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Katy Faust is the founder of that organization that is attempting to put “Children’s rights before adult desires.”
More to the Story with Dr. Andy Miller III is a podcast exploring theology in the orthodox Wesleyan tradition. Hear engaging interviews and musings from Dr. Miller each week.
Welcome to the more to the story podcast, I am delighted and excited to have on the podcast with me the founder of them before us miss katie Faust katie welcome to the podcast.
katyfaust: i'm really excited to be here i've had a chance to listen to some of your other episodes i'd encourage your readers to your listeners to go back and i'm checking out as well because you're doing some really good work here so it's an honor to be on the platform.
Andy Miller III: Thank you, and if I said, Miss it's Mrs right, please excuse me.
katyfaust: This is like that Mr i'll tell you what I wouldn't be able to do.
katyfaust: So much of what i'm able to do without the Mr um.
You know.
katyfaust: Well, you know we can talk about all kinds, but my husband's a pastor.
katyfaust: Easy yeah, so we are we're deep into church life, you know he's deep into theology, we are deep into Community and we.
katyfaust: You know i'm we are, this is my maybe we don't want to go here, but you know we're compliments Syrians.
Andy Miller III: yeah.
katyfaust: You really believe in headship in the church and had shipping the home and it's so funny when I run across people that are like Oh well, that just means that you're barefoot pregnant doormat for your husband and i'm like a girl i'm traveling the world.
katyfaust: Okay, I have all over this place i'm raising four kids right deepen community.
katyfaust: I am, like the most empowered woman, that you will.
katyfaust: eat right and it is because of complimentary aneurysm, it is because my husband has seen himself as.
katyfaust: The Leader, the one that is going to protect and provide right the one that's shouldering the load and responsibility for our family so i've been able to just like really live within my gifting so anyway, there is a Mr and he deserves lots of attention.
Andy Miller III: amen and I, I would say, like it's interesting you have if people Google you or YouTube you they wouldn't necessarily pick up on that, because your argument and what you're trying to do we'll get into in a second.
Andy Miller III: isn't necessarily something that is going toward like just making conservatives feel good about themselves like you're you're going for the heart of the beast like you're going to write in it and.
Andy Miller III: And even the fact that there is a Mr and Mrs is an important piece of your argument.
Andy Miller III: But I need to tell them what you're arguing for but briefly if I so them before us is this organization that you're the founder of, and it also you have a book that's just come out.
Andy Miller III: With the same title, and I only take my little journey with this idea in general came as a pastor serving for a pastor for 15 years.
Andy Miller III: I worked as hard as I could arguments, particularly as we got to a burger felt in 2012 and trying to figure out like what same sex marriage could mean How does this work, and then I got to the place.
Andy Miller III: Interesting where I heard a lecture by Robert George and then I heard a lecture by Ryan T Anderson.
Andy Miller III: And both people all sudden turn my perspective on what this means for society and their argument had to do with children and then, when I think you've and then Robert George writes a forward for your book.
Andy Miller III: who's a professor at princeton.
Andy Miller III: well respected natural law component, and this is this is like something that has benefited me greatly, but then I found out about you.
Andy Miller III: and your good work to take that same message into a public audience and move it forward to tell if i've missed it, maybe, let me, let me know like what is them before us and what are you trying to do.
katyfaust: yeah you've really set the stage well because these arguments have been alive in the philosophical and academic realm for a long time, but for the most part, have been pretty inaccessible to person to the ordinary reader.
katyfaust: And there, they are airtight I mean this this argument, so what we're doing at them before us is, we are arguing for the rights of children.
katyfaust: We are arguing for children's rights in the family, now a lot of your listeners are probably familiar with a child right to life.
katyfaust: Right and that's a natural right we believe in that right, even if the law doesn't recognize the child's right to life, well children also have rights on this side of the womb to.
katyfaust: Yes.
katyfaust: Right and their primary right after their right to life is their right to be known and loved by both mother and father, so this is something that has been.
katyfaust: surrounded by natural lawyers, for a long time, of which certainly Robert George and Ryan Anderson are you know part of that that tradition, but what we're trying to do is we are trying to put faces on that argument right.
Andy Miller III: Okay.
katyfaust: And so, one of the main things we do at them before us is, we tell the stories of kids right we tell the stories of kids primarily.
katyfaust: Of kids who have lost a relationship with their mother or father, and then we make arguments about how public policy should align with children's natural right to be known and loved by their mom and dad.
katyfaust: And that implicates a lot of people right it's not yes, certainly, we got a lot of attention we started to focus on this question because of gay marriage.
katyfaust: But the implications, the disintegration of these rights began long before gay marriage and they are continuing after gay marriage.
katyfaust: And what does it mean you know, overall, well, I was doing a panel at the Heritage Foundation, a couple years ago.
katyfaust: And I said children's Rights makes claims makes demands because children have a claim to their mother and father.
katyfaust: children's rights this argument makes demands of all adults single married gay and straight.
katyfaust: In the world of children's rights no adult gets passed every adult must respect the rights of children, that means at some point in our life every adult has to do, hard things.
katyfaust: To protect the rights of children in our life and I I said, you know somebody said well gosh you know some of what you're saying is kind of offensive to some groups, and I said Oh, give me some time i'll say something offensive to every adult group.
katyfaust: Yes.
katyfaust: Right hey, this is an indiscriminate message in terms of who it will infringe on when it comes to adults and what they want in this world of children's rights all adults bend so that children's rights are protected.
Andy Miller III: In the problem you suggest is in adult centric approach.
Andy Miller III: that's come come out and this is why.
Andy Miller III: Your argument isn't just about gay marriage it's not just about any of the LGBT Q agenda and said, this is also connected to divorce, I mean what you say you said it came out before, do you think it starts and may probably started, for us, but even no fault divorce.
katyfaust: Yes, so um when people like you know i'll say look gays and lesbians are not responsible for the abysmal state of the US family right now.
katyfaust: Okay, so in terms of a legal sense the first redefinition of marriage was no fault divorce, the passage of fault divorce that began in the late 60s.
katyfaust: ramped up spread all across the country in the 70s and 80s hit epidemic levels in the early 90s right like that was the first legal redefinition of marriage, where we have these.
katyfaust: norms of marriage, one of which was permanence that this was going to be a lifelong relationship.
katyfaust: And no fault divorce in essence said it's not lifelong right, in essence, no fault divorce, was the first time that we said marriage is not an institution centered around.
katyfaust: The well being of children, which is historically how it's been.
katyfaust: it's been a vehicle of children's rights children thriving because it's the only institution that unites the two people to whom children have a natural right that's why it's been the most child friendly institution, the world has ever known now.
katyfaust: No fault divorce said no marriage is really just about your fulfillment and your happiness and so, if you cease to be happy.
katyfaust: The marriage can cease to exist, and so you take that framework of well if marriage is just exist to make me happy.
katyfaust: Well then, what if what makes me happy is marrying another man or marrying a woman, and then you go well, then yeah if marriage is just about adult happiness then marriage, should be able to be whatever adults want it to be, and we really did codify that.
katyfaust: The US past when a burger fell was legalized by the Supreme Court, in essence, making it the law of the land all across the country, and now we have no way of shutting down any other kinds any other forms of marriage, because we have such as polygamy.
katyfaust: Right polygamy this next time flies it's coming yeah it's here right like Center not just coming it's here.
katyfaust: it's here right like we already have one town in Massachusetts that has legalized polygamy.
Andy Miller III: Because and polyamory right.
katyfaust: And Pauline that's actually the more accurate term.
katyfaust: Okay, this group marriage right because they said we don't have any legal recourse we don't have any there's no more legal arguments we can make to bar the relationship of more than two people, because the only reason there was two.
katyfaust: Is because there was one of each man and woman right, but now that we've said that this is really just a vehicle of adult fulfillment well sometimes seven adults fulfill and adults.
Andy Miller III: desire so.
katyfaust: yeah like we are in a mess we're in a mess and and ultimately its children who are going to suffer.
Andy Miller III: And this is why this kind of basis of your happiness a consumer stick approach towards sex a consumer is sick approach towards marriage.
Andy Miller III: Anthony Kennedy justice Anthony Kennedy would say that the problem with the.
Andy Miller III: burger fell decision was why he over his dignity harm right, this is something that is getting away of you finding your own fulfillment in yourself so that's incredibly problematic.
Andy Miller III: I wanted to go back to just the piece like of why this matters and what you've helped me what I truly appreciate it.
Andy Miller III: Like intellectually helping me develop arguments for this and the others that I mentioned, is that what what is the reason society even acknowledge his marriage and that's key that i'm saying acknowledges marriage like is.
Andy Miller III: It that it creates something for the society as a whole, it isn't about purple personal fulfillment this isn't about theology or biblical studies, which is often where i'm dealing with it instead like this is creating an environment where children.
Andy Miller III: thrive and then become participants in society now one of the arguments that would come up, though, is like well I know some people who have.
Andy Miller III: grown up in a same sex relationship around a children have a same sex relationship and they're fine and Andy after all you've worked in a Salvation Army you've worked with kids who are homeless.
Andy Miller III: People who are almost it once you, rather than being a home be safe than to you know, or would you would you rather be homeless than to be in the home of same sex marriage, I mean, how do you respond to that.
katyfaust: Right Okay, so I hear three different things happening.
Andy Miller III: There, so I know I asked too much I.
katyfaust: Know that's no that's great because I want to do all of them.
katyfaust: And we will okay so talk about children's rights to their mother and father, just so everybody.
katyfaust: Right, this is a natural right, it is similar we make the case in Chapter one of our book on why this is.
katyfaust: Almost exactly we can understand it in the same way that we understand children's natural right to life.
katyfaust: Right in fact they're two sides of the same natural law coin right also This goes hand in hand with parental rights.
katyfaust: Just like the adults care which child they leave the hospital with right because there's something special about that biological connection.
katyfaust: Children also care what parents, they go home with from the hospital right children also care about which adults are raising them.
katyfaust: And then, when we want to zoom out and look at it from a sociological perspective, why is it that these two adults.
katyfaust: have such power in the life of kids right so when we look at populations that are suffering in the United States when it comes to kids whether kids living in poverty.
katyfaust: kids that are at risk of suicide dropping out of school at risk for teen pregnancy at risk for criminality at risk for behavioral disorders at risk for living on the street homeless all of those populations have something in common.
katyfaust: And that is that.
katyfaust: They are disproportionately fatherless.
katyfaust: Absolutely, so if we can protect a child right to their mother and father, you will decimate and I use that term precisely because you will wipe down to attend a lot of the time, the.
katyfaust: That we're suffering with today like we do not have to spin our wheels and figure out how to spend money to fix child poverty, get kids off the street, you can do one thing defend children's rights.
katyfaust: And you can wipe out nearly every social issue that we are facing today, and that is why.
katyfaust: children's rights is a social justice issue now marriage is the most time tested.
katyfaust: solution that any government any religion any culture has ever found to protect children's rights to their mother and father right.
katyfaust: So marriage is that critical social justice issue for kids that gives them both that stacks the deck in their favor that sets them up for success, so why is it that this natural right to a child's mother and father is so powerful.
katyfaust: For three reasons number one, it gives kids with statistically the safest most connected to most protective of them adults in their life Okay, and all of us know.
katyfaust: heroic step parents who are filling the void for a negligent biological parent those adults exist, they deserve praise they deserve affirmation.
katyfaust: But statistically, the addition of a stepfather does not improve outcomes for a child those kids fair about, as well as a kid raised by a single mom in addition.
Andy Miller III: To statistically you're not you're not judging anybody you're just saying this is yeah.
katyfaust: Those are the numbers right and it's kind of a facts don't care about your feelings kind of.
katyfaust: we've been studying this for decades you're not going up against me you're going up against some of the best truthfully evolutionary biologists that are out there Okay, and speaking of evolutionary biologists, the other.
katyfaust: Importance about biological connection is an unrelated cohabiting man in a child's life, especially mother's boyfriend or mother's new husband is statistically statistically.
katyfaust: The most dangerous person in a child's life okay an unrelated cohabiting adult even a woman will increase the likelihood of accidents or neglect or abuse.
katyfaust: And this is called the Cinderella effect very well established in the sociological literature feel free to fact check me, in fact, to a quick, you can just pause this podcast right now in fact check me.
katyfaust: In this minute Google works mother's boyfriend okay just positive podcasts Google towards mother's boyfriend and come back when you're done.
katyfaust: yeah i'll wait.
Andy Miller III: haha yeah.
katyfaust: OK, so now now you're back okay what you saw was pages and pages of the most horrific graphic abuse and fill aside that is child death at the hands.
katyfaust: Of mother's boyfriend because it takes more than being in a romantic relationship with somebody.
katyfaust: parent to treat the child as a parent okay So the first thing that this natural right does is it gives kids the most protective.
katyfaust: adults in their life statistically number two it gives them something that no other adults can give them and that's biological identity.
katyfaust: Okay now i'm laying all this out because I want to get to your same sex parenting question but but biological identity is something that really matters to kids every kid.
katyfaust: In adolescence their big question they're asking is who am I.
katyfaust: And a lot of those answers from kids come from well I come from my mother or my father or were Italian or i'm the daughter of my grandmother, you know before before you and I started this podcast I held up.
katyfaust: The Bible of my great grandfather, who was a Methodist missionary in China, and I still look at that and I go that's part of my heritage.
katyfaust: like that.
katyfaust: That.
katyfaust: i'm connected to.
katyfaust: I am yeah that's a part of me right, and so biology does play a role in our identity formation and the people who tell us that the loudest are the ones who were raised, without it so.
katyfaust: adoptee right adoptees scout adoptees, we all know somebody who was adopted oftentimes by amazing heterosexual loving mothers and fathers who then when they're 20 go.
katyfaust: who's that person other what happened there, I want to go find out, and now we have.
katyfaust: decades of children created through sperm and egg donation, who are scouring the Internet trying to find their biological parents or maybe they're 50 biological half siblings so this identity right this biological identity matters for kids and they can only get it from two adults.
katyfaust: Their mom.
katyfaust: And their dad their biological mom and dad and, finally, the third reason why this natural child right matters so much is.
katyfaust: because it gives children the perfect gender balance in their home 100% of the time right sociologists have been studying family structure for decades.
katyfaust: It is obvious that men and women offer distinct and complimentary benefits to children, men talk different play different discipline differently.
katyfaust: orient their child to the world differently, you know moms tend to focus more on the immediate emotional well being fairness fine motor skills dads push their kids to be adventurous risk takers they do gross motor skill development with their kids.
katyfaust: And having both halves of humanity in your home maximizes child development so that is why even left leaning scholars right even left leaning sources like child trends would say.
katyfaust: If you want the best chance at your child thriving it is going to be the home.
katyfaust: raised a child, raised by their married biological parents okay like it is this power of biology power of the biological parents and that gives something to kids that no other household arrangement is going to offer them.
Andy Miller III: So you want to thank you say to me, I know you're getting you're just about to get to answer my question which I sent you all along goose chase but I love the chase so one of the things that.
Andy Miller III: You say, though, in your book is that's helpful to me is there's no such thing almost of them a parenting there's mothering and fathering yep.
katyfaust: that's right that's exactly right like i'm men don't mother women don't Father kids need both right there's no way you know, one of the things that I do is I work with.
katyfaust: One of the things I do, that we don't that really nobody else does is we gather the stories of kids who have lost their mother or father and we kind of break that up into three categories.
katyfaust: Children of divorce and abandonment children created through reproductive technologies and children with LGBT parents and of those kids with LGBT parents.
katyfaust: Many of them were raised by, for example, a lesbian couple where one was more feminine and one was what they would call butch right, I had a butch mom and I had a more feminine mom and.
katyfaust: The butch mom dressed more masculine and worked on cars and.
katyfaust: liked sports and things like that I have yet to hear one of those kids say yeah that butch mom totally satisfied my desire for a father wow it didn't yeah right because it takes more than.
katyfaust: A haircut to interact with a child, the way a man would interact with a child.
katyfaust: We are wired down to our brains down to our physical bodies differently and that expresses itself in critical ways in the parent child relationship so mothering is not a switch that a guy can flip on.
katyfaust: There have been studies that show that when it's a single dad or two dads it's very important to try to.
katyfaust: replicate the bonding instinct the nurturing instinct that mothers have for babies that dads don't have, in the same way, so literally they've encouragement to.
katyfaust: shoot oxytocin up their nose to try to make them a little more nurturing the way mothers are mothers and fathers are different and kids need both.
Andy Miller III: Right, and this is a part, this is why this to come in natural law argument is a pre political idea this comes from them like the basic structure of the complementary nature of like how God has designed the universe.
Andy Miller III: And the thing is like you notice here to even though katie started by talking about like.
Andy Miller III: her own relationship with her husband and the way that that works in a couple military way.
Andy Miller III: For arguments are not like, just like a biblical and theological of course you're going to find great backup for that there and in here, and you say this, too, I learned this through another podcast I had heard of you earlier, through your well known blog our.
Andy Miller III: blog Well, yes blog and YouTube ask a bigot right that was I so that came it came around somewhere around or burger fell to it and I learned about your your own personal story like your connection to this world, particularly LGBT.
Andy Miller III: Arrangements good yeah also about that.
katyfaust: yeah totally um yeah I never like I was thinking about this man 10 years ago I was.
katyfaust: 10 years ago I was preparing to adopt our son.
katyfaust: um though we had just gotten home right we had been a home about three months with our newly adopted son, I was just in the throes of adoption adjusting to his special needs.
katyfaust: Trying to balance mothering involved in a new church like I wasn't doing any of this like children's rights.
katyfaust: Like activism nothing like that, but when we first started to debate gay marriage what I heard the other side, saying is.
katyfaust: The only reason you possibly could support traditional marriage is bigotry you just hate gay people that's all it is, and I just like that broke me, you know, because my mom has been in a relationship with her partner for about 35 years.
katyfaust: And i've been connected with them and love them and after my parents divorced I split time between their home and the home of my father.
katyfaust: And I kind of grew up in this lesbian world and a lot of ways, and so hatred and phobia had literally zero to do with.
katyfaust: My position rather this advocacy for children's rights to their mother and father and the importance of marriage uniting those two adults came from a couple decades of working with kids and watching their their lives be shattered.
katyfaust: and watching them grieve and mourn when their mother or father was gone, I mean like you you've got some Salvation Army people in your audience they're working with kids to.
katyfaust: When those kids talk about their greatest heartache what is it it's probably why did my dad leave yeah like do you think he thinks about me he said he would call last weekend and I didn't go anywhere, because I was just waiting and he never did.
katyfaust: Right.
katyfaust: you've had those conversations.
katyfaust: Absolutely no have I.
katyfaust: Right you've heard the kid go, you know I guess my mom loves drugs more than she loves me so there must be something wrong with me.
katyfaust: So this is one of the most painful things that kids especially teens experience, I still talk to people who are in their 40s grown men with.
katyfaust: Successful careers, who can't talk about their father absence without losing it on the phone.
katyfaust: Right, this goes down, it is what we call at them before I say primal wound.
katyfaust: A wound that goes down to your primary needs and oftentimes something you never get over.
katyfaust: And so, when I heard the other side, you know dismissing the importance of mothers and fathers first and then saying well you're a bigot if you've been think that kids should have moms and dads, that is what kind of moved me in the direction of.
katyfaust: Pardon me, you know what F you.
katyfaust: that's kind of like what happened right.
Andy Miller III: yeah yeah sure.
katyfaust: You know you're saying that only bigotry well bring it, you know, I guess, the only way to not be a big it is to agree with all of your political conclusion so.
katyfaust: I guess that makes me a bigot right, even though I love my gay family and friends, even though, like I have well reason secular arguments for my position, so it began as a blog anonymous because i'm a complete chicken.
katyfaust: Oh, I know what these people do to your life and your family if you speak.
Andy Miller III: up.
katyfaust: So I just started writing about it and then.
katyfaust: Was outed by a very loving and tolerant gay blogger, who docs to members of my church to get me to shut up.
katyfaust: And then I was you know out riding under my own name which it was very much a what the enemy, he means for evil kind of situation, because now it's like you know i'm leaving in 30 minutes to go speak at the values voter summit.
Andy Miller III: You know into it amen.
katyfaust: I never would have been doing that, if I had been you know behind my keyboard blogging anonymously so anyway um.
Andy Miller III: yeah that's great.
katyfaust: there's been twists and turns.
Andy Miller III: I love it, I mean it's amazing how God has led you to this place to be in this position, and to do it and the public discourse in the public square and you're like I enjoyed our stuff back to my question.
Andy Miller III: So this and i've been confronted this argument working and homeless services and doing it in jesus's name isn't it better to get people.
Andy Miller III: homeless kids into a home where they have people financially, providing for them, so what if they happen to be a gay couple or lesbian couple or a transfer whatever whatever is evolved then then being on the street.
katyfaust: i'm such a good question and i'll phrase it another common way oh so you're saying you'd rather have a kid languishing and an overseas orphanage then adopted by two loving women right.
katyfaust: yeah sure about that one you know that's kind of the flip side so let's talk about that.
katyfaust: So the first thing that we need to talk about is adoption what is adoption okay adoption is a just society's response to children who have lost their parents adoption is not a way for adults to get kids okay.
katyfaust: And so, a lot of the times we have this concept in our mind that like Oh well, you can't adopt or you want to add to your family well i'm sorry you can't have kids of your own you're infertile well, you should adopt.
Andy Miller III: Right consumerist it.
katyfaust: Sometimes that's the case, but primarily adoption does not exist to get kids to adults option exists to give children, parents who have lost them in adoption, the adults are not the client the child is the client.
katyfaust: Okay, in adoption if adoption is done well, every child who needs a family will be placed in a loving home but not every adult who wants them will get a kid.
katyfaust: Okay that's, the most important thing, so if this is a child centric enterprise which it should be institution, I should say.
katyfaust: Then we need to serve the child, we need to evaluate the homes that will best give the child what they need.
katyfaust: So that means adoption agencies and I used to work at the largest Chinese Adoption Agency in the world, so this is not a theoretical question for me right, we looked at these factors we evaluated, especially single parent placements.
katyfaust: And we said Okay, what is the best placement for this child in need and that calculation has a lot of factors, one of them is, are you able to handle this child special need.
katyfaust: Right, can you take a sibling group so that the siblings can stay together, do you have some kind of biological connection with the child, so the child can retain their kinship bonds, for example.
katyfaust: um but one of those calculations is is it a home where the child will receive both the maternal and paternal love that they crave and that maximizes child development so in our calculus.
katyfaust: prioritizing homes, where there is a married mother and father should be a huge part of that calculation when you're talking about a placing agency.
katyfaust: Right, because that is what's going to be in the best interest of the child, whenever possible Okay, so people will say well don't you think that LGBT people have a right to adopt and like no.
katyfaust: No adult has a right to adopt.
Andy Miller III: A there you go.
katyfaust: Every child has a right to be adopted right, but my husband and I we don't have a just because we saw this beautiful boys picture.
katyfaust: That doesn't mean that he should he should just be handed to us, we had to go through months justifiably screening vetting background checks criminal histories.
katyfaust: Physical exams references, the social worker came in like watch this parent our kids interviewed our kids and that's how it's supposed to be.
katyfaust: Right it's not about us getting a kid is that kid going to get what they need in our home okay well that's adoption First, it is not about the adults it's about the kids.
katyfaust: Now right when you are talking about.
katyfaust: White drug free infants okay in this country, there is a long line of adults who are willing to take those kids on right because it's fairly low cost.
katyfaust: When you are talking about foster kids here in the United States or special needs kids that are living overseas.
katyfaust: Unfortunately, that number dwindles quite a bit in terms of even Christian heterosexual couples that are willing to do the hard work of bringing that child into their home and.
katyfaust: As a woman who has an adopted child with special needs, who lived in an institution for a couple years those challenges are not minimal.
katyfaust: Right um yeah and same with my friends who are fostering and foster adopt right, you are, this is not child needs parents parents come in problem solved right.
katyfaust: This is lifelong shepherding of that child through their primal wound okay.
katyfaust: Now, in those harder cases in the United States and overseas sometimes you're not going to find that.
katyfaust: married mother, father home right that's financially able and and understands the special needs and in that case the Adoption Agency should make the best placement sometimes that might be the home of the same sex couple.
katyfaust: Okay, but that is a lot that is a much farther away from saying moms and dads don't matter you know, gays have a right to adopt um marriage has no impact and no.
katyfaust: informed this conversation on marriage and family at all what we're saying is that there are situations exceptions, to be honest, where sometimes the best placement for child would be a same sex couple and.
katyfaust: This is such a theoretical question i'm probably like literally one of the only people that have lived it practically because I had.
katyfaust: Some lesbian friends of mine that were that did say I will adopt a child in an overseas institution with very serious special needs.
katyfaust: And because I was in the adoption world I know for a fact that that babies well that young girls profile had been passed over by a lot of Christian heterosexual couples and only this lesbian couple was willing to take her on and they said we need help, and I said i'm going with you.
katyfaust: Right, so we went and we.
katyfaust: Did two weeks of grueling adjustment, I mean it was really one of the hardest two weeks of all of our lives, it was so hard and they were willing to give the girl but ended up being yearly surgeries for her condition so um yes.
katyfaust: There can be a situation, yes, it might be better for a same sex couple or a single.
katyfaust: To adopt a child who is in need, but that is oftentimes the exception to us to say see kids don't need.
Andy Miller III: across the board.
katyfaust: analogy doesn't matter in love makes a family, which is wrong.
Andy Miller III: Right and that's often the argument love makes a family.
Andy Miller III: And that's what you're saying, like the.
Andy Miller III: Biological functions and natural law approach doesn't suggest it and that's why it while the exceptions exist, it should be okay for Adoption Agency to make give clarity to their priorities that's right.
katyfaust: The priority is not giving adults what they want, the priority is the child and sometimes that means standing up to angry lobbies, and you know what that's what top protection looks like.
Andy Miller III: wow now i'm interested to you said adoption is not a right, and one thing I found helpful in your book two is.
Andy Miller III: The way that you take the discussion of rights, you can simplify it away I hadn't heard before, so I think it's really it's really helpful because um you know we talk sometimes about healthcare as a right.
Andy Miller III: Adoption as a right.
Andy Miller III: But you're you you give a you think it's three examples of what a right is, could you go over that with us.
katyfaust: yeah totally I should probably grab the book to make sure that I get.
Andy Miller III: Something like that yeah.
katyfaust: But, but really we're trying to say, like everybody, these days, if you really, really, really, really want something adults, especially be like it's a right and so like we've got like birth control, paid for by the government is are right and housing is a right, and you know.
katyfaust: Community colleges are right, and I mean all anything that somebody really wants they think that they will strengthen their argument if they call it a right.
katyfaust: But when we talk about natural rights we make a distinction between rights and commodities and.
katyfaust: You know we're not philosophers.
katyfaust: My co author and I are very much like practical application lay people.
katyfaust: And so kind of offered a few little cheats in terms of figuring out what is a natural right and we believe that natural rights should also be recognized as legal rights like that's that's kind of Martin Luther King junior's argument as well.
katyfaust: But really we say you can know a natural rights based on three things number one it existed pre government.
katyfaust: Okay, it didn't it didn't come about because of government it existed before government and when you're talking about the child's right to life.
katyfaust: Obviously, but when you're talking about a child's right to their mother and father, this is as pre as it comes like once people started reproducing whether you believe that was in the Garden of Eden, or sometime along the monkey chain.
katyfaust: You know this this existed way before government did number two we say that it doesn't vary in degrees right, so if it's a dorm room versus mar a lago it's a commodity, not a right.
katyfaust: Okay right so distributed natural rights a distributed equally when it comes to our right to life, we all get the same amount we get one.
katyfaust: star right to our mother and father, we all get exactly to just just one mom and dad, and this is where i'm like oh my gosh i've got to get the book, what was the third one.
katyfaust: hahaha i'm.
Andy Miller III: i'm sorry I have it here.
katyfaust: Oh yeah yeah i've got i've got a stack so you should feel the spacebar look it up.
Andy Miller III: Okay, so one of the things I encourage people do is go to them before us is a.com or.org.com.com into You can check out some of these things, and this is really a movement.
Andy Miller III: That, I think, can help reframe discussion so when we're in this discussion, we can, of course, and i'm speaking my audience is primarily coming at this many, many people who are pastors many people who are seminary students.
Andy Miller III: Come at this from a theological perspective and and we we've talked about that many times on this podcast but what we're thinking of is like, how do we enter into public space we enter into that from our worldview.
Andy Miller III: We come we come in and we don't check that out the door, the same time, we can make a persuasive argument that can lead people and also like the natural law perspective is one.
Andy Miller III: That like think if people get on that chain if they follow one piece, I think that God can use that to help them come to a fuller perspective that Gospel, and this is what we, you might know Christopher West.
katyfaust: um this book is.
Andy Miller III: Our body's telling stories.
katyfaust: it's underneath my computer.
katyfaust: Is lifting my computer up to this level So yes, Christopher West is foundational in a very literal sense for me.
Andy Miller III: I encourage people to go back I mentioned a couple of my podcast former podcast so let's do.
Andy Miller III: So, Christopher West had his theology for the body for beginners which was published a Catholic press, then I think baker brazos put it out it kind of he did it in.
Andy Miller III: An evangelical sort of version, for it and I had him on the podcast and then I also had Janet Dean, Dr Janet Dean, who has looked at.
Andy Miller III: The way to engage sexual minorities on college campuses particularly evangelical college campuses and she talks about.
Andy Miller III: She talks about the.
Andy Miller III: Even like moving against the therapies like people who don't want there to be conversion therapies and all that type of stuff is very interesting and then, of course, my last one just came out a month or so ago.
Andy Miller III: Talking about Salvation Army in alpha pulled this is kind of a segue to the third point is.
Andy Miller III: The reason is bad for a big chunk of my audience is that they are part of Salvation Army and they've made a covenant.
Andy Miller III: And in that covenant, they say they believe the scriptures authoritative they believe in the Trinity all that kind of stuff Jesus is going to return.
Andy Miller III: But they also say they will uphold the sanctity of marriage and family life, a pulley and say this is what katie and I are talking about right now is like, how do we uphold family life and that comes not by prioritizing the needs of the parent, but the child.
Good.
Andy Miller III: Okay sorry that was my own little.
katyfaust: Commercial like a man like you.
katyfaust: just sit back so first of all, the third thing is.
katyfaust: Nobody needs to provide it for you, you know that it's a natural right when nobody has to provide it for you.
katyfaust: Right, nobody has to provide you your life right if you are alive, you have life if you have to dig it up from the ground bottle it label it ship it.
katyfaust: it's not unnatural right if somebody has to construct a contracted and put a roof on it it's not an apple right somebody has to go to 12 years of medical school.
katyfaust: Right to so that you can have access to it it's not a natural right.
katyfaust: So natural right it's something that nobody has to provide for you, and so you look at things like the right to self Defense you know bear arms, the right to freedom of speech, to be able to speak to associate nobody has to provide that for you.
katyfaust: The government's job is to protect it not provide it.
katyfaust: Okay, those are kind of the three ways that we understand help people to understand natural rights okay.
katyfaust: Now, how do we talk about this in the public sphere right because you're you've got people in your audience, who are biblical scholars, who may know more than I do about some of the you know.
katyfaust: References biblically and So how do we talk about this in the public sphere well there's a section in.
katyfaust: Chapter four of the book that says isn't this just about your religion, because you know, everybody says oh isn't this just because you're a fundamentalist backwash brainwashed a bigot you know Bible thumper whatever.
katyfaust: And so um you know we are we actually don't include any scripture in the book at all um but here's The incredible thing is, if you are basing your case on natural law.
katyfaust: It will be compatible with biblical law, because both of those are grounded in reality right so they're not going to conflict it's two different ways of looking at the same issue.
katyfaust: And when it comes to public policy we actually encourage Christians, not to use scripture we believe it's detrimental right because scripture is my authority I.
katyfaust: I carry my Bible with me everywhere, I go I read the Bible, with everyone i'm with like i'm going to be on a plane for four hours there's a real good chance i'll read the Bible with the person next to me I just read the Bible with everybody that i'm with.
katyfaust: But when it comes to discussing public policy I don't appeal to the Bible, because the Bible is my authority but, for the most part that's not the authority of those i'm speaking with.
katyfaust: Their authority is natural law right what can be discovered discovered about humans through the natural world and their authority is our legal structure our Constitution primarily.
katyfaust: So Christians, I think, need to become skilled at appealing to the common authority, not our special authority right and that's not to diminish the importance of Revelation which.
katyfaust: is really important, I think it's the ultimate authority, but we have worked honestly, we have taken the the easy approach and thought that well if I say God made Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve Bam what am I drop whoo I just won that argument no you didn't.
katyfaust: Right now, they just look at you and say you really don't have any way to credibly speak into this issue from a perspective that I can recognize and understand so that's why we fill the book, I mean there's 30 to 80 footnotes in every chapter, citing the highest level of.
katyfaust: of social science we pack the chapters with the voices of real life kids who have been who have lived through these modern families, so that you can see, this is what it really looks like in their life and so when you're talking about your the salvation army's doctrinal commitments.
Andy Miller III: You know.
katyfaust: Holding marriage.
katyfaust: I will tell you this, if you don't what you're saying is I value social approval more than I value the lives of children that's the trade off that you're going to make.
katyfaust: Okay yeah because god's designed for sex and marriage yes it's good for adults, but when you get it wrong kids will pay the price and they will be the victims every.
Andy Miller III: single time.
katyfaust: So I understand that there's a lot of churches that are bowing to that pressure yeah cannot be one of them, especially if you think that that is, if you want anything good for kids.
katyfaust: You will never compromise on god's designed for sex and marriage, no matter what kind of pressure you face, no matter how whatever the world whatever terrible names they call you.
katyfaust: Think about god's law for sex right what happens when we have sex before marriage we create children outside of that.
katyfaust: That sturdy protection of marriage okay those kids are at disproportionate risk for all those social ills I mentioned at the beginning.
katyfaust: let's say that you're shacking up okay and you're living with the child's biological other parent.
katyfaust: That kid is still four times more likely to suffer abuse and neglect and live in poverty okay let's say that you step outside of god's boundary for marriage and you commit adultery well.
katyfaust: I know I know a few of those couples, right now, who have come back to Christ, and now they're raising two parallel kids in two different households and let me tell you the kid that doesn't live with their dad that's one of the major psychological issues.
katyfaust: Okay Okay, and then, when you step outside of god's design for it being a.
katyfaust: Permanent union and you think that you can just dissolve it.
katyfaust: we've got an entire chapter on the psychological outcomes for kids of divorce and the one that made me have to step away from writing it was that about 50% of kids who live in two different homes develop split personalities.
katyfaust: They develop two different personalities, they literally have to become a different person in each household.
katyfaust: If you want to reject god's design for it being a male and a female.
katyfaust: What you're really saying is you're endorsing fatherlessness that's what you're doing or you're endorsing fatherlessness which the Old Testament Community couldn't even conceive of a motherless child those kids die.
katyfaust: fatherless kids yeah we've seen them motherless children, you can even find the word really motherless in the Old Testament right you find the for demographics, that are supposed to get special protection being the poor, the widow, the immigrant and the fatherless.
katyfaust: Okay, so if you compromise on god's design.
katyfaust: For it being male and female and marriage what you're saying is we endorse fatherlessness okay.
katyfaust: So you are not going to be able to support children in any sense of the world if you compromise one iota on god's design for sex and marriage yeah and sorry you're going to have to choose, are you going to choose god's truth which will support child well being or will you instead.
katyfaust: value the tolerance and the acceptance of the progressive world instead those are your choices you can't have both.
Andy Miller III: them before us and that's what this is, I mean we have to come back to that now, I like to how you're able to come to a place of.
Andy Miller III: of, say, in the United States and our audiences international and there'll be different parties are represented, but you're trying to point out how.
Andy Miller III: Taking this perspective of not taking the parents or the adults.
Andy Miller III: wishes well you know desire for the having their own way and own satisfaction is the part of the problem that children need to be the priority we want to value them ahead of us.
Andy Miller III: Okay okay you're saying, though, that this is should align with the values of both major parties in the United States, I could outline that.
katyfaust: yeah so like my friends on the right and i've got a lot of them, they want small government, they want government to leave them the heck alone, they want to stop paying for.
katyfaust: Teachers and counselors to have to be parents right which is really what the public education so they want to stop paying for prisons and welfare, and all of that, like okay.
katyfaust: Then you have to have big marriage right, if you want small government, you have to have big marriage, those are the.
Andy Miller III: Big marriages well you know my big Mare i've never heard that term.
katyfaust: you've got to have a lot of marriage.
Andy Miller III: You okay let's have a lot of men and women marrying each other before they have kids and staying together the whole.
Andy Miller III: Time okay.
katyfaust: You will never have small government personal responsibility or low taxes without big marriage Okay, because marriage is the vehicle that protects children's rights.
katyfaust: My friends on the left who have amazing.
katyfaust: tender hearts, for some of the biggest problems we're facing today my friends on the left are volunteering at with at risk kids at school and serving in homeless shelters and and and working with kids who have come out of trafficking and manning the suicide hotline and all of that.
katyfaust: you're never going to see any kind of long term statistical improvement in any of those causes until you can secure justice for the individual child until you can make sure that they are connected to their mother and father for life.
Andy Miller III: that's wow.
katyfaust: that's marriage there's no other vehicle of doing that that we have discovered in this lexicon of kind of human you know definitions of how to do this.
katyfaust: Other than marriage, so in my opinion children's rights to their mother and father and the institution of marriage should be the thing that we both agree on, because nobody gets what they want, unless we can do this well.
Andy Miller III: wow it's hard it just doesn't seem like that is I don't hear any politicians on either side, addressing this issue like.
Andy Miller III: Many people because of the nature of how like.
Andy Miller III: LGBT stuff is out there.
Andy Miller III: Republicans don't really want to touch it, even if, like at certain times they might promote family values and say something a little bit here.
Andy Miller III: But then, if, on the democratic side if they want to say something about it unfortunately like it's going to be the place where they're going to hurt their base and they have to they have to trust in this, but I don't hear them talking about.
Andy Miller III: The need for mothers and fathers together to come together, so I hope that some of these things that you're promoting can be something that can really take off in the public square.
katyfaust: Of so it really is critical, I mean it really just is about what does it mean to be human, these are some of the most fundamental issues questions that we're facing you know and that's why you know, Robert George.
katyfaust: Is such a strong advocate on this, because you really can't have any other opinion about the definition of marriage if you're really serious about human thriving you know anybody that has a lot of close contract contact with human behavior like you look at Jordan peterson.
katyfaust: yeah peterson's like um yeah moms and dads are really important right and.
katyfaust: That isn't just living in an ideological world somebody that has a lot of contact with reality there's no way to dismiss this.
Andy Miller III: Right yeah yeah he's been really helpful to me on this as well, like.
Andy Miller III: Thinking about what what how you set children up to be successful, this is what happened okay well, one of the things we have we've touched on just a little bit I know we just only have a few few more minutes, but just and i'm going to bring up something like this.
Andy Miller III: When when a donor don't like sperm donation I forget what the technical term is that using in the book i'm like what what's the big problem with that.
katyfaust: yeah so um reproductive technologies, there are so many ways to make babies in laboratories, these days, and so.
katyfaust: We tend to focus on the ones that separate children from their biological mother their biological father or their birth mother so that's what we call a sperm donation egg donation and surrogacy donation is a laughable term because this is the most lucrative industry.
katyfaust: World right, this is all.
katyfaust: elective so it's just money, money, money and so here's the problem right we already know that by a lot biology matters to kids it matters in terms of safety and well being and matters in terms of biological identity.
katyfaust: And a lot of these kids who are going to be created through sperm and egg donation will be raised, without a mother or father in the home, whether that is a single parent or a same sex situation, but even if they are raised with a loving heterosexual couple these children still suffer.
katyfaust: Right we've been doing sperm donation, especially for decades, and so we can measure the outcomes on kids they tend to have more instability in their homes, they tend to have more delinquency.
katyfaust: Alcohol abuse substance abuse, they have a lot of times struggles trusting the parents who are raising them a lot of times they don't feel the same connection to their non biologically related parents.
katyfaust: And overwhelmingly they have a lot of identity issues a lot of identity struggles what adoption professionals used to call genealogical he will implement.
katyfaust: This idea of like who am I I can't I don't know who I am it's really hard for kids even adopted kids like my son to answer that question, who am I when he cannot.
katyfaust: be like I am the biological descendant.
katyfaust: Of.
katyfaust: You know, but I can say i'll tell you what baby he's a spiritual descendant right your great grandparents labored in your land and so that they were going to be benefiting your people.
Andy Miller III: and
katyfaust: You know you are.
katyfaust: You are reaping kind of the spiritual seeds that they sold so long ago.
katyfaust: And that's.
katyfaust: beautiful but it doesn't compensate for what he's lost.
katyfaust: Right I can't fully compensate for.
katyfaust: What he's lost, no matter how much love, I give him there's things that I won't be able to offer questions I won't be able to answer so as an adoptive mom I didn't create that wound for him i'm there to shepherd him through it.
katyfaust: filtering created through sperm and egg donation are being raised by the people who inflicted their wound, and so they tend to have some serious psychological distress, because if they do.
Andy Miller III: Have question is.
katyfaust: What they're missing biological father and they were to voice that to their single mother by choice.
katyfaust: they're talking to the woman.
katyfaust: who chose that man to be gone.
katyfaust: wow so that is why, and the one study that we have that measures outcomes of donor conceive children and puts them side by side with adopted children adopted children fare better.
katyfaust: Even though they are raised, apart from both parents don't have conceived kids to be raised by at least one biological parent but it's that intentional aspect i'm choosing for you not to have a relationship with your dad i'm choosing for you to.
katyfaust: Give your list child.
Andy Miller III: I never thought of that.
Andy Miller III: Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you there.
No.
katyfaust: yeah we are, we are commodified children, we are, we are treating them as items to be cut and pasted into any and every household arrangement.
katyfaust: In the world of reproductive technologies, we are buying them.
katyfaust: Right, we are purchasing children, it is a marketplace for human beings, you can go you're right now, right now, just Google sperm donor catalog.
katyfaust: You can choose your child out of a catalog Okay, this is the Amazon of babies right and so it's not surprising that many of the children created through sperm and egg donation say.
katyfaust: It bothers me that money changed hands over my conception, the commodification aspect of this weighs heavily on the products on the children created through these technologies.
katyfaust: So we come back to the same conclusion, whether you're talking about people in a struggling marriage, whether you're talking about an incredible woman who's 40 her biological clock is ticking she hasn't found Mr right she desperately wants to be.
katyfaust: A mom or it's the man, the two guys with same sex attraction are the two men who are in a relationship, who would both be great fathers.
katyfaust: or you're talking about the heterosexual couple dealing with infertility in all of these situations, you have longing you have adult pain and suffering and a lot.
katyfaust: Of these ways.
katyfaust: The answer cannot be to force a child to sacrifice for you somebody is going to have to do the hard thing either the adults or the child and then before us, we think it should be the adults that do the hard thing not the kids okay.
Andy Miller III: sounds like a very Christian thing too, if any person can come after me, let him deny themselves take up their cross and follow me.
Andy Miller III: Okay, one last thing and it's not too deep This is called the more to the story podcast and I always ask people when I get chance to is there, more to the story of katie like what more to the story like do you like to snorkel who knows, like something kind of fun.
katyfaust: Oh fun.
katyfaust: Everything i'm wearing a second hand.
katyfaust: Okay, I only buy second hand stuff it started, because we were dirt poor long time my husband was a youth pastor on one income and we're raising kids and, and so I just gleaned like I became a gleaner.
Andy Miller III: And hey.
katyfaust: Lynn even in Seattle, which is really expensive we've lived really well on one income because.
katyfaust: I just glean you know secondhand from friends from thrift stores, you know now we're at the place where you know I have more of an income and so we're not that tight, but i'll never be able to shake it, I want to.
katyfaust: Have $19 for a shirt kidding me.
katyfaust: Okay let's find a ball gown for like the and all the accessories for 19 bucks so that's probably the funnest fact.
Andy Miller III: This is why we need to get you more connected to the Salvation Army yeah.
katyfaust: Oh, oh let's talk about the salvation.
katyfaust: Not in their new thrift store in my town and it's like damn you Kristen such a good job it's not overcrowded you've got good pricing, some of these.
katyfaust: i'm like I could literally go to old navy and buy this cheaper than what you're trying to sell me this T shirt for right now so Salvation Army I love it.
Andy Miller III: it's great a little advertisement there okay Thank you so much, we i'm thankful that God has given you this passion.
Andy Miller III: And, and your husband able to like embrace this part of like the gifting you clearly have and the intellectual energy that is so evident and I just pray that your voice will be heard in your tribe will increase.
katyfaust: Thank you Andy thanks for having me and yeah thanks to your listeners for suffering through.
Andy Miller III: amen no it's great Thank you perfect i'm gonna press pause as always.