Does God Love Michael's Two Daddies (Seth and Sarah Ask...) [Hardcover]

Butt Sheila K. (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 5, 2007 | Series: Seth and Sarah Ask...

In a world that is constantly changing, God’s Word remains the standardby which we must judge all human actions and lifestyles. In Does God LoveMichael’s Two Daddies?, Seth and Sara learn that God loves all people, eventhose who are disobeying Him. But they also learn that the only way to havea relationship with God is to stop sinning and turn to JesusFor the last 15 years, the homosexual community has been publishing children’sbooks promoting homosexuality, starting with the book Heather HasTwo Mommies, Daddy’s Roommate, and My Two Uncles. To our knowledge, no comparable children’s book designed to combat the promotion of homosexuality is available on the market—until now. Does God Love Michael’s Two Daddies? is a professionally designed and illustrated book that promotes God’s love for all individuals, while at the same time showing, in a loving way, that homosexuality is out of harmony with Bible teaching. This book has tremendous potential to influence positively the lives of thousands of children growing up in tumultuous and confusing times.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 16 pages
• Publisher: Apologetics Press, Inc (February 5, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0932859941
• ISBN-13: 978-0932859945
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 8.1 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,197,413 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #59 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Religion & Spirituality > Religious Studies > Ethics

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

363 of 394 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars I bought and read this book (ugh!), October 27, 2007

By 

T. S. Piccolotti (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Does God Love Michael's Two Daddies (Seth and Sarah Ask...) (Hardcover)

"Does God Love Michael's Two Daddies?" by Sheila K. Butt, contrasts twins Seth and Sarah, secure and content in their normal, hetero, white Christian family, with Michael, the son of an unstable, interracial, gay couple. Seth and Sarah mindlessly wend their way through the story, trained as they are to view difference as confusing and wrong, and their own lives as a standard of normalcy. The title, "Does God Love Michael's Two Daddies?," is the linguistic hook on which the author hangs her religious condemnation of homosexuality, but it also illustrates that these two godly children really are not certain that their God does love someone different from them. Did Seth's and Sarah's Christian parents fail to teach them that God loves everybody, or have Seth and Sarah learned from their parents' behavior that God finds some more lovable than others?

How does the author reconcile the condemnation of homosexuality with the concept of a loving God? She makes three valiant, if vain, attempts. First, she depicts a heterosexual home as happy, secure, and God-approved, as opposed to the instability of a gay home. Second, she attempts to show that the issue of gay marriage negatively affects the children of both homosexual and heterosexual families. Christian children are affected negatively because gay marriage confuses them, in other words, it makes them question their parents' values. Third, she skirts the issue of what Christians actually believe will happen to Michael's parents when they don't end up in Heaven.

Poor little Michael, the unwitting friend of Christian clones Seth and Sarah. Michael is depicted three times by the illustrator, in all instances alienated from his Christ-loving friends, a fearful grimace of uncertainty plastered on his face. In the first illustration Michael's security is derailed when he learns that normal families have a mom and a dad, not two dads. In the second illustration an anxious Michael waves goodbye to Seth and Sarah who stand beside their loving mother. Michael waves from the back of a bus. Apparently children of gay, interracial couples are bussed to this school district, while hetero Christian moms pick up their children. In the third illustration Michael cowers behind the chair in which Black Dad sits, as Black Dad reads the Bible, presumably Leviticus, to White Dad. Indifferent White Dad turns his back on both of them to sip a latté out of a large purple mug. Perhaps it is dawning on Michael that the Bible is going to break up his home, and that his future in a God-ordained world is less than certain.

Across the ideological tracks, hetero Christian Dad explains to Seth and Sarah that God designed marriage to be between a man and a woman. Christian Dad continues, "But in this world there are some men who want to live together like they are married."

LIKE they are married. Like a fake marriage, fake parents, a fake home.

It's conceivable that Michael is the biological son of gay White Dad, or even gay Black Dad, but it's more likely, given Christian antipathy to gay adoption, that he's the adopted son of at least one of his fathers. What the author implies is that Michael's family is only LIKE a family, not actually a real family. Michael is not a real son, and his fathers aren't real fathers. This book reveals more than a prejudice against gays, it reveals a prejudice against foster and adopted children, at root a prejudice against children. What kind of Christian could find it in her heart to add to the uncertainty of a child that has lost his or her biological parents? What kind of Christian would suggest that that child would be better off in a group home than in a home of his or her own, with two loving parents of his or her own - no matter what color or sexual orientation? Michael is an older child and tens of thousands of older children languish in the foster care system in this country, with as many as 25% of them ending up homeless when they age out of the system. But at least they weren't raised by gays, right?

Hetero Christian Dad's explanation is accompanied by an illustration of a black man and woman getting married. It's a contemporary image, as Christians a mere one hundred and forty-four years ago did not allow black men and women to marry each other. It was only forty years ago that black people in this country were allowed to marry white people (Loving v. Virginia, 1967). We shouldn't be surprised that white Christians are still telling black people whom they may and may not marry. Michael's black dad may not marry Michael's white dad, because white Christians say the Bible says so, just like they used to say black people couldn't marry each other. If black families were only LIKE white Christian families, with pretend marriages, then it was easier to sell off the mothers and fathers and children.

It's hard to tell if the author objects more to Michael's dads being a gay couple, or an interracial couple. The book's idealized depiction of Christian marriage is of a man and a woman of the same race. Michael hides in fear behind the chair of adamant finger-pointing (angry?) Black Dad, while later Black Dad cowers in the shadow of a white Jesus tied to a cross. On the road to normalcy, Black Dad comes to accept his place. He's purchased by the blood of the lamb.

There is one more illustration that may be of Michael - he has the same face, and very similar clothes, but he's older - a teenager. Hetero Christian Dad has explained that Michael's dads are sinning. The concept of sin is illustrated with the boy who looks like Michael stealing a magazine from a store. Apparently Michael is so confused about sin and gay marriage that he no longer knows the difference between right and wrong. Gay marriage leads to stealing, and worse - maybe even dancing.

"Your Mother and I want both of you always to do what the Bible teaches," hetero Christian Dad opines. "We hope our whole family can teach others what the Bible says so they can be in heaven, too."

The book ends, ironically with Christian Mom asking her children, "Won't it be wonderful when you two can read the words of the Bible for yourselves[?]"

Won't it be wonderful, indeed? Not every Bible is clouded by the cataract of a white Tennessee education, and these confused, questioning children might end up reading the wonderful stories about Jonathan and David, Ruth and Naomi, and the disciple that Jesus loved, with an open mind and heart and decide that their parents' religious convictions are little more than antebellum resentments.

120 of 133 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Child Abuse, August 24, 2009

By 

Sick of It All (Suck City) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Does God Love Michael's Two Daddies (Seth and Sarah Ask...) (Hardcover)

This is hate propaganda, in its rawest, most profane form - a book written by idiots, for idiots.

59 of 66 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars ABSOLUTELY DREADFUL (YUK), October 30, 2009

By 

The Biggest Fisher Fan - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Does God Love Michael's Two Daddies (Seth and Sarah Ask...) (Hardcover)

It's almost impossible to overemphasize how horrid this story is. Whatever you do, do not buy this book.

Seth and Sarah, white boy/girl twins, encounter a boy named Michael in their class who explains to them that he doesn't have a mommy and a daddy, but rather he has two daddies. He tells Seth and Sarah that his daddies have talked about getting married and they have asked Michael if he would like that, to which he had replied, with a worried look on his face "I don't know if I would or not". (an absolutely stupid premise; of course a child would want to see his parents married; how dreadful that a children's book would be used to frame a child's family as bad)

At dinner that night, Seth and Sarah report that they met a boy named Michael in class who has two daddies who want to get married. The twins' father explains to them that God made Adam and Eve to be the first husband and wife (illustrated by a sacharine picture of rabits lying next to lions, with a sultry-looking Eve with orchid corsage in her hair and arms wrapped suggestively around Adam's chest). On the next page is an illustration of an African-American man and woman being married by a minister with an all-black wedding party in attendance (apparently to illustrate that Black men and women can get married too, as long as they marry within their race and are married by a black minister.)

Then there is further explanation by Seth/Sarah's father that Michael's daddies should not get married because the bible teaches them that it is sin for two men to get married, but that "God loves them" and "sent his Son to die on the cross for them". That particular dialogue is illustrated by a picture of a crucified Jesus with one of Michael's daddies at the feet of Jesus looking up imploringly at Jesus. (apparently to illustrate that Michael's daddies know perfectly well that they are living in sin and are on their way to hell)

The book concludes with an illustration of a golden road leading to heaven. Sara and Seth both declare "I want to go to heaven", and the father wants them to teach others what the bible says so that "they can be in heaven too". Seth says kindly that he likes Michael, and "I am going to invite him to come to bible class with me this week". (presumably so that Michael can learn more about how his parents are living in sin and will suffer the eternal flames of torment).

That's just a "lovely" story to tell children. I am a Christian and a gay father of two. This story is dreadful, awful, anti-family, anti-children, homophobic, backwards drivel.