Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
There are few things that grate on my nerves more than phrases like "family values" or "pro-family." Gore Vidal was fond of saying that those were really just catchphrase that meant "get the fags" and he was right. A perfect example is this article from the AFA's news service, wherein uber-bigot Peter LaBarbera denigrates the very idea that any family not headed by two parents could possibly be a real family. He's complaining about an insurance company agreed to consider a family headed by a lesbian couple married in Canada to be an actual family.
"The very fact that BlueCross BlueShield capitulated so easily, that doesn't say much for them as a company," said LaBarbera. "At one point in society, companies were more moral. Now we see companies leading the amoral rush to fund and subsidize and benefit so-called homosexual 'marriages' and homosexual-led 'families'...."
To bigots like LaBarbera, real families can't be led by homosexuals. But in the real world, there are millions of families that are led by gays and lesbians. By what possible reasoning - yes, I say that as though this was a reasoned position knowing full well that it's not - could this argument be justified?
They certainly look and act like families. They do all the things that families do. The parents help the kids with their homework, punish them when they misbehave, comfort their fears when they have bad dreams. Gay parents, just like straight parents, spend their time carting kids around to little league games and soccer practice. Gay parents fix up the skinned knees and beam with pride at a good report card, just like straight parents do.
The children of those gay parents are no different than the kids of straight parents. They push their boundaries. They test their parents' patience. They whine when they don't feel well and they complain about doing their homework. They need to feel loved and secure just like any other child and a gay parent is every bit as capable of providing those things as a straight parent. They're families, plain and simple - no matter what the bigots say.
Politics
Comments
Ed, might this be a good time for you to repost the list of companies that support equal rights for GLBT workers, thus earning the wrath of AFA?
I'm sure the list is getting bigger by the week, and the AFA is getting less and less relevant in direct proportion.
As an aside, the 'Christian' 'right' (sorry about the double oxymoron) tends to define a 'marriage' as existing for the purpose of reproduction, and the care and feeding of rugrats. My wife had a hysterectomy before we were married, my vasa are snipped, and her son and my kids are all grown and on their own. Does this mean that we are not 'married' by the standards of the 'moral majority' (another oxymoron, sorry)?
Posted by: Blaidd Drwg | August 19, 2008 10:00 AM
Ahhh, but surely you see, Ed, that your definition of "family" here is derived logically from empirically observed evidence about families. This isn't how the faith-based think. Faith-based thinking means deciding how things should be before you investigate the situation, and if what you find doesn't fit what you presupposed you'd find, that means there's something wrong with the evidence. And if making things the way they should be according to blind, unreflective faith requires breaking up families and hurting people, that's fine, because beliefs and symbols are more important than flesh-and-blood human beings according to faith-based thinking.
It all makes sense when you cripple your ability to think humanely and reasonably.
Posted by: Wes | August 19, 2008 10:11 AM
Blaidd - This is an interesting way to think about the moral majority's position. Let me run with this a little bit. You are no longer married. Neither is any man - apparently - who is with a woman beyond reproductive age. Since you are no longer married, you must currently be living in sin until you either live by yourself or marry a woman that can provide the world with more progeny. Maybe this is the real background for pushing the marriage-is-reproduction agenda.
Of course, the religious right are likely to have an equivalent to a retirement-clause to marriage in which men are allowed to remain with a woman they used for progeny-production without living in sin, since the woman has carried out her duty to god. Of course, getting a divorce after menopause should still be something supported by the right.
Okay, I went really far on this one, but it seems to be one logical outcome of the religionists' position.
Posted by: Umlud | August 19, 2008 10:21 AM
"Now we see companies leading the amoral rush to fund and subsidize and benefit so-called homosexual 'marriages' and homosexual-led 'families'...."
I can assure you that an insurance company would not have "capituated so easily" if they thought what they were doing was to "fund and subsidize and benefit" someone. More than likely, they said "hey, we can make money *selling* this type of plan to these types of people".
Posted by: Divalent | August 19, 2008 10:22 AM
They were? When, exactly?
Posted by: Dunc | August 19, 2008 10:25 AM
Well I'm from ole red-state TN and a Christian/missionary/libertarian. Love your blog BTW (got here from theagitator).
I just wanted to point out I think the AFA is silly too. And when I get down to brass tacks, most of my conservative friends agree it's not our (or the governments) job to make non-Christians act like Christians. That's just dumb as hell!
Now my friends actually try to think for themselves- and their are A LOT of yellow-dog Republicans and fundies down here too. I'm just saying there's a bunch of us that believe you're free to live life as you wish (and the government has no damn business being involved in the first place).
Wish me luck on waking up the others who listen to too many talking points.
Chuck
Posted by: Chuck | August 19, 2008 10:28 AM
Damn you Divalent and Dunc! Those were exactly the two points I was going to make.
Uh, I mean, great points Div and Dunc! Brilliant. What they said.
Posted by: James Hanley | August 19, 2008 10:31 AM
The hillarious quote below was posted on the Americans For Truth About Homosexuality website. "See?! See?! Look what the homos got planned!! They even write about it!" It was posted next to a video about the homosexual agenda in public schools. Awesome. The ignorance, the anxiety, lacking a sense of irony and humor...it...hurts...
"We shall sodomize your sons, We shall seduce them in your schools, in your dormitories, in your gymnasiums, in your locker rooms, in your youth groups, Your sons shall become our minions and do our bidding. They will come to crave and adore us. All laws banning homosexual activity will be revoked. Instead, legislation shall be passed which engenders love between men. Our writers and artists will make love between men fashionable.... We shall raise vast, private armies...to defeat you. The family unit....will be abolished. Perfect boys will be conceived and grown in the genetic laboratory....All churches who condemn us will be closed. Our only gods are handsome young men. All males who insist on remaining stupidly heterosexual will be tried in homosexual courts of justice and will become invisible men. Tremble, hetero swine, when we appear before you without our masks."
February 15, 1987 issue of Gay Community News
Posted by: Jesse | August 19, 2008 10:38 AM
By all the Gods that live -- do these people have ANY clue how families work in the real world? There are so many variations I can't even begin to list them all! Parents die; parents get estranged or divorced; parents end up having wonky distributions of parental duties due to different temperaments; other family members (uncles, aunts, older siblings, grandparents, etc.) play roles in child-rearing, with or without the parents' consent; friends and neighbors sometimes help out; kids get orphaned and end up in the care of other relatives; parents get widowed and then start seeing other potential partners, who then have some influence (good or bad) in the kid's growth; the list goes on. The more these "family values" morons preach about how only ONE COUNT IT ONE template "works" as a "family," the less use they are to the millions of real families who don't -- and most often can't -- fit into their template.
What the Hell good are these people? Weren't these the same bigots who used to complain about how gays and lesbians didn't care about making committments and raising children?
Posted by: Raging Bee | August 19, 2008 10:53 AM
"Now we see companies leading the amoral rush to fund and subsidize and benefit so-called homosexual 'marriages' and homosexual-led 'families'...."
Those two half quotes (what are they called?) around the word "families" is about the most disgusting thing I have seen written in quite a while.
I have two gay sisters. Does that mean we live in a 'family' ?!?
I would like to meet this Peter LaBarbera. See if he thought a knuckle sandwich with plenty of ketchup was hetero enough as a response to his smug bullshit.
Posted by: Gingerbaker | August 19, 2008 11:19 AM
Yes, but they beam with *gay* pride, and that makes all the difference.
[sarcasm mode disengaged]
Actually, I don't know what else to say except that all children should take critical thinking, logic, and scientific methodology classes from a young age, so that the next generation will have at least some chance of stepping out from under the crushing religious bigotry of their parents.
Posted by: Jason Failes | August 19, 2008 11:27 AM
Ah, yes, Jesse, the infamous Homosexual Manifesto. Damn that Peter LaBarbera for finding this top-secret memo (and you can tell it is top secret because we had it printed only in a gay newspaper - we thought no straight people would ever read one of those. Curses! Foiled again!). Of course he forgot the first sentence, which begins with something like: (paraphrasing) "This is a meditation, a rant, a fantasy." Of course, Mr. LaBarbera, who has selflessly devoted his entire life to documenting the perversion of homosexuality, was not taken in by such a clearly misleading statement.
[/end snark]
Posted by: CPT_Doom | August 19, 2008 11:30 AM
really just catchphrase that meant "get the fags" and he was right
Well, he left out: "...and outlaw abortions, and we're not too happy about contraception either." But basically, yeah: it has very little to do with, as Sojourners magazine put it some years back, "Values that are helpful to parents and their kids".
Oh, and my conservative Christian friend, who has been raising three kids on her own ever since her husband died of cancer in 1991, would be most interested to find that they're "not a real family".
Posted by: Eamon Knight | August 19, 2008 11:44 AM
Eamon Knight said:
Ahhh, but if her husband died of cancer, then God wanted her to run her family that way. Who are you to question the mind of God?
Posted by: Braxton Thomason | August 19, 2008 12:17 PM
So this LaBarbera jackass thinks it's better to deny family health insurance to children than to recognize a household headed by gays as a family?
Way to support the children, Peter!
Posted by: ZacharySmith | August 19, 2008 12:32 PM
Hey Chuck,
You hit the nail on the head! Being left-leaning, and therefore probably more attuned to right-wing hypocrisy that left-wing, I've always seen the problem with fundamentalists like this:
The liberal says to the fundy, "I don't like the way you live." The fundy says back to the liberal, "And I don't like the way you live." So the liberal says, "Then you live your way and I'll live mine." But the fundy replies, "I'll live my way alright, and then I'll get the government to make you live my way too."
Condemn me all you want, just don't try to translate your condemnations into laws and we'll get along fine.
Posted by: Austin Avery | August 19, 2008 12:36 PM
All of this supports my strong suspicion that the likes of LaBarbera don't really give a damn about people. All they ultimately care about is their vision of how the world should be. When encountered with anything that negates this vision, they bury their heads in the sand and pretend that the conflicting evidence simply doesn't exist.
Posted by: Sadie Morrison | August 19, 2008 12:48 PM
In the spirit of Raging Bee's post I must admit that I was raised by two women: my mother and my grandmother. (To make it even weirder by AFA standards, my mom was adopted so my grandmother wasn't my biological grandmother.) I wonder how far down my 'family' falls on the AFA's ranking of familitude. If their contention is that it takes one man and one woman to raise a child properly, my upbringing must have been incomplete or deficient. Or is my family OK simply because the two women who raised me weren't sleeping with each other?
Posted by: peaches | August 19, 2008 12:49 PM
I was out of town for two weeks. Did you guys scare away mroberts while I was gone?
Posted by: Brandon | August 19, 2008 12:56 PM
From LaBarbera's article:
And further research indicates that, in the case of households with homosexual parents, this is best explained as being the result of the prejudice and the lack of legal/social benefits such families must contend with. In communities that are accepting and supportive of homosexuality the children performed equally to those raised in heterosexual households. Basically, LaBarbera endorses an oppressive society then holds up the fact that such oppression is harmful to children as justification for more oppression.
Posted by: Abby Normal | August 19, 2008 1:06 PM
These fundiewhackjobasshatsforJESUS (is it redundant if it's a compound word?) better be careful what they wish for. No abortion means lots of non-KKKristians multiplying like lemmings and making the entire KKKrisitian eKKKosystm--never mind all of their echo chambers, crash. And if they got rid of all the gays who would Teddy Haggard turn to for his meth supplies?
Brandon:
If there was a GOD he would have taken mroberts up to his heavenly reward, or cast him into the pit--more likely, imo--a long, long time ago.
You can bet he'll show up here, shortly.
Posted by: democommie | August 19, 2008 1:10 PM
I wonder how many families the AFA would acknowledge amongst the following relationships, some of which do not consist of a man + woman + child(ren):
Older sister--1st marriage ended in divorce, no kids; 2nd marriage ongoing, no kids
Me--never married, one kid by adoption (She is now nineteen; that's a long time for the two of us to share our lives and not be a 'family'.)
Younger brother--1st marriage ended in divorce, one kid; 2nd marriage ended in divorce, no kids; 3rd marriage ongoing, two kids
Younger sister--had two kids with a partner who had long been separated from his wife but was not yet divorced from her [she wouldn't grant him a divorce]; after more than a decade my sister married her partner after his wife agreed to the divorce. (Were they a family the day of the marriage but not before? BTW, their partnership has lasted longer than any other one in the family.)
Posted by: Elf Eye | August 19, 2008 1:10 PM
Actually, I don't know what else to say except that all children should take critical thinking, logic, and scientific methodology classes from a young age, so that the next generation will have at least some chance of stepping out from under the crushing religious bigotry of their parents.
The cultural change is already past the point of no return. Living in the south I know lots of young republican types, and, as a result of having grown up knowing at least one gay person, they can't usually muster the hatred and desire to discriminate that their parents have. Being anti-gay is already becoming so unpopular that the homo-haters have to hide behind lies like "Pro-family". They're toast, and some of them know it.
Posted by: steve s | August 19, 2008 1:13 PM
I've had a couple of brief email exchanges with LaBarbera. I check the AFTAH website periodically to find out what they're frothing about lately (lots about the evil McDonald's and how important it is to boycott them has been prominent recently). Every once in a while I'll send them a comment on something particularly egregious LeBarbera or one of his equally hyperbolic correspondents. Basically, he's a lame-ass, self-loathing closet case who projects all his personal fears onto the gay community. And when the community lashes back, he gets all snarky and sarcastic, sort of like the cowardly bully who thinks he's being funny, when he's just proving how stupid he is. I've concluded that the best response to people like LeBarbera is derision, trivializing them as much as possible, showing just how puerile their positions are.
Posted by: gary l. day | August 19, 2008 1:22 PM
"The very fact that BlueCross BlueShield capitulated so easily, that doesn't say much for them as a company," said LaBarbera. "At one point in society, companies were more moral."
Yah. O for the good old days when companies were more moral!
Posted by: 386sx | August 19, 2008 1:25 PM
Those two half quotes (what are they called?) around the word "families" is about the most disgusting thing I have seen written in quite a while.
They're called scare quotes where I'm from, but I've also heard them called sarcasm tags by some young'uns that I work with...
Posted by: kodiak | August 19, 2008 1:28 PM
And I would also point out that he's sliding around on his definitions. "Alternative" families can include single-parent households as well. And since the majority of single-parent households are poor, living in poorer-frequently more dangerous--neighborhoods, and the single-parent is often working two+ jobs to make ends meet so can't spend as much time on the kids' schoolwork, sure they tend--on average--to perform below average academically and financially.
It's doubtful that children of a two gay parents household performs below average on those measures, but the comparatively small number of them means their effect would be swamped by the effect of the millions of poor single mothers (who had inferior schooling themselves).
That is, if LaBarbara actually examined any social science evidence, which I have not the slightest doubt he did not.
Posted by: James Hanley | August 19, 2008 2:01 PM
There's a real logical disconnect here - if the supposed problem is "children in same-sex-couple-headed families have difficulties" then why is the solution "let's make things even more difficult for them by denying them insurance/parental rights/etc."? Is the Christian response to seeing someone struggling really to kick them in the face so they have even more difficulty?
The only logical solution to LaBarbara's supposed problem is to either (1) give gay-headed families extra assistance to ensure their success or (2) remove children from such households.
I don't doubt that LaBarbara would honestly endorse (2) - he's certainly in favor of prohibiting gay adoptions - but that would be too draconian and turn off anyone outside the extreme fringes. This leaves him stuck that logically incoherent position of saying "gay families are at a disadvantage, so let's disadvantage them even more!!"
Posted by: Alex | August 19, 2008 2:39 PM
It's the abstinence-only solution: don't marry someone of the same sex in the first place, and then you won't have to worry about all of the problems that same-sex headed families have, and therefore you don't need the added help of insurance and so on.
Posted by: Gretchen | August 19, 2008 2:48 PM
Obama's an empty suit. You lefties are so full of it. lol
Oops, sorry. Somehow the wrong knee jerked this time.
Posted by: not the real mroberts | August 19, 2008 3:34 PM
Actually, yes. He linked to this article from Focus on Family, which includes the references. It also includes many stunning misrepresentations and misapplications of the studies. Like this gem:
To borrow a popular saying around here, science, you're doing it wrong.
Posted by: Abby Normal | August 19, 2008 5:47 PM
Jesse- Minions? There's minions? I always wanted to have minions!!
Posted by: Rick R | August 19, 2008 6:00 PM
When these yahoos use family they mean patriarchy. It's not people they care about, and certainly not children, it's patriarchy.
"Focus on the Patriarchy."
"Giving women the vote is going to destroy the patriarchy."
"Homosexual marriage is going to destroy the patriarchy."
"Letting children think for themselves is going to destroy the patriarchy."
Etc.
When you see what they're really saying, you can agree with them, and hope that it happens as soon as possible.
Posted by: Margaret | August 19, 2008 7:08 PM
I notice in my home town paper today a pro-gay opinion piece (by a professor of gay and lesbian studies) that used the term "homophobia" a lot, including in the headline. I think that word should be out. It's too easy on the idiots quoted above. Phobia is the unreasoning fear of something, if I remember correctly--so the term is meaningless, but politically speaking now it's even more disingenuous. As somebody pointed out above, the times have changed to the point that nobody can be intelligent, educated, and homo(sexual)phobic at the same time. Something's got to give. Gay people are visible in all levels and spectrums of society now. That means that people who foment against gays, say things like "gay agenda", push anti-gay measures, ideas, or even sanctimonious paternalistic "love the sinner/hate the sin" folks are not unreasonably scared; they're conscious bigots. Homosexuality is so humdrum normal that there can be no fear. It's political opportunism and vicious partisanship. Call them bigots (I know you do...just getting all rhetorical.)
I'll even give credit to those poor benighted dopes who truly do fear gays, because an unreasoning fear is unreasoning, after all, and the nation's been saturated with scary false arguments about homosexuality forever. I know that's not earthshaking news to the folks here but it urges the Republican tactic of controlling the language. No more 'homophobia,' which never made sense anyway. Bigotry, political demonization, scapegoating, and persecution--those are the inflammatory terms I work in to this conversation.
My idiot brother-in-law, proud to have voted for Huckabee, stopped short, mouth open, when I accused him (obliquely, of course) of "anti-gay bigotry." First time since I've known him that he didn't have a canned evangelical talking point ready, and we had to have an honest discussion about whether it was bigotry, and ended with him admitting it was, and standing by it, but in a puzzled, geez-I-need-new-verses kind of way. As much a victory as I can expect in that quarter.
Posted by: ice9 | August 19, 2008 8:32 PM
Bigots are always at home in their own community. They disgust me, and the fact that they still have havens and organizations pisses me off, but, then again, so does the fact that the KKK still exists.
Posted by: JStein | August 19, 2008 8:43 PM
Oh man, if you thought the article above was good, you haven't seen the one from today featuring our man LaBarbera again.
www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=218500
"What I'm so tired of, and I'm sure many Americans are, as well, is this game of 'let's pretend.' Let's pretend that homosexual 'families' are like other families. Let's pretend that having a 'dad' and another 'dad' - and one is more effeminate, one's more like the mom - is something like a mother and a father," he chides. "And so, you have this ridiculous situation in which these professional adoption organizations are talking about crossing the t's and dotting the i's. Meanwhile, they're intentionally placing children in homes that are motherless or fatherless by design," LaBarbera points out. (emphasis mine)
You see that? Aside from the general hilarity of the quote, he can't even conceive of same-sex relationships without there being a butch and a femme.
Posted by: Shih Tzu | August 19, 2008 8:46 PM
Totally OT, but I came across this on the DailyKos. It's a blurb from the AP about McC's veep front runners. Read carefully, and enjoy:
"His top contenders are said to include Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Less traditional choices mentioned include former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, an abortion-rights supporter, and Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Democratic vice presidential prick in 2000 who now is an independent."
Posted by: Blaidd Drwg | August 19, 2008 9:11 PM
Yeah, I always get all glowy when you do that!
Posted by: twincats | August 19, 2008 10:01 PM
Blaidd Drwg:
Sometimes a typo is not just a typo.
Please, noGOD, let McStain pick Liarman for his VP.
Posted by: democommie | August 20, 2008 12:11 AM
The abstract of this study is available online. LaBarbara has misquoted it just a tad.
Here's what was really written: "Children residing in households with adults unrelated to them were 8 times more likely to die of maltreatment than children in households with 2 biological parents (adjusted odds ratio [aOR]: 8.8; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 3.6-21.5). Risk of maltreatment death also was elevated for children residing with step, foster, or adoptive parents (aOR: 4.7; 95% CI: 1.6-12.0), and in households with other adult relatives present (aOR: 2.2; 95% CI: 1.1-4.5)". Notice a few differences?
As to how "critical" it is to mention that same-sex parents cannot both be the biological parents, perhaps the very next sentence in the study might be of relevance: "Risk of maltreatment death was not increased for children living with only 1 biological parent (aOR: 1.1; 95% CI: 0.8-2.0)."
I know this is a very late contribution to the discussion, but the anti-gay lobby's grotesque misuse of scientific research really gets my goat.
Posted by: Neil H | August 20, 2008 6:17 AM
Well someone has to be the patriarch.:)
How do same sex couples decide who does the housework?
Posted by: khan | August 20, 2008 8:29 PM