On my podcast a few days ago, I addressed a question from a listener who wanted to know how I could oppose abortion and gay adoption at the same time. If this seems like a bit of a non-sequitur, that’s because it is. The two issues have nothing at all to do with each other. But it is not uncommon for people to draw a connection — I’ve been asked this same question during almost every Q&A I’ve ever done on a college campus — because, it is argued, if abortion is made illegal, we will end up with thousands or even millions of new children in the adoption system. At that point, the logic goes, we will need gay couples to help carry the load and ensure that these babies don’t end up languishing in foster homes for years on end.
I responded on my show the same way I always respond to this convoluted line of thinking. First, I pointed out that there is a waiting list 50 miles long of qualified families desperately hoping to adopt infants. We have no problem, in this country, with babies being stuck in the system for years. We have that problem with older children, but it is not difficult to find good homes for very young children.
Second, I argued that neither mother nor father is expendable. Children need both. Yes, many children ultimately are forced to live without one or the other, but that is a disadvantage which they must overcome. The best and most natural situation — literally the most natural, seeing as how nature assigns a mother and father to every person — is for a child to have a parental figure of each biological sex. A man can be a very excellent father, but he cannot be a mother — just as a woman can be a wonderful mother, but she cannot be a father. If one or the other is not present in the family unit, a hole will be left by that absence. So, I ask a simple question to those who advocate gay adoption: Why have you decided that mothers or fathers are expendable and what evidence do you have to support this stunning claim? I have yet to receive a satisfactory answer.
I certainly didn’t receive one this time. Instead, a goon from Media Matters (who I suppose drew the short straw and got stuck monitoring my show for the week), clipped my remarks about gay adoption and tweeted out the video with the caption: “The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh would rather have kids in orphanages than with same-sex parents.” This, of course, is his inference, not a direct quote. I never said that I’d rather have kids in orphanages. I said I’d rather have them in homes with both a mother and a father present.
But the British publication The Independent decided to throw together a quick hit piece based on the Media Matters goon’s one-sentence characterization of my remarks, rather than on the remarks themselves. Their headline: “US conservative says he would rather a child remain in an orphanage than be adopted by a gay couple.”
The only problem, again, is that I didn’t say that. The Media Matters goon said that. The brief article provides my full quote, which, as you can see, directly contradicts the absurdly dishonest headline:
In my mind, every child needs and deserves a mother and father and that’s a biological need. There is a reason why every person in history has been created by a mother and a father.
So, even if you don’t want to use the word ‘God,’ let’s say ‘nature’ clearly intends for a child to have a mother and a father, which is why every child does have a mother and a father, even if their mother and father are unable to care for them.
What I would ask you is, if we are talking about gay adoption, which of the two is expendable? Mother or father?
If we are talking about two gay men adopting a child, we can just get rid of the mother and say that a ‘guy can do that.’ A guy can’t do that actually. A man cannot function as a mother.
A man can be a very loving father, but he cannot be a mother. That is a role that he can biologically not fulfill and there are certain emotional and psychological needs that a child has that, if he does not have a mother at home, will not be met.
That doesn’t mean the child is doomed and can’t end up being happy and fulfilled in life — but he will be happy and fulfilled in spite of that disadvantage.
If the headline was going to quote what I said, it would have read: “US conservative says mothers aren’t expendable.” But I suppose that headline wouldn’t attract much notice or enforce the leftist narrative, so The Independent went the smear-merchant route instead.
The article also notes that “Walsh’s radical comments have been met with derision online by people aghast at his views on gay couples fostering children.” I am wondering which part of my opinion might be considered radical? Is it the part where I point out that mothers are important? If that’s radical, then apparently every Mother’s Day card on the rack at Rite Aid is a radical right-wing screed against homosexuals.
Of course, I am not shocked or scandalized by any of this. Any conservative with any sort of platform must be prepared to be mischaracterized and slandered with abandon. This isn’t my first time, or the worst, or the last. But I am still waiting, eagerly and perhaps naively, for someone in the “aghast” crowd to stop fainting for a few seconds and explain how, exactly, I’m wrong on the subject in question. I suppose I should stop holding my breath.