Gay marriages... dictated by religious authorities

[Darryl_P]

I should add that there is some level of brainwashing that is impossible to not do, in that kids will ask a lot of questions about the basic issues of life, some of which will require an opinion or stance.

As a parent, you can remove yourself from answering these by diverting it to society at large, giving them the consensus view every time. But in this case, the kid will not develop a sense of identity. He will feel like a child of society rather than a child of your family. One could argue that this is not a bad thing, but since parenting takes a lot of time and effort, I don't want to be doing it just to serve society. I might as well just be another Mother Theresa if that's what's important.

Alternatively, you can say: this is what I believe but a lot of people don't agree. If your behaviors are consistent with your words, ie. he sees you being friendly with similarly-minded people and not-so-friendly with others, then the kid will adopt your ways anyway and since it's presented to him in a non-overbearing way, it may be the most effective brainwashing method of all, even if you don't intend it as such.

Then there's the overbearing method of drilling stuff into him like a drill sargeant. That will likely make him confused because he won't see why it's so frickin' important and there's a good chance he'll revolt but then later in life (after you die) feel guilty that he rejected everything you stood for. Not good.

OK this is very oversimplified and there are zillions of other possible scenarios, but these are some that seem to happen pretty often.