So, a man believes that a child is best raised by a father and a mother. Since a child is the product of a father and a mother, this does not seem a belief worthy of note. Obvious, really
Not to all, evidently. For that belief, Richard Page was removed from the Kent Magistrates bench and, more recently, suspended from the Kent NHS Trust. Poor mental health was cited as reason for his suspension; the mental health, not of the children whose adoption Mr Page was overseeing, but of gay and lesbian adults wounded by the “stigma” often associated with their sexual orientation.
Honestly, if this was a script for a film, it would be thrown out. Absurd, ridiculous, too far-fetched, even for fantasy.
But this is real life. And this matters. The mental health, the well-being, of us all depends so much on our formative first years, on the relationship we have with our mother and father. It affects the very structure of our brain, the connections we are able to make; the thoughts we can, or cannot, think. Attachment theory details all of this.
On a ski holiday recently, I kept noticing the children, togged up in their brightly coloured helmets and ski suits, being encouraged by their parents as they took their first tentative run on the slopes, their little skis wedged between Dad’s big skis. Is it so hard to understand that these little ones need a mum and a dad? And that we should do all we can to enable them to have that?
Equality and human rights is the slogan of the day. But whose rights? Those who choose a certain lifestyle and yet refuse to accept the logical consequence of that choice, insisting rather that they be able to ‘have it all’, that we serve up children on demand, ignoring their heartfelt cry for a mummy and a daddy? Or those who can’t yet even pronounce the word ‘rights’, and need our help and protection and care?
What are we thinking…?
