, that those who characterize their relationship as being a close-coupled relationship, only 17% reported having less than 50 sexual partners.

Stanton: Well, it’s absolutely interesting, too, I mean San Francisco, hardly a homophobic community, very embracing, very welcoming, there was some research done last summer coming out of the Netherlands, a very open community, and Amsterdam. And they showed that,… in fact, what was interesting about this study, it was a study on the transmission of AIDS, and they had to look at gay couples. And what they found was that the average, long term, gay male relationship lasted 1.5 years, and that the average gay individual had a number of partners in a year’s time, not just one, not just even two, but a number of them, up to 8 in a year’s time. That was the average. So you don’t find monogamy, committed relationships, as we typically think about them, in gay relationships. And that is because of the nature of what homosexuality is.

Ankerberg: Before we talk about how this applies to children, let’s go one more. You had an illustration a couple of programs back about the first gay couple that was married in Massachusetts. And they said, “Look, even though we’re getting married, we have no intention of being just monogamous. We have an open marriage.”

Stanton: Absolutely.

Ankerberg: Talk about how the gays talk about, in the sense of emotional fidelity versus sexual exclusivity.

Stanton: Yeah, it’s really a deal that they work out. And again, monogamy in that relationship, faithfulness in that relationship, is, “We’re going to be honest about all the different relationships that we have.” And for those relationships that are not out on the table, that’s called cheating. You know, that’s where you’re not being honest.

And humanity is not made to have all kinds of sexual relationship. It just doesn’t work out that way. And most societies, throughout the history of time, have incorporated some sort of relational faithfulness. And very few societies—and no society that has succeeded in perpetuating itself—really tolerates sexual permissiveness, where we say, you know what, go have any kind of relationship you want.

Every society needs to have a very strict sexual code, where men belong to certain women and women belong to certain men, not in an ownership way, but in an emotional, relational sort of way.

Ankerberg: Let’s talk about this thing that, if we are going to actually have a debate in every shape or form about what the standard of marriage ought to be, that hopefully part of that is how it affects the children and how the children will emotionally develop in terms of who are their parents, as they come out and they become adults themselves, and we have generations coming up. Now, what we’re going to talk about is, do children benefit from having both a mother and a father in the home? Has that been established?

Stanton: Yes, it has. It’s interesting, if we look at the work of a man, Edward Westermarck, he was a man that lived a number of years ago, and wrote this wonderful, definitive history of marriage and human experience across all civilizations, across all times. And he says a number of things, but here’s one of the things that he says: Marriage in every single civilization, throughout time, regardless of where it is, is always about the next generation. It’s always about making sure that we bring the next generation of humanity forward in a healthy, protective way. And it always needs men and women to do that. Just as it takes a sperm and an egg to produce a new life, it takes the lifelong commitment—for humans, it’s eighteen years—for male and female, mother and father, to be committed to raising that child.

Now, we have had a lot of experimentation in this nation in the past thirty to forty years, where fathers haven’t been as involved as they should be in the raising of children. And what has been the result of that? We’ve seen cohabitation, we’ve seen no-fault divorce, we’ve seen the single parenting by choice. And we have to ask, what has been the impact of that? Has it improved human well-being? Has it elevated human well-being? No, it has diminished human well-being in every single measure, not just for men, not just for women, but especially for children.

And here we come along and say, “Well, let’s have more experimentation,” thinking that somehow it will improve human well-being. And it just is not the case. And this is not just found in tens of studies or hundreds of studies, but literally thousands of published, social science studies, showing us that men and women, mothers and fathers, are essential and needed in the job of parenting.

Ankerberg: Yeah, let’s back track here, because we have to take a break and then we’ll get to the specifics. But if we’re going to vote for same-sex marriages, the implied assumption underneath that idea is that, if you’re two gay men, “Women, you’re not necessary; we don’t need you, and the kids will never need a loving mother.”

Stanton: Absolutely.

Ankerberg: On the other side, if you have two women who are lesbians that are going to be in their relationship, they’re basically saying to society, “We do not need men. Men contribute nothing to the development of children.”

Stanton: That is exactly how radical this proposition is. It’s a humanly radical proposition because it declares definitively that men and women, mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, are not necessary. And no society, at any time in the history of humanity, has ever defined humanity that way. But we’re on the verge of doing that.

Ankerberg: Yeah, and everybody’s favorite anthropologist, Margaret Mead, even says that that’s true, right across the board.

Stanton: Absolutely.

Ankerberg: I’ll give you two points and then we’re going to talk about these things more specifically. Children raised with one, only one, biological parent are about twice as likely to drop out of school as children being raised with two biological parents. That’s one thing. Another one is that, in terms of sexual abuse, if you only have one biological parent in the home, and not two, the kids, the increase, percentage wise, of those kids being sexually abused is absolutely staggering.

We’re going to talk about it when we come right back. We’ll tell you more, stick with us.

Ankerberg: Alright, we’re back. We’re talking about the truth about same-sex marriages. And, we’ve got two great guests, Dr. Erwin Lutzer, pastor of Moody Memorial Church, and Glenn T. Stanton, who is Senior Analyst on Marriage and Sexuality at Focus on the Family.

We’re talking about, if we legalize same-sex marriages in this country, how will it affect our children? The bottom line is the social sciences are showing it will hurt our children.

Before we go to that, let’s talk about, from a Christian point of view, we’ve got the book, the Bible, and we’re talking about how that matches up with the book from nature and the social sciences. And, the Bible, Erwin, is not neutral on this topic. What does it say?

Lutzer: Well, you know, when you think of the Torah, which is the Jewish Scriptures, we call it the Old Testament. I mean, God was so clear in his condemnation of homosexuality. You move into the New Testament, and Paul says something very interesting. He says that, “they turned the truth of God into a lie” [Rom. 1:25].

Now, once you buy into a lie, that lie becomes truth for you. And you know, I think that society today is buying into a very serious lie. But what I find of interest is, in a moment, Glenn is going to be sharing all of these sociological studies; because we really do have two books, don’t we? We have the book called the Bible, and we have the book of nature. I find it interesting to see how that the two blend together. So that, John, we can say to those who are watching today that, not only is the Bible opposed to homosexuality and most assuredly same-sex marriage, but also, that information in the Scriptures that comes to us from God is substantiated, isn’t it, Glenn?

Stanton: Absolutely.

Lutzer: It’s substantiated by sociological studies.

Stanton: It’s amazing, as a Christian, as you’re reading out of both of those books, to see that they complement one another, and that what God gave us as a law is really reflected in the social science research. When we stray from God’s law, negative things start to show up in the social science research. And that’s exactly what we see on this issue.

Ankerberg: But Glenn, we’ve got medical organizations that are making headlines and they give you a pain, in one sense. The fact is, you’ve got the American Academy of Pediatrics saying that children who grow up with one or two gay or lesbian parents fare as well as those who grow up in heterosexual homes. Where in the world are they getting this research?

Stanton: Well, see, we have to address that. And nearly every professional medical organization now has come out in support of same-sex marriage. And they’ll throw out all the acronyms, the APA, the AMA, the AAP, all these organizations support same-sex marriage. And what are we supposed to say? All these august, very distinguished doctors are supporting this. We have to understand that this is not driven by good, social science. It’s driven by politics, relentlessly by politics.

And we have to understand what these organizations are saying. And here’s what they’re saying: that children growing up with two men or two women will do just as well, they say, the social sciences say, as a child growing up with a mother and a father.

Now let’s think about that, let’s think about the implications of that. That means that if you place a child with two men, the mothers are irrelevant, if you get the same benefits and same product there. If you place a child with two women, then men, then fathers, become irrelevant. And how many of us out here can believe—who are raising a child with somebody of the opposite sex— can really believe that males or females, mothers or fathers, are irrelevant to the parenting process, and all that a child really needs is just loving parents?

Well, you know what? The experiment, beyond our common sense, the experimentation that we have seen with the family over the past thirty to forty years—with step-parenting situations, divorce situations, cohabiting situations—tell us that when children do not grow up with their two biological parents, their mother and their father, they suffer in every important measure of well-being: they’re more likely to drop out of school; they’re more likely to suffer physical and mental illness; they’re more likely to get in trouble with the law; they’re more likely to be sexually and physically abused; they’re more likely to die of that abuse.

In fact, an article in the Journal of Pediatrics, in the very volume where the Academy of Pediatrics put out their statement that same-sex and heterosexual homes are pretty much the same, this study said that kids who grow up in a home apart from both biological parents are eight times more likely to die of maltreatment. And there is no same-sex home where a child is living with both biological parents. It’s logically impossible; it’s biologically impossible.

So every child in a same-sex home is theoretically at much greater risk of being abused, of suffering these mental and health deficits. And nobody can say that that’s good.

Ankerberg: I also heard that the response inside some of these medical organizations to these conclusions was pretty hostile by their own members.

Stanton: Absolutely, the American Academy of Pediatrics, their lead author sent out an email to a small group of people saying that “the Academy has never received more critical mail in its history than it has regarding our statements supporting same-sex parenting.” And what she said was, “If we are going to use the Academy as a vehicle for social change, then we’ve got to turn that around.” Use the Academy for a vehicle for social change! This is not based on science. This is not all the doctors getting together, looking over all the studies. This is a small group of eight people influencing these kinds of policies.

Ankerberg: Tell me about why fathers are needed for children.

Stanton: Fathers matter because fathers do jobs that mothers cannot do. They encourage competition among children, they encourage confidence, they encourage compassion. You know what? Empathy and compassion is really developed by the father and not so much the mother, surprisingly. Fathers help prepare children for the world outside; fathers help build confidence and individuality in their children. Mothers are more nurturing; they’re more protective. And that’s good; children need that. Fathers are more likely to encourage children to be pushed out into the world and fend for themselves, and children need that.

Think about mothers and fathers on the playground. Who is saying, “Swing higher, throw harder, ride faster,” and who is saying “Be careful”? Mothers are the protectors, Dads are the initiators, and children need both of those.

Ankerberg: One doctor, Dr. Kyle Pruitt, says “these findings take us beyond a shadow of a doubt that fathers play an important and irreplaceable role in healthy child development.”

Stanton: The role of fathers and the positive role of fathers in the life of a child is just absolutely undisputable.

Ankerberg: Erwin, we need to have a word of encouragement to Moms and Dads that are listening out there, as well as, what else can we do in terms of getting involved if we do not want same-sex marriages to be established in this country?

Lutzer: Well, John, really you’ve asked me two questions. I’m going to deal probably with only one of them in the time that we have left, and that is to encourage our audience to understand that in the Bible, God is presented as having male characteristics, but also some female characteristics. You know, Jesus sometimes likened Himself, or God the Father, to a mother hen, taking care her little ones. And that’s why we can come to God as males, as females, as heterosexuals, as homosexuals, and we can be understood.

But more than that, we can actually be forgiven; we can be cleansed of our sin and we can be offered hope. And I hope that if there is anything that comes about as a result of the program that people have watched today, is the realization that it is important for us to protect the family. We could talk about the Old Testament, where God says that, “if you begin to turn away from me, families will be judged by me, your children will be taken from you and given to another nation” [cf. Deut. 28; 2 Chron. 29].

We can look at the divorce rate, and we can see that, with the break up of the home, God is bringing us under judgment. But as individuals listening today, what you need to do is to simply receive Jesus Christ as your savior, to come to Him with your great need and to recognize that God is waiting to meet us, and to receive us, and to forgive us, if we come to Him through Jesus Christ.

Heterosexuals out there, homosexuals out there, we all need a Savior, and God has provided that for us in Jesus.

Ankerberg: Next week, we’re going to talk about opening the Designer’s Manual on marriage. And we’re going to talk about what God intended. And we’re going to talk about what the social sciences say about the great love story between a man and a woman. And we’ve seen motion pictures and we’ve read stories, but we’re going to talk about, from the biblical prospective, of why it’s even more true than what we think, that a man needs a woman and a woman needs a man, and what they contribute to each other for happiness and for stability and how this affects the children.

It’s a tremendous, tremendous thing that God has given to us, a gift, and we want to talk about what the Designer’s Manual says next week. And then the week after that, we’re going to talk about the three myths of homosexuality: 1) That you’re born gay; 2) that is natural, it’s normal; and 3) you can’t change.

So these are the next two programs, I hope you’ll stick with us.