posted
Nope. I'm a supporter of the nuclear family. George Murdock (whoever that is) is injecting an irrelevant qualification.
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quote:But since theists assert that God has a purpose for allowing (and even causing) pain in the world, then this objection doesn't stand against the theist.
But is the definition descriptive or prescriptive? Gay families that look like traditional nuclear families are a relatively recent phenomenon. If they appear to be equivalent in structure and function to a traditional family, then the definition may need to be modified to fit the reality.
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Hmm... I'd argue that the way that the term "nuclear family" is used in today's culture does not fit with the way you've described the type of family you support.
From what you've said here, you support heterosexual and homosexual couples engaged in stable, healthy family living. However, I believe most people in the US would define the nuclear family as George Murdock did; two parents of both genders, with their own or adopted children.
posted
Most people when asked what family consisted of would probably say "a mom and a dad and their kids and..." That doesn't mean that a family can't have two moms or two dads, just that the family archetype in the popular imagination contains parents of each gender. I think this is the same for the nuclear family.
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posted
I think extended families would work better in some cases, depending. Then there's always adopting people to be a part of your family too...
quote:Originally posted by Scott R:
quote:It's like OSC's got this frustrating concept that a child is better off growing up with 2 parents even if they are dysfunctonal. This irratating line in the Ender series comes to mind.
What irritating line, Syn?
And how did you come to that conclusion that that was what OSC is implying?
It was a line in, I forgot which book. Ender was dying and Valentine told Novinja (Sp) that she had done the right thing staying with her first husband and that it was good for the kids.
But her first husband was abusive and cruel, the whole entire family was messed up partially because of him, the youngest child was immatating his violent ways, the youngest daughter, using her mother as an example in a totally unhealthy way. But Valentine made it sound like it was good for the kids to have him as a father rather than have their biological father who already have a family take responsibility for them.
It bugged me a lot...
And that's not the only time he's used a line like that that got under my skin. What I'm reading of his views in marriage make me think, perhaps inaccurately, that he thinks it's better for kids to have a man and a woman raising them than a single mother, two men or two women even if they were as messed up as Novinua (grr cannot spell it) and her first husband were. It's not just him I pick this vibe up from but quite a few other folks and it's super, mega unhealthy on every level.
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quote:As far as men and women being alien species: I've lived with a man for 17 years and am raising both girls and boys. They come out of the box different, and those differences persist through adulthood and in many ways. Much of the male vilification exists because women expect them to conform to how women act and believe that men should conform because no real difference exists except the man is bigger and can get his way more easily.
My current girlfriend knows me and "gets" me better than all but maybe 3 other people. I have more either in common with her or complementary to her than nearly anyone I've ever known. We do the finishing each other's sentences thing, coming up with the same joke at the same time, etc. There are also many differences between us, as there are between any two people.
But when someone tries to tell me that she is less like me or that I'd be more comfortable in a relationship with 50% of the population than with her, that person is freaking crazy.
People are all, in some ways, alien to each other. One of these differences is the both inborn and acculturated differences based on sex. There are a dizzyingly array of other differences that, in my experience, are not dwarfed or made irrelevant by the differences arising from gender.
But then, I also don't have much experience with cultures that put as strong an emphasis on gender roles as LDS do such that OSC can regard me marrying my girlfriend and her being the primary breadwinner and me being the primary child-carer person (which is likely to be the case) as an affront to marriage. I don't have experience with cultures that promote OSC's idea (which I regard as an attack on marriage) that people naturally shouldn't want to get married but have to because of child raising issues. But I've got to tell you, if you feel stuck having to marry someone who is less compatible with you than any other member of your own gender, if you regard marriage as an unpleasant imposition rather than something that is a great blessing, I feel incredibly sorry for you.
posted
Regarding the idea that defining opposition to SSM as hate-based is counterproductive, I must disagree. And in this regard, there clearly is a parallel between SSM and racial civil rights in the past: making it seem socially inappropriate to hold a particular view (such as pro-segregationism) can be powerful indeed.
Please note I'm not declaring that stigmatizing anti-SSM viewpoints is necessarily a good thing, or that it would necessarily result in more satisfactory societal movement on the issue. Something very similar has happened with regard to "liberal" viewpoints in this country, and I think it's despicable. But it's certainly arguably not progress-neutral or progress-negative from the point-of-view of a SSM advocate.
I rather wondered, coming into this issue: the question of religion usually seems to be framed as "forcing religions to recognize marriages that are antithetical to their fundamental beliefs," etc., etc. But what of a religion that does perform same-sex marriages and doesn't receive recognition of those rituals in the eyes of the State?
posted
There is a lot of hate based opposition to SSM. I think it could be productive for both sides to recognize this.
There is also plenty of people who oppose SSM for reasons other than out of hate for gay people.
There's an interesting question about whether it is more effective (it's not fair, by any means) to lump all them in with the many hateful, ignorant bigots on their side or to address them separately. I don't really know the answer to that.
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quote:But what of a religion that does perform same-sex marriages and doesn't receive recognition of those rituals in the eyes of the State?
I don't think that's really a fair comparison. The unlikely scenario proposed is that the government will force religions to perform their religious ceremonies for people who the religion doesn't feel merit them. Not recognizing the gay marriage ceremonies with the secular analog doesn't really fit this to me. The government would have to be preventing these religious ceremonies from taking place.
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posted
Aren't religions already permitted to discriminate by not performing otherwise legal marriages? I'm pretty sure that a religion can refuse to marry people that are not members of their church or even people of different races. Doesn't the Catholic church refuse to marry divorced people who have not had their previous marriages annulled by the church?
If the right to such discrimination already exists, what is special about gay marriage that churches would all of a sudden be compelled to perform marriages that are contrary to their doctrine?
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: I don't think that's really a fair comparison. The unlikely scenario proposed is that the government will force religions to perform their religious ceremonies for people who the religion doesn't feel merit them. Not recognizing the gay marriage ceremonies with the secular analog doesn't really fit this to me. The government would have to be preventing these religious ceremonies from taking place.
I agree that government "forcing" religious groups to perform marriages they disagree with is highly unlikely. My point is more that if one argues the ability to refuse to perform same-sex marriages is a point of religious freedom, isn't a church that *does* want to perform same-sex marriages not having those marriages recognized by the state a kind of persecution as well?
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posted
Mormons have been up that road before. The government will impose restrictions on religious expression if they feel it is bad enough.
"But I think it would be a bad idea." doesn't necessarily mean it won't happen.
As far as the nuclear family goes, it is important that children of both genders have good roll models of both genders and what a good marriage is. I had some experiences in high school that, if I hadn't had a good man as a father, would have made me very angry at all men. If I'd had two mothers instead, they would never have been able to provide for me what my father did without his even knowing it, just by being a good man every day. They wouldn't have known that at that time I really needed a good male role model. And if they'd been the bitter kind (quite within the realm of possibility) I would have been very damaged.
I'm sorry, but even the best of homosexual relationships are starting out the gate at a disadvantage here in regards to parenting. Sure, disadvantages happen. And some of them are the result of government tinkering (no fault marriages). But because chance throws kids into less than ideal situations doesn't mean we should elevate less than ideal situations to the same level as ideal.
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quote:it is important that children of both genders have good roll models of both genders
Only if you have strict ideas of gender roles and insist on propagating those ideas in the next generation.
Otherwise, you get 'normal' people who are just a tad more progressive when it comes to things like "women should do this" or "men should do this".
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quote:I'm sorry, but even the best of homosexual relationships are starting out the gate at a disadvantage here in regards to parenting.
Yeah. That is directly contradicted by the research done on this topic.
The children of gay couples have statistically no more psychological, social, or relationship problems than the children of similar straight couples.
---
There's a big difference between playing what if games and empirical and experimental evidence. Just because you think things would work a certain way or can make up a story where they do doesn't actually mean that this is what happens in reality.
edit: And I'd appreciate it if you stopped accusing me of not caring for the welfare of marriages, families, or children.
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quote:Mormons have been up that road before. The government will impose restrictions on religious expression if they feel it is bad enough.
When was that?
Anti-polygamy laws back in the olden days? Persecution?
Trying to rid Native Americans of their native beliefs? That sort of thing happened ages ago. Nowadays if you interfere with someone's religious beliefs, there's always suing or something.
quote:As far as the nuclear family goes, it is important that children of both genders have good roll models of both genders and what a good marriage is.
Gender role models aside (there's always teachers to consider, people within the community who can take up the slack when you have single mothers, grandmothers raising children in my case) many people do NOT get a good, healthy example of what a marriage is. Especially when it comes to things like gender roles becoming too strict, and women not having enough power and say-so in their marriage. That's not a healthy model. Our whole culture has the tendency not to have good examples of marriage in the pop culture. But, I imagine gays can give a loving example better than two heterosexuals in an unhealthy relationship. Nowadays the rules can cross and that's much better. Men can nurture and show affection towards their children, women could know about finances and how to fix their cars. The roles of people are not fixed into strict catergories. They have fixed over the last decades, marriage has shifted over the last decades. I say most of these changes are good ones because at least we are aware of what abuse is and what can be done about it. You can't really say the same thing about the past.
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quote:Originally posted by Amka: I'm sorry, but even the best of homosexual relationships are starting out the gate at a disadvantage here in regards to parenting. Sure, disadvantages happen. And some of them are the result of government tinkering (no fault marriages). But because chance throws kids into less than ideal situations doesn't mean we should elevate less than ideal situations to the same level as ideal.
Perhaps, in some respects. I can certainly see there being a benefit to a positive role model of both genders at home. But that's a long way from saying that heterosexual unions or marriages are inherently better than homosexual ones. I'd certainly rather see children raised in a loving home by two same-sex parents than an abusive home with two opposite-sex parents. And arguably, the very struggles that same-sex partners are having to go through now in order to have their unions receive public recognition are a testament to their desire to take those unions, and the families that result, seriously, a testament notably lacking in many heterosexual marriages these days.
We live in an era of an increasing number of non-traditional families: children raised by uncles and aunts, by grandparents, by single parents (hopefully with supportive communities.) We're also seeing a tremendous number of children in a heavily stressed foster care and adoption system. I think recognizing the worth of dedicated same-sex families with strong commitments, rather than marginalizing them, might well work to the benefit of society.
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You seem to be making bunch of assumptions about what influences a child needs and some rather limited ideas of where those influences can be obtained.
And even given all of that, do we discriminate against every non-ideal situation? Should we prevent really poor people from marrying and having kids?
We let any old man and woman marry and have kids. There's no way to determine whether either will be a positive influence on their children. There a lot of kids that would be better off in a good gay marriage than a bad hetero one.
Also, gays are already pairing up and raising children. Given that this already occurs, shouldn't be provide the best possible environment for these kids by removing the stigma of having unmarried parents and providing all the rights and benefits to their parents that other parents have?
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quote:Regarding the idea that defining opposition to SSM as hate-based is counterproductive, I must disagree.
Why?
quote: And in this regard, there clearly is a parallel between SSM and racial civil rights in the past: making it seem socially inappropriate to hold a particular view (such as pro-segregationism) can be powerful indeed.
This could be said for any viewpoint for any topic.
quote: I'm sorry, but even the best of homosexual relationships are starting out the gate at a disadvantage here in regards to parenting.
It depends. Where a person values two gender-models in order to imprint certain gender roles, than this viewpoint is certainly true.
Where gender roles are not valued as much, it is not true.
quote:I also don't have much experience with cultures that put as strong an emphasis on gender roles as LDS do such that OSC can regard me marrying my girlfriend and her being the primary breadwinner and me being the primary child-carer person (which is likely to be the case) as an affront to marriage.
I can't speak for OSC, but I can for LDS doctrine. There's nothing in our doctrine that mandates that a woman as the primary breadwinner and a man as the primary nurturer is an affront to marriage.
Here is the doctrine on it:
quote:By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children. In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners. Disability, death, or other circumstances may necessitate individual adaptation. Extended families should lend support when needed.
quote:I don't have experience with cultures that promote OSC's idea (which I regard as an attack on marriage) that people naturally shouldn't want to get married but have to because of child raising issues.
I don't think he's ever argued "shouldn't." I think that he's actually right about the biological urges humans face, and the civilizing influence that history imposes upon us. I think that he's arguing in favor of civilization-- that civilization is the "should."
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quote:I can't speak for OSC, but I can for LDS doctrine. There's nothing in our doctrine that mandates that a woman as the primary breadwinner and a man as the primary nurturer is an affront to marriage.
The quoted text you provided surely seems to strongly suggest gender roles even if it doesn't mandate them. Then again, the text you responded to didn't say anything about mandating roles, it said there was a "strong emphasis" on them.
He also didn't say "doctrine", he said "culture." The culture definitely defines gender roles. Men and women attend gender-segregated Sunday school sessions every week, have gender-specific church sanctioned activities, even separate gender-specific portions of General Conference to view.
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quote:I can't speak for OSC, but I can for LDS doctrine. There's nothing in our doctrine that mandates that a woman as the primary breadwinner and a man as the primary nurturer is an affront to marriage.
The quoted text you provided surely seems to strongly suggest gender roles even if it doesn't mandate them. Then again, the text you responded to didn't say anything about mandating roles, it said there was a "strong emphasis" on them.
He also didn't say "doctrine", he said "culture." The culture definitely defines gender roles. Men and women attend gender-segregated Sunday school sessions every week, have gender-specific church sanctioned activities, even separate gender-specific portions of General Conference to view.
I was responding to the word "affront." EDIT: I could have been clearer about that, I suppose...
Yes, there are generally defined gender roles, but doctrinally, there's no restriction or institutionalized discipline for men and women who don't follow them. EDIT #2: ...that is, within marriage. If Mom works, and Dad stays at home to take care of the children; or if both parents work; there's no Church discipline against them.
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posted
Ah. Well the affronting was referring to conclusions OSC was reaching based on the doctrinal/cultural gender role pressures. I can see, based on the doctrine and cultural situation, someone coming to the position that nontraditional marriage was an affront and indeed I have heard as much from individual church members multiple times.
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quote:Regarding the idea that defining opposition to SSM as hate-based is counterproductive, I must disagree.
Why?
I believe I said why, but to summarize: to the point of engaging those who oppose SSM, it may be considered counter-productive, but that relies on the notion that the objective is to change the minds of those who oppose SSM. If the objective is instead to marginalize the viewpoint, it could be quite productive, whether or not that tactic should be considered appropriate.
quote:Originally posted by Scott R:
quote: And in this regard, there clearly is a parallel between SSM and racial civil rights in the past: making it seem socially inappropriate to hold a particular view (such as pro-segregationism) can be powerful indeed.
This could be said for any viewpoint for any topic.
Frankly, that's not remotely true. If I prefer red to blue, or feel the Atkins diet is a superior method of weight loss, or hold that democracy is superior to dictatorship, it's going to be a monumental stretch to make me feel that my view is socially inappropriate. Issues that border on civil rights are far more likely to bring such matters to bear, in part because, to one side, it appears that some people are being denied rights largely because it makes a larger group of people uncomfortable. There are a great many issues that would never be framed that way.
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quote:Originally posted by Amka: Another problem is that once a government redefines marriage, it may require the religions under it to conform to that definition.
This will not happen. We have the first amendment for a reason.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
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quote:if you break it down, anyone who remains pro-discrimination and does understand and share in the true motivations behind it, as I have characterized them , is proudly full of hate
I don't think you get to define what motivates those who believe differently than you.
(Emphasis mine). Which is why I framed it in that way. I am acknowledging that the stated motivations and justifications are different, and that I as a pro-ssm advocate would seek to show that anti-ssm people are suborning and encouraging hate and repression of a minority, whether they think they are or not.
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quote:Originally posted by Synesthesia: And that's not the only time he's used a line like that that got under my skin. What I'm reading of his views in marriage make me think, perhaps inaccurately, that he thinks it's better for kids to have a man and a woman raising them than a single mother, two men or two women even if they were as messed up as Novinua (grr cannot spell it) and her first husband were. It's not just him I pick this vibe up from but quite a few other folks and it's super, mega unhealthy on every level.
Meh, well, I objected to Novinia as a ch aracter on virtually every level. I just, for the life of me, didn't understand what she was meant to show about human nature in any of the books. Nothing good, it seems; she was a horrifying parody of the "strong woman." Maybe that was the point, but I was certainly never sympathetic.
quote: If I prefer red to blue, or feel the Atkins diet is a superior method of weight loss, or hold that democracy is superior to dictatorship, it's going to be a monumental stretch to make me feel that my view is socially inappropriate. Issues that border on civil rights are far more likely to bring such matters to bear, in part because, to one side, it appears that some people are being denied rights largely because it makes a larger group of people uncomfortable. There are a great many issues that would never be framed that way.
quote: I can see, based on the doctrine and cultural situation, someone coming to the position that nontraditional marriage was an affront and indeed I have heard as much from individual church members multiple times.
Squick's point wasn't about non-traditional marriage ; it was about gender roles within a traditional marriage, as viewed by OSC and by the Mormon church.
Here's his quote:
quote:I also don't have much experience with cultures that put as strong an emphasis on gender roles as LDS do such that OSC can regard me marrying my girlfriend and her being the primary breadwinner and me being the primary child-carer person (which is likely to be the case) as an affront to marriage.
Do you see the difference between what you're arguing and what he has argued?
quote:making it seem socially inappropriate to hold a particular view [...] can be powerful indeed.
Do you truly not see how this statement can be utilized by either side of any argument?
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posted
I imagine it could be used by either side of any argument, but in a great many arguments (arguably, the vast majority), it would be approximately as useful as a rubber spatula as a tool for pulling nails.
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quote:making it seem socially inappropriate to hold a particular view [...] can be powerful indeed.
But it gets us no closer to the truth. It is a method that can just as easily be used to enact evil as good.
Synth:
quote:Gender role models aside (there's always teachers to consider, people within the community who can take up the slack when you have single mothers, grandmothers raising children in my case) many people do NOT get a good, healthy example of what a marriage is.
So how will making homosexual marriage legal improve this? Are homosexuals more stable in their relationships?
Besides, in my case, the teachers made things worse. They are typically poor substitutes for a parent.
MattP
quote:You seem to be making bunch of assumptions about what influences a child needs and some rather limited ideas of where those influences can be obtained.
I presume to know because I took parenting seriously. I've read books, I’ve read studies, I’ve listened to my pediatrician (whose well visits often involve questions about how my husband involves himself and his feelings). Parents are role models, and they’re gender role models as well. To show a negative example: fathers who abuse their wives tend to raise sons who will then abuse their wives.
There are few good substitutes for parental role models, and those usually involve closely related family members such as a grandparent or uncle.
As far as studies go (someone mentioned that), they all suffer from the same design problem: self selection. These studies are comparing people who wish to participate in a study about the effect or non-effect of (usually) lesbian parenting. The bias is already built into the study. Further problems involve the design of questions as well as biased subjective answers to those questions. Any time any psychological or sociological study must recruit volunteers, the conclusions of that study cannot be taken as representative of the whole population.
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quote:So how will making homosexual marriage legal improve this? Are homosexuals more stable in their relationships?
More stable than many heterosexuals? Yes. Absolutely. Than all heterosexuals? Probably not. Is it your opinion that only ideal heterosexuals should be allowed to marry and raise children?
quote:To show a negative example: fathers who abuse their wives tend to raise sons who will then abuse their wives.
Why do you think this is a gender model and not merely an adulthood model?
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quote:As far as studies go (someone mentioned that), they all suffer from the same design problem: self selection. These studies are comparing people who wish to participate in a study about the effect or non-effect of (usually) lesbian parenting. The bias is already built into the study.
I'm not sure I follow. Lesbian parents who self-select for studies are good at providing that certain je ne sais quoi that only a father can provide? How do they manage it if having two different genders is so key?
You still seem to be arguing for an ideal which many heterosexual marriages don't live up to while acknowledging that at least some non-heterosexual marriages do a good job of.
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quote:Originally posted by Amka: Any time any psychological or sociological study must recruit volunteers, the conclusions of that study cannot be taken as representative of the whole population.
That's a big fat whopping over-statement. It depends on what's being studied, along with a host of additional variables. You're just talking about studies in which there may be a self-selection bias- that isn't all studies. There are plenty of studies conducted where the fact that the participants are volunteers doesn't matter. There are also many ways in which studies attempt to control for this factor so that their results are representative and reproducible. I'm not a sociologist, but it takes about one class in sociology (and one in psych) to learn that. If we just rejected every study ever done on a group of volunteers, we'd be throwing out a lot of useful information.
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posted
On one hand, lesbian parents who volunteer for a study probably think they're better-than-average in their parenting skills and how they treat their child. In that regard (only those who are reasonably certain they'll demonstrate positive parenting volunteering for such a study), there may be a self-selection bias.
But on the other hand, that's probably true for the heterosexual parents who are the "control" for said study as well.
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posted
Marrying and living together happily ever after with the person you love is still seen as an ideal in our culture, no matter how much it has decayed in practice.
You can't reject gay marriages without rejecting the very worth of commited monogamy in the whole of society.
OSC at least takes it to its logical outcome of arguing that gay people should not have gay sex, and instead marry people of the opposite gender and reproduce. I've attacked him as non-sane before, but at least his irrationality has a consistency in parts of it. If he sees commitment only worth anything for the sake of reproduction, then yeah: little sense in gay marriages.
And then he screws it up by ALSO claiming "When a heterosexual couple cannot have children, their faithful marriage still affirms, in the eyes of other people's children, the universality of the pattern of marriage."
Gee, you'd think OSC would understand that it's this same universal pattern of commitment to a single partner that same-sex marriage would also affirm. That if non-reproductive hetero marriages still affirm a valuable lesson, the same holds for non-reproductive homosexual marriages.
So yeah -- still irrational, still insane, still babbling with contradictory arguments that make absolutely no sense.
Like all those (even more self-contradictory ones) who claim to be "defending marriage" while at the same time saying that gay people don't gain anything from being married, there's no value to them being married, they can just keep having their homosexual relationships as is.
That's a new sort of "defense", I guess. "Defending" marriage by calling it utterly useless and meaningless.
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quote:Tom, didn't you argue recently that legitimizing homosexual marriage would bring stability to homosexual relationships that isn't there right now?
Sure did. I think a lot of the problems facing long-term homosexual relationships are due to general societal disapproval of homosexual relationships, and social acceptance/reinforcement of those relationships should have all kinds of ancillary benefits. That said, individual homosexual relationships are still capable of remarkable stability; it's not possible to tell whether a given relationship is stable or not simply by identifying the genders of the people involved.
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posted
And to clarify further: If OSC was to really be consistent in this manner, he'd be arguing in favour of making automatically invalid all the marriages of infertile people.
Those infertile people wouldn't be affirming any "reproductive pattern", the same way that gay couples don't.
The same way he has in his stories gay people forgo gay sex and instead marry and reproduce with people of the opposite gender, he'd have fertile people forgo their infertile partners and find fertile partners.
Abraham would not only sleep with Sarah's servantwoman, he'd divorce Sarah and marry the servantwoman instead. Hence affirming the universal pattern of reproductive hetero couples, I guess.
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posted
Tom, do you see where your points seem to conflict?
1) Homosexual relatioships are stable;
2) Homosexual relationships aren't stable because they can't be married.
In any case, #2's need isn't answered by legislation, but by widespread cultural approval. There's a difference.
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quote:Originally posted by Scott R: In any case, #2's need isn't answered by legislation, but by widespread cultural approval. There's a difference.
So the only way you'll be happy with homosexual marriage being legal is if the majority of people in the country support it? More than the majority? Everyone?
There's something to be said about not polling the foxes for their opinion on what to do with the hen house.
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posted
1) Individual homosexual relationships can be, and have been, very stable, despite cultural and societal stigma.
2) Said legislation may not eliminate said stigma, but it removes many legal and social disadvantages that homosexual couples have compared to heterosexual married couples.
Furthermore, there's a slight difference between "Some people in this country don't want us to be married" and "The government of my country will not allow us to be married", at least in terms of societal pressure.
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Tom's point (summarized in my bullet #2) was that legalization of homosexual marriage would lead to greater general stabilization of homosexual relationships.
He also said, however:
quote:I think a lot of the problems facing long-term homosexual relationships are due to general societal disapproval of homosexual relationships, and social acceptance/reinforcement of those relationships should have all kinds of ancillary benefits.
Legal approval doesn't mean social approval; legally being married DOES NOT mean that homosexual relationships will perforce be stabilized, because there's a social element in action that does not necessarily regard law.
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quote:Legal approval doesn't mean social approval; legally being married DOES NOT mean that homosexual relationships will perforce be stabilized, because there's a social element in action that does not necessarily regard law.
That's true as far as it goes - the social approval does not necessarily follow from legal approval. But there are significant reasons to think it would.
quote:There's something to be said about not polling the foxes for their opinion on what to do with the hen house.
That's an inapt analogy. Most people who oppose same sex marriage are the hens and roosters already in the house (or who already have legal access to the house and anticipate being there at some time in the future).
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quote:There's something to be said about not polling the foxes for their opinion on what to do with the hen house.
That's an inapt analogy. Most people who oppose same sex marriage are the hens and roosters already in the house (or who already have legal access to the house and anticipate being there at some time in the future).
I'm reminded of the Charlie Brown special where they had the river race. The girls all voted that the girls got to stay in the cabin and the boys had to stay outside, without giving the boys a vote.
There's a reason this country isn't a pure democracy.
Posts: 3852 | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Malachin1: Ancient cultures had plenty of homosexuality and even the Greeks, that most esteemed of ancient learned cultures was accepting of the practice.
Are you really suggesting that "This is SPAAAAARRRRRTAAA"?
posted
There's no conflict. While homosexual relationships need more stability, arguing against permitting homosexuals to marry because this might cause a child to be adopted into an unstable situation is an untenable argument as long as we do not screen heterosexual marriages for stability; there is greater variation of parental ability within the sphere of heterosexual marriages than there is between heterosexual and homosexual relationships.
quote:Legal approval doesn't mean social approval; legally being married DOES NOT mean that homosexual relationships will perforce be stabilized, because there's a social element in action that does not necessarily regard law.
If legal approval doesn't ultimately influence social approval, I doubt people would be fighting against this so hard. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:While homosexual relationships need more stability, arguing against permitting homosexuals to marry because this might cause a child to be adopted into an unstable situation is an untenable argument as long as we do not screen heterosexual marriages for stability; there is greater variation of parental ability within the sphere of heterosexual marriages than there is between heterosexual and homosexual relationships.
I don't see how this relates to the points I raised. Can you explain?
quote:If legal approval doesn't ultimately influence social approval, I doubt people would be fighting against this so hard.
quote:Originally posted by Scott R: Tom, do you see where your points seem to conflict?
1) Homosexual relatioships are stable;
2) Homosexual relationships aren't stable because they can't be married.
In any case, #2's need isn't answered by legislation, but by widespread cultural approval. There's a difference.
Maybe I should let Tom answer for himself, but I want to point out that you misunderstood his two points. This would be closer:
1) Homosexual relationships CAN be stable, and many are.
2) Legal SSM (and the social tolerance that would both reflect and engender) would remove potential obstacles to the stability of SOME homosexual relationships.
Here's an analogy for the second point: Many hetero couples can be happy together, and under the right circumstances have a successful marriage. But for some people that would otherwise be fine, having a hostile set of in-laws can cause a marriage to fail. Of course, some people can succeed in marriage despite the hostile in laws, but not everyone can. It would improve the average stability of these hetero relationships if all the in laws would play nice.
(Not equating opposition to SSM to hostile in laws in terms of character or motivation! Just illustrating how the points can both be true.)
Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:I'm sorry, but even the best of homosexual relationships are starting out the gate at a disadvantage here in regards to parenting. Sure, disadvantages happen.
Yikes. Take 'homosexual' and replace it with 'interracial' and this could be straight out of the playbook of the anti-miscegenation crowd from half a century or so ago.
The more things change rite
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Aris Katsaris: And to clarify further: If OSC was to really be consistent in this manner, he'd be arguing in favour of making automatically invalid all the marriages of infertile people.
Those infertile people wouldn't be affirming any "reproductive pattern", the same way that gay couples don't.
Well, if the logic was entirely consistent, then he would be insisting that older male widowers be encouraged to marry younger women who are still fertile.
An infertile or elderly women would be of no use in the marriage for "reproductive pattern" equation.
But wait, this mode of thought suggests that the only value of women is their ability to reproduce. It can't be that this whole argument boils down to good old fashioned latent misogyny... right?
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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