Italy’s Prime Minister Mario Monti, who is running for re-election in February, has rejected same-sex marriage.
Interviewed by SkyTg 24, Monti explained: ‘I think that a family is only made of a man and a woman. Children should grow with a father and a mother.’
But he indicated he was in favor of giving same-sex partners some of the rights and responsibilities of married heterosexuals.
‘A parliament could find good solutions for civil partnerships or civil unions. But we can not call them “families”,’ he said.
30 Comments
I agree 100% with the PM that a gay couple with children are NOT a family, that is for heterosexuals couples (married or not married)ONLY.
Excellent approach by this Prime Minister - reserving the word 'family' for blood-relation. Of course, a family can also house and love and raise an adopted child, but blood relation is an important factor, and this factor is often ignored in the USA, as if genetic ties (like gender) could totally be ignored. In modern times, we have RNA and DNA analysis, and genetics have much to do with 'family' similarities and bonding ability, unlike with SSm where genetics have no bearing (no direction).
Tom: "married and unmarried"? To me, "family" means blood relation and once the family is formed by children born to the couple, it can still adopt a child and that child becomes part of the family. But a couple who adopts a child does not form, strictly speaking, a family. Of course, they would look like a family (and, honestly, i don't know what other term to call them as a group) for civil purposes, but the blood-relation is not operating, and the paperwork points to the true parentage when it is known.
There's more to blood-relation than at first 'meets the eye'.
‘I think that a family is only made of a man and a woman. Children should grow with a father and a mother."
So he's going to ban divorce and adoptions? That's the ONLY way to keep children with their biological parents. I also had no idea that procreation was a legal requirement to getting married. Oh, right. It's not. He also doesn't seem to mind straight single-parents raising children. Shouldn't those children be placed in two-parent homes?
The "ability" to procreate naturally is the only inseverable component of marriage. (5+) billion people can testify to the self evident truth that they are the product of one man and one woman; which is necessary for societies very existence and survival.
All others need not apply.
Kudos to Prime Minister Monti. Children deserve a mother and father. It's the strongest bond there is, and it's the foundation of society. It gives children a place in history and allows them to know their lineage. Only a mother and father can provide this.
When a child loses his parents, he deserves to grow up in a family unit that is modeled after the ideal, i.e., one man and one woman.
I agree. Infertile couples should be forcibly divorced then.
@David
"So he's going to ban divorce and adoptions? That's the ONLY way to keep children with their biological parents"
Please stop recycling old arguments that have been refuted. The only way to keep children with their biological parents is to encourage them to stay together. Emphasis on the family and obligations of parenthood, not abolition of divorce or adoption.
@Thom
Even with the absense of children, Marriage still serves a purpose to men and women who come together. Only a woman's nature can civilize a man's nature.
Good use of the word "family".
Ah, there are many words to defend in our day.
@Thom
Infertile couple or not, the opposite sex union always shows to our growing children, from where it is that they came from. It helps them to understand and feel their equal place to adults in our society. And how they to can become the human-species in its completed form.
The man-woman union (with children or not) is a good and helpful symbol to our children, and to the society. It is for one – the symbol of human life and of humanity. And that is why marriage is not first, or solely, about having children; but now we're going to get to complicated blog talk.
There are marriages that should never have taken place and children born to "save" a failing marriage. So many of you have the warped idea that they are better in that mess of a situation. I wonder what you'd tell those children when they speak out about the living hell they were brought up in.
And really nice of you to decide what is and isn't a family.
Teri Simpkins: And really nice of you to decide what is and isn't a family. . .
David in Houston or wherever: You write like your logic was 'straight', but it is not.
You write: "So he's (the Prime Minister) going to ban divorce and adoptions? That's the ONLY way to keep children with their biological parents."
That's the only way? Notice you forgot lots of kids are not engendered in marriages. Therefore that is NOT the only way to keep children with their biological parents. Your brain seems to click, but not accurately.
No one has to ban divorce just to please you.
Ban adoptions or abortions - which is it? If you ban adoptions, you are still NOT going to keep children with their biological parents. But you are still proud of your 'logic' (actually, the lack of it).
Maybe you could ban parents from dying, so children have both parents. . .
Gay couples should not try to add children into their own traditional family definition of fashion accessories, dog and cats. Children need a mom and a dad, they are not pets or Gucci bags.
@Teri,
I believe the consensus on this site is that there would be less neglect and abuse of the innocent if we would simply redouble our efforts to protect the family as defined by the laws of nature; as opposed to trashing the whole institution in order to satisfy a misguided sense of revenge for perceived slights.
@David
You say: "So he's going to ban divorce and adoptions? That's the ONLY way to keep children with their biological parents"
____________________
This statement is off the beam. It has truth, but not enough truth.
Not so long ago, and prior to no-fault divorce, the majority of children stayed with their biological parents, and adoptions were the exception and not the rule. Strengthening marriage and commitment to biological children should be a top priority for all.
There will always be some divorce and some adoption, but that does not mean these things should be the norm. There will always be less than optimum scenarios: There will, for example, always be car accidents and unemployment: Yet we strive to avoid these situations where we can, and make them less likely for a greater number of people. There will always be fathers who die too early, leaving young widows and children without them. But again, fatherless families ought never be set as an acceptable norm.
In Germany and other countries, there has (wisely) been legislation severely limiting reproductive technology services such as sperm and egg donation and surrogacy to younger married couples who cannot have children. This is not from any desire to discriminate, but rather, from a prudent knowledge of the importance of blood ties and of tradition.
From a clinical study:
"Of the 500 estimated serial killers in U.S. history, 16 percent were adopted as children, while adoptees represent only 2 or 3 percent of the general population. Adoptees are 15 times more likely to kill one or both of their adoptive parents than biological children."
What is worrisome about same-sex marriage is that it seems to strive to ADD to the less-than-optimum scenarios rather than reducing them. And this, as we have seen, can in no way be considered merely progressive.
I know that to some, even some traditional marriage advocates, it seems cruel to prohibit same-sex civil unions and domestic partnerships but I think it is fair to say that that is just a trojan horse for redefining marriage
Sounds like you want to decide for the community what it must formally recognize as a family.
What about those who want threesome marriages formally recognized, or other forms of marriage alien to our culture?
Do you get to decide for the community in such cases?
And if not you then who do you propose should decide?
Why repeat the same old junk Rick spouted in another blog, which has been soundly refuted many times over?
See for example the discussion surrounding this link:
http://www.nomblog.com/27438/comment-page-2/?doing_wp_cron#comment-129914
Marriage law should promote and privilege responsible procreation while at the same time protecting women in their inherent vulnerabilities with respect to men, which vulnerabilities exist whether the woman actually becomes pregnant at some point in her life or not. Traditional or gendered marriage law can do this. Degendered marriage law is ill-suited to both these tasks.
The gay lobby tries to have it both ways on children. First they tell us marriage has nothing to do with children, and then they turn around and demand that “married” same sex couples have unfettered, if not subsidized, access to surrogacy and adoption.
Little Man, I don't try to decide what is and isn't a family for others. They decide that for themselves by whom they chose to share their lives. By your statements, a couple that adopts children aren't a family, except you just don't have another word to call them.
I have my family and it doesn't include a single blood relative. My family means the world to me and they get my support, both emotionally and financially. I have 2 sisters who wouldn't even think of me if I didn't call them every so often and remind them I'm still alive. Yet you give more importance to that blood tie than anything else.
Bman, I haven't tried to say that a couple with an adopted child isn't a family, like Little Man and so many other Pro-NOM people here like to say. Guess I'm not trying to define family for anyone but myself. I have no need to proclaim who or what a family is for anyone else. I don't live their lives.
Anyone can call any grouping a “family,” e.g. a crime family, the Manson family, the family of man, etc., and I don’t really care. I don't consider it my business whom you love and support. I only become concerned when the legal definitions are unwisely changed. See nr. 19 above and bman’s questions in nr. 17.
@Teri,
Nature defines a family thru shared biology. A recent example is Steve Jobs.
No matter how well his adoptive guardians may have care and provided for him he could not help but yearn for his birth parents; to ache for their love and acceptance until the day he died.
You want to enshrine this abuse; we want to end it.
So then, Randy, you're telling me that any adoption is abuse? Is that really what you want to say?
Randy:
What in the -world- are you talking about? Steve Jobs intentionally disowned his birth father.
"the Apple co-founder said cryptically that, during the course of hunting for his biological father, he 'learned a little bit about him, and I didn't like what I learned.'"
This is in his biography. Adopted children don't necessarily feel the way you think they might.
In "The 'Real Parents' Question To Stop Asking Adopted Kids", the author, an adopted woman, writes:
"Kids who are adopted got the best thing of all. They got unconditional love from people who chose to have more kids because they had so much love to give.
I always tell people “Sure, your mom gave you life.” But my mom? Gave me A life."
No Teri: You misread my comment, as usual. Of course you can call your immediate group of people your family. But i never wrote that you could not. You act like i am trying to tell you how to use your vocabulary. But the problem is not about saying or writing, your problem is about reading. So, we cannot communicate, if your reading .
To Teri: (continuing). . . So, we cannot communicate, if your reading comprehension is below average.
Adoption does not bestow marital status.
Marital status is a legitimate basis for prioritizing pools of prospective adopters.
Why? Because the union of husband and wife can provide the unity of motherhood and fatherhood. The purpose of adoption is to restore to the child, as best we can, what the child has lost.
For instance, in our culture and legal system, we have facilitated step-parent adoption. A man steps-in for the father who may have died or who has relinquished parental status. Likewise a woman steps-in for the mother. Step-parent adoption is premised on the marital union of the surviving mother or the surviving father. This is not informal or social adoption via unwed cohabitation, mind.
Generally, in adoption services, experience leans toward prioritizing married people who already have children of their own. That is because adoption is primarily for children in need of an intact home (mom and dad raising their offspring); adoption is not primarily for satiating the neediness of adults.
There has long been more married people interested in adoption than there have been children available for adoption in our fostercare systems. Attitude surveys indicate that there are road blocks that can be removed to facilitate married adopters. That is the area for real solutions.
SSM is no panacea for our fostercare system.
Less than 97% of the adult homosexual population resides in same-sex households raising children. A tiny fraction of the children residing in such households were attained via adoption. Proportion is a legitimate consideration on these matters.
Typo correction: More than 97% of the adult homosexual population does NOT reside in same-sex households raising children.
In other words, less than 3% do.