Thursday, 9 August 2012

US pastor thinks children raised in same-sex marriages need to be kidnapped to "save" them.


                Pursuing a degree in media, specifically Public Relations, nothing much surprises me about people nowadays; saying that, this surprised me. An American pastor, Bryan Fischer, is arguing that children from same-sex households should be kidnapped and an underground railroad set up to “free them.” Fischer likened this practice to being needed as it was to “freeing slaves.”

                I resisted the urge to whack my head off my desk a few times and read through the article to find out as much information as possible. Fischer is a spokesperson for the American Family Association (the same one that Chick-Fil-A*** CEO Dan Cathy stated he supported,) where he is their director of Issue Management. Fischer tweeted, “we need an underground railroad to deliver innocent children.”

                Where does this obviously well thought argument come from? Robert Oscar Lopez apparently posted on a right-wing website blaming growing up in a same-sex household the reason for his lack of social skills, trouble fitting in at work and making it difficult for him to have a relationship with a woman. I’m going to bite my tongue here and say that I highly doubt that that’s the reason he’s decided he’s so flawed as a human being. Yes, upbringing does play a part in the way you are as an adult, but the fact that he’s blaming his moms for the reason he is awkward is absurd. There’s no mention of loving them or thanking for them for raising him, it’s “you’re gay, you made me weird.”

                My views on marriage are very simple: you don’t want gay marriage, don’t get gay married. I am straight; I want to have a traditional wedding in a church. Just because I am making the personal decision to marry a man does not mean that I achieve this divine right to dictate how the rest of the world will get married! It bothers me that people want to inject themselves into the personal lives of everyone else as if we’re all in an episode of Big Brother. Life is reality, not reality TV.  I respect that Mr. Fischer has the right to have an opinion about marriage and how he thinks that upbringing affects children, but when you’re talking about “saving” innocent children as if they’re shackled in a basement in a same-sex couples house, that’s ridiculous. Where there is one man blaming his family structure for his social awkwardness there are millions of other men and women who say it has made them stronger.

                By the very statistics of “traditional” marriage you can attest it can be just as harmful to a child. Most marriages end in divorce, that’s a fact. I’m not saying that marriage between a man and a woman is flawed for that reason but you can’t look at “traditional” marriage as this completely flawless sentient being, it never has been. Marriages are incorporate individuals, who are just that, individual. The negatives that are being created is the shame that is being dumped on same-sex family children by these extreme religious groups, stating they’re “doing it for their own good.” You can’t teach a child to hate his/her parent because their lifestyle is different than yours, nor should you shame them into a corner because that’s how they’re growing up. Children are impressionable, as kids we just want to fit in; whether it’s having the newest toys or wearing the coolest clothes; we want acceptance. Creating these ignorant little boxes where “family” needs to fit in corrupts the very nature of a family.

                It shouldn’t need to be this overstated but every person has the right to the lifestyle they choose. Mr. Fischer has the right to think marriage is between a man and a woman only just as much as I have to the right to think people can marry who they want. A family is a complex being, it doesn’t live and breathe in black and white; family is whatever you feel it is. Hold onto your beliefs and keep them close, but don’t be so ignorant as to ram them down the throats of anyone who thinks a little differently.



Article and quotes were taken from the Sun News article “US pastor advocates abducting children from gay homes” by QMI Agency


Bryan Fischer’s Twitter can be found here:



***Note: Chick-Fil-A has not had any direct correlation to Mr. Fischer's position or comments, they are at this point, unrelated instances.

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