“Gender Ideology’s” Alleged Threats to Children’s Welfare: A Sociological-Synodal Analysis

This chapter sociologically investigates the Roman Catholic Church’s moral panic on the alleged threats of the so-called “gender ideology” to the welfare of children in same-sex families, using Pope Francis’s synodal approach and drawing on secondary literature, media reports, and Church documents. It argues that the alleged threats of homosexual couples in same-sex families to the children’s welfare are an exaggeration and moral panic in the sociological sense. It contends that negative perception of same-sex parenthood on the children’s welfare is largely a structural influence of societal homophobia and social discrimination against same-sex parents under the rigid gender complementary and heterosexual standards of the Catholic Church’s moral magisterium, founded on the philosophical approach of natural law theory. It recommends a synodal openness to diverse family structures and definitions of children’s welfare and a reappraisal of the empirical foundations of the gender complementarity interpretation of Genesis.