Elton’s right- Dolce is wrong, wrong, wrong
Their parents also ought to be recognised. There are many myths and misconceptions about who undertakes surrogacy and IVF. Should the single woman, survivor of cancer, with no uterus as a result, be vilified for desiring to have a child? Should she be told that due to some quirk of nature that she cannot have children that it is beyond the laws of nature to have children, and therefore she should just give up? That it is somehow shameful and wrong her desire to have a child?
The call by Elton John for a consumer boycott of Dolce and Gabbana is well founded. In an interview with Panorama magazine, Dolce and Gabbana talk of their recent promotion, focussed on the family. Domenico Dolce said: “”I call children of chemistry, synthetic children. Wombs for rent, seeds selected from a catalog.”
Dolce then said about whether he wanted to be a father: ” I’m gay, I can not have a child. I believe that we can not have everything in life, if there is not to say that there must be. It is also good to deprive yourself of something. Life has its natural course, there are things that must not be changed. And one of these is the family.”
Stefano Gabbano said: ” We understand that the family is not a fad. It is a sense of the supernatural.”
Elton John, outraged at the slight, has called for a consumer boycott. Elton said on his Instagram account:
“How dare you refer to my beautiful children as ‘synthetic.’ And shame on you for wagging your judgemental little fingers at IVF — a miracle that has allowed legions of loving people, both straight and gay, to fulfil their dream of having children. Your archaic thinking is out of step with the times, just like your fashions. I shall never wear Dolce and Gabbana ever again. #BoycottDolceGabbana”.
As Chief Judge Pascoe from the Federal Circuit Court said recently:
“What a child is entitled to is loving parents. The fact that people are heterosexual does not necessarily make them good parents.
“As we saw in the baby Gammy case, that was to all intents and purposes a heterosexual couple but it would be difficult to say that the man in that relationship was a suitable parent….You do not have to sit in family law for long to see that there are both good and bad heterosexual parents. The real issue is: are these people who will love, protect and care for the child? I think it is really important that we do not focus on issues like the sexuality of intending parents but that we focus on the rights and the protection of the child, and also the rights, care and protection of the birth mother.”
