The following comes from an Oct. 31 press release issued by Pacific Justice Institute
Attorneys with Pacific Justice Institute filed major legal briefs this week asking the federal court in Sacramento to prevent a controversial ban on so-called “change therapy” or “reparative therapy” from taking effect Jan. 1.
The law, known as SB 1172, was passed by the legislature and then signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown the last weekend in September. Pacific Justice Institute filed suit immediately to protect the rights of families to seek treatment for sexually confused youth; the rights of mental health professionals to offer their best professional counsel, not a script dictated by the government; and the rights of churches to offer professional counseling consistent with their doctrinal beliefs.
The motion lays out the core constitutional problems with the law and asks the court to issue a preliminary injunction that would place the law on hold until it is fully adjudicated. Oral arguments on the motion are scheduled for December 3 at 2:00 p.m. before Senior U.S. District Judge William B. Shubb.
Brad Dacus, president of Pacific Justice Institute, commented, “To date, the push for SB 1172 has relied heavily on soundbites and buzzwords. Our legal briefs have unmasked this stealth attack for what it is—an unprecedented attempt to reach even inside the four walls of a church to enforce state orthodoxy on homosexual behavior. We are looking forward to defending churches—and our children—in court.”
The court’s ruling will be closely watched throughout the nation as other states consider similar measures. Taking a cue from California, a ban on reparative therapy was introduced in Pennsylvania this fall just before the end of the legislative calendar, and a gay legislator in New Jersey has promised to pursue the same type of measure in that state’s upcoming legislative session.
Reparative therapy is nothing more than Catholic redemption couched in psychological terms. The move against it is a move against the Church.
JLS, reparative therapy has nothing to do with the Catholic Church. From what I have seen and read it seems that most Catholics who have gay children are supportive and accepting of their children. The children who suffer the most rejection are those whose families belong to fundamentalist groups that view the homosexual orientation as sinful.
PA, the Catholic Church has been in the soul repairing business for twothousand years. I thought you said the nuns taught you about the Church; guess they forgot to tell you this.
Jerry Brown – another heretic and schismatic who needs to be formally excommunicated.
Who is his Diocese Bishop ?
The DEMOCRATS are violating our Consititutional Rights at every level.
First it was freedom of religion, now its freedom of speech.
Under the DEMOCRATS the dictator Nanny State has arrived.
Abortion, Euthanasia, Homo-sexual Marriage, against Freedom of Religion – has the DEMOCRATIC PARTY ever seen an Intrinsic Evil that it does not support ?
And who voted the DEMOCRATIC PARTY of DEATH into Office ?
Well, the Demoncrat Party considers being a True Practicing Catholic as an instrinsic evil and they and their friends on this post are certainly opposed to that.
In my wildest nightmares, I never imagined the Democrat Party having a known rapist, fornicator, etc. etc. ad nauseam, Clinton, as one they look up to and ask for his support.
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
Excellent work by the Pacific Justice Institute.
The First Amendment issues are so obvious here that I am astounded the radical gender left set itself up for a fall in this way.
Well, I suppose one continues to push, until finally enough push back.
THEY HAVE THE COURTS IN THEIR EVIL POCKETS!
In a little more than an hour, I will be moving to Front Lines of this War between good and evil. I will be going to Our Lady Help of Christians in Garden Grove, CA to start our pre election Vigil of Pennance and Petition before Our Lord in the Most Blessed Sacrament.
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
Brad Dacus, president of Pacific Justice Institute, commented, “To date, the push for SB 1172 has relied heavily on soundbites and buzzwords. Our legal briefs have unmasked this stealth attack for what it is—an unprecedented attempt to reach even inside the four walls of a church to enforce state orthodoxy on homosexual behavior. We are looking
forward to defending churches—and our children—in court.”
Add Pacific Justice Institute to your list for donations to a group that is fighting the ACLU in the courts and winning!!!!!!
Reparative therapy is junk science and the medical and psychiatric establishment have admitted that it harms young people. In some cases it strengthens suicidal feelings in teens. Pro-life people need to speak out against it. The lives of our gay teens have worth also.
PA, you are almost directly rebuking Jesus who repairs the damage from sin. Salvation always involves reparation. But you are preaching the false doctrine that man does not have to be saved from his sins.
JLS. I am not preaching that man does not have to be saved from his sins. Having a homosexual orientation is not a sin and the Catholic Church does not teach that it is.
The APA is full of “junk science”…they just push whatever social view they lean toward. The “studies” they use are foundationally flawed. Look for the Truth in the right places and you will find answers.
No one wants to see confused teens in harms way; the huge lie that has been perpetrated on teens today is that normal feeling that emerge are translated as “you are definetely gay!”. Nothing could be further than the truth. This agenda has been forced on our youth to the point that every child is encouraged to question their sexual orientation; it’s the in thing to do. From TV, to movies, to songs: “I kissed a girl”, they are bombarded.
The truth is that 1.7% of the population are considered to have a same sex attraction. That is not sinful. It is acting out according to those attractions that is sinful.
Those youth deserve better in terms of counseling than being told it just fine to live the lifestyle.
It is shameful how many kids are confused by adults who prey on them at younger and younger ages to “experiment” and then are told by the psychiatric crowd that it’s great. That population then becomes the most at risk for self-abuse, drug abuse. victimization and suicide.
Mark from PA, you are correct when you say that “the lives of our gay teens have worth also”. To suggest the opposite would be patently anti-Christian. So you may want to consider the following:
There are many testimonials from people who have gone through this type of therapy and who are now grateful for being able to control their same sex attractions. Many of these individuals are now happily married and have children of their own. They are the strongest proponents of reparative therapy. Of course, these individuals experiences are marginalized and negated by the same medical and psychiatric establishment people that you site (not to mention by those with SSA who resent the notion that one’s sexual orientation can be changed).
Could you please quote for us the amount of suicides which take place for teens with SSA who are Not provided with reparative therapy? You did say that “in “some” cases it strengthens suicidal “feelings” in teens”. You did not say that it actually increased the suicide rate! Isn’t it reasonable to suspect that teens who are taken for counseling by their parents, with or without SSA, are suicidal in the first place and may go on to commit suicide with or without therapy of any kind? Let’s face it adolescence is difficult to go through, no matter who you are attracted to.
In addition, could you tell me the suicidal rates among homosexual adults in comparison to their heterosexual counterparts? How about other forms of premature death between the two groups?
Also, can we really trust the “medical and psychiatric establishment” in the first place! Let me give you just one example. There are now countless women who are speaking out about how their previous abortion experience/s have led them down the path of emotional destruction, including suicide attempts, (some can’t speak out because they did succeed in committing suicide) yet the “establishment” denies the existence of “post abortion trauma”. These women find hope and healing in places like “Rachel’s vineyard retreats” not from the “psychiatric establishment experts”. What if some State Legislator took it upon themselves to make these retreats illegal?
Finally, it is a dangerous proposition to believe that godless politicians actually care more about children than their own parents do. Giving power to politicians to raise our kids, whom they personally do not know, in place of parents, who have the God given duty to raise them, sounds like a recipe for tyranny to me. The state does not own our children!
Tracy in case you didn’t know this but PA is not interested in giving folks the freedom to choose this therapy option, he does not CARE to help anyone change, in fact he is against anything like this, he is somewhat anti-freedom in terms of this because he is in agreement to outlaw it!
Tracy, sorry to take a while to get back to you. I was busy at work and went to Mass tonight so I am just back home now. Please look up Ryan Kendall, and read his story. He told of what happened when his mother found out he was gay. “She said she would have had an abortion or would rather that I had been born with Down’s Syndrome or retarded instead of being gay.” She frequently told him, “she hated me or I was disgusting or repulsive.” She told him how he was going to burn in hell. His parents sent him to therapy at NARTH. At NARTH, Kendall said, “his life became hell and he started to believe that suicide was the only way out.” “They were teaching me that I was a terrible person – that I was unlovable, defective and damaged.” He finally got out of reparative therapy because he knew that if he didn’t he would kill himself. I have read many other things about reparative therapy but this is just one example. Kids need to be protected from such abuse. In regard to abortion, most people acknowledge that “post abortion trauma” does exist. I think “Rachel’s Vineyard” does much good and don’t think any legislator would go against them.
Mark, While those are sad stories, they don’t prove that all reparative therapy proves harmful. As I said above, there are also many stories of happy outcomes with such therapy. I do not believe that most therapist who offer such therapy use the techniques of NARTH. You also should consider what Alice says about the APA being full of “junk science”. This unfortunately is true.
I know that there will always be some parents who take the wrong approach with their children, even being downright abusive, no matter what the issue at hand is. I still believe, as I hope you would, that most parents want what is best for their children, even those with SSA, and that God gave them the authority to raise them, not the State.
Please don’t believe for one minute that the State wouldn’t try to band Rachel’s Vineyard events, but let’s say they never do. As it is, most states, such as liberal California, allow a 12 year old girl to obtain a surgical or medical abortion without the least knowledge of her parents. This is outrageous! That being said, I also have heard of numerous cases of a young teen being dragged sobbing into an abortion clinic against her will by a parent. These girls often times try to commit suicide. None the less, I will always side with the parents having authority to make such decisions, not the State. A more powerful state equals a more abused populous, not the other way around. Just look at China and North Korea.
Please think long and hard before you accept the State taking away God given parental authority. Start a informational campaign to convince the public how harmful “reparative therapy” is, if that is what you believe, but please do not support the State taking away the God given rights of Parents! This reduces parents to State approved “foster parents”!
Tracy, your comment about girls being forced by their parents to have abortions and than saying that you always side with the parents having authority to make such decisions is chilling. Parents don’t have a right to abuse their children and that is another example of parental abuse. If we must err, we must err on the side of life.
Mark from PA, after I posted that, I realized that, in an attempt to be as brief as possible, I did not make myself clear and suspected that you, as well as others, would misunderstand what I meant and thus be rightly outraged! Thank God I am not running for political office! I apologize that my statement came out the way it did, causing you or anyone distress. I assure you I will be more careful in the future.
So please allow me to explain what I meant, in light of the entirety of what I wrote. I believe that the majority of parents having the best interest of their children, will do what is morally right in difficult situations. I pointed out that God has given the right to parents to make decisions for their children and not the “State”. That being said, I think you would agree that when God gave parents this “right” He clearly understood that some parents would abuse this “right” and do evil to their children. This would be a violation of the 4th commandment. At this point, the “State” may have a right to step in and protect a child. (I say “may” because I am really not sure what the church has to say on this matter}. We should never forget, however, that an all powerful “State” can and will over step their power. So thus, if the “State” writes a vague rule that applies to All parents and their children, without discrimination, then I think it can be proven that the “State” is taking the position that is rightly that of the parent. This is what I meant by the statement that “I will always side with the rights of parents”. So, my position remains that; given the fact that some parents will abuse their God given rights, doesn’t translate to the ‘State” having the right to step in and take rights away from all parents.
Again, may I ask your forgiveness for any misunderstanding I have caused? Please let me know if I still need to be clearer.
It is not the job of the Government to tell families what they should and should not do – regarding the responsibility of raising their children.
The NANNY STATE has arrived.
The lives of all persons have worth.
If you care about the Souls of everyone you will not want them to be praciticing sodomy.
Anonymous you are correct, this outlawing this is anti-American and takes away the freedom of parents!
Abeca Christian, parents shouldn’t have the freedom to abuse their children.
Mark from PA this is not abusing their children, you are the one abusing parents with your views! You have no right!
Thanks for your added thoughts, Tracy. Surely the state doesn’t have the right to step in and take away rights from all parents but it may have to take rights away from some parents. I brought up the example of Ryan Kendall, whose mother was verbally abuse to him. From what I read, before she found out he was gay she was a “good” mom but sadly afterwards she became verbally abuse and even at some times physically abusive. Things got so bad that at 16, Ryan petitioned the state to end his parents’ parental rights due to the abuse.
I am sure PA got this story out of “gay” rights website to always make sure the gays are the victim,,never the abuser, when I know for fact that they are
Canisius yes I;m sure that is what is also feeding his agenda driven zeal
Mark, so then are you still of the position that the State has a right to take away a parents right to take their child to a therapist for counseling due to sexual identity confusion? You now seem to admit that abuse in this area is quite rare.
Are you actually admitting that the majority of parents want what is best for their children even in this area? I hope so.
All persons have worth.
All persons have Souls.
If you care about the Souls of the young you will not want them practicing sodomy.
This life is a short time compared to eternity.
The State has no business interfering in the legitimate life of the Family.
Sex ed in schools has only encourged sexual activityand sexually related desease.
The State does not know what it is doing. They can point to zero sucessess.
One more time CC …PA always defending your precious gay teems, gay is not pro life, I know that first hand
PA: Accepting, promoting, and condoning ACTIVE homosexuality is spiritual suicide!! When you do these 3 things listed, which you do here regularly, you are promoting what God has deemed an abomination!! You are NOT being a caring or loving person when you condone ACTIVE homosexuality. You are committing spiritual suicide yourself and also helping others to. When will you admit that ACTIVE homosexuality is an abomination? Your soul is in jeopardy, PA!
RR, I do not consider the homosexual orientation to be an abomination. I feel that gay people are equal in their dignity and humanity to other people.
Mark you did not read what RR posted.
He was clearly talking about homo-sexual ACTS, not about the temptation of same-sex attraction.
Homo-sexual ACTS are an abomination.
Mary: MarkfromPA knows what I was truly talking about. He plays the word twisting game all of the time. It’s his way of dodging a bullet and not having to answer the question.
MARY PA should know by now what RR means, this is not the first time she posted these thoughts to him.
The State has no right and no grounds for preventing those with “disordered” behaviors to seek help. I pray that our court system isn’t so “disordered” itself as to prevent justice to those who seek help.
If I had a child who was in the throes of confusion about his sexual orientation, I most assuredly would want the right to take him to a therapist to explore this torment with an older, wiser adult with whom he (or she) can be frank. Of course I would be very hopeful that my child would be helped to come to a good decision about his or her future interpersonal pathways. Therapy is not coercion. I am passionately convinced that normal heterosexuality is better than homosexuality as a lifestyle, health choice, and pathway to heaven. I am Catholic and believe that homosexual behavior is sin – but the inner impulse is not. Wanting to help save your child from hell on earth and eternal hell in the hereafter is loving that child. Seeking help is what a loving parent who wants the best for his or her child would do. The State of California has no right to abridge that parental impulse to care for and guide his or her child in the best way possible while that child is growing up. That is just simply the State going too far in imposing its values on my parental rights, values, choices and beliefs, which would guide me in raising my child to be a happy, healthy, socially well adjusted and God-fearing adult with the spiritual, religious and psychological assets to raise his or her own children, if God should so grant, with loving care as well.
I agree with you 100%. A lot that I have read, however indicates that this type of therapy does not work. That, however, is not the issue. The issue is that the state does not, or should not, have the right to prevent you from seeking therapy that you believe works. This whole law is designed to make any, even the slightest, mention of gayness being bad. Those who believe that gayness is wrong, read churches, are considered to be committing hate crimes. I hope they win this case. I doubt that they will win it in California and may have to go to the Supreme Court.
How can this approach by homosexual legislators be a surprise? Anything that suggests that their heinous sexual preferences are “wrong” and not desirable, and that there might be a “fix” for this condition, must be attacked. Interesting that deviancy permits no backtracking or questioning or choice of any kind. Not only do the homosexuals want others to leave them alone to their perversion, but they want all — and insist on it by force of law — to laud them for this behavior and to provide all indicia of normalcy to them (e.g., marriage, adoption, and the like). Legal sanctions will surely follow, punishing even creative and religious expression that can be seen as “offensive” to homosexuals (what ever happened to the First Amendment — not enough according to homosexual groups). Too bad so many Hollywood and other liberal types go along with this. The answer, of course, is to fight back, and fight hard, going right to the heart of this evil. All legislators that suggest prohibiting medical/psychological techniques to change or dampen this sexual condition should be called out, and defeated at the polls. At the very least, the young and their parents should have the chance to explore these options, which appear to work at some appreciable level.
My seventh-graders will learn what the Church teaches: that gay is NOT OK, that the behavior is a mortal sin against God’s law, and that God gives a way out through His grace. No governor or court is going to tell me my job!
You can probably find ways to generate the truth on this issue w/o risking your employment.
Tom, you said that no governor or court is going to tell you your job! True, but they may just take it away! I have heard of Catholic school teachers being fired for passing on the values that the church teaches. Who says that religious persecution doesn’t exist in the USA! You and your students will be in my prayers.
Well, Mr. Byrne, do you ever think that you may have some seventh graders that do have a gay orientation and that by telling them that gay is not OK, you are telling them that they are not OK? Do you think it is OK for these kids to be mistreated because of their sexual orientation? What do you think it feels like to be a gay seventh grader and to know that some people think it is OK to dislike you because of what you are? The Church doesn’t teach that gay is not OK to the best of my knowledge, just a small minority of Catholics feel that gay people are not OK. When I was a student I was taught that as Catholics we were all brothers and sisters in Christ, not that people who were different were not OK.
PA always banging the drum for the sodomites, no PA gay is not OK. Gays are a corrosive and destructive force, they are pathetic people who scream “look at me I am gay, I am different and you must accept me”….Why do affirm sin PA
PA, allowing a child to identify him or herself by sexual inclination is a horribly abusive thing to do. Why would you advocate that? The children of this age group are maturing; why would you want to direct one or let one go down the path of sin? How can you look at yourself in the mirror, PA? Also part of a class is the social aspect; the teacher is obligated to instruct all the children. Thus, by making it known that “gay is ok”, you are leading the least of God’s people into Hell. You need to obtain a full size millstone and place it where you can meditate on it often. Attach a little rope to it with a hangman’s noose, while you’re at it. You seem oblivious to the folly and utter depravity you advocate for children.
Homo-sexual ACTS are not OK.
Why don’t you just say that Mark PA ?
Homo-sexual ACTS are Mortal Sins,
as are fornication, masturbation and pornography. Or do you want those with same sex attraction to go to Hell for eternity?
If you loved everyone, you would want them to go to Heaven.
CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH:
“2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial…These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition. 2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.”
i hope this reparative therapy will help those people who are genuinely homosexual to accept their cross and live chaste lives — rather than getting married and “faking it” to better fit in.
how horrible it would be for thier spouse to be married to a homosexual person who is just trying to “act straight” due to family pressure — the spouse deserves better, namely a truly heterosexual partner.
a friend of mine had her husband leave her and her children after years of marriage because he admitted he had only gotten married to avoid the stigma of being seen as a homosexual — she was shattered to learn the truth, far too late.
max, it is indeed sad for someone to leave his moral repsonsibility to his spouse and children for a life of sodomy – mortal sin.
CCC: ” 2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex.
It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,
tradition has always declared that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.
They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity.
Under no circumstances can they be approved. “
Jesuits should look carefully at any apples they eat-there may be wormholes in them. Some religious may have been inspired by Satan
to join the Jesuits, thinking that Brown’s bloviated attitude is tolerated and enshrined therin.
It also occurs to me that blocking people from receiving this kind of treatment for obsessive and disordered thinking and/or disordered behavior is essentialy contrary to the concept of free speech.
The Pacific “Justice” League should be thanking the governor and legislature rather suing us, the people of the state, and wasting our tax dollars defending this. Reparative therapy is pop psychology mumbo jumbo taken to the extreme—because in this case innocent young people–and sometimes very desperate parents–are involved. The therapists, often homosexuals themselves, use their position of authority and trust to prey on vulnerable youth who have been confused by society about sexuality. They know the parents are often so anxious about the situation that they will go along with almost anything. Some use outrageous techniques such as cuddle therapy where the patient must spend extended periods of time in close physical contact with the therapist. (Just google “cuddle therapy”–if you dare.) The whole thing is a sham and certainly should have been outlawed a long time ago. I can’t imagine defending this quackery and perversion under the guise of “free speech”. Sick.
Dave N what a foolish post! You are forgetting the therapies that you have not mentioned, the ones that do work! It is sick of you to think that laws are the solution to undermine parents, to carry on the gay agenda. I feel sorry for you and others who only see things in the flesh but not in the word.
Shame on you!
Dave N:
Thankfully, your august and magisterial pronouncements do not constitute a basis upon which to repeal the First Amendment.
Your side will be crushed on First Amendment grounds, and rightfully so.
So, Dave N, first put on your thinking cap, and second use it. Every label has mimics. All sorts of con artists will jump onto bandwagons. Reasoning is the process of rational thought which culls the weeds in the grain crop. Your irrational thought is to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Scripture teaches how it is more important to save babies than to get rid of impostors, ie better to have a few weeds in a garden than to eradicate the garden.
So happy to see the “Courage” website now advertised on California Catholic Daily. Talk about Reparitive Therapy through The Truth!
Mark from PA brings up that a few children with homosexual or lesbian tendencies are mistreated by their parents, but far more often there has been serious mistreatment of children brought up by same-sex couples. Recently there has been a case where two lesbians who are raising a little boy (probably one of the women’s child) says the little boy wants to have a sex change into being a girl. They have already had doctors give him opposite sex hormones to stop him from being a normal little boy. To me that is child abuse of the worst kind, and this child should be taken away from them. No adult should change a child’s sex. Even those children who have been born with actual genital defects should not have such serious operations until they are at least teens and/or old enough to make an informed decision about their own bodies. In this case I believe the little boy wants to be a girl only because these women continually bash the male sex until this poor child has turned against men. This is a horrible abuse of a child.
Anne T, I agree with you that children who have been born with genital defects should not have serious operations until they are old enough to make an informed decision about their own bodies. This is important because in some cases doctors have assigned the child the “wrong” sex with these surgeries. I also agree with you that the case of two women raising a little boy as a girl is also abusive. Where is the child’s father here? I am not supporting mistreatment of children by anyone gay or straight. Our children need to be protected no matter who the abuser is.
Mark from PA, you defend Lesbian couples and homosexual couples raising children by themselves, although you yourself say you are married to a woman. The whole problem with the first two scenarios is that children raised in them cannot learn to relate to his or her own father or mother in those situations, therefore it is an abuse from the beginning to deliberately deprive a child of both sexes for parents. You do not do it, although you say you have a homosexual orientation, then why would you approve it in others. It makes no sense to me. Your son has both a mother and a father. I think you instinctively know it is wrong, but say the opposite. If a child is mistreated in a heterosexual family, there are other heterosexual families that can take them in, or they can be put in a home where there are both men and women to whom they can at least relate. The latter is not a perfect situation but better then putting them in a two homosexual or two Lesbian environment.
Anne T, if people are good parents then I defend them. Their orientation does not matter. If parents abuse children then the children need to be protected. A lot of abuse happens when women have live-in boy friends who are not the father of their children and the men mistreat the children. In these situations the children are living in a family with a man and a woman but this doesn’t prevent them from being abused. Situations like this are much more common than those in which children are being raised by two people of the same sex.
Evidently, Mark from PA, we mostly agree on the issue, except I do not believe that a child should ever be put into a situation where they have to tell someone they have two mommies or two daddies because another person of the same sex is living in the house. That is confusing to the child and all the children around him/her. It is hard enough for children to have to figure out the step-mom/step-dad scenario without adding to childrens’s confusion. It is better to find a heterosexual home for them, or a place where they are watched by both sexes, such as a home for children.
By the way, Mark from PA, I do not consider your and your son’s situation in the same category as children being raised by two practicing homosexuals or two practicing Lesbians as you have a wife (woman), and your child has a mother.
Anne T, actually some bishops have been outspoken in saying that children deserve to be raised by their natural mother and father. I find this to be somewhat troubling as it puts down adoptive parents. I read of a case where in a diocese there was a speaker sent by the diocese to talk to the children and actually got into a argument with some of the students when he said that children should be raised by their natural mother and father. A girl that was adopted actually was driven to tears by what the speaker said. In our diocese, the bishops have always been pro-adoption but it seems that today this isn’t the case everywhere.
Mark from PA, the bishops were right, and the child will get over it when she gets older and understands what they meant. She was probably just oversensitive. We all have wounds. I would have loved to have been raised by my natural mother and father, instead of my grandparents, then my mother and stepfather, but it just did not happen, and I have survived, though wounded.
Mark, what I and the bishops are saying is that every child, whether in a foster home or adopted or in a situation such as mine yearns for his/her natural parents,unless they were extremely abusive, but even then they wished it were different. They might feel more loyalty to their adoptive parents and are more thankful to them when they find out the circumstances, but they wish for the most part that it was otherwise. Why do you think Canisius is so angry, Mark from PA? He is angry because he feels the Lesbian lover of his mother broke up his home and destroyed his relationship with his natural parents.. I can understand that. because divorce is crippling to most children. People can say differently in justifying their actions and divorces, and sometimes it does have to happen, but crippling to children it is.
Anne T, I understand why Canisius is angry. It makes me realize how blessed I am. My mother was such a quiet and gentle person. She never had a bad word to say about anyone. I always felt bad that she never had a daughter because she had so many good qualities to pass on to a daughter. I am glad that she was close to several of my cousins, especially 2 of my cousins who lost their mothers when they were relatively young and looked to my mom for support. My Aunt Mary was like a second mother to me. She was a very holy person and influenced me a lot even though she died when I was 15. I always wished that I could be as holy a person as my aunt was. My other Aunts were also such good women and my grandmother was also an amazing person, she came to this country when she was only 17, married young and with my grandfather raised 12 children. Because of my background I have a different view of the world than Canisius and some of the other posters here. I feel that the many women in my life have had a positive influence on me.
PA you can never understand….you can only imagine..
PA, “natural” and “unnatural” are the operative concepts in this issue. “Natural” mother implies both the biological mother and the adoptive mother. I thought you said that you were taught by nuns, but they apparently never taught you why some of them are called “mother” by others who are not their biological children. A lesbian mother would be an unnatural mother even to her own biological child.