Why do you consider this a strawman, Scott? Many, many people argue against gay marriage precisely "for the sake of the children." If it turns out that having two parents of the same sex is no worse for a child than, say, having parents of a different sex who happen to smoke or drive poorly or make less than $50K a year -- and I don't think it's even that bad, based on the studies out there -- doesn't that invalidate this part of the argument?
Because chosha wasn't pointing at heterosexual parents who are poor, or have bad health habits-- she was pointing at heterosexual parents who are bad at parenting.
At least that's how I interpreted it.
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I think it's important to point out that the majority of same-sex couples who decide to have children actually make the decision. That is, they don't accidentally end up with a kid due to the birth control failing - there's a conscious decision that they want to adopt or find a sperm donor or surrogate. Any of those options require a fair amount of effort - and that these couples are willing to put out this effort suggests to me, at least, that they'll likely be better than average parents.
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Was someone actually saying that making less than $50K/yr is a form of bad parenting? Or was it more tongue-in cheek?
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quote:Originally posted by Pegasus: Was someone actually saying that making less than $50K/yr is a form of bad parenting? Or was it more tongue-in cheek?
I think the point is that we allow children to grow up in "less than optimal" situations already so arguing that SSM should not be permitted because gay parents are less optimal than heterosexual parents is inconsistent.
It's hard to conceive that the lack of two proximate opposite-gender role models is as harmful as any number of other less-optimal factors that we accept in families with opposite-sex parents.
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To me there's a parallel between this and overseas adoption. Parents adopting a Chinese child don't need to be Chinese to raise her properly, but many parents in that situation would choose to inform their child about their heritage and make that crucial aspect of who she is a part of all their lives.
Not like they have a lot of choice to inform them or not, unless they're from Xinjiang or something and can pass as white
hahaha I didn't mean inform in that sense. I mean choose to tell them about China and it's history, or maybe give them an opportunity to learn the language, or travel to the city where they were born, that kind of thing.
I know a couple that, when they adopted from overseas, chose to adopt from Indonesia, because they both speak Bahasa Indonesia and had both lived there at some point.
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quote: What makes a great parent ISN'T their gender. I actually know great straight and gay parents AND appalling straight and gay parents, so I feel really strongly that a conversation about 2-sex vs 1-sex parenting partnerships is in many ways irrelevant to the real world that children experience.
:nods:
I understand. I don't know that your conclusion is valid when we're discussing large populations, though. It COULD be, but there's no data on it. Like I said-- it may be something society has to muddle into and out of.
Now see I don't really give a crap what data does or doesn't exist out there in the muddle-through world. I have data. I know a lot of families, several of them led by parents of the same sex. I've seen first hand how little the gender issues you are talking about matter. There are issues, sure. For example, one of my lesbian friend's children was very eager to know her father (who she now has a relationship with). But the same could have been true if she was straight and a single parent or straight and married but with a child from a previous marriage. The issue was there, but it wasn't a same-sex marriage issue, it was an issue that any parent raising children with someone other than the other birth parent might have had to face.
You seem to be examining same-sex parenting with a magnifying glass, while failing to cast even a glance around you at the real world of family variety out there.
quote:This is a nitpick, but INHERENTLY, same-sex couples are not as capable of providing gender role models for children of the opposite sex. It may be easy for them to do so; it may not even really matter (to the child's mental health) that they do so; but I think it apparent that there's an imbalance.
quote:I find it difficult to place importance on it when there are simply more important issues at hand.
quote:I think that enough people disagree with you strongly enough to elevate this problem to "important."
A lot of people used to think that it was important for blacks and whites not to drink from the same water fountain. Sometimes a lot of people are just misinformed.
Some people would say that between two sets of good, loving, responsible parents - one same-sex couple, one not - the one with two gender role models would be preferable (assuming of course that all the parents in question would be good gender role models). The same can be argued about income. Between two sets of loving, responsible parents - one with only the income to feed and clothe their children, and one with enough to also educate them well and provide other life-enriching experiences - the richer couple would be preferable.
Would you argue that the poorer couple can't be good parents? That things like further education matter so much in a child's life that poor couples shouldn't be allowed to parent? No. What would come in response is arguments that there are other ways to get an education, or that good parenting is not about being rich, etc, etc. As I've already said, gender role models are all around.
To compare families that way is always bogus. A family has to have certain things to be a good family. 'Two parents of opposite gender' is not on my list of essentials. 'Two parents' is not even on my list, if the one parent has a good support network.
It's like arguing that one car is better than another because it has air-conditioning and the other doesn't. If you're just comparing cars, sure, that's one argument that can be made. But when you extend the argument to claiming that no-one should even drive a car that doesn't have air-conditioning, then you're creating criteria for what makes a good car that never needed to be there in the first place. And when you apply this analogy to same-sex parents, it becomes apparent that while their family car might not have come with air-conditioning, it was relatively easy to install.
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My eldest has to have shots in the behind every month so he can go through puberty normally. (The blood supply to his testicles was cut off before he was born, we think. He was born with then severely scarred, so it is unlikely that they will produce enough testosterone.)
He thinks this is pretty cool, and brags about getting shots in his butt. As his parents, we were just relieved he doesn't find the process torturous. Of course, we explained it all to him, and answered any questions he asked.
We didn't realize his little brother was paying attention.
So the other day my youngest asked me, "When do I get to have shots in my butt so I can grow up?"
O_OI hadn't realized he'd gotten the wrong impression about the whole thing with his brother, but the confusion was fairly easy to clear up.
The point is that had my younger boy NOT had an older brother who needed medical help to develop normally, he would not have had any confusion about how the process works.
Just because he got the wrong first impression doesn't mean he's harmed by having a role model who is different from other people's role models. It just means we needed to communicate with him a little better than we had.
Also, I thought this was interesting, and it doesn't seem to have been shared here yet:
quote:Originally posted by Jhai: I think it's important to point out that the majority of same-sex couples who decide to have children actually make the decision. That is, they don't accidentally end up with a kid due to the birth control failing - there's a conscious decision that they want to adopt or find a sperm donor or surrogate. Any of those options require a fair amount of effort - and that these couples are willing to put out this effort suggests to me, at least, that they'll likely be better than average parents.
Exactly. No gay couple ever wound up with an unwanted child because they had sex in the back seat of their parents' car.
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Maybe we should institute some kind of "accidental adoption" policy. Just think, if 10% of gay married couples just got a letter in the mail saying a baby was on the way... it would be kind of interesting.
I'm not proposing such a measure, but I think a romantic comedy with a light-hearted soundtrack, starring maybe Maggie Gyllenhaal, would be in order.
Could be good fun for the whole liberal family!
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Does anyone out in California have any updates on what polling is saying? I can find stuff on the internet - such as the San Diego Tribune reporting a Field poll showing 44% Yes, 49% No. But I imagine there's a lot more media coverage in California than way out here in the not-real portion of Virginia.
I'm doing phone banking for the Vote No people, but haven't had much success in speaking to live people yet.
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This proposition should not even happen. Perhaps America isn't ready to universally give the same rights to homosexual people, but to create legislation that makes it more difficult to change in the future, when to all observation, things seem to be changing positively in society's view towards this issue, that is insane. It's negative legislation (we should NOT have...) on something that is moving in a positive direction (we should maybe have...). It doesn't line up.
Think of William Wilberforce, who fought for the end of the slave trade. He did not manage to succeed the first time around. The ban was defeated. But that was a defeated positive legislation defeated in a period when society's view about the slave trade was heading in a positive direction. Years later, society had progressed enough to pass the legislation for the ban on the slave trade.
Now, I'm not comparing the slave trade to scope or scale to the marriage of people to other people of the same gender, but I think there are parallels in this (and many other "moral" issues) that are applicable.
I think that if a society is clearly moving in a positive direction on an issue- even if they're not there yet- having negative legislation that takes a step backwards shouldn't happen. That is not a good way of running a state.
If the issue is split down the middle and moving in a positive direction, allowing negative legislation to theoretically pass by 1% is crazy.
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A very recent note in Atlantic Online reports that internal polls conducted by both sides agree that likely voters are divided exactly evenly, with many still claiming to be undecided. Other than that the Field Poll probably has the best information - 44% Yes and 49% No - because that poll works from contact information on actual voter registrations, and attempts to contact every voter in their sample five times before giving up.
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quote:Originally posted by chosha: ... I didn't mean inform in that sense. I mean choose to tell them about China and it's history, or maybe give them an opportunity to learn the language, or travel to the city where they were born, that kind of thing.
I know a couple that, when they adopted from overseas, chose to adopt from Indonesia, because they both speak Bahasa Indonesia and had both lived there at some point.
This is a fairly important point. I knew an adoptive mother who spent a lot of time learning Mandarin and travelling to China to take in the culture before adopting. I thought that was a pretty good idea.
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quote:I think that if a society is clearly moving in a positive direction on an issue- even if they're not there yet- having negative legislation that takes a step backwards shouldn't happen. That is not a good way of running a state.
If the issue is split down the middle and moving in a positive direction, allowing negative legislation to theoretically pass by 1% is crazy.
I want to be on the 'Board of Enforcing Forward Momentum.'
Is it an appointment or elected position?
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Actually, I don't think the link is anti-Mormon. It is anti-the Mormon involvement in Prop 8, but I don't imagine the Cards would say that's a problem. It's not against the Mormon religion; it's against a political tactic.
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I'm going back and forth on this, because I don't think the link is to an anti-mormon site, which is how I always interpreted the issue. The video is certainly negative, but seems specifically against the church's actions in supporting prop 8 rather than the church itself.
I'm pretty sure the Cards would remove the link, so I'm going to as well. If anyone desires to see the ad Lisa is talking about, googling "proposition 8 home invasion" turns up a number of places that have it. That will avoid the direct link that various search engines and webcrawlers take advantage of.
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I'm sorry you have to do that, Papa. But on the bright side, at least now steven can smile at one of my posts being edited by you.
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A church can sometimes make an election unfair if it uses threats of excommunication or the like to coerce voters who make up a large proportion of the electorate, or if it throws so much money into a campaign that the other side cannot compete. But on this issue Mormons make up only about 2% of California voters, and the two sides have raised roughly equal amounts of money. So this election promises to be an unusually fair measure of what the voters want done, and I cannot see how Mormon efforts in this cause have done any harm to California. But since many voters disapprove of any church intervening in politics, the church itself will likely be damaged for years to come. The fact that it is entirely legal for a church to support an initiative does not mean that voters on the other side will ever forgive it for doing so.
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My boss called a little while. He's in California, and he was driving around near where I used to live there. He passed one corner where there were a whole bunch of people holding "Yes on 8" signs. In back of them, but clearly noticable, was another person holding a huge sign that said, "Bigots for 8". The crowd didn't seem to realize what it meant.
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quote:Originally posted by The Pixiest: Tom: And its members.
I'm disappointed in you Pixiest, not because you disagree with what my church is doing, but because you think those of us who remain in the church are worthy of contempt. I assure you we have very valid reasons for acting as we do, even those of us who don't necessarily believe proposition 8 is a good thing and yet support our church's leadership.
Admittedly this is a very emotional and important issue for you, and I forgive you for thinking less of me, but I would suggest looking at our side with a bit more open mindedness. I think you will find that my church has good reasons for acting as it does.
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quote:Originally posted by The Pixiest: bb: If you want to take this to PMs, my email address is pixiest (at) yahoo (dot) com
I have taken advantage of your offer.
Paul: I'll try to later but I'm a bit tired after sending off a very long email.
Ultimately though I can't promise that everyone would deem them good reasons, as not everyone is me. While I am utterly convinced that say it is correct to obey God even when it does not make sense in one's head, that does not make it a good reason for everyone.
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quote:I suspect this is not universally accepted as true.
Perhaps not, but I think that it observationally is true, at least in America. If the general trend is towards more rights in certain states, it seems odd that legislation would exist to erase that and any future motion.
quote:I want to be on the 'Board of Enforcing Forward Momentum.'
Is it an appointment or elected position?
I know you're being funny, and my suggestion is certainly not a practical one or one intended to have any kind of legislative force behind it. It's more like an observation of a dissonance between legislation and society's apparent will.
You don't enforce forward or backward momentum, it just is or isn't. Hopefully, forward momentum provides enough support itself to support the view that the society is moving (however slowly) towards.
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"While I am utterly convinced that say it is correct to obey God even when it does not make sense in one's head, that does not make it a good reason for everyone."
Fair enough. The way you worded it made it sound like people such as pixiest or myself would consider it a good reason. If you don't think your reason for considering something a "good reason" crosses religious boundaries, thats fair.
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quote:Originally posted by Paul Goldner: "While I am utterly convinced that say it is correct to obey God even when it does not make sense in one's head, that does not make it a good reason for everyone."
Fair enough. The way you worded it made it sound like people such as pixiest or myself would consider it a good reason. If you don't think your reason for considering something a "good reason" crosses religious boundaries, thats fair.
Assume the following is absolutely true. If you were certain of the existence of an all knowing being based on personal experience, and that being has humanity's best interests at heart, and the organization he setup was explicitly ordered to block say gay marriage, would you think it a bad idea to remain in the organization even if you couldn't wrap your head around the block intellectually?
Or is that an idea that looks good on the inside but not so much on the outside?
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"Or is that an idea that looks good on the inside but not so much on the outside?"
Yes.
There's too many assumptions in there for me to buy into, being on the outside, and, to me, it looks like a bad choice to support the organizations decision, because to me if person Y thinks X is good, and I can't figure out anyway in which X is not bad, then I'm going to oppose Y on that issue.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Assume the following is absolutely true. If you were certain of the existence of an all knowing being based on personal experience, and that being has humanity's best interests at heart, and the organization he setup was explicitly ordered to block say gay marriage, would you think it a bad idea to remain in the organization even if you couldn't wrap your head around the block intellectually?
Where in the Bible do you get the idea that you need to legislate your faith on to people who don't share it?
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quote: If you were certain of the existence of an all knowing being based on personal experience, and that being has humanity's best interests at heart, and the organization he setup was explicitly ordered to block say gay marriage, would you think it a bad idea to remain in the organization even if you couldn't wrap your head around the block intellectually?
If I were certain of the existence, benevolence, and omniscience of Being A based on my personal experience, and yet Being A put forward a policy which I could not interpret according to my personal experience as being anything but harmful and evil, I would question the personal experiences which I have taken as proof of the existence, benevolence, and/or omniscience of Being A.
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quote:and the organization he setup was explicitly ordered to block say gay marriage,
See, I have a bit of a problem with this. The statements from the first presidency on this matter are very firm. Their position is unambiguous. Yet, they still have remained somewhat coy on God's interest in this specific measure, enough so that many members of the church are ignoring the presidency and are opposing the initiative.
The church has no qualms about judging the worthiness of its members based on so much other minutae and yet there is no commandment to support this measure or other measures like it. No member will be refused admittance to the temple for refusing to support this measure. No member will be excommunicated for voting "no" or putting a sign advocating that position in their yard.
These men are supposed to be prophets of God, so why are they reluctant to state plainly that God wishes for the people of his church to support this proposition rather than merely making such an ...earthy statement of their individual support of the measure, leaving it up to individual church members to reach their own conclusions about what actual authority is behind their call to arms?
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quote:and the organization he setup was explicitly ordered to block say gay marriage,
See, I have a bit of a problem with this. The statements from the first presidency on this matter are very firm. Their position is unambiguous. Yet, they still have remained somewhat coy on God's interest in this specific measure, enough so that many members of the church are ignoring the presidency and are opposing the initiative.
The church has no qualms about judging the worthiness of its members based on so much other minutae and yet there is no commandment to support this measure or other measures like it. No member will be refused admittance to the temple for refusing to support this measure. No member will be excommunicated for voting "no" or putting a sign advocating that position in their yard.
These men are supposed to be prophets of God, so why are they reluctant to state plainly that God wishes for the people of his church to support this proposition rather than merely making such an ...earthy statement of their individual support of the measure, leaving it up to individual church members to reach their own conclusions about what actual authority is behind their call to arms?
Perhaps God has commanded them to so do without explaining why as a trial of their faith, it's not without precedent as far as the scriptures are concerned.
Paul: Well ultimately you wouldn't do well in Christianity even if you were certain of it's truth. Not saying that's wrong, some people elect to live that way, The Abraham/Isaac sacrificial scenario just wouldn't play out in your favor.
Tom: If you were absolutely convinced of God's omniscience you can't conceive of perhaps exterior reasons for God's commands? You know earth and humanity make up a fraction of a fraction of the universe.
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quote:Perhaps God has commanded them to so do without explaining why as a trial of their faith, it's not without precedent as far as the scriptures are concerned.
Paul: Well ultimately you wouldn't do well in Christianity even if you were certain of it's truth. Not saying that's wrong, some people elect to live that way, The Abraham/Isaac sacrificial scenario just wouldn't play out in your favor.
It's interesting that in the same post you've suggested that the lack of a commandment may be a test of faith, then used the example of Abraham receiving a commandment that went against his nature as being equivalent.
As it stands, those who were predisposed to support SSM tend to not support the measure and those that were not tend to support it. An explicit commandment would, IMO, be a much more powerful test of faith here.
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"Well ultimately you wouldn't do well in Christianity even if you were certain of it's truth. Not saying that's wrong, some people elect to live that way, The Abraham/Isaac sacrificial scenario just wouldn't play out in your favor."
I know I wouldn't do well in christianity
And the problem is, the legislation your church is supporting would remove rights from people who do not have the personal experience that you do, and is essentially saying "trust me. We're making you miserable and treating you as second class citizens because a being that you may or may not think even exists says we should."
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quote:Originally posted by Paul Goldner: "Well ultimately you wouldn't do well in Christianity even if you were certain of it's truth. Not saying that's wrong, some people elect to live that way, The Abraham/Isaac sacrificial scenario just wouldn't play out in your favor."
I know I wouldn't do well in christianity
And the problem is, the legislation your church is supporting would remove rights from people who do not have the personal experience that you do, and is essentially saying "trust me. We're making you miserable and treating you as second class citizens because a being that you may or may not think even exists says we should."
Not exactly. I would never tell somebody else to trust me in that manner. But I would say, "This is how I am voting, and God factors into it."
Matt: I'm not sure I disagree with you. I think an explicit commandment would be good, I am not sure how the church has found itself in this strange limbo on the matter, but there it is. I think however that we are moving in a direction where the first presidency will have to discuss this topic more specifically.
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"Not exactly. I would never tell somebody else to trust me in that manner. But I would say, "This is how I am voting, and God factors into it.""
Same thing, in this case.
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I just recently read about Metatron, an angel known as "the lesser Yahweh" among other titles, who some sources say stopped Abraham from killing Isaac.
Anyway, isn't that the coolest name ever? Metatron--it sounds like a straight-to-DVD sci-fi title instead of an ancient angelic name.
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It's hard for me to imagine how I could become convinced of God's omniscience without seeing his omniscience in action. This includes making sense of his supposed commands about the way we should live our lives. I would expect the commands of an omniscient being to be, at the very least, rational and hopefully genuinely insightful. Yet when I hear about some of the things God supposedly wants us not do (like gay sex or pre-marital sex), I can't think of any good reasons why (at least nothing beyond some pragmatic reasons). Even worse, I feel intellectually scammed whenever I hear someone try to explain why these seemingly arbitrary restrictions on the way we should live even exist. Saying that God works in mysterious ways is essentially equivalent to saying "stop asking questions". It's politer but the effect is the same. It's certainly not what I would expect from the smartest being in the world.
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quote:Originally posted by Threads: It's hard for me to imagine how I could become convinced of God's omniscience without seeing his omniscience in action. This includes making sense of his supposed commands about the way we should live our lives. I would expect the commands of an omniscient being to be, at the very least, rational and hopefully genuinely insightful. Yet when I hear about some of the things God supposedly wants us not do (like gay sex or pre-marital sex), I can't think of any good reasons why (at least nothing beyond some pragmatic reasons). Even worse, I feel intellectually scammed whenever I hear someone try to explain why these seemingly arbitrary restrictions on the way we should live even exist. Saying that God works in mysterious ways is essentially equivalent to saying "stop asking questions". It's politer but the effect is the same. It's certainly not what I would expect from the smartest being in the world.
I can empathize with this. Fortunately there have been cases where what God wanted didn't make sense initially but later it did.
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"I'm sorry you have to do that, Papa. But on the bright side, at least now steven can smile at one of my posts being edited by you. "
What are you wanting from me, exactly? Are you wanting some kind of general statement of approval of some aspect of yourself or your personality? It's kind of hard to be nice to you because you are always savaging folks. I generally don't hand out approval unless someone practically gets in my face and does something I really like. I'm always pleased to see good posts by you. They're rarely in threads that I'm posting in, but I do seen them. We just don't seem to cross paths when you're behaving in a way I would openly, verbally, approve of. Whatever. I don't know what to say. Fighting isn't what I care to do, but at the same time, I'm not going to tolerate disrespectful misbehavior. Can't you just say "they're stupid, and don't know any better" to yourself, instead of treating people, on a verbal level, like a haughty monarch treats their subjects? We're people. We have feelings.
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I didn't mean inform in that sense. I mean choose to tell them about China and it's history, or maybe give them an opportunity to learn the language, or travel to the city where they were born, that kind of thing. 
