Would you care to elaborate on that, and how a child growing up with homosexual parents is worse than growing up with NO parents?
I never said it was worse then no parents. don't put words in people mouths.
And please, if you're going to spout out stuff like 'it's supposed to', try to back it up.
Species have male and female genders to allow breading to allow survival, god and or evolution (what ever you believe in) made us that way. and i bet you haven't read one of the books in that list, so your just throwing titles at me. I could go and do research my self and publish it but i bet it will be bs.
if you have a daddy and a daddy or a mommy and a mommy your going to be missing half of the puzzle, you need a male role model and a female role model, you will be ridiculed, and you will most likely end up gay because thats you learned is normal. How is that not phycological strain?
I never said it was worse then no parents. don't put words in people mouths.
No, but that IS what you are heavily implying. To say that gays will psychologically damage a child, with no real assertion as to how, by the way, you are saying that these children should remain wards of the state instead, at least until you can find a nice straight couple. Thus, you are stating that a child is better off NOT adopted, than they are adopted by a gay family.
if you have a daddy and a daddy or a mommy and a mommy your going to be missing half of the puzzle, you need a male role model and a female role model, you will be ridiculed, and you will most likely end up gay because thats you learned is normal. How is that not phycological strain?
Firstly, children ALREADY raised by homosexual parents...and single parents, for that matter, fly in the face of this. Second, the ridiculed part is flat out blaming the victim, and ignores a simple fact. If children want to ostracize a kid, they will find a way. Parents, skin color, hair color, anything. As for the third part...well I suppose that's why straight parents only have straight children, yes?
No, but that IS what you are heavily implying. To say that gays will psychologically damage a child, with no real assertion as to how, by the way, you are saying that these children should remain wards of the state instead, at least until you can find a nice straight couple. Thus, you are stating that a child is better off NOT adopted, than they are adopted by a gay family.
Or did you not consider that angle?
And this is where it gets troublesome for me.
Because, ideally, I maintain that every child is best raised by both a mother and a father. But practically speaking, in this far from ideal world, one parent is better than none; and two parents of the same sex are better than one.
Even so, research has ably demonstrated that men and women tend to interact quite differently with children. Men are much more likely to play physically, to "roughhouse" with their kids; men are more likely to encourage their kids to push themselves ("Let's see if you can swing higher"), whereas women generally implore their kids to be cautious and play it safe ("Stop that or you'll hurt yourself")... there are many other differences. I can provide citations if needed, but I really do hope that this should be fairly self-evident. But the bottom line is that a child's most ideal circumstance is to be raised by both a mother and a father, so as to have a more holistic and well-rounded experience of what it means to be human.
And so my biggest concern about gay marriage is this: that if we affirm that homosexual marriage (and by extension, parenting) is legally and morally equal to heterosexual marriage and parenting, then really we lose any grounds for saying that it's best for the kids if there's both a mother and father in the picture. In which case a social mandate for tolerance would trump psychological and biological fact.
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Love. Forgive. Trust. Be willing to be broken that you may be remade.
I voted yes to civil unions just because of things like this: Linky.
Until it's ok for religious people to not be accused of a hate crime for not allowing a gay marriage in their church or not taking pictures I don't think society is mature enough to handle it. Gay people should have the right to get married but I think a christian photographer should be allowed to refuse her services to a gay couple. I think it's hypocritical to think your lifestyle is somehow more important than a person's spiritual beliefs.
Hopefully one day we'll just all adopt the 'live and let live' attitude that's sorely needed. That goes for gay's, religious-minded person's, blacks, whites, etc.
I don't think he believes that. I think he only wanted to present an alternate reasoning for not wanting same-sex marriage. In this case, its effects on heterosexual families.
Upon re-reading, I agree with you. Sorry for mistakenly taking your words out of context Mavrick.
i say no and no, because relationships are supposed to be man and woman, it just fits, (no pun intended ;P).
and if we say yes to marriage then we will say yes to gays adopting, and a child growing up in a family like that is going to have a real strain on the psychological stuff.
Is it less harmful to a developing child to have parents that are in a faux marriage that later one half bolts to join their "lifestyle choice" or however you want to refer to it while the kids are still developing?
Nature of growing up involves strains - but the more you segregate it the more harsh you make those strains when they come up on kids.
Being raised by gays is far less disruptive to development than what a few thousand families go through per year where Dad leaves because he finally realizes he's gay - and reasonably often gets a sex change or otherwise changes his sexual identity while still trying to keep in touch with the kids.
My wife literally was a completely non-productive member of society for TWENTY YEARS because of the hell her father put her through with that type of nonsense - and it took those of us in her circle of family and friends a ton of effort on our part to get her back to normality.
We're talking disturbed enough that she'd assault me with all her strength over a pindrop of an issue. Easily triple or more of her normal strength - I can usually lift 4-5 times what she can under normal circumstance, but it would be a struggle to fend her off during her frenzies.
Species have male and female genders to allow breading to allow survival, god and or evolution (what ever you believe in) made us that way.
And? By the same token, homosexuals were 'made that way' (whether by divine direction or natural processes), so I'm not sure that helps your 'it's supposed to be one man and one woman' argument.
if you have a daddy and a daddy or a mommy and a mommy your going to be missing half of the puzzle, you need a male role model and a female role model,
Role models need not be parents and having two fathers does not mean you don't/can't have a female role model in your life. An aunt, a teacher, a group leader, etc.
Beyond that, I'm not convinced a child needs a role model of each sex to develop properly. Speaking from my own life, I can't honestly say that I had a male role model. I've certainly had male influences, but no one I can point to as a definitive role model.
you will be ridiculed, and you will most likely end up gay because thats you learned is normal.
Do you have anything to support your claim that children raised by homosexual parents have a significantly increased chance of being homosexual themselves.
Note that I say significant here because I believe that children raised in a home where homosexuality is openly discussed and accepted (where one would presume all families with same-sex parents would fit in) are more likely to identify as homosexual whereas children raised to believe that homosexuality is somehow wrong or undesirable (families that this would describe are likely predominantly families with heterosexual parents) are more likely to lie and not disclose their true orientation. So even if the overall rates of homosexuality in children are the same between these two types of families, statistics might show an artificial disproportion in the rates of homosexuality because of how the children would identify.
How is that not phycological strain?
I wouldn't say being teased by peers is psychological strain that all children don't deal with on some level anyway.
And being gay need not be psychological strain unto itself.
Because, ideally, I maintain that every child is best raised by both a mother and a father. But practically speaking, in this far from ideal world, one parent is better than none; and two parents of the same sex are better than one.
And that is troublesome for me. I don't feel that being raised by a mother and father is automatically better. We see that all the time with opposite-sex, two-parent homes that don't result in functional adults.
Which isn't to say that I fully disagree. I agree with you that a well-rounded rearing is the optimum for child development. I just don't think that the traditional model necessarily always results in that or that other parenting combinations cannot.
Even so, research has ably demonstrated that men and women tend to interact quite differently with children. Men are much more likely to play physically, to "roughhouse" with their kids; men are more likely to encourage their kids to push themselves ("Let's see if you can swing higher"), whereas women generally implore their kids to be cautious and play it safe ("Stop that or you'll hurt yourself")... there are many other differences. I can provide citations if needed, but I really do hope that this should be fairly self-evident. But the bottom line is that a child's most ideal circumstance is to be raised by both a mother and a father, so as to have a more holistic and well-rounded experience of what it means to be human.
If these differences exist, it doesn't mean that parents that don't fit the ideal (single parents, same-sex, etc) can't overcome what they lack.
So I don't think the opposite-sex, two-parent model is necessarily ideal, it just has an easier time providing the ideal holistic, well-rounded experience. But even if same-sex parents have a harder time providing it, it doesn't mean that experience is beyond them.
It is, from the viewpoint of the state, the institution that takes part in financing said marriage and its only benefit is the potential new citizen. The possibility of not having children is calculated into the deal, but only under the assumption that there can be children. If there can be no progeny, the deal is off. What is the point of financing a factory that can't produce anything? Note that this doesn't prevent the state from giving homosexual couples non fiscal benefits of marriage, like the right for medical decisions.
It would not be hard to investigate couples to see if they are willing and able to reproduce, but we don't. Why? Because there is no shortage of children and as a society we have accepted that children just happen. To actually be consistent with this principle, you would have to invalidate the marriages of the elderly, the infertile and those using birth control.
Plus, not only can gays adopt and thus render new citizens and take a burden off of the state harboring them, but with modern science even biological children of gays is not out of the question. This is not to even mention the obvious possibilty of simply using a surrogate mother or father to have a biological child.
Homosexuality is a mental disease and is not natural. It serves no natural purpose and is immoral.
That's my opinion.
You don't have to agree.
Plenty of people feel the same way.
How is this post any different than just voting in the poll? Take a stance. Engage the discussion. Don't say controversial things and then cover yourself from critique by claiming you stand with the crowd and that it's just an opinion (so what, it's safe from being counterattacked?)
We're not interested in your opinions. We're interested in your arguments.
You would be correct here...but it would allow it to be taught in schools as an alternative to "Mommy & Daddy". This is where it becomes not ok with me.
I don't mind homosexuals recieving benifits, health options, etc...But to define it as marriage in any sense is well...just against everything I believe.
Well, because families come in all shapes and sizes, uniform terminology really shouldn't be bantered about as if it had normative force.
And who is going to be the one to set up this seperate but equal institution? And what is the point of setting such an institution up when there already is one with signifigant systemic integration? To appease people who are afriad of sharing their precious term "marriage?"
Because it has a strong emotional and ethical value for some people and, to be honest, the institution of marriage as we know it today was propagated by Christianity and still have strong ties with it. Since Christianity consider homosexuality as immoral, having both in one sentence can be uncomfortable for some people.
This exemplifies the ultra-weak reasoning that is really behind the anti-gay marriage movement. I applaud your honesty Smokestack. However, you reveal that your position is based on emotion and private beliefs about right and wrong that are incapable of being articulated outside of a particular religion and also by tradition.
Well, neither emotion nor religion nor tradition is a good reason to deny rights to any group of people though those reasons have certainly been sufficient to do so plenty of times.
Not at all, but sexuality is not akin to something like tallness or race. If one of your parents was gay, that doesn't mean you have a set percentage chance of being gay. If your parent is a tall black person, then you're more likely to be tall and black.
Actually, there is a link between families and homosexuality. Twins who share thier DNA are more likely to be gay if the other is. Families have gay members appear more or less depending on the number of gay relatives.
Being gay is certainly a more complicated phenotype though than a simpler expression of a single characteristic like height or skin color, which may explain the difficulty in tracking it as precisely as they are trackable.
When a young child asks "why do people get married," or something to that effect, most parents prefer to answer with "to have children," or something similar. This is an easy answer that does not have to get into abstract ideas such as love and sex with the child who, odds are, will simply not understand.
Er. I don't even think it's the case that parents answer that they are married to be able to reproduce. Even among conservative people and older generations, I think they would answer something about how they fell in love or how they have always wanted to be together or they would start off with "when you love someone very much..."
Frankly, parents don't tell thier kids about reproduction at the age when they first start wondering about marriage and love and families. Talking about having kids raises the question of reproduction. Love does not and is actually the main reason the vast majority of marriages in first world countries happens.
Archetypes. To put it short, it is easier for a child to learn about human behavior if it has access to both man and woman behavior patterns coming from the parents (and children learn a lot from their parents). Since homosexual couples cannot truly mimic that, it would be like rising a child in a broken family. Since people from broken families often have problems with normal social relations it might be, that the same problem could crop up in relation to homosexual couples. I don't know for sure, I'm just extrapolating from a similar situation.
Two parents of opposite gender is no guarantee of a child being well-adjusted or even better adjusted. Children need love and structure. They do not need a ***** parent and a ****** parent. A single parent, a gay couple, granparents of an orphaned child, these can all be great parents just as much as your idea of a normal set of parents.
And there is no advantage to having a man and a woman unless you are specifically interested in drilling sexist notions into kids heads about how a woman has her place and the man is in authority or whatever. If the sexes are equal in dignity then there's no absolute need for a woman and a man. If a woman needs to be treated differently then I could see your point.
Actually, there is a link between families and homosexuality. Twins who share thier DNA are more likely to be gay if the other is. Families have gay members appear more or less depending on the number of gay relatives.
Being gay is certainly a more complicated phenotype though than a simpler expression of a single characteristic like height or skin color, which may explain the difficulty in tracking it as precisely as they are trackable.
I would have to see proof of that. Everything I have read that has tried to explain family or twins and frequency of homosexuality can just as easily be explained by the family or twins experiencing the same environmental stimuli. This is why I tend to take a neutral approach to the issue, because nothing is conclusive, it's all just a specific scientist's interpretation of data.
Also, there's a rather large number of twins where one is gay and the other isn't. That more or less dampens the theory of a gay allele than helping it.
Yeah, it's not the easiest thing to test because ideally you need identical gay twins raised seperately.
However, there is a signifigant difference between the likelihood of being gay if you have a gay identical twin as opposed to a fraternal twin (only difference is genetic here) and also even more if you only have a gay non-twin sibling.
There's also strong indication that the more older brothers you have, the likelier you are to be gay. No joke. The theory is that the mother develops some kind of testosterone immunity or something hormonal after having multiple boys.
Also, there's a rather large number of twins where one is gay and the other isn't. That more or less dampens the theory of a gay allele than helping it.
No. It's all relative to the control of the normal chance of something occuring. As I said the likelihood increases with gay relatives and the more genetic material you share the more likely the expression of the gay phenotype. What you seem to be hung up on is the notion that gay should be a binary or simple expression like hair color. Well, it isn't and it's clear that there are multiple genetic components as well as the environmental factors of the mother's womb and early life experience.
Then I'm sorry, but I'll just have to take it that we will simply interpret the same situation differently. You say it's genetics causing certain groups to cause homosexuals, and I say it's the environment they're in/creating.
At this point, nothing is scientifically clear about homosexuality other than its existence. You can say that there is all you wish, but that won't make you correct. All we have right now is untested theories.
If the state gets to control marriage in any way, then the pleading of religious groups needs to fall silent in making that policy. Separation of church and state. When you silence religion, there's no reason not to allow gay marriage. It's just silly; there's no argument against it (which is a claim that, sure why not, I believe for reasons of inductive evidence right now, and has only been given further credence by the discussion so far in this Yet Another Gay Marriage thread).
If the state does not get to control marriage in any way, then who is left to control it are the religious groups, which can be considered private institutions. As private institutions, they're free to talk about whatever symbolic unions they want. However, marriage will not have any legal weight. But then, there are still all the useful functions that the legal idea of a union forms in Law, which some legal structure would have to fill now. And again, unless I'm mistaken toward this legal structure's functions, it would be plainly silly to disallow it to hold over a couple of the same sex, if they swear up and down to all the same duties that an opposite-sex couple would. (Heck, I'm even partial to gender-blind polygamy, but let's not complicate anything unless we have to.)
I still never got what the heck marriage is completely, so I don't know which of these is or should be true. But you can see in either case that some kind of union is allowed by right to same-sex couples, and this union is not distinguished from that for opposite-sex couples.
. . . basically, I'm quoting Timlock Smash's post #4 of this thread for Truthery.
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Then I'm sorry, but I'll just have to take it that we will simply interpret the same situation differently. You say it's genetics causing certain groups to cause homosexuals, and I say it's the environment they're in/creating.
At this point, nothing is scientifically clear about homosexuality other than its existence. You can say that there is all you wish, but that won't make you correct. All we have right now is untested theories.
Sure, you can believe whatever you want. That was never in question. But assuming this isn't a retreat from the argument, how do you explain the fraternal twins having a statistically signifigant lower chance of sharing thier twin's sexuality as opposed to identical twins? The only difference between the two group is genetics, showing that genetics plays at least some role in homosexuality.
Sure, you can believe whatever you want. That was never in question. But assuming this isn't a retreat from the argument, how do you explain the fraternal twins having a statistically signifigant lower chance of sharing thier twin's sexuality as opposed to identical twins? The only difference between the two group is genetics, showing that genetics plays at least some role in homosexuality.
No, I was simply shaking my head and ignoring an argument that is backed upon nothing more than your word. If you say there's an increased chance, then back it up with data. All I am saying is that, right now, anything that is produced can be easily explained by both theories, so the origins and causes of homosexuality are completely inconclusive. You were arguing that they wern't, and I was asking for you to cite the information that you gathered that from.
You were arguing that they wern't, and I was asking for you to cite the information that you gathered that from.
No, you never asked me to cite sources. You said it was all "untested theories." If you call it untested theories, why should I think you're asking me to cite you where it has been tested?
I think you've made it well know that you believe homosexuality is genetic. You don't need to keep beating that horse.
Apparently I do, at least for that guy.
The difference between the two is that there's no scientist in the world that would argue race or height isn't governed by genetics. Homosexuality doesn't have the same following.
That's okay, because the consensus in the scientific community says nothing about whether or not its true.
Quote from XxTaLoNxX »
OR you could try not twisting my words. I never said anything about being black and to assume that I would be rascist is, well frankly iggnorant.
I never said you were racist. I was pointing out that your logic leads to the racist statement. I was simply pointing this out to you. EDIT: Let me put it this way. You certainly don't agree with the statement I made about black being a physical disease, right? How is the logic in that statement not applicable to the statement you made with regard to homosexuality?
Funny, you didn't address the point about tallness. Would you mind defending your position?
And to actually post in this thread there are obviously other people who agree with me to some point.
And? Do you really think that your argument is valid simply because others agree with you?
I just don't think there should be marraiges or any gay institutions.
Your interest in proof would be best served by looking for it. You can study a whole range of studies that have looked into this chosen by yourself. I'm not going to hand feed you studies since you are already very skeptical of a genetic component. Choose your own studies so you can't accuse anyone else of giving you biased information.
At least. But it's not like the Christians were the ones who imposed the heterosexual requirement on it.
Christians didn't impose the heterosexual requirement on it; Catholics did.
I recall there's a catechismal segment that defines it as being between a man and a woman, but in Ancient Greece, marriage obliged a man to regard his parter as his wife; (a wife, her spouse, her husband; similarly, but opposite).
Actually, marriage dates back to the ancient greeks and romans. Marriage is just as christian as the concept of christmas (read: blatantly ripped off with a sprinkle of a holy trinity on top of it).
Bah, the concept of marriage predates chronicled history.
Formalised, institutionalised ceremonies symbolising the union between person and person, however, is a different thing.
This thread isn't about Mithraism, Christmas, Christianity being a rip-off, etc.
You would be correct here...but it would allow it to be taught in schools as an alternative to "Mommy & Daddy". This is where it becomes not ok with me.
I don't mind homosexuals recieving benifits, health options, etc...But to define it as marriage in any sense is well...just against everything I believe.
I don't understand this argument. "Oh protect our kids. Don't let them learn about gay marriage." Public schools, in California at least, are much too busy teaching children to pass tests to have much time if any to cover heterosexual marriage, let alone homosexual marriage.
Then I'm sorry, but I'll just have to take it that we will simply interpret the same situation differently. You say it's genetics causing certain groups to cause homosexuals, and I say it's the environment they're in/creating.
At this point, nothing is scientifically clear about homosexuality other than its existence. You can say that there is all you wish, but that won't make you correct. All we have right now is untested theories.
Sure, you can believe whatever you want. That was never in question. But assuming this isn't a retreat from the argument, how do you explain the fraternal twins having a statistically signifigant lower chance of sharing thier twin's sexuality as opposed to identical twins? The only difference between the two group is genetics, showing that genetics plays at least some role in homosexuality.
I've been listening to Loveline with Dr. Drew for several years. There are definitely people that are just "born gay". But there are also a lot of gay people that, as Dr. Drew put it best, are "made in the lab". By the nature of Loveline, most of the gay callers tend to fall into the second category. They experienced abuse in early childhood, either sexually or physically, and it rewired their brains. But that in no way covers all homosexual people. There are gay people that were raised in loving and caring environments, but are still just as gay. And for the gay people that are "made in the lab", even after receiving treatment for the childhood trauma, they still remain homosexual. Whether they are born gay or they are made gay doesn't really matter, because in the end they are just as gay and it can't be changed or wished away by sending them to Jesus camp.
No, for I'm ignorant.
In truth, vaguely; when and where I spent my years of youth, there were no such issues such as racism and/or segregation.
Cheers, Dark_Knight_307.
I'm really bad at detecting sarcasm so I'll go on as though this were not sarcastic (as I'm not sure if it is or not).
Quote from Supreme Court of the United States, on Brown v. Board of Education »
We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. This disposition makes unnecessary any discussion whether such segregation also violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
I've been listening to Loveline with Dr. Drew for several years. There are definitely people that are just "born gay". But there are also a lot of gay people that, as Dr. Drew put it best, are "made in the lab". By the nature of Loveline, most of the gay callers tend to fall into the second category. They experienced abuse in early childhood, either sexually or physically, and it rewired their brains. But that in no way covers all homosexual people. There are gay people that were raised in loving and caring environments, but are still just as gay. And for the gay people that are "made in the lab", even after receiving treatment for the childhood trauma, they still remain homosexual. Whether they are born gay or they are made gay doesn't really matter, because in the end they are just as gay and it can't be changed or wished away by sending them to Jesus camp.
Now, I'm not saying the possibility of homosexuality being genetics, but I am just reserving judgment for conclusive data.
Truthfully, I don't care one way or another, I simply wanted to offer another viewpoint to the discussion. Either way, homosexuality happens, and I don't believe it's conciously under control of the individual. Therefore, when two homosexuals fall in love, I don't think the state should stop their marriage.
Forcing a church to marry the two is a different matter, entirely. If that were to happen, then that' the only time I would balk at the idea.
I'm really bad at detecting sarcasm so I'll go on as though this were not sarcastic (as I'm not sure if it is or not).
Sorry; I notice it's something inherent in the 'net.
I wasn't being sarcastic at all; having not been brought up in the United States of America, and having been raised wherever, there wasn't the blatant issue of entrenched tensions between different ethnicities and racism, in general.
Quote from Supreme Court ruling »
We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. This disposition makes unnecessary any discussion whether such segregation also violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Cheers for that.
Quote from Yukora »
Now, I'm not saying the possibility of homosexuality being genetics, but I am just reserving judgment for conclusive data.
Apparently, some cases are caused (oh, that's audacious) by genetics and hormonal imbalances.
I vote yes, but not because I am proactive in the belief that they should be allowed marriage. I vote yes because it shouldn't matter. If they want to marry, let them marry, hell it isn't hurting anyone.
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And you, too, are one of us, and yet you are not. In your words I hear anger, hatred. I see a darkness that is not cold and lifeless, but is alive and moving, like a living entity. I feel caged, trapped, a yearning for escape. --Death Gate Cycle Volume 3: Fire Sea
Christians didn't impose the heterosexual requirement on it; Catholics did.
I recall there's a catechismal segment that defines it as being between a man and a woman, but in Ancient Greece, marriage obliged a man to regard his parter as his wife; (a wife, her spouse, her husband; similarly, but opposite).
No, the heterosexual nature of marriage predates Christianity. The Greeks had institutions of homosexual unions (often pederastic and pedagogical) on top of what we call "marriage", and they certainly recognized the difference between the two. In Spartan custom, for instance, the older partner was expected to help the younger find a wife. And to the best of my knowledge, nowhere was either partner treated as a "wife". They had very strongly defined gender roles to be filled in a heterosexual marriage, and very strongly defined, ah, sexual-position roles to be filled in a homosexual union, but these were different sets of roles. A woman, for instance, would probably not be found on the battlefield, but both dominant and submissive men did the same general-male things, including fighting. The most famous instance of this is of course the Golden Band of Thebes. The sexual-position roles existed within the male gender role.
In fact, funny story: The Iliad was composed before this Classical conception of homosexual roles crystallized, which means that the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus contains what Classical scholars saw as conflicting cues. But so strong was their cultural investment in these cues that the debate was not, as it is today, on whether the two warriors were lovers, but rather which one was the bottom. (As I recall, the conventional wisdom, interestingly enough, was the peerless Achilles - he was younger.)
Not that any of this means squat in a society with very different - and much, much looser - expectations about the roles to be filled in a marriage. My opinion, basically, if these expectations have blurred enough that it isn't just plain incoherent to talk about gay marriage, then the definition of marriage already encompasses this form of relationship.
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I never said it was worse then no parents. don't put words in people mouths.
Species have male and female genders to allow breading to allow survival, god and or evolution (what ever you believe in) made us that way. and i bet you haven't read one of the books in that list, so your just throwing titles at me. I could go and do research my self and publish it but i bet it will be bs.
if you have a daddy and a daddy or a mommy and a mommy your going to be missing half of the puzzle, you need a male role model and a female role model, you will be ridiculed, and you will most likely end up gay because thats you learned is normal. How is that not phycological strain?
Thanks Darth Monkey
No, but that IS what you are heavily implying. To say that gays will psychologically damage a child, with no real assertion as to how, by the way, you are saying that these children should remain wards of the state instead, at least until you can find a nice straight couple. Thus, you are stating that a child is better off NOT adopted, than they are adopted by a gay family.
Or did you not consider that angle?
Firstly, children ALREADY raised by homosexual parents...and single parents, for that matter, fly in the face of this. Second, the ridiculed part is flat out blaming the victim, and ignores a simple fact. If children want to ostracize a kid, they will find a way. Parents, skin color, hair color, anything. As for the third part...well I suppose that's why straight parents only have straight children, yes?
The creator of Maro's Magic 8-Ball!
And this is where it gets troublesome for me.
Because, ideally, I maintain that every child is best raised by both a mother and a father. But practically speaking, in this far from ideal world, one parent is better than none; and two parents of the same sex are better than one.
Even so, research has ably demonstrated that men and women tend to interact quite differently with children. Men are much more likely to play physically, to "roughhouse" with their kids; men are more likely to encourage their kids to push themselves ("Let's see if you can swing higher"), whereas women generally implore their kids to be cautious and play it safe ("Stop that or you'll hurt yourself")... there are many other differences. I can provide citations if needed, but I really do hope that this should be fairly self-evident. But the bottom line is that a child's most ideal circumstance is to be raised by both a mother and a father, so as to have a more holistic and well-rounded experience of what it means to be human.
And so my biggest concern about gay marriage is this: that if we affirm that homosexual marriage (and by extension, parenting) is legally and morally equal to heterosexual marriage and parenting, then really we lose any grounds for saying that it's best for the kids if there's both a mother and father in the picture. In which case a social mandate for tolerance would trump psychological and biological fact.
Until it's ok for religious people to not be accused of a hate crime for not allowing a gay marriage in their church or not taking pictures I don't think society is mature enough to handle it. Gay people should have the right to get married but I think a christian photographer should be allowed to refuse her services to a gay couple. I think it's hypocritical to think your lifestyle is somehow more important than a person's spiritual beliefs.
Hopefully one day we'll just all adopt the 'live and let live' attitude that's sorely needed. That goes for gay's, religious-minded person's, blacks, whites, etc.
Upon re-reading, I agree with you. Sorry for mistakenly taking your words out of context Mavrick.
Is it less harmful to a developing child to have parents that are in a faux marriage that later one half bolts to join their "lifestyle choice" or however you want to refer to it while the kids are still developing?
Nature of growing up involves strains - but the more you segregate it the more harsh you make those strains when they come up on kids.
Being raised by gays is far less disruptive to development than what a few thousand families go through per year where Dad leaves because he finally realizes he's gay - and reasonably often gets a sex change or otherwise changes his sexual identity while still trying to keep in touch with the kids.
My wife literally was a completely non-productive member of society for TWENTY YEARS because of the hell her father put her through with that type of nonsense - and it took those of us in her circle of family and friends a ton of effort on our part to get her back to normality.
We're talking disturbed enough that she'd assault me with all her strength over a pindrop of an issue. Easily triple or more of her normal strength - I can usually lift 4-5 times what she can under normal circumstance, but it would be a struggle to fend her off during her frenzies.
Re: People misusing the term Vanilla to describe a flying, unleash (sometimes trample) critter.
And? By the same token, homosexuals were 'made that way' (whether by divine direction or natural processes), so I'm not sure that helps your 'it's supposed to be one man and one woman' argument.
Role models need not be parents and having two fathers does not mean you don't/can't have a female role model in your life. An aunt, a teacher, a group leader, etc.
Beyond that, I'm not convinced a child needs a role model of each sex to develop properly. Speaking from my own life, I can't honestly say that I had a male role model. I've certainly had male influences, but no one I can point to as a definitive role model.
Do you have anything to support your claim that children raised by homosexual parents have a significantly increased chance of being homosexual themselves.
Note that I say significant here because I believe that children raised in a home where homosexuality is openly discussed and accepted (where one would presume all families with same-sex parents would fit in) are more likely to identify as homosexual whereas children raised to believe that homosexuality is somehow wrong or undesirable (families that this would describe are likely predominantly families with heterosexual parents) are more likely to lie and not disclose their true orientation. So even if the overall rates of homosexuality in children are the same between these two types of families, statistics might show an artificial disproportion in the rates of homosexuality because of how the children would identify.
I wouldn't say being teased by peers is psychological strain that all children don't deal with on some level anyway.
And being gay need not be psychological strain unto itself.
And that is troublesome for me. I don't feel that being raised by a mother and father is automatically better. We see that all the time with opposite-sex, two-parent homes that don't result in functional adults.
Which isn't to say that I fully disagree. I agree with you that a well-rounded rearing is the optimum for child development. I just don't think that the traditional model necessarily always results in that or that other parenting combinations cannot.
If these differences exist, it doesn't mean that parents that don't fit the ideal (single parents, same-sex, etc) can't overcome what they lack.
So I don't think the opposite-sex, two-parent model is necessarily ideal, it just has an easier time providing the ideal holistic, well-rounded experience. But even if same-sex parents have a harder time providing it, it doesn't mean that experience is beyond them.
Archatmos
Excellion
Fracture: Israfiel (WBR), Wujal (URG), Valedon (GUB), Amduat (BGW), Paladris (RWU)
Collision (Set Two of the Fracture Block)
Quest for the Forsaken (Set Two of the Excellion Block)
Katingal: Plane of Chains
It would not be hard to investigate couples to see if they are willing and able to reproduce, but we don't. Why? Because there is no shortage of children and as a society we have accepted that children just happen. To actually be consistent with this principle, you would have to invalidate the marriages of the elderly, the infertile and those using birth control.
Plus, not only can gays adopt and thus render new citizens and take a burden off of the state harboring them, but with modern science even biological children of gays is not out of the question. This is not to even mention the obvious possibilty of simply using a surrogate mother or father to have a biological child.
How is this post any different than just voting in the poll? Take a stance. Engage the discussion. Don't say controversial things and then cover yourself from critique by claiming you stand with the crowd and that it's just an opinion (so what, it's safe from being counterattacked?)
We're not interested in your opinions. We're interested in your arguments.
Well, because families come in all shapes and sizes, uniform terminology really shouldn't be bantered about as if it had normative force.
And who is going to be the one to set up this seperate but equal institution? And what is the point of setting such an institution up when there already is one with signifigant systemic integration? To appease people who are afriad of sharing their precious term "marriage?"
This exemplifies the ultra-weak reasoning that is really behind the anti-gay marriage movement. I applaud your honesty Smokestack. However, you reveal that your position is based on emotion and private beliefs about right and wrong that are incapable of being articulated outside of a particular religion and also by tradition.
Well, neither emotion nor religion nor tradition is a good reason to deny rights to any group of people though those reasons have certainly been sufficient to do so plenty of times.
Actually, there is a link between families and homosexuality. Twins who share thier DNA are more likely to be gay if the other is. Families have gay members appear more or less depending on the number of gay relatives.
Being gay is certainly a more complicated phenotype though than a simpler expression of a single characteristic like height or skin color, which may explain the difficulty in tracking it as precisely as they are trackable.
Er. I don't even think it's the case that parents answer that they are married to be able to reproduce. Even among conservative people and older generations, I think they would answer something about how they fell in love or how they have always wanted to be together or they would start off with "when you love someone very much..."
Frankly, parents don't tell thier kids about reproduction at the age when they first start wondering about marriage and love and families. Talking about having kids raises the question of reproduction. Love does not and is actually the main reason the vast majority of marriages in first world countries happens.
Two parents of opposite gender is no guarantee of a child being well-adjusted or even better adjusted. Children need love and structure. They do not need a ***** parent and a ****** parent. A single parent, a gay couple, granparents of an orphaned child, these can all be great parents just as much as your idea of a normal set of parents.
And there is no advantage to having a man and a woman unless you are specifically interested in drilling sexist notions into kids heads about how a woman has her place and the man is in authority or whatever. If the sexes are equal in dignity then there's no absolute need for a woman and a man. If a woman needs to be treated differently then I could see your point.
I would have to see proof of that. Everything I have read that has tried to explain family or twins and frequency of homosexuality can just as easily be explained by the family or twins experiencing the same environmental stimuli. This is why I tend to take a neutral approach to the issue, because nothing is conclusive, it's all just a specific scientist's interpretation of data.
Also, there's a rather large number of twins where one is gay and the other isn't. That more or less dampens the theory of a gay allele than helping it.
However, there is a signifigant difference between the likelihood of being gay if you have a gay identical twin as opposed to a fraternal twin (only difference is genetic here) and also even more if you only have a gay non-twin sibling.
There's also strong indication that the more older brothers you have, the likelier you are to be gay. No joke. The theory is that the mother develops some kind of testosterone immunity or something hormonal after having multiple boys.
No. It's all relative to the control of the normal chance of something occuring. As I said the likelihood increases with gay relatives and the more genetic material you share the more likely the expression of the gay phenotype. What you seem to be hung up on is the notion that gay should be a binary or simple expression like hair color. Well, it isn't and it's clear that there are multiple genetic components as well as the environmental factors of the mother's womb and early life experience.
At this point, nothing is scientifically clear about homosexuality other than its existence. You can say that there is all you wish, but that won't make you correct. All we have right now is untested theories.
If the state does not get to control marriage in any way, then who is left to control it are the religious groups, which can be considered private institutions. As private institutions, they're free to talk about whatever symbolic unions they want. However, marriage will not have any legal weight. But then, there are still all the useful functions that the legal idea of a union forms in Law, which some legal structure would have to fill now. And again, unless I'm mistaken toward this legal structure's functions, it would be plainly silly to disallow it to hold over a couple of the same sex, if they swear up and down to all the same duties that an opposite-sex couple would.
(Heck, I'm even partial to gender-blind polygamy, but let's not complicate anything unless we have to.)
I still never got what the heck marriage is completely, so I don't know which of these is or should be true. But you can see in either case that some kind of union is allowed by right to same-sex couples, and this union is not distinguished from that for opposite-sex couples.
. . . basically, I'm quoting Timlock Smash's post #4 of this thread for Truthery.
Awesome avatar provided by Krashbot @ [Epic Graphics].
Sure, you can believe whatever you want. That was never in question. But assuming this isn't a retreat from the argument, how do you explain the fraternal twins having a statistically signifigant lower chance of sharing thier twin's sexuality as opposed to identical twins? The only difference between the two group is genetics, showing that genetics plays at least some role in homosexuality.
No, I was simply shaking my head and ignoring an argument that is backed upon nothing more than your word. If you say there's an increased chance, then back it up with data. All I am saying is that, right now, anything that is produced can be easily explained by both theories, so the origins and causes of homosexuality are completely inconclusive. You were arguing that they wern't, and I was asking for you to cite the information that you gathered that from.
No, you never asked me to cite sources. You said it was all "untested theories." If you call it untested theories, why should I think you're asking me to cite you where it has been tested?
Anyway, just google "homosexual twin studies."
My point isn't asking for studies, but rather for conclusive proof that can't be just as easily explained by an environmental stimulus.
That's okay, because the consensus in the scientific community says nothing about whether or not its true.
I never said you were racist. I was pointing out that your logic leads to the racist statement. I was simply pointing this out to you. EDIT: Let me put it this way. You certainly don't agree with the statement I made about black being a physical disease, right? How is the logic in that statement not applicable to the statement you made with regard to homosexuality?
Funny, you didn't address the point about tallness. Would you mind defending your position?
And? Do you really think that your argument is valid simply because others agree with you?
Please, go on. I'm interested in this statement.
Thanks to the [Æther] shop for the sig!
Here it is: the answer to the life, the universe, and everything.
In truth, vaguely; when and where I spent my years of youth, there were no such issues such as racism and/or segregation.
Cheers, Dark_Knight_307.
Christians didn't impose the heterosexual requirement on it; Catholics did.
I recall there's a catechismal segment that defines it as being between a man and a woman, but in Ancient Greece, marriage obliged a man to regard his parter as his wife; (a wife, her spouse, her husband; similarly, but opposite).
Bah, the concept of marriage predates chronicled history.
Formalised, institutionalised ceremonies symbolising the union between person and person, however, is a different thing.
This thread isn't about Mithraism, Christmas, Christianity being a rip-off, etc.
Inconclusive; vague results; theoretical (prenatal hormone therapy, etc.); and/or other?
I don't understand this argument. "Oh protect our kids. Don't let them learn about gay marriage." Public schools, in California at least, are much too busy teaching children to pass tests to have much time if any to cover heterosexual marriage, let alone homosexual marriage.
I've been listening to Loveline with Dr. Drew for several years. There are definitely people that are just "born gay". But there are also a lot of gay people that, as Dr. Drew put it best, are "made in the lab". By the nature of Loveline, most of the gay callers tend to fall into the second category. They experienced abuse in early childhood, either sexually or physically, and it rewired their brains. But that in no way covers all homosexual people. There are gay people that were raised in loving and caring environments, but are still just as gay. And for the gay people that are "made in the lab", even after receiving treatment for the childhood trauma, they still remain homosexual. Whether they are born gay or they are made gay doesn't really matter, because in the end they are just as gay and it can't be changed or wished away by sending them to Jesus camp.
no. Here it is: the answer to life the universe and everything
sorry. Bad overused joke.
I'm really bad at detecting sarcasm so I'll go on as though this were not sarcastic (as I'm not sure if it is or not).
Thanks to the [Æther] shop for the sig!
Truthfully, I don't care one way or another, I simply wanted to offer another viewpoint to the discussion. Either way, homosexuality happens, and I don't believe it's conciously under control of the individual. Therefore, when two homosexuals fall in love, I don't think the state should stop their marriage.
Forcing a church to marry the two is a different matter, entirely. If that were to happen, then that' the only time I would balk at the idea.
I wasn't being sarcastic at all; having not been brought up in the United States of America, and having been raised wherever, there wasn't the blatant issue of entrenched tensions between different ethnicities and racism, in general.
Cheers for that.
Apparently, some cases are caused (oh, that's audacious) by genetics and hormonal imbalances.
For those of you wondering whether I read anything besides the Economist, my answer is: why bother?
No, the heterosexual nature of marriage predates Christianity. The Greeks had institutions of homosexual unions (often pederastic and pedagogical) on top of what we call "marriage", and they certainly recognized the difference between the two. In Spartan custom, for instance, the older partner was expected to help the younger find a wife. And to the best of my knowledge, nowhere was either partner treated as a "wife". They had very strongly defined gender roles to be filled in a heterosexual marriage, and very strongly defined, ah, sexual-position roles to be filled in a homosexual union, but these were different sets of roles. A woman, for instance, would probably not be found on the battlefield, but both dominant and submissive men did the same general-male things, including fighting. The most famous instance of this is of course the Golden Band of Thebes. The sexual-position roles existed within the male gender role.
In fact, funny story: The Iliad was composed before this Classical conception of homosexual roles crystallized, which means that the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus contains what Classical scholars saw as conflicting cues. But so strong was their cultural investment in these cues that the debate was not, as it is today, on whether the two warriors were lovers, but rather which one was the bottom. (As I recall, the conventional wisdom, interestingly enough, was the peerless Achilles - he was younger.)
Not that any of this means squat in a society with very different - and much, much looser - expectations about the roles to be filled in a marriage. My opinion, basically, if these expectations have blurred enough that it isn't just plain incoherent to talk about gay marriage, then the definition of marriage already encompasses this form of relationship.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.