Michael Brown urges people not to “rejoice” over the birth of Anderson Cooper’s son (YouTube/ASKDrBrown_
On Thursday evening CNN’s Anderson Cooper celebrated becoming a first-time father, announcing that he had welcomed a healthy baby boy into the world.
The joyful news brought some much-needed positivity in the midst of a global pandemic, but predictably it was only a matter of time before homophobes just had to get involved.
Right-wing radio host Michael Brown, a man with a long history of anti-LGBT+ diatribes linking homosexuality with paedophilia, decided to chime in on his podcast Line of Fire.
Considering that just months earlier Brown was claiming a gay president would “contribute to the further degeneration and moral confusion of our society”, it’s hardly surprising that he didn’t have anything positive to say about Anderson Cooper – but his argument against him was so flawed it’s almost tragic.
“It’s a sad thing to see,” Brown began, describing the birth of a longed-for child to a loving and capable father.
“It’s a sad thing that this child won’t have the same relationship with his mother that Anderson Cooper had with his own. In fact, little Wyatt may not even know his mother.”
The bottom line, Brown says, is that two men cannot produce a child alone, and this is by “divine design” for the sake of nurturing: “The sake of being raised together and loved together and cared for together.”
“While many people will be congratulatory [or] excited, think of the child,” he said.
But what about the many children who are happily raised by single parents? Brown’s not talking about these – his argument only applies to LGBT+ families.
“Not the child in a single parent home, where the mom was abandoned by the dad, [or] there’s a death in the family, some tragedy and now the child is raised without a mother, without a father,” he says.
“We recognise that as a deficit, as a problem, and we do our best to stand with folks like that so that those kids can have everything they need.”
Yes, the loss of a parent is heartbreaking, but being a raised by single parent isn’t seen as a “deficit” by everyone.
Brown neglected to consider that children of single and/or same-sex parents can and do turn out to be decent people if they have love and support from the people around them – just like bereaved children do.
He’s also chosen to ignore the many examples of happy, healthy adults who were raised by single parents, sexuality aside – and the many examples of happy, healthy children who are being raised by same-sex parents, who thrive without the need for a person with a particular set of genitalia.
Brown continued: “To say, by my choice, this child will be deprived of either a mother or a father, or a normal relationship with the mother or father for life, and that’s a sad thing, that’s not a cause for rejoicing.”
We’d urge him to consider whether the saddest thing could be that a right-wing pundit is reading tragedy into the birth of a child and fabricating problems for him before he’s even a week old – but that’s just us.