On the December 13 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, Bill O'Reilly dismissed scientific research on same-sex parenting to assert that "[n]ature dictates that a dad and a mom is the optimum" form of child-rearing. O'Reilly asked "why," if children suffer no psychosocial deficit from being raised by same-sex parents, "wouldn't nature then make it that anybody could get pregnant by eating a cupcake?" O'Reilly declared that by arguing in favor of same-sex couples' right to raise children, "you're taking Mother Nature and you're throwing it right out the window, and I just think it's crazy." In fact, as Media Matters for America has repeatedly noted (here, here, here, and here), studies have consistently found that children raised by gay or lesbian parents suffer no adverse effects in their psychosocial development.Now, clearly this doesn't make any sense. Normally, anyway.
However, it DOES make sense if you stop and think "why 'mother nature'"? There's no such person, of course, and if he were trying to say that need a mother and father because of evolution, he'd invite a request asking for ANY proof of this supposition. After all, just because something has been done doesn't mean it MUST be done. It's silly, and I'm sure O'Reilly knows it.
Thing is, if you attribute this to some supernatural being, you're fine. So, yeah, O'Reilly said "mother nature", but you and I both know he was really using a code word for "God". Just like with Bush's cryptic comments during the debates, it's a way of making an argument on the sly that you could never make in public, as he'd be rightly and quickly called out for saying "God sez so" in any serious debate.
Which is kind of too bad. If he were honest, it might actually be a reasonable discussion, if a very different one. Instead, he just sounds like an idiot: a complete and utter tool.
Not that I'm going to lose any sleep over O'Reilly's reputation, but it'd be nice if Fox 'n Co. made an honest point for a change.
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