Relatives as Role Models

Discussing the Catholic Church and gay adoption at Family Scholar's Blog, George complains that gay and lesbian couple's prevent a child from having both a female and a male role model. I explain:

George,

A family isn’t a cocoon where a child has two parents and perhaps a sibling or two. Plenty of other relatives are part of a child’s life. For example, my Aunt Olive and Uncle Willard had no children of their own, but enjoyed having me over to visit for the weekend. Uncle Willard loved taking us to the stock car races. We would have dinner at the Garden State Diner afterward then head to the Newark airport where we would go to the observation deck on the roof of the terminal and watch the planes take-off and land for a while. Perhaps this inspired me to go to the Air Force Academy and become a pilot myself later.

All these relatives can be role models for the children and can provide them with examples of heterosexual male and female behavior even when the child’s parents are a gay or lesbian couple. This is why marriage is as important for gays as it is for straight couples. It brings together two sets of in-laws providing the child with a much larger family.

So it is not gay parents who are denying their children the benefits of having family members of both sexes, as much as it is those who oppose gay marriage which would provide children with the two sets of relatives who would add joy to their lives the same way my Aunt Olive and Uncle Willard did for me.