nature or nurture

It was a sunny weekend in Provincetown, the weather finally cooperated and there was great reason to be outdoors and announce how wonderful life was when the sky is blue, the wind whispers a warm steady tune, and all seems well in the world.

The weekend had lots of people milling around and in particular, families created of two mommies and two daddies. Lots of color combinations with parents of one shade of human colors and their children in contrasting but complimentary hues from light tan to dark chocolate.

Then I wondered. Then I thought, does love come from nature or is it nurtured?

I know as a parent of a son and daughter, that the second they came into this world, there was no question of my unconditional love. They are a part of their mother and myself, and so unique that no duplicate could ever arise to take their place. My love for my kids seemed to come from nature, they are my offspring. But was it nurturing that really sealed the deal to guide me day by day minute by minute in how to love them and to always love them.

I ask this question because I read two disturbing news articles, proclaiming reason why LGBT parents should not raise children, adopt children, and how same sex couples do more harm to children than good. I read that article fostered by a group of people who claim to stand for family values, but seem only to question the values of what American's perceive as non traditional families.

Nature or nurture?

So how would those same individuals who claim same sex couples make bad parents, explain how the adults in the Fred Phelps Church group raise their kids? They teach their kids to hate at an early age. Send them out on missions to yell, scream and spew hate of every kind and sort. The parents in the Fred Phelps Church group tell their own children that if they grow up to be the F word, or marry some one of the N word they will go to hell, and they too will suffer the consequences of all devil children. And that is love?

The Neo- Nazi groups in America, teach their children that difference is bad. That not only the gender preference of a child should be heterosexual, but that color and religion can make a good person bad if it is not like the one the parents have chosen and approved of. These parents teach their children how to hate, how best to become a bigot, and how to fear their own feelings if their feelings are not the same as the parents. Is that a love from nature or is it nurtured?

And Orthodox Jews will disown their children if they might mention that they are Gay or Lesbian. Orthodox Jewish parents have been known to send their children out of the home and never speak to them again. Is that love from nature or nurturing?

Some Evangelical households send their children to therapy to "un-Gay" them. They tell their children they are a spawn from Satin and until they change their ways they can not be saved, or truly loved by God. And if God can not find room for them in His/Her heart, then surely a mere mortal of a human, the parent can not do so either. Nature or nurture?

I loved walking down Commercial Street, seeing the variety of families, heterosexual, and homosexual parents, LGBT children, straight kids sharing the same space, doing the same things, and for most of he families there, understanding that it was nature that created the children, but it was true, deep love that nurtured the families.

My kids are the greatest gift I have received in this life. But for me nature was the gift wrapping, the essence of the gift was how I nurtured them. I just wonder why more people find that so hard to understand.