Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth for the Colson Center on Johnstone Street. The launch of the Greater Than Campaign, a coalition of parents, students, researchers, think tanks, influencers, and citizens aimed at ending so-called same-sex marriage in America, has elicited a spectrum of reactions. A common response is to simply deny that children need, deserve, or have a right to their mother and father, or that so-called same-sex marriage poses any threat to their health and well-being. Another response is to proclaim the issue settle because of the Obergefell Supreme Court decision. Apparently, by some who are unaware of the history of the Supreme Court or the story of Roe v.
Wade. Tennis Great, Martina Navratilova, an advocate of women's rights and vocal opponent of transgender ideology, soundly condemned the greater-than coalition with this post on X, quote, speaking of evil or at least vile, according to these people, our relationships, our families, and most of all, our kids do not count. How I, a woman married to a woman, affect people I never met just because I don't have a husband? Mind your own business, end quote. Her comments, which were posted on X, reinforced the basic argument that the coalition is indeed making, that so-called same-sex marriage is more about the desires of adults than what's best for children.
The claim that our social policies should align with what's true, that children deserve to be raised in a home with married biological mom and dad, also brought questions from those who do care deeply about children, so much so, in fact, that they are adoptive parents. What does the reasoning about God's created intent and design for the family and the family structure mean for adoption? It's a really good question, similar to what follows when a similar critique is made of surrogacy. And I would add, it's no accident that the legalization of so-called same-sex marriage has increased demand for the legalization of surrogacy. Having chosen an inherently sterile union, many same-sex couples then demand children.
Acquiring children requires a technological workaround, such as IVF or surrogacy. In the process, a child is created and immediately robbed of either its mother or father or both.
So if children do have a right to their married biological mom and dad, are the implications for adoption the same as that as for surrogacy, sperm donation, or redefining marriage? No, not at all. You see, God's design for the family is that a man and woman become one flesh and raise children together. The fall frustrates that design in different ways. Families break.
Couples find that their sexual union is infertile. Biological parents find themselves unable to care for their children for various reasons. A sexual act disordered toward illegitimate pleasure or maybe even selfish violence produces a life that was unintended and unexpected. Whatever the brokenness, what adoption offers is a means of restoration. Implicitly, the act of adoption recognizes that something is not as it should be, whether or not someone is morally culpable.
Through adoption, that brokenness is addressed and can be restored with a new family. In these ways, adoption portrays God's relationship with us. Adoption is among the many marriage and family metaphors that are used in Scripture to describe how God has related to his people. Paul in Ephesians calls Christians adopted sons and daughters. The fracture that's created in the garden and extended by our own brokenness is repaired by Jesus.
As a result, we're adopted as children of God with all the rights and benefits and status involved.
Now, some also question whether or not a woman's relationship to a child that she bears in pregnancy is important anyway. Are not adoptive moms just as emotionally and spiritually connected to their children as a biological mother could be?
Well, yes, but it's also true that there's an inherent connection for the child to the woman who bears him or her. This is true whether she's a surrogate or enters an adoption contract. A mom that relinquishes her right to raise a child is still a mom. Adoption recognizes the reality that she's done, in many cases, what's best for her child. and at some level was part of bringing redemption to the brokenness.
Surrogacy intentionally creates the brokenness. In the case of surrogacy, the mother-child relationship is created to be knowingly and intentionally severed from the very beginning. An adoption, a woman who did not bear the child, becomes a mother. In surrogacy, a mother is treated as less than a whole person, wanted instead for her procreational parts that are treated as consumer products, especially as commercial surrogacy becomes more common. And surrogacy also treats the child as a consumer product instead of as a gift.
According to a Williams Institute study, the majority of same-sex couples prefer technologies such as insemination, surrogacy, and IVF to adoption as a means to acquire children. Studies indicate that up to 40% of all surrogate pregnancies today are commissioned by same-sex couples. Of course, even in adoption, a same sex couple is further depriving a child of either a mother or a father. Unfortunately, so called same sex marriage and surrogacy have both become so normalized That even in the Christian world, speaking against either is considered controversial. It should not be.
In our fallen world, families break, and it's tragic. But we should never accept breaking them on purpose. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street with Breakpoint. Today's Breakpoint was co-authored with Dr. Timothy Padgett.
If you're a fan of Breakpoint, leave us a review wherever you download your podcast. And for more resources, or to share this commentary with others, go to breakpoint.org. Hey, John Stone Street here.
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