Ah, the modern family. Two male homosexuals (one a prominent German politician) want a baby. So the politician obligingly uses a female homosexual (who, by the way, lives with her lesbian partner) to conceive and bear a daughter. The resultant "rainbow family" is thus described as a four-parent arrangement (father/father, mother/mother ), all of whom will take equal responsibilities in raising the child.Dr. Andrew Harrod writes:
Aready extensively discussed by this author and others. Kauch has intentionally created a situation in which his daughter will lack one natural parent/gender role model and/or in varying degrees will confusingly vacillate between natural parents and their homosexual partners. These homosexual partners might desire to be the daughter’s parents, but it is questionable whether an individual raised in such a setting will ever view them as being equal to natural parents, particularly if such homosexual couples should ever “divorce”. What, in turn, should be the relationships amongst the child’s parents and their homosexual partners? Although “patchwork” families exist as a result of family breakdown, who before Kauch has expressly seen therein a model to emulate?
Beyond the inappropriateness of Kauch’s personal behavior, his prominence as a national politician will serve as a public example encouraging further weakening of marriage norms. He will function especially as such an example given his political portfolio in the FDP encompassing homosexual issues (he does indeed preach what he practices). Similar “family founding” by other German politicians like Kauch’s fellow homosexual FDP member, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, would only magnify this effect. As recent calls in Germany for the legalization of incest show, these norms are in tatters.
Kauch’s case, in particular, would raise questions of polyamory. If he and three other homosexuals in two couples may collectively raise a child, why may they not also have (bi)sexual relationships amongst themselves and/or with third parties? Kauch’s proposed collective custody might even make “patchwork” families resulting from one-time parental separation(s) appear as enviably stabile…
A shrinking future generation of Europeans is coming of age, often raised without the benefits of a married mother and father. Yet it is precisely this generation that must economically sustain an increasingly debt-laden European society with a welfare state often described as “soft socialism.” The ill-effects of family breakdown upon individuals will, if anything, only increase the need for state social services.
While Europe’s historically communal approach to the material concerns of human welfare is coming under strain, its modern experiment in libertine morals has reached full flower. Whether these outlooks, either singly or together, are socially sustainable is highly dubious. Observers outside of Europe would do well to follow attentively this society often recommended as an example and decide whether Kauch’s present should be their future.
