Conferência: Co-adopção em pares do mesmo sexo: Afinal qual é o mal?

Già 5 figli? Niente adozione - di Tommaso Scandroglio

In NBQ

 

L’amore trova un limite nel numero di figli. È quanto deve aver pensato il giudice del Tribunale per i minorenni di Firenze che ha respinto la richiesta di adozione di un minore straniero da parte di una coppia che ha già 5 figli, di cui due adottati e non in perfetta salute. La famiglia, secondo il magistrato, è “troppo numerosa” e questo “metterebbe a rischio l’equilibrio e l’armonia che i due coniugi hanno saputo garantire ai propri figli fino ad ora”. Insomma oltre il quinto figlio l’amore può diventare squilibrato e caotico. In ossequio ad un curioso criterio merceologico applicato alla famiglia, la quantità può intaccare la qualità.

La decisione sorprende perché proprio il fatto di avere una famiglia numerosa avrebbe dovuto essere la prova provata che la coppia è assolutamente idonea ad educare un sesto figlio. Sorprende anche perché nelle valutazioni psico-sociali i coniugi richiedenti – coppia ormai solida perché sposati da quasi trent’anni - erano risultati idonei all’adozione, tanto è vero che erano stati già riconosciuti adatti a prendersi cura di figli non loro avendo adottato due bambini in precedenza. Sorprende perché il giudice ha tirato fuori dal cilindro un criterio per l’adottabilità – quello del numero di figli della coppia richiedente – che non è presente nelle norme sull’adozione. E i giudici, fino a prova costituzionalmente contraria, dovrebbero applicare le leggi, non inventarsele. Tale criterio doveva essere lasciato semmai alla prudente valutazione della coppia e non imposta a forza da un organo giudicante. Sorprende perché la nostra Costituzione tutela le famiglie – in specie quelle numerose - e il loro sviluppo, anche numerico. Sorprende infine perché la tutela della vita privata sancito dall’art. 10 della Convenzione di Oviedo è chiamata in causa molto spesso a sproposito da un’infinità di giudici soprattutto in ambito europeo per consentire di tutto: dall’aborto alla fecondazione eterologa, dall’adozione omosessuale all’eutanasia. Ma questa volta, guarda caso, tale articolo non vale e lo Stato per tramite dei suoi giudici si arroga il diritto di ficcare il naso nelle faccende private dei suoi cittadini.

Ben inteso: lo Stato lo può fare quando di mezzo c’è il bene comune. E il benessere di un bambino è faccenda che riguarda tutti. Quindi ben vengano regole e controlli per verificare se ci sono le condizioni e le garanzie necessarie affinché il minore possa crescere in un ambiente sano. Ma quello che sconcerta è il fatto che essere inseriti in una famiglia numerosa non è un fattore positivo per i giudici, un titolo in più per avanzare in graduatoria, una seria ipoteca alla felicità del bambino. Bensì è tutto l’opposto: è un handicap al pari di una fedina penale non immacolata da parte dei genitori adottanti. A rigor di logica tra breve dovremo aspettarci provvedimenti dei tribunali che mirino a sottrarre bambini a coppie che hanno “troppi” figli o perlomeno sanzioni pecuniarie per eccesso di numero di figli, come accade in Cina. La prole dunque secondo il giudice fiorentino da bene che arricchisce il rapporto matrimoniale è diventato inciampo, fardello che provoca danni agli altri fratellini.

A fronte di tutto ciò l’Associazione Amici dei Bambini aveva depositato un reclamo presso la Corte d’Appello di Firenze, reclamo cestinato dal PM con le seguenti parole: “Perché questa coppia non riesce ad accontentarsi di quello che ha avuto e a godere di quello che ha?”. La frase del Pubblico Ministero è illuminante perché getta luce sul reale significato attribuito da una certa cultura contemporanea sul valore dei figli e sugli istituti dell’adozione e dell’affido. Tali istituti rispondono non all’esigenza degli adulti di diventare padre e madre o di prendersi cura di un bambino per un certo tempo, bensì l’opposto: rispondono al diritto del minore di crescere in una famiglia o temporaneamente in un ambiente protetto. Il figlio, anche quello naturale, ha valore in sé e non deve ridursi ad oggetto che soddisfa il nostro bisogno di essere genitori. Il PM dunque sbaglia laddove crede che i due signori siano alla ricerca di un sesto figlio per appagare una presunta loro fame di genitorialità. Non si tratta di bulimia paterna o materna. L’adozione non è stata pensata per il benessere degli adottanti – come invece pare credere il Pubblico Ministero - ma degli adottati. Il punto di osservazione privilegiato deve essere dunque quello del bambino: non esiste un diritto al figlio, bensì esiste il diritto del bambino ad avere una famiglia.

E così ci troviamo in un Paese dove si danno in affido i bambini a coppie gay, ma non si lasciano alle cure di una famiglia naturale. Le due decisioni non sono in antitesi o schizofreniche, ma rispondono ad un unico criterio: lotta alla famiglia a tutto campo. Dobbiamo assetare e affamare la famiglia naturale per farla morire di inedia ed incentivare in ogni modo tutte le altre relazioni interpersonali. Morte al matrimonio dunque, perché viva il suo esatto opposto che si incarna nelle convivenze, nei “matrimoni” omosessuali, negli affido “omosex”, nei poliamori e nei divorzi.

Does same-sex parenting really make ‘no difference’? - by Douglas W Allen

In MercatorNet 
October 10, 2013

Douglas W. Allen, an economist at Simon Fraser University, in Vancouver, has just published a highly controversial study in the journal Review of Economics of the Household. It breaks with the conventional wisdom that there is no difference between parenting by a mother and a father and parenting by a same-sex couple. 

MercatorNet interviewed Professor Allen about his findings. 

MercatorNet: What has your research found about educational outcomes for children of same-sex couples versus children of opposite sex couples?

 

Doug Allen: There have been about 60 studies over the past 15 years or so that have asked “do child outcomes differ when the child is raised in a same-sex household." Almost all of this literature has the following characteristics: the samples are tiny and biased, the outcome measures are subjective and difficult to replicate, and the finding is always one of "no difference."

Despite the limited scientific validity of these studies, they all end with sweeping policy recommendations. It really is not a scientific literature, but rather a political literature targeted at judges, lawyers, and politicians.

Then came a paper by Michael Rosenfeld, published in Demography 2010. This paper had a large random sample and looked at normal progression though schools in the US. It was, in my opinion, the first solid piece of statistical work done on the question, and he confirmed the "no difference" finding. Later, Joe Price, Catherine Pakaluk, and myself replicated his study and found two problems.

First, he didn't find "no difference". What he found was a lot of noise, and so he was unable to statistically distinguish children in same-sex households from children in any other type of household - including ones we know are not good for children.

Second, the lack of precision in his estimates came from a decision he made to throw out children from the sample who had not lived in the same location for five years. This turned out to be heavily correlated with same-sex households. Hence, he inadvertently threw away most of the same-sex households from the sample. Without that information, he did not have the statistical power to distinguish between family types.

So, the three of us restored the sample and used the statistical technique of controlling for household stability. What we found was that children of same-sex households were about 35 percent more likely to fail a grade.

While this was going on, I was using the Canada census to look at some other questions. I noticed several things about the census that differed from the US. one. First, unlike in the US, the Canada census actually identifies same-sex couples. This solves a big measurement problem with the US census, which could include room mates, family members, and opposite sex couples as same-sex ones.

Second, the Canada census had a nice link between the children and the parents, so I was able to control for the education of the parents and their marital status. Poor performance in school is correlated with marital disruptions of parents, so this is an important control. In many ways then, the Canada census is a much better data set for addressing this question, and I decided to simply redo the Rosenfeld study using this data. (The census does not record progress through school, so I examined high school graduation rates instead).

So, what did I find? First, I simply looked at how any child in a gay or lesbian home did compared to children from married, cohabiting, and single parent homes. Most of the discussion in the paper compares children in same-sex homes to those in opposite sex married homes, but a reader can do all of the comparisons by looking at the tables.

I found that on average, children in same-sex homes were about 65 percent as likely to graduate from high school, compared to similar children in married opposite sex homes. That finding seems very similar to the one we found in the US regarding normal progress. Next, I wondered if the gender composition mattered at all, so I separated out the boys and girls. I was very surprised by the results.

On the boy side, I just found a lot of noise. Some boys do well in same-sex households; some do quite poorly. I cannot statistically determine the effect.

Just looking at the point estimates, boys in lesbian homes are about 76 percent as likely to graduate, in gay homes they are about 60 percent more likely to graduate. But neither of these are statistically significant, meaning they cannot be distinguished from zero.

Girls are another story. First, the estimates are very precise. Second, they are low. A girl in a gay household is only 15 percent as likely to graduate, in a lesbian household about 45 percent as likely. The result found by lumping all of the children together is being driven by this girl effect. This result is very robust, I tried many specifications, sample restrictions, and estimation techniques, but it always remained.

So, my paper no only rejects the "no difference" consensus, it points to a finding -- that if upheld by other studies -- seems incredibly important.

 

It's particularly hard on girls, isn't it? Why is that?

 

Allen: It is important to point out that I make no theoretical claims in the paper. I'm simply pointing out an empirical finding that is based on a high quality large random sample, and which is inconsistent with almost everything that has come before.

Having said that, as an economist, I would make the following speculation: specialization. It makes sense to me that fathers and mothers are not perfect substitutes. Indeed, mothers may provide some parenting services that a father cannot provide, and fathers may provide parenting services that mothers cannot. These services may be necessary for girls but not necessary for boys.

For example, I've been told by medical people that when a biological father is present in the home, daughters begin menstruation at an older age. Later menstruation is likely correlated with delayed sexual activity, etc., and this may lead to a better likelihood of high school completion.

It seems to me there could be dozens of channels this could work. As a father of two girls and one boy, I've often had discussions with other parents noting that with boys you just have to keep them fed and away from explosives, but with girls rearing is a little more complicated. That's a poor attempt at humour, but the bottom line is this is an interesting question that deserves to be looked at.

One explanation of poor school performance in general is that children of same-sex couples may be discriminated against at school. This seems less likely given the different finding between boys or girls. Or at least one would have to come up with a different more complicated story of discrimination.

 

This turns the conventional wisdom on its head, doesn't it? Most people think that there is no difference. Was there anything wrong with the quality of previous research?

 

Allen: I think I've answered this above. I should point out one other thing, however. I've read just about every paper on this subject that has been published since 1995. Although many of them claim to find "no difference", they often do find something. Again, the finding is coming from a biased small sample, but differences are found. For example, children growing up in same-sex homes are more likely to experiment with alternative sexual lifestyles, etc.

I should also point out that not all studies are created equal. For example, an Australian sociologist named Sotirios Sarantakos has done considerable work in the 1990s that (though not random) uses large longitudinal studies of objective, verifiable, and hard measures of performance. He finds many differences with children in same-sex households in terms of mathematics, language and other school performance measures. Interestingly, his work is never referenced in most literature surveys. Again, this points to the political nature of this literature.

 

Your conclusions are based on Canadian census data. Why is that better than US data?

 

Allen: I've mentioned this above, but let me give more detail. The US census does not identify same-sex cohabiting or married couples. So how did Rosenfeld and others find them? They looked at a series of questions: for example, what is your sex, are you married, what is the sex of your spouse? If someone answered male / yes / male, then this would be considered a gay couple.

The problem with this is that it can lead to a number of measurement issues. Suppose I'm a married man, bunking with another man in a work camp (this may seem far fetched, but it is a real example). When I answer the survey I say I'm male, I'm married, and I'm currently living with a male. I may get counted as a same-sex couple even though I'm not. This can happen with same-sex family members who live together, room mates, and others.

There is also the problem of random mistakes. No one fills out a form perfectly, and sometimes the wrong box is ticked off. Because there are so many heterosexuals compared to gays and lesbians, it only takes a small fraction of seniors to tick off the wrong sex box and it can swamp the same-sex sample. The Canada census avoids these problems. It not only identifies same-sex couples, but they must be in a cohabiting or marriage relationship.

Canada has also had legal same-sex marriage before the census was taken. Many have argued that Canada is more open and accepting of same-sex marriage. As a result, the reporting bias is likely lower in Canada than in the US.

Finally, as mentioned above, I was able to control for the marital history of the parents. This also turns out to be statistically important, and in the paper I show what happens when this is not controlled for. Children in same-sex households are much more likely to come from a previous heterosexual marriage than from adoption or other means. Divorce, however, reduces the likelihood of graduation. If you don't control for this effect, children of same-sex households look like they do even worse at graduation. So this is an important variable to consider.

Does your study prove conclusively that there is no difference? What questions does it raise?

 

Allen: Assuming there are no mistakes in the study, it rejects the claim that there is "no difference." I personally think that in social science we should never place too much weight on a given study. It is important that we look at evidence from different countries, etc. I would say this study builds on a few others that are questioning the long held consensus. An examination of the literature shows that the consensus is built on only a series of preliminary work. Now that people have started looking at this more seriously, we're finding no evidence for that conclusion.

 

In such a contentious field, will your study make an impact upon the public debate?

 

Allen: I don't know, but I suspect it will have little impact. The debate seems to have shifted from the statistical lab to the bumper sticker. The concept of "marriage equality" and the alignment of same-sex marriage rights with the civil rights movement seems so powerful that I doubt one little study will matter much.

If there is merit to the study, and if there really is a difference that matters, I think it is much more likely that 20 years from now we'll be asking "how did we get here and how can we clean up the mess" -- in much the way we now wonder how we ended up in a world where so many children are raised by single parents.

 

Sociologist Mark Regnerus published a paper which came to a similar conclusion last year and was all but crucified by his colleagues and activists. Do you expect a similar reaction?

 

Allen: Prior to the publication of his paper I was unaware of Professor Regnerus' existence. Because I was working in this area I saw what immediately happened. I was struck by the hypocrisy of those who attacked him.

Here was someone who had looked at the literature and decided to do something better. There were tiny samples, so he went and found a large sample. There was nothing but bias and snowballing (the procedure of asking friends to join a study), so he did a random procedure. There was way too much soft-balling of questions, so he asked a series of quantifiable ones. He was trying to improve the work, and that is commendable.

Was his study perfect? No, but a study never is. His great error, of course, was that he found the wrong answer. Those who came later and complained about the things he did should have been equally outraged by what had come before. Had Regnerus found otherwise, they would have lauded his work as path-breaking.

I rather suspect this will not happen to me for a number of reasons. First, after the Demography comment came out last year, my university received several letters (sent to the president, various other administrators, and many of my colleagues) demanding that I be fired. These were the same tactics that were used against Professor Regnerus.

Fortunately for me, I'm well known and respected at my institution and we have a strong sense of academic freedom. Indeed, Simon Fraser University has recently been ranked as one of the safest universities to express ideas that may be politically incorrect.

Second, my study only looks at one margin of child performance: high school graduation. Professor Regnerus looked at many and in many ways he found more problems than I found.

Third, my sample is a 20 percent sample of the Canada census. No one can claim I have a small biased sample or that the agency in charge of collecting it is not trustworthy. Fourth, Professor Regnerus was first, and I think being first is much more likely to come under fire. Fifth, the US Supreme Court has already made a decision on Prop 8 and DOMA, so much of the incentive to attack has passed.

Having said that, I have come under some attack, and I would like to relay one incident that has happened.

Last week I received an email from David Badash, the editor of The New Civil Rights Movement, a prominent gay rights website. In it he said he'd heard about the study, wasn't happy about it, but wanted to talk to me before he wrote about it. I emailed back, sent him a copy, and invited him to ask me any questions about the work.

On Monday, when I arrived at work, there were a number of colourful emails waiting for me, calling me all kinds of four-letter words. I soon realized that these were coming from people who had read Mr Badash's blog page.

So I went to have a look myself. What I found was a mixture of personal attacks, misunderstandings and misrepresentations of my work, and a general meanspiritedness. Just the opposite of what I've always believed a public discussion should be.

So, maybe I'm naive, maybe the attacks will come. I hope not. Anyone who wants to read my work is welcome, and I'm willing to have a reasonable discussion about it with anyone.

 

Douglas W. Allen is the Burnaby Mountain Professor of economics at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia, where he earned his undergraduate degree. He has a PhD in economics from the University of Washington, and is the author of four books and numerous articles.

VÍDEO: Vigília pelas crianças no dia 23 de Julho de 2013 diante da assembleia da república em Lisboa

Um grupo de cidadãos crentes reuniu-se a 23 de Julho para reflectir e rezar pelas crianças em risco de poderem vir a ser legalmente co-adoptadas por pseudocasais do mesmo sexo. Uma manifestação de auto-intitulados "gays" contra-manifestou-se à beira do mesmo local.

Pai e mãe e a "co-adopção" homossexual - por José Ribeiro e Castro

In Público 
23/07/2013

Houve quem falasse inapropriadamente de "totalitarismo" a respeito das críticas à "co-adopção" homossexual. Mas, já que se falou nisso, convém ter presente que a convicção de que todo o poder está na ponta da caneta do legislador é, essa sim, em si mesma, uma convicção de matriz totalitária. 

A ideia de que o Estado pode criar a realidade através do poder da lei é um delírio perigoso, que nos coloca no cimo da rampa de todas as derivas totalitárias. O Direito é fonte de justiça quando limitado pela Humanidade ou subordinado ao Direito Natural, mas fonte de abusos e violências quando se arvora ilimitada omnipotência. As maiores violências começaram sempre, aliás, na própria lei e seu abuso: a pena de morte, a prisão perpétua, a escravatura, tortura, perseguição, expulsões arbitrárias.

As leis de Direito Privado são leis matricialmente narrativas: não conformam a natureza, conformam-se a ela. Não foi sequer um legislador qualquer que inventou os contratos, quanto mais o resto. Os contratos existem, são como são; a lei regula-os. Num Estado de Direito, as leis privadas não criam a realidade, aderem a ela. Regulam, ordenam, mas não criam, nem inventam, muito menos contra a realidade. Se o fizessem, atropelariam a realidade; e seriam de deriva totalitária.

Se todos nascemos de pai e de mãe, é violência extrema privar alguém do direito a ter pai ou do direito a ter mãe. A dupla referência masculina e feminina que é parte da nossa natureza integra a nossa própria identidade pessoal. É o que somos, é o nosso ser. 

Por isso mesmo, a generalidade das declarações de direitos humanos e das Constituições modernas (como a portuguesa) inclui o direito à identidade pessoal no elenco dos direitos fundamentais da pessoa humana - sem isso, não somos. E esse direito à identidade é componente principal da dignidade da pessoa humana. 

É desse direito fundamental à identidade pessoal que decorre, por exemplo, o dever de o Estado apoiar e promover a investigação da paternidade ou maternidade nos filhos do incógnito. E é desse direito à identidade pessoal que decorre também a noção de adopção do nosso Código Civil (art.º 1598.º) como "o vínculo que [se estabelece legalmente entre duas pessoas] à semelhança da filiação natural, mas independentemente dos laços do sangue."

O projecto da co-adopção homossexual é uma fraude intelectual e uma manipulação jurídica. É uma esperteza: não-saloia, mas sofisticada. Nem tanto sequer pelo que já foi dito - ser a gazua que abre a porta à adopção homossexual em geral - mas pelo resto. 

A adopção tem um lado generoso, que é atribuir pai e/ou mãe; mas outro violento, que é tirar pai e/ou mãe. É isso que faz da adopção um instituto tão difícil e tão delicado; e da sua decisão um processo sério, melindroso e complexo. 

Quando atribuímos juridicamente uma criança a um pai e/ou uma mãe, estamos a retirá-la definitivamente, de forma irrevogável, a outro pai e/ou outra mãe naturais - a estes e, simultaneamente, a retirá-los também da sua família respectiva, de pertença natural: irmãos, primos, tios, avós que fossem. A geração natural é apagada e substituída, para todos os efeitos, pela filiação jurídica. A genealogia dessa criança é reescrita por inteiro. Para sempre. 

Só é possível diminuir levianamente a seriedade e delicadeza real ou potencial dos problemas a considerar, se imaginarmos as crianças de que se trate como res nullius, coisa de nada e de ninguém. Mas nenhuma criança, mesmo a mais só e abandonada, é assim tão nullius: tem uma história e uma realidade. Que lhe pertence e a que pertence.

Adoptar a co-adopção é consagrar que, pela potente força imperial da lei, uma criança pode passar a ser "filha" de pai e pai, sem mãe; ou "filha" de mãe e mãe, sem pai - e, ipso facto, negar-lhe em definitivo o direito a ter uma mãe ou o direito a ter um pai, proibindo-o para todo o sempre.

Não se trata de saber quem cuida de quem, mas de alterar radicalmente a genealogia de uma pessoa, truncando para sempre a sua identidade pessoal. Escusa de buscar, mais tarde, mãe ou família materna, se a não conhecia; ou de procurar pai ou família paterna, que não soubera - essas relações ter-lhe-iam sido apagadas e proibidas para todo o sempre pelo "Direito". Essa criança teria passado a ter, sem apelo, nem agravo, duas mães e duas famílias maternas e nenhuma paterna, ou dois pais e duas famílias paternas e nenhuma materna.

Mesmo o projecto de co-adopção do PS reconhece - e bem - que aquilo que designa de "parentalidade" é dual, isto é, que somos filhos de dois. Está certo. 

Mas quem é que disse que são dois? Quem foi esse ominoso criador que determinou que sejam dois, e não quatro, ou cinco, ou n? Garanto que não fui eu. E, não tendo sido eu, essa dualidade parental também não resultou da autoridade da caneta da Dr.ª Isabel Moreira, ou da pena entusiástica do Dr. Pedro Delgado Alves ou do arrobo igualitário da escrita da Dr.ª Elza Pais. Isso resulta de modo inteiramente prosaico da natureza, da biologia, vá lá... do Criador. 

A realidade é, de facto, a da dualidade parental; não uma parentalidade qualquer ou indiferente, mas uma dualidade de maternidade e paternidade. Somos filhos de dois, mas não de quaisquer dois - somos filhos de dois, porque somos filhos de mãe e de pai. Será isto homofobia? Não. É a biologia, a natureza. A natureza, não das coisas, mas a natureza das pessoas.

Sete anos - por João César das Neves

In DN 

Quem se lembra do Verão de 2006? Portugal foi quarto no campeonato do mundo de futebol; a economia crescia 1,4%, o desemprego era 7,4%. Nasciam mais pessoas do que morriam e os casamentos eram o dobro dos divórcios. Só há sete anos. Como tudo mudou tanto!

Dois factos dominaram este período. O mais visível é económico-financeiro: o país, então já atascado em dívida, caiu de bêbado em 2011 e debate-se na terrível ressaca. A coberto desta veio a segunda evolução, mais decisiva: um devastador assalto à cultura e sociedade portuguesas em nome da liberdade sexual, com extremistas capturando e distorcendo elementos centrais da alma lusitana. A bebedeira financeira cura-se em menos de sete anos, mas a investida lasciva será pavorosa por décadas.

Foi no Verão de 2006 que começou a demolição das leis básicas da identidade nacional que trouxeram Portugal de uma posição mundial equilibrada ao extremo desmiolado na regulamentação familiar. A primeira foi a Lei 32/2006 de 26 de Julho da reprodução artificial. Seguiu-se a liberalização e subsidiação do aborto (Lei 16/2007 de 17/4 e Portaria 741-A/2007 de 21/6), banalização do divórcio (Lei 61/2008 de 31/10), educação sexual laxista (Lei 60/2009 de 6/8), casamento entre pessoas do mesmo sexo (Lei 9/2010 de 31/5), mudança do sexo (Lei n.º 7/2011 de 15/3), entre outras.

Enquanto noutros países estes assuntos criavam profundos e longos debates, por cá deu-se o triunfo súbito do fundamentalismo extremista. Embrulhados em manigâncias capitalistas, os Governos precisavam de fingir progressismo na ideologia familiar. A sociedade assustada adoptou a posição cómoda e irresponsável de tolerar a libertinagem. As forças de defesa da família, em particular a Igreja Católica, suportaram derrota atrás de derrota fragorosa.

Deste modo irresponsável, o país alinhou em poucos anos as suas leis básicas por caprichos de fanáticos, ultrapassando a toda a velocidade os países civilizados, alguns dos quais já em sentido inverso. Portugal tornou-se um paraíso mundial de comportamentos desviantes e perversos. Não admira o colapso do casamento, ausência de fertilidade, envelhecimento galopante, multiplicação de patologias sociais. Em 2011 os casamentos foram só mais 34% que os divórcios e houve menos 6000 nascimentos que óbitos. A geração anterior desequilibrou as finanças em quinze anos; esta desequilibrou-se a si mesma em sete.

A História mostra duas coisas. A primeira é que movimentos súbitos, com tal rapidez e profundidade, nunca param antes do abismo. Com extremistas no controlo da dinâmica, a coisa irá até ao absurdo. Sorveremos a infâmia até à última gota.

Todos os dias aumentam aqueles que, tendo começado por defender as novidades, agora se arrependem vendo os resultados. Mas a escalada não abranda, atingindo já os temas de requinte, como a co-adopção por casais do mesmo sexo, que em fases anteriores muitos dos próprios activistas prometiam nunca acontecer. A espiral devoradora exige-o, como exigirá as vergonhas seguintes.

Provando que uma loucura nunca fica a meio, a História ensina ainda que casos destes servem de vacina para a humanidade. Quando a Rússia em 1917 aceitou que extremistas dominassem a sua economia, destruiu para sempre o atractivo intelectual do marxismo. Sem essa experiência, hoje o sistema comunista ainda seria perigoso, o PCP não estaria residual nem esconderia a ditadura do proletariado. O desprestígio das ideologias racistas deve-se também ao facto de a Alemanha ter dado em 1933 o poder a esses radicais, revelando ao mundo o seu horror. As sociedades que se deixam controlar por teses aberrantes destroem-se a si mesmas por várias gerações, mas prestam um serviço à humanidade.

Nos sete anos desde o Verão de 2006 Portugal enveredou por caminhos anarquistas nos campos financeiro e familiar. São já bem claros os efeitos dessas opções, mas ainda não se vê o fim do caminho que, pelo menos no segundo, deve demorar mais de sete anos. Resta-nos o consolo de o futuro vir a aprender com os nossos horrores.

Model gay adoptive ‘fathers’ sexually abused 6-year-old for years: offered him to pedophile ring - by Thaddeus Baklinski

SYDNEY, July 3, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Police in Australia have described as "depraved" the case of a six-year-old boy who was sexually abused by his adoptive homosexual "fathers" and other men who were part of an international child-porn syndicate known as the Boy Lovers network. 

Authorities in Australia and the US worked together to arrest and charge the men after it emerged that the boy had been offered to men in Australia, the US, France and Germany for sexual exploitation and the production of child pornography from a very young age. 

Last week one of the men, an American named Mark J. Newton, 42, was jailed in the U.S. for 40 years and ordered to pay $400,000 in restitution to the child, while the other, Peter Truong, 36, from New Zealand, awaits sentencing in his home country.

"None of these cases are very good," Detective Inspector Jon Rouse, who heads Australia’s Queensland Police Taskforce Argos, which investigates online child exploitation and abuse, told the AFP news agency.

"What's pretty sad about this one is the way this child came into their lives. It's just really a tragedy. It's extremely depraved."

According to reports, Newton and Truong, living in Cairns, Australia at the time, began looking for a surrogate mother to give birth to a child in 2002.

The same-sex couple finally found a woman in Russia who gave birth to their child for a fee of $8,000. Mark Newton is believed to be the biological father of the boy, dubbed "Adam" in order to protect his identity.

Adam was handed over to Newton and Truong five days after his birth in 2005. 

Australian media covered Adam's arrival home, describing the two men as happy, loving fathers. 

In a case of bitter irony, in one article Mark told a reporter that authorities had questioned he and Peter at length when they first brought Adam to Australia, and that he was sure that they were under suspicion of pedophilia. But, he said, "We're a family just like any other family."

On July 14, 2010, when Adam was 5 years old, ABC Far North Queensland broadcast a story titled "Two dads are better than one" which stated that "becoming parents was hard work for gay couple Pete and Mark, but they'd do it all over again if they had to.”

"We decided that we would have a child, that it was time for us to have a family," Newton and Truong told ABC. "We wanted to experience the joys of fatherhood." 

"It's a happy, relaxed family," ABC said, "but it wasn't an easy road to get there. After many hurdles, [Adam] was born by surrogacy in Russia." 

Russian news service RT Novosti reported that Adam began to be sexually abused by his same-sex ‘dads’ when he was 22 months old. 

"Later on," RT Novosti reported, "they made Adam available for sex with other members of the pedophile ring in Australia, France, Germany and the US, for which Newton and Truong had to travel extensively. Police investigators have found proof of at least eight men in these countries having contact with Adam when he was between the ages of two and six."

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Two other men, American residents John R Powell, 41, a Florida-based lawyer, and Jason Bettuo, a 36-year-old Michigan tennis coach, have also been charged, according to Australia's Channel 7 News. 

Police began the investigation that led to the arrests after a chance discovery of suspicious images during a raid on the home of a child sex offender in Wellington, NZ.

Australian police said the images themselves were not illegal, but were recognized as "modelling shots."

Further investigations unearthed chat logs between Newton and Truong and other members of the Boy Lovers network. 

When police raided the homosexual couple's home in Cairns they found enough evidence on computers and other video devices to ensure their arrest. Adam was removed and placed in foster care. 

At his sentencing hearing, held in District Court in Indianapolis, Newton told the court that, "being a father was an honor and a privilege that amounted to the best six years of my life," according to the NY Daily News.

US District Judge Sarah Evans Barker responded, "Words don't help ... What can be said? What can be done to erase some of the horror of this?"

Judge Barker added that she felt Newton deserved a more severe sentence but that he was tried at district court level to save a jury from having to look at the images produced by the defendants.

"These men submitted this young child to some of the most heinous acts of exploitation that this office has ever seen," said Indiana U.S. Attorney Joe Hogsett, after the hearing. 

Russian Ombudsman for Children’s Rights, Pavel Astakhov, told RT Novosti that the Russian government is tightening up adoption laws to prevent another case like Adam's. 

“Russian orphans always attracted foreign perverts because of accessibility. The foreigners were simply coming and taking children for money,” Astakhov said. 

In December 2012, Russia passed the ‘Dima Yakovlev Law’ that banned American citizens from adopting Russian children.

In June 2013, the state Duma passed an amendment that bans the adoption of Russian children by same-sex couples from abroad and forbids single people who are citizens or permanent residents of countries that allow same sex "marriage" to become adoptive parents or legal guardians of Russian children. 

Russia itself does not allow same sex "marriage" and the country’s authorities have passed a number of regional and federal bills banning the promotion of homosexual and other sexual aberrations to children.

A tomar nota para não esquecer - por Nuno Serras Pereira

07. 07. 2013

Como Sacerdote não me compete analisar ou comentar a actual crise político-partidária-governativa naquilo que ela tem de opinativo, enquanto sujeito a juízos prudenciais sobre a pluralidade de soluções legítimas, uma vez que dizem respeito a assuntos negociáveis e não a absolutos morais, isto é, princípios inegociáveis. Mas a verdade é que este tumulto ou motim no governo revela, por omissão, com uma nitidez de giga-pixéis, a natureza corrompida do actual cds/pp (Paulo Portas), escravizado ao seu derrancado presidente.

Convirá, em primeiro lugar, recordar que a aceitação ou melhor a adesão incondicional desse partido à “lei” profundamente iníqua da legalização do aborto 6/84, à qual sempre se tinha oposto, foi realizada, ditada, propagandeada e promovida precisamente por PP (Paulo Portas). Este mesmo partido que tanto tinha publicitado o seu grande empenho contra a liberalização do aborto provocado, aquando do referendo de 2007, uma vez conseguidos os votos que lhe proporcionaram uma subida ao poder, em coligação com o abortófilo psd, logo esqueceu a defesa da vida de cada ser humano; e, no entanto, tinha muitos modos e alguns bastante fáceis de o fazer. Mas a verdade crua e assustadora é que não deu um único passo nessa direcção. Nem a demissão “irrevogável”, logo revogada, do presidente/PP/ministro-dos-negócios-estrangeiros se deveu a qualquer princípio inegociável como o aborto, a reprodução artificial, a experimentação em pessoas na sua etapa embrionária, a clonagem, o infamemente apelidado “casamento” entre pessoas do mesmo sexo, a “co-adopção” por parte desses pseudocasais. Nada disto provocou qualquer incómodo, desconforto ou sequer um suspiro no PP/cds. 

Caso se confirme o que a comunicação social noticia, a saber, que PP reforça o seu poder e o do seu partido-marionete no governo será provável que seja reeleito com apoio unânime, ou perto de isso, no congresso que se realizará no daqui por duas semanas. Se assim for sentir-se-á confirmado na sua cegueira, nos seus erros, na sua política maquiavélica. 

Satanás é bem capaz de conceder tanto quanto possa àqueles que lhe vendem a alma, pessoas ou partidos, mas tarde ou cedo apresentará a factura. E depois a condenação é eterna, caso não haja verdadeiro e sincero arrependimento, o qual é muito dificultoso para quem se obstinou em pecados da maior gravidade.

The Supreme Court’s Misuse of Children to Justify Same-Sex Marriage - by Robert R. Reilly

In Crisis

Of all the misconceived nonsense in the recent Windsor v. United States ruling, perhaps the most egregious was Justice Anthony Kennedy’s insinuation that “the children made me do it.” Windsor declared the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional because it defined marriage as being between one man and one woman. Why was DOMA a problem for children? Justice Kennedy said that by denying same-sex couples legitimacy, DOMA “humiliates tens of thousands of children now being raised by same-sex couples.” The Act “makes it even more difficult for the children to understand the integrity and closeness of their own family and its concord with other families in their community and in their daily lives.” Thus Justice Kennedy portrays himself as riding to the children’s rescue.

This strategy is reminiscent of President Barack Obama’s misuse of the military to justify same-sex “marriage.” First, he forced the repeal of “don’t ask don’t tell” on the reluctant military, and then used that very same military as the excuse for endorsing homosexual “marriage,” as if it were the military asking for it. Those poor Marines in the foxholes of Afghanistan were just aching to marry each other, and Obama comes to their rescue. He shamelessly proclaimed: “When I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that “don’t ask don’t tell” is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.”

This was completely risible, but one has to admire the audacity of his sophistical argument, as we do Justice Kennedy’s similar one. His goes like this: First, allow same-sex couples to adopt children, but then do not blame the humiliation of the children on the situation into which they have been placed, through no fault of their own, but upon the people who objected to it in the first place. Do not fault those who created the problem through the fabrication of faux “marriage”; fault those who warned that the fabrication of faux “marriage,” along with attendant adoptions, would create this problem. First, exploit children by placing them in this situation, and then exploit them again in order to justify it. Voilà! A fully formed faux family.

If children had their rights, there would be no such “families” in which to place them. The magnitude of the injustice involved in the redefinition of marriage comes most clearly into view in regard to children, to whom justice is also owed. As Professor Seana Sugrue writes, “the ability of same-sex couples to be parents depends crucially upon the state declaring that they possess such rights, and by extinguishing or redefining the rights of biological parents. With the rise of same-sex marriage, the obligations parents owed to their biological children are reduced to mere convention. This is true for everyone. Parents come to owe obligations to their children not because they are parents, but because they choose to be parents.” What is owed to children by right becomes optional by convention. This is a staggering loss for them.

The adoption of children by same-sex couples is, of course, an extension of the rationalization of their sexual misbehavior, no matter how motivated it may be by accompanying eleemosynary motives. Children are the fruit of a mother and a father, ideally in matrimony as husband and wife. If same-sex couples, too, can have children, this must mean that they, also, have “real” marriages. The possession of the child by the same-sex couple completes the rationalization for them. Just as most active homosexuals practice faux intercourse, they can have faux progeny from it. They can pretend that this is so, and they can insist that society pretend along with them. In fact, Justice Kennedy just issued the order that we all must share in the rationalization. What is worse, same-sex couples will make the children pretend, too. They will be indoctrinated to participate in the lie, now reinforced by the Supreme Court. And therein lays a good deal of the harm that same-sex couples will bring to them, despite the love and affection they may provide. As one mother explained to me, “Most kids understand intuitively the idea that everything has a purpose. How does one explain to them that the purpose is ignored by adults? The children are caught in that web of deceit.”

This makes complete nonsense of Justice Kennedy’s bizarre remark about how “difficult [it is] for the children to understand the integrity and closeness of their own family” if the same-sex “family” is not accorded full legitimacy. It is difficult for the children to understand, not because of any animus or lack of respect from others, but because that “integrity and closeness” is compromised by the very nature of same-sex relationships. Same-sex “families” with children are broken by definition because in no instance will both parents be present. Therefore, they naturally do not possess the integrity of which Justice Kennedy spoke. Such “families” are made to be broken, or rather broken to be made, by design. This is especially so in the cases in which a child is bred—with the outside assistance of a person of the other gender—to be placed with the same-sex couple, only one of whom is, or could be, the parent of the child. This is a grotesque act of injustice to the children who are misused in this way and for this purpose. They are deliberately denied the possibility of being with both parents. They are made rootless, or rather made to be rootless in the essential aspect of the missing parent—an intentionally truncated genealogy. Indeed, they are willfully wrenched out of the chain of being.

They can feel this acutely. Robert Oscar Lopez, a bisexual man raised by a lesbian couple, stated that, “children deeply feel the loss of a father or mother, no matter how much we love our gay parents or how much they love us. Children feel the loss keenly because they are powerless to stop the decision to deprive them of a father or mother, and the absence of a male or female parent will likely be irreversible for them.” Elsewhere, Lopez added that, “Conferring marriage on same-sex couples means some children will never be able to invoke the words ‘father’ and ‘mother’ in order to describe the household that their parents are now allowed to describe as a ‘marriage.’ In order to grant validation and prestige to mom and mom or dad and dad, the kids lose access to the value of celebrating a maternal and paternal line of ancestry. Come Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, they will not be equal to their peers, due directly to the fact that their same-sex guardians fought so hard to be equal to their peers’ parents.” In light of this, who is really responsible for any lack of “concord with other families in their community” that same sex families may experience?

For all of Justice Kennedy’s fulminations about the absolute equivalency of heterosexual and homosexual parenting, the children raised by two males or two females could never have that instinctive sense about the beginnings of their existence in the love of their parents—for the obvious reason that they could not originate in the relationship between two males or two females. If you are supposed to be the incarnation of the love between two people, but at least one of those people is missing, of what then are you the product? Can that incarnational love be replaced, or are your origins compromised? When my children were younger, they used to think that, if my wife and I removed our wedding rings, they would disappear. We never told them that. Yet they instinctively understood that their very existence depended upon the love between my wife and me. They sensed that they were incarnations of this love, and they therefore concluded that if it were broken they would disappear.

Do the children of same-sex couples feel the loss of this incarnational love, or the tenuousness that its absence imparts to their own existence? Here is Lopez’s bitter reflection: “It’s disturbingly classist and elitist for gay men to think they can love their children unreservedly after treating their surrogate mother like an incubator, or for lesbians to think they can love their children unconditionally after treating their sperm-donor father like a tube of toothpaste.”

Unconditional love, morally at least, was supposed to be there between the spouses as a condition for the creation of a new person. If it was not there (and it cannot be if one spouse is deliberately missing), how can the child be its incarnation? Is the child the result of one person and a petri dish? This terrible dilemma will leave these children with the lifelong quest for their real origins, or suffering from their being unable to discover them and wondering why at least one of their real parents did not want them. Even the laudable love of adoptive parents cannot overcome this profound instinctual problem.

There is also ample human testimony from others who have endured same-sex upbringing concerning its dysfunctional character and the price they have paid for it. Here is a cri de coeur from Jean-Dominique Bunel, a 67-year-old French man, who was raised by two women. He lamented that, “I also suffered from the lack of a father, a daily presence, a character and properly masculine behavior, and an otherness in relation to my mother and her partner. I realized this very early. I experienced this lack of a father as an amputation.” As a result, he advises, regarding homosexuals, “… give them as much as possible the same rights as heterosexuals but this equality obviously cannot apply to a ‘right to the child,’ which exists nowhere and is not found in any text.” Referring to the same sex marriage bill in France [which has since passed], Bunel said, “… this measure necessarily opens adoption, thus institutionalizing a state that had so disturbed me. There is an injustice that I cannot stand.” He concluded, “If the two women who raised me were married after the adoption of such a bill, I’d continue in this fight that I have filed a complaint against the French government to the European Court of Human Rights for violating my right to have a father and a mother.”

Fortunately for Monsieur Brunel, his case would not appear before Justice Kennedy, who would inform him that the humiliation and injustice he suffered was not inherent to the situation in which he was unfairly placed, but was the result of France’s tardy recognition of same-sex “marriage.” There is a French phrase for Justice Kennedy’s behavior—trahison des clercs. He has earned it, especially in respect to his misuse of children to justify injustice.