Wednesday, June 09, 2010

Oh, well, now that you put it that way...

From Ambitious Project (blog):

TUESDAY, JUNE 8, 2010

This just in from a number of online sources: “Compared with a group of control adolescents born to heterosexual parents with similar educational and financial backgrounds, the children of lesbian couples scored better on academic and social tests and lower on measures of rule-breaking and aggression.”

You can read more here http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19014-children-of-lesbian-parents-do-better-than-their-peers.html or here http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/06/07/lesbian.children.adjustment/?hpt=T2


Well that does it, doesn't it? Over 3,000 years of the moral teaching of Holy Scripture can now be set aside because a sociological study or two claims that children raised by same sex couples fare as well or better than children with hetero sexual parents. The rationale for this claim? Well, for me, the money quote behind this claim is this: “the children of lesbian couples scored better on academic and social tests and lower on measures of rule-breaking and aggression.” Especially ironic to me is the “rule-breaking” measurement. One wonders whose “rules” are being referenced in order to determine whether they are being broken. Clearly not God's rules. Just for a second let's consider who developed the standards for measuring the “academic” and “social” tests and “measures of rule breaking and aggression.”

But a few questions do come to mind. Were those standards, perhaps, developed by the same liberal sociologists, etc. that have been pushing for the normalization and acceptability of homosexuality for so long? Is it possible that there has been an intentional effort to redefine “faring as well” by controlling the means and standards of measuring sociological norms? Is it just possible that the norms and standards that define “better academics” (read: acceptance of a secular humanist educational agenda),”social tests (read: politically correct indoctrination), “rule-breaking, (read: submitting to a THX-1138 world view), and “aggression” (see politically correct behavior) are norms and standards formulated by those with a Neo-Marxist worldview and agenda and embraced by the government run education systems in America? The answer is yes. This is classic Marxist liberalism: redefine the good by controlling how it is measured.

Why would this be of concern to a Christian? Because it is a direct and intentional attack on the biblical worldview and the teaching of Holy Scripture with regards to sexual morality. It is part of the concerted efforts of those who wish to see the demise of the nuclear family and seek a redefinition of family to further their political agenda. This is not really about what a family is or is not. This is about using sexual perversion as a tool and children as pawns in the sordid effort to gain political power by those who are offended by the very idea of Christianity. This is so because Christianity and a biblical worldview are the most significant obstacles to the ongoing efforts to remake America's economic and political systems in the image of Stalinist communism complete to the subjugation and erosion of the historic teachings of the Christian Church.

Of course there is the additional problematic element regarding the legitimacy of the findings of the study altogether since, according to CNN, “Funding for the research came from several lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender advocacy groups, such as the Gill Foundation and the Lesbian Health Fund from the Gay Lesbian Medical Association.”

On the other hand if Dr. Nanette Gartrell, the author of the study, can be trusted that the the "funding sources played no role in the design or conduct of the study, " then there is nothing to worry about... so we can just keep on drinking the secular Kool Aid.

Counter to Gartrell's claim, “Wendy Wright, president of the Concerned Women for America, a group that supports biblical values, questioned the legitimacy of the findings from a study funded by gay advocacy groups. That proves the prejudice and bias of the study," she said. "This study was clearly designed to come out with one outcome -- to attempt to sway people that children are not detrimentally affected in a homosexual household.”” Of course Wright is – no pun intended – right. At least partially. I suspect that what we face is worse than simply fudging the results by deciding the outcome in advance from the data perspective alone. I suspect that what we are seeing is the result of decades of social re-engineering. The norms have been moved. I suspect that they measured exactly what they are reporting. And that is the really sad part of it all. What passes for well adjusted has been defined in such a way that children being raised in such a deviant environment can be measured as doing “better” than or as well as other children. Kyrie eleison.

So then what does this newest report, seeking to offer a thinly veiled effort legitimizing same sex parenting, really mean? It means that if I control the measurement then I control the results of any study. In other words, if I can redefine 70 out of 100 as an A, I can be a functional C student with a 4.0 GPA because I have adjusted the standard. Just so in sociology: First, I redefine what is socially acceptable to achieve the results I already desire and then, I measure the behavior based on the new standard. A child who would be considered well adjusted from a Christian point of view can now be judged, by the new sociological standards within the secular system, to be an irrational, paranoid, narrow minded, bigot with the potential to do great harm if left unrestrained. He who controls the rules controls the outcomes. So it is no real surprise that children being raised by proponents of the new sociological measurements for achievement would score well or better within their own system.

For those who still believe that our Christian faith can and even, in some cases, should be compartmentalized from other areas of social interaction, this report my cause only some minor discomfort. And that discomfort largely an aesthetic reaction. But for those of us who believe firmly that the call to discipleship and the walk of sanctification require that our faith in Christ must increasingly become a part of the very warp and woof of the fabric of our existence, it raises a stark alarm. And that is not an aesthetic-based alarm but an ethical and biblical alarm. Because this is yet another step in the left's long march toward pushing this country away from the Christian ethos that has so long under girded and sustained us as a nation in times of both prosperity and of challenge. The culture war that currently rages in America threatens to move us starkly away from the Christian ethos and toward an ethos that is antithetical to both the Holy Scriptures and the founding documents of this nation. So in considering the veracity of this study I do not so much doubt the findings, as I am deeply disturbed and concerned for what the findings say about what we, as a nation, are moving toward considering acceptable social behavior outcomes.


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Posted by Fr. Mark R. Turner at 8:05 AM

hat tip: Fr. William Dickson

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