Mr. Glasshouse shows off his slingshot.

Mike Huckabee Compares Same-Sex Adoption To Experimentation: 'Children Are Not Puppies' (via HuffPo):

Former Arkansas governor and one-time presidential candidate Mike Huckabee has never been a huge champion of gay rights, but in a recent interview he went so far as to equate gay marriage with drug abuse and gay adoption to a science experiment.

During a conversation with the College of New Jersey's student publication, the Perspective, Huckabee reiterated his support for an Arkansas law that would ban same-sex couples from adopting children.

"I think this is not about trying to create statements for people who want to change the basic fundamental definitions of family," Huckabee, a Southern Baptist minister, said.

"Children are not puppies," he continued. "This is not a time to see if we can experiment and find out, how does this work?"

Wow. Since families actually do come in all sizes and configurations and just about always have, I'm not really sure why he seems to think that a same-sex couple adopting kids and raising them is somehow "experimental." After all, we all started out as kids, and got raised somehow. Some people got raised by two parents, some by one parent, some by some combination of grandparents, aunts, uncles, foster parents--and just like all families are different, all children are unique individuals. But what all children have in common is the need to be cared for and loved and kept safe, which gay people are absolutely as capable of doing as straights.

His comment that "Children are not puppies," makes me a little sad. I personally believe puppies should be loved and cared for and not ill-treated, too. What a very unfortunate comparison.

Because even a heterosexual couple with the standard "non-experimental" nuclear family can raise kids who aren't kind, even to a dog. Empathy is something a child learns from empathetic parents. Maybe Mr. Huckabee should refrain from speculating too vividly about how others might raise children. Perhaps he might want to learn to empathize with people who want to give a safe, positive environment to a child because they want to make that commitment, which is no light thing, and not suppose they are doing any such thing whimsically.