The conservative case for male role models

Sir, – Ruth Davidson hopes her pregnancy will normalise the deliberate production of fatherless children. She implies that kids don’t need a dad, and not a single MSP demurs.

In an age obsessed with children’s rights, their basic need for a mum and a dad is trumped by the desire of adults to form relationships and family structures as they wish. However, Mum and Dad are not indistinguishable and interchangeable Parent A and Parent B. Male and female role models in the home are important. Despite the best efforts of the liberal sociology establishment to obscure the facts, the negative outcomes associated with same sex parenting should give cause for concern.

Connection to one’s natural family is a powerful force, and the yearnings of those brought up in the absence of one genetic parent can be overwhelming as a young person matures.

Ms Davidson had planned to commit to her partner in the solemn legal and public pledges of lifelong faithfulness, care and love that constitute marriage, but they decided to pay vets’ bills instead. It seems her understanding of marriage is more focused on an expensive day than its deep meaning and power to sustain a relationship. Marriage preceding child birth is a strong predictor of good outcomes for children. That’s the sort of traditional wisdom that a “Conservative” Party might seek to promote. But Ms Davidson’s party is anything but conservative.

Our virtue-signalling political elite are predictably enthusiastic, while condemning as a homophobic bigot anyone claiming that kids should, ideally, have a mum and a dad.

“Listening to young people” is a routine refrain in Holyrood, but how does one reply when they say that they really wish they had had a mum and a dad? Richard Lucas, Scottish Family Party leader. Bath Street, Glasgow.

Expecting: Scottish Conservatives leader Ruth Davidson.