Families are like Individuals

The foregoing is a comment I posted at the Salt Lake Tribune site. I wrote it with the hope that Utah's judicial system will broaden the rights of unmarried fathers in adoption cases. I don't think it is right to deprive a man of the right to raise his child simply because he is not married. I wish the best of luck to Ramsey Shaud in his fight to gain custody of his little daughter.


There are many types of families in the United States today. I hope Utah's judges are smart enough to realize that one type of family is not necessarily better than the others.

There is the traditional family in which a heterosexual father and a heterosexual mother are married to each other.

But there are also single parents, divorced parents, and widowed parents raising children. There are also heterosexual couples who live together (but aren't married) having babies. There are blended families in which stepparents are raising children.

There are also grandparents raising their grandchildren. Sometimes aunts and uncles raise their nieces and nephews.

Foster parents and adoptive parents raise children too.

There are lesbian couples raising children together. (I've read that the statistics show that lesbian couples are good parents.) There are also gay men who are fathers.

You aren't going to like this, but there are polygamous families too.

There really isn't a "right" way to be a parent any more. Families are like individuals -- everybody is different.

One type of family isn't necessarily better than the others. It doesn't matter if the parents are married or not. What matters is that the parents love and care for their children. What matters is that the children aren't being abused or neglected.