Honor your parent one and your parent two

Do you recall the news about a proposed law in France that would ban the terms “mother” and “father” and replace them with “parents” on official documents? The change was designed to accommodate the redefinition of marriage to include two people of the same sex. I wasn’t surprised. I knew it was a matter of time before I’d be reading about such changes in the United States. But I was wrong. The designations already exist for at least one government agency. In 2011, the State Department announced it would replace “mother” and “father” on passport applications with “parent one” and “parent two.”

In April, the Education Department announced it would do the same on the 2014-15 federal financial aid forms. The change purportedly was made to facilitate collecting income and other information from a dependent student’s parents, whether same-sex, married, or shacking up. So it’s only about money? Right. I predict this will happen with all government agencies.

My first reaction was a generous helping of dismay with a side of indignation. But these are only symptoms of a disease, not the disease itself. The tumor will continue to grow. Nothing short of Christ’s return will stop it. In the meantime, let’s indulge in some slippery slope speculation.

In a press release, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said, “All students should be able to apply for federal student aid within a system that incorporates their unique family dynamics.” If more students designate the male as “parent one,” will the females of these unique family dynamics take offense? What if a unique family dynamic includes three people? The parent one and parent two designations are rather exclusive, aren’t they? Perhaps the United States will do away with Mother’s Day and Father’s Day and replace them with Surrogate Day or Donor Day or a combined Parents’ Day or Caretakers’ Day.

I also predict that one day, like something out of science fiction, women will have the choice not to carry their biological children at all. Babies will grow outside the womb in laboratories, and anybody—married or unmarried, alone, or in twosomes or threesomes—would be allowed to adopt a lab baby.

Although God created men and women differently for His purposes, His creatures rebelliously seek to subvert those purposes and persuade others to pretend that sex-based differences don’t exist (unless the context is government preferences). When it comes to rearing children, the male-female complement is essential. Research shows that children are better off economically, educationally, emotionally, physically, etc., living with their married, biological parents. And children, when untainted by PC poison, want a mommy and a daddy.

“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you” (Exodus 20:12).

The married, opposite-sex, biological family unit is the ideal for which we should strive. Children should be taught to aspire to this ideal. The innumerable benefits aren’t incidental; they are essential and God-given.