"It seems that parliaments around Australia, both at a federal and state level are hell bent to legalise fatherlessness. There was a vote yesterday in the Lower House of the New South Wales Parliament to support Clover Moore’s homosexual adoption bill. This bill was, by default, an active promotion of fatherlessness and is bad policy for our children and a bad example to Australia. It is treating children as goods and chattels. It is all about adults rights and has absolutely nothing to do with children’s rights."

I need the author to explain this premise, because it makes no sense. How does a bill that permits same sex adoption actively promote fatherlessness?

I agree with the author that a good dad in a child's life is a wonderful thing. But is he claiming that gay men can't be good dads? And if so, on what does he base that claim?

Or is he interpreting "homosexual" to mean exclusively "lesbian?"

Given that child abuse overwhelming occurs in heterosexual family arrangements, (indigenous and non-indigenous) which are the dominant arrangements thus far in our society, perhaps it is time we gave other arrangements an opportunity to see if they can do better?

Abusing children is using them and denying them their rights. If this is a core concern for the author, perhaps he should focus on it, instead of making wild allegations about the bill as a promotion and legalisation of fatherlessness.

And since when has being fatherless been "illegal?"

Being fatherless myself, I'd really like that bit cleared up.

@Briar Rose - I think you missed (perhaps deliberately) this line: "yet disturbingly the Bill before the NSW parliament seeks to ensure that children can be raised motherless or fatherless"

I think the author's point was that by being adopted into a same-sex household children are guaranteed to be missing out on either a mother or father. I'm not sure if I agree with the overall argument of the article either but we should at least be fair and intelligent in arguing against it.

Some of the statistics sighted I'm sure would be affected by the fact that many people who grow up in fatherless environments also grow up in environments where many other negative factors affecting development exist. I have no doubt that a loving and involved father is better than one who is the opposite or not present at all. The statistics and argument for me though don't really convince that it's not possible to provide a loving and healthy environment that is something other than one father and one mother.

Children are already fostered into same sex households - allowing them to be adopted gives the adoptive parents and the children security, and the same rights as children adopted into heterosexual households.

If the author is against same sex adoption, he must surely be against same sex fostering?

I don't understand why he doesn't address this as I would expect it to be a problem for him, given his position. Doesn't he care if children fostered by same sex parents stay in an indefinite legal limbo? Or does he think they should all be taken away, and sent back to group homes until a heterosexual couple want them?

The premise underlying all arguments such as Mr Marsh's is the received wisdom that heterosexuals provide the best environment in which to raise children. We know heterosexuals can and too frequently do provide an appalling environment - but to suggest that the cause of this failure is their heterosexuality is ludicrous

...yet apparently it's all right to argue that anything that might go wrong in a same sex household is caused because the household is same sex.

Call me a romantic, but I believe love occurs and flourishes in very many environments, and I've seen this happen.

I'm very interested in the pathology of people who insist they know that this cannot be so, and are driven to impose their reductionist thinking on the rest of us.

Keep your own heart closed to other possibilities, that's your right in this democracy. But you don't have the right to insist that everybody else must close theirs.

I agree with briar rose. While of course fathers are important, Warwick Marsh seems to be arguing that homosexual fathers aren't as important as heterosexual fathers without actually establishing why.

As a father and grandfather, I love my kids and grandkids to bits and ensure that I'm there for them as much as is humanly possible. But my sexuality has nothing to do with it - I'm quite sure I'd feel exactly the same if I happened to be homosexual. Hey, if I was, my kids could have two 'fathers'!

What I think is far more important than simple biological paternity (or maternity for that matter) is that children have loving, responsible parents of whatever gender or sexuality who can provide for them emotionally and materially.

Fathers are certainly important, but there's no logical connection between that fact and gay adoption, despite Marsh's attempts to link them.

My children were bought up in a household where mum and dad were married. They lived in hell and they still wear the scars into middle age. Up to the late 70, it was considered in the best interest of the child to take children off single mums. It was OK to leave the children with widows and deserted mothers as long as they went out to work. The truth is that as long as children are in a happy home with people who love them and meet their needs, they will be OK. Role models can be found in the extended families, among friends and within their social life. No child is reared in isolation.