As Germany's leading weekly newspaper Die Zeit noted in an April 13, 2013, story with ironically almost the same name as my earlier Mercatornet article ( Vater, Vater, Mutter, Mutter, Kind, Kind ), Kauch is not the progenitor of a so-called "rainbow family [Regenbogenfamilie]." In Die Zeit, Science journalist Sven Stockrahm reports on some of the 20,000 children in the care of German same-sex couples referenced before at Mercatornet. Stockrahm's story notes thereby that a German homosexual organization has opened just this past March Germany's first Rainbow Families Center ( Regenbogenfamilienzentrum ) in Berlin for all manner of advice in this area.

A previous article by me at the website Mercatornet concerned how a German parliamentarian, Michael Kauch, and his homosexual partner and friends had taken the idea of "diverse" family relationships to a whole new level. Recent developments from Germany, though, show that Kauch is merely the tip of the proverbial iceberg in the homosexual movement's previously described "modern experiment in libertine morals." Seemingly with every passing day Germany offers more reasons for international observers to "decide whether Kauch's present should be their future."

Stockrahm, for example, describes the household of Matthias Kreuzer and his "husband" Carsten Kreuzer (original names in the story changed by the author). Currently caring for son and a daughter as foster children, these two unrelated men share the same family name thanks to a provision in Germany's civil union Life Partnership Law (Lebenspartnerschaftgesetz) allowing for two homosexuals to mimic marriage's common surname. Matthias and Carsten are thereby fulfilling their wish to "have kids" as "Papa and Papi."

Stockrahm also examines the Life Partnership of the lesbians Jana and Tine "Hitzfeld." Stefan, Jana's son, and Philip, Tine's son, live with these two lesbians who each have legal custody of their respective sons. Stefan's father Kai, meanwhile, has his own Life Partnership with Henry, Philip's father. By mutual agreement with the lesbians, this homosexual couple is taking an active role in the raising of the two boys, who see the two men about twice a week. Stockrahm describes this homosexual foursome and children as a "double rainbow family."

Yet another couple analyzed by Stockrahm placed an advertisement in Berlin announcing that a "lesbian pair is seeking a semen donor, who would also like to be a father." As Stockrahm elaborated, Corinna Körber, the mother of two young daughters, and her "wife" Susanne desired that "their children not only know who their biological father is. He should also be there, when the children wanted to see him." The two lesbians feared that inevitable questions about the children's father would become irritating. Hence a homosexual doctor ultimately donated the sperm for the two daughters and sees them regularly. He takes them on excursions and has them sleep over at his place once a month.

As the German newsweekly Focus reported on May 6, 2013, homosexual men can sire far more than two children with lesbians. The 45-year old Markus K. has become the father of 22 children raised by lesbians in the last nine years without ever engaging in intercourse with a woman. Markus sent his mother a baby picture of his first offspring along with the announcement that she had become a "grandma." Although his mother suggested that he cease after 12 inseminations, Markus has persisted. He describes his motives as a mixture of "wanting to help, drive to procreate, loneliness, and quiet revenge against the church" that expelled him from a priest seminary due to his homosexuality. Like the doctor, Markus maintains contact with his offspring, having celebrated his last birthday with 13 children and their mothers.

As Germany's other, older newsweekly Der Spiegel reported on May 15, 2013, such behavior gives rise to novel legal questions. In one case, a homosexual sperm donor had contested another man's legal recognition as the father of the son resulting from the donor's insemination. The donor had inseminated a lesbian living with her partner, both of whom wanted the child ultimately to know its father, yet the couple also then legally recognized the mother's best friend as the father. Germany's analog to the Supreme Court, the Bundesgerichtshof (BGH), ruled that the biological father could claim legal paternity in cases where the mother previously knew the sperm donor, in contrast to anonymous donations.

Despite such legal, moral, sexual, and familial innovations, for some Germans yet more novelty in these areas is necessary. At the 40th federal congress of the German Green Party's youth organization (GrüneJugend) in Dresden from March 22-24, 2013, the members' assembly passed the Queer Resolution 2013. The resolution bemoaned that

our society still has unfortunately clear concepts of sexuality: There are men and women, sexuality functions heterosexually and monogamously. Homosexuals, bisexuals, trans*, intersexuals, pansexuals, and asexuals do not fit into these norms. Yet sexuality stereotypes do not constrain only these persons -- these concern us all!

Accordingly, the Green youth called for "broad societal recognition for all lifestyle forms, non-heterosexual and non-monogamous as well." In this context, the resolution referenced the European Parliament's (EP) analogy of "Homophobia" to "racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, or sexism." Such recognition entailed rejection of the "privileging of marriage between 'man' and 'woman'" and indeed the desire "to abolish marriage as a state institution."

Given that "family relationships exist also beyond heterosexual and monogamous partnerships," the Greens demanded "finally" that it "be legally recognized, when non-heterosexual couples, polyamorous living persons or friends undertake in common the care for children." Thus the Greens believed that "more than two persons should be valid legally as parents of a child." For the Greens, "every form of family is to be supported and honored by the society and before the law to the same extent."

This Green agenda contained far reaching political and legal implications. Germany's constitution or Basic Law (Grundgesetz), for example, required revision so that "no one is disadvantaged on the basis of their sexual identity or orientation." Educational materials as well had to have an "equal presentation of various living patterns" and sex education needed to present "all forms of sexuality," all the while avoiding any "gender roles." Education personnel would accordingly need to study "queer and gender-sensitive themes" throughout their careers. Laws should also no longer exclude sexually active homosexual men from blood transfusion as a "risk group." The Greens also called for abolition of any medical guidelines discouraging artificial reproduction among homosexuals.

The Greens rejected as "social constructs" the very "categories 'man' and 'woman'" The Greens appealed for a society in which "everyone can freely choose" their "sexual identity" amidst a "diversity" of such identities. Thus official documents required a "third option" with respect to gender, although long term the Greens wanted to eliminate the "statement of gender as a category completely."

Of particular concern amidst this social and sexual upheaval is the wellbeing of children. Stockrahm in his article suggests that the artificial origins of children in same-sex households can actually be "advantageous," as these children are "never accidental" for same-sex couples, but "always unconditionally wanted." Indeed, homosexual couples "concern themselves intensively with their wish for children like hardly anyone else, because homosexuals must assert themselves again and again in the face of obsolete societal norms." This struggle occurs in a context in which, adds Stockrahm, homosexuals "are, mildly stated, for broad groups of the population in need of getting used to." Citing a 2009 study commissioned by the German Ministry of Justice (English translation available here), though, Stockrahm argues that children in same-sex households have a "stronger feeling of self-worth and assertion ability than peers in other family forms."

Yet closer analysis of this study of 1,059 homosexual parents (866 in civil unions, the others cohabitating unregistered) and 852 children (693 in civil union households) reveals difficulties for children in same-sex households. Stockrahm, for example, neglects to mention that the study sees a possible increased self-worth and assertiveness resulting precisely from these children having a "necessity to assert themselves" in the face of what analysts perceive as a "societal marginalization and deficient acceptance of rainbow families." In fact, the study notes that rainbow family children "in certain situations or circles attempt to avoid an exposure of the family situation." This is not surprising given that 46% of the studied children reported confronting "discrimination" such as bullying due to their family background. Of the 313 children in the study born into homosexual civil union relationships and not the product of a previously dissolved heterosexual union, meanwhile, 127 were old enough to know that "it is something unusual to have two mothers or two fathers. Among these, 24 (19%) responded with "critical reactions" such as "anger."

Even though the study takes an overall positive approach to the phenomenon, critical readers would note that the surveyed parents have above-average income and education levels (e.g. 45% of the civil union parents had a college degree and only 6% came from the working classes). As Mark Regnerus' 2012 New Family Structures Study (NFSS) noted, many past studies on homosexual parenting "have tacitly or explicitly" featured "stereotypic gay and lesbian couples -- white, upper-middle class, well-educated, employed, and prosperous." Regnerus' study, in contrast, discerned several negative outcomes from homosexual parenting on the basis of almost 3,000 surveyed adults, 175 and 73 of whom reported mothers and fathers, respectively, having had homosexual relationships. Regnerus' finding was not surprising, given that he noted studies of traditionally adopted children showing "important and wide-ranging differences" with parents' biological children.

All of this is considerable food for thought when considering Stockrahm's contention that the children examined in his article "do not need a father and a mother. They have parents, people who love them. They have family." As previously indicated at Mercatornet, it is unlikely that children will experience familial stability in the meltdown of the nuclear family recommended by Germans like Stockrahm, particularly in light of relationship dissolutions. The Ministry of Justice study, meanwhile, suggests that children in homosexual households themselves,and not just outsiders, simply cannot overlook the inherent unnaturalness of these homosexual relationships imposed upon children in the name of adult desires, irrespective of adult indoctrination.

Yet the American signers of the 2006 Beyond Same-Sex Marriage statement, including Chai Feldblum, appointed by President Barack Obama to the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), seek to emulate German developments. They also demand recognition for "Queer couples who decide to jointly create and raise a child with another queer person or couple, in two households" and "Committed, loving households in which there is more than one conjugal partner." In Germany, it is already possible to glimpse this future of wildly varied, realigning permutations of parental relationships and radically individualistic adult personal behavior in defiance of human nature. No matter the number of rainbow invocations by the homosexual movement, the dawn of this brave new world is dark indeed.