What is a family? It used to be that a family consisted of at least a husband and wife, and then progressed with children. Extended families include grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, etc. Though whether immediate or extended, most everyone knew what a family was.

“Was” is the operative word.

What was and what is are two different things. Today, family refers to the 49 percent (or more) divorced families. A child’s family consists of a father and mother who don’t live together, stepparent (or two), and children of stepparents. That’s a family.

Divorce has effectively influenced our society to do a double take on the definition of family. In an attempt to keep children from being psychologically harmed by divorce (we recognize that divorce is harmful, not helpful), courts now have elaborate child sharing plans where Johnny lives with mom one week, then dad the next, or perhaps over periods of months. Dad gets six months, mom gets six months, and Johnny gets an identity crisis.

The reshaping of the modern American family did happen on purpose. It was the result of the loss of American values. Marriage is no longer held in high esteem. While some couples marry with the intention of staying married, others marry planning for escape later. This is just part of the new trend where the reshaping of the American family does not happen by accident – but on purpose.

If a man and a woman can marry and have a family, then why not a man and a man? The attempts by homosexual movements to attain legal rights as family pose a great danger to traditional American families. This year San Francisco took steps to “normalize” homosexuality by giving a type of marital status to homosexual couples seeking legal union. San Francisco authorities have in essence said that though homosexuality is morally repugnant to most Americans, and medical science has demonstrated it to be unhealthy and abnormal, homosexual couples are on the same legal and moral footing as heterosexual married couples. If a permanent marital status is granted, will they need divorces like other couples? Can they sue for child support and alimony? Of course, child support assumes that homosexual couples can have children. Indeed, that is exactly what is happening. What gays and lesbians cannot acquire naturally, they must resort to taking through legislation and litigation.

The homosexual political movement has long had an agenda for gay rights that includes adopting children. This means that a state agency must approve of the home of a homosexual couple in order to place a child. What is a gay couple and a normal couple wanted to adopt the same child? Who would provide a better environment for a growing child? Even raising the question causes the gay couple to rise in protest. Yet the identity of the homosexual is predicated upon who he or she is sleeping with. The gay community has built entire political and civic movements based upon who they sleep with.

There are other means of redefining the family that are not so obvious. Educational leaders view trained educators as the only qualified people to teach children. In fact, the current educational system is predicated upon more administrative control over how, who, and why we educate rather than on the basics of education itself. Education in the 1990s focuses on affecting students socially and emotionally instead of academically. Social issues in the classroom provide avenues for advancing abortion on demand and explicit sex education. What does abortion on demand and sex education have to do with core aptitudes? Nothing, but teachers unions are proactive in these and other left-wing issues.

Reshaping the family is also a media event. While the Cosby Show, and Family Matters, have been redefining changes in family portrayal, family betrayal is still the media norm.

My Two Dads was a warm show about two men raising a teenage girl. Often a cute show, it also lent support to the idea of homosexual families. The characters on the program were not gay, but the idea that two uncommitted men living under one roof could successfully raise a teenage girl without a mother’s influence was one of the subtlest ways the media has lent support to the concept of homosexual families.

Common law marriages and domestic partnerships between unmarried couples have also hurt the traditional family. Why bother to get married at all? Live together and split when your partner gets ugly, or fat, or bitchy, or when someone “better” comes along. Domestic partners can sue for many of the same rights as married couples.

Many churches are now sanctioning homosexual marriage, recognizing common law marriages, and domestic partnerships. When the institution that is supposed to uphold the differences between right and wrong lowers its guard and accepts such foreign definitions for marriage and family, then it ceases to be a church at all. It is nothing more than a popular social club.