Meet the Winners of TFC 2008 Essay Contest
2nd prize Danielle Myers
"I am currently seventeen years old and in my junior year of high school. I have a passion for creative writing and am currently trying to sell my first young adult novel. My poems have been published in several anthologies and I compete yearly in the National Fine Arts Festival in poetry and short story divisions. I also love music, theatre, and traveling. In college, I hope to major in English and get a Master’s degree in Education so that I can become a teacher and instill my love of writing and literature in others. I am also very interested in ministry and would like to someday be a missionary and teach in third-world countries. Right now I am running a small organization called Uhuru: The Freedom Project, which publishes teen writing and art online. All the proceeds from the website, which I manage, go to WorldVision ministries in African countries like Uganda and Sudan. This is my way of using my gifts in writing to help others and make the world a better place. "
My essay:
Speaking Out in Love:
The Facts About Homosexuality
Danielle Myers
When we received the wedding invitation in the mail, that was my first realization that my Aunt was lesbian. I was quite young then, and my parents already knew, but it had to be explained to me. I had met my Aunt’s friend before, at the Race for the Cure, where we would meet up with them and she’d play around with my sister and I and give us piggy-back rides. About a year after that invitation, we showed up at their house to see their children—a boy and a girl, twins, the children of my Aunt and an anonymous donor. They were adorable, climbing up onto my lap with their colorful toys and opening their little mouths to receive bites of chocolate cake. But I couldn’t help but pray for them, as I walked out the door, and wonder, when you grow up and find out why you don’t have a daddy, will you be as confused as I am? It isn’t that I don’t love my Aunt. I’ve grown to love her partner, too, and especially those two adorable twins. It’s just that I can’t support what they’ve chosen, because I know the facts. I know that same-sex marriage and the homosexual lifestyle is not equal to traditional marriage, because it hurts the individuals involved, it hurts their children, and it hurts their society.
The homosexual lifestyle is foremost harmful to the individual. The risk of contracting STDs in the homosexual lifestyle is much higher than any other lifestyle, due to sexual practices and increased promiscuity. One study showed that over 75% of gay men claimed to have had sex with over one hundred different men. Many lesbian women also have sex with men, and are four times more likely than heterosexual women to have had over fifty different partners. It isn’t surprising, then, that a Vancouver study showed a life expectancy for gay and bisexual men being up to twenty years less than that of the average man. On the other hand, a traditional marriage has been found to actually reduce mortality: the life expectancy of a man who is not married is about the same as a man who smokes. The positive effects of a traditional marriage almost exactly offset the negative effects of smoking. (Shea, et al)
Homosexuals also suffer more psychologically than heterosexual couples. The rates of mental illness and unhealth such as depression, drug and substance abuse, and suicide attempts are much higher among the homosexual population. In fact, a New Zealand study found that homosexuals and bisexuals were four times as likely as heterosexuals to have major depression, five times as likely to be addicted to nicotine, twice as likely to have some other sort of substance abuse or addiction, and six times as likely to have attempted suicide. Conversely, traditional marriage has been shown to reduce depression in both partners, and to reduce the risk of nicotine dependence or alcohol abuse in men. (Shea, et al)
This lifestyle is also harmful to children of homosexual couples. They may love their child, but love is not sufficient, because children need both a mother and a father for healthy development. The role of a father cannot be replaced by two, albeit well-meaning, mothers, or vice-versa. Having both a mother and a father provides a child with the chance to learn how to relate to and comfortably interact with both genders in an appropriate way. Fathers are extremely important, because they provide their son with a positive male figure to identify with and look up to. A father teaches his son how to control his aggressive male behaviors in a way that a mother cannot. Fathers also give their daughters a chance to have the feminity affirmed in a loving, non-sexual relationship, avoiding the trap of inappropriate male attention. (Hansen) Mothers and fathers each bring certain qualities to a family that the opposite sex cannot provide, even with the best intentions.
It is clear that without these qualities, a homosexual couple is unequipped to properly raise a child. Children of homosexual couples who are the opposite sex of their parents are often insecure about their own self-image, because they lack the attention of the opposite sex in a healthy parental relationship. They also often feel excluded from their parent’s world and friends, and many feel poorly about their own body and sexuality because their gender is considered less important. One child of a gay man says of her father, “He was repulsed by the female body, and told me so. As a teen, I was uncomfortable with my growing body and have been overweight most of my life due to this discomfort. I sought out other men to find validation of my femininity, using a series of sexual experiences in an attempt to fill my basic human need to accept myself” (Cook). Many children of opposite-sex homosexuals go looking for others of the opposite sex to affirm them, and end up damaged by inappropriate sexual experiments and encounters. Of course, there is the other end of the spectrum: children of the same sex as their homosexual parents often report not getting enough attention from their parents and feeling jealous of their parent’s partners, as if they are competing with the partners for affection. A daughter of a lesbian mother says that her mother “was not free to show me the same amount of affection I was used to when she was married to my father. The women she had as partners were too insecure and viewed me as some sort of threat” (Lancaster). Another recalls, “Once I told my mom that she’d have to choose between me and her lover... She said she wished I wouldn’t make her do that. I couldn’t believe that she didn’t just say, ‘oh, of course, I’d choose you’” (Cameron).
Children of homosexual couples, therefore, are at a greater risk of teenage pregnancy, depression, eating disorders, poor self-image, and drug or alcohol abuse, especially in males, who turn to drugs or alcohol not only in following their parent’s example, but also to escape their confusion and self-hate. Sons of lesbian mothers are at a high risk of being involved in delinquency because they don’t have a father figure to teach them how to control their impulses. (Shea et al) Studies show that 8-21% of children parented by homosexuals will become homosexuals or bisexuals themselves, along with all the health risks associated with that lifestyle. (Hansen) They also are most often from broken homes, since their parents have so many different short-term partners and relationships. Children from broken or separated homes, in general, have a higher suicide rate, a higher chance of substance abuse, a lower performance in school, and a higher chance of living in poverty, as well as a much higher chance of becoming involved in criminal activity. (Shea et al)
Not only do these children have to suffer for their parent’s behavior, the whole nation will eventually feel the effects of it. A society that legalizes same-sex marriage on the basis of allowing any couple who loves each other to get married must face some tough questions. If two people who are in love can marry, regardless of sex, what about someone who is in love with his sister, or his mother, an animal? What about pedophiles, polygamists? After same-sex marriage became legal in Holland in the year 2001, drugs and prostitution became legal, too. Twelve years old is now the legal consenting age there, and STDs are rampant. When Sweden accepted same-sex marriage as legal in 1994, they followed by accepting incestual marriage as well. 50% of Swedish children are born without fathers. In Norway, which legalized same-sex marriage just a year before, 60% of first-born children have no fathers. Denmark legalized same-sex marriage in 1989, and now it is taught as acceptable in schools—along with deviant sex, including bestiality. (“Reasons for Not Supporting”) In all of these countries, traditional marriage has broken down and is no longer valued, giving way to broken homes and fatherless children.
Legalizing same-sex marriage also threatens society at large. Right now in the USA, high schoolers can be disciplined for refusing to support gay rights assemblies and events at their school. Children as young as the second grade, are being taught in school that same-sex marriage is acceptable, and equivalent to traditional marriage. The parents have no say in this, though it should be a personal choice, based on a family’s religious and moral values. Not only are the rights of parents in the rearing of their children threatened; religious rights are being threatened as well. In a few years, if same-sex marriage is legalized, churches may not be allowed to teach from the Bible about homosexuality. This is completely against the principles that America was founded on, and in other countries it is worse: Pastor Ake Green of Sweden was sentenced to thirty days for preaching a sermon on homosexuality, straight from the Bible. (“Reasons for Not Supporting”)
Tragic, yes, but not unrealistic. Those who are against same-sex marriage are not homophobic, nor do they hate homosexuals. They just know the facts, and the consequences. I am speaking out because I love people, and I don’t want them to get hurt. I don’t want my Aunt to die early; I don’t want to see her son grow up feeling unaccepted, and I don’t want to see her daughter grow up feeling inferior to her mother’s partners. I don’t want to grow up myself and have my children exposed to this lifestyle in their schools. So I have to speak now, before it’s too late, before my chance is gone.
Works Cited
Cameron, Paul and Kirk. “Children of Homosexual Parents Report Childhood Difficulties.” Family Research Institute. 2002. 19 Aug. 2008 < http://www.
familyresearchinst.org/FRI_homokids.html?story=831>
Cook, Suzanne. “Looking for my Father’s Love.” Exodus International. 1997. 19 Aug. 2008 < http://www.exodus.to/content/view/344/150/>
Hansen, Trayce. “Love Isn’t Enough: 5 Reasons Why Same-Sex Marriage Will Harm Children.” Dr. Trayce Hansen. 19 Aug. 2008 <http://www.drtraycehansen.com/
Pages/writings_samesex.html>
Hansen, Trayce. “Pro-Homosexual Researchers Conceal Findings: Children Raised by Openly Homosexual Parents More Likely to Engage in Homosexuality.” Dr. Trayce Hansen. 19 Aug. 2008 < http://www.drtraycehansen.com/Pages/writings_prohomo.html>
Lancaster, Mitzy. “Closet Children of Closet Parents.” Dawn Stefanowicz. 19 Aug. 2008 < http://dawnstefanowicz.com/resources.htm>
Proctor, Maurine Jensen. “The Marriage Protection Ammendment: A Fight We Can’t Give Up.” Meridian Magazine. 2006. 19 Aug. 2008 < http://www.ldsmag.com/
familyleadernetwork/060608marriage.html>
“Reasons for Not Supporting Same-Sex Marriage.” 1Man1Woman.net. 19 Aug. 2008
< http://www.1man1woman.net/e1.html>
Shea, John, et al. “Gay Marriage and Homosexuality: Some Medical Comments.” 19 Aug. 2008 < http://www.lifesitenews.com/features/marriage_defence
/SSM_MD_evidence.pdf>
