The BBC didn't do much for rational debate on Tuesday night when it interviewed the head of a right-wing Christian group about Elton John's announcement that he and his partner David Furnish had become the proud owners of an expensive new accessory: a surrogate baby called Zac. While Christians, and people of all religions and none, are entitled to express their views on same-sex parenthood, Stephen Green, spokesman for Christian Voice, was not the most balanced contributor ever paraded before the viewers of the BBC's Six O'Clock News. In 2009, for example, when the Ugandan parliament was debating a proposal to execute gay men, Green was all in favour: "A parliamentarian in Uganda is trying to protect his nation's children," he said. "The House of Commons in the United Kingdom is trying to corrupt ours. Which country is the most civilised, I wonder, in the eyes of Almighty God?" Last year, when Gareth Thomas, the former Welsh rugby captain, became a patron for the Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Group's History Month, Green again purported to speak for the "Almighty". Thomas was urging children to "identify themselves as homosexual and to inhibit their normal development into heterosexuality", he said. "That is a wicked thing to do to impressionable young people. The Lord Jesus Christ spoke about millstones around the necks of those who lead children astray."

The reaction from gay rights groups and others to Green's appearance was swift and angry and soon there was a huge millstone around the neck of this particular debate – that of homophobia. Was it possible to have a reasonable discussion about Elton John's late parenthood without getting mixed up in the gaybashing fundamentalism which has fuelled much of the disapproval of the singer's decision to become a daddy?

For the record, therefore, let me state that it seems obvious to me that a gay couple are as capable and deserving of parenthood as any heterosexual couple and that there is nothing in any research or literature anywhere that shows that children of a same-sex relationship suffer from the lack of a mother, or the lack of a father. Indeed, given the very many stories of child neglect and abuse by heterosexual couples that we see in the papers all the time, anybody who argues (as Stephen Green does) that children are naturally safer and better adjusted with a male and female parent is quite clearly deluded.

And yet, is there not something deeply unsettling about the sight of a 63-year-old multi-millionaire deciding that he would like to buy himself a baby, and then forking out €150,000 to do just that? Has parenthood become just another consumer choice? Have children joined Maseratis, space travel and private jets as gifts that rich folk reward themselves with because, let's face it, they're such damnably fantastic people? And what of Elton John's age? When Zachary is in his mid-teens, John, if he's still alive, will be looking forward to his 80th birthday, too old to properly parent a teenager and steer him through all the madness of adolescence.

This might seem like replacing one prejudice – homophobia – with another – ageism – but surely it is not too much to suggest that parenting is tough physical work and that those who take it on should be up to the job, an objection that applies as much to Elton John as it does to Spanish woman Maria del Carmen Bousada de Lara, who gave birth to twins by IVF in 2006 a few months before her 67th birthday. She died less than three years later leaving the two young boys as orphans, being brought up by their mother's family. (Their father is unknown.)

If parenting, done properly, is one of the most selfless tasks imaginable, Bousada's decision to have babies at 66 years of age can fairly be described as a profoundly selfish one. Her needs, her desires, her ambitions for herself were put well ahead of her children, who are now dealing with the consequences of her decision.

It's hard to get away from the feeling that Elton John and David Furnish are guilty of similar selfishness, and that they haven't properly thought through the consequences of their decision. John will be touring from January to June (including one visit to Cork) and the question arises of who will mind the child. Will he go on tour too? Will he stay in America with an expensive nanny? Will 49-year-old Furnish become a stay-at-home dad while his husband tours the world?

Other thoughts arise. John's keyboard player Guy Babylon died suddenly in 2009, an event which seems to have affected him deeply. "It broke my heart because he was such a genius and so young," he said at the time. "What better opportunity to replace someone I lost than to replace him with someone I can give a future to." With all due respect to Elton John, this is Hallmark card nonsense. A child is not an accessory or a toy. A child is not an experiment. A child is not a replacement for someone who no longer exists. A child is a helpless, dependent human being who needs constant love and attention and a reasonable expectation that he will have his parents for many decades to come. It's hard to avoid the thought this weekend that Zachary Jackson Levin Furnish-John has just drawn a very short straw.

TV documentary added up to ryan inconsequential

RTé's profile of Gerry Ryan began with a medical expert explaining what happens when you take cocaine and mix it with alcohol, which was as relevant as starting a documentary on Jesus with information on what happens when somebody hammers nails into your hands. It explained absolutely nothing about Ryan himself and was obviously included so that RTé could cover its arse following criticism about its silence in the wake of the inquest into Ryan's death.

Sadly, the rest of the documentary didn't tell us very much about Gerry Ryan either. It was conceived as a hagiography and delivered in spades on such limited ambitions. Perhaps the most interesting contribution came from Michael Flatley, who spoke about how enough was never enough for Ryan, how he always wanted more. It was that quality in him which made him both a popular broadcaster and a widely derided one, but nowhere was that second view canvassed by the documentary makers. Perhaps TV3 will do better when it does its own Gerry documentary later this year.

ddoyle@tribune.ie