A recent news story from Connecticut about two men and their “fertility journey” spoke of the growing “Gay Baby Boom” happening in New England. The same-sex couple featured in the article acquired their two sons through IVF and surrogacy. Yes, acquired.

Many (most?) in our society would read the story and applaud what these men have “achieved,” feel obligated to at least feign approval and swallow any objection they might have, or perhaps decide to be indifferent to it all. None of those options is acceptable for anyone who claims to follow Christ. In fact, none of those options is acceptable for anyone who even claims to want the best for children.

Courage is Our Option

Courage is our option. The courage to speak and live in truth. It is not — contrary to popular opinion — impossible to live in truth and love at the same time. Where truth is absent, so is love.

The truth is, the commodification of children is wrong. To requisition, manufacture, and purchase a child is wrong.

My friend and Catholic author Leila Lawler astutely asked on Facebook, “How is it possible that men can dominate and exploit women and children in this way — all socially acceptable?”

Indeed, how is it possible? The answer, of course, is that it is socially acceptable because the celebration of homosexuality by society demands it.

For all the times the accusation of treating women like breeders is bitterly thrown at the Catholic Church and Christians in general, somehow when gay men literally use women as their breeders it’s worthy of applause.

It’s About What the Children Need

Then there are the babies. To deliberately deny a child his mother (or father) to validate the sexual preferences of the adults is many things, but it certainly is not love. It is cruel and selfish. To try to construct a family that only serves the wants of the adults, while dismissing the genuine needs of the child is not love. It is not admirable. Children are the ones with inviolate rights here, not the adults.

To hide behind the “modern families come in all varieties” motto is also not love. It is cowardly. The family isn’t a modern invention, and it does not require a re-invention. God designed the family from the beginning and it has unchangeable elements: father, mother, and child. That isn’t just an old-fashioned “ideal” that can now be discarded as irrelevant to our times.

Children need their mother and their father, and that need must not become secondary to the adults’ sexual inclinations. Because this need is so innate, God ordained that children are the fruit of marriage, and marriage is the lifelong union of husband and wife.

That’s what is truly best for children. If our society claims to want what is best for children, then we must stop treating babies like a commodity. We must stop celebrating when a baby is deliberately denied his mother because she was only wanted as an egg donor or gestational carrier in order to satisfy the desires of men.

The longing for a family is a natural and good thing. Yet our culture needs to get through its collective skull that no one — absolutely no one — is entitled to a child. There is certainly no right to manufacture and purchase a baby like one would buy a customized automobile.

It will never be known what acts of cowardice have been committed for fear of not looking sufficiently progressive. — Charles Péguy

Woe to the Cowardly

The book of Revelation closes with a severely clear warning for us. Those who are faithful to Christ will live forever in the New Jerusalem. The heavenly city is glorious beyond our ability to comprehend or imagine.

Read carefully the details of who will and who will not call this glorious new city home.

He who conquers shall have this heritage, and I will be his God and he shall be my son. But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the polluted, as for murderers, fornicators, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their lot shall be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. (Rev 21:7-8)

The first group of people mentioned specifically? Cowards.

We are not excused from cowardice when it comes to fidelity to God’s law.

Our culture insists that “Love Wins” only when people are permitted to do and have whatever they want by whatever means they choose with no moral judgement from anyone.

That is false.

Love is not a lackey taking orders from the sexual whims of adults, nor from people who lack the fortitude to call falsehood false. Love delights in the truth.

Love inhabits courage. Love dwells in obedience to God.

Love does not dwell in the commodification of children or the denial of mother or father.