He Criticized Lesbian Mothers — and Pays the Price
August 14, 2012
KATHLENE M. writes:
Robert Oscar Lopez had such hate-filled reactions to his initial article about growing up with two lesbian mothers, that he wrote a follow-up article called “The Soul-Crushing Scorched-Earth Battle for Gay Marriage.” He concludes:
Since my article came out, I have been through far worse than I ever thought would happen. My job is at risk, and worst of all, my coworkers received an e-mail from a gay rights organization with the title “COMPLAINT AGAINST CSUN’S ROBERT LOPEZ: GAY BASHER.” Soon I got e-mails from administrators. People really investigate claims like this.
Gay basher?
What the heck has this movement come to?
For God’s sake, I am a bisexual raised by a lesbian couple, who helped countless people dying of AIDS. I’ve spent my life cleaning up the messes left by gay politics. I wrote an honest essay. That’s bashing?
The gay marriage movement has finally crossed the line into insanity. They must burn their own villages to save them from their phantasmal bullies. All the real things that gays could do to improve their real problems are right before their eyes: be humane to one another, forgive others, care for their most needy, and most of all, pick their battles. Support pro-life politicians and adopt foster kids saved from abortion. Vote for Republicans who believe in school vouchers, get bullied gays into safer schools… But they choose not to. They have dedicated themselves to a scorched-earth campaign for gay marriage. And when that war is won, they will have conquered a wasteland….
Laura writes:
That Lopez thought homosexual activists were open to dissent suggests he was, politically speaking, a newborn. Or perhaps he has been living in a cave.
Fortunately, he wrote down his sensitive observations — and was too naive to know he might lose his job.
Terry Morris writes:
First, why would he want gays to adopt foster kids saved from abortion, given the content of his article?
Second, he contradicts himself in an apparent attempt to save his career, and he expects no one to notice?
Laura writes:
Yes, the idea that homosexuals would be suitable foster parents is a repudiation of his original points.
Lopez calls himself a conservative and yet he does not believe homosexuality is immoral. He did not in his original article condemn homosexual “marriage.” The reason for his piece was to encourage the public to listen to children of homosexual households and not make them “feel guilty” for the problems they have experienced.
He even suggests that homosexual desires are harder to control and deserving of more indulgence than other adulterous impulses. He writes in his original piece:
Sherkat’s assessment of Regnerus’s work shows a total disregard for the emotional and sexual labor that bisexual parents contribute to their children. Bisexual parents must wrestle with their duties as parents while still contending with the temptations to enter into same-sex relationships. The turbulence documented in Mark Regnerus’s study is a testament to how hard that is. Rather than threatening, it is a reminder of the burden I carry and a goad to concern myself first and foremost with my children’s needs, not my sexual desires.
Natalie writes:
I disagree somewhat with your assessment of Mr. Lopez’s article. I think it’s valid to argue that people with bisexual urges find monogamy and commitment harder. As a married woman my interactions with other men are somewhat limited. I don’t go out to lunch with them or attend events with them unless my husband is present. However, I will do these things with my female friends, and no impropriety is assumed. Where does that leave a bisexual person? Wouldn’t they have to be constantly on their guard irrespective of gender? It does seem like that would be a harder and potentially lonelier life. Mr. Lopez is asking for compassion rather than indulgence.
Additionally, although I can see how you would disagree with this as a rhetorical move, I don’t think Mr. Lopez is giving the game away by pointing out how a rational gay movement would act and organize itself. I agree that he doesn’t condemn gay marriage as he should, but I also appreciate him pointing out the contradictions between what would be in the “best interests” of a gay movement and what their actual goals are. From their sexual perversions to their political activism this is a self destructive, self-defeating lifestyle, and I think he shows that.
Laura writes:
It does seem like that would be a harder and potentially lonelier life. Mr. Lopez is asking for compassion rather than indulgence.
Well, okay perhaps. But truthfully, I think very few people fall into this category. But let’s assume he does. This raises another point, and that is the possible disrespect to his own children this revelation represents. By revealing publicly both his bisexuality and his desire to commit adultery, he has placed some burden of sexual confusion upon them.
I also appreciate him pointing out the contradictions between what would be in the “best interests” of a gay movement and what their actual goals are.
Yes, I understand and his point that homosexuals don’t act even in their own best interests is a good one. But his comment that “the gay marriage movement has finally crossed the line into insanity” suggests that he truly believes, despite all he has said about his own childhood, in a reasonable “gay marriage movement.” He doesn’t seem to understand the craving that underlies the “marriage” movement — the craving for complete normalization of homosexuality, a chimerical and irrational goal if there ever was one.
Despite these criticisms, I think Lopez has written a very eloquent essay on the trials of a child in a homosexual household.
Natalie writes:
But I don’t think you can say that Mr. Lopez desires to commit adultery anymore than your average happily married person desires an affair. As a married women I still occasionally meet attractive men, but that doesn’t mean I wish to commit adultery with them! I suppose Mr. Lopez’s self proclaimed bisexuality might confuse his children, but it might also serve as a salutatory example of self-sacrifice and dedication and teach them that they shouldn’t be slaves to their baser appetites.
I do think he deludes himself that wholehearted pursuit of an unnatural desire can ever be rational and laudatory.
Laura writes:
He does say he faces more desire than an un-ambivalent person who grew up in a normal home. But, he also says his desire to remain faithful to his wife is stronger and, in saying this, he is also making the important point that he probably wouldn’t be afflicted with this confusion if he had had a father.
So I credit him for these observations and I don’t think he has done any serious disservice to his children with this piece. He is acknowedging to them how messed up his own upbringing was. He writes:
Rather than threatening, it is a reminder of the burden I carry and a goad to concern myself first and foremost with my children’s needs, not my sexual desires.
