It All Comes Down to Selfishness!': Blaze Readers React to Woman Raised by Lesbian Mothers Who Wrote an Open Letter Revealing Why She Now Opposes Gay Marriage

TheBlaze posted a story earlier this week about a woman who was raised by lesbian mothers and now opposes gay marriage.

Heather Barwick (Image source: World Magazine)

Heather Barwick claimed she transformed from a gay-marriage advocate to opponent, saying a traditional family structure is most beneficial to children and that she knows firsthand after growing up without a father.

Barwich penned an open letter in the Federalist explaining her situation.

Here's how some readers of TheBlaze reacted to Barwick's letter:

BeeAlert

Lack of fathers is a bigger problem than just in the gay community. I’ll bet the children of single mothers feel the same and for similar reasons cannot express it. I know my children suffered in my divorce. My son asked me, “Where’s Papa?” every day for a year. I cried when I realized he had stopped doing it.

(And no, the divorce was not my idea.)

foobared

It’s always the children that suffer; regardless of traditional or synthetic lgbltq relationships.

disabledcovetern

There are three children of same-sex couples in my boys' school. Two are in lesbian homes; one is in a homosexual male home. All three struggle with deep issues and are always in trouble. One is a very young drug and alcohol user daily. That said, about 10% (60 kids total in the class) of the students are in single-parent homes; most are single moms, a few are single dads. Out of those kids, one or two have behavioral issues of one form or another. Though I agree that single-parent homes are not ideal, my own experiences over the years has shown me that in just about every case a kid in a same-sex couple’s home has more-frequent and deeper-rooted issues. When you replace the natural for the unnatural (Romans 1:18-32) you affect everyone and everything around you no matter how well-meaning you may be.

LogCabinRepublican

I'm a gay man in my 40s. I would not want to grow up in that environment, either. I am thankful I have a mother and a father and wouldn'�t want it any other way. There are things a father can provide that a mother can'�t, and vise versa � I bet if my gay friends heard me say this they would banish me from the community.

jblaze

It all comes down to selfishness! These people wanting what they lustfully want at all costs to their children and a strong, moral, healthy society. That goes for the perpetrators of divorce (in all its various forms) and single parents, too. It all comes down to sex and its improper use. Each one of us has a choice…choose the high road every time for your children’s sake.

HarryPotter

This woman appears to have mostly been upset about the divorce, not the same-sex marriage. She lost her father and missed him; that is absolutely understandable — and would have been true if her mother stayed single or even married another man. All the scientific research into same-sex parenting has shown that gay parents raise children equally well or better than their straight counterparts.

Let’s focus on the quality of parents rather than what's in between their legs.

SLAPTHELEFT

People raised by same-sex parents are still allowed to develop their own belief systems. They are allowed to disagree with the gay lobby.

I know. I live it, too.

TunaBlue

My wife and I divorced just over 11 years ago. After three years, and after pushing our kids back and forth between homes, we agreed that their needs were more important than our own. We have been living in the same house for nearly 8 years and the last of our three kids is preparing to leave for college this summer. There were difficult times for our kids in those first three years of divorce, and their pain was due to our selfishness. Now we face a point in our lives when we will separate one last time. It feels like divorce all over again. However, our kids are good people and every one of us learned some powerful lessons about life.

Verycobaltviolet

This was never a gay-parents issue.

MILLIONS of heterosexual women raise children without fathers.

zapparules

I admire this woman for writing this open letter. It takes courage and strength to do so.

I find myself in total agreement – and support with her PARTICULAR statement that: “But by and large, the best and most successful family structure is one in which kids are being raised by both their mother and father.” There really is little to nothing to contest there.

I also find agreement with her position that “children of same-sex parents haven’t been given the same voice.”

I would offer however that PERHAPS why they haven’t been given the same voice as, say, the examples she gave of kids of divorced parents or adoptive parents is because — and she actually alluded to this in her final comments — same-sex parents have long felt “the pain of a label that is used to malign or silence you.” And as an abused child is more likely to become an abuser, this "lesson" may well be instilled in some parents and then "passed on" to their children.

Where I would challenge this woman is in her contention that gay marriage “denies us something precious and foundational” and “while at the same time tells us that we don’t need what we naturally crave.”

Think_Twice2

I’m of two minds about this, really.

I think she has a point in that kids raised by same-sex parents should be able to say “this had a negative effect on me.” And I think her article fairly explains why she feels that way: Even though she had a relationship with her father, it was a lousy one and she was primarily raised by two women. Some of the things their group of friends said about not needing a man made her feel upset.

I can understand that, and I feel for her. The issue should be that it’s not right for a gay person to tell a straight person “men are unnecessary.” It’s even more upsetting if this is told to a child.

But her solution is drastically off.

In her own words: “Kids of divorced parents are allowed to say, 'Hey, mom and dad, I love you, but the divorce crushed me and has been so hard. It shattered my trust and made me feel like it was my fault. It is so hard living in two different houses.' Kids of adoption are allowed to say, 'Hey, adoptive parents, I love you. But this is really hard for me. I suffer because my relationship with my first parents was broken. I’m confused and I miss them even though I’ve never met them.'”

And yet, she isn’t saying that she’s opposed to divorce. She isn’t saying she’s against adoption. She IS saying that she opposes gay marriage.

Why the disconnect? If children need both parents, why is she only opposed to gay marriage and not divorce or adoption?

That’s why I feel her overall message is off.

bishopdave

Huge truth in this quote: “Many of us are too scared to speak up and tell you about our hurt and pain, because for whatever reason it feels like you’re not listening. That you don’t want to hear,” she wrote. “If we say we are hurting because we were raised by same-sex parents, we are either ignored or labeled a hater.”

Twenty years ago “gays” were saying the same thing about us “straight folks”…that they were hurting, no one understood, being labeled. NOW, gays have turned the tables on the straights; and when you have straights raised by gay "families," the straights are “expected” to be just like gays…but they CAN’T! And the worst thing is, straights see their BIOLOGICAL parents not in their lives day in and day out because the missing biological parents are stereotyped as being jerks, racists, gay haters, scum, and all sorts of names by gay parents to show that "they" (straight parents) are wrong and "we" (gay parents) are right. WHAT A MESS THE CHILDREN OF THE 21 CENTURY WILL BE!

fortherecord

“Barwick added, 'I grew up surrounded by women who said they didn’t need or want a man. Yet, as a little girl, I so desperately wanted a daddy.'”

She said that this dynamic left her conflicted, as she yearned for her father’s presence and was angry that he wasn’t there for her, but then also felt badly that she wanted a dad in the first place.

Kids whose feelings are repressed and who grow up with sadness and conflicted feelings.

Isn’t that EXACTLY the problem that pro-gay types claim they have supposedly solved?

How many others are there still afraid to "come out of the closet" even as adults, and admit they had the same conflicted feelings and sense of loss because they did not have both fathers and mothers to raise them?

Big Media Bias

My girlfriend and I (I’m a guy) use to live in Minneapolis where we remodeled a home and lived in it for a few years. We had two little neighbor kids down the street who would get dropped off at our home when their politically left-wing lesbian parents were gone. Which was most of the time. We didn’t really have any kind of friendship with their parents except being kind to them, but quietly having total opposite beliefs. Their kids hung out, we fed them frozen pizzas and anything they wanted. Let them watch TV, play with our dogs; we taught them how to throw/kick/hit all kinds of sports balls around, etc. We baked cookies one day when the 13-year-old started to cry. She said she wished we were her parents. I let her talk for a while. She wanted a dad like other kids. She and her little brother were surrogate babies from a third-party woman’s body. No idea who donated the sperm or the eggs or any details. Broke our hearts hearing her talk for a half hour about wanting a family like my girlfriend and I. A real dad. Then she talked about how she would never allow her children to go without a dad. We moved and have not had contact with them for a couple years now. Sad to think about their emotional state and well being. That’s all that little girl thought about.

jimwilson81

I applaud her for telling people how she actually feels and thinks. That takes a lot of courage to stand alone and speak out.

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