Conservative Christian Leader Says Single Moms Should Put Their Kids Up For Adoption

[JanT]

From Addicting Info:
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/11/27/single-moms-surrender-kids-land/

Right Wing Watch reports that Southern Baptist leader Richard Land is calling on single mothers to put up their kids for adoption so that Christian households with two parents can raise them.

In a November 23rd article published on The Christian Post, Land urges single mothers across the nation to stop being selfish and hand their kids over to good Christian parents so they can be raised properly, the way he thinks God intended.
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“Keeping the baby is almost never preferable to allowing a baby to be adopted into a solid, faithful Christian home,” Land claims. “A single mother who keeps her baby is quite often denying that baby the father that God wants for that baby, and every baby, to have. Furthermore, in most circumstances, keeping the baby circumscribes and forecloses both the mother’s and the baby’s economic futures in tragic and unfortunate ways. If the mother is doing what is best for her baby (one of the defining marks of maternal love), she will part with her baby so that it will have the future God intended for him or her to have… Adoption allows the mother to give her child both a mother and a father who will love and cherish the child.”

_

Land says he understands that there are already 100,000 children waiting to be adopted in the United States, but he still thinks all 11 million single moms in the nation should freely surrender their kids. Why? Because he says the children of single moms are being raised improperly and really should be given the chance to have a father in their lives, even if they have to squander their childhood in orphanages waiting to be adopted.
----------------

What about the single dads? I guess they are exempt from the "rules" regarding single parents. My brother is a single dad and my niece is an awesome person. It's only directed at single moms. I'm a single mom. My two boys are awesome people.
I am really getting sick and tired of these "christians" who think they know what God says and wants. I think i will keep my God who loves everyone regardless of their lot in life or their color or their nationality. The conservative christians can keep their God who seems to hate everyone. I am not a particularly religious person. I feel my religion is in me and what i believe in. -Treat all people with respect and compassion. So this article is particularly offensive to me. Why do people follow these people? I truly don't understand it.
Why would you want to align yourself with such hateful people with no compassion?

[Berlum]

1. "...and the men who impregnated them should be castrated." - Republivangelistas & Talibornagains (R)

[Thinkingabout]

33. K & R

[Archae]

2. Richard Land is a relic.

A leftover of the "Good old days" in the Southern Baptists when they were ruled by the Falwell faction of unrepentant racists and misogynists.

http://www.talk2action.org/story/2007/4/23/191555/121/Front_Page/Richard_Land_and_the_Religious_Right

[JanT]

18. thank you for the article

i read it and it is clear (to me anyway) that he is political and not religious. I guess i am naive about the world. i grew up with 5 other siblings and we were poor. I remember putting cardboard in our shoes when they wore out. My mom made sure we went to church every Sunday, though. My dad always worked but there never seemed to be enough to go around. The church was our Godsend. We got clothes and sometimes food from our members. It was a friendly & loving place where we sang "Jesus loves the little children of the world". So i just can't wrap my head around these people that align themselves with such hatred. How does that happen? What is missing in someone's life that they need to be involved in such hatred of mankind? Children have someone turned into objects to give away. Like a couch you have become tired of. What happened to loving & respecting? Caring about others? How can someone advocate giving up your children. And by his logic, if a mother finds herself a single mom, then by his logic, that child should be given to someone else to raise because she has become unfit as a parent. Just so wrong and evil.

[joeglow3]

3. The religious angle is sick and I disagree with the entire premise, but......

This isn't so much a "but", so please don't flame me.

I heard a study that supposedly said the single biggest indicator of the academice success that a child will attain in their life is the marital status of their parents. Has anyone else heard this? I was able to find some articles online that claim this, but have not found an underlying study.

[2pooped2pop]

6. I have not heard that but it is obvious

that a struggling single parent would have more difficulty.

But when those "Christian" marriages break apart, wouldn't that be even more traumatic for the kids? I don't think children should ever be removed from a home unless real serious abuse is going on. Even in drug addicted households, it may be possible to change the circumstances. No one loves your kid like u do.

oh, and I know that you were not arguing any of this. I just added my penny's worth since it didn't add up to two cents worth. lol

[MrsMatt]

7. And when the "Christian" marriages break apart,

the woman then becomes a single mother.

So by his logic, she would need to give up her children, right?

[2pooped2pop]

8. yes, they will be passed from household to household

It is written.

[PotatoChip]

11. I bet that part never occurred to this idiot.

He's probably thinking of the stereotypical 'single mom'.

I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of of R's think that way, which would explain why they insisted that Wendy Davis was 'not really' a single mother just because she was technically still married. Kind of like Akin and the 'not really rape' comment.

The reality is that there are many women and men who become single parents after separation and/or divorce. And yes, many of these homes have one or both parents who identify as christians.

[justabob]

13. war widows either

I suppose women who lost their husbands in military service should have to hand over their kids too.... asshole.

[PotatoChip]

14. Yup, that too. (nt)

[freshwest]

31. And the woman in FL who lost her husband in the movie theatre should lose hers, by this logic.

Will the next call be for widows to be passed to their husband's kin for marriage?

Livestock. Everyone is in a breeding program and nothing but animals in their world view.

That explains their lack of empathy. They see only the flesh and not the spirit of the people they are judging so harshly.

[2pooped2pop]

4. I see signs asking for foster homes for kids all the time

so even if this asinine proposal was not just fucking stupid, it would not work because there are not enough homes that want anything but babies. There are not enough homes for the kids that actually need one.

These are not Christians. They are faux Christians or pseudo Christians. They think they are fooling their God and I can only hope He exist so that I know they will get Christian bitch slapped in the end.

The others are not Christian in any way. They just use the name to attract the fools to their causes.

[jwirr]

21. No to mention the babies who have disabilities that this group does not want to adopt and the

growing number of children adopted and returned because the adoptive family does not want them anymore.

[okaawhatever]

5. Single mothers represent the one voting bloc that could change elections with increased

turnout. I was listening to an election strategist and he said the only bloc of people who don't vote, but are high enough in number to change the outcome of elections in this country are single mothers. Ask the single mothers you know if they're registered. If child care is a problem on election day, offer to help out. It's one of my big focuses in 2014.

[PotatoChip]

9. Good idea!

I vow to do the same.

[sinkingfeeling]

10. Talk about being a narcissist. I live in a state with the 2nd. highest percentage of

Southern Baptists and read every day about the abuse of children living with their parents. This southern state has more abuse, abandonment, and poverty of children than any other I've ever lived in.

[sarcasmo]

12. More religious garbage coming from religious leaders.

[Sheepshank]

15. Does this idiot subscribe to an age range?

Or is he advocating this only for teeny tiny cute little newborns?

because all kids deserve this...no? Under his guidelines, the foster system will be flooded with kids who are generally considered unadoptable and the burden on the States will be incredible.

Perhpas thinking this through, these age related unadoptable kids are actually "disposable' and should stay in the home of the single parent, rather than being given a "chance" (no matter how slim) at adoption by a good Christian 2 parent household?

Asshole!!

[Maraya1969]

16. God forbid they may turn out to be president of the United States one day!

[jwirr]

17. This is insane. They claim to have family values but they do nothing to keep families together.

And one of the things they never consider is what they are doing to the church that they claim to love and support. When I hear things like this I wonder why any of the youth in this country are going to church at all. This is a clear message that will not fly - hate & greed.

Adoption sometimes works but they are not talking about the voluntary placement of a child - they want it to be something all single mothers have to do.

Plus all of us know single mothers who have done an excellent job of raising their children. I do not qualify as a single mother because I was married but years after my divorce I raised my three daughters alone except the support of my family. Yes we used welfare but we did okay. I would have gotten off of welfare if I had not had a severely disabled daughter to take care of 24/7. I make no apologies. I am not their kind of Christian nor do I ever want to be. The apologies I make is to the single mothers who are hurt by this so called Christian spouting nonsense he does not know anything about.

[PotatoChip]

24. Question

Maybe I'm misunderstanding something here, but how do you not qualify as a single mother?

I do not qualify as a single mother because I was married but years after my divorce I raised my three daughters alone except the support of my family.

If you raised your 3 daughters w/out the presence of your husband in the home, that would make you a single mom, right? Or am I missing something here?

Put another way, I considered myself to be a single mom from the moment my husband and I separated. Our daughter was just a little over a year old at the time.

[jwirr]

27. I was coming from where I assume this so called christian was coming from. They think all the people

on welfare are women who have children out of wedlock. I and you know the difference but they do not. Given my very visible role of caretaker for my disabled daughter many of these so called Christians have had to back down but they still think that the majority of people on welfare are single women. Not children, not those of us who are separated from spouses, not the elderly or even the unemployed.

[PotatoChip]

28. Ahh, I see what you are saying, and definitely agree. (nt)

[Brigid]

19. Conservative Christian Leader is an idiot.

-- Brigid, Chapter 1, verse 1.

[El_Johns]

20. If God wanted that for those babies, why did he allow them to be born to single parents, huh?

[Iggo]

22. And if I told him I think Conservative Christians(TM) should put their kids up for adoption?

[yellowcanine]

23. Sounds as if Land would feel right at home with those Philomena nuns......

And yes I know that the nuns in question dispute some of the facts of the story. The point is that Land's attitude is remarkably similar to that of the nuns depicted in the movie. Basically in his mind a single mom has no maternal rights.

[struggle4progress]

25. Back in 1992, we had a vice-president who thought he could advance his team in the fall

by attacking a fictional character, Murphy Brown, on a TV sitcom for being a single mom

It was pure gold for the script writers, who had Murphy watch the ad and discuss it with other characters

Said Frank, "I don't blame you for being angry, but consider the source"

It was good advice twenty years ago, and it's good advice today

Richard Land was once a powerful figure in the Southern Baptist Convention, but his star has been fading there for some time now, it seems. He used to head the SBC's so-called Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, which used to support his radio show, but after his 2012 remarks on the Trayvon case were criticized as being not only hateful but also plagiarized from the Mooney Times, the ERLC took a big step back, reprimanding him and ditching its archive of his radio show

[HockeyMom]

26. Years ago, it wasn't just single Moms

but legally married Christian couples gave up their children when hard times hit them. Back then there were state run orphanages. Parents did not have to be dead or unwed, only POOR, to place their children there. My husband's great-grandparents (married over a decade) gave up their two sons to a state run orphanage when they themselves got sick, couldn't work anymore (no government programs), and couldn't take care of their two young sons. They were never adopted, but in fact were subsequently separated, and as adults spent years, long after both their parents died, trying to find each other.

Good old days of the USA?

[haele]

30. Remember Orphan trains? Cheap labor for farmers and ranchers.

"Orphans", who were routinely taken from impoverished or immigrant families in the ghettos and skid rows of the cities and sent out west to work their way to a state of morality in that "clean living, naturally wholesome" atmosphere of a homestead farm or ranch that was looking for free labor and couldn't have any kids (or any more kids). When they grew up or became troublesom, well - they were on their own. If they didn't fit in and the farmer or rancher didn't allow them to stay on as a hired hand (very rarely did the orphans ever become part of the family), they were told to go someplace else that would take them.

In 18th and 19th century London, there were poor houses, work houses and children's "homes" where families were regularly broken up and the children sent to the homes to train for service.
It was considered so very Christian at the time, because "obviously" the poor were poor because they were little more than animals, and society was at least giving their children a chance to better themselves - or at least the few whom God may have blessed with a bit of talent or skill through a parent or grandparent who must have been of a better class, but might have a short period of moral confusion that allowed a child from that mistaken union to be born.

I suspect the A-hat in the OP thinks the very same thing.

Haele

[notadmblnd]

29. So when my husband died and I became a single mother

I should have given our son away? They really think that would have been more beneficial to our child?

[JanT]

36. according to this asshat that is exactly what you need to do

because as his logic follows:
no husband means that the family is no longer whole. therefore the child cannot possibly get the nurturing necessary to create a contributing member of society.
this is what kills me about these - creatures - they spew all the hatred but their logic does not work.
This is why i just don't understand why individuals follow these people.

[notadmblnd]

43. The man is an idiot and I think he is the one who lacked nurturing while young.

And I'd bet money that at the ripe old age of 20, my son has made a greater contribution to the lives of others than that "Christian" ever has or ever will.

[HockeyMom]

41. My Grandpa died when my Mom was 6

and my Uncle was 2 during the Great Depression. Grandma never remarried although her BF for almost 50 years asked her every year until she died. Um, my Mom did not grow up to be a hooker, nor my Uncle a criminal without a father in their home. It takes a village. Yeah, too many people are clueless about what Hillary said decades ago.

My Grandma's brothers took the place of a father for their niece and nephew. In so many real life instances, this can be far better than their biological father in the home. Any man can be a father, but it takes a real man to be a DADDY. I remember my Mom saying many, many times that her UNCLE was the best Daddy she could ever have. Having know him in my own childhood, I can totally agree with that.

[notadmblnd]

42. My husband was a good man. Our son has grown to be a good man

My husband knew he was dying and he made certain that we'd be looked out for by friends and family before he died so our son has many mentors and role models.

My son has always made me proud and if his father were still alive, he would be proud too.

[woodsprite]

32. Hmmm, wonder what he'd say about my "christian" right-wing

tea party friend (old babysitter) who was in an interracial marriage, long story short, got divorced, got pregnant by a new guy, not planning on getting married and doesn't co-habitate with her boyfriend, and now is pregnant as a surrogate to another couple. Lives in an Amish community and works for an Amish (or Amish-like) business. Oh, and she also insists that Obamacare isn't needed because when she went to the hospital to have her son and had no insurance, the hospital just wrote the bills off, and they could do that for other people too.

Now she's pregnant again, but this time I believe the surrogate parents are paying.

I hate to say it or think it, but it seems she's found a way to supplement her income.

[JanT]

34. easy to draw that conclusion woodsprite nt

[Rex]

35. Republicans...never can figure them out...they say they don't want goverment

to control OUR lives (guns, freedumbs, etc) YET for some reason THEY don't have a problem PERSONALLY controlling YOUR/MY life!

Hmm...just one more reason the GOP makes America SUUUUUUUCK.

[xfundy]

37. "Christians" have become the antichrist.

The very thing they claimed to be so, so afraid of is right there in the mirror.

[Warren DeMontague]

38. Jesus loves the little children

A nearly inexhaustible source of cheap labor, my good chap!

[Ilsa]

39. I keep waiting for these assholes to die off.

But they keep brainwashing the little ones into believing this bullshit.

[Thinkingabout]

40. Wow, force births, forced to give up the children, this guy is falling apart at the seams.

What about the children in two parent homes where the male does not work, maybe doesn't take care of the kids while mom works, the couple fight all the time, there is spousal abuse and on and on but guess they can keep their kids.

Does Land spend time on getting his group to love each other, to care for the I'll, to help the poor as Jesus taught us. This would be a good opportunity to join with Pope Francis and spread goodwill throughout, but not down at SBC headquarters.

[Scuba]

44. They want to "Take My Country Back" ... to this ...