Adults Raised by Gay Couples Speak Out Against Gay ‘Marriage’ in Federal Court

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <div id="title-wrapper" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <h1 class="title" id="page-title" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </h1> </div> <div class="region clear-block" id="main-content" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <div class="node clear-block" id="node-879359" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <div class="meta" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span class="submitted" style="border: 0px; display: block; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="blog-style-author no-photo count-0" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <div class="author-detail" style="border: 0px; float: left; margin: 0px 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <div class="user-name" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">By <a href="http://cnsnews.com/source/lauretta-brown" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Lauretta Brown</a></span></div> </div> </div> </span></div> <div class="content" id="node-content" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <div class="addthis_container" style="border: 0px; clear: both; margin: 20px 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style addthis_32x32_style pull-left" style="border: 0px; float: left; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <a class="addthis_button_compact at300m" href="http://cnsnews.com/news/article/lauretta-brown/adults-raised-gay-couples-speak-out-against-gay-marriage-federal-court#" style="border: 0px; cursor: pointer; float: left; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 2px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;"><span class="at4-icon aticon-compact" style="background-image: url(data:image/svg+xml; background-position: 0% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; background-size: 32px !important; border: 0px; cursor: pointer; display: block; float: left; height: 32px; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; text-indent: -9999em; vertical-align: baseline; width: 32px;"><span class="at_a11y" style="border: 0px; height: 1px !important; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden !important; padding: 0px; position: absolute !important; text-indent: 0px; top: auto !important; vertical-align: baseline; width: 1px !important;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Sharing Service</span></span></span></span></a><a class="addthis_button_expanded" href="http://cnsnews.com/news/article/lauretta-brown/adults-raised-gay-couples-speak-out-against-gay-marriage-federal-court#" style="background-image: none; 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margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><span class="fa fa-envelope" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; display: inline-block; margin: 0px; padding: 6px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></a></span></span></div> <div class="clearfix" style="border: 0px; clear: both; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div> </div> <div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div> <div class="caption alignright" style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); float: right; margin: 0px 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 240px;"> <a href="http://cnsnews.com/image/supreme-court-gay-marriage-26" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title="Supreme Court Gay Marriage"><span style="color: black;"><img alt="Supreme Court Gay Marriage" class="" height="147" src="http://cnsnews.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/medium/727d9ca278df4a61975c3b53b3d86817.jpg" style="border: 0px; margin: 10px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="Supreme Court Gay Marriage" width="220" /></span></a><div class="caption" style="border: 0px; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 5px; padding: 10px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, Fil</span></div> <div class="caption" style="border: 0px; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 5px; padding: 10px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">CNSNews.com) – Four adult children of same-sex parents have submitted </span><i style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">amicus curiae</i><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">briefs in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals asking that it oppose the legalization of same-sex “marriage."</span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The Court, in New Orleans, La., heard arguments on Jan. 9 as it considers whether to uphold traditional marriage – defined as being between one man and one woman -- in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.</span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">B.N. Klein, Robert Oscar Lopez, Dawn Stefanowicz, and Katy Faust all grew up with homosexual parents. All four argued that redefining marriage to include same-sex couples would harm children by depriving them of a mother or father.</span></div> </div> <div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">In her brief, Dawn Stefanowicz described her experience living in a same-sex household.</span></div> <div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“I wasn’t surrounded by average heterosexual couples,” she says in her court brief.  “Dad’s partners slept and ate in our home, and they took me along to meeting places in the LGBT communities. I was exposed to overt sexual activities like sodomy, nudity, pornography, group sex, sadomasochism and the ilk.”</span></div> <div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“There was no guarantee that any of my Dad’s partners would be around for long, and yet I often had to obey them,” she said. “My rights and innocence were violated.”</span></div> <div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“As children, we are not allowed to express our disagreement, pain and confusion,” Stefanowicz explained. “Most adult children from gay households do not feel safe or free to publicly express their stories and life-long challenges; they fear losing professional licenses, not obtaining employment in their chosen field, being cut off from some family members or losing whatever relationship they have with their gay parent(s). Some gay parents have threatened to leave no inheritance, if the children don’t accept their parent’s partner du jour.”</span></div> <div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“I grew up with a parent and her partner[s] in an atmosphere in which gay ideology was used as a tool of repression, retribution and abuse,” <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/240312276/B-N-Klein-Amicus-Brief" style="border: 0px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">B.N. Klein wrote of her experience</a> with a lesbian mother. “I have seen that children in gay households often become props to be publicly displayed to prove that gay families are just like heterosexual ones.”</span></div> <div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Klein said she was taught that “some Jews and most Christians were stupid and hated gays and were violent,” and that homosexuals were “much more creative and artistic” because they were not repressed and were naturally more ‘feeling.’”</span></div> <div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“At the same time I was given the message that if I did not agree (which I did not), I was stupid and damned to a life of punishing hostility from my mother and her partner,” she recounts. “They did this with the encouragement of all their gay friends in the community and they were like a cheering squad. I was only allowed out of my room to go to school. This could go on for weeks.”</span></div> <div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“I was supposed to hate everyone based on what they thought of my mother and her partner,” said Klein. “People’s accomplishments did not matter, their personal struggles did not matter, and their own histories were of no consequence. The only thing that mattered was what they thought of gays.”</span></div> <div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="color: black;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/251078014/Robert-Oscar-Lopez-Amicus-Brief#scribd" style="border: 0px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Robert Oscar Lopez </a>who was also raised by a lesbian mother and her partner, had a different experience which he described as the “best possible conditions for a child raised by a same-sex couple.”</span></span></div> <div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“Had I been formally studied by same-sex parenting ‘experts’ in 1985, I would have confirmed their rosiest estimations of LGBT family life,” Lopez wrote, but then went on to argue against same-sex marriage saying that, “behind these facades of a happy ‘outcome’ lay many problems.”</span></div> <div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">He describes experiencing a great deal of sexual confusion due to the lack of a father figure in his life. He turned to a life of prostitution with older men as a teenager.</span></div> <div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“I had an inexplicable compulsion to have sex with older males,” he recounted, saying he “wanted to have sex with older men who were my father’s age, though at the time I could scarcely understand what I was doing.”</span></div> <div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“The money I received for sex certainly helped me financially because it allowed me certain spending money beyond what I earned with my teenage jobs at a pizzeria and in my mother’s [psychiatric] clinic,” he states in the brief. “But the money was not as impactful as the fact that I needed to feel loved and wanted by an older male figure, even if for only as short as a half hour.”</span></div> <div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“As early as ten years ago, I developed a clear stance on homosexual relationships. A civil union or some kind of state recognition would have helped my mother and her partner,” Lopez writes.</span></div> <div dir="rtl" style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; text-align: right; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“Yet the traditional marriage laws in New York State as they existed back then prevented my mother and her partner from entirely cutting my father out of my life,” he explained.  “The latter reality proved pivotal because my re-establishment of ties to my father in 1998 led to a transition in my life, from being lost and sexually confused to being stable and romantically fulfilled.”</span></div> <div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="color: black;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/240312274/Katy-Faust-Amicus-Briefs" style="border: 0px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Katy Faust, </a>who grew up with a lesbian mother and her partner also testified against gay marriage but clarified that “my advocacy against gay marriage and for the rights of children will never include condemnation of my mother and her partner or details about their private lives.”</span></span></div> <div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“When we institutionalize same-sex marriage,” Faust writes, “we move from permitting citizens the freedom to live as they choose, to promoting same-sex headed households. In doing so, we ignore the true nature of the outcropping of marriage.”</span></div> <div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“Now we are normalizing a family structure where a child will always be deprived daily of one gender influence and the relationship with at least one natural parent,” she explains, “Our cultural narrative becomes one that, in essence, tells children that they have no right to the natural family structure or their biological parents, but that children simply exist for the satisfaction of adult desires.”</span></div> <div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The 5th Circuit is still considering the legality of state bans on same-sex “marriage” and will issue an opinion in the coming months.</span></div> <div dir="rtl" style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; text-align: right; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The U.S. <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/01/16/supreme-court-gay-marriage/21867355/" style="border: 0px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Supreme Court announced </a>on Jan. 19 that it will consider gay  “marriage” bans in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee with oral arguments in April and a ruling before the end of the current term in June.</span></div> </div> </div> </div> </div>

Adults Raised by Gay Couples Speak Out Against Gay ‘Marriage’ in Federal Court

By  Lauretta Brown Sharing Service 267   (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, Fil CNSNews.com) – Four adult childr...

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I No Longer Want To Be Lesbian

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <div class="itemFullText"> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Dear Taiwo,</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I believe I have to speak out so that I can get help. I have been a lesbian for about 12 years and I know that it is high time I stopped. I was innocently initiated into it by my cousin’s friend.</span></div> <center style="height: 0px; margin: auto; overflow: hidden; width: auto;"> <div style="padding-bottom: 5px; padding-top: 10px; text-align: left;"> </div> <div id="ebzNative"> </div> </center> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">My cousin who just got married and resides in the city needed my help. She was in her first trimester and her husband needs to travel out of the country, my aunt asked me to stay with her because there was no one else available,  also because I had just finished my Senior Secondary School examinations and I had nothing doing.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I gladly went to the city, because she was my favourite cousin and I know that I would really enjoy myself with her. I never knew destiny had something else in stock for me. </span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">When I arrived at her house, I met a friend of hers who was already helping her before I came. I later learnt that she arrived from Italy few days before I came in from the village. When I saw the situation on ground, I saw that instead of helping my cousin, she was more or less adding to her burden.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">She would seat and wait for her to make food, she couldn’t  help tidy the house and she was always smoking and drinking alcohol. I made up my mind to help my cousin and that was what I did. I really couldn’t say if the fact that I was hard working as she claimed actually endeared me to her as she said or the fact that she found me attractive as she later said.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">It all began one day when my cousin went to work, her friend called me into her room and told me she liked the fact that I was hard working and also that my skin was fair even without the use of any bleaching cream.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">She started stroking my arm. Initially, I thought nothing of it, but when it turned into a caress, I made to leave the room. She was stronger and she said I should calm down as I will enjoy what she wanted to teach me.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I wasn’t stupid enough not to know about sex, I was 16, but I was naïve, I didn’t know anything about homosexuality or lesbianism. In fact, I was a virgin. She moved her hand gradually from my arm and cupped my breast and fondled my nipples. I became aroused. I really couldn’t describe the feeling then, but I can say now that I know better.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">While she was at it, although, I enjoyed what I felt, but inside of me, I knew something was not right. I told her that, and then she asked if I had a boyfriend. I told her I was a virgin. She replied that what she was about to teach me will allow me to enjoy sexual pleasures without getting pregnant.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">That was how it all started and she warned me not to tell my cousin she would not like it. She also made me realise that my sister got herself knocked up by a man who might probably be enjoying himself with another woman where he was.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">She made me see the bad side of men, I had no choice than to tow her line and believe her because even my own father didn’t help matters, as he always maltreated my mother and was irresponsible. She would give me gifts and I would sneak into her room at night. Eventually, I moved into her room and we began our affairs without inhibition.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">My cousin didn’t know that anything was going on, she only said it once that my relationship with her friend was more cordial, she liked it that way because it made things easier at home.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Without realising it, I became addicted to making love with my cousin’s friend, in fact, without knowing it; she deflowered me in the heat of passion one night. She thought me how to give her pleasure and she also did same to me.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">At the initial stage, I didn’t really hate boys, I still had male admirers, but whenever my cousin’s friend saw me with any of the boys in the locality, she gets very angry. Sometimes, she would offer me expensive gifts. </span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">We were into each other so much that I didn’t go home to see my mother when she fell ill. I got admission into the Polytechnic and she more or less footed all my bills. By this time, she had rented her own apartment and she used to travel to Italy to bring in clothes, shoes and accessories for sale.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I was one of the best dressed in school, courtesy my cousins friend and gradually she began to introduce me to some of her other friends. I also got connected with girls like me in school. I am pretty, so I was never shot of admirers; in fact a lot of them courted me with money and other goodies.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">By the time I finished my Ordinary National Diploma (OND), my mother had started asking me to bring a suitor home. She didn’t know that I was into women. During my one year attachment, she took me to Italy with her, and unfortunately, I was introduced to hard drugs.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">By the time I went back to school for my Higher National Diploma (HND), I have become a big girl and into a lot of vices. My mother and cousin and even my siblings wanted to know the source of my wealth, but I never told them.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I have finished school and I am into business now, all courtesy of my contacts and network. Sincerely, I am living well. Being the first child of my family, my mother especially is on my neck to bring home a man and get married. The unfortunate thing, however, is that such is the last thing on my mind. </span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">My refusal to bring a man home, is equally delaying my sisters marriage. The turnaround for me however was what happened to a friend and mate of mine few weeks ago. Two of them, had a quarrel over a trivial issue and they stabbed themselves and bled to death. My cousin’s friend who also introduced me to the sexual preference has also become a shadow of herself.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Plus the fact that my mother weeps every time she sees me. I really desire to have a changed lifestyle, but I don’t know how to. I can’t open up publicly about my life style because I already have a name. Please, if you know how I can get help, I will really appreciate it</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Anonymous.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">(Culled from Tribune Newspaper)</span></b></span></div> </div> <div class="itemContentFooter" style="border-top-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; margin: 16px 0px 4px; padding: 4px; text-align: left;"> Please, scroll down to give your comment/advice here. You will be helping to give this sister and Nigerian a new life.</div> <div class="clr" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.235294); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #f8f8f8; border: none; clear: both; color: black; display: block; float: none; font-family: lato, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; height: 0px; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; orphans: auto; padding: 0px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"> </div> </div>

I No Longer Want To Be Lesbian

Dear Taiwo, I believe I have to speak out so that I can get help. I have been a lesbian for about 12 years and I know that it is high t...

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