“You’re so awestruck. What can you say? You take it in. The feeling, the joy, the warmth of his body, his breathing…I will never forget that experience ever.”
~ Singer Elton John, commenting on the birth of his son, Us Weekly, January 17
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Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
That poor beautiful child will never know the love of a mother. It breaks my heart for him.
Elton John and David Furnish tried to adopt two brothers from Russia and looked into adopting a child with AIDS, only to get vetoed because Elton was supposedly “too old”. While sixty-two is definitely a bit up there, I think it shouldn’t be enough to determine whether someone who wants to give a home to an orphaned child should be able to adopt. Seriously, what sounds like a better situation – living in a Russian orphanage/being an orphan with AIDS in an orphanage, or being adopted by people who want to provide a loving home for you and have the resources to do so?
Congratulations to them!
Jen, I too have a problem with babies “made to order” for rich single people. I heard that Sir Elton has increased his household staff by twenty-two to take care of the baby. This child will never want for material goods, but what about the love of a mother?
While sixty-two is definitely a bit up there, I think it shouldn’t be enough to determine whether someone who wants to give a home to an orphaned child should be able to adopt.
This has always bothered me as well. I mean, how many grandparents are raising grandchildren today? They’re not unfit due to age. Some adoption agencies also limit based on family size – like, you can’t have 4 children and adopt another, which I don’t care for, either. I mean, if someone has the means to adopt and raise 5 or more children, why shouldn’t they?
I can think of a hell of a lot worse parenting scenarios. The kid ‘ll lack for nothing. All the best Elton and fam.
The kid’ll lack for nothing
except the love of a mother.
I’m with Jen, That poor beautiful child will never know the love of a mother. It breaks my heart for him.
and with 22 additional staff to ‘help’ this baby will also never really know the love of a father.
Kel, I asked one of our foster care providers about adopting over fifty. They said that they placed children with older people regularly, but that they asked that there be a relative or friend who would be willing to take care of the child in case anything happened, God forbid. Of course, this was a public agency and they are probably more lenient than the private agencies.
i don’t know if I want to adopt again, but some day, I would like to be a foster parent.
This is child abuse, pure and simple. To willfully and purposefully deny a child a mother, and raise him in a destructive and damaging situation, is nothing less than child abuse. Add to that, Elton’s pension for nude photographs of young boys (“””””art”””””) all over his home, and you have a recipe for disaster. There is a clear and strong correlation between homosexuality and child sex abuse, just ask us in the Church. Over 80 to 90% of all sex abuse cases involved homosexual men preying on young boys. It is a disorder and no place for a defenseless child. This is abuse and it needs to stop. What’s next? Glorifying wife beating on the cover of “People” ?
Bruce said: “Over 80 to 90% of all sex abuse cases involved homosexual men preying on young boys.”
I’m sorry, but will you please provide us with some sources to back up this statistic?
Thanks.
Sure.
(1) Homosexual Alfred Kinsey, the preeminent
sexual researcher in the history
of sexual research, found in 1948
that 37 percent of all male homosexuals
admitted to having sex with children
under 17 years old.
Source: P.H. Gebhard
and A.B. Johnson. The Kinsey Data. Saunders Publishing,
1979 Table 443, “Homosexual Sample:
Age at First Postpubertal Homosexual Contact,”
and Table 444, “Homosexual Sample: Age of Partner
in First Postpubertal Homosexual Contact.”
(2) Avery recent (2000) study published
in the Archives of Sexual Behavior
found that “The best epidemiological
evidence indicates that only 2-4% of
men attracted to adults prefer men. In
contrast, around 25-40% of men attracted
to children prefer boys. Thus,
the rate of homosexual attraction is 6-
20 times higher among pedophiles.
Source: Ray Blanchard, et al. “Fraternal Birth Order
and Sexual Orientation in Pedophiles.” Archives of
Sexual Behavior, Volume 29, Number 5 (2000),
pages 463 to 478.
(3) Another 2000 study in the Archives of
Sexual Behavior found that “. . . all but
9 of the 48 homosexual men preferred
the youngest two male age categories”
for sexual activity.” These age categories
were fifteen and twenty years old.
Source: Zebulon, Z.A. Silverthorne and Vernon L.
Quinsey. “Sexual Partner Age Preferences of
Homosexual and Heterosexual Men and Women.”
Archives of Sexual Behavior, February 2000 [Volume
29, Number 1], pages 67 to 76.
(4) Yet another recent study in the Archives
of Sexual Behavior found that “Pedophilia
appears to have a greater than
chance association with two other statistically
infrequent phenomena. The
first of these is homosexuality. . . Recent
surveys estimate the prevalence of
homosexuality, among men attracted to
adults, in the neighborhood of 2%. In
contrast, the prevalence of homosexuality among pedophiles may be as high
as 30-40%.”
Source: 7Ray Blanchard, et. al. “Pedophiles: Mental Retardation,
Maternal Age, and Sexual Orientation.”
Archives of Sexual Behavior, Volume 28, Number
2, pages 111 to 127.
(5) A 1989 study in the Journal of Sex
Research noted that “. . . the proportion
of sex offenders against male children
among homosexual men is substantially
larger than the proportion of sex offenders
against female children among
heterosexual men . . . the development
of pedophilia is more closely linked
with homosexuality than with heterosexuality.
Source: Kurt Freund, Robin Watson and Douglas Rienzo.
“Heterosexuality, Homosexuality, and Erotic
Age Preference.” Journal of Sex Research, February
1989 [Volume 26, Number 1], pages 107 to 117.
(6) A 1988 study of 229 convicted child
molesters published in the Archives of
Sexual Behavior found that 86% of pedophiles
described themselves as homosexual
or bisexual.
Source: W.D. Erickson, et al. “Behavior Patterns of
Child Molesters.” 17 Archives of Sexual Behavior
77, 83 (1988).
(7) In a 1992 study published in the Journal
of Sex and Marital Therapy, sex
researchers K. Freud and R. I. Watson
found that homosexual males are three
times more likely than straight men to
engage in pedophilia, and that the average
pedophile victimizes between 20
and 150 boys before being arrested.
Source: K. Freund & R.I. Watson. “The Proportions
of Heterosexual and Homosexual Pedophiles
Among Sex Offenders Against Children: An Exploratory
Study.” 18 34, Journal of Sex and Marital
Therapy 34-43 (1992).
(8) In the population of priests who sexually
abuse minors, six in seven molest boys.
Source: United States Department of Health & Human
Services, Administration for Children and Families,
Administration on Children, Youth and Families,
Children’s Bureau. Child Maltreatment [annual
reports, 1995 to 2001].
(9) We know from the report that was released by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice that 81 percent of the victims of priestly sexual abuse were male, and that the majority were postpubescent males. This is not called pedophilia—it is called homosexuality.
Source: John Jay College of Criminal Justice. The
Nature and Scope of the Problem of Sexual Abuse
of Minors by Catholic Priests and Deacons in the
United States. April 2004, Section 3.1, “Introduction
to the Problem of Child Sexual Abuse by Adult
Men.”
Again, it is child abuse to place children into the homes of homosexuals. Read all about the problems of homosexual “parents” here: http://www.amazon.com/Out-Under-Impact-Homosexual-Parenting/dp/1599770113
Um. I think I’m just glad that a baby has enthusiastic, loving parental units. I’m glad that there’s not any snark about “breeders.” I’m glad someone, somewhere, somehow is celebrating a birth of a baby.
So, where in those statistics do you find that “Over 80 to 90% of all sex abuse cases involved homosexual men preying on young boys.” I don’t see those numbers anywhere in what you’ve cited. You have given numbers regarding homosexuals, and numbers regarding pedophiles, but nothing about percentages of victims. except the last one regarding Catholic priests.
According to U.S. the Dept of Health and Human Services. Fourth National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect Report to Congress, Accessed January 2010.
“No group of children is immune from being a victim of child abuse or neglect, although girls are more often the victims of sexual abuse than boys.”
I am not commenting on Elton John and his adoption. As far as I’m concerned that doesn’t really concern the subject of abortion, other than adoption is always, always always better than abortion. I just do not like seeing the skewing or random creation of false statistics in order to prove any point.
22 staff? Funny….last I checked it takes TWO to raise a child (well, usually). 22 is far too many….I guess he won’t be awake for midnight feedings, household staff will do that.
Sorry, but I find this utterly repulsive! This baby was NOT created out of love.
In a news report Elton said he provided the sperm for the baby with a donor egg and a surrogate carried the child. He has 4 round the clock nannies to care for a child. All my baby books that I read while pregnant with my son stress how infants need a primary caretaker who is constant in order to have healthy emotional bonding and development. How messed up is this child going to be to have a rotation of caretakers…. Always a new face peering at him over his bassinet? Babies get used to their mother’s voices in the womb. I saw this with my own son. When I would speak he would stop crying and turned his head as if searching for me. He knew my voice. I remember the doctor saying I should avoid perfume as babies also learn their mother’s natural body scent because the amniotic fluid contains the mother’s scent and immediately at birth the baby familiarizes himself with his mama’s scent up close. A mother’s natural scent is also secreted in breast milk. What familiarity is this child going to have with constantly changing (and expendable) caretakers? Strange voices, strange faces, strange scents…. where is the familiar stability that a child needs for healthy development?
Elton John and his “partner” have the same attitude so many have… babies are products to be ordered. This is not a puppy that you can hire someone to walk for you! This is a CHILD!
I remember reading somewhere, Sydney, about a celebrity who fired her baby’s nannies and hired new ones on a regular basis so that her baby wouldn’t become attached to anyone besides her. I don’t remember who the celebrity in question was, and I don’t really feel like looking it up now, but I remember thinking how sad that was. :(
You can’t be serious… Oh, Lord have mercy. That poor child. He’ll grow up without a mother, and essentially without anyone to show him what it means to truly be a man. Heartbreaking.
Congrats to both of them- I always think, with regard to celebrities, “I hope that you actually spend time with that child even when cameras aren’t looking.” They say that they want to parent this baby and not pass him off on staff, then I’m glad for them. Elton John is a talented man- I’m sure that he’ll teach the baby how to play the piano. :)
And gay men are just as capable of being parents as a heterosexual man and woman. Sexual orientation is not what matters- best of wishes to them. The baby is so beautiful! :D
Bruce: When it comes to statistics, you can throw out anything that came from Alfred Kinsey. He had child molesters report back to him on their ongoing molestations, paid them money to do so, and was generally a very creepy person.
I have yet to see any reputable data on whether kids raised by two people of the same sex are any better or worse off than kids raised by two people of the same sex. It does appear that kids are generally better off when they’re raised by two parents instead of one, but I don’t think that there are necessarily things a parent of one gender can provide a child that a parent of the other gender can’t, except an example of an adult of that specific gender.
Jennifer, I’m assuming that your “truly be a man” comment is in reference to his parents being gay. I find it very offensive to imply that GLBT people are somehow “less” of a man or “less” of a woman. Is being a man or a woman about who you have sex with? Are priests lesser men because they don’t have sex with anyone? Kids need parents who will teach them to be kind, truthful, hard-working, and loving. While I do worry about how much time Zachary’s parents will be spending with him, I don’t think the fact that they’re gay means that they’re less capable of raising a kind, truthful, hardworking and loving child.
Why EJ and DF need a twenty-something staff increase because of the baby, I don’t know. What do they need besides maybe a regular babysitter?
I know it’s all the rage among entertainers to use surrogates, but isn’t surrogacy using the womb as a machine? A baby making machine? Isn’t that kind of impersonal?
I wonder if other gay lovers will see this and ask themselves, gee, why is it so hard to just adopt a baby? Aren’t there a lot of babies that need homes?
No, there aren’t and we know why.
Yes, adopting an orphan is very charitable, but not everyone can afford it. There are all kinds of costs involved. While a family with a modest income may find it do-able to adopt a baby locally and gently adapt to all the new expenses, few of us have a spare 20 thousand laying around. And of course, there are few local babies available. Sandra Bullock said in an interview that she waited 4 years for her baby. I bet she could have bought one quicker if she acted like Angelina or Madonna, but I admire her because Sandra acts more like one of us regular folks.
Poor precious baby and I don’t mean financially. The normalization and promotion of homosexuality, the hijacking of the “civil rights movement” to equate sexual behaviors with race, the push to redefine “marriage” and “families”, the promotion of homosexual adoption, the promotion of the million dollar marketing of IVF to “create” babies for homosexual couples, the denigration of those who take a stand for Biblical standards of one-man, one-woman marriage as ignorant bigots and hate-filled homophobes, the demand for not tolerance or acceptance but for the embracing of a lifestyle of unhealthy physical, emotional and mental consequences. Magazine covers are just the tip of the iceberg to what is coming and what the level of persecution will be for those who will not bow down to the altar of the
Homosexual Agenda” and political correctness. ”If my people who are called by my name shall humble themselves and pray, turn from their wicked ways and seek my face then will I hear from heaven and heal their land”. 2 Chronicles 7:14
Marauder,
Choosing to remain abstinent and chaste for the sake of the Lord and His Church is not the same thing as misusing and distorting the gift of sexual relations through homosexuality. Homosexuality is a perversion of the life-giving marital embrace. Chastity and abstinence is not.
And yes, manhood as God designed and intended it finds its proper sexual expression only with a woman. Just as womanhood finds its proper sexual expression with a man. Without a father, married to his mother, how will this young boy learn what it means for men to properly relate to women? He’s growing up with two men who have expressly rejected women, save for “renting” one woman’s womb and egg in order to make him. That is why homosexuality is so destructive. It says that women don’t need men and men don’t need women (but we can use each other’s parts to get what we want).
I’m sorry that he couldn’t adopt because in my opinion, parents (even gay parents) are better than an orphanage. I wish that he hadn’t turned to surrogacy, though it doesn’t surprise me. Not only has he the “it feels good so I’m going to do it” mentality, but he also is deeply entrenched in the “celebrity” crowd, whose attitude seems to heavily reflect the mindset, “I want this. I have money for this. I’m getting this,” without contemplating the moral/ethical complexities for even a moment.
It was from Kinsey that the idea spread that 10% of the population was homosexual. Besides his ethical and moral deficiencies, the report was skewed in other ways. As noted elsewhere, the actual percentage is more like 2 (although you might not guess that from watching tv).
I agree with the great majority here. The optimum is to have a father and mother. And with Elton’s constant traveling, relying on servants is not enough.
Homosexuality doesn’t “say” anything. It’s not a philsophy or a school of thought. Gay rights is a movement, but it isn’t about men not needing men or women not needing women; it’s about men who have a romantic interest in men and women who have a romantic interest in women. The gay rights movement isn’t telling straight guys, “Hey, you don’t need women! Give them up and come and be gay with us! Who needs women?!”
Sexual expression between two people who love each other doesn’t automatically become about “using” other people “to get what we want” just because the two people are the same sex. If you believe that homosexuality is morally wrong, fine. But saying that sex between two people of the same gender is all about using other people is just libelous.
Hans: There’s no clear answer when it comes to what percentage of the population isn’t heterosexual.
The actual percentage of the population of those afflicted with homosexual tendencies hovers around 2%.
It is a curable disorder as well.
Marauder,
Elton and his partner “used” a woman’s egg and womb in order to make a baby. Lesbian partners “use” a man’s sperm to make a baby. They take the part they need in order to reproduce — nothing more. That’s buying and using. It’s reducing human beings to “parts.” That is what I meant by “using each other’s parts to get what we want.”
The design is for men and women to give themselves selflessly to each other, withholding nothing, and being open to new life in the process. That is lovemaking.
I disagree with you that homosexuality doesn’t say anything. Lesbian relationships by definition exclude and reject men. Two gay men by definition exclude and reject women. They may not be waving a banner in the street saying “We don’t need women!” but that is exactly what they are saying. (At least until they want to make a baby.) It creates a (perhaps unspoken) rift between the sexes that is destructive and demeaning to the other’s uniqueness.
I don’t understand why Marauder and Vannah have an issue with the 2 men having support raising their child. I would say the number of parents a child has does not matter, just like the gender. Just because there are many parents does not mean they’re less capable of raising a kind, truthful, hardworking and loving child.
Jasper, very good and nice post from you there.
Frankly, I think some of the comments on this thread are pretty kooky. Look at the situations of many kids around the world, and are we really feeling sorry for this one?
Additionally, there are plenty of cases where the mother is in the picture, and the kid is a lot less happy, less loved, and has a far, far worse life than what I bet Elton’s little dude ends up having.
If he can afford 22 servants, why can’t he hire the mother as a nanny? Just a suggestion.
Well I am glad to see that fair amount of people here are supportive of parenthood regardless of the circumstance. For all the ones saying ‘Oh, that child will never know the love of a mother, how pitiful’ as an attack on the lifestyle of Sir John, what about mothers who gave up their lives for their child by choosing to go through with life-threatening pregnancies-that child will also never know the love of a mother, and will be raised only by a father. Or what about a single mother who choose life in spite of the obstacles of raising a child alone? That child will never know the love of a father. In an idyllic world, only perfect families would exist, that always have both a mother and a father. But ANY sort of family and couple that is open to life is better than none at all. That child will know a life of adoration from both its parents, and the sort of stability that only great financial wealth can bring. While its true that child will not know a mother’s love, and may even search for it as seen in the comedy ‘The Kids are Alright’ (story about a lesbian couple whose children eventually search for their biological father), a family with two or even one parents who are open to life and to having children should be enough. I’d rather a girl choose to give up her baby to a gay couple than to opt for abortion. Children are always a blessing, and the greater blessing is that there are people who want to have children at all, no matter who and what they are.
And I am certainly glad that you, Jill, are being supportive of parenthood in any lifestyle. A favorite snarky slogan the pro-abortion crowd directs at the pro-lifers is ‘May the fetus you save be gay’, clearly assuming that all pro-lifers are homophobic. Glad you’re showing them that we do not all live according to that hateful stereotype, , because life is life, no matter who and what they are =)
It’s posts like these, Jill, enticing the comments found above, that convince me that the pro-life movement simply doesn’t deserve to save any children. You people are so delusional.
Being sodomized and/or being forced to engage in oral sex or passed around the room like a ‘doobie’ by friends of your adoptive parents may take some of the shine off all that silver lining.
And your are assuming that there are no other ‘functional’ adoptive parents for these children.
“No group of children is immune from being a victim of child abuse or neglect, although girls are more often the victims of sexual abuse than boys.”
unless the boys have a male homosexual for a parent or parents.
Ken,
Are you serious? Do you actually think that John and Furnish are going to abuse their child with the sole evidence that these two men are gay? Perhaps you should be happy for them instead- there’s a million pro-life reasons to support gay adoption. And I know that little Zachary wasn’t adopted, but I can’t believe the ignorance- there is a huge difference between homosexuality and pedophilia.
If a straight man or woman abuses a child, then he or she must be sick or twisted or whatever. But if a gay man/lesbian woman abuses a child, then it must be because he/she is gay? That’s infuriating and insulting. You cannot assume that one sexual orientation is more prone to acts of sexual violence- it’s unjust.
Say it with me whether you agree with it or not: All human beings are equal.
I seriously question if a person can be pro-life and disagree with this statement at the same time- I don’t think that it’s possible.
Wow, Nate Sheets. Pot calling the kettle black, eh? We’re delusional in your mind because we many of us espouse a biblical worldview. Since the family was created by God and sexuality was created by God we think it ought to be used the way HE intended. You disagree. So be it. Thats your right. But to crow about children not being saved by us…
You want children to die because you disagree with us? What a sick, cold-hearted individual you seem to be.
I gotta say, though, Elton seems to be morphing into Andy Rooney.
I want to comment because I am an adult adoptee. I was adopted when I was three months old and I am now in my 40s with four children and a husband (the father of all of the children). For those of you who have always known who your parents are and have never walked in a crowd looking at faces and wondering if you are related to strangers, being adopted is a different world. Yes, I am thankful for being adopted and not living in foster care. However, there are still some issues I have had to deal with like why would my mother not “want me”? Maybe Elton and his partner will allow the baby contact with his mother, maybe not. Either way the baby has been taken from the only person it ever knew, its mother. I may be biased but only a female human can give the love and nurturing of a mother and only a male human can give the love of a father. In other words it takes one male and one female to create a baby and give it what it needs in the nurturing department. No amount of material goods will ever replace a mother. This arrangement was wrong way before the issue of same sex parents came into it. Selling human parts to create a baby and rent a womb is wrong. For all of you prochoice folks, when did this baby ever have a choice of staying with its mother or being sold into the hands of two men and their staff of around the clock nannies, rent a moms. Adoption and using surrogate mothers are two totally different issues. With adoptions, through legal agencies, the birth mother can usually chose who she wants to raise her child,and may even arrange for contact with the child through the years. In the case of rent a womb (for male same sex partners) or buy a sperm (for female same sex partners) it is all about using human parts as a economic commodity in order to to try to be like those crazy heterosexuals who can “breed” anytime they want. Do same sex partners ever wonder WHY they can’t create babies like their heterosexual counterparts? Maybe….. that is the way God planned it to be, natural law. Of course that wouldn’t be FAIR, they can provide the same loving home as heterosexuals so they will take matters into their own hands and buy or rent human parts to get what they can’t have because mean old God made it that way. (Please read this last part with some sarcasm in your mind’s voice) Wake up!
Debrr, you are correct.
Evcellent post Debrr. Thank you for expressing so beautifully the truth in love. I have a very dear friend who was adopted and still craves a relationship with her birth mom. Who she found but rejected her. God help us while we play games of social engineering with precious babies born and unborn.
Nate Sheets says:
January 19, 2011 at 9:28 pm
It’s posts like these, Jill, enticing the comments found above, that convince me that the pro-life movement simply doesn’t deserve to save any children. You people are so delusional.
Nate,
I get you’re upset with some of the comments (which, someone getting upset over a comment/comments happens), but this is highly uncalled for; specifically this part: ”pro-life movement simply doesn’t deserve to save any children”
It’s not about what we pro-lifers deserve as a group, it’s about those children having the basic right to life–the same basic right given to us at the moment of conception. THAT right has absolutely nothing to do with what pro-lifers deserve or don’t deserve.