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Pastor Page Brooks says he’s an open-minded, if conservative, man. Brooks, 32, a graduate of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, is brigade chaplain for the 139th Regional Support Group at Jackson Barracks and pastor to a growing congregation at Canal Street Church, just a few blocks from his home in Mid-City.
The church offers services in Spanish and its roughly 200 members are racially diverse. Several members are gay or identify themselves as « former gay, » Brooks said. If a gay couple moved in next door to his family’s shotgun house, his children would play with those of the neighbors’.
« We’d probably have them over for dinner, » said Brooks.
But he said he would not perform a marriage ceremony for a gay couple, and counts himself staunchly among the majority of Louisianians who are opposed to the idea of legally recognized same-sex marriage.
« We would never say that someone should be discriminated against, » Brooks said. « But to grant someone marriage, that goes too far. »
Discrimination has been an important topic in the Brooks household since seven years ago, when the couple, who are white, adopted an African-American daughter. They had always intended to adopt children, and indicated no race preference to their adoption agency. Since finding out two years ago they would not be able to have children of their own, they have adopted another daughter and a son, both black.
« We did think long and hard about it, but we just thought race shouldn’t make a difference, » Brooks said.
Sexual orientation, on the other hand, does matter when it comes to raising children, he said.
« It always comes back to the natural order of things, even if you take God out of the picture, » Brooks said. « It comes back to a male and female coming together to create a child. »
If a couple cannot conceive children on their own, Brooks believes the « optimal » situation for children is to grow up in a household with married parents that are of the opposite sex.
« A male and a female parent is the healthiest for children in the long term, for stability, to provide role models, » Brooks said, noting that single parents who adopt also provide a less-than-ideal environment for raising children.
« Even for a male and a female (couple), I would hope they would be together in a marriage relationship to be able to adopt, » he said.
Brooks said he realizes his views, albeit reflecting a majority across the state, put him in a shrinking minority nationwide and in New Orleans, as attitudes on gay marriage have shown a rapid shift. He asked that his school-age daughters not be identified, saying he feared they might be taunted by children at their school because of his views on gay marriage.
Given the shifting national opinion and the trends in the courts, Brooks said he expects same-sex couples will be able to marry and adopt jointly in the future in Louisiana and likely across the country.
« I think it is a mistake, » he said. « And it won’t be some years until we know what the impact will be.
« There’s a faultiness to their argument, » he said of supporters of same-sex marriage. « Those are cases that are on the very sideline of how we keep our society together, how do we keep society going, and that’s a man and a woman together coming together to have children. »