Most of the time when people say they have an unpopular opinion, it turns out it’s actually pretty popular.
Do you have some that’s really unpopular and most likely will get you downvoted?
Most of the time when people say they have an unpopular opinion, it turns out it’s actually pretty popular.
Do you have some that’s really unpopular and most likely will get you downvoted?
I am against a law allowing LGBTQ couples to adopt children in my country (Poland). I am not in any way against it as a general idea, but Polish society is full of full-on bigots and these kids would be subject to so much bullying, it’s really against their best interest.
The argument a lot of people raise “if we start doing it then people will get used to it” doesn’t work for me, because why should these children be victims of war that is not even theirs to fight? The whole thing makes me sick.
I’ve been downvoted for this opinion by both sides on Reddit.
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How is it “instead”? Why do you want to use children as weapons in changing those mentalities? I personally value the well being of these children higher than the right to adopt for these couples.
(copying from another reply I made)
I believe legalizing marriage, normalizing LGBTQ couples’ status first to prove the general society that they’re not actually some sick perverted sickos before we allow children adoption, should be the first step. Also waiting for the old people to die out, to put it bluntly.
Keep in mind Poland is still a hugely conservative society, in full grasp of the Catholic church. It’s changing, you can clearly see the trend, but on the other hand our current government is still actively painting LGBTQ+ as some sort of harmful ideology or what not. We have a long way to come.
You value the well being of children so much that you think they should remain orphans instead of being adopted by loving parents because people in your country are bigoted against those parents… Gotcha.
There are no orphans up for adoption in Poland, you have to wait your turn in line to adopt because there are so many couples that can’t have children. My close friends waited over 3 years. The only kids in the system are the ones who are in the middle of a legal fight and can’t be adopted.
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I live in a country with a relatively similar political climate as Poland (highly religious, post-communist, wannabe central Europe). And I used to use the same argument when I was surrounded by more conservative people. The argument is IMO frequently invoked not by people who are truly worried about children (which I’ll write about below), but by conservatives who need a civilised, “agnostic” argument for their homophobic stances. But ofc it’s better to assume good intentions, at least if you don’t know anything about the person using the argument (as e.g. here).
The biggest problem with the argument is that it’s purely reactive and, under the hood, disingenuous. Children bully each other horribly already for a million stupid reasons - their shoe brand, their phone brand, their behaviour, etc. or just so, for no detectable reason at all. They also bully their teachers and professors. What is done against all this? Absolutely nothing, as far as I see (and I’ve seen and heard plenty while I was growing up). It is never brought up as a problem in public discourse, nobody seems to care too much. Bullying somehow becomes a big problem and relevant for the lawmaking only when gay parents are a possibility.
In general, from what I’ve seen, bullies will find just about any reason to target a kid. Adding one more to the roster seems borderline trivial. E.g. a lot of existing bullying is class-based - my younger sister was mildly ostracised in the primary school for a while because she wore the clothes my mother sewed for her, without a brand or anything, suggesting we don’t have the money to buy “proper” clothes. Should we, then, try to separate poor kids from the rich kids, so the poor don’t get bullied? Or just forbid poor kids from going to school?
Thus, instead of doing anything against the actual problem – that is, bullying as such – the laws of the state, the fundamental right of a child to a family, etc. should all buckle down before some child bullying? A child should be denied growing up with a potentially good and loving family with LGBT parents, and instead be adopted by a potentially inferior heterosexual family (assuming the adoption centres have some sort of system to judge the adopters in advance), or stay without a family at all indefinitely, because someone could/will bully them based on their most intimate and safe space, that is their family? Just as it would be monstrous to forbid poor kids from going to school to “protect” them from bullying, it is monstrous to propose “to protect some kids from bullying, we’ll deny them from having a family”. The whole argument is actually (or should be) an argument for aggressively rethinking and reworking your educational system , parenting and culture in general.
Under the current system they’re also victims and involved in this same war - a part of their potential adopters is denied by default, and they stay without a family for longer. Are they not victims here? (Not to get into the issue of measuring potential benefits of having a family against the potential negatives of bullying, it’s purely arbitrary and depends on the given culture too.)
On the other hand, I do think the whole discussion has been derailed by overly focusing on this as an LGBT issue rather than an issue of children without families. So there’s some merit at least in the general approach of the argument you present (the children are those whose well-being is most important here), but it leads to the wrong conclusion, usually because it’s invoked by people who really just want to get to that conclusion one way or another, rather than helping the kids.
Sure kids get bullied, that’s the default. But why add such a strong factor willingly? That’s what I don’t get. I can only imagine the fucking hate some of the parents would be spitting out and obviously their kids would take it to school. So that kid would not only get bullied for any of the reasons you mentioned, they’d have their parents sexual orientation added on top.
Also, that last argument doesn’t hold up in Poland. There are more couples wanting to adopt than children up for adoption. My close friends, unable to conceive, waited for over three years. The only children in the system are those in a middle of s legal battle that cannot be adopted until that battle is resolved. So it’s not “orphan” vs “adopted by a LGBTQ couple”, it’s adopted by a cishet couple vs LGBTQ couple, and the latter definitely would seem like getting the short straw given current social context.
Do you have a better solution? Progress always requires people to fight for the things they believe in and want to change, we don’t go anywhere unless people actually do something.
I believe legalizing marriage, normalizing LGBTQ couples’ status first to prove the general society that they’re not actually some sick perverted sickos before we allow children adoption, should be the first step. Also waiting for the old people to die out, to put it bluntly.
Keep in mind Poland is still a hugely conservative society, in full grasp of the Catholic church. It’s changing, you can clearly see the trend, but on the other hand our current government is still actively painting LGBTQ+ as some sort of harmful ideology or what not. We have a long way to come.
But just waiting for others to die out doesn’t always work. Take for instance the southern US. It took the federal government intervening (sometimes violently) to actually deal with a lot of the ingrained racism. And even then, there is still plenty around, and in some places it is gaining in popularity. In my mind, the argument you are posing could easily be subbed in as "we shouldn’t allow mixed race couples to have children, as those that are racist will inevitably traumatize the children. " I get that your argument is probably not from a place off outright homophobia, but it is kinda homophobic in that it accepts that children shouldn’t be around gay/lesbian parents because of what others will think and do. Is Poland shitty to LGBTQ couples? Probably, but just waiting for people to eventually accept them isn’t gonna fix the issue.
Right, you’re just letting the idiots win if you don’t prove to them that it works and is fine.
It’s such a difficult topic. I have family that left their country because, although they can adopt a child as a same sex couple, the culture is so bigoted they dont want to subject their future children (and themselves) to the sort of interactions they have to deal with.
Your intention is good, but that’s not the way to fight this problem. Limiting LGBTQs’ ability to adopt children so society doesn’t pick on them is akin to disallowing knives because people can use them for stabbing purposes: it works, I suppose, but you’re removing a lot of benefits. Like cutting an arm when you have a cut, instead of treating the cut.
I’ll admit, I don’t know what the real solution is, and if it’s even possible to have a tolerant society and untraumatized children at the same time, but opposing the law entirely isn’t it.
Knives don’t have feelings. Would you willingly put your own child through bullying for a better cause but of very little direct benefit to themselves (most likely, theres a chance they’ll be LGBTQ too of course)? I wouldn’t, I don’t think it’s worth it to make a child a martyr.
Dude, kids are gonna be bullied literally no matter what. Sometimes for no reason at all! It’s the parents’ job to help the kids deal with it in a healthy way. I don’t see why you’re pretending they would be “martyrs” any more than I was a “martyr” for my right to… have a few more freckles than the other kids.
Down votes are for comments that detract from the topic. Having an unpopular opinion on a thread that’s asking for your unpopular opinion is exactly what up voting is for. It’s too bad you can’t down vote the down votes in these apps.
I ussually dont like to get into LGB+ shenanigans (specially T&Q) since it allways devolves into slapfighting, virtue signaling and raiding (by both parties btw) , but im gonna risk it by sticking my nose in here and say that you have a really good point in the fact that the kids are getting forced into a political fight thats harasher than what they are prepared for and preferably shouldnt even be involved in and become a target themselves. But i dont think the solution should be banning it althogeter, maybe just having harsher penalties for constant attacks against them for that in particular (specially from adults) and with the children i say that they are still gonna get picked on for being orfaned so thats really not something thats gonna get solved by legislation, but an aspect of the fact that school fucking sucks, period, and the only solution is for schools to enforce protection on children in special circunstances.
But all that kinda goes down the toilet when you realise that child protection services sucks monkey ass and will leave kids with fucking satan if he manages to check enough boxes for the requiremnts to get orphan kids and their goberment paychecks.
As someone who has lived in Poland, this is definitely true for the eastern side of the country. Not sure if a ban is the right solution, but they would definitely get bullied to hell for that if anyone found out.