Participants at Rome seminar warn gay marriage poses risk to children

Published: 2006-02-24

ROME (CNS) -- Gay marriage and gay adoption would undermine society's traditional configuration and pose risks to the children raised by same-sex couples, warned participants at a Rome seminar. Participants at the Feb. 20-24 seminar, offered for course credit by the Pontifical Lateran University, studied the topic: "The Homosexual Question: Psychology, Rights and the Truth of Love." In a public conference Feb. 23, professors teaching the seminar spoke at length about the threats posed by the gay rights movement and said current legislative proposals around the world could have far-reaching effects on how society is structured. French Msgr. Tony Anatrella, a psychoanalyst and consultant to the Pontifical Council for the Family, said gay couples were unable to give children the model of sexual difference that any child needs to develop his or her own sexual identity. He referred to one recent study, which he said showed that 40 percent of children raised by homosexuals became homosexuals themselves. Msgr. Anatrella said there were other psychological "collateral effects" of being raised by a same-sex couple that show up only in adulthood, including anxiety over sexual differentiation. When it comes time for these young people to form their own families, they suffer because they have not learned to accept the sexual difference between two adults, he said.

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