Slog
News & ArtsFriday, October 28, 2011
Hetero Every Child Deserves a Mother and a Father
Posted by Dan Savage on Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 8:38 AM
A Cleveland couple faces child endangerment charges after giving away their neglected 2-year-old girl, authorities said.... Police got a tip Thursday and went to the parents' home, where they found an emaciated pit bull and fecal matter. The child was nowhere to be found, police said. Officers learned the suspects had given the child away to friends in their neighborhood, who said they agreed to take custody of her if the couple agreed to get help for their alleged drug addiction. When the child was given away, she had bug bites and her eyes were crusted shut, police reports said.
2
..... that dog needs taken out of there too. If a child can't handle it, a dog can't either. What monsters.....
3
Um, they gave the kid away to neighbors. Is she doing better now? Because, frankly, doing something about this now after the neighbors and the parents already did something seems, well, kinda pointless. There are neglected kids who are still at home with their neglectful parents. I'm more worried about them than this girl who was already removed from the "care" of her parents.
This is not to say that her parents shouldn't be held accountable for what they did. But one of the things they did was give the girl away. And that sounds like it was for the best.
This is not to say that her parents shouldn't be held accountable for what they did. But one of the things they did was give the girl away. And that sounds like it was for the best.
4
Another child abuse horror story, another blow against homophobia! It's so great that you can put these tragedies to good use, Dan! We wouldn't want them to go to waste!
5
@ 3, I'm just happy that one of these stories concludes on a hopeful note. It still serves Dan's larger point quite well.
6
@5, I agree. These people are shit parents. And your biological parents aren't necessarily any good for you.
But these particular parents have a leg up on most of the other parents in these posts. They gave up custody of their child. Which is what, hopefully, CPS would have demanded of them. Already doing better than all the POS parents who neglect their kids, deny wrongdoing and try to keep custody of their neglected or abused kids.
But these particular parents have a leg up on most of the other parents in these posts. They gave up custody of their child. Which is what, hopefully, CPS would have demanded of them. Already doing better than all the POS parents who neglect their kids, deny wrongdoing and try to keep custody of their neglected or abused kids.
7
@5
Yeah! Because the fact that a tiny minority of heterosexual parents get it horribly wrong is a blow to the entire notion of heterosexual family! Somehow! Though the Savage can't demonstrate how! Oh yeah, and gays! No verb or faintest glimmering of connection to the subject at hand, just gays! Go gays!
Yep, Savage won this one with his masterful rhetorical technique. I prostrate myself at the feet of one of the worlds greatest living logicians.
Yeah! Because the fact that a tiny minority of heterosexual parents get it horribly wrong is a blow to the entire notion of heterosexual family! Somehow! Though the Savage can't demonstrate how! Oh yeah, and gays! No verb or faintest glimmering of connection to the subject at hand, just gays! Go gays!
Yep, Savage won this one with his masterful rhetorical technique. I prostrate myself at the feet of one of the worlds greatest living logicians.
8
Agreed--giving the kid away was a good move. So why does CPS come in, take the kid away from who seem to be the most responsible people in this situation, to return it to its grandmother? Has it been demonstrated in any way that the grandmother is more fit to take care of this kid than the people that took the kid in?
9
If only there had been some gay people who could have come and adopted this girl before she was abused.
10
@7 [I know, I know feeding the trolls and all that] You do realize that you're the only person on this thread to have mentioned gays, right? Not Dan, not anyone but you. And, also, if you knew anything about Dan you'd know he doesn't have a problem with families headed by heterosexual couples. He has problems with 1) child abusers and 2) people who claim that heterosexuality is the only measure necessary for determining ones suitability as a parent. This post serves to point out that heterosexuals can fail at being suitable parents, they can in fact be child abusers. Thus negating the argument that heterosexual parents = good for the child.
The problem here is not Dan's logic or argument (neither of which he employs in this particular post which only contains a headline and a quote) but your inability to follow a simple premise.
The problem here is not Dan's logic or argument (neither of which he employs in this particular post which only contains a headline and a quote) but your inability to follow a simple premise.
12
@10: "Every Child Deserves a Mother and a Father." The point of this series of posts is to refute that stupid right-wing slogan, which is an argument against legal gay parenthood. That is the whole point of the series. He doesn't need to explicitly mention gays because you know what his point is. You are being disingenuous to suggest that this isn't about gay parenthood.
The problems are that the stupid slogan is pretty obviously wrong, he is not convincing anyone by preaching to this particular choir here in Slog, he is exploiting the suffering of poor lil' chidren to score debating points, and the frequently gruesome details of the stories overwhelm whatever relevance they have to the debate itself, thus exposing Dan to charges of engaging in anti-straight agitprop.
How's that for a simple premise? Can you follow that?
The problems are that the stupid slogan is pretty obviously wrong, he is not convincing anyone by preaching to this particular choir here in Slog, he is exploiting the suffering of poor lil' chidren to score debating points, and the frequently gruesome details of the stories overwhelm whatever relevance they have to the debate itself, thus exposing Dan to charges of engaging in anti-straight agitprop.
How's that for a simple premise? Can you follow that?
14
@12 - Your understanding of Dan's intent in doing the "every child deserves..." series of posts is, I think, correct. But your bases for criticizing it are off-base. The fact that he's "preaching to the choir" is unavoidable. This is one of his platforms, and we are the regular audience. Not much he (or we) can do about that. We can't make Donald Wildmon or Tony Perkins read this blog, much as we might like to. All there is is the chance that Dan's SLOG content might make some degree of difference one way or another.
As for relating these stories being "exploitation", that's a bit of a stretch. It doesn't hurt the children any more for Dan to recap and link to these stories, and a journalistic spotlight of any kind serves the children better than the anonymity and hiddenness the parents had previously 'exploited' to abuse their own children.
Not that I like these stories any better than you do, mind. But Dan's anecdotes are ammunition against Perkin's et. al.'s anecdotes. Fire with fire.
As for relating these stories being "exploitation", that's a bit of a stretch. It doesn't hurt the children any more for Dan to recap and link to these stories, and a journalistic spotlight of any kind serves the children better than the anonymity and hiddenness the parents had previously 'exploited' to abuse their own children.
Not that I like these stories any better than you do, mind. But Dan's anecdotes are ammunition against Perkin's et. al.'s anecdotes. Fire with fire.
15
@7 Seattleblues you still have yet to cite an actual example of Dan lying, and not merely a case where you have a different opinion, which, by your definition alone, must be a lie.
Maybe you're too embarrassed to do that, though, since you've been caught lying more than once.
Maybe you're too embarrassed to do that, though, since you've been caught lying more than once.
18
yes.
they are shit parents.
(but at least they gave the girl
to someone who would take better care of her...)
turns out the met
and the lady got knocked up
at a sex club in Maine.
not that there's anything wrong with that.
right, Danny?
they are shit parents.
(but at least they gave the girl
to someone who would take better care of her...)
turns out the met
and the lady got knocked up
at a sex club in Maine.
not that there's anything wrong with that.
right, Danny?
19
@14: Another problem with these stories is that the remedy that Dan seeks, marriage and parental-rights equality for gay people, would not help the children suffering in the stories. In the case of gay bashing horror stories, there is a connection with relating the gruesome detailes, because they serve to advance the cause of, for instance, passage and enforcement of laws prohibiting hate crimes. Such laws would help prevent future gay bashing. However, greater marriage equality is not going to help the kids suffering at the hands of the parents in these "Every Child Deserves..." stories. There are not suddenly going to be a bunch of gay people coming in to rescue any significant number of the kids in the stories. So the gruesome details become, essentially, gratuitous. Gratuitous gruesomeness.
Does it not seem like there should be some kind of ethical limit to which a person may make use of abused-children stories? Carelessly throwing these things around is disrespectful to everybody, including those of us who actually do support gay marriage rights but aren't willing to wallow around in barely-relevant blood and gore and dried feces to show it.
Does it not seem like there should be some kind of ethical limit to which a person may make use of abused-children stories? Carelessly throwing these things around is disrespectful to everybody, including those of us who actually do support gay marriage rights but aren't willing to wallow around in barely-relevant blood and gore and dried feces to show it.
20
@19 - I'm actually very close to being on your side about this. I have young children of my own and it makes me feel sick and panicky to read stories of child abuse (in fact, I generally skip reading the Every Child posts). But I think the worst one can say about them is that they're pointless. They don't harm the children, and they don't harm us beyond making us feel bad.
There is just the possibility - highly arguable, I'll admit - that putting these stories out there is fighting the bullshit stories of Perkins et al. by combatting the assumption that all straight parents deserve children. Don't know if it really does anything, but like I say, can't hurt. Long as I don't have to read 'em!
There is just the possibility - highly arguable, I'll admit - that putting these stories out there is fighting the bullshit stories of Perkins et al. by combatting the assumption that all straight parents deserve children. Don't know if it really does anything, but like I say, can't hurt. Long as I don't have to read 'em!
22
Thank you for using the same headlines on these horror stories so I don't read them without mentally preparing. As a mom of three (and still postpartum for the last one), I find these almost too hard to read. (along with your pit bull stories and youth pastor stories). While we avoid pit bulls and youth pastors in general, these stories shake me terribly. Yet I keep reading them.
At least this one ended with a neglected child getting help and not a grave.
At least this one ended with a neglected child getting help and not a grave.
23
Dan's ghoulish delight
in these accounts of horrific abuse is doubly perverted
because they have nothing to do with homosexual marriage
but have everything to do with
the depraved irresponsible socially destructive lifestyle
that Dan relentlessly pushes.
As as been noted,
the common thread in these stories is not heterosexuality
but out of wedlock child rearing.
Children born and raised outside marriage
are at enormously greater risk of abuse and neglect.
Dan advocates teen sex and adultery and sex clubs
and then is shocked-SHOCKED!-(and saddened...*sob*...)
when children born and raised
in the chaotic circumstances that inevitably follow
those lifestyle choices are abused.
Dan smirkingly urges America to
skip to Gommorah
then feigns appall at what we find when we arrive.....
in these accounts of horrific abuse is doubly perverted
because they have nothing to do with homosexual marriage
but have everything to do with
the depraved irresponsible socially destructive lifestyle
that Dan relentlessly pushes.
As as been noted,
the common thread in these stories is not heterosexuality
but out of wedlock child rearing.
Children born and raised outside marriage
are at enormously greater risk of abuse and neglect.
Dan advocates teen sex and adultery and sex clubs
and then is shocked-SHOCKED!-(and saddened...*sob*...)
when children born and raised
in the chaotic circumstances that inevitably follow
those lifestyle choices are abused.
Dan smirkingly urges America to
skip to Gommorah
then feigns appall at what we find when we arrive.....
24
So where is everyone getting the idea that the people the child was given to were any better than the parents?
25
@24: the fact they took in a neglected child on the condition that the parents seek help for drug addiction seems pretty telling.
Also, it's hard to get much worse.
Also, it's hard to get much worse.
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