Grace Evans may be 11, but she has a lot of sense. During a debate on same sex marriage, she took the microphone in a roomful of adults and said that if it takes a man and a woman to make a baby, then it should take a man and woman to raise them.
“If you change the law so two moms or two dads can get married, it would take away something very important for children like me across the state,” she told them. Kids learn different things from parents of both genders, Grace told them, and “God made it that way.” She explained to the lawmakers that her mother “is her role model on how to be a girl, and I love her very much. My dad is also very important to me because he protects me… and takes care of me in a way my mom cannot.” So, she asked, “Which parent do I not need? My mom or my dad?”
The room fell silent. She looked into the eyes of leaders three and four times her age and asked again. No one answered. Maybe because they couldn’t. Or maybe because a little girl had just pointed out a fact that too many adults ignore: children deserve a mom and a dad. And when they’re raised to be as courageous as Grace is, it’s easy to see why.
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Authors-choice: Hope & Revival 
If we’re talking in general terms, then no, the infertility of certain heterosexual couples and the inability to have their own genetic children of homosexual couples is not the same. But it IS when you are determining how others live their life on the ability to have children, which is exactly what you are doing. And in fact, homosexual couples can have children if they find a surrogate or a sperm donor as Jimmy has pointed out. So what REALLY is your problem with homosexual marriage and raising children?
+Chinwuba Iyizoba you don’t think we have backup for our beliefs also?
+Chinwuba Iyizoba _”you think same-sex marriage is primarily about equality.”_
No. I think homosexual couples should be allowed to live their lives the same as I. That means they should get the same benefits, tax breaks, hospital visitation rights, etc. that I enjoy with my spouse.
I personally think the state should get out of the marriage business. Religious groups should marry people, the state should issue domestic partnerships. If a religion wants to marry gays, good for them. If not, so be it. But that domestic partnership (what we currently call marriage) comes with a lot of rights. I want gays to have those rights, same as me.
“Though your argument is emotionally powerful.”
There was no intent to cause an emotional reaction. I was merely using logic.
“But we first must understand equality.”
Equality is easy. What I can do, you can do, and she can do, and they can do. No restrictions based on color, gender, sexual orientation, weight, country of origin, etc. The only restrictions should be imposed by natural law until we can break it. For example, only women can bear children at this point. But when the technology exists for a male to have a child, it should be allowed.
“An analogy, men and women have equal rights, but because they significantly differ they require separate restrooms.”
No, it’s not required. The only reason separate restrooms exist is because people like you exist. If a woman and I went into a bathroom together, and I went into a stall, and she went into a stall, the world would not end.
She wouldn’t try to look. I would not try to rape her. We would exit the stalls, wash our hands, and leave. Like equal humans just taking care of some business.
“The largest difference is that same-sex couples cannot produce children”
Production is just an obstacle. Lesbian couples can opt for artificial insemination. If both women bear children from the same source, the offspring are technically siblings.
Male-male couplings could impregnate a third party female surrogate. Also, technology will one day allow the merging of homosexual genetics to create offspring lineally descended from both parents.
I assure you, children are being “produced” and direct production is merely a technological hurdle.
“nor ensure a child’s basic right to be raised by his mother and father.”
Please tell me where this right is written down in any legal sense. Please rectify this right with the death of a parent, divorces, adoptions, orphans, etc.
“It’s wrong, therefore, to assume the state should necessarily treat them as if they were the same.”
Why?
Now I notice you start that argument with “according to” do you really have no thoughts of your own?
+Bob Crofts yes I do, but I like having backup
I’m curious as to why you keep responding to jimmy
Equality means making sure everyone has the same rights, and the right to marriage is one of them, while I am not interested in marriage myself, many people feel it is a benchmark in life and they should be able to do what makes them happy. And that means everyone, regardless of sex, race or sexual orientation. The rule is, if you’re not hurting anyone, do what makes you happy.
Also, I’m curious about couples who cannot have children? Or couples who don’t want children? Is the defining factor here really just about egg and sperm? That’s really very shallow, even animals have gay relationships and get on fine, even adopting orphaned animals and raising them as their own, or sometimes just stealing babies, but hey.
Again, your argument is poor and you are really fumbling around for something to support your clear homophobia.
+Jimmy Davis you think same-sex marriage is primarily about equality.Though your argument is emotionally powerful.We all have deep, innate longings for fairness and equality. Moreover, history has given us many failures in this area, including women banned from voting and African-Americans denied equal civil rights.But we first must understand equality. Equality is not equivalency. It does not mean treating every person or every group in exactly the same way. An analogy, men and women have equal rights, but because they significantly differ they require separate restrooms. Equality means treating similar things similarly, but not things that are fundamentally different.
The real question is whether same-sex relationships differ significantly from opposite-sex relationships, and the answer is yes. The largest difference is that same-sex couples cannot produce children, nor ensure a child’s basic right to be raised by his mother and father. These facts alone mean we’re talking about two very different types of relationships. It’s wrong, therefore, to assume the state should necessarily treat them as if they were the same.
Oh yeah, I forgot about that law that prevents parents from getting divorced and the one that prevents parents from dying…..nope wait, there are no such laws, silly me.
This argument is ridiculous and fallacious, what a child needs is love, care and to be educated how to think (NOT what to think.) They do not need gender roles, gender roles are outdated and sexist, and we have PLENTY of evidence that genders do not have roles or specific traits. (Apart from very slight physical differences, and yes I can source these)
For instance, can a man not be kind? Thoughtful? Gentle? Attractive? Caring? If you answered no then I think that is very insulting to men, including yourself.
Also, I find it amusing that you call the cited story of two heterosexual parents as “an isolated incidence” and yet you call the child killed by a lesbian woman “a martyr of modern gay ideology”
You really show how biased you are very quickly.
+Thea Jamieson according to Robert Riley, using the matter of infertility in an attempt to gain traction for same-sex marriage by pointing out that if infertile heterosexual couples can marry, then the ability to procreate cannot be a prerequisite for or essential to marriage. Therefore, they reason, homosexuals should also be allowed to marry. This argument works only if there is no distinction between the infertility of homosexual relations and those of an infertile heterosexual couple. In other words, all infertilities would have to be equal, ie, existing for the same reason.
Is this so?
It is not. Homosexual relations are essentially sterile, while heterosexual relations are only accidentally sterile. In fact, they are not even both infertilities properly speaking. This is a smokescreen used to deflect attention from the real underlying issue. Infertility is an issue only in respect to those whose exercise of their procreative powers in heterosexual intercourse has failed for some reason that may be due to congenital or temporary health problems.
This is the only proper use of this word. One would not, for instance, refer to baseball playing or to a rock as an infertile act or thing because it would be gratuitous. Baseball does not have the potential to be fertile, nor do rocks. Things or acts which do not possess procreative powers are not called infertile, because they could not possibly be fertile. Therefore, it makes no sense to say that a rock is infertile. Likewise, homosexual liaisons do not possess procreative potentiality. They are, therefore, not properly called infertile but, more accurately, impotent. To be accurate, Judge Walker should have contrasted heterosexual infertility with homosexual impotence. (See Robert R. Reilly. “Do Infertile Couples Clinch the Case for Same-Sex Marriage?” MercatorNet, March 19, 2013.)
http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/do_infertile_couples_clinch_the_case_for_same_sex_marriage
Appeal to emotion. Appeal to the supernatural. Most of this is irrelevant.
“God made it that way.”
Prove this statement.
There was a married couple in Texas. Andrea and Russell Yates. They had five children. Andrea drowned all five children. Which parent did those five children not need?
Knowing what you know, and given the opportunity to place those five children either with their mother and father, or with an adoptive gay or lesbian couple, which would you choose? Death, or being raised by gay people? Which parents could those children have done without?
+Jimmy Davis Thank you Jimmy. You know who would make really great parents? If I had to choose parents who were gay or straight to raise me or any child, assuming I get the choice in the matter, my choice doesn’t take much to think about. I would choose the people who loved the child most and who were best equipped to raise the child.
I’m amazed that people think sexual orientation holds anything outside that topic. I must say, I’m proud that I live in a country where equal marriage is about to be legalised officially.
+Jimmy Davis It is faulty to draw a generalization from a single case. This guy that drowned his kids is an isolated incident and there are million of married men and women in America alone. On the other hand studies Regnerus, a professor at the University of Texas, interviewed 15,000 adults aged 18-39 and asked dozens of questions about their lives, including whether their mother or father had ever been involved in a same-sex relationship. Among those whose parents had been involved in same-sex relationships, the outcomes were significantly worse than for children raised by married mothers and fathers. Even after controlling for factors such as age, race, gender or the gay-friendliness of the state in which they lived, those raised in homes with one (or more) gay parents reported that they experienced more depression, ill health, unemployment, infidelity, drug use, trouble with the law, sexual partners, sexual victimization, and unhappy childhood memories 
+Chinwuba Iyizoba can you prove any of this? I want to see evidence to where same sex couples damage a child’s development.
+Chinwuba Iyizoba Now you’re getting it. This girl is being raised by a heterosexual married couple. It’s one case, it’s her case. In other cases, the situation goes south.
Great, 15,000 out of how many, 350,000,000? Please. Social sciences are now so riddled with selective data sets their conclusions are more often than not simply the author’s opinions.
Gay-friendliness of the state? What about of the home? You can be raised in a gay-friendly household in a unfriendly state, or by a psycho family in a friendly state. There are simply too many variables to consider that study worthy of consideration.
I know twins who were raised by two gay “fathers” and they are just fine (and straight). The conclusions are faulty, don’t predict anything, and simply serves to add to the “reasons” why homosexuals should be banned from joining society as equals
you need dad.
dad protects you and mom.
+senzo mamba that’s right. You are right. Thanks for saying it. Many have forgotten that men are protectors of their women and children
one example of why it migh *not* be good for “marriage” and “same-sex civil union” to be considered legally identical.
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-07-18/the-irss-gay-marriage-tax-problem#r=read
+Robert Martin thanks for this. Like they said, the mess has just begun
Personally felt and stated: “Mom” and “Dad” are so differently and yet each potently charged as to make both irreplaceable and emotively integral within my own person.
Each on her/his own so contributed to my own personhood in the course of their rearing me but also in the course of my eventually distinguishing myself for myself from them as to make their individual and joint contributions indelible and invaluable.
Their interactions with each other and their inclusion of my person within their lives and aspirations did their part as well towards helping me to form my own identity over time.
No amount of admittedly valuable other contribution to that process by Aunts or Uncles, school age teachers or instructors of whatever calibre could ever replace that fundamental intimate inclusion.
Two mothers or two fathers instead? Well, if need be thaÅ„ that would have to do instead. Still, within that such arrangement that peculiar additional quality would be missing for sure, which be inherent in both relating to and differentiating between “Mother” and “Father” individually and also experiencing them and interacting with them as with an intimately intertwined pair. Essential nuances of human relations become thereby unavoidably imparted unto me even as I experienced them thus helping me to discern them and to weigh their impact and upon myself and upon society.
Granted, those such influences can, if need be, be done without in one’s childhood. But then those influences and experiences will be lacking and they will be missed by that offspring even should they, themselves, not be aware of that lacking.
Truly, the very special qualities inherent in the “Mother,” “Father” and “Parents” relationships warrant them having been and continuing to be specifically protected by society and by law as their own special legal entities. Other life partnerships surely need and deserve to be also granted legal rights such as provide needed legal protection and also respect their Human Rights. Still, there ought to remain a special legal and societal safe haven granted that very special and essential relationship between man and wife and between parents and children, as of old.
In my estimation, continuing to differentiate between “marriage” as between a man and a woman, on the one hand, and “same-sex civil union” could help to provide different legal and societal support to the two essentially different phenomena. The vital requirements of both need to be appropriately provided for and protected by law and social norm. However, though those needs will surely overlap, yet they will not be entirely the same just as the social phenomena are not entirely the same.
Merely out of expediency forcing the two to be considered exactly the same phenomena before the law causes real life hardships for them.
Continuing legally to differentiate between “marriage” and “same-sex civil union” as between two similar yet different social phenomena could provide the legal basis upon which to shrewdly provide for the unique sets of vital requirements of each without neglecting the one or the other aspect thereof.
Mark P. _¨And there are tons of studies showing that same sex parents are fully capable of raising psychologically healthy kids¨_
There are even more studies showing that same sex parents is not a good idea. Non the less… I personally find it very hard to have an opinion on this. In a lot of ways I grew up without father, and as a son I really missed that… on the other I still turned out ok (I hope ;)).
¨Your statement about men and women bringing diversity to parenting makes borderline sexist assumptions that all men are the same and all women are the same, and that there can be no diversity among same-sex parents.¨
Not all men nor all women are the same… but practically all men have things in common with each other, which woman do not have an vice versa. Men and women do bring different qualities to raising a child, which complement each other. There is nothing sexist about saying that men and women are different. Yes, all men are different too, but among men there are a lot of obvious similarities. Same with women of course.
Again… I am not saying you are wrong in your statement… I merely believe there is more to it. It is a very difficult subject, it always is when it comes to children.
She can only speak out of personal experience, and her parents are a part of her identity. So of course, she can’t imagine her world without both of them. 
And there are tons of studies showing that same sex parents are fully capable of raising psychologically healthy kids.
Your statement about men and women bringing diversity to parenting makes borderline sexist assumptions that all men are the same and all women are the same, and that there can be no diversity among same-sex parents.
If the would is courting Huxley’s apocolypse, it’s not coming from the gay-rights camp.
I think the conclusion one could take from this article and your comments is that the first thing we should do is outlaw divorce. That’s by far the major cause of families without both a mother and a father.
All other situations, whether the death of one parent or a gay couple, are rare events compared to that.
You believe the only thing children really need is love. Based on that supposition, you conclude it’s just as good for children to be raised by loving parents of the same sex, as it is to be raised by loving parents of the opposite sex. Unfortunately, that basic assumption — and all that flows from it — is false. Because love isn’t enough!
Plenty of studies show that children are most likely to be exposed to the emotional and psychological experiences they need in order to thrive in a male/ female setting because men and women bring diversity to parenting; each makes unique contributions to the rearing of children that can’t be replicated by the other. Mothers and fathers simply are not interchangeable. Two women can both be good mothers, but neither can be a good father, same for two men, both can be good fathers, but not good mothers. For come that day when sperm and ova are no longer needed to make humans, I shudder. You should read Aldous Huxley’s “Brave new world” to get the sense of the Apocalypse the world will be courting.

“if it takes a man and a woman to make a baby, then it should take a man and woman to raise them”
Non-sequitur
Ask her if single parents should be banned from raising kids? If a parent dies, and the remaining parent doesn’t remarry right away, should the child be taken from the remaining parent and given to another couple just so they can have both a mom and a dad?
+Mark P. you are wrong to focus on the exceptions. Single parents don’t make babies singly, if you will excuse my grammar. They still need male sperm & female ova. Let us be serious, If a parent dies? What does that have to do with what this child is saying? I think you should be smart enough to know what an 11 year old girls is trying to say. Ordinarily, ever person comes from mom and Dad. 
+Chinwuba Iyizoba My point is that just because a man and woman are required to make a baby, it does not necessarily follow that a man and woman are required to successfully raise a child. (“Non-sequitur” = “it does not follow”)
And what happens when we reach the technological point where a man and woman are no longer required to make a baby? That day is coming.
Not to mention that she is calling on religion to back up her argument. Should the lives of other people be governed by her religious beliefs even if those other people don’t share those beliefs?
I have no problem telling an 11 year old where she has not completely thought out the issue
This is a topic that’s near to my heart… Thank you! Where are your contact details though?
WOW! This soo touched my heart. Have we become so morally bankrupt that our children now have to teach us…Shame on us all especially those advocating for gay rights. Its an unnatural act and may God forgive us all…
Yes, of course you are right ChiChi O, it is a real shame that children are teaching Legislators what is true and good. Yes you are right, it is prayers that will save us. Thanks for your comments.
God bless you Gracie. I wish Americans the same way like you, the world would be forever indebted to America for removing this debacle of shame from the world’s faces.
Thanks for your comment Ademola, yes, people like little Grace can stop evil, but she needs people to share her views and support. Thanks for doing that already.
Thank you Ademola, yes Grace has taught us a lesson, she has shown that everyone can contribute in this effort to rid the world of bad ideologies. Thank you