Would You Change Your Perspective..?
Surrender: to give (oneself) up to some influence, course, emotion….
Over the past year or so I have had the amazing opportunity to witness something I once had negative thoughts about. Sometimes we as people find it increasingly difficult to change our way of thinking. When we were children, the world seemed perfect. We saw things from that child like perspective that makes it seem like there are no wrongs in the world. As we got older, we find that we become settled in our ways and even after that, we become sullen and stubborn. When we reach this point, it’s over. This leaves room for prejudices to settle into place. The amazing thing to me is it takes so long to develop an opinion, but only a split second for us to change our views or perspectives on things if we have some life changing experience. For the purpose of this post, we will call this a “moment of surrender”. I defined the word surrender at the beginning of the post as “to give (oneself) up to some influence, course, emotion…” and of course, like most words, this is not the only definition to describe this word’s meaning. This definition best fits my chosen topic to post about.
My wife and I have discussed the idea of adoption for quite sometime now, even before we were married. I think that adoption, if done with the right intentions, is one of the biggest blessings a person can give to another. Unfortunately, some kids go through their entire lives without ever feeling a sense of belonging to a family. Adoption gives those kids a second chance at a completely new beginning. Now that I have gotten my initial feelings out of the way, let me dive into the real reason for this post.
In December of 2010, I had the opportunity to come into contact with two kids who had been adopted by a family in Minnesota. The adoptive family had taken custody of both children when they were at a very young age. Now, the children, both of which are boys, are 7 and 10 years old. This, you may think, sounds like a typical adoption, but here is where the difference comes in. Instead of a mother and father adopting two children, this family has two fathers instead.
That’s right, the adoptive parents are homosexual.
Now, before causing mass chaos and controversy over this post, please continue on reading with an open mind. Every person has their own opinion and everyone thinks their opinion is better than everyone else’s.
Before this time, I would have given the typical Christian southerner’s argument about how homosexuals shouldn’t be allowed to adopt children and how I feel that what they are doing is wrong. I would have told you that those kids do not deserve the ridicule that they would most certainly go through due to having two fathers. I was stuck in that way of thinking and I still have negative feelings towards the whole issue of homosexuality in general. Notice, however, that throughout this post I still use the terms parents and fathers. Just because they are both men does not mean they should be robbed of those endearing terms society uses to describe the family unit. They are still parents to those kids they have adopted.
With that being said, I can officially say that after almost a year, my thoughts have slowly changed on homosexuals adopting kids. Upon first meeting this family, I was in shock. It is hard to come to grips with the thought two homosexual men adopting children. Part of these feelings come from how I was raised. Let’s face it, most stereotypes come from the society that a person is raised in. Unfortunately, the stereotype that was first brought up in my mind is the idea that every homosexual is a child molester. This, of course, is NOT true, but my mind had to overcome that thought. That is an unfair assumption that is made all too often. Also, as a Christian, I would be in the wrong to judge someone for what they do, especially since I am far from being a saint.
Fortunately for me, I did not flee from that whole situation. I gave knowing this unusual family a chance. To be honest, I am not exactly sure why, but I didn’t push this family away as I am sure so many people have. After getting to know this family, I have found that they have slowly but surely changed my perspective on homosexual adoption.
Let me paint a picture for you. When you walk into their home, you get the impression that the house belongs to a normal family who happens to have two children. The decor doesn’t scream “GAY” as I am sure some people would assume. The only thing that gives it away is that if you look in the family pictures, instead of seeing a father and mother, you see two fathers. This was the start of my change of thinking. This started playing on my mind, feeding me the idea that seemed to say, “What if this family is actually quite normal?”
What does “normal” really mean anyway. The dictionary defines it as:
