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Dawn Stefanowicz explains her experience being raised by a gay parent

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*** WARNING: This post is definitely for grown-ups only! ***

I was listening to the latest Dr. J podcast on “Why Marriage Matters”, and I heard about a woman named Dawn Stefanowicz, who was raised by her gay father in Toronto.

So, I looked around and found this interview with Dawn posted on MercatorNet. This is mature subject matter.

Intro:

Gay marriage and gay adoption are being fiercely debated in a number of countries. Usually these issues are framed as a human rights issue. But whose rights? Patrick Meagher, MercatorNet’s contributing editor in Canada, recently interviewed a woman who was raised by a homosexual father. She feels that her rights as a child were completely ignored.

Dawn Stefanowicz (www.DawnStefanowicz.com) grew up in Toronto. Now in her 40s, she has written a book, Out From Under: Getting Clear of the Wreckage of a Sexually Disordered Home, to be released later this year. Stefanowicz has now been married for 22 years, is raising a family, and also works as an accountant. She has also testified about same-sex marriage in Washington and Ottawa.

Sample:

MercatorNet: How did you feel about what was going on around you?

Stefanowicz: You become used to it and desensitised. I was told at eight years old not to talk about this but I knew that something was wrong. I was not thinking “this is right or wrong” but I was disturbed by what I was experiencing. I was unhappy, fearful, anxious and confused. I was not allowed to tell my father that his lifestyle upset me. You can be four-years-old and questioning, “Where is Daddy?” You sense women are not valued. You think Daddy doesn’t have time for you or Daddy is too busy to play a game with you. All this is hard because as a child this is the only experience you have.

MercatorNet: How did this affect your relationship with others?

Stefanowicz: I had a hard time concentrating in school on day-to-day subjects and with peers. I felt insecure. I was already stressed out by an early age. I’m now in my 40s. You’re looking at life-long issues. There is a lot of prolonged and unresolved grief in this kind of home environment and with what you witness in the subcultures.

It took me until I was into my 20s and 30s, after making major life choices, to begin to realise how being raised in this environment had affected me. Unfortunately, it was not until my father, his sexual partners and my mother had died, that I was free to speak publicly about my experiences.

And:

MercatorNet: Why do so few children speak out?

Stefanowicz: You’re terrified. Absolutely terrified. Children who open up these family secrets are dependent on parents for everything. You carry the burden that you have to keep secrets. You learn to put on an image publicly of the happy family that is not reality. With same-sex legislation, children are further silenced. They believe there is no safe adult they can go to.

I noticed that Bill Muehlenberg has an even more controversial review of Dawn’s book about her childhood, too. When I was doing research on these issues, I read Dr. Jeffrey Satinover’s “Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth” and Dr. Joseph Nicolosi’s “A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality“. But I think I am going to buy Dawn’s book, too. It sounds like a tough read, but it may be necessary to understand what is really at stake, so my views can be formed by real data.

NOTE: Comments to this post will be strictly filtered in accordance with Obama’s hate crimes bill.

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News

New study shows that same-sex unions are less monogamous than heterosexual unions

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Story from the radically leftist New York Times.

Excerpt:

New research at San Francisco State University reveals just how common open relationships are among gay men and lesbians in the Bay Area. The Gay Couples Study has followed 556 male couples for three years — about 50 percent of those surveyed have sex outside their relationships, with the knowledge and approval of their partners.

That consent is key. “With straight people, it’s called affairs or cheating,” said Colleen Hoff, the study’s principal investigator, “but with gay people it does not have such negative connotations.”…

None of this is news in the gay community, but few will speak publicly about it. Of the dozen people in open relationships contacted for this column, no one would agree to use his or her full name, citing privacy concerns. They also worried that discussing the subject could undermine the legal fight for same-sex marriage.

Maggie Gallagher writes in National Review:

I do not think same-sex marriage will serve child well-being in any appreciable way, and I don’t think there is much sign that that is the goal. The gay community is by and large supporting same-sex marriage as a right, not as a norm at all. Relatively few same-sex couples enter same-sex marriages and the dissolution rates (at least in Sweden, where we have hard data) are extraordinarily high (roughly 50 percent higher for gay men, 100 percent higher for lesbian couples).

Same-sex marriage is primarily an attempt to serve the dignity interests of gay people. It represents the government’s good housekeeping seal of approval on the idea that their relationships are the same as anyone else. Let’s not fool ourselves; we’re not doing this for the kids.

My previous post on why people favor traditional marriage is here. It talks about another study showing the differences between same-sex and heterosexual couples.

Comments will be strictly monitored in order to take Obama’s hate crimes law into account.

News

In Australia, non-birth parents can now be named on birth certificates

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This applies to Victoria, own the more liberal states in Australia.

Story here from the Herald Sun. (H/T Thoughts Out Loud)

Excerpt:

Sweeping January 1 changes to the state’s reproductive laws mean that non-birth parents can now be named on birth certificates.

[…]Other changes to the Assisted Reproductive Act included recognition of “social” as well as “medical” infertility, meaning single women, gays and lesbians can access IVF treatment or commission a surrogate.

The new laws also mean children conceived using donors have the right to find out about their biological heritage once they turn 18.

Victorian Registry of Births Deaths and Marriages spokeswoman Erin Keleher, said the department was delighted it can recognise rainbow families. “It’s on the vanguard of social change,” she said.

So the state is assigning parental rights to people who are not biologically related to the child. Is that fair to the child? Is it in the best interests of the child? Do same-sex relationships offer the same benefits to a child as an opposite-sex marriage with two parents biologically linked to the child?

I wrote about the research that answers that last question here.