Same-sex marriage conversation: What do we know? Part 2
As Part 2 of my series on same-sex parenting research, I am posting the transcript of a presentation delivered at the Catholic University just over a year ago. A section on same-sex marriage was provided after Michael Bailey and prior to my speech at the same comference.
(Quotes removed at the request of Brad Wilcox)
Here is a more socially conservative scholar who comes to an assessment similar to Meezan and Rauch: we don’t know much and not really enough.
Some distinctions are arising in the comments on other threads that should be sharpened going forward. Same-sex adoption of special needs kids should be distinguished from use of reproductive technologies to create kids without hope of knowing a parent of one gender. Whereas some would say public policy should not make these distinctions; others would say it can and should. What data exist to inform these discussions? Are there data that could address these issues? Or is policy to be made on the basis of presuppositional principles? How do we decide which principles apply? I would say the best interest of children would be such a principle. If research finds, on balance, discouraging results from studies of same-sex parenting (however defined), do equal protection arguments for adults trump any potential child consequences? What if research finds that some outcomes are better for same-sex parenting and some are not, then how should public policy take mixed results into account?
Let’s keep talking…
How one approaches neutral data tells a great deal about that person. They can respond:
There is no data proving either harm or lack of harm so I will not intrude, or
There is no data proving either harm or lack of harm so I will I will seek to impose my opinions and values on others.
But of course, in this instance, the data isn’t neutral. Meezan and Rauch have provided that there is SOME evidence of lack of harm and NO evidence of harm. All that Wilcox provided was speculation and guessing.
I could counter Wilcox’ guesswork by suppositions of my own.
For example, I might suppose that those same-sex relationships that deliberately bring a life into the world would be:
more careful to provide roll models,
more anxious to parent in a healthy way,
more sensitive to psychological issues,
far more prepared emotionally and financially,
and possessing of greater family stability.
I might suppose that any old random lesbian couple that deliberately set out to be a parent would provide a healthier, happier, more stable citizen than would, for example, Jamie Lynn Spears.
Why would my guesswork be any less valid than Wilcox’s?
There are many flaws to this…but where to begin?
How about his assumptions:
“one point that I would make just to begin with is that obviously kids who are being raised in same-sex households are not getting the benefit of having parents of two sexes.”
There are a few problems with this. One is that this is a piece on same-sex marriage. Unfortunately, Brad seems unaware of the fact that in many areas, same-sex couples can legally jointly adopt both here and abroad. Also, Brad seems unaware that same-sex couples are already raising children…the issue he might want to raise in light of the issue of same-sex marriage, is that now that two parents of the same-sex can legally adopt in many areas, and are legally related to that child, why are we denying the parents a legal relationship to each other?
How do we allow two parents of the same-sex to be each legally related to a child but not legally related to each other? This seems counterintuitive to those interested in family…for the purposes of insurance, benefits, social security upon death of a parent, etc..
Brad also mentions reproductive technology:
“I also would point out that these families often times now are being formed very deliberately with assisted reproductive technology. And so, what you have is that kids are being deliberately created without a mother and father…”
Would Brad be supportive of same-sex couples who use reproductive technology, where the father is known and a part of the child’s life? Likely not.
Opposite-sexed couples, single women, and couples-who-will-divorce all use reproductive technology. Tackling the issue of single-parenthood, paternal (or maternal) abandonment, divorce, etc…all seem to be issues Brad may want to focus on. Does he suggest restricting medical technology to be available only for some or restrict childbearing?
Ultimately all of Brad’s arguments fail – not only because of their lack of merit as they stand, but because his arguments are based on arguments around same-sex parents. Same-sex couples are often legally parents already. His argument actually makes the importance of same-sex marriage all the more pressing.
Same-sex couples have overwhelmingly been shown over and over again to raise healthy, well-adjusted children comparable to their heterosexual counterparts (if you want studies, let me know…I’d be happy to post them). Brad’s argument is ill-informed.
Why should same-sex couples marry? If we truly believe that men and women should be granted equal rights under the law, and the ONLY reason I cannot marry someone is because of their sex…then that violates a fundamental principle and constitutes sex discrimination. The right to marry isn’t based on whether you are gay or straight – orientation is not a criteria of opposite-sexed marriage.
JAG,
I’m going to disagree with you there.
While it is true that closeted persons frequently marry persons of the opposite sex – almost invariably resulting in difficulty and pain and quite often the severing of families, it is not ture that orientation (or acknowledged orientation) is not a criterion for opposite-sex marriage.
Quite often opposite-sex marriages which involve one gay person are assumed to be invalid or fraudulent.
Take, for example, immigration. Should ICE determine that one party is gay, that would be grounds for prosecution for fraud. Marry a straight foreigner, and you could go to jail
So too are inheritances challenged. Should the non-wealthy party happen to be gay, any willed inheritance can be assumed to be based on fraud. He “didn’t realy love her” and “he married her for her money” are claims that would hold up well in court if he were shown to be gay.
Even in the dissolution of marriage, orientation can come into play. It is not without reason that when Renee Zellweger cited “fraud” as the reason for the dissolution of her marriage to Kenny Chesney, the first assumption of most was that Kenny is gay.
Anti-gays love to say, “you can get married, but only to a person of the opposite sex”.
But in truth, a gay person cannot marry anyone at all.
There’s a lot here to comment on. I’ll make a few breif observations.
First, thank you Warren for agreeing that “Same-sex adoption of special needs kids should be distinguished from use of reproductive technologies to create kids without hope of knowing a parent of one gender.”
As for your questions on public policy dealing with the latter, (e.g. “If data find, on balance, discouraging results from studies of same-sex parenting (however defined), do equal protection arguments for adults trump any potential child consequences?”), I would offer a simple ethical model:
Why should single people or gay couples even be allowed to take advantage of reproductive technologies when there is no medical problem with their reproductive function? This issue here is a social problem, not a medical problem. The reason Susan and Jane are unable to become pregnant is because they aren’t even trying. Because that would mean… “oh, it’s just too yucky to even think about!” Sterilizing human reproduction in a laboratory setting does not in any way reduce the heterosexuality of that event — it serves other purposes altogether. Some are medical, some are social.
Brad Wilcox also makes a very valid point about family diversity. While it’s plainly obvious that “parents with different sexes have somewhat distinctive talents when it comes to the childrearing enterprise”, many — many who even proclaim support for “diversity” in all its forms — would still approve of depriving children of one of the most natural forms of diversity around. As if suddenly “diversity” doesn’t matter.
I’ve often found it quite peculiar, and perhaps a bit disingenuous, that many of those who will insist that gender doesn’t matter a whit when it comes to the child+parent relationship are the same ones who will insist that it’s the most important thing in the world when it comes to the spousal relationship. I think that attitude is extremely self-serving, and all too convenient.
I wonder how Kate and Ally would respond? (Does anyone remember that American sitcom?) Two women (not gay) raising children together and in the same household.
Warren, I thought your intention with these posts was to discuss the available scholarly research on this topic. Wilcox isn’t presenting any research — he’s pontificating. I can pontificate too. This seems off-topic.
When data are sparse, you look to analogous situations. As someone pointed out on another thread, even same-sex parenting proponents stipulate that kids do best, on average, when raised with their married mom and dad. Lots of studies (maybe not 10k, but many) point to this conclusion when kids are compared with single parent homes, divorced homes, etc. What we cannot sort out as yet is whether or not one of the potent factors in these differences is the two-gendered nature of the married moms and dads. Or on the other hand, is it that there are two parents and they are happy together and gender doesn’t matter?
And so, Wilcox’s concerns are reasonable, in my opinion, based on the observations we already have regarding optimal conditions for raising children. And they are actually not that far away from Meezan and Rauch’s measured thoughts when they suggest we study the matter before, as they say, betting the country on the experiment.
In my prior post, I hoped to get some comment about Meezan and Rauch’s suggestions for a regional experiment. I don’t recall any.
I wish I had time to properly respond. Unfortunately I’m out of town with family and there is a lot of distractions. My partner and I have sole custody of his 9 year old son from his previous marriage. Obviously, as with any parents, we don’t want to deprive our child of the best life possible. According to teachers, counselors and others, he’s a happy, healthy, well-adjusted kid.
Mr. Wilcox intones that children being raised in same-sex homes don’t get to see parents negotiating the challenges of marriage. Hmmmm…perhaps. What our child does get to see is his parents negotiating the challenges of a committed relationship, just like he would see if his parents were opposite-sex. Much like my own parents who just celebrated 40 years of marriage and have worked through some trying times, he sees us committed to working together through the trying times. Just because we aren’t “married” doesn’t mean we are somehow less committed either to our relationship or the rearing of our child.
I welcome studies of families like mine! Having spent the past week watching my child interact with my siblings kids (his cousins), I can say that he seems to face the same challenges they do and interacts no differently than they do. A week in a house with 5 boys under the age of 9 has been almost enough to drive one insane. It’s also been one of the most encouraging things for me to witness. My nephews are amazing kids that will go far. So will my child!
When I’ve got more time to digest this post, I’ll hopefully come back and address the issues raised. Thanks for keeping the conversation going.
j.
Thanks for posting Dr. Wilcox’s presentation, I’ve been wanting to read it and was afraid I wouldn’t be able to.
Not surprisingly
, I disagree with Dr. Wilcox’s arguments on the matter.
For the most part he uses what I like to refer to as the “for the children” argument against gay marriage. There are 2 problems with this argument.
1st, children are not a requirement of marriage in any state in the US. No state asks about it, or requires any form a fertility test prior to marriage. Except AZ (possibly others) which has one case where the couple must prove one of them is infertile in order to be allowed to marry. This is the requirement for 1st cousins to be allowed to marry in AZ. Additionally, all states allow couples who are not capable of having children or adopting to marry. Thus this “for the children” argument does not fit the facts. So while children may benefit from marriage, clearly, this benefit is not the primary (or even significant) reason for civil marriage in this country.
However, lets examine this concern for children voiced by Dr. Wilcox (and others opposed to gay marriage). Gay couples are raising children in this country (through adoptions, ivf, previous opposite-gender relationships etc). And whether Dr. Wilcox (et. al) like or not, their numbers are growing. Now, wouldn’t these children be better off if their parents were married (Dr. Wilcox seemed to make a strong argument for this)? I certainly think so. It seems to me if Dr. Wilcox really where so concerned about children, he’d be pushing for gay marriage, not arguing against it.
Seems to me that there are many assumptions being made.
1. Man/woman is better than man/man or woman/woman
….does that side up with black children are better off with black homes?, ADD’s with parents that have the same disability?? Like with like??? Or do we put only those children who are definetly gay with gay parents?
2. That relationships are viewed only through one’s own home and in isolation
…. are children allowed to go over to their friends’ homes and see how their families and parents interact?? Or do we trap them in houses and never let them out
3. The divorce rate is at 50% – and guess what ? That means even if a child is adopted into a man/woman home they are going to experience divorce and a single parent home at some time (not your perfect scenario)
Too many assumptions made that just are unrealistic and not considering the variety of family experiences that can and do occur and that the variety can be as rewarding and vital as any (so long as it is stable, loving, caring etc…)
Where was Jesus’ father??? Seems he had sort of left the family – either through death or something else??? Just speculating. If the ‘holy’ family model was disrupted – what does that say about our assumptions.
Mary, please.
1. Man/woman is better than man/man or woman/woman
Obviously, because without man/woman would wouldn’t even be able to debate “parenting” at all. Sexual orientation is irrelevant to the reproductive system and you know this. Race? ADD? It’s as if you’re suggesting that girls should be raised by women and boys by men — when what you know is that what is being suggested is that since we are all the result of one man and one woman, we should be raised by one of each.
2. That relationships are viewed only through one’s own home and in isolation
We all learn from external sources, families of friends and neighbors, yet we also have a private and intimate window into our own families that gives us a clearer perspective than any other. But the intimate window of the “two moms” or “two dads” scenario is significantly lacking in diversity — which is always desired when trying to form a clear perspective. An uncle is not a father, nor should be be asked to pretend to be.
3. The divorce rate is at 50% – and guess what ? That means even if a child is adopted into a man/woman home they are going to experience divorce and a single parent home at some time (not your perfect scenario)
First, the divorce rate is actually quite a bit lower than 50%. Second, many divorces happen after the child leaves home. Third, did you make a typo here or are you really suggesting that all couples who adopt children are going to divorce? Hopefully a typo. Still, what’s your point here?
Then, your comment about “too many assumptions made that just are unrealistic” being followed by speculation about what ever happened to Jesus’s father Joseph is just plain odd. As if one set of speculative assumptions can negate another?
Finally, does your list of positive family attributes (rewarding and vital … stable, loving, caring etc) deliberately omit “diverse”? Or do you think that a diversity of gender perspectives is not important to the upbringing of little boys and girls?
Considering that a little boy will only ever become a Father, and will never ever become a Mother, one might conclude that it would be a good thing for him to have one of his own while growing up.
Warren,
Really? Could you have picked a more biased commenter?
I have recently visited my parents’ home and participated in a family reunion. My sister, who recently divorced her husband, was there too with her 2 and a half year daughter. My niece is a burst of life, she needs on average at least four people to sustain an endurance trial of playing, singing and running around. But I have noticed that she is mostly interested in playing with me (I am a man in my late 20s, remember?), a role which was favourably ascribed to her father some time ago. She is not so interested in her grandfather’s tokens of affection and much less in her grandmother’s attempts to win her attention. Now, I’m not particularly good at interacting with kids, in fact I’m just as good at it as I am at dancing, where zombies perform better. However, my niece succeeds in drawing me in her games and she is most happy when she does that.
I have a deep voice, just like her father, and when I talk she becomes very attentive, she starts to look at my legs or at my hands as if she is ‘recording’, comparing or making associations. My sister, who has a hard time dealing with her daughter’s unbridled energy and downright rebelliousness, sometimes has to resort to all sorts of tricks to get her daughter into doing something. But to our amazement, her daughter is easier to convince if I talk to her. When her father was together with her mother, my niece was mostly trying to win his attention and conceded easily to do something that benefitted her (like eating her food or getting dressed) if her father told her so. It seems that the presence of a man from the family who bears some resemblance to her father and whom she trusts makes her very happy, trying to get his attention more than any other’s and reducing rebellious attitude in his presence.
I have noticed that power relations in the family can influence gender appropriation in some children. All observations — including this one — from my own family and my relatives’ families had me thinking that there could be a sort of gender imprinting process, in which power relations between parents’ genders can pitch a child’s relation to gender, according to his/her relation to each parent and everyone’s temperament. Children seem to differentiate between parents, according to how they assume tasks or how they respond to meet their needs. Having the ‘complete set’ of genders as parents seems to be for a child a primal experience of what each gender is and how their interaction could be balanced.
That’s why I support the view that since the reproductive pair of genders that become parents is the reference point, we should assume that their role in rearing the child cannot be separated from their role in having the child. I don’t think nature separated reproduction from any role in child nurturing — this debate is generated by our own cultural distinctions (and we know that some of our cultural practices go against nature’s ways). Of course, where children have already been deprived of parents, any type of adult or union between adults that are fit for parenting can provide a better growing up environment than an institution. However, where option for fit opposite-sex parents is available, priority should be given to them.
Warren,
I would say the best interest of children would be such a principle.
I agree with this but the data should be free of religious meddling! AND, the data that exists shows us that same sex parents ARE able to raise happy, healthy and well-adjusted kids. AND, gay parents are currently raising children as we speak, so my question goes out again: HOW can we best help these parents raise these children????? Does anyone care to answer this or are we going to continue to pretend that gay parents don’t exist? Estimates that I’ve seen show that anywhere between 1 – 6 million kids are being raised by gay parents.
Warren –
You stated “Lots of studies (maybe not 10k, but many) point to this conclusion when kids are compared with single parent homes, divorced homes, etc. ” Of course this is true, and the data shows this overwhelmingly. You are making a classic turn of hand by comparing heterosexual couples with single parents and divorced homes rather than same-sex couples. When children of “same-sex couples” are compared with those of “heterosexual couples,” the data is not in your favor…and overwhelmingly shows that children of same-sex couples do as well as those of their heterosexual counterparts.
Mary –
You make some solid points. One that I agree with (and had suggested on another thread) is that those who believe that children in a heterosexual household will necessarily have the benefits of two parents (note – I did not say a “mother and father,”) are a bit out of line with the data.
Heterosexuals often forget that many children are born out of wedlock (often raised by a single parent), and many are raised by single parent through divorce. The model of being raised by two biological parents is likely more rare than common of all children created…but I’d love to have the numbers on that.
Marty –
“Considering that a little boy will only ever become a Father, and will never ever become a Mother, one might conclude that it would be a good thing for him to have one of his own while growing up.”
I disagree…a boy might have to be many things to a child. I am assuming by “father” you mean specific gender roles that men typically behave according to, right? I would suggest that your biological sex has little to do with “limiting” your scope of knowledge and breadth of understanding of what both parents often contribute. Unfortunately, there are many men out there raising children on their own.
Marty,
I’ve often found it quite peculiar, and perhaps a bit disingenuous, that many of those who will insist that gender doesn’t matter a whit when it comes to the child+parent relationship are the same ones who will insist that it’s the most important thing in the world when it comes to the spousal relationship.
I can’t speak for everyone when I say this, but I don’t believe its a matter of whether or not gender matters. I think gender does matter, I just don’t believe that Opposite Sex Marriages are the only healthy environments in which to raise children.
Warren,
I think what Timothy said above should be repeated – that Meezan and Rauch found no evidence of harm. After reading their study I’m having a hard time understanding how you can compare this conservative scholar to Meezan and Rauch. Their study showed NO HARM and this guy is just speculating. I DO understand that they both believe more needs to be known.
Jayhuck, and others have asked: gay parents are currently raising children as we speak, so my question goes out again: How can we best help these parents raise these children?
It’s a valid question, but needs to include a bit more:
How can we help those that exist without encouraging any more deliberately motherless or fatherless families? Yes, we do need to help children who have been shortchanged one of their natural parents, but we should do so in a way that discourages the shortchanging of any more.
Jag, you’re doublespeaking: Unfortunately, there are many men out there raising children on their own.
Yes, and not one of them is a Mother.
Marty,
How can we help those that exist without encouraging any more deliberately motherless or fatherless families?
That is your opinion, but I would say how can we help those that exist AND how can we encourage more couples: gay or straight, to develop more nurturing and loving homes for their children.
Evan,
However, where option for fit opposite-sex parents is available, priority should be given to them.
Why? The research doesn’t support this so I’m assuming you are stating your opinion?
Evan,
Your anecdote is interesting and does illustrate a good point.
But we cannot set policy based on anecdote. And to date the research seems to suggest that same-sex parenting is as good as opposite-sex parenting in meeting the needs of children. This may seem to contradict your personal experience with your niece, but it does seem – according to the best evidence we have – to be true.
I don’t know if this is relevant to you but I too, for some unknown reason, have a way with kids. I don’t think I’m possessed of great patience or any particular skill but when I was a Junior Church teacher I could get a room full of unruly 3 to 6 year olds to behave and participate. My biggest challenge was a developmentally disabled kid who no one – especially his two-parent heterosexual parents – could control. He delighted in me. He would do anything I asked – if I was smart about it.
I also dealt with two children whom we later found were being molested by their father. The girl was bossy, demanding, and a know-it-all. The boy was introverted and silent. Somehow I kept them included and participating.
But I would not want to base policy on any assumptions that could flow from that experience. I suppose I could argue that gay men are better able to handle the unruly or better able to control a room full of wild children (OK, not all were wild). I do know that a great many gay men are very successful teachers.
But I don’t know that there is any necessary connection between orientation and child corralling abilities. So I can’t extrapolate my single experience and assume it applies to a greater population.
Marty,
I’m curious. Do you even care about what the research says? Is there ANY amount of research that would have any impact on your opinion?
Warren,
I started to respond to Rauch’s proposed experiment, but didn’t post it.
Sure, I’d like to see the experiment conducted. But I don’t see it’s relevance to telling us whether same-sex couples make good parents.
I am not sure it would prove anything whatsoever about the abilities of same-sex parents to raise children. Nor does it seem to propose such a test.
It would, however, measure what civil protection (marriage, civil union, nothing) contribute best to those same-sex families that have children. It seems the only factor that varies between the states is the structure – so that is all it could measure.
Personally, because I believe in marriage, I would like to see such a study. I believe it would confirm that same-sex marriage is good for kids.
But if we were to look at the other question, we would have to select some state(s) in which all things are equal and randomly (as best possible) track a sample of kids in same-sex families and a sample of kids in opposite-sex families and see if there was any developmental or other differences. As a prospective, long-term, statistically valid, representative test would take some time, I think the conclusive answer is still a ways out there.
Until then, we simply have to rely on the non-comprehensive, limited, and not fully representative samples we have. And because they do seem to suggest that same-sex parenting is at least as good as opposite-sex parenting, we will have to tentatively and perhaps hesitantly assume that this is the case. To assume the opposite would stand logic on its head and place bias ahead of observation.
Marty –
You stated:
“Jag, you’re doublespeaking: Unfortunately, there are many men out there raising children on their own.
Yes, and not one of them is a Mother.”
Perhaps you missed the point. You implied that men only need be prepared to be “fathers,” which I assumed (maybe falsely so, feel free to correct) meant the “traditional roles” that men are often placed in. In stating that there are many men raising children on their own, my implication was that these men are attempting to do the job of both parents – sometimes with success, othertimes not. To imply that boys “will only become fathers,” is a bit errant. I don’t see single parenthood as an ideal for any person – the parent or the child – but it is a reality for many.
Men may be asked to be many things that traditionally they have not been as involved in…like motherhood.
I see two parents as ideal, we do not differ on that… and the studies support this…gay or straight, these couplings seem to have the best child outcomes when compared to their single peers.
Male couples who are parents can arguably be as “mothering” as a woman, and as “fathering” as a father. The flux and variation in how competent, nurturing, etc..a “mother” is varies greatly. I don’t know of any studies which have shown that two men raising a child cannot adequately “mother” them. If you do, I’d genuinely be interested in a read.
For all the pomp and circumstance, the truth is, many biological parents fail miserably in “mothering” and “fathering,” (although some are arguably fantastic as well). I have no hesitation is saying that parents through IVF, adoption, etc (hetero or same-sex)…can be fantastic parents (as well as poor ones). Being an adequate mother or father has less to do with biology, it seems, than many other variables.
The two parent model of child-rearing (hetero and homo) has been seen in the majority of literature as equally effective in raising children. That, in and of itself, may say what true “mothering” and “fathering” is all about.
Also, I would contend, it serves the child well that if they are legally related to both parents…to allow those parents to be legally related to each other- to give them both the privileges and responsibilities that come with parenthood, but also to most optimally provide adequately for the child should a parent pass (with social security to the surviving partner, etc..).
Timothy Kincaid asks me: Do you even care about what the research says? Is there ANY amount of research that would have any impact on your opinion?
No. As I stated in part 1 of this series:
That’s my position and I’m sticking to it.
JAG, I think you are very, very wrong. While there may be some element of truth to your claim that “Being an adequate mother or father has less to do with biology, it seems, than many other variables“, I’m hard pressed to see how 2 effeminate men or 2 butch women are going to provide the depth and breadth of coverage than your average man and woman together can provide. Diversity and all that.
I should probably have corrected the sentence that I just pasted from the previous thread. It should have originally read:
“To claim that “two moms” or “two dads” (convienently aligned to support one’s “sexual oreintation” or “gender bias”) are equal to “mom and dad” is to deprive children of the equality inherent in Mother Nature’s design for humanity. “
Marty,
Wow, that’s a pretty hard-lined position there. So where does that leave people like me? I’m intersexed. I guess I can’t be a Father figure OR a Mother figure. You keep talking about Mother Nature’s design, but that sort of black and white makes everyone like me incapable of being either to a child.
Technology is progressing quite quickly, they can already turn an egg into a sperm, this would allow two lesbians to both genetically be the parents. It won’t be that long before they can do the same for gay men with a surrogate womb.
You also seem to be saying that all gay men are effeminate and all lesbians are butch. Wow…just…wow.
Children are deprived of the ‘design’ of one man one woman all the time. Divorce, death, single-parenthood. When I was growing up, not that long ago I’m only in my 20′s in my classes having a mother AND a father was the minority. The majority of my classmates lived with one parent, or one parent and a step-parent that they almost inevitably hated.
Timothy,
That story from my personal experience was given to illustrate the limits of rational assessments in a life-nurturing experience. I don’t know why my niece feels happiest when a man who resembles her father is around and I seriously doubt that science can capture that in any methodological way without being merely sufficient. We can afford to let ourselves guided by thoroughly rational assessments where they are most welcome, but in at least two realms they can irreversibly go wrong: politics and child rearing. Just as in politics reason is just instrumental, but it’s not the guiding force that overrules our moral judgment, in childrearing we can only hope to use reason to come up with incremental improvements in their nurturing. This problem is not one among others, that we can deal with just like any other — it’s how we call children to human life that can shape their future and ours too. It’s too critical to let neutral science tilt the balance wherever its present paradigms permit. Results are more far-reaching than the unpredictable pace of knowledge.
All I’m saying is that we are not the makers of our nature and we should not act as if we really were decision-makers in what life should look like according to how far we can see right now. We should play safe and see where we’re going. My position is sufficiently inclusive, I believe, to allow some adults or same-sex unions of adults to adopt children, where no opposite-sex alternative is available.
PS. For other examples concerning the state of science opposites nature, you can check a recent statement from a team of scientists, who are honest enough to acknowledge that our scientific tools, though limited in their penetratingness, yield too complex data for our immediate understanding. This is just a problem of biological misinstruction, but do we know at least as much about the role of genders?
Pathia, you have my sympathies for the disability you were born with. My comments do not apply to someone in your condition.
Technology is progressing quite quickly, they can already turn an egg into a sperm, this would allow two lesbians to both genetically be the parents. It won’t be that long before they can do the same for gay men with a surrogate womb.
But why should anyone need or want to do that? Is there something “wrong” with the egg of a lesbian that it should be turned to a sperm? Aren’t we just trying to validate gender bias here, rather than correct a medical condition?
Children are deprived of the ‘design’ of one man one woman all the time. Divorce, death, single-parenthood.
Yes, it happens all the time, and it is always tragic. Lets agree to avoid creating more tragedies for children okay? Sexual orientation is certainly no excuse for creating still more motherless or fatherless children.
When I was growing up, not that long ago I’m only in my 20’s in my classes having a mother AND a father was the minority. The majority of my classmates lived with one parent, or one parent and a step-parent that they almost inevitably hated.
Again, my sympathies for your situation. What you describe is certainly a tragedy, but thankfully it is not the case where I grew up, nor where I live now.
Lets work together to reverse this terrible trend, rather than embrace it and encourage it.
Evan,
When is an opposite-sex alternative NOT technically available? Aren’t they always available? That doesn’t mean they will adopt though.
Not all gay couples adopt either, some have surrogate mothers or use other methods.
As for playing it safe, if society always “played it safe”, positive changes would never happen. I think your idea of playing it safe and mine are completely different. I think we HAVE played it safe enough.
Marty,
Well, okely dokely.
If that wasn’t so offensive, it would be funny.
Ya know, Marty, you can delight in your own ignorance and dismiss any evidence that contradicts your presumptions. That is entirely your right.
Of course it also means that no one will take you seriously.
Evan,
If I read you correctly you seem to be saying that your positions on politics and child rearing are irrational. And that logic should yeild to moral judgment in those areas.
While that may clarify some of your positions, it is not a ideology that I share.
Marty –
You stated:
“I’m hard pressed to see how 2 effeminate men or 2 butch women are going to provide the depth and breadth of coverage than your average man and woman together can provide.”
I’m not really sure how many gay people you know when statements like these are made.
I know gay women who are well-rounded paired with other gay women who are well-rounded in different ways bringing a breadth and depth of experiences, interests, and principles to the table – qualities that are often both traditionally masculine and feminine. Women are diverse. The same applies to men, and heterosexual couples. I’ve seen hetero couples where the man runs and squeals when he sees a spider…and his wife comes and kills it, comforting him after his fright. Under your logic, he wouldn’t be an adequate father or man? Let’s not get into stereotyping.
Evan –
Same-sex marriage is not a “social experiment,” it is giving legal rights and responsibilities to couples that already co-exist with you in society.
“But why should anyone need or want to do that? Is there something “wrong” with the egg of a lesbian that it should be turned to a sperm? Aren’t we just trying to validate gender bias here, rather than correct a medical condition?”
I think you miss the point. This allows a lesbian couple to have one of the pair be the genetic father, rather than simply taking donor sperm. The child will literally be their full complete genetic offspring.
Procedures like this are my only hope for having a child directly. My condition and/or the surgeries (It’s impossible to say what might have been had I not been mutilated) that were done to me as an infant have left me sterile. I will adopt if I can, but outside of my intersexism my genes are quite healthy, I’ve avoided all the bullets my parents DNA gave to me, my perfectly fertile brothers on the other hand are genetic landmines of high blood pressure, diabetes and various other conditions.
Jag,
Don’t you know all lesbians are taken right from the Well of Lonliness novel?? And all gay men model themselves after Judy or Quinten Crisp??
Some people – huh???
Mary,
I just wanted to say I, like Jag, have really appreciated your responses on this thread. Happy New Year!
Ooops – wrong thread – LOL! Well, anyway Mary, I have appreciated your responses – here AND on the Same-sex parenting thread!
Mary –
“Don’t you know all lesbians are taken right from the Well of Lonliness novel?? And all gay men model themselves after Judy or Quinten Crisp??”
Well of course they are! (you are very funny)
But on a less humorous note, I always appreciate that you see gay men and lesbians as individuals. Your unique history and position, I think, often gives you some great perspective on both sides of the argument.
This feigned offense from those of you who intentionally miss my point is very cute.
The point is that 2 men (whether they be straight, gay, bi, masculine, femme, or any combination) have exactly ZERO firsthand experience in being a little girl, a teenage girl, a young woman, or a woman.
If what we bring to the table of “parenthood” is our life experiences, I am 100% certain that the combined experiences of one average man and one average woman will have a greater breadth and depth than those of any two men, or any two women.
How any good liberal who was committed to diversity could argue otherwise is beyond me. Unless of course, they were just making excuses for their own gender bias.
Marty,
This feigned offense from those of you who intentionally miss my point is very cute.
Let me assure you, the offense is not feigned.
And just because I haven’t had any experience being a girl or a young woman has nothing to do with me being a good parent to one who is.
I know many women who have daughters who are terrible parents.
Pathia,
We’re veering off the edge of the topic here, so let me close out this part of the conversation with:
I do have compassion enough for those with real medical fertility problems, such as yourself, to permit certain reproductive technologies to be used. I know many do not. Your case, being very atypical, may require more examination than the typical man and wife who request simple IVF. But that is a topic for another thread.
My complaint is not with the medically infertile who may require assistive reproductive technologies to allow them to reproduce, but with the socially infertile who misuse those technologies for primarily 2 purposes: to ensure that the resulting child does not have any rightful claim to the man who “fathered” him (or mother who bore him, as the case may be); and to allow the “patient” to clinically avoid having intimate relations with a member of the opposite sex — something I like to call the “yuck factor”.
I think those who use ARTs should at a minimum be required to show evidence of a real medical fertility problem, and those who would use them merely to deprive a child of a mother or a father are guilty of something cruel and unusual.
Perhaps we can continue our conversation on ARTs for the intersexed at another time, in a more appropriate thread. Thanks.
“If what we bring to the table of “parenthood” is our life experiences, I am 100% certain that the combined experiences of one average man and one average woman will have a greater breadth and depth than those of any two men, or any two women.”
You still haven’t answered my question Marty. Really all you did was offend me and disabled people by comparing us to them. Intersex is certainly not a case of disability, it is not appropriate for either to compare them in that fashion, apples and oranges.
I quite literally had aspects of both girlhood and boyhood. In my case it happened due to my abnormal hormones, but I don’t think only intersexed people have this merged experience. Why is it so hard to imagine someone being able to comprehend, instruct and raise a child just because it wasn’t a direct personal experience?
We certainly don’t require gym teachers to be former professional athletes or history teachers to be war veterans. Is it helpful? Of course, but is it seen as mandatory? No. If you think only someone who has had direct experience with something can teach and educate about it, that is severely limiting.
It seems I’m unable to reach you, so I’ll just finish with this and let you take it or ignore it as you will:
Jayhuck: just because I haven’t had any experience being a girl or a young woman has nothing to do with me being a good parent to one who is.
No one claimed you could not be a “good parent”. Only that because you have no firsthand experience with being a female, you will be unable to offer your daughter the kind of intimate wisdom a mother would be able to provide.
And if your sexual preference for men means that your daughter will have to go without such intimate maternal wisdom, that is your choice. But I disagree that your orientation is a good enough reason to deprive her of a mother. I think your reasoning is designed to serve your needs, not hers.
Pathia: Is it helpful? Of course, but is it seen as mandatory? No. If you think only someone who has had direct experience with something can teach and educate about it, that is severely limiting.
Oh I believe you. I could teach female biology as well as anyone. But you yourself said that it is “helpful” if I had firsthand experience in the matter. My experience with cramps, menstration, tampons, bikinis, date-rape, etc etc etc is “severely limited” and it always will be.
And I apologize if my comments about your situation were offensive to you, they were not meant to be. You may not consider your “sterility” and growing up with “abnormal hormones” to be a disability per se, but if it were not then you wouldn’t have any need for ARTs either. Your infertility is a real medical condition. Not so for Jayhuck, who merely doesn’t want to have a woman around the house.
Happy New Year to all!
Marty,
I think your reasoning is designed to serve your needs, not hers.
And I believe that your reasoning is designed to serve your needs as well Marty – not those of children.
Happy New year to you too
NOTE – I initially allowed and then removed the following comment. I am re-posting it because I realized that Jose did not know that references to Nazi’s as an analogy to people you disagree with will get your comments removed. So now, I am making this clear to those on this thread anyway. There was a response comment as well which I will now post. Warren Throckmorton
It s clear from many of the statements made by the homosexualists on this thread that the primary rationale for having children is self-centered rather than child-centered. Even the intersexed individual, Pathia, talks entirely from this perspective. It’s a question of what “I want” not what the child needs or what is best for the child. “What can I do to obtain a child? Can I manufacture the child through some Mengelian genetic technology? Who cares what that child might go through or how many have genetic problems from trying to obtain children from bizarre manipulations of two eggs or two sperm cells implanted in a womb or whatever.” That’s not even a consideration. We see it in sci-fi movies of aliens abducting genetic material and we are shocked. But it happens in real life and we justify it because it’s really all about what “I want.” Who cares if the child is deliberately missing a father or a mother. “I will do whatever I want that the law might permit.” And we are supposed to lament because the adult may not get what he/she wants.
Thanks Marty, you have made an excellent effort at trying to reason with these people but it cannot get through because their end is a concupiscent self-fulfillment and gratification that is far more powerful than reason and concern for children. The child for these people has essentially become a commodity without full intrinsic worth and value. Theirs is a political end to obtain their wants. That’s why they would just as readily manipulate genetic material a la Mengele as support aborting, disposing of the child for their convenience. It is no incidental that the culture of depravity works hand in hand with the culture of death. It is thoroughly self-centered regardless of how they twist and turn to fabricate self-justifying terminology distorting the meaning of words till we are left with nothing but gobbledygook by which, as with the ejected ink of an octopus, a confusing screen is produced by which they hope to fully fulfill their wants. But we see through it and very calmly inform them, “We see you,” even if they themselves have come to believe their contradictory constructions.
Evan, you say, “My position is sufficiently inclusive, I believe, to allow some adults or same-sex unions of adults to adopt children, where no opposite-sex alternative is available.”
I agree with this but when you say, “allow some adults,” I would specifically state the other options that would be preferable to same-sex couples adopting. This would be non-homosexual couples, triples, etc. Even staying in the adoption agency would be preferable.
Jose – Let me clarify that you meant Mendelian…
Jose:
Thank you so much for putting more words in my mouth. Seriously I question why I post here when this and insults about my medical history pretty much occur at least once per post.
I am speaking in hypotheticals. I’ll have you know that I am PRO-LIFE. You want to know why? Multiple doctors advocated to my mother to ABORT ME. I would never undergo the treatments necessary to have a child if it involved IVF, because I don’t believe in it. I am Roman Catholic.
All of this is purely hypothetical, because I am well aware of my mental instability. I am not a suitable child rearer, period. However, I do know some intersexed people who are not as screwed up as I am. They would all make wonderful parents, but they simply don’t fit into the category of male or female. They are completely left out by what Marty is talking about.
Again, don’t put words into my mouth. PLEASE.
Homosexualists??
Pathia – No need to go any further into your personal situation. I appreciate your candor.
Let me say to all to think through the Scriptural injunction to speak the truth in love as well as to let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man. Also, the tongue is a flaming fire issuing blessings and cursings. James exhorts the believer not to curse those who are made in God’s image.
I thought references to nazism are prohibited???
a la Mengele?? That is strong language to paint a broad brush over people who desire to raise children. The desire to produce offspring, care for and create a family does not end because a person is gay. Nor does it make one a monster.
To those who are gay, I apologize for the comment Jose has made about you and your desire to raise a family or adopt children. His comments that equate gays with Mengele are NOT the norm. While some christians may disagree about the value of gay parents, not many would make such a grotesque remark meaning to intentionally hurt another person.
Dear Pathia,
With your explanation of your views I do believe we have had a miscommunication and we are really much closer in our positions than we are with several others here who appear to be deliberately distorting what I’m saying. I was not aware of your background as stated in your 77741 comment.
I was merely responding, perhaps reacting to your statement:
“Technology is progressing quite quickly, they can already turn an egg into a sperm, this would allow two lesbians to both genetically be the parents. It won’t be that long before they can do the same for gay men with a surrogate womb.”
It appeared to me that you were endorsing these procedures which I see as Megeleian-like experimentation with human beings. I sometimes use the King Herod slaughter of the innocents as an analogy. I think that you as a Catholic and I as a Mennonite would be on the same page on this issue.
It is important that we continue the dialogue because when communicating in brief comments it is easy to read more into a statement than what is actually being said or intended. Your “hypothetical” views are worthy of discussion even if the actual practices would not be consistent with Christian teaching. We need to wrestle with these concepts so that they may make greater intellectual and emotional sense to us.
You can see how Mary likes to make ridiculous, inflammatory distortions of my words, tantamount to outright lies, by saying I “equate gays with Mengele.” This is nonsense and heterosexuals are by far more involved in these procedures than homosexuals. It is the murderous procedures that you and I and the Catholic Church vehemently oppose as we recognize that the genetic manipulation to create human beings (two eggs, two sperm), the destruction of embryos, the dismemberment of unborn children, etc., cannot be acceptable practices of any civilization. We must take action to outlaw such activities, starting with the overturning of Roe vs. Wade.
Pathia, we have a great mission that should keep us very involved throughout our lives.
Many blessings to you and let’s continue the conversation as a team.
Jose,
As has been discussed at length above, children do NOT fare better in institutional care than they do in same-sex families. Not by any measure of well being that is currently known.
For you to state otherwise illustrates that you are speaking only from a position of religious dogma, a statement of your personal faith that runs contradictory to the observable evidence.
You are entitled to your religious beliefs. But a wise society does not allow the religious beliefs of some to over-ride the beliefs of others, especially when they cannot be supported by anything other than declaration.
Otherwise, you might just a well claim that it is in the best interest of children to be sacrificed to the Crocodile God. That too is a religious belief. I give it the same level of credibility as I give your unsubstantiated dogmatic religious declarations.
Pathia –
Indeed, technology is progressing quickly…national geographic reported on an experiment in which they were able to use the genetic contents of two mouse eggs to produce an offspring. Here is the link if you are interested:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/04/0421_040421_whoneedsmales.html
I’m not sure what this has to do with same-sex marriage, however. It seems we’ve gotten a bit off topic.
Jose –
Children can and are a part of many marriages, but they are not the reason why everyone marries (ex: the elderly or infertile), and certainly those who are not able to have children because they are never able to consummate the relationship (some inmates without conjugals, the disabled, etc.) also find something unique in the marital relationship that does not include children. While I agree that it should be a part of the conversation (for example, if we knew that same-sex couples could not parent, etc..), then it would indeed be more important. But since science has overwhelmingly found same-sex couples to be just as adequate as parents as their heterosexual peers, the act of reproduction seems less important – because it does effect many heterosexual couples and does not impede their ability to marry.
Same-sex couples in many places already adopt, are legally both related to the child…but are barred from legal relationship to each other – to me, this is not in the best interest of any child….and seems a bit backward.
In places where same-sex unions are legal (massachusetts, vermont, new jersey, )…what has this done to heterosexual marriage. I suppose I often hear the phrase that marriage needs to be “protected,” but I often wonder what people feel it needs to be protected from…
britney spears? divorce? domestic abuse?
Thanks for the link JAG.
Even the filename in the URL (whoneedsmales.html) alludes to the fact that this sort of research is not being driven by any medical necessity, but is in fact being driven by gender bias.
But since science has overwhelmingly found same-sex couples to be just as adequate as parents as their heterosexual peers, the act of reproduction seems less important
An overstatement, to say the least, but why don’t you want to talk about sexism? Is lesbianism an ethical reason to tell little Johnny that he has no father, only a redundant mother?
“The — and I would actually — I would suggest that really almost all this is really more in the way of kind of offering some hypotheses. There obviously have been some studies, and I’ll talk about those in a moment, but I think, really, in an important way, it’s really much more at the stage of hypotheses and thinking about the link between same-sex marriage and child outcomes.”
Dr. Wilcox is quite right in this assessment. The studies to date are all either fundamentally flawed so as their conclusions are suspect, or so few in number and sample size that it would be premature to offer a definitive answer to the question of child development in same-sex households.
The policy statement s by groups like the APA and others reinforce this conclusion. They are peppered with phrases like “studies to date” & “there is no evidence to suggest”.
These are all together different than saying “multiple wide ranging …comprehensive longitudinal,… have created a consensus among experts as to….”
This later terminology and consensus dose exist on the subject of family formation. Unfortunately it exists when comparing natural intact married families to all other adequately studied family forms. These forms don’t include same-sex parenting.
Mr Wilcox’s statement is the one of the cautious scientist who (rightfully) waits for the data to be gathered.
In this respect he reminds me of the thoughts represented well in this post by Sociology professor William Weston in the following post on his blog : “Gruntled Center” (a post you may find interesting & relevant)
http://gruntledcenter.blogspot.com/2006/03/gay-parent-research-full-of-holes.html
“Few researchers expect that same-sex couples will turn out to be bad parents. But it is very premature to conclude that their kids turn out the same in all respects as children of married parents.”
“My expectation is that same-sex couples will, as a group, score similar to parent/step-parent couples in overall kid outcomes.”
In places where same-sex unions are legal (massachusetts, vermont, new jersey, )…what has this done to heterosexual marriage.
Those places are:
Reciprocal Benefits – Hawaii
Domestic Partnerships – California, Maine, Washington, Oregon (currently challenged)
Civil Unions – Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, New Jersey
Marriage – Massachusetts
The response so far:
Massachusetts was forced by the court. However last year they could not find 25% of the legislature to support an amendment to overturn marriage. It seems that heterosexual marriage did not collapse.
Vermont opted for civil unions when required by court to provide benefits. They are currently considering changing it to marriage and there is very little vocal oppositions. It seems heterosexual marriage did not collapse.
California has everything but the word “marriage”. The legislature has twice passed the bill to convert to marriage, but the Governor has vetoed it until the courts weigh in on whether a referendum based provision relates to in-state or out-of-state marriages. It seems that outside of Hollywood, heterosexual marriage did not collapse.
Connecticut and New Jersey both elected without judicial mandate to offer civil unions. They did so based on their observations of the successes in New England. It is expected that they will convert to marriage fairly soon. Though they’ve only been in place for a while, it seems heterosexual marriage did not collapse.
But you never know. Any minute now Massachusetts, which has the lowest divorce rate in the nation, could suddenly implode leaving its citizens running pell mell to divorce chapels. Little Johnny could say, “If Fred and Joe can get married then marriage has no value so I’m not marrying Suzy”. Flames from the pits of Hell could come erupting through Boston raining fire and brimstone down on the state.
But I doubt it.
There is a particular relationship between man and woman that is conjugal in that it joins a man and a woman in such a way that they have a sexual relationship that may lead to their having children. This conjugal relationship is consensual and therefore differentiated from rape. The man and the woman have a pleasurable attraction towards each other and they discover that there is a natural and perfectly corresponding match for their sexual organs as they embrace. Their different sexual organs complement each other. This is obvious to all human beings. The male sexual organ produces a sperm cell and the female sexual organ produces an egg which when combined a new human being may be conceived. This natural biological function is so amazing that it is often referred to as a “miracle.” It is astonishing, particularly to the mother who has borne this new human being in her womb for months and then gives birth to this person.
Throughout the world people have observed this relationship, and since a time so far back in prehistory that we cannot clearly determine when, societies have granted this relationship very special distinctions, honors, privileges and ceremonial blessings. Why have they done this? It is because societies have recognized that this relationship forms the nucleus of family life and society itself. It is the means by which society propagates itself and is consequently foundational in the preservation of the species, of humanity.
The names given to this relationship have of course varied in different societies through language variations and differences, but regardless of what it is called the relationship is special and thoroughly different from all other human relationships. The relationship itself remains the same regardless of what it is called and regardless of whether or not the name by which it is called is given to some other relationship.
Over the centuries and through different cultures societies have sought to honor this relationship only within certain conditions so that it is lifted above a merely bestial and prurient motivation. This has been done because of the realization that to be most helpful to society as a whole, the relationship must take on important responsibilities and obligations. Children must be raised properly so that they may be productive members of the community. Millenia of experiences have demonstrated to societies the importance of loyalty and faithfulness to bring about an harmonious, creative and productive social ideal. To honor and privilege this relationship particular standards of conduct for the relationship were instituted. These varied somewhat from culture to culture. Some standards were quite liberal while others rather harsh. Some societies insisted that the relationship be monogamous and not incestuous. Others did not. Almost all honored the relationship only if the persons were of childbearing/reproductive age, a clear indication of the emphasis placed on procreation.
The question before some societies today is whether or not they wish to honor and privilege this particular relationship as distinct from all other relationships or if they wish to see it as no more meritorious than any number of other partnerships or relationships.
Any minute now Massachusetts, which has the lowest divorce rate in the nation, could suddenly implode…
Having a low divorce rate isn’t neccesarily anything to brag about, when Massachusetts also has one of the lowest marriage rates. You cannot divorce someone you never bothered to marry.
Statistically, and by various surveys, Massachusans appear to take the institution of marriage less seriously than residents of most other states.
One might suggest that marriage had already imploded in Massachusetts, even before Goodridge came along. Begging the question is SSM a symptom or a disease?
Marty,
Do you have any references for your claim that Massachussetts has one of the lowest marriage rates?
And to be fair Marty (if your claim is true), we don’t know if the data on low divorce rates was adjusted for the fact that it allegedly has a low marriage rate!
First, — Happy New Year to all of you here!
My position is closer to the conservative critique of any politics based on pure reason. For instance, it is rational to reduce energy consumption in a home (for economic reasons) but if that can affect the health of the inhabitants, rational cutting cost is not an end in itself. Just the same, science can produce many rationally valid conclusions about child rearing, but I am quite sure science cannot define what is good for children. We have to filter these rational conclusions using our moral sense to come to a choice.
A propos of an earlier mention of a Nazi henchman, you can understand the baleful use of reason in politics by analysing Nazi politics, which were completely rational — ie they had an end (morally horrifying) and a choice of means (less than inhuman, since they brought statistical extermination of choice populations). Nazism lacked transcendence — they only had a mystique of human affirmation based on ideal race ideology which employed science to eliminate whatever was seen to be retrograde to their human-centred purposes (read ‘human’ as a choice race). It’s easy to see that reason unbridled by any moral considerations can produce atrocities, within different ranges.
Playing God with nature based on rational (limited) scientific questionnaires can produce results that confirm the (limited) data, but which completely does away with our past which tells us what we are, where we came from and how we survived until now. If that past of moral assumptions were completely wrong we would have never reached this point. Let’s not consider parenting as if we lived in a scientific utopia, where the sense of direction was given by scientific periodicals. The final decision must come from our moral sense. If opposite-sex parenting is not available, the moral choice would be to allow other types of parenting, if science does not indicate any significant harm, not the other way around. In this way, society must take the responsibility of allowing any other type of parenting than the opposite-sex one, although I’m sure some will resort to science reports to escape any such responsibility.
If someone would like to read an article that is probably a bit more objective on the history of marriage, here is one:
Marriage Article
Interestingly, in this same article, I found this quote:
“In 2004, the American Anthropological Association released this statement:[28]
The results of more than a century of anthropological research on households, kinship relationships, and families, across cultures and through time, provide no support whatsoever for the view that either civilization or viable social orders depend upon marriage as an exclusively heterosexual institution. Rather, anthropological research supports the conclusion that a vast array of family types, including families built upon same-sex partnerships, can contribute to stable and humane societies.”
Jose,
In the United States, Civil marriage has nothing to do with the ability to procreate or raise children. No state requires any intention to raise children as a requirement for marriage. The state supports marriage because promoting long-term, stable relationships is good for society as a whole. To encourage these relationships, the state provides a variety of benefits and privileges to married couples.
Marriage in america has evolved from a relationship where the wife was little better than the property of her husband, to a relationship where both are equal partners. From relationships exclusive to only white couples to all races and inter-racial couples. I see no reason it shouldn’t continue to evolve to allow for gay couples as well.
–> As has been discussed at length above, children do NOT fare better in institutional care than they do in same-sex families. Not by any measure of well being that is currently known.
I think that orphanages have gotten a bad rap. Nowadays we do very well with small group homes for children in fostercare, especially with children who are older and for whom there is no viable adoption plan — in fact they may even be among the large portionof fosterkids who are not even be available for adoption.
Timothy, the courts did play prominent roles in each of the places with civil union status.
And, contrary to your predrawn conclusion, marriage is on the decline and nonmarital trends are on the incline in each of those jurisdictions.
That will adversely influence the family formation behavior of coming generations. The merger of SSM with marriage recognition (whether in the form of SSM in Massa. or CU elsewhere) locks-in negatives and locks-out protection and preference for the nature of marriage.
The sky did not fall where states have affirmed the man-woman criterion of marriage. There is no good reason to abolish that criterion, anywhere. Least of all where the well-being of children takes precedent over the adultcentric desires of adults.
Timothy, the courts did play prominent roles in each of the places with civil union status.
Not in New Jersey, Connecticut, or California.
Chairm said in post 78162:
Timothy, the courts did play prominent roles in each of the places with civil union status.
Really, what role did the courts play in the enactment of Civil Unions in CT?
That will adversely influence the family formation behavior of coming generations.
What are these “adverse influences”? and how have you determined they would have any effect?
The merger of SSM with marriage recognition (whether in the form of SSM in Massa. or CU elsewhere) locks-in negatives and locks-out protection and preference for the nature of marriage.
How does allowing gay couples the ability to marry effect straight marriages? What “negatives” are being locked in (and how)?
Ken you’re standing on quicksand.
–> In the United States, Civil marriage has nothing to do with the ability to procreate or raise children. No state requires any intention to raise children as a requirement for marriage.
Procreation within marriage is not compulsory. But when husband and wife enter the social institution, which society recognizes but which the state neither created nor owns, they consent to the nature of marriage, its core.
And at its core is 1) integration of the sexes — see the man-woman criterion, 2) contingency for Responsible Procreation — see the marriage presumption of paternity, and 3) these fundamentals combined as a coherent whole — see marriage, a social institution.
There are legal requirements but SSMers attack the nature of marriage and seek to abolish those requirements. For society to recognize marriage, it must recognize the nature of marriage, or else it will not be possible to distinguish marriage from other relationship types.
The boundaries around that core, the nature of marriage, are regulated by state authorities, because that regulatory power has been delegated to the state; however, no such delegation has been granted in regards to the core of marriage which is a foundational social institution of civil society. The government does not own civil society. The People have a government, not the other way around.
The proposed SSM merger amounts to the replacement of recognition of marriage’s core for recognition of some alternative relationship type or types.
So, in the context of procreation and raising one’s children, what is the core of the one-sexed arrangement or of the relationship type that you have in mind when you refer to “marriage”?
Well, it is clear that for any scenario of two dads or two moms there is a prerequisite of parental relinquishment. Either the dad or the mom is excluded in such scernarios. That, or the significance of the integration of fatherhood with motherhood is greatly diminished or even sidelined.
This is so whether we are speaking of adoption or of third party procreation. Neither is at the core of marriage; neither forms the core of Responsible Procreation; both are selelctively sex-segregative. Third party procreation, for example, is extramarital procreation even when the husband and wife partake of it. It is sex-segregative when either husband or wife is excluded — as in the case of two men or two women who’d use a supply of a 3rd party’s sperm or ova.
That is the inverse of the nature of marriage. Do you truly wish to abolish the special status of this? What good would that do society?
–>The state supports marriage because promoting long-term, stable relationships is good for society as a whole. To encourage these relationships, the state provides a variety of benefits and privileges to married couples.
Well, encouragement is one thing and tolerance is another. Likewise protection is a third way of treating various relationships.
Are we not here discussing the preference for a certain type of domestic arrangement? Sure we are. And marriage comes with lots of baggage that some folks want to discard. We expect that the man and the woman will form a sexual relationship; that the relationship needs to provide contingency for procreation; that the contingency supports both spouses, integrates fatherhood with motherhood, and entails the child’s parents sticking around to be, not just the biological progentiors, but also the socializers — the child’s responsible parents.
Barring dire circumstances or death, that’s the social expectation and that’s intrinsic to the social institution of marriage. There are nonmarital alternatives, sure, but there is no good reason to merge nonmarriage with marriage such that the nature of marriage is no longer shown preference.
If you think about it, we are really discussing line-drawing, making boundaries, that honor what society esteems.
We do not tolerate all types of relationships, as you surely must agree. But those we ban outright or discourage in various ways. Not all of this is about governmental intrusions, by the way. We should keep that in mind when discussing the significance of parenting in our society.
Okay, so we outlaw some arrangements and some relationships. But that which we do not outlaw, we tolerate, at minimum. We can disregard some types of relationships. That is, we can tolerate a diversity that excludes arrangements that cause harm — whether material harm or moral harm.
Some relationship types, though tolerated, are not worthy of protection. Some that are protected do not merit special status.
I think that the SSM type of scenario can be tolerated, of course, and is among a much broader category of relationship types that ought to be afforded protections.
But not preference. That is reserved for the conjugal relationship of husband and wife and the bond they form both with each other and with the children they create, should they recieved that blessing.
Would you destroy that preference? For what purpose? Based on what principle of justice?
–> Marriage in america has evolved from a relationship where the wife was little better than the property of her husband, to a relationship where both are equal partners. [...] I see no reason it shouldn’t continue to evolve to allow for gay couples as well.
That’s a distorted view of the history of marriage. No matter. even if we suppose it were accurate, that does not weigh in favor of selective sex segregation. For there to be equality, both sexes are required. Otherwise, we would have achieved equality within marriage by removing the man and allowing only female-female unions. On the other hand, would polygamy be more equal if we removed the man, again, and added more and more women? Or exclude the women, and allow only men of equal status.
No, because although multi-marriage does integrate the sexes it does so in an inferior form. Likewise with procreation. In our society we do prefer marriage and we do have an ideal form in mind when we recognize, privilege, and give special status to the one-to-one integration of the sexes not least because we also have an ideal in mind in terms of resonsible procreaton.
To drop that from marriage recognition would be a devolution, not an evolution.
–> From relationships exclusive to only white couples to all races and inter-racial couples.
On this point you are flat outrigh mistaken. But you do point to a problem with the SSM campaign.
Identity politics is unjust when pressed into marriage recognition. It was wrong when the racist filter was used to selectively segregate the sexes and to impair Responsible Procreation. And, although it might be presented as more benign, the gay identity filter is also unjust when it attempts to drag selective sex segregation and non-respponsible procreation under the auspices of marriage recognition.
I too lament the decline in the prestige of marriage.
You guys really screwed it up, didn’t you. What with “honor and obey” scaring off the women and community property laws scaring off the men, it’s a wonder anyone wants into it. And with quicky divorce and and the pressures of an economy that requires all adults to work, I’m surprised the divorce rate isn’t bigger. And when you add in the economic benefits that were for years doled out to single mothers, It’s not confusing why so many kids are born out of wedlock.
And then when you add in the way that conservatives have been trying to equate marriage with electing Republicans and reviling gay folk, I can’t imagine why any liberals (ie half the country) would even want to have anything to do with it.
Yep. Marriage is in pretty bad shape.
But there is hope.
With gay folk clammoring for the institution, it’s the first positive word that marriage has had in decades. With gay folks seeking to be part of marriage, it has a chance to drop off its exclusionary “old rich white Republicans only” image and regain some of its cache as the gold-standard for couples.
Hey, it worked in Scandinavia. After they started recognizing same-sex couples, their plummeting marriage rates turned around. Maybe it can happen here too.
The merger of SSM with marriage recognition (whether in the form of SSM in Massa. or CU elsewhere) locks-in negatives and locks-out protection and preference for the nature of marriage.
That’s just simply not true.
Marriage equality does not lock-in a single negative. None. No heterosexual marriage is negatively impacted in any way.
Marriage equality does not lock-out protections. None. No single protection for heterosexual marriage is reduced or “locked-out”.
Marriage equality does not lock out preference for marriage. It increases marriage’s cache as the gold-standard. It gives credibility to those who say “you should be abstinant until marriage”. It allows communities to insist on marriage in order to grant benefits without being discriminatory against their gay friends and neighbors.
The best thing that could happen to marriage would be for a community to be able to insist that all their kids, gay or straight, shoot for that goal.
Kids see right through hypocrisy. And they know that “gay people can get married, just to a woman” is stupid, bogus, a false notion, and not relevant to anyone’s life. They recognize that gay folks exist, are just like them, and want the same things. Furthermore they know full well that gay couples exist. And function as a family.
So when you say, “gay couples can’t marry” it leaves to these kids the idea that gay couples can function out there just fine without marriage… and so can they.
It is so ironic that those who so want to “protect marriage” are doing exactly the things that can doom it and fighting against one thing that could give marriage a fighting chance.
Hi Ken,
I think you have misunderstood what I have written. I’m talking about the particular conjugal relationship between a man and a woman which is distinct from all other partnerships and relationship and which has been universally honored and privileged.
If you read carefully I did not even mention the word “marriage” because it really doesn’t matter what you call, it remains a distinct relationship deserving of special benefits and recognition. Marriage just happens to be the name generally given to that relationship in English, although often the two are also pronounced “man and wife,” “hombre y mujer” (man and woman) in Spanish.
I’m even willing to compromise and say let us retain the special, unique, privileged position of the man and wife relationship and refer to the homosexual relationship non-euphemistically as simply the Homosexual Relationship. Those who would like to honor and benefit that relationship can then lobby for the Homosexual Relationship benefit packages and if the people vote for it they should get it. But let us not confound terminology and relationships by merging the man and woman relationship with the homosexual relationship.
Although I don’t like it, we can grant you a minor victory—the inevitable consequence of ss”m”—and drop the term “marriage” altogether but retain the distinction between the man and woman relationship and the homosexual relationship. This is pretty simple and could reduce all this tension over the word “marriage.” The word would become archaic and people would just talk about the “man and woman relationship” and the “homosexual relationship.” Society would provide benefits democratically to whichever they wish. Problem solved.
Peace.
Warren
(I know this is off topic on childrearing – yet the topic has seemed to drift to marriage rates in general and applicable harm that is demonstrable in the acceptance of same-sex “marriage” )
{8/7/04 THE HAGUE–In an open letter to this newspaper, academics raise the alarm over the deteriorating state of marriage in The Netherlands.}
http://www.refdag.nl/artikel/105038/
Signed, Prof. M. van Mourik, professor in contract law, Nijmegen University Prof. A. Nuytinck, professor in family law, Erasmus University Rotterdam Prof. R. Kuiper, professor in philosophy, Erasmus University Rotterdam J. Van Loon PhD, Lecturer in Social Theory, Nottingham Trent University H. Wels PhD, Lecturer in Social and Political Science, Free University Amsterdam
Timothy,
So when you say, “gay couples can’t marry” it leaves to these kids the idea that gay couples can function out there just fine without marriage… and so can they.
Excellent point! And as long as kids continue to see that there are couples functioning fine without marriage, and they continue to see nearly 50% of marriages end in divorce, they aren’t going to be able to give themselves any reason to GET married. I hadn’t actually thought about this before, but it makes a great deal of sense.
And I think those who say they are “protecting marriage” have entered into a kind of self-delusion, where I’m sure they believe that is what they are doing, when in fact they are simply rationalizing their own prejudices. And as you say, this may all be to the ultimate detriment of marriage.
Jayhuck:
Do you have any references for your claim that Massachussetts has one of the lowest marriage rates?
But of course:
Marriage Rates by state:
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvss/marriage90_04.pdf
Divorce Rates by State:
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvss/divorce90_04.pdf
And to be fair Marty (if your claim is true), we don’t know if the data on low divorce rates was adjusted for the fact that it allegedly has a low marriage rate!
Oh but we DO! Both links clearly state that “Rates are per 1,000 total population residing in area.” Which means the divorce rate is not adjusted to reflect only those persons who were previously married.
So it only makes sense that a state where only a small number of couples marry, only a small number will divorce. And vice-versa.
Tim Kincaid: Kids see right through hypocrisy. And they know that “gay people can get married, just to a woman” is stupid, bogus, a false notion, and not relevant to anyone’s life.
Yeah, but they swallow that “two moms — no dad” stuff hook line & sinker, don’t they?
“Marriage equality” (your term, not mine) will mean that more children, not fewer, grow up without a mother and a father. A tragedy, by any standard of common decency.
Marty –
You raise an interesting point when you state:
“An overstatement, to say the least [re: reproduction being nonimportant in marriage], but why don’t you want to talk about sexism? Is lesbianism an ethical reason to tell little Johnny that he has no father, only a redundant mother?”
I’d love to talk about sexism, Marty. I believe (although Timothy and others may disagree), that is it precisely BECAUSE of sexism that two women are denied the ability to marry to begin with.
If you think about it legally and objectively, the reason susie cannot marry sally, (if sally is not related, and meets all other standards), is solely because of her gender. In states that have equal rights ammendments that ensure equal treatment under the law…how do we justify denying these rights due to her gender? It is actually for the state to prove that extending such rights would be harmful…and to my knowledge there is no research that supports that standard.
So, the issue Marty, isn’t that I didn’t want to talk about sexism or parenting…but that same-sex parenting is discussed on another thread (of which I have commented much on) and I was trying to keep to the content of this one. I get off track just like everyone else…but I was trying to reign it in.
And to answer your initial point, I don’t think “lesbianism” is justification for sexism…the scenario runs both ways. While little “johnny” may not have a father, he has the benefit of two parents who love him…which, in my book, makes him luckier than most kids out there.
I suppose I’m likely the least “sexist” about it…I don’t see two women, two men, or one woman and one man raising a child as being different – and I don’t discriminate by saying one coupling is “better” than another simply because of different gender configurations…it just so happens, that research supports equality as well.
Chairm said in post 78181:
Procreation within marriage is not compulsory. But when husband and wife enter the social institution, which society recognizes but which the state neither created nor owns, they consent to the nature of marriage, its core.
Procreation is not “the core” of marriage. And it has never been a requirement of civil marriage in this country. In fact, as I mentioned in another topic, in the state of AZ, certain couples can only marry if they cannot procreate.
There are legal requirements but SSMers attack the nature of marriage and seek to abolish those requirements.
The “nature” of civil marriage in the US (and many other countries) is that it is a state recognized civil contract, that grants the couple a variety of benefits, privileges and responsibilities. The only requirement gay marriage supporters are seeking to abolish, is an unjust one that improperly denies the benefits of marriage to an entire class of citizens. Just as the Loving’s challenged the unjust requirement that the couple be of the same race.
So, in the context of procreation and raising one’s children, what is the core of the one-sexed arrangement or of the relationship type that you have in mind when you refer to “marriage”?
As I have pointed out repeatedly, there is no “context of procreation and raising one’s children” for marriage. That is a fiction created by those who wish to suppress the rights of others.
The purpose of marriage is to legally unite 2 people to form a new family unit. This unit does not need to include children, however, it may.
Do you truly wish to abolish the special status of this? What good would that do society?
Nothing I have proposed would abolish the special status of marriage in this country. I merely advocate that it be expanded to fairly include gay citizens as well.
We expect that the man and the woman will form a sexual relationship;
Even if one of them is in prison for life without the possibility of parole? Even if one of them is impotent and incapable of a sexual relationship?
that the relationship needs to provide contingency for procreation; that the contingency supports both spouses,
Allowing gays to marry would in no way change the “contingencies for procreation” in straight marriages.
We do not tolerate all types of relationships, as you surely must agree. But those we ban outright or discourage in various ways.
In order to deny a civil right to citizens, the government must provide sufficient reason for doing so. This reason (or reasons) is sometimes referred to as a “compelling state interest” or a “rationale basis.” I have yet to see you or anyone else here come up with any such reasons.
Would you destroy that preference?
No I wouldn’t, nor would anything I have proposed do so.
For what purpose? Based on what principle of justice?
Equal rights for all citizens. The same principles for granting inter-racial couples the right of marriage.
For there to be equality, both sexes are required.
No, it means that both partners must be treated the same under the law. This equal treatment has not always been the case. Even today, I believe wives still have a slight advantage in divorce proceedings. However, the courts have been making significant progress in treating both spouses equally.
On the other hand, would polygamy be more equal if we removed the man, again, and added more and more women? Or exclude the women, and allow only men of equal status.
Polygamy is an entirely different matter. One that would raise far to many legal issues, which I believe are insurmountable. However, for the record, if someone could come up with a fair, workable scheme for polygamy, I would consider it. I just don’t think such a scheme is possible.
–> From relationships exclusive to only white couples to all races and inter-racial couples.
On this point you are flat outrigh mistaken. But you do point to a problem with the SSM campaign.
what is it you think is mistaken about my statement? When the US was founded, slaves were not able to enter into any form of legal contract, let alone marriage. And until the Loving v. Virginia decision inter-racial marriage were banned in some states.
JAG, I don’t see two women, two men, or one woman and one man raising a child as being different
So separate IS equal after all, is that what you’re claiming?
and I don’t discriminate by saying one coupling is “better” than another simply because of different gender configurations…
So separate IS equal, and diversity doesn’t matter either!
Thanks for clearing that up.
Marty,
You might want to rethink your ideas. Here’s a link to a New York Times article that discusses the divorce rate per married persons, not total population. It also discusses some other interesting numbers and one other study. You’ll notice these numbers are different from the ones in the CDC pdf file you linked to.
” In 2003, the rate in Massachusetts was 5.7 divorces per 1,000 married people, compared with 10.8 in Kentucky, 11.1 in Mississippi and 12.7 in Arkansas.”
Here’s a link to the article
Fitz,
Your alarmist anti-gay letter writers need not worry. Nor should Stanley Kurtz.
The Wall Street Journal, that bastion of media liberalism
disagrees with that simplistic assessment.
http://volokh.com/posts/1162396316.shtml
I jokingly said above that gay marriage rescued marriage in Scandinavia. But I would not be surprised to discover that my jest had some truth in it.
Timothy you are on a roll but you are overstating things.
–> With gay folk clammoring for the institution, it’s the first positive word that marriage has had in decades. With gay folks seeking to be part of marriage, it has a chance to drop off its exclusionary “old rich white Republicans only” image and regain some of its cache as the gold-standard for couples.
Actually, nonmarital trends were making a modest turnaround, but now we have this pro-SSM campaign sucking all the oxygen out of the room.
–> Hey, it worked in Scandinavia. After they started recognizing same-sex couples, their plummeting marriage rates turned around. Maybe it can happen here too.
I dunno. Holland’s marriage rate continues to fall and its nonmarital birth continues to rise. Same in Canada.
And the participation rate is very low wherever same sex union can be registered with the government. The “clamoring” is political, not actual. Surely participation rates are more relevant than hyperbolic claims by the SSM campaign.
Timothy, I referred to the nature of marriage. In your “it ain’t so” type of response you did ot refer to the nature of marriage.
You did use the “marriage equality” bumper sticker. You did not address the negatives that are locked-in as per sidelining the nature of marriage itself in the recognition of marriage.
Integration of the sexes is discarded with the abolition of the man-woman criterion.
Replacing the marriage presumption with some other presumption that is based on the limitations of the one-sexed type of relationship is an affront to Responsible Procreation.
Negatives. Locked in. Preference for the nature of marriage, and protection for that, locked out.
There is no hypocrisy in what I have said, Timothy, just objective truth based on the social institution. Responsible procreation is a coherent set of principles. The first principle is that each of us, as part of a procreative duo, is responsible for the children we create. It is combined with integration of the sexes to sustain the most pro-child social institution that we have. There is great wisdom in having society show preference for this. And, as I said, I am not jsut speaking of the government but the government should not intervene to undermine the nature of marriage.
The choice to form a nonmarital arrangement, such as the one-sexed type of relationship, is a liberty exercised, not a right denied. See what I said about tolerated and protective status versus preferential status.
–> So when you say, “gay couples can’t marry” it leaves to these kids the idea that gay couples can function out there just fine without marriage… and so can they.
That is not the message of the affirmation of the nature of marriage. Rather it is the false message of the SSM campaign. It is very mislelading because it depends on a misrepresentation of the conjugal relationship. And that is done, as per your own comments, for the sake of gay identity politics.
–> It is so ironic that those who so want to “protect marriage” are doing exactly the things that can doom it and fighting against one thing that could give marriage a fighting chance.
More hyperbole. You really do overstate the case for SSM. The best SSM arugment is merely a call for provision for designated beneficiaries. Nothing more than that.
Ken, I referred to Responsible Procreation but you dropped the responsible part. Is that necessary for SSM to be merged with marriage, do you think?
To which Arizona law did you point to when you said that “certain couples can only marry if they cannot procreate.”? If you mean the faulty compromise on cousin marriage, well, that actually confirms the core of marriage includes contingency for Responsible Procreation.
–> The “nature” of civil marriage in the US (and many other countries) is that it is a state recognized civil contract, that grants the couple a variety of benefits, privileges and responsibilities.
The government does not own marriage. If it was just a contract, then, you should be satisified with provision for designated beneficiaries.
If you are now claiming that the nature of marriage is the sum of the legal incidents that are associated with it, then, you are going in circles. The nature of marriage is recognized, not created, by the state nor by legal incidents that flow from that nature or core.
–> The only requirement gay marriage supporters are seeking to abolish, is an unjust one that improperly denies the benefits of marriage to an entire class of citizens. Just as the Loving’s challenged the unjust requirement that the couple be of the same race.
No, not “just as”. You have it backwards, actually. As I said, the anti-miscegenation system selecltively segregated the sexes and undermined Responsible Procreation. That, too, is the effect of pressing the gay identity filter into marriage recogniton.
–> Nothing I have proposed would abolish the special status of marriage in this country. I merely advocate that it be expanded to fairly include gay citizens as well.
Hang on.
Please distinguish marriage from nonmarriage. Then, based on that, draw the lines around marriage so that it can be shown preference.
I suspect that what you would describe could not justly exclude a larger range of nonmarital arrangements that are neither sexualized nor identified as gay.
Marriage, the social institution, is not adultcentric. It is childcentric. When you argue otherwise, you do indeed argue for abolishing the special status of the most pro-child social institution in our society. It may be hard for you to accept this because you begin with the false idea that marriage is about the adults and children are merely an optional, even peripheral, part of the social institution and of marriage recognition. So you start with this bundle of beneifts and so forth and then say that there is no actual core, or nature, of marriage that stands apart from the government’s authority.
You’d have government swallow the foundational social institution of civil society. That is perhaps far more than what you think you advocate, but maybe you need to reconsider the downside of gay identity politics.
Ken you said: From relationships exclusive to only white couples to all races and inter-racial couples.
Then you said: slaves were not able to enter into any form of legal contract, let alone marriage. And until the Loving v. Virginia decision inter-racial marriage were banned in some states.
Okay, your clarification is helpful. Slaves did marry. The slave system did not recognize those husband and wife unions. The slave system directly overturned the contingency for Responsible Procreation. The slave system also selectively segregated the sexes — and segregated fatherhood from motherhood. So, sure, it is an easy thing to say that the slave system was an anti-marriage system.
However, the anti-miscegenation system barred supposedly pure white individuals from marrying non-pure white individuals. It also segregated the sexes outside of marriage, as you may know. That system institutionalized bastardization from one generation to the next. A white man who married a non-white woman, for example, could expect their children to be “impure” and ineligible to be recognized as his child through marriage. Those children could not marry into the “white race”. The Loving decision was not about a flaw in marriage but a caste system based on racism. The racist analogy does not work the way you think it does for SSM. Quite the contrary.
There is one human race and the nature of humankind is two-sexed, the nature of human generativity is both-sexed, and the nature of human community is also both-sexed.
Marriage arises from these objective truths. It would be unjust to abolish the man-woman criterion of marriage recognition for the sake of any type of identity politics. In this case, with SSM, the unjust filter is the gay identity filter which negates the core of marriage itself.
The SSM merger would replace marriage recognitoin with recognition of something else. Do not assume that the replacement will carry the same shared public meaning as the conjugal relationship has carried.
The boundaries around marriage are based on its nature, its core, its essence, and it makes little sense to repositon marriage recognition to its peripheral aspects. Just because some secondary and tertiary aspects are shared with nonmarital arrnagements does not require that society sideline the core of marriage for which society is justified in showing preference.
SSM can be tolerated, even protected (as I favor), as part of a more inclusive range of nonmarital arrangements. But why should society show preference for gay identity?
Why would excluding other nonmarital arrangements better protect gay arrangements? No SSMer I’ve encountered has adequately answered that question.
Jayhuck,
Your article states that it is “based on figures from the Census Bureau and the National Center for Health Statistics”, but provides no actual figures that we can check for ourselves.
The links I provided (to actual figures), state:
Note: Populations are consistent with the 2000 Census
Source: Division of Vital Statistics, National Center for Health Statistics, CDC
It’s possible both conclusions are correct — they appear to cite the same sources, but we can’t know for sure because your article doesn’t provide the raw data used to reach that conclusion.
If you can find that data, please let us know.
Marty,
It’s possible both conclusions are correct — they appear to cite the same sources, but we can’t know for sure because your article doesn’t provide the raw data used to reach that conclusion.
I’m fairly certain they both are correct Marty. Last night after I left my post I wrote the write of the NYT article asking her for that very information. I realize that its not practical for her to respond to all emails, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed. I’ll let you know
The article itself is worth reading for several other reasons though – thanks for taking the time to go through it.
Marty -
“JAG, I don’t see two women, two men, or one woman and one man raising a child as being different
So separate IS equal after all, is that what you’re claiming?”
No, I’m claiming they aren’t separate, they aren’t different, and yes, they are equal.
Unfortunately, much of society claims that they are separate, should be given separate relationships (domestic partnerships, civil unions or state-restricted marriage)…I don’t.
Ken (writes)
“As I have pointed out repeatedly, there is no “context of procreation and raising one’s children” for marriage. That is a fiction created by those who wish to suppress the rights of others. ”
This is the height of absurdity. To paper over the obvious an universal link between opposite sex coupling/ childbearing & marriage is a historical, anti-intellectual and self delusional.
To then accuse those who insist on pointing out the basics of biology as bad faith actors is ludicrous.
Men and women are members of a class that can produce children. While any member of that class may not or cannot produce a child, they remain members of a class that can produce children. Same sex pairings can never produce children. They are members of a class that always and everywhere are incapable of producing children. Therefore same sex “marriage” necessarily severs marriage from procreation. It both androgynizes the institution and separates it from any necessary link to childbearing.
Timothy Kincaid (writes)
“Your alarmist anti-gay letter writers need not worry. Nor should Stanley Kurtz.”
#1. Well I have printed the (near) totality of the Scandinavian academics open letter. There is nothing about it that could fairly be called “alarmist”. I found it to be balanced, cautious and respectfully deferential about the limits of social science. I suppose readers can decide for themselves.
Likewise for Dr. Kurtz work.
http://defendmarriageresources.blogspot.com/2007/02/stanley-kurtz-work.html
“The Wall Street Journal, that bastion of media liberalism disagrees with that simplistic assessment.”
#2. The article you point to is not a Wall Street Journal Editorial. It is merely printed in the Journal. It is the work of two active and open gay advocates of same-sex “marriage” William Eskridge and Darren Spedale.
Furthermore: nowhere in their analysis to they reference these academics letter nor call the work of Staley Kurtz and others a “simplistic assessment.”</i
José said in post 78191:
I think you have misunderstood what I have written. I’m talking about the particular conjugal relationship between a man and a woman which is distinct from all other partnerships and relationship and which has been universally honored and privileged.
What I am talking about (and what others mean by gay marriage) is civil marriage, which is a legal marriage recognized by the state. It does not have any procreation requirements attached to it. It does not require married couples to raise children or perform any type of child care activities. While civil marriage may provide benefits to children, these benefits are not the reason for having civil marriages.
it is interesting to ponder why God made it impossible for a woman to have a child without a man’s participation and why He also made it impossible for a man to have a child without a woman’s participation. We can finagle this all we want to, and we do, however, it is a sobering thought to wonder about God’s discernment in it all.
Chairm said in post 78297:
Ken, I referred to Responsible Procreation but you dropped the responsible part. Is that necessary for SSM to be merged with marriage, do you think?
I gave specific quotes from you that I responded to, I didn’t edit any words out of the quotes. As to your “responsible procreation” term, it is a nonsense term you made up with no legal meaning whatsoever. If you can any state statute referring to it I’ll consider it, until then it has no bearing on civil marriage.
To which Arizona law did you point to when you said that “certain couples can only marry if they cannot procreate.”? If you mean the faulty compromise on cousin marriage, well, that actually confirms the core of marriage includes contingency for Responsible Procreation.
Arizona statute 25-101 B which reads as follows:
B. Notwithstanding subsection A, first cousins may marry if both are sixty-five years of age or older or if one or both first cousins are under sixty-five years of age, upon approval of any superior court judge in the state if proof has been presented to the judge that one of the cousins is unable to reproduce.
This statute clearly shows that marriage (in AZ at least) is clearly for reasons other than procreation. And I did acknowledge that procreation may occur in marriage, just that it is not a reason for allowing marriage.
The government does not own marriage. If it was just a contract, then, you should be satisified with provision for designated beneficiaries.
The government is responsible for defining civil marriage. Again, civil marriage is what I am referring to when I talk about gay marriage. The ability for same-sex couples to obtain a marriage license from the state and receive all of the ensuing benefits, privileges and responsibilities that go with it. Some of which cannot be obtained through any other means.
No, not “just as”. You have it backwards, actually. As I said, the anti-miscegenation system selecltively segregated the sexes and undermined Responsible Procreation.
The anti-miscegenation laws were based on race, not sex. And the “dangers” of allowing procreation between races was one of the arguments supporting those laws.
KEN (writes)
“What I am talking about (and what others mean by gay marriage) is civil marriage, which is a legal marriage recognized by the state. It does not have any procreation requirements attached to it. It does not require married couples to raise children or perform any type of child care activities. While civil marriage may provide benefits to children, these benefits are not the reason for having civil marriages.”
I’m afraid you are wrong as a matter of law.
Civil marriage (or call it what you will) has been found in multiple courts and Supreme Court precedent to be inextricably linked to childbearing.
The idea that marriage is a private relationship based on an emotional commitment between two adults is simply foreign to all common law decisions on the subject. Marriage, is and always has been a social institution with the primary public purpose of ensuring that children will have an emotional, moral, and legal relationship to the parents who are responsible for their existence.
Multiple State Sureme Courts including New York, Maryland, Washington & now Road Island have said that there is no fundamental right to same-sex marriage, that laws defining marriage as a union of husband and wife are substantially different from those banning interracial marriage, and that the link between marriage and procreation justifies the state’s definition of marriage as a union of husband and wife.
You are making the same mistake the New York Court points out in its recent decision. Discussing the Supreme Court precedents of Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78 (1987); Zablocki v. Redhail, 434 U.S. 374 (1978); Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967); Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965); Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U.S. 535 (1942)
Judge Graffeo noted….
Chairm said in post 78298:
Please distinguish marriage from nonmarriage.
Having a marriage license issued and recognized by the state, vs. not having one.
Then, based on that, draw the lines around marriage so that it can be shown preference.
Preference is shown based on all of the benefits and privileges given to married couples. There are 1000s of them.
Marriage, the social institution, is not adultcentric. It is childcentric.
There are lots of couples who are married who a) have no children and b) have no intention of ever having children. You are confusing the fact that marriage can be a benefit to children with marriage is for children. There is a big difference.
The SSM merger would replace marriage recognitoin with recognition of something else. Do not assume that the replacement will carry the same shared public meaning as the conjugal relationship has carried.
Gay marriage should (will) have the same legal recognition as straight marriages. It will recognize that 2 people have joined to form one new family unit. And it will be recognized in other countries, whereas, civil unions or domestic partnerships may not be.
But why should society show preference for gay identity?
There is no preference for gays. Right now (except in MA) they are being discriminated. Allowing them to marry is granting equality not preference.
Why would excluding other nonmarital arrangements better protect gay arrangements?
Because other arrangements do not grant the same benefits as marriage does.
Fritz said in post 78348;
I’m afraid you are wrong as a matter of law.
Can you cite a single statute that has a procreation requirement attached to marriage?
Civil marriage (or call it what you will) has been found in multiple courts and Supreme Court precedent to be inextricably linked to childbearing.
And how do these rulings apply to marriages where there are no children involved?
Marriage, is and always has been a social institution with the primary public purpose of ensuring that children will have an emotional, moral, and legal relationship to the parents who are responsible for their existence.
then why is it when Oregon tried to pass an initiative, saying that any marriage that failed to produce children (through procreation or adoption) within 3 years should be dissolved, failed?
Why do none of the state marriage statues list children in the conditions for marriage?
You are correct that some judges have used the procreation argument as a reason to deny same-sex marriage, however others have not. Ultimately, I suspect this will reach the Supreme Court, and I do not think they rule that the purpose of marriage is procreation. However, time will tell.
Also, where did you get the quote from Judge Graffeo (a case citation will suffice)? I’m interested in reading that opinion, esp. since some of those cases did not ascribe procreation as the reason for the right to marry.
KEN (asks)
“Can you cite a single statute that has a procreation requirement attached to marriage?”
Yes- every statute that defines marriage as between a 1 man & 1 woman requires (inherently) that the class of people involved (man + woman) is of the one and only class capable of childbearing.
Allow me to explain….
The Court of Appeals of Maryland (the state’s highest court) issued a recent decision Deane & Polyak,v. Conaway,
Sighting the same United States Supreme Court precedents as the N.Y court : the Marryland High Court noted that these previous cases recognizing a fundamental right to marry “infer that the right to marry enjoys its fundamental status due to the male-female nature of the relationship and/or the attendant link to fostering procreation of our species.”
In fact, the court said that virtually all of the cases “indicate as the basis for the conclusion the institution’s inextricable link to procreation, which necessarily and biologically involves participation (in ways either intimate or remote) by a man and a woman.”
In terms of the justifications for the current marriage law, the court ruled “fostering procreation is a legitimate government interest”
and the “‘inextricable link’ between marriage and procreation reasonably could support the definition of marriage as between a man and a woman only, because it is that relationship that is capable of producing biological offspring of both members”
The court held “the fundamental right to marriage and its ensuing benefits are conferred on opposite-sex couples not because of a distinction between whether various opposite-sex couples actually procreate, but rather because of the possibility of procreation.”
“And how do these rulings apply to marriages where there are no children involved?”
Here I’ll let the California Appeals Court Explain.
1- In re Marriage Cases, Cal. App. 2006, McGuiness, P. J. (writing for the majority.)
“then why is it when Oregon tried to pass an initiative, saying that any marriage that failed to produce children (through procreation or adoption) within 3 years should be dissolved, failed?”
Because it’s a silly and ridiculous law. Why are there no laws mandating jail time for out-of-wedlock childbearing? Just because there are not doesn’t mean we don’t take out-of wedlock childbearing seriously.
“Why do none of the state marriage statues list children in the conditions for marriage?”
Because that’s ridiculous. Men and women are members of a class that can produce children. While any member of that class may not or cannot produce a child, they remain members of a class that can produce children. Same sex pairings can never produce children. They are members of a class that always and everywhere are incapable of producing children. Therefore same sex “marriage” necessarily severs marriage from procreation. It both androgynizes the institution and separates it from any necessary link to childbearing
P.S. (all you need) http://marriagelaw.cua.edu/law/courts.cfm
The legal requirements have been already stated and discussed above.
Responsible Procreation is not made-up. The first principle is that each of us, as part of a procreative duo, is directy responsible for the children we create. This is at the core of marriage where faherhood and motherhood are integrated.
The man-woman criterion is a legal requirement. SSMers want to abolish it.
Consenting to the marriage presumption of paternity is a legal requriement. SSMers evade this pro-child principle because no such presumption can be based on whatever two or more persons of the same sex might engage in, sexually.
Pointing to legal incidents of a relationship status does not point to the core of that relationship status. It points outward. Just as pointing to 3rd party procreation points outside of marriage. Just as pointing to parental relinquishment points outside of marriage.
There is one human race and its nature is two-sexed. That is not something made-up when using the term Responsible Procreation. The nature of human generativity is both-sexed, again, not made-up. Likewise with the both-sexed nature of human community. The family, founded on the conjugal relationship, is the basic organic unit of human community. It exists prior to the state.
The state does not own marriage. But SSM argumentation starts with the government takeover of the most significant social institution in civil society.
* * *
As for the Arizona law cited above, please explain how such a compromise, existing in that state, in anyway demonstrates that marriage recognition excludes Responsible Procreation.
You just repeated what has already been agreed: marital status does not depend on the government forcing each and every marriage to create children.
You are swatting at a strawman argument of your own construction.
Wipe the slate clean. State the pre-government nature of the relationship type you have in mind. Then, based on that nature, or core, please describe the paramaters around that core for which the state regulates eligibility.
Failing that, you are merely calling for the abolition of the preference for the core of marriage.
That core is 1) integrationof the sexes (see the man-woman criterion), 2) contingency for responsible procreation (see the marriage presumption of paternity and what it is base don), 3) these combined as into a coherent whole (see the meaning of a social institution).
SSM arugmentation rejects this as the starting place. But fails to articulate the starting place that SSM would enshrine in the law.
State the legal requirements that define the relationship status you seek. If these are not written into the law, then, drop them. If these are not enforced absolutely, as per the SSM remarks about procreation, drop them. What is left? What is the core that all the other stuff hangs on?
Pointing to legal incidents does not point to the core of the relationship type, as I said. If that is all that is left, then, you argue for an unsustainable relationship status. If its core cannot be identified, then, it cannot be shown preference nor protection.
Ken, you asked two questions of Fitz that I’d like to discuss.
–> why is it when Oregon tried to pass an initiative, saying that any marriage that failed to produce children (through procreation or adoption) within 3 years should be dissolved, failed?
You clearly misunderstand that stunt.
To empower the state to unilaterally dissolve marriages would be a direct attack on marriage, privacy, and liberty.
Are you saying that you think that, and that alone, would justify the man-woman criterion? I’d hope not.
The Oregon stunt would have the state undermine the core of marriage. Look, if each marriage is conditional, and each couple is deemed sterile until proven fertile (conceiving and bearing children together), that would demote each to the status of pre-marriage. It would have the government enforce an anti-marriage requirement of premarital sexual relations, premarital childbearing, and premarital cohabitation. The stunt was based on the false assumption that the government owns marriage. However, The People have a government, not the other way around.
– > Why do none of the state marriage statues list children in the conditions for marriage?
Because the government does not force each and every married couple to procreate. Instead, it recognizes, not creates and owns, the nature of marriage and the people who enter the social institution, which the state reocognizes and does not create nor own, consent to integration of the sexes and contingency for responsible procreation.
Would you prefer the state intruded with fertility tests that monitor ovulation and such?
The Oregon stunt should not be taken as seriously as you seem to take it. Give your head a good shake.
So I found the case Fitz quoted in post 78348, it is from
“Hernandez v. Robles” NY Court of Appeals No. 86, No. 87, No. 88, No. 89:
Unfortunately, Fitz has misinterpreted what the opinion was referring to, the full quote is;
the “meaning” was the one man/one woman definition of marriage, not about child-rearing/procreation. As said in the 2nd sentence quoted.
Chairm –
You stated:
“The man-woman criterion is a legal requirement. SSMers want to abolish it.”
The criterion violates the Equal Rights Ammendment, stating that women and men should be treated equally under the law unless there is a harm that can be proven to the commonwealth. The burden of proving harm is upon the state, because the state is denying equal access based solely on the sex of the applicants.
You also stated:
“There is one human race and its nature is two-sexed. ”
I would take issue with this. We indeed have two predominant sexes, but we cannot exclude intersexed, transgendered, hermaphrodite, etc..variations that also exist. Sex is not always as binary as it seems upon initial first glance.
Chairm said in post 78361:
The man-woman criterion is a legal requirement. SSMers want to abolish it.
Just as the same race criterion was a legal requirement that inter-racial marriage supporters wanted to abolish. And for the same reasons, because it is an unjust, unfair requirement based on prejudice and bigotry towards a minority.
The state does not own marriage. But SSM argumentation starts with the government takeover of the most significant social institution in civil society.
This is the last time I’m going to attempt to explain this to you. Civil marriage is a marriage granted by the state, and ONLY the state. It confers a state recognized legal status of marriage. Via laws and court decisions, married couples are entitled to many benefits, privileges and responsibilities. There are other types of marriages (ex. religious ones), however, when people talk about expanding marriage to include gay couples they are referring to state granted civil marriages.
As for the Arizona law cited above, please explain how such a compromise, existing in that state, in anyway demonstrates that marriage recognition excludes Responsible Procreation.
I have no idea what you mean by “Responsible Procreation.” Until you can provide me with a reference to it, from a reputable source, that defines it and shows how it is relevant to the debate on civil marriage, I will ignore any future references you make to this term.
The AZ law I cited clearly shows that procreation is not a criteria for marriage. There are state recognized reasons for marriage that have nothing to do with procreation.
State the pre-government nature of the relationship type you have in mind.
I have no interest in “pre-government” relationships. I am only interested in the state recognized civil marriage. To re-state, the State has an interest in promoting long-term, stable relationships. The state interest is that, on the whole, these relationships are better for the individuals involved and society in general. The state promotes these relationships by recognizing and granting benefits to civil marriages.
Chiarm said in post 78364:
You clearly misunderstand that stunt.
I understood that stunt quite well. It’s purpose was to expose that claims “marriage is about procreation” as nothing more than a bigoted smoke screen.
,i>Are you saying that you think that, and that alone, would justify the man-woman criterion? I’d hope not.
No I’m not, I’m saying nothing I’ve read justifies the man-woman criterion.
Would you prefer the state intruded with fertility tests that monitor ovulation and such?
I’m not the one claiming marriage is about procreation. I would prefer that the government grant benefits fairly to all its citizens.
First I would like to concede that in ancient times marriage was about children. The purpose of marriage was for one man to take ownership of a woman (often a child, really) so that he was in control of the fruit of her loins. It was a legal method by which he owned the child and made decisions for it, regardless of the will of the mother. Should she ever decide to flee, because of the marriage contract all children belonged to him. This is still the case in some middle eastern societies.
Let us agree that this is no longer the purpose of marriage in the West.
Let us also agree that such notions as “one man, one woman”, and complementarity, and the woman as an equal partner, and Responsible Procreation are all modern concepts and had little or nothing to do with marriage in ancient times. In fact, some of these notions are extremely new.
To what end, then, is marriage?
Some seem to be arguing that the only purpose of the institution is to reward heterosexuality. They seem to think the sole distinction between those who are part of the institution and those who are excluded is based on whether there is both a penis and a vagina in the mix.
I find that to be a rather odd purpose for marriage. An institution based on the exclusion of a tiny minority seems, at best, to be pointless. It’s like setting up public benefits and traditions to honor and reward those who are right-handed.
I have a question for the anti-gays: If gay people did not exist, what would be marriage’s purpose? Would you still have the institution, the laws, the traditions? Obviously you would. Nor would there be any material difference.
Nor would there even be the slightest hint of an argument about marriage being about whether or not one can bare children. It would be about establishing the parameters of relationship that are in the best interest of the couple, the society, and yes the children.
Then excluding gay couples from the mix is not an integral part of marriage. It is, and should be, about establishing the parameters of the relationship.
I believe it to be obvious that the best parameters of a same-sex relationship – whether or not it contains children – that are in the best interest of society and the couple, are within the bounds of committments, vows, laws of requirements, and community witness. Because I believe that the best place for gay people within society is in stable couples.
It really comes down to the question: what do you want gay people to do?
Some have listed what they DON’T want them to do, i.e. marry. But what alternative do you offer?
Do you really think it is in their best interest, or society’s, that they live a playboy lifestyle?
Do you think it best that those children currently being raised by gay parents have single fathers or mothers?
Do you favor less stability?
Because ultimately your arguments have little to no impact on heterosexual couples. Or their children. You arguments do have impact, however, on gay couples and their children.
To debate the point without keeping in mind those impacted by decisions is either callous, cruel, or arrogantly selfish. I truly hope none of us here are those things.
JAG: I’m claiming they [men and women] aren’t separate, they aren’t different, and yes, they are equal.
LOL! If that were true then you wouldn’t have such aversion to marrying one yourself!
Game over, thanks for playing.
Marty –
“LOL! If that were true then you wouldn’t have such aversion to marrying one yourself!”
I don’t know if you know me well enough to make that statement. It’s not true that I am “averse” to men at all…I fell in love with a woman. I’ve dated both most of my life.
Game Over.
Forgive me then JAG, I assumed you were one of the many commenters on this blog who claim that the idea that a gay man could marry a woman is preposterous.
But if what you claim is true, that men and women are not different, and they are equal, then that claim is what is preposterous.
Of course, anyone (except you it seems) can plainly see that men and women ARE different, and are not “equal”. Not physically, not emotionally, and certainly not legally.
And for that reason, separate is not — cannot be — “equal”.
Except to you I suppose.
Equal rights is different than saying you are people of equal skills, talents, strengths etc…
Marty,
I would argue that not all men are equal either: physically, emotionally or legally. To try and lump all men together and say that they are all equal is not right either – although I don’t think that Jag is blind to differences. I have a feeling you missed her point on equality.
It is obvious that we are having a conflict over the definition of marriage. One is the definition it has always had as Chairm and others point out, and which I describe in comment 78096, which is not fabricated by government but rather recognized by government as a universal institution and relationship and then supported by government, and the other is one constructed through political maneuvering in the effort to call “marriage” what has never been seen as a marriage so as to provide marriage privileges and benefits to homosexual relationships.
The state of Massachusetts, by the power of four judges against three others on the same court, has accepted, indeed, imposed a new definition of marriage allowing those engaging in homosexual relationships to “marry.” All other State Supreme Courts that have considered the issue, have rejected this redefinition and acknowledged that if there were to be such a redefinition it must come through the legislature or the people directly and not the courts. No legislature has yet created such redefinition legislation, instead, recognizing that the homosexual relationships cannot be called marriage, as this term has been always understood, they have sought to provide those in homosexual relationships certain benefits by calling the relationship something other than marriage.
Now the legislature does have the power to redefine “marriage.” It can actually assert that polygamous and polyamorous relationships will be legal, or even allow for incestuous marriages, or lower the age of consent to allow marriages that would accept pedophilia, or same-sex relationships of two or multiple partners, etc. But before it imposes such radical redefinitions, offensive to the majority of the population, it should go to the people, as it could no longer presume itself to be a government representative of the people. It should let the people vote on these radical redefinitions.
And of course we know perfectly well how the people will vote because whenever they’ve been given the opportunity to vote they have voted by overwhelming majorities that marriage should be as it has always been, between one man and one woman. The one state where such an amendment was defeated was because it already had legislation affirming the one man-one woman relationship as marriage. Never, anywhere on earth, have the people voted to call a homosexual relationship marriage.
In comment 78191 I make a compromise that could put an end to the enormously expensive political strife over this issue. I reluctantly suggest that we drop the term marriage altogether—that term could be left to religious institutions—and simply speak of the “Man and Woman Relationship” and the “Homosexual Relationship.” Please understand that this is huge compromise as it means relinquishing the term marriage which the vast majority of humanity recognizes only as the man and woman relationship.
Peace.
Men and women don’t even have “equal rights” Mary.
How could they?
Jose said in post 78448:
All other State Supreme Courts that have considered the issue, have rejected this redefinition
This is incorrect. The Hawaii supreme court did rule in favor of allowing gays to marry. However, it stayed its decision for 2 years, and Hawaii passed a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.
No legislature has yet created such redefinition legislation,
This is wrong as well, the CA legislature did change the state definition of marriage to include same-gender couples. The governor vetoed it, claiming “it is a matter for the courts to decide.” The CT legislature initially had a same-sex marriage bill, but later changed it to the Civil Unions bill.
But before it imposes such radical redefinitions, offensive to the majority of the population, it should go to the people, as it could no longer presume itself to be a government representative of the people. It should let the people vote on these radical redefinitions.
Changing marriage to include gay couples isn’t anywhere near as radical as you pretend it is. It is no more radical than say allowing women to actually have a say in who they marry, rather than just having their fathers decide for them.
And of course we know perfectly well how the people will vote because whenever they’ve been given the opportunity to vote they have voted by overwhelming majorities that marriage should be as it has always been, between one man and one woman.
Not as overwhelming as you might think. Polls over the last 10 years have indicated increasing support for same-sex marriage. While the majority still favors blocking same-sex marriage the percentage has been getting smaller and smaller. I have no doubt that in 50 years, same-sex marriage will be everywhere. The people of that time will look back at people like you, with the same disbelief (“what were they thinking”) that people today look back at those who supported anti-miscegenation laws of 50 years ago.
Marty asked in post 78449:
Men and women don’t even have “equal rights” Mary.
How could they?
By having the laws and courts not make distinctions based on sex. Equal rights really isn’t that complicated a concept Marty.
Okay let’s rephrase this
When we talk about non discrimination and equality I think most people would agree that we are talking about equal access to opportunity and to rights of freedom. And decisions for lending, education selection to publicly funded institutions, jobs both in the private and public sectors, etc… are to be based on merit of performance such as credit, income, grades, accomplishments and ability to perform etc…
I don’t have a right to abort my unborn child, Ken. My wife will never experience anything like the concept of “presumed paternity”. (I’ve certainly never heard of “presumed maternity” — have you?)
These are just 2 obvious examples of how men and women are not equal under the law. There are dozens more.
Men and women are different in some incredibly important ways. If they were not, we wouldn’t be having this debate.
Actually, men are gaining more paternity freedoms. If he was illegally used for his sperm? Raped by a woman, etc… all of these kind of cases are becoming more pursued by men and their legal right to end a pregnancy.
JAG also claimed:
I would take issue with this [“There is one human race and its nature is two-sexed. ”]. We indeed have two predominant sexes, but we cannot exclude intersexed, transgendered, hermaphrodite, etc..variations that also exist. Sex is not always as binary as it seems upon initial first glance.
Would you also take issue with the statement that “the human race is two-legged”, simply because various birth defects exist that prove otherwise? Or do the exceptions prove the rule?
Your list of exceptions do not name a “third sex”…
And besides we are talking about the rights someone has over their own body (to get married to a person of their choosing and raise children together).
Marty said in post 78464:
I don’t have a right to abort my unborn child, Ken.
Actually Marty, you have just as much right to undergo an abortion procedure as your wife does. I wouldn’t recommend it, but you do have the right.
Men and women are different in some incredibly important ways. If they were not, we wouldn’t be having this debate.
So you believe that because men and women have physical differences that women should not have the right to free speech? Or the right to an attorney?
As I said equal rights means equal treatment under the law. Everyone is different, and sometimes those differences mean they may have an advantage or disadvantage in some situations. That however does not mean these people don’t have equal rights under the law.
–> The [man-woman] criterion violates the Equal Rights Ammendment…
You begin with the false assumption that marriage is not both-sexed and that the requirement is an unjust exclusion. That’s circular thinking.
Look first to the nature of the social institution. You say it is something other than sex integration, responsible procreation, and these combined as a coherent whole.
So, abolish recognition of that. Now, what is left? Please state the nature of the social institution and then point to the legal requirements that define that. And if any such requirement is not enforced absolutely, then, it cannot be counted as definitive, as per SSM argumentation.
Thanks.
Mary, Ken,
I trust you will let me know when I have the same right to abort my unborn son that my wife has.
Why does she get to determine when and if I will be a father, when I have no such claim over when or if she will become a mother?
You guys are too much. Seriously.
JAG, you have confused abnormalities, diseases, and illnesses with the nature of humankind.
There is a man who beat his wife. Does that mean that the nature of marriage is violence against wives? Nope.
There is a human embryo whose lungs have not and cannot begin to develop. Does that mean that the nature of the human embryo is lungless? Nope.
SSM argumentation is profoundly flawed on this score.
–> I understood that [Oregon] stunt quite well. It’s purpose was to expose that claims “marriage is about procreation” as nothing more than a bigoted smoke screen.
If you understood it better you’d know it was a stunt based on a straw man argument fabricated by SSM argumentation.
Responsible Procreation. Not procreation solo. Not any and all kinds of procreation. And not mandatory procreation enforced by state troopers.
SSM argumentation sometimes reveals a totalitarian streak that ought to give SSMers pause.
Timothy, to oppose the SSM merger is not anti-gay. You need to look beyond gay identity politics if you want to comprehend the actual disagreement.
The ideas you say are new are ancient but said anew. And, given the modern deconstructionist attack on the social institution, these ideas are being articulated in modern language. So let’s put aside the falsehood that if not for the SSM campaign there would be no nature of marriage as has been described.
You still have not identified the nature of the relationship type you have in mind. Based on that, we can examine the parameters that woudl justly be drawn to distinguish that relationship type from others. It is on this straightforward basis that we can evaluate the proposed reform in terms of justice (i.e. to each his due).
Tell me, would any relationship type be excluded from what you have in mind or is it a free-for-all?
–> Civil marriage is a marriage granted by the state, and ONLY the state.
That explains very little. Instead of repeating that mantra, please state the nature of the relationship type that you have in mind.
–> I will ignore any future references you make to this term [Responsible Procreation].
In our laws, customs, and traditions, there exists the principle that, barring dire circumstnaces, each of us, as part of a procreative duo, is directy responsible for the children we create.
Never mind citations. Do you favor the abolishment of this principle? if you do, then, I don’t blame you for ignoring Responsible Procreation.
–> I have no interest in “pre-government” relationships.
Then there is no interest in any relationship type, at all. The term, pre-government, does not mean prior to the existence of government. It refers to civil society which exists apart from government. Government does not float on its own bottom.
But your response demonstrates, again, that the first step in SSM argumentation, after deciding that disagreement is an act of bigotry, is to assertion government ownership of civil society. That is something that all liberty loving people ought to reject as the premise for a relationship status.
Likewise the hyperventilating about gay identity. No form of identity politics ought to dictate social policy.
The Arizona law on cousin marriages was a flawed compromise based on bordering states which either permitted such marriages or prohibited such marriages.
It was aimed at discouraging sexual relations and marriage among young cousins, of childbearing age, because of concerns about inter-generational incest.
But consider its flaw. If a man can marry his elderly cousin, because she is deemed incapable of bearing children, then, why not a son who’d marry his elderly mother? Surely they would qualify based on the zig-zag?
And if two persons of the same sex are intrinsically a sterile couple, then, they’d qualify automatically — regardless of how closely they might be related.
Again, SSM argumentation searches for the rarest of exceptions, or apparent exemptions, for the sake of eraising the just lines drawn around the nature of marriage.
Marty,
You do not have to engage in sex and then you really do determine what will happen. That is always your right. And if you engage in sex (willfully and without contraceptives) then you are saying by your actions that you want your wife to be pregnant and have given your consent. Now- whether or not she wants the same thing is different. You do not have the right to decide for the woman what she will do with her body – niether does she have the right to decide what you will do with yours (provide sperm or not)
–> The Hawaii supreme court did rule in favor of allowing gays to marry.
That is mistaken. The case was sent back to the lower judicial level. The supreme court did not make a ruling in favor of imposing the SSM merger.
–> CA legislature did change the state definition of marriage to include same-gender couples
In the republican form of government, as you may know, the legislative branch cannot enact new law if it cannot over-ride the Governor’s veto. And, in this case, the California legislature was also trying to over-ride the directly expressed will of the people who enacted a prohibition on the very thing you’d favor. There is a seperation of powers that stands in the way of the SSM campaign in California.
–> Polls over the last 10 years have indicated increasing support for same-sex marriage.
Opinion surveys have repeatedly underestimated the support for marriage amendments as expressed in actual votes on such measures.
The consensus has stood firm: no to merging SSM with marriage recognition.
–> As I said equal rights means equal treatment under the law.
Sure, and to enter marriage a man and a woman are required.
A man does not become a husband without forming a conjugal relationship with the woman who becomes his wife. And vice versa.
As I have said before, SSM argumentation begins with the false premise that the nature of marriage is unworthy of special preference in our society.
Yet the SSMers seem very keen on what appears to be a contradiction.
On one hand, they argue against preference and in favor of flattening marital status so that it is merely a protective status.
On the other hand, they argue for a special status for only a tiny subset of nonmarital arrangements. And that subset is presumed to be gay identified.
But how does excluding other nonmarital arrangments help protect the gay identified subset?
SSMers really say stuff that amounts to a call for provision for designated beneficiaries. Beyond that they are calling for the misuse of marriage for nonmarriage purposes: to promote gay identity politics and make it immune from criticism and opposition in law, customs, and traditions.
That’s just not good enough to move the state’s big hairy hand.
Meanwhile society has need for some means of encouraging 1) integration of the sexes, 2) contingency for Responsible Procreation, and 3) doing so as a coherent whole.
Marriage is the social institution that does this for the individuals who marry and for their children and for society as a whole. And, as a foundational institution of civil society, it has stood the test of time.
Busting it up into bits and pieces, all of which are optional, and none of which are central, will make marital status, as more than a mere label appropriated for nonmarriage, unlikely to remain sustainable for future generations.
And the way that SSMers would get from A to B is to undermine the principles and the practices of self-government in our very tolerant and open society. It is unnecessary and it would be unjust.
Thanks Chairm for your comment at 78485. I was going to respond in similar manner. I would add that the California legislature’s attempt to impose ss”m” was a despotic violation of law as it had no authority to throw out the will of the people clearly expressed Proposition 22. The issue became moot because the governor vetoed the legislature’s political stunt.
Ken’s comment at 78455 clearly illustrates your observation Chairm that “SSM argumentation searches for the rarest of exceptions, or apparent exemptions . . . .” He seeks to strain out a gnat in my comment at 78448, that doesn’t even exist, while failing to address in any way the substance of my comment. He goes on to make some silly comparisons and fantasize about what homosexualist propaganda might be able to achieve in 50 years. I talk about overwhelming majorities in marriage amendment votes and he talks about polls when the only “poll” that counts is the actual votes of the people and these have been landslide victories for marriage.
Now I would advise you Ken to accept soon my proposition at 78448 before I change my mind. The man and woman relationship and the homosexual relationship are two totally different relationships. The former is marriage by definition but homosexualists wish to change that definition so as to obtain status and affirmation of their practices by merging with the time honored and privileged position of marriage in society. Defenders of marriage reject the confounding and conflation of the two relationships. Seek out the affirmation of your sexual relationship on your own merits by dropping the euphemisms and calling your relationship simply what it is, the Homosexual Relationship. In exchange I’ll work to change civil marriage licenses to read the “Man and Woman Relationship.” If you prefer calling your relationship the Same-Sex Relationship that might also work. The churches, synagogues, etc. would decide what they wish to call marriage.
(Speaking of stunts, as I recall the homosexualist’s stunt to break up the marriages of people who did not procreate within three years was in Washington and not Oregon.)
Chairm,
Do you have ANY idea how the institution of marriage has CHANGED throughout history? No one on here has yet answered any of Timothy’s excellent questions from above.
Jose,
It is obvious that we are having a conflict over the definition of marriage. One is the definition it has always had as Chairm and others point out, and which I describe in comment 78096, which is not fabricated by government but rather recognized by government as a universal institution and relationship and then supported by government
The definition it HAS ALWAYS HAD? You DO understand how marriage has changed throughout the centuries for those who are straight-identified, don’t you?
What I find interesting is that NO ONE on here can seem to come to a definition on what marriage is. It seems, and its not surprising, that everyone, even straight-identified people, would have a different understanding of what it means for them or for society as a whole.
The FACT is that gay couples are here, and they are here to stay. SO, for gay couples and gay families, we have to ask ourselves, what is best for them and for society? Is it better NOT to grant them the rights and privileges of marriage? No one seem to want to talk, as Timothy said, about real people and the effects these laws have on them, rather, we want to talk in abstracts.
AND, gay marriage is already legal in the United States, and several other industrialized countries – that’s another fact that Chairm and Jose are going to have to come to grips with. The understanding of marriage has ALREADY changed – again, I might add.
Mary, but she does have the “right” to decide whether my son lives or dies. I have no such right. (Ostensibly because I have no such “body” as she.)
Anyway, we’re off the track here — you and Ken have already conceded that indeed men and women ARE different, and because of those differences, they are not treated “equally” under the law — nor should they be.
Which brings us back to the original question: can separate really be equal?
JAG thinks this is not a valid question because JAG (alone) does not believe that men and women are different.
I have steadfastly claimed that because men and women are so greatly different from each other, that 1 man and 1 woman combined will have a far greater diversity of life experiences than any 2 men or any 2 women. I’m sure you agree.
So I refuse to accept that when it comes to sex/gender (something obviously much more important to humanity than mere “race”) separate is actually equal after all, and I am personally appalled that so many “progressives” these days are claiming that it is.
It’s as if all of a sudden diversity doesn’t matter, and fatherlessness doesn’t matter if gender bias is the cause.
Chairm said in post 78482:
In our laws, customs, and traditions, there exists the principle that, barring dire circumstnaces, each of us, as part of a procreative duo, is directy responsible for the children we create.
Never mind citations. Do you favor the abolishment of this principle?
I don’t even agree that this principle exists. and as I said until you can furnish proof of its existence, I will ignore all future references to it.
post 78483:
The Arizona law on cousin marriages was a flawed compromise based on bordering states which either permitted such marriages or prohibited such marriages.
Can you provide any evidence to support this claim?
post 78485:
–> The Hawaii supreme court did rule in favor of allowing gays to marry.
That is mistaken. The case was sent back to the lower judicial level. The supreme court did not make a ruling in favor of imposing the SSM merger.
From the Baehr v. Lewin 74 Haw. 645, 852 P.2d 44 May 5, 1993:
The did rule the marriage law was unconstitutional and denied rights to citizens, however, they allowed the state to provide evidence that it was necessary to do so (i.e. provide a compelling state interest). The state never did that, instead they got a constitutional amendment ruling marriage was between a man and a woman.
Jose said in post 78494:
He seeks to strain out a gnat in my comment at 78448, that doesn’t even exist, while failing to address in any way the substance of my comment.
What substance do you feel I failed to address?
He goes on to make some silly comparisons and fantasize about what homosexualist propaganda might be able to achieve in 50 years.
Nothing propagandistic about it. I’m simply following conclusions based on trends and history.
I talk about overwhelming majorities in marriage amendment votes and he talks about polls when the only “poll” that counts is the actual votes of the people and these have been landslide victories for marriage.
Not only polls, but the marriage votes themselves. If you track the votes on the issues you will also see that the margins of those votes are indeed getting smaller. They are following the same trend that the polls are showing. You see what the polls show that the votes don’t is that younger people favor gay marriage, while it is the older generation that does not. As this younger generation starts voting more (and the older generation dies off), you will see more and more support for gay marriage.
Now I would advise you Ken to accept soon my proposition at 78448 before I change my mind.
And if I don’t? What happens if you change your mind? I think you overestimate your own importance in this matter.
The former is marriage by definition
As I and others have mentioned, the meaning of marriage has significantly changed over time. And in several places it already includes same-sex relationships.
Marty said in post 78524:
Anyway, we’re off the track here — you and Ken have already conceded that indeed men and women ARE different, and because of those differences, they are not treated “equally” under the law — nor should they be.
No, I conceded no such thing. I have said that ALL people are different (you are the one who can see past male/female differences). And that sometimes the law needs to adjust to those differences. However, that is not the same as say they are not treated equally under the law. Further, the cases where these differences matter represent a small fraction of cases where they don’t matter.
Which brings us back to the original question: can separate really be equal?
As a general assumption no. However, I don’t see how this applies here.
JAG thinks this is not a valid question because JAG (alone) does not believe that men and women are different.
No, I believe Jag has been saying that men and women are not different in any way that matters in regards to parenting. I happen to agree with her on this matter.
I have steadfastly claimed that because men and women are so greatly different from each other, that 1 man and 1 woman combined will have a far greater diversity of life experiences than any 2 men or any 2 women. I’m sure you agree.
I don’t agree. See above. Using your argument, different races will have a far greater diversity of life experience as well, so do you support the claim that mixed race couples will be better parents? I don’t see diversity of the parents as equating to being better parents.
Ken –
“JAG thinks this is not a valid question because JAG (alone) does not believe that men and women are different.
No, I believe Jag has been saying that men and women are not different in any way that matters in regards to parenting. I happen to agree with her on this matter.”
thank you for the clarification, and for taking points in context.
Using your argument, different races will have a far greater diversity of life experience as well, so do you support the claim that mixed race couples will be better parents?
If the mixing of races was what produced children in the first place, of course I would. But race is not crucial to the survival of the species. Sex/gender is.
But I see there is no reaching you either.
OK, I’m as guilty as the next person for going off on tangents, but is there any way we can get back to the topic of same-sex parenting or have we exhausted it.
Marty,
I doubt anyone on here disagrees with the idea that gender is necessary for the survival of the species. But the species is not in ANY danger whatsoever of becoming extinct, in fact, it may be gender that actually brings on more social ills such as over-population.
There I go going off on a tangent again
Are we reaching you?
Marty,
I did not concede that their rights to their own bodies should be treated differently under the law.
Your argument that men and women are treated differently is different than the argument of one about equal rights. Somehow your are trying to make them one and the same. And you suggest that if a man cannot make his wife abort then he does not have the same rights as she does therefore men and women are treated differently.
Why don’t you try this on – No one regardless of their gender has the right to make a woman abort her child (under normal circumstances) and the reason is not because of gender but because no one has the right to tell another person what to do with their body. That is not gender inequality that is personal right and freedom to do with your own body what you want – you have that right to do with your body what you want and I cannot tell you what to do with it. So does any other person irregrdless of gender. That is equality. You do not have the right to own nor posses another person’s rights (as in slavery).
KEN (you wrote) at 78365
“Unfortunately, Fitz has misinterpreted what the opinion was referring to, the full quote is; — FULL QUOTE –the “meaning” was the one man/one woman definition of marriage, not about child-rearing/procreation. As said in the 2nd sentence quoted.
It is both and, not either or… (as the quote makes clear)
Allow me to demonstrate using the Court of Appeals of Maryland (the state’s highest court) issued a recent decision Deane & Polyak,v. Conaway,
Sighting the same United States Supreme Court precedents as the N.Y court : the Marryland High Court noted that these previous cases recognizing a fundamental right to marry “infer that the right to marry enjoys its fundamental status due to the male-female nature of the relationship and/or the attendant link to fostering procreation of our species.” In fact, the court said that virtually all of the cases “indicate as the basis for the conclusion the institution’s inextricable link to procreation, which necessarily and biologically involves participation (in ways either intimate or remote) by a man and a woman.”
In terms of the justifications for the current marriage law, the court ruled “fostering procreation is a legitimate government interest” and the “‘inextricable link’ between marriage and procreation reasonably could support the definition of marriage as between a man and a woman only, because it is that relationship that is capable of producing biological offspring of both members
The court held “the fundamental right to marriage and its ensuing benefits are conferred on opposite-sex couples not because of a distinction between whether various opposite-sex couples actually procreate, but rather because of the possibility of procreation.”
To expand (you ask) at 78355
“And how do these rulings apply to marriages where there are no children involved?”
1- In re Marriage Cases, Cal. App. 2006, McGuiness, P. J. (writing for the majority.)
But Mary, it’s not just “her body” that she has rights over.
If she decides that my child will be born, then I will be held responsible and must (at a minimum) pay child support for 18 years. If she decides that my child will not be born, then my child will die and I’m off the hook.
Now, we both had equal responsibility in the decision to have sex together, and to risk conception, but now that we’ve done the deed, she indeed has far more rights than I do, and to much more than just “her own body”.
My child’s life is not “her body”. My parental rights and obligations are not “her body”. But both are held hostage to her whim, simply because she is a woman and I am not.
You may see this as fair, and that’s fine. But it’s hardly “equal”.
Fritz et al:
Here is a little more history behind the Maryland ruling (from Wikipedia) –
“On August 30, 2005, oral arguments from each side were presented to Baltimore Circuit Court Judge M. Brooke Murdock. On January 20, 2006, Murdock ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, writing that “Maryland’s statutory prohibition against same-sex marriage cannot withstand this constitutional challenge. Family law §2-201 violates Article 46 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights because it discriminates, based on gender against a suspect class, and is not narrowly tailored to serve any compelling governmental interests.” [5]
Judge Murdock immediately stayed the decision pending an appeal by the office of the Maryland Attorney General. [6] On July 27, 2006, the Maryland Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, agreed to hear the appeal directly, bypassing an intermediate court. [7] Oral arguments were heard on December 4, 2006. [8]
On September 18, 2007, the Court of Appeals ruled against the plaintiffs in a 4-3 decision, leaving the statutory ban on same-sex marriage in place. [9] State Senator Gwendolyn Britt of Landover Hills and Delegate Victor R. Ramirez of Mount Rainier are expected to submit a bill during the 2008 session to legalize same-sex marriage in Maryland. [10]“
Of course this ruling doesn’t prevent civil unions which, in my mind, as long as they grant all the rights and privileges of marriage, is a good thing. If the so-called “marriage protectors” want sole use of the word marriage, then so be it – but that is just a personal opinion of mine.
In addition, it looks like Maryland might have same-sex marriage after all anyway
Marty,
I would hardly say its FAIR that the woman is the one who has to endure 9 months of hormone fluctuations, nausea, pain, vomiting, and possibly more severe health problems as a result of the child growing in her either etc either – men obviously don’t have to live with these incredibly burdens. The fact remains is that it IS her body, whether you like it or not, and the child is a part of HER body, not yours.
is the same equality extended to the other human being that is involved – the pre-born child? They have a body too. What if they want to live instead of die – is that right considered? There are three live people involved – not one or two. Where and what are the boundaries for equality? The pre-born child is a separate human being from the woman whose body it occupies for a short time.
Ugh – OK – Again, I’m as guilty as anyone else of getting us off on a tangent, or even keeping us there – but the thread topic is Same-sex parenting, not abortion – there is a thread for discussing abortion if we like.
Ann – ultimately I’m with you on this, but I don’t want to go further down this road since there is SO much tied up in that discussion.
ALL
I think we should refrain from having this conversation digress into a conversation about abortion.
I understand the link between that discussion, the points raised & “equality”.
Interestingly enough there are multiple proposals out there that address Marty’s exact point, while still refraining from forcing abortions upon “women’s bodies” unwillingly.
They involve a period of notification of the male father upon discovery of pregnancy. At this point the pregnant woman can either abort or keep the child. If the Husband doesn’t claim that he wants the child – the woman & child relinquish their rights to paternal responsibly and caretaking. This on the theory that she could have an abortion rather than an unwilling father. If she keeps the baby without his authorization, he gives up all parental rights.
Now – I think such proposals are morally abhorrent. (Yet they are out there and follow the logic of “her own body & extreme “equality” worldview)
In as much, they illuminate the folly of such thinking and demonstrate how dangerous notions of “equality” like same sex marriage end up treating children like consumer goods that are “commissioned” rather than the natural fruits of the marital union of husband/wife and corresponding natural mother/father.
oh marty. you are getting way off track – remember you have the right to your body and if you choose to may or may not engage in sex. once you give or sell that sperm then your rights to possessing that sperm and its consequences end. You are still responsible for your actions whether you like that or not. no one forced you to have sex. but now that you have given up that right – willfully – then that’s what you did. you gave away your right to decide what will happen with your sperm once it passed to another person.
why is it so difficult for you to understand that your body belongs to you and you can use it responsibly or not and once you “give” up those rights of possession then that’s it.
further discussion of this with you on this thread has ended on my part.
Fitz,
In as much, they illuminate the folly of such thinking and demonstrate how dangerous notions of “equality” like same sex marriage end up treating children like consumer goods that are “commissioned” rather than the natural fruits of the marital union of husband/wife and corresponding natural mother/father.
How does same-sex marriage treat children like consumer goods? And please, let’s not pretend that married couples don’t often treat their children as “goods”, I’ve seen this happen – I’ve seen children get used by their parents or treated as slaves, or used as pawns in emotional games by the parents.
And since when did it require a marriage for a straight couple to have children – Natural fruits of the marital union??????
Fitz,
Same-sex marriage – just like Opposite-sex marriage, doesn’t require children. It is about society recognizing the relationships of the two people and encouraging that relationship to be a happy, healthy and stable one.
Mary
Please read my comment at 78573 in order to understand how Marty’s opinion is neither unusual nor inconsistent with wide held notions of bodily integrity, personal responsibility & parental rights.
Also note how your own words can me modified ever so slightly and used to declare that a women who has had consensual sex has a responsibility to carry any child conceived to term.
“remember you have the right to your body and if you choose to may or may not engage in sex. once you give or sell that egg then your rights to possessing that egg and its consequences end. You are still responsible for your actions whether you like that or not. no one forced you to have sex. but now that you have given up that right – willfully – then that’s what you did. you gave away your right to decide what will happen with your egg once it passed conceived another person.
why is it so difficult for you to understand that your child dosent belong to you and you can use it responsibly or not and once you “give” up those rights of possession then that’s it.
Jayhuck
Re: Your query about – The link between Marriage & Children.
Read comment 78560 – (& the specific quotes of the Maryland Court)
Fitz,
What about the Massachusetts court?????
Jayhuck,
You are right and I apologize for getting off track regarding the issue of abortion – it is just a sensitive one for me and I had a knee jerk reaction but I realize there is a “time and place” for it to be discussed and it isn’t on this thread. Having said that, the three year old in me is still glad I wrote it.
Fitz,
Also note how your own words can me modified ever so slightly and used to declare that a women who has had consensual sex has a responsibility to carry any child conceived to term.
I’m a little lost as to why sentence modification is important here.
I was quoting the Maryland court for the specific purpose of illuminating the inherent link between marriage & childbearing. The Mass Court (conveniently) ignores the question of childbearing, parentage and all its intendant consequences.
Fitz,
The Massachusetts court said:
“In a 50-page, 4-3 ruling delivered on November 18, 2003, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court found that the state may not “deny the protections, benefits and obligations conferred by civil marriage to two individuals of the same sex who wish to marry.” Chief Justice Margaret Marshall, writing for the majority, wrote that the state’s constitution “affirms the dignity and equality of all individuals” and “forbids the creation of second-class citizens” and that the state had no “constitutionally adequate reason” for denying marriage to same-sex couples. On the legal aspect, instead of creating a new fundamental right to marry, or more accurately the right to choose to marry, the Court held that the State does not have a rational basis to deny same-sex couples from marriage on the ground of due process and equal protection…..
The denial of marriage licenses to same-sex couples violated provisions of the state constitution guaranteeing individual liberty and equality, and was not rationally related to a legitimate state interest. Superior Court of Massachusetts at Suffolk vacated and remanded.”
Same sex marriage would have a lot more support if it was based on equal rights rather than moral approval.
Fitz,
I was quoting the Maryland court for the specific purpose of illuminating the inherent link between marriage & childbearing. The Mass Court (conveniently) ignores the question of childbearing, parentage and all its intendant consequences.
The Massachusetts court did not ignore childbearing or parentage – what they recognized is that equality can be given to both couples without impinging on the ability to raise or have children by opposite-sex couples and that the state can and does support this interest without denying gay couples the right to marry.
The fact is Fitz, that marriage has been legal in Massachusetts for several years now and there is no harm that has been done to straight parents, their children or the institution of marriage.
Jayhuck: I would hardly say its FAIR that the woman is the one who has to endure 9 months of hormone fluctuations, nausea, pain, vomiting, and possibly more severe health problems as a result of the child growing in her either etc either – men obviously don’t have to live with these incredibly burdens.
Okay, now we’re getting somewhere.
So let me ask you, what can a little girl possibly learn about these “incredible burdens” from her “two dads”?
One might suspect that a little girl would do well to have a mother of her own around, to provide a little firsthand perspective on the matter, don’t you think?
Jayhuck
My initial instinct to ignore you has proven valid.
“I’m a little lost” Indeed
#1, The sentence modification, replacing ‘sperm” with “egg” is self evident, your query pointless.
#2. As stated: The Mass Court (conveniently) ignores the question of childbearing, parentage and all its intendant consequences.
Your quotation merely reinforces that the Mass. Opinion dose not address those issues – but is a bald assertion rather than legal reasoning.
You can’t just match an on point quote with a general quote.
You need distance from the argument and more familiarity with the law & facts.
Fitz,
You make the erroneous claim that just because parenting wasn’t specifically talked about in the ruling, that it wasn’t discussed in the lead up to the ruling.
You also need more familiarity with the law and facts.
Marty,
So let me ask you, what can a little girl possibly learn about these “incredible burdens” from her “two dads”?
Sigh – this argument is getting old – What if her did is an Obstetrician – or what if the mother isn’t emotionally and intellectually able to share any of her experience with her child. Why are we continuously going over the same ground.
Gay people are parents – they are parenting now – they will be parenting in the future – research shows that they are doing just as good a job parenting as straight couples. How can we help now and future gay parents be ALL they can be?
Hardly, As Justice Cordy wrote in dissent, the majority in the Mass Goodridge decision had –
“transmuted the “right” to marry into a right to change the institution of marriage itself.”1
“only by assuming that ‘marriage’ includes the union of two persons of the same sex does the court conclude that restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples infringes on the ‘right’ of same-sex couples to ‘marry’.”2
“[i]n context, all of these decisions and their discussions are about the ‘fundamental’ nature of the institution of marriage as it has existed and been understood in this country, not as the court has redefined it today.” 3
Maintaining that marriage’s – “’fundamental’ nature is derivative of the nature of the interests that underlie or are associated with it” -and that a an – “examination of those interests reveals that they are either not shared by same-sex couples or not implicated by the marriage statutes.” 4
1,2,3,4, – Goodridge v. Dept. of Pub. Health,798 N.E.2d 941, 955 (Mass 2003)
(Justice Cordy dissenting)
Marty,
did = Dad
Fitz,
Please – the ruling was 50 pages long – have you read it in its entirety?
As for redefining marriage – I think the state of Massachusetts has shown us that we can redefine it include gay couples without impinging on the ability of opposite-sex couples to reproduce or raise their children.
You start from the assumption that redefining marriage is a bad thing, when in fact marriage has been redefined many times throughout history.
1,2,3,&4 are footnote #’s NOT page numbers.
Obviously I have read it, (that’s were the quotes are from????)
You’re so left field & off point that I’m going to follow my initial instinct & ignore you from now on.
No offense.
Fitz,
Here is just a small sampling from the Massachusetts court’s 50-page ruling – I’ll include the link below so that everyone can read it if they like, and then Fitz, maybe you can decide if they considered the things you claimed they didn’t:
“The larger question is whether, as the department claims, government action that bars same-sex couples from civil marriage constitutes a legitimate exercise of the State’s authority to regulate conduct, or whether, as the plaintiffs claim, this categorical marriage exclusion violates the Massachusetts Constitution. We have recognized the long-standing statutory understanding, derived from the common law, that “marriage” means the lawful union of a woman and a man. But that history cannot and does not foreclose the constitutional question.
The plaintiffs’ claim that the marriage restriction violates the Massachusetts Constitution can be analyzed in two ways. Does it offend the Constitution’s guarantees of equality before the law? Or do the liberty and due process provisions of the Massachusetts Constitution secure the plaintiffs’ right to marry their chosen partner? In matters implicating marriage, family life, and the upbringing of children, the two constitutional concepts frequently overlap, as they do here. See, e.g., M.L.B. v. S.L.J., 519 U.S. 102, 120 (1996) (noting convergence of due process and equal protection principles in cases concerning parent-child relationships); Perez v. Sharp, 32 Cal.2d 711, 728 (1948) (analyzing statutory ban on interracial marriage as equal protection violation concerning regulation of fundamental right). See also Lawrence, supra at 2482 (“Equality of treatment and the due process right to demand respect for conduct protected by the substantive guarantee of liberty are linked in important respects, and a decision on the latter point advances both interests”); Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S. 497 (1954) (racial segregation in District of Columbia public schools violates the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution), decided the same day as Brown v. Board of Educ. of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954) (holding that segregation of public schools in the States violates the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment). Much of what we say concerning one standard applies to the other.
We begin by considering the nature of civil marriage itself. Simply put, the government creates civil marriage. In Massachusetts, civil marriage is, and since pre-Colonial days has been, precisely what its name implies: a wholly secular institution. See Commonwealth v. Munson, 127 Mass. 459, 460-466 (1879) (noting that ”[i]n Massachusetts, from very early times, the requisites of a valid marriage have been regulated by statutes of the Colony, Province, and Commonwealth,” and surveying marriage statutes from 1639 through 1834). No religious ceremony has ever been required to validate a Massachusetts marriage. Id.
In a real sense, there are three partners to every civil marriage: two willing spouses and an approving State. See DeMatteo v. DeMatteo, 436 Mass. 18, 31 (2002) (“Marriage is not a mere contract between two parties but a legal status from which certain rights and obligations arise”); Smith v. Smith, 171 Mass. 404, 409 (1898) (on marriage, the parties “assume[ ] new relations to each other and to the State”). See also French v. McAnarney, 290 Mass. 544, 546 (1935). While only the parties can mutually assent to marriage, the terms of the marriage—who may marry and what obligations, benefits, and liabilities attach to civil marriage—are set by the Commonwealth. Conversely, while only the parties can agree to end the marriage (absent the death of one of them or a marriage void ab initio), the Commonwealth defines the exit terms. See G.L. c. 208.
Civil marriage is created and regulated through exercise of the police power. See Commonwealth v. Stowell, 389 Mass. 171, 175 (1983) (regulation of marriage is properly within the scope of the police power). “Police power” (now more commonly termed the State’s regulatory authority) is an old-fashioned term for the Commonwealth’s lawmaking authority, as bounded by the liberty and equality guarantees of the Massachusetts Constitution and its express delegation of power from the people to their government. In broad terms, it is the Legislature’s power to enact rules to regulate conduct, to the extent that such laws are “necessary to secure the health, safety, good order, comfort, or general welfare of the community” (citations omitted). Opinion of the Justices, 341 Mass. 760, 785 (1960). [FN12] See Commonwealth v. Alger, 7 Cush. 53, 85 (1851).”
Read the article here!!!!
–> Do you have ANY idea how the institution of marriage has CHANGED throughout history?
In all that time the nature of marriage has remained unchanged, across history, geography, and cultures.
It remains as I described it.
SSM argumentation attacks that without justification. The SSM merger is not an extension but rather a replacement.
If you are pointing at the parameters, such as the protocols, of marriage, that’s a different thing. And if you mistake that, as the ahistorical accounts of marriage do in the deconstruction of the social institution, then, you may not have a good idea of the subject matter.
Now, if you honestly survey the pro-marriage argument there is consistency in how the secondary and teritiary aspects of marriage come together at the core.
The core, the nature, of marriage is the coherent whole formed with sex integration and contingency for responsible procreation. This is the foundation of civilization and goes back uninterrupted for at least all of recorded human history.
A little more from the Massachusetts 50-page ruling – dealing more specifically with children:
“Where a married couple has children, their children are also directly or indirectly, but no less auspiciously, the recipients of the special legal and economic protections obtained by civil marriage. Notwithstanding the Commonwealth’s strong public policy to abolish legal distinctions between marital and nonmarital children in providing for the support and care of minors, see Department of Revenue v. Mason M., 439 Mass. 665 (2003); Woodward v. Commissioner of Social Sec., 435 Mass. 536, 546 (2002), the fact remains that marital children reap a measure of family stability and economic security based on their parents’ legally privileged status that is largely inaccessible, or not as readily accessible, to nonmarital children. Some of these benefits are social, such as the enhanced approval that still attends the status of being a marital child. Others are material, such as the greater ease of access to family-based State and Federal benefits that attend the presumptions of one’s parentage.
It is undoubtedly for these concrete reasons, as well as for its intimately personal significance, that civil marriage has long been termed a “civil right.” See, e.g., Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1, 12 (1967) (“Marriage is one of the ‘basic civil rights of man,’ fundamental to our very existence and survival”), quoting Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U.S. 535, 541 (1942); Milford v. Worcester, 7 Mass. 48, 56 (1810) (referring to “civil rights incident to marriages”). See also Baehr v. Lewin, 74 Haw. 530, 561 (1993) (identifying marriage as a “civil right[ ]”); Baker v. State, 170 Vt. 194, 242 (1999) (Johnson, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (same). The United States Supreme Court has described the right to marry as “of fundamental importance for all individuals” and as “part of the fundamental ‘right of privacy’ implicit in the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.” Zablocki v. Redhail, 434 U.S. 374, 384 (1978). See Loving v. Virginia, supra (“The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men”). [FN14]
Without the right to marry—or more properly, the right to choose to marry—one is excluded from the full range of human experience and denied full protection of the laws for one’s “avowed commitment to an intimate and lasting human relationship.” Baker v. State, supra at 229. Because civil marriage is central to the lives of individuals and the welfare of the community, our laws assiduously protect the individual’s right to marry against undue government incursion. Laws may not “interfere directly and substantially with the right to marry.” Zablocki v. Redhail, supra at 387. See Perez v. Sharp, 32 Cal.2d 711, 714 (1948) (“There can be no prohibition of marriage except for an important social objective and reasonable means”). [FN15]“
Chairm,
What, in your opinion, is the “nature of marriage”?
How do you propose to deal with real people and real situations? Gay people exist, gay couples exist, and gay married couples exist. Gay families exist. Your nature of marriage argument is interesting, but even if I were to agree with it, and I don’t, it doesn’t help us deal with this very real reality. Gay families are here, they are here to stay, and we need to help them be the best families they can be.
Chairm Writes
Marriages were public, tribal, communal rite that was enforced through local custom and folkway. They have always been opposite sexed and inheritly connected to intercoarse & childbearing. One of the world’s first legal codes dates from 1900 B.C. [Read more in fold]
“With a… [decree] I made the father support his children. I made the child support his father. I made the father stand by his children. I made the child stand by his father.” *
“If a man took the daughter of a man without asking her father and mother, and has not held a feast and made a contract for her father and her mother –even if she lives in his house for a full year, she is not his wife. If he did hold a feast and made a contract for her mother and her father, and took her, she is his wife.” *
*“Laws of Lipit-Ishtar,” In Matha T Roth, Law Collection from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor (ATLANTIC: Scholars Press, 1997) p. 25.
There must be consent there must be a contract there must be a public celebration. The bride & groom must have had sexual intercourse.
To marry is opposite sex institution that is contractual, communal and public in order to secure parental obligations and mutual suport.
Chairm,
What, in your opinion, is the “nature of marriage”?
How do you propose to deal with real people and real situations? Polygamous people exist, polygamous groups exist, and polygamous married groupings exist. Polygamous families exist. Your nature of marriage argument is interesting, but even though I agree with it, and I really do, it doesn’t help us deal with this very “real reality” (???). Polygamous families have been here for much longer than gay “marriage”, they are here to stay!
Don’t we need to help them be the best families they can be?
Jayhuck, you point to the profound flaws of Justice Marshall’s opinion.
1. Marriage pre-dates the State of Massachusetts. It was not created by state laws.
2. Marriage is a social institution. The law is merey a legal shadow of what is recognized by society through the state power.
3. Marriage is in the State Constitution. That text was written when common law marriage clearly identified the conjugal relationship as both-sexed.
4. However, even in colonial times, statutory law replaced common-law marriage. It did not make change the nature of marriage nor did it transfer ownership of the social institution to the government.
5. Justice Marshall’s opinion falls apart when you realize that each word and phrase in the state constitution has meaning. The text refers to marriage — as inherited from common-law — and as such the man-woman criterion is constitutional. No part of a state constitution makes another part unconstitutional. See the SJC’s own precedents.
6. Justice Marshall noted that it is undisputable that the statutes also recognized marriage as both-sexed. Statutory subordinates common law. And constitutional law subordinates statutory law. The both-sexed nature of marriage exists in the state constitution and in the state’s marriage statutes.
7. Justice Marshall used sleight-of-hand. She proposed to change the common law meaning of marriage. But common-law marriage has never existed in Massachusetts. She could change nothing on that score.
8. But, for the sake of argument, let’s grant her that authority. Still doesn’t change the statutes nor the state constitution. Only a citizen ratified amendment can change the state constitution. Only the elected lawmakers can change the statutes. Judge-made law (i.e. common-law) does not apply to the Goodridge case.
The upshot is that Justice Marshall erred in many ways including her advocacy of re-writing the law in Massachusetts.
Just as some here err in misconstruing the actual disagreement.
–> impinging on the ability of opposite-sex couples to reproduce or raise their children
Straw man.
I recall how Justice Marshall flubbed the issue of procreation which is at the core of marriage recognition.
But tell you what, if someting can be done outside of marriage, then, it is not intrinsic to marriage, as per SSM arugmentation.
So with that big disqualifying axiom, what is the core of the type of relationship that Justice Marshall described as “marriage”? If you depend on her opinion for the existence of SSM in this country, then, surely you can put your finger on the core of this relationship type.
Jayhuck, well sure — but how many gay male obstetricians to YOU know?
Isn’t it far more likely that her two “dads” are a computer programmer and a car salesman, neither of whom have any firsthand experience (and precious little second-hand experience) with those “incredible burdens” of femalehood you spoke of?
I’m amazed at the lengths some of you are going to, to first deny that there is any difference between men and women, and then when proven badly mistaken on that point, to insist that those differences dont matter at all.
I’m more convinced than ever that your arguments are entirely self-serving.
Jayhuck, see Marty’s comment above. I think he makes a good point through the analogy with multi-marriage.
And note that polygamy is a series of one-man-one-woman marriages. The second wife does not marry the first wife. And the third wife would not marry either the first or the second wife.
On the other hand, the one-sexed arrangement (homosexual or not, sexualized or not) is a subset in the much broader category of nonmarital arrangements.
And SSMers point to protections for families in need, as you just did. But would you exclude non-gay families from such protections?
See, what you think is an extension of marriage is really a replacement. It is a different thing. And as such its boundaries would be determined based on its nature or core. Not on the nature or core of marriage as I’ve described it.
So don’t get too caught up in the idea that calling it marriage is enough to maintain current parameters, with the sole exception of the gay identified relationship type. It would be a new thing with a different meaning. And I wonder how you would exclude the millions of families who could use those protections that SSM would deny them, at least initiatally.
The various prohibitions that current exist — on a variety of both-sexed relationship types — are in existence due to the concerns for the nature of marriage. See sex integration. See responsible procreation. See marriage as a social institutin — a coherent whole.
Fitz,
As you are getting good at doing, you didn’t answer my question, you changed the subject. – I thought you were going to be ignoring me, btw?
Please tell me where polygamous couples can get legally married in the United States? Gay couples can.
And besides, if polygamous couples want to marry, why shouldn’t they be allowed to?
Chairm,
I don’t just rely on justice Marshall, I’m relying on the majority ruling of the Massachusetts Court. You used many words to refute Justice Marshall without any references to back them up.
You still haven’t answered my question: What is the nature of marriage in your opinion?
Marty,
We’ve already covered this – NO ONE IS DENYING THAT MEN AND WOMEN ARE DIFFERENT. But those differences are not NECESSARY to raising happy and healthy children – as we’ve already shown.
“Jayhuck, well sure — but how many gay male obstetricians to YOU know?
Isn’t it far more likely that her two “dads” are a computer programmer and a car salesman, neither of whom have any firsthand experience (and precious little second-hand experience) with those “incredible burdens” of femalehood you spoke of?”
I personally know about six of them, but I know alot of gay people. So, now it has to be a requirement that to raise a child you much share an experience with them? So would you have sighted parents disallowed from raising a blind child, or vice versa. One of the pair of parents must share absolutely everything with the child, or we would be depriving them of life education in what it is to be sighted, blind, deaf, diabetic etc!
I’m sterile. I guess I can only raise sterile intersexed children. If I were to raise a boy or a girl, then they would be deprived their education in what it is like to be a boy or girl.
This is of course meant to be sarcastic and absurd, but I honestly don’t see that big of a distinction.
While we’re on the topic of history and marriage, I though it relevant to re-post a comment from the American Anthropological Association:
“In 2004, the American Anthropological Association released this statement:[28]
The results of more than a century of anthropological research on households, kinship relationships, and families, across cultures and through time, provide no support whatsoever for the view that either civilization or viable social orders depend upon marriage as an exclusively heterosexual institution. Rather, anthropological research supports the conclusion that a vast array of family types, including families built upon same-sex partnerships, can contribute to stable and humane societies.”
Chairm, Fitz and Marty,
The post above comes from a body that actually researches and studies relationships and families throughout history – one that doesn’t use individual ideologies or understandings of an institution to support personal prejudices – I hope that this will somehow add to the discussion>
My next question is, if gay marriage succeeds in Massachusetts and the institution of marriage doesn’t falter or become diminished in any way – as appears to be the case – then why are we arguing?
Pathia,
So, now it has to be a requirement that to raise a child you much share an experience with them? So would you have sighted parents disallowed from raising a blind child, or vice versa. One of the pair of parents must share absolutely everything with the child, or we would be depriving them of life education in what it is to be sighted, blind, deaf, diabetic etc!
Great point – and I absolutely agree with you!
If we were to ask any child whether they would want a mom and dad or just a mom or just a dad or two moms or two dads, what does anyone think they would say? Sometimes adults are not the only people who matter when it comes to life decisions.
Pathia
“I personally know about six of them, but I know alot of gay people. So, now it has to be a requirement that to raise a child you much share an experience with them? So would you have sighted parents disallowed from raising a blind child, or vice versa. One of the pair of parents must share absolutely everything with the child, or we would be depriving them of life education in what it is to be sighted, blind, deaf, diabetic etc!”
Marty is only refering to the natural rights of children to know & be raised by both their mother & father. This “complematariness” has always & everywere been recognized as a key aspect to parenting & marriage. It hardly extends to every disability. It is a mere standard, and a very important one at that. Would you not agree?
“I’m sterile. I guess I can only raise sterile intersexed children. If I were to raise a boy or a girl, then they would be deprived their education in what it is like to be a boy or girl.”
I would hope you did not intentionally concieve and raise a child without a married spouse. If your spouse dies or you are divorced then at least the child has its mother/father around.
It is basic ethics that depriving a child of its mother/father is inhumane.
Ann
“If we were to ask any child whether they would want a mom and dad or just a mom or just a dad or two moms or two dads, what does anyone think they would say? Sometimes adults are not the only people who matter when it comes to life decisions.”
Exactly – This is an argument about adult desires vs what is best for children.
Pertinent to this fact is that same-sex “marriage” is a direct violation of international human rights standards/ This is the reason why France & multiple European countries have rejected same-sex “marriage”.
Article 16 declares the right to marry based on the traditional definition of marriage, and states that such a family is “the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.”
“I would hope you did not intentionally concieve and raise a child without a married spouse. If your spouse dies or you are divorced then at least the child has its mother/father around.
It is basic ethics that depriving a child of its mother/father is inhumane.”
Did you somehow miss the part where I said I was STERILE. I am not merely impotent, I was born without functioning reproductive organs of either sex.
You cannot accidentally adopt last time I checked.
Given my double dose of gender oddity in that I am intersexed and transsexual, it depends entirely on the state which sex is actually ‘opposite’ for me as well. Or one could say I am neither and should be entirely forbidden by law from being near children. I was discouraged from being a teacher because I would confuse them by being unable to relate because my own childhood was so different.
Fitz,
“This “complematariness” has always & everywere been recognized as a key aspect to parenting & marriage.”
Please provide evidence for this claim!
““In 2004, the American Anthropological Association released this statement:[28]
The results of more than a century of anthropological research on households, kinship relationships, and families, across cultures and through time, provide no support whatsoever for the view that either civilization or viable social orders depend upon marriage as an exclusively heterosexual institution. Rather, anthropological research supports the conclusion that a vast array of family types, including families built upon same-sex partnerships, can contribute to stable and humane societies.””
Hmmm- U.N. or Anthropologists – I’m going to err on the side of the people who actually do the research
Pathia
As a transsexual person I am sure you are capable of looking outside your own situation and doing what’s best for children.
When dealing in matters of laws and social norms I hope you understand how important it is to maintain the standard of intact married childbearing. That promoting the notion that children should be raised in married natural families is best for society and its offspring.
Certainly if you were fortunate enough to be raised by your own mother & father you know that neither is inherently disposable & irrelevant.
Fitz,
When dealing in matters of laws and social norms I hope you understand how important it is to maintain the standard of intact married childbearing. That promoting the notion that children should be raised in married natural families is best for society and its offspring.
I’ve already demonstrated that many people, including scientists, don’t agree with this statement. I’ll repost it if I need to. But a body of Anthropologists, who have actually studied families and marriage throughout history, apparently disagree with you that married natural families (and by this I assume you mean straight) is BEST for society. That is your personal opinion, not one grounded in fact. And simply because it has been that way for some time in history does not mean it is the ONLY good way.
“Certainly if you were fortunate enough to be raised by your own mother & father you know that neither is inherently disposable & irrelevant.”
My parents were/are evangelicals and kicked me out of the house the second I turned 18 and have never spoken to me since outside of letters to inform me that I am removed from the will. Mom has recently somewhat reconciled with me, but that is because she is dying of cancer. I have to schedule my visits around when my family is there with her.
I would have been better off with one parent, because then I would have only had ONE to treat me horribly, as a freak, as a deviant sinner and as a blight on their family.
Jayhuck
Fine – one last time.
Be it from the APA or other “associations” you need to be more discerning and critical in your reading skills.
#1. These are broad statements issued by the associations themselves NOT scientific consensuses or scholarship in themselves.
Never the less
#2. When you read them you can see just how vapid & non-committal they are. (allow me to demonstrate)
The 2004 American Anthropological Association statement: (ISSUED -the day after President Bush called for a national marriage amendment)
{notice the precision of the wording}
“The results of more than a century of anthropological research on households, kinship relationships, and families, across cultures and through time, provide no support whatsoever for the view that either civilization or viable social orders depend upon marriage as an exclusively heterosexual institution. Rather, anthropological research supports the conclusion that a vast array of family types, including families built upon same-sex partnerships, can contribute to stable and humane societies.”
This says nothing about what most societies recognize as marriage (now or in the past) nor what is best for society or children. It basically says “we anthropologists don’t think the earth will spin of its access if gays get “married””
Fitz,
I’m assuming there was a consensus among these Anthropologists or they wouldn’t have made this statement.
This says nothing about what most societies recognize as marriage (now or in the past)
That obviously wasn’t its intent.
It basically says “we anthropologists don’t think the earth will spin of its access if gays get “married””
That is your interpretation – I suggest you become a bit more precise in your interpretive skills. What this says is:
“Rather, anthropological research supports the conclusion that a vast array of family types, including families built upon same-sex partnerships, can contribute to stable and humane societies.”
There’s a pretty big difference from saying the earth won’t spin off its axis and that these other families can actually contribute to STABLE and HUMANE societies. What more can we hope for from society anyway?
Fitz,
What I find so interesting about you is that no matter of scientific consensus is probably going to move you. Which is fine. You are free to have your opinions and prejudices – as we all are, but to outright dismiss large scientific bodies because they aren’t saying what you want them to say, is pretty startling. I would posit that a vast majority of scientists agree that same-sex marriage should be allowed.
I am aware that no amount of science is going to move people who have strongly-held religious beliefs, but I prefer to deal with facts when it comes to important issues such as this, and not simply personal beliefs.
Pathia
My God, Ham it up some more.
I save my tears for the 1/3 of all children that are now born into out-of -wedlock homes. &0% of all African American children are illegitimate.
I hope you own circumstances don’t force you to unreasonably support social & legal norms that help maintain healthy intact natural families for children.
Jayhuck
Here is just one of many links that discuss precisely the overtly politicized and (as demonstrated) horribly thin statements made by groups like the AAA.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YWE0YjBiYzE3ZmE3N2MzZTI4YWI1OWVhOWJlM2ZjNzY=
Don’t be an advocate – be a thinker!
Fitz,
Ham it up? If I wanted to ham it up I would tell you the rest of the story. Being kicked out was a pretty minor event in my life compared to the rest.
Out-of-wedlock is not the same as physical and mental abuse. It is not the same as being forced into sexwork. It is not the same as being homeless, it is not the same as being kicked out of homeless shelters. It is not the same as being assaulted by your own father and then being arrested for trespassing onto the home you grew up in and being sexually assaulted in prison over night.
There’s a big big difference there. I’m pretty sure none of that would have happened if I had been adopted by a SSM couple.
Fitz,
My God, Ham it up some more.
Oh wow Fitz – if I thought you were without compassion before, now I’m sure of it. How callous and uncaring of you to make such statements. You own Pathia a huge apology!
Don’t be an advocate, be a thinker
The same can easily be said of you Fitz. The National Review? The Conservative periodical founded by Buckley? I offer science and you offer political commentary????
It is basic ethics that depriving a child of its mother/father is inhumane.
Amen
It is basic ethics that depriving a child of its mother/father is inhumane.
What if one or more of the child’s parents doesn’t want it? What if it gets put up for adoption? What if the mother or father are unfit parents? Please – this is not basic ethics, this is ethics designed to support your own views.
Fitz,
That is sort of the conservative MO, isn’t it? Someone points out science and conservatives do their best to denounce it by calling its researchers liberals – as if that, most importantly, invalidates the research or what they have said.
The AAAS is – according to Wikipedia: “American Anthropological Association was founded in 1902 and claims to be, “the world’s largest professional organization of individuals interested in anthropology.”
The organization publishes a number of peer-reviewed scientific journals and professional magazines, all available both in print and through its on-line site AnthroSource.”
Jayhuck
“What I find so interesting about you is that no matter of scientific consensus is probably going to move you. Which is fine. You are free to have your opinions and prejudices – as we all are, but to outright dismiss large scientific bodies because they aren’t saying what you want them to say, is pretty startling. I would posit that a vast majority of scientists agree that same-sex marriage should be allowed. I am aware that no amount of science is going to move people who have strongly-held religious beliefs, but I prefer to deal with facts when it comes to important issues such as this, and not simply personal beliefs.
Right….Ok –critical thinker
There’s the New Resolution Passed by American Anthropological Association
Opposed to US Military Action Against Iran.
There’s another Against Coca-Cola.
Or maybe people can just go to their site itself and see if this is the result of “scientific consensus”.
Hint: Such resolutions are not. They are the work of the Association, not the scholars themselves. This is common knowledge.
Pathia
“Ham it up? If I wanted to ham it up I would tell you the rest of the story. Being kicked out was a pretty minor event in my life compared to the rest.”
Your personal plight (no matter how troubled) dose not bear on the social & legal standards society should adopt to promote responsible procreation and intact childbearing.
I won’t be emotionally blackmailed because you have had a rough life.
One could easily bring a million or more testimonials of illegitimate children that faced similar and worse horrors.
You can attest to the challenges of being born inter-sexed, they could attest to the blight of out-of-wedlock childbearing.
Which is more germane to the issue?
Pathia,
Regardless of what discussions take place on this blog or any differences any of us might have, I want you to know my heart is with you and I wish I had the ability to have given you loving parents because that is what you deserved. I’m not sure what your faith or beliefs are but I do believe our past is our past and that we are all given a future so that we can change that which we did not like or no longer want in our lives. I hope you don’t mind me saying that your name will be in my prayers today and I will be thinking of you having a much brighter and better future – one you can feel safe and secure and peaceful and happy in.
Fitz,
The scholars themselves ARE the organization!
And you completely changed the subject – yet again – when you aren’t able to win in one subject, point the finger in a different direction, right? I have a very conservative friend and she operates in much the same way.
The other way of discrediting what scientists have said has been employed here, is, instead of directly discussing their statement on families, marriage and parenting, you bring everything they are saying to bare.
Critical thinking indeed!
“The scholars themselves ARE the organization!”
No they are not. These are statments by the orginization, they do not represent scientific consensus on the subject or the views of indivicual members.
Unless your dense enough to believe all the anthropolists off the world got together and agreed to
“Resolutions on Iraq and torture” or the AAA Supports of U. Michigan in Supreme Court Case right to invoke affirmative action policies in school admissions to ensure diversity in its student body or the “American Anthropological Association Statement on Cuban Trade Embargo” as well as those I already listed.
I am a member of the BAr Association. Its policy statments dont reflect my opinions or the opinions of most let alone all lawyers or the “law”.
This is common knowledege.
Dont swallow everthing you read as blunt “fact”.
Jayhuck,
Many children do not have a mom and a dad because tragedy has befallen them (twin towers, Iraq, Afghanistan, illness, accidents, etc.) but that is very different from intentionally depriving a child because an adult wants to be accommodated.
Fitz,
Saying that what an organization says is not representative of ALL scientists is misleading. I said it was representative of MOST of the scientists IN that organization – I wasn’t talking about all scientists everywhere.
And let’s not confuse the fact that even though some members of an organization might not agree with its statements, that doesn’t mean that a majority of the people/scientists IN that organization DO agree.
I’m not now, nor have I been confusing the organization with its individual members – there will always be members that disagree – but if the organization isn’t speaking for a majority of its members, that organization most likely won’t be around long. AND, I’ve found no evidence that a majority of the members of the AAAS don’t support or stand behind its statements – have you?
Ann,
Many children do not have a mom and a dad because tragedy has befallen them (twin towers, Iraq, Afghanistan, illness, accidents, etc.) but that is very different from intentionally depriving a child because an adult wants to be accommodated.
Let’s not go over old ground – straight parents often want to be “accommodated” as well – and you assume that that is what gay parents are doing. You don’t like it when people make assumptions about you, so please extend that courtesy to gay couples and gay families as well.
No one is depriving children of anything – what we WANT is to give children loving, caring and supportive homes. I don’t agree that same-sex parents are depriving children.
Fitz,
My apology – let me restate this:
“And let’s not confuse the fact that even though some members of an organization might not agree with its statements, that doesn’t mean that a majority of the people/scientists IN that organization DON’T agree.”
“I won’t be emotionally blackmailed because you have had a rough life.”
Yet it’s not emotional blackmail to constantly refer to SSM’s raising children as child abuse. Think of the Children! Gays existence threatens children, the fact they might get married threatens children, the fact that they might adopt threatens children.
Every statement you’ve made against SSM adoption strikes me as emotional blackmail too, just on a broader scale.
Lets spin it the other way around. Children are tough, I am an example of that. Look at all that crap I went through and guess what? I have a Master’s degree now . I have a good job now. I’ve made inroads at reconciling with my family. All despite what was done to me, I have thrived. I would have done even better if I was raised by a loving SSM couple instead of a misunderstanding, near hateful family, but even so, I am doing well now.
What is better? A single parent, an abusive pair of biological parents, or a SSM couple that will have gone through a rigorous screening process to make sure they aren’t abusive and would make proper parents? With adoption you can SCREEN. Even if ‘two daddies’ or ‘two mommies’ isn’t as good as mom and dad, I’m pretty sure it would be better than unloving uncaring biological parent(s).
I would have done even better if I was raised by a loving SSM couple
Amen Pathia!!!
Jayhuck,
straight parents often want to be “accommodated” as well – and you assume that that is what gay parents are doing. You don’t like it when people make assumptions about you, so please extend that courtesy to gay couples and gay families as well.
Please, please, please point out where I made the assumption you are referring to. This is in fact what I said -
Many children do not have a mom and a dad because tragedy has befallen them (twin towers, Iraq, Afghanistan, illness, accidents, etc.) but that is very different from intentionally depriving a child because an adult wants to be accommodated.
Ann,
but that is very different from intentionally depriving a child because an adult wants to be accommodated.
My apologies then Ann – what did you mean when you talked about intentionally depriving a child because and adult wants to be accommodated?
what did you mean when you talked about intentionally depriving a child because and adult wants to be accommodated?
When an adult purposely has a child, through whatever means, without any intention of providing that child with a mother or father, then they are deliberately accommodating their own needs and as a direct result, depriving the child of their needs.
Pathia gets near the heart of the matter with this:
I am an example of that. Look at all that crap I went through and guess what? I have a Master’s degree now . I have a good job now. I’ve made inroads at reconciling with my family. All despite what was done to me, I have thrived.
Since this thread is about the “research” done on same-sex parenting, which ostensibly shows that “kids turn out okay” even when growing up with 2 moms or 2 dads, what conclusion might we draw from Pathia’s admission above? That even kids with severe gender issues who grow up with hateful and abusive biological parents still manage to “turn out okay”. That IS what you’re saying here Pathia, whether you want to admit it or not. You’re not just okay — you thrive!
But the question is why should you have to grow up under such circumstances, even if you did manage to turn out okay?
A question which you neatly avoided with your next statement:
What is better? A single parent, an abusive pair of biological parents, or a SSM couple that will have gone through a rigorous screening process to make sure they aren’t abusive and would make proper parents?
Aren’t you missing the third option? A happy and loving and non-abusive pair of biological parents? Why would you exclude such a family as a viable option for a child? You’ve given the poor kid the choice of half a family, a hateful family, or a redundant 2-half family, but for some reason are withholding the option of a wholesome natural family.
I can’t help but wonder why… Contrary to popular liberal opinion, these kinds of families DO still exist.
Ann,
When an adult purposely has a child, through whatever means, without any intention of providing that child with a mother or father, then they are deliberately accommodating their own needs and as a direct result, depriving the child of their needs.
You are wrong. You make the assumption that simply because a mother and a father are involved that they aren’t simply accommodating their own needs, or that they will be good, parents, OR that they can fulfill the childs “needs”. We have already shown that a child does not NEED to be raised by a mother and a father, so I’m not sure what needs you are talking about.
“I can’t help but wonder why… Contrary to popular liberal opinion, these kinds of families DO still exist.”
They don’t exist in quantities to cover every child. Unless you want to find all these wonderful families and then make them raise every single child up for adoption? Somehow I think they would’t be such golden examples then
Marty,
Since this thread is about the “research” done on same-sex parenting, which ostensibly shows that “kids turn out okay” even when growing up with 2 moms or 2 dads, what conclusion might we draw from Pathia’s admission above? That even kids with severe gender issues who grow up with hateful and abusive biological parents still manage to “turn out okay”. That IS what you’re saying here Pathia, whether you want to admit it or not. You’re not just okay — you thrive!
The research doesn’t show that you just turn out OK – what the research says is that gay parents raise children who are no better and no worse than straight parents. Simply because Pathia was able to overcome her terrible parents, doesn’t mean all children can or will, or that if she had had loving and supportive Same-sex or opposite-sex parents, that her life wouldn’t be much better than it is and that she wouldn’t have to live with so many scars.
Aren’t you missing the third option? A happy and loving and non-abusive pair of biological parents?
Because Marty, you only have one pair of biological parents, and Pathia’s were awful.
Fitz – The ham it up comment was out of line. You are not trying a case here, you are conversing with real people on a blog.
I have taken comment moderation off for current commenters since the volume is simply too great to keep up with. However, when such things are brought to my attention I will say something and then if it continues remove such comments.
This thread has gotten very far away from the topic and unless anyone has research to advance, it may be about time to wrap it up.
Pathia,
Those are very commendable achievements – in spite of what you went through you had the fortitude to move forward and accomplish what you have. I hope others can learn from you and what you have done.
You are wrong.
I don’t think so
You make the assumption that simply because a mother and a father are involved that they aren’t simply accommodating their own needs, or that they will be good, parents, OR that they can fulfill the childs “needs”.
Again, please point out where I made the assumption you are referring to?
We have already shown that a child does not NEED to be raised by a mother and a father, so I’m not sure what needs you are talking about.
No, a child does not need to be raised by a mother and a father – many children who are being raised without the benefit of a mother or father are safe, happy, healthy and stable – it is just more conducive to their overall well being in a myriad of ways when a loving mother and father are co-parenting the child.
Ann,
it is just more conducive to their overall well being in a myriad of ways when a loving mother and father are co-parenting the child.
Please show me research that supports your contention that a loving mother and father are better than gay parents.
One can oppose same-sex marriage and not be bigoted. One can oppose same-sex marriage and not be hateful.
But efforts whose sole purpose is to exclude gay couples from entering into that which is open to heterosexual couples are by definition anti-gay.
In other words, a person who is not necessarily anti-gay may, for other reasons, take a position that is anti-gay.
I guess each person has to take a close look at their own motivations.
France has a recognition system for same-sex couples called PACS. It’s similar to civil unions, though not identical.
Nearly all of Western Europe recognizes same-sex couples. Some with marriage, some with civil unions, some with other methods.
For a map of what Europe looks like re recognition
see here. Green is marriage, red is some other form. This map will soon be outdated as Ireland adds recognition this year and Sweden changes over to marriage.
I find it sad that our nation offers less support and recognition to same-sex couples than Croatia or the Czech Republic.
Neither. The issue is same-sex marriage.
- – -
An observation:
When I first started learning about the ex-gay movement I was only exposed to national leaders. Consequently I was under the impression that ex-gays were universally in favor of legislation that was hostile to the lives of gay persons.
However, as I got to know and converse with actual living breathing ex-gays that were not in leadership, I’ve come to find that many of them have no desire to see gay people suffer discrimination or abuse. Those of you ex-gay persons who write here may not always agree with me, but you have shown me that you do not harbor hostility or endorse theocratic ends.
Thank you.
Ann,
You first talked about a child’s “needs” when it came to opposite sex parents, then you agreed with me that a child does not NEED these things – then you change course a bit and say that a loving mother and father are “more conducive” to a child’s overall well-being than loving gay parents, without any research to back it up.
In fact, what the research shows us to-date is that loving gay parents raise kids whose overall well-being is as good as those raised in opposite-sex households.
Ann –
You stated:
“Same sex marriage would have a lot more support if it was based on equal rights rather than moral approval.”
It should be based on equal rights, and not moral approval, we agree on this. Giving men and women equal access to marriage is important, and holding true to the Equal Rights Ammendment is essential for civil marriage…and civil law. We cannot espouse that a citizen is not to be discriminated against because of biological sex, and then deny a couple the ability to marry because of that very factor…and that factor alone.
As for what religious institutions decide to “bless” or not bless…that is for them to decide. The religious ceremony of marriage can be determined by individual churches, but the civil rights of equal access should remain in place.
You know, we have a history as a nation of turning civil rights into moral battles…look at the old statements (actually not that old) made about allowing interracial marriages. An example? There’s even a book on it called “the moral problems of interracial marriage” by Rev. Joseph Doherty. The issues raised with same-sex marriage are nothing new.
Ann, this statement concerned me a bit:
“it is just more conducive to their overall well being in a myriad of ways when a loving mother and father are co-parenting the child. [than a same-sex couple]”
I’m baffled by this…is there research that supports this or is this just what you believe regardless of research to the contrary (pointing to similar outcomes) ? Please clarify where you got this information.
Please show me research that supports your contention that a loving mother and father are better than gay parents.
Jayhuck,
I never said that a loving mother and father are better than gay parents. This is what I actually said -
it is just more conducive to their overall well being in a myriad of ways when a loving mother and father are co-parenting the child.
This can include many different familial situations – I did not cite any particular circumstance so please don’t quote me as having done so.
I have absolutely no research to present to you or anyone other than my personal observations and life experiences with people.
Ann,
Well, if all you have to offer it your own personal observations and life experiences, then the research we do have stills stands. Which shows that gay parents raise children whose OVERALL WELL-BEING is as good as the children raised by straight parents.
I’m assuming, if you can make an observation such as “it is just more conducive to their overall well being in a myriad of ways when a loving mother and father are co-parenting the child”, that you’ve observed many gay couples parenting and have observed their children? Otherwise, how you could make such a statement?
“it is just more conducive to their overall well being in a myriad of ways when a loving mother and father are co-parenting the child. [than a same-sex couple]”
Jag,
I did not say “[than a same-sex couple]” – you added this on to what I wrote. I was referring to any familial setting that does not include a mother and father as co-parents, whether it be intentional or through tragedy. This is what I actually wrote -
No, a child does not need to be raised by a mother and a father – many children who are being raised without the benefit of a mother or father are safe, happy, healthy and stable – it is just more conducive to their overall well being in a myriad of ways when a loving mother and father are co-parenting the child.
I’m baffled by this…is there research that supports this or is this just what you believe regardless of research to the contrary (pointing to similar outcomes) ? Please clarify where you got this information.
What I wrote above in bold comes only from my personal observations and life experiences. I have absolutely no research to support it or refute it.
Well, if all you have to offer it your own personal observations and life experiences, then the research we do have stills stands.
Jayhuck,
Sometimes you have to actually experience the consequences of choices and/or observe the consequences of other’s choices to fully understand “personal observations and life experiences”. I’m glad there is lots of positive research for familial settings that do not involve a mom and dad, and I am grateful for those people who rescue children and bless them but it will never change what I also know to be true about the benefits of a loving mother and father co-parenting a child.
Ann,
Sometimes you have to actually experience the consequences of choices and/or observe the consequences of other’s choices to fully understand “personal observations and life experiences”.
On this, I couldn’t agree more.
Being enormously tied up at this time with numerous tasks I will only comment on the statement of the AAA. I have studied enough anthropology to know that this is pure political hogwash. And these association, like the APA, etc., are indeed political animals. The facts of science are not determined by a vote or opinion of an association. Open up your eyes and actually examine what they have stated.
“Rather, anthropological research supports the conclusion that a vast array of family types, including families built upon same-sex partnerships, can contribute to stable and humane societies.”
“A vast array of family types” is one thing and then they attach “including families built upon same-sex partnerships” ending with “can contribute.” Where is the evidence, the anthropological research saying anything about same-sex partnerships? Is it the flawed and debatable research that we have already been examining on this blog? Where are the societies where these same-sex partnerships are being studied? Because they are anthropologists they would have people imagine that there are all these cultures out there with homosexual partners bringing up children that they have been studying. Nonsense.
Jayhuck, if you depend on the SJC’s 4-3 majority vote on Goodridge, then, you do indeed depend on Justice Marshall’s opinion.
But if you wish to dodge this fact of life, then, that’s okay. Which of the concurring opinions suites your better? Please put your finger on the nature of marriage as articulated by any of the Justices on the Goodridge case.
–> You still haven’t answered my question: What is the nature of marriage in your opinion?
Read my commens. Look for the phrase, “the nature of marriage”. Look for the phrase, “the core of marriage”. While you might point to mere opinion, I can rely on all of recorded human history and on the objective truth that is self-evident in the nature of humankind, the nature of human generativity, and the nature of human community.
* * *
What we know about “same-sex parenting” is that it depends on parental relinquishment. This is true for adoption. It is true for third party procreation, which is extramarital even when married couples partake of it. Same-sex parenting points outside of marriage and not toward the core of marriage.
Jayhuck
–> You [refuted] Justice Marshall without any references to back them up.
See the state constitution of Massachusetts; marriage is written there since the start of that state.
Common-law marriage was superseded by statutes. See the earliest marriage statutes of that state.
Basic principles of law: common-law is subordinate to statutory law; statutory law is subordinate to constitutional law. Each word or phrase has meaning. No part of a constitution can make the other part unconstitutional.
Read Marshall’s Goodridge opinion where she proposed to change the common law meaning of marriage in Massachusetts. See where she referenced an Ontario court opinion on common-law marriage. See where she deferred to the legislative power of the legislative branch. See the basic principles of republican government whereby there is a seperation of powers. Read that state’s constitution. Take a basic high school civics course for the background on republican government.
It is very odd that you have not done this basic homework, given your dependancy on the SJC’s majority opinion on Goodridge, which is one and the same as the opinion written by Justice Marshall.
The SJC was not empowered to subordinate the state constitution and statutes to common-law; in fact, common-law marriage is irrelevant to the statutory marriage of that state.
–> if gay marriage succeeds in Massachusetts and the institution of marriage doesn’t falter or become diminished in any way – as appears to be the case – then why are we arguing?
You are projecting into the future and asking a retroactive hypothetical.
See the points made upthread about locking negatives. See the fact that SSMers, such as yourself, have not comprehended the actual disagreement.
–> efforts whose sole purpose is to exclude gay couples from entering into that which is open to heterosexual couples are by definition anti-gay.
The affirmation of the nature of marriage does not have as its sole purpose the exclusion of people based on sexual orientation or even gay identity politics.
Marriage is not exclusive to heterosexuals. There is no sexual orientation test.
But SSM arugments makes presumes to equate a one-sex-short arrangement with the conjugal relationship which is both-sexed. Not all both-sexed arrangements are marriages; the line-drawing is very much based on the nature of marriage.
I asked upthread why should these protections that SSMers demand be denied to other nonmarital families?
–> In other words, a person who is not necessarily anti-gay may, for other reasons, take a position that is anti-gay.
Gay is a socio-political construct. It is a political identity. It is unjust to use identity politics to form social policy in a free and liberty-loving society.
Now, sure, the gay identity politics that has been brought to the fore is not the only instance of identity politics pressing nonmarriage purposes into marriage recognition. So this is not exclusively a problem with pro-gay demands.
And if someone affirms marriage as the union of man and woman, and does so on the solid ground of reason and respect for human dignity, there is no value in calling such an affirmation anti-gay. There is only propagandic vaue in that.
* * *
Regarding votes on state amendments that was mentioned above, here are a couple of charts that show the share of YES votes in the various states.
Share of Yes Vote on State Marriage Amendments, 1993-2006
http://bp0.blogger.com/_lcgYqBwho5E/R4BpBb_BjfI/AAAAAAAAAHg/9YZCwVLouuo/s1600-h/Average+and+Totals.jpg
1993-2006, Share of YES vote in State Marriage Amendments by State results.
http://bp3.blogger.com/_lcgYqBwho5E/R4BpaL_BjgI/AAAAAAAAAHo/sXcCVCwtPwk/s1600-h/Votes+for+All+States.jpg
The upshot:
Pre 2003, the average YES share was 67%; in 2004 (in the wake of Goodridge) it rose to 71%; and in 2005 and 2006 it returned to 67%.
The average YES share for all results was 69%; and of all the votes cast from 1993 to 2006, the YES share is 67%.
I’ve got more data on pre-vote opinion surveys which have underestimated the support for the amendments (even in Arizona) by about 10% on average).
Also, during the past decade or so, as people have aged, and married, they have shifted to the YES side. The pro-SSM opinion among young people is soft. The opposition to the SSM merger is more dedicated and consistent across time.
For example, see:
SSM Strongly Opposed by 39% of US Adults: Harris
http://opine-editorials.blogspot.com/2007/09/harris-poll-september-18-2007-views-on.html
SSM is strongly supported by 19%; strongly opposed by 31%.
And in state amendment votes there is no “undecided” vote.
I have studied enough anthropology to know that this is pure political hogwash. And these association, like the APA, etc., are indeed political animals.
I find it interesting that the people who don’t agree with the scientists and the judges are the ones who come to the table with pre-conceived ideas and inherent prejudices. I doubt that this is a coincidence
Chairm,
See the points made upthread about locking negatives. See the fact that SSMers, such as yourself, have not comprehended the actual disagreement.
I’m not projecting into the future. Gay marriage has been legal for several years and we have yet to see any of the supposed harms that anti-gay people said would be coming our way. It is both a present and a future statement.
Chairm,
I appreciate your opinions, but it doesn’t appear that a majority of anthropologists agree with you
Chairm,
The fact that you’ve “studies enough anthropology” is not really impressive.
I’ve said this before, but after two years of posting on this blog I’m coming to the realization that no matter how many scientists or judges weigh in on same-sex marriage, this fact isn’t going to change the minds or opinions of those who have strongly-held beliefs (usually religious in nature) that say gay marriage is wrong or bad. That leads me to wonder what the point is of discussing these issues at all. If science and the law aren’t going to change the minds of people, then most likely, nothing will. People are naturally averse to change which makes things problematic from the beginning – add that propensity to religious beliefs and you have a recipe for stubbornness and an inability to change.
I don’t believe all people are like this, but it seems, from my experience on here and in other places, that many staunchly anti-gay people are. We find this most recently in the debate on evolution. The courts and a vast majority of scientists (religious and non-religious) agree that Evolution is definitely at work in the world, but that doesn’t and won’t change the minds of some other people of faith who can and will believe otherwise.
Well, Jayhuck, now you understand the point I was making about moral choices. No matter how much research we can process, science will not make choices for us. Who lives by science deserves to change his world view every monthly issue.
I can fathom many conceptual areas but I’d never be as bold to say I can fully understand why we need two sexes at all, why we need two sexes for conception and why we need two sexes for parenting. In this respect I am highly interested in every scientific explanation I can find or every hypothesis I can work out by myself, but I think of myself rather as a forever apprentice, no matter how trained, educated or insightful I would be. I leave the copyrighted instructions for sexes to the maker. The maker put forward two separated sexes and their being separate made them attracted and bound to conceive and parent. I see no break in the plan. I’m sure the principle can be mimicked and adapted in many types of formulas, but none is either the original, or the best. It’s just as simple as that. It’s one thing to walk and quite another to cling to someone walking.
it is also in the presentation of same sex marriage that will either garner support or validate the non-support someone already feels about it. One can put forth an intelligent, thoughtful, heartfelt argument such as Jag does and it commands respect and garners support – the way it is presented by others in a coercive and offensive way is very ineffective in garnering support. While this should not matter, I can assure you it does. That is why I think it should be only an equal rights issue rather than a moral issue. That will insure protection regardless of the presentation.
p.s. – I forgot a very important word – in addition to the word “moral” I would also like to say “acceptance”.
Same gender marriage would have more support if it were presented on the merits of equal rights rather than moral acceptance.
Evan,
why we need two sexes for parenting
The thing is Evan, we don’t. The Maker also made it so that gay parents are apparently as good at parenting as straight parents. Why did he do this? It is fine for you to state your opinion, its another to try to say that it is fact.
The maker put forward two separated sexes and their being separate made them attracted and bound to conceive and parent. I see no break in the plan. I’m sure the principle can be mimicked and adapted in many types of formulas, but none is either the original, or the best. It’s just as simple as that.
The Maker also put forward gay people (even some animals show same-sex behavior) – I might ask, for what purpose?
To suggest that something is the best is again, your opinion – not a statement of fact, because gay parents apparently do as well as straight parents. Nothing is ever THAT simple Evan.
Ann,
That is why I think it should be only an equal rights issue rather than a moral issue.
This is all it has EVER been about. It is the conservative Christians who have turned it into a moral issue – not gay people.
LOL! It’s a Sunday morning Cross-Thread Nightmare! We’ve got three ‘same-sex marriage/same-sex parenting’ threads going simultaneously!
There you go again Jayhuck criticizing people while ignoring what has been said. You show no understanding of the AAA statement, just a parroting of their words. It’s not even that I do not “agree” with what they have stated but that I understand that they have not said anything about same-sex parenting other than to attach it to “a vast array of family types,” much as they sometimes attach a totally unrelated item to a bill in Congress just to get it through. How gullible can one be? Where is the scientific evidence, the research? No one needs to deny any scientific research because they have not presented any scientific research on same-sex parenting. All they have done is make a very sloppy political statement that allows the gullible and wishful thinker to imagine incredibly more than they have said.
Good reading requires more than saying the words. You have to comprehend the meaning of what has been said. If you were in my class I would have to return your paper to redo to express a better comprehension of what you have read. Try re-reading what I have written about the AAA statement and address the SUBSTANCE of what I have said.
Jose,
We’ve already discussed the research ad nauseam on here that talks about how well gay couples parent.
Eddy,
An SMCTN – It most certainly is
Evan,
Living completely by science is one thing, being stubborn and ignoring it is another.
It is the conservative Christians who have turned it into a moral issue
Jayhuck,
Sure about this? What about all of the other religions and cultures around the world who hold the same position?
Ann-
You stated:
“I did not say “[than a same-sex couple]” – you added this on to what I wrote. ”
Yes, that is why it was in brackets, it was not part of your original statement. Apologies if this was not the case of your implication.
Jose –
You stated:
“Being enormously tied up at this time with numerous tasks I will only comment on the statement of the AAA. I have studied enough anthropology to know that this is pure political hogwash.”
Jose, I have a doctorate in clinical psychology…but it doesn’t mean that my time studying, practicing, and reading textbooks overrides scientific review and conclusions of numerous scholars. You may want to rethink proclaiming yourself more apt in your studies than an entire organization – especially one that has no particular reason to make the claims it did. The AAA isn’t particularly “known” for being in bed with the gay rights movement…it isn’t financially viable because of them, etc..
Jayhuck, you misattributed the following to me.
–> “I have studied enough anthropology …”
As for the nature of marriage, the anthropological consensus is not what you may wish it to be.
Tradition and the bedrock social institution
http://opine-editorials.blogspot.com/2005/06/tradition-and-bedrock-social_15.html
Likewise with principle that the man and the woman who create a child are directly responsible for that child’s well-being and education. Barring dire circumstances or tragedy, the state’s big hand is not moved to intrude upon the bond between father, mother, and their child. This principle is nearly-universal across time, geography, and cultures.
Marriage makes it normative in our customs, traditions, and legal systems. See the marriage presumption of paternity. It is based on the sexual relations, i.e. conjugal relations, of husband and wife. And that is based on the same thing that consummation is based. The integration of the sexes is combined with the contingency for Responsible Procreation. The man-woman criterion stands for that integration which occurs within the social institution — on multiple levels. Not just for each union of husband and wife, but also within the organic community of family, the extended community in which children are raised and educated, and across society. As for equality, it is through marriage that man and woman, both present and profoundly boned together, that the sexes are brought into equal regard.
This is not alien to raising children. Responsible Procreation is not about procreation alone. It is a coherent set of principles that have been expressed throughout recorded human history.
The husband and wife, together, form the single reproductive organism; beyond our mere physiology and basic biology we adapt to what is given. The both-sexed nature of human generativity is not man-made; it is much bigger than the individual human being who, acting alone, is not fertile.
Sure, as a sort of shorthand, we might discribe an individual as fertile but that leaves silent the most obvious condition for such fertility. The individual may be fertile (with the other sex). And fertility is demonstrated by conceiving and bearing children. Subfertility is usually corrected through changes in behavior — with the other sex — rather than novel out-of-body interventions by lab technicians. But even where IVF is used, no individual can be fertile without the other sex. The inverse is also so: no individual is infertile with the other sex, because if that individual is not fertile in the first place, then, that individual cannot be infertile in the second place.
When we speak of the fertile couple, we speak of the both-sexed couple. We do not mean two individuals each of whom would be fertile with the other sex. If that is what SSMers mean, then, they point to multi-marriage or extramarital procreation and not the the normative meaning of marriage.
No one-sexed combination can be fertile; the combination, by its very nature, is sterile, always. More precisely such a combination is non-fertile and is never fertile and never infertile. This is so even if both indviduals in a one-sex combination would be fertile with the other sex.
Gender neutrality reads sameness into diversity
http://opine-editorials.blogspot.com/2005/10/gender-neutrality-reads-sameness-into.html
This is basic stuff that anthropologists do not eraise should they make a group of them make a political declaration on “same-sex marriage” or “same-sex parenting”. That much should be self-evident even to SSMers.
More Arguments from Tradition
http://opine-editorials.blogspot.com/2005/06/more-arguments-from-tradition.html
Marriage affirms the nature of humankind and in so doing it is our sociological and cultural adaptation to things far beyond even the most brilliant intellectual’s ability to conjure up deconstructions of the foundational social institution.
This is not mere opinion. I realize that SSMers seek to change the basis for marriage recognition; and I have pointed out that this is a call to replace marriage with recognition of something else.
That is why I have asked for the opinion of SSMers: what is the nature, the core, the essence of the relationship you have in mind?
We know that any double-dad or double-mom scenario must begin with parental relinquishment. Then the state must intervene, again, to decree an adoptive relationship of some type. This relinquishment and state intervention is the inverse of the nature of marriage which the state merely recognizes rather than creates.
Children and the legal incidents of marriage
http://opine-editorials.blogspot.com/2005/10/children-and-legal-incidents-of.html
That leads back to the question about the harm done.
First, SSM arugmentation is a direct attack on the nature of marriage. It deconstructs the coherent whole into bits and pieces that are all optional with the core of marriage being sidelined or rejected as superfluous — to marriage recognition!
Second, the SSM campaign has undermined self-governance wherever it has been imposed. Massachusetts is a good example of that. Look at the obstructionism that went on, and continues, against the affirmation of the nature of marriage in that state. Look at how the SJC has provided tortured reasoningn to circle back to Justice Marshall’s predrawn conclusion. And, recently, with the “lesbian divorce” case across the border, look at how Marshall claimed to not see a “ban” on SSM in Rhode Island even though she discerned a ‘ban” on SSM in the marriage statutes of Massachusetts — statutes that are very similar to those in Rhode Island.
Now, I suppose, unless society expressly rejects the SSM argumentation, and rebuffs the attack on the nature of marriage, we are supposed to presume that there is no such thing as “the nature of marriage” and marital status will be whatever the state decides it will be.
Yet the SSM campaign attacks any effort, even in public discussions, that would affirm marriage itself as the union of man and woman. So state level DOMAs and state constitutional amendments are denigrated as tyrannical, by these SSMers. The amending process, for example, has been routinely denounced as “mob rule”. This is a harm done to society.
In Canada, the same judge who had imposed SSM in Ontario also had his hand in a court decision to grant three adults co-equal parental status for one child. Read that decision and you’ll see the corruption of jurisprudence, the undermining of basic judicial doctrines of parentage that are based on the integration of fatherhood and motherhood, and even the not-so-hidden threat to the two person principle at the heart of marriage itself.
Look at how in Massachusetts and in the UK the government was prodded by SSMers to force Catholic Charities out of adoption services. That did not serve the children in need of adoptive parents. Look in Canada and in Massachusetts for the suppression of the parent right to educate their own children on fundamental virtues and morals.
There is much harm done by the SSM campaign and by SSM argumentation. One of the most flagrant, which SSMers actually applaude, is the false presumption that the government owns civil society — that the government creates andn owns marriage in our society.
The People have a government, not the other way around.
Think of all of this when you next entertain the idea that “same-sex parenting” is neutral for children and future generationis.
–> that say gay marriage is wrong or bad.
No, the point is that “gay marriage” is not marriage. It is sex-segregative. It does not provide contingency for Responsible Procreation. It stands for the segregation of fatherhood from motherhood. As such, if it were to be merged with marriage recognition, “gay marriage” would be a specious substitution for marriage (i.e. S.S.M.) and such a direct attack on the nature of marriage cannot help but undermine the social institution for all of society.
Could the one-sexed arrangement co-exist with marital status? Sure. It does already as part of the much broader category of nonmarital alternatives. The provision for designated beneficiaries has long-existed, is well-utilitized, and is available across the country. No relationshp status, at law, is required. The state authorities merely recognize the personal arrangements of individuals and provides protections based on those arrangements. If access and affordability is a real problem, and some SSMers say this is the main issue, then, that can be addressed without touching marital status at all. In Hawaii, the People there affirmed the man-woman criterion of marriage and, at the same time, enacted Reciprocal Beneficiaries to ehance access for a nominal fee of about $15. Such laws can be advanced, based on the nature of the relationship type and the actual problems associated with it, rather than pushing the nature of marriage to the sidelines.
–> That leads me to wonder what the point is of discussing these issues at all. If science and the law aren’t going to change the minds of people, then most likely, nothing will.
In your comments you have not relied on the law nor on science. You have waved your arms about but have provided zilch in the way of objective observations. You offer opinion, based on gay identity politics, and then have missed the actual disagreement. You project onto others and say they, not you, have only opinion to stand on. You are mistaken.
–> People are naturally averse to change which makes things problematic from the beginning – add that propensity to religious beliefs and you have a recipe for stubbornness and an inability to change.
Adverse to the devolution of marriage recogtion, yes, of course. This surely is problematic for the SSM campaign and for gay identity politics. The main tactic of SSMers is to make emtion-laden appeals, to use circular reasoning, to name-call (even if in a backhanded manner), and to seek to induce issue-fatigue. That’s no way to advance the goal of tolerance for the homosexual variation of the nonmarital domestic arrangement.
The choice to form a nonmarital alternative is a liberty exercised, not a right denied. Calling it SSM a right does not make it so. But it is tolerated and, given provsion for designated beneficiaries, also protected. Yet SSMers talk of “bans” as if to exercise such a liberty is to become outlawed and persecuted. You would almost think they were polygamists or bigamists, to hear them go on about diversity and choice and state intervention.
Also, in most of the comments I’ve seen here, an certainly in mine, there is no religious content. SSMers routinely misrepresent the scientific and the pluralistic case against their agenda. So when they can’t make SSM and their claims stand up on their own two feet, they take kicks at religious beliefs, as if that somehow raises the appeal of SSM in our society.
Typo corrections:
- The inverse is also so: no individual is infertile without the other sex, because if that individual is not fertile in the first place, then, that individual cannot be infertile in the second place.
- As for equality, it is through marriage that man and woman, both present and profoundly bonded together, that the sexes are brought into equal regard.
[I'd add that for there to be "marriage equality" there must be participation by both sexes. Marriage is not made more equal by removing one of the sexes from the arrangement. The lack of a man does not make for more sex equality between two women. This is evident with polygamy: if one man makes for sex inequality with two or more women, maybe removal of the man would make for greater equality in polygam? Nope. Polygamy would still not provide for marriage equality no matter how many more persons of the same sex are added in the absence of the other sex.]
* * *
Is there no taker for the question put to SSMers? What is the nature of the relationship type you have in mind?
As for same-sex parenting, do you acknowledge that such a scenario depends on parental relinquishment and state intervention? How does that not undermine the integration of fatherhood with motherhood?
–> scientific review and conclusions of numerous scholars.
The point is that the conclusions are not conclusive, as per the lack of randomized longitudinal studies, for one glaring example.
Also, science is not itself the primary source of wisdom about procreation, much less about raising and educating children.
The real point is that the gaycentric view of parenting, such as it is expressed in gay identity politics, subordinates the children to the adults in the most fundamental way.
Put aside the identity politics and clear the underbrush of advocacy statements by some social scientists and some such organizations.
Return to the empirical evidence for more than cover for assertion of “conclusions” based on insufficient evidence.
Alternatives to the intact family headed by the union of husband and wife do exist, of course, but fall short of the standard set by that of marital parenting. This is true even when controlling for income and education of the adults.
Such a small population of children, raised from birth in one-sex arrangements, makes it very difficult for students of empirical evidence on this matter. Folks should stop trying to neutralize this significant problem when citing political and advocacy statements made by some social scientists or such organizations.
See: Children in same-sex households
http://opine-editorials.blogspot.com/2006/03/children-in-same-sex-households.html
Children and the legal incidents of marriage
http://opine-editorials.blogspot.com/2005/10/children-and-legal-incidents-of.html
Parenthood and Rights of Children
http://opine-editorials.blogspot.com/2005/07/parenthood-and-rights-of-children.html
Where are the children?
http://opine-editorials.blogspot.com/2005/06/where-are-children.html
Stem Cell Babies
http://opine-editorials.blogspot.com/2005/06/stem-cell-babies.html
See: Brave New Families
http://opine-editorials.blogspot.com/2005/06/brave-new-families.html
The outcomes for lone parent families very closely resemble the outcomes for step-families. Most same-sex households with children include children from previously procreative relationships with the opposite sex and, as such, they resemble step-families.
On the other hand, the same-sex couple is single sexed, like a lone parent is single sexed, which raises concerns even if the family brings-up the children from infancy.
Whether or not the difference is based on cultural or biological factors or some combination of factors, families that lack a father, for instance, do indeed share similar deficiencies. These can also be compared with families that are led by a grandmom and daughter combination; or even a granddad and daughter combination.
There is a shortfall.
But concerns and doubts do not translate into accusations that two persons of the same sex are incapable of raising children at least as well as a lone parent. More needs to be learned and the usual obstacles in conducting research are no less important for the small size of this segment of the child population.
Elizabeth Marquardt, of Family Scholars Blog, expanded on the comparison of same-sex households and step-family households.
She said:
http://familyscholars.org/index.php?p=4714#comments
I suggest that advocates for SSM look at the data on stepfamilies, which shows that overall on social indicators children of stepfamilies look much more like children of single parents than those with their own married parents.
[...]
The stepfamily model does not perfectly fit the SS couple model – I didn’t claim it does. But there are an awful lot of parallels. And while the research is limited on SS parenting, the data is ample on stepfamilies and worse outcomes for children. It’s worth taking seriously.
Jag, as you know your degree in psychology is irrelevant to what we are talking about. I only mention my anthropology studies to emphasize that I know something about homosexual behaviors in varied cultures world-wide and there is only an extremely small cohort of homosexuals involved in “parenting,” and it’s almost entirely in the industrially developed countries. My focus has been on the empty statement made by the AAA that any reasonable can see through. Neither nor Jayhuck nor other homosexual-behavior-supporters (homosexualists) on this blog wish to address SUBSTANCE or the lack thereof in the AAA statement.
It’s just silly of you to state, “You may want to rethink proclaiming yourself more apt in your studies than an entire organization.” I have proclaimed nothing of the sort. You’re setting up a straw man to attack. I just ask you to read and understand what they have stated. Reread what both they and I have stated. It doesn’t matter what you read if you can’t understand it.
If for political purposes you just refuse to understand what the AAA has actually said then we just leave it there and let the objective reader determine the facts.
Peace.
My statement at 78881 should read, “that any reasonable person can see through. Neither you nor Jayhuck . . . .”
I’m commenting between numerous tasks.
Homosexualists? – LOL
Jose,
If for political purposes you just refuse to understand what the AAA has actually said then we just leave it there and let the objective reader determine the facts.
I’m with you on this one. Let’s hope that objective readers will indeed look at the facts!
Ken, it looks like your assumption, imagining a downward “trend” (78533) in the strength of marriage support through state amendments is simply false. The data simply do not support your dream of universal homosexual “marriage” in the US in 50 years. to predict into that distance is simply silly.
This does not mean that through increased spending and intense propaganda efforts, taking greater control of the educational systems, etc., on the part of homosexualists to subvert the meaning of marriage the masses could not become confused enough to imagine that a same-sex marriage could actually, objectively be formed. (Worse things have happened through political propaganda efforts.) But as you and others have noted, yours is a powerful effort to redefine marriage so as to merge non-marriage with marriage. But there are millions of people working to prevent this conflation. I’ve offered you the option of working for simply calling the homosexual relationship what it is, the Homosexual Relationship, and work, if you wish, to convince society to provide such a relationship special benefits and privileges.
See http://opine-editorials.blogspot.com/2008/01/yes-vote-by-state-1993-to-2006.html and http://opine-editorials.blogspot.com/2008/01/share-of-yes-vote-on-state-marriage.html for the Marriage Amendment voting facts.
We’ll see how it looks when the next round of state marriage amendments comes around. Keep your eyes open.
Jayhuck, the term “homosexualist” is not derogatory. It simply refers to those that support, endorse and promote homosexual behaviors, generally working towards altering the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples. Most are not even homosexuals. This is nothing to laugh too loudly about. Aren’t you a homosexualist?
Peace.
A few questions in regard to all the studies (on SS-raised children vs. OS-raised children).
1. Do those conducting the studies on these children not have to get the permission of the parents (OS or SS) before testing or interviewing them?
2. If so, how can it be determined whether or not the children of those who approved of their being tested did or did not differ significantly from the children of those who did not?
(In other words, is there anything preventing a huge sample bias here due to the likelihood that those SS couples who believe “their” children are doing well are allowing them to be tested, while those who suspect that “their” children are NOT doing so well simply refuse?)
3. What is the percentage of SS couples who do not allow “their” kids to be tested?
4. Do the SS “parents” of the children tested know what the tests are trying to measure when they are asked about their participation?
5. If not told what the tests are measuring, do the SS “parents” at least suspect what may be being measured? How can we be sure they do not?
6. How can we rule out whether or not the children are aware of, or at least suspect, what is being measured?
7. How can we really rule out that the children thus have been “coached”, or that they are not answering questions in a way which they believe will reflect most positively on them and their “parents”?
(I know, professionals say they have been able to determine these things for decades, but I’ve known, read, or heard of too many cases of people, even kids, being able to fool psychologists in interviews).
As I see it, unless children raised by SS couples are tested without the consent of their “parents”, which is not allowed, and perhaps even then unless only children unaware of why their “parents” are different are tested, there will be a huge built-in sample bias, and other factors which skewer these studies.
I was about to close this thread until R.K. came along with these excellent questions regarding the research. When time permits, I will check out how these sources of bias were addressed. This is more what I am looking for in this thread.
Jose, do you view Christianist as a derogatory term?
Jose –
This is a bit of an error…
“I know something about homosexual behaviors in varied cultures world-wide and there is only an extremely small cohort of homosexuals involved in “parenting,” and it’s almost entirely in the industrially developed countries.”
Nationally, about 25% of gay couples are raising children and have them in their homes
[http://media.www.dailytexanonline.com/media/storage/paper410/news/2006/10/16/StateLocal/Several.Texas.Cities.Leading.U.s.In.Gay.Couples.Raising.Children-2351219.shtml
I’m just looking at the United States on that one, but of those households, it is further claimed by the Harvard Law Review (since some households have more children than others..) that there are between 8-10 million children living in same-sex households (as of 1990). It
doesn’t seem a like a “small cohort” to me.
You say “let the objective reader determine the facts..” well Jose…here they are.
It may be a bit of a segue, but I think it worth noting:
The nations of the world that offer some recognition to same sex couples:
United Kingdom
Ireland (in draft form – will pass in 2008)
Spain (marriage)
France
Denmark
Sweden
Finland
Greenland
Iceland
Germany
Netherlands (marriage)
Belgium (marriage)
Luxembourg
Czech Republic
Switzerland
Slovenia
Croatia
Hungary
Portugal
South Africa
New Zealand
Australia (in draft form – will pass in 2008)
Canada (marriage)
Mexico City
Coahuila State, Mexico
Uruguay
Buenos Ares City, Argentina
Rio Negro Province, Argentina
Rio Grande Du Sol State, Brazil
Falkland Islands
Colombia
and of course ten states in the US
And here’s a selection of some of those who do not
Iraq
Iran
North Korea
The People’s Republic of China
Mongolia
Uzbekistan
India
Russia
Cambodia
Libya
Rwanda
Saudi Arabia
Jamaica
(There are some that are a bit transitional where it looks like recognition will be offered soon but is not currently in place. Those would include Italy, Austria, and some South American countries.)
I can’t help but notice a different world view between those nations that offer recognition of gay couples and those that do not and are not expected to in the near future. At some point you have to look at the company you keep, dontcha think?
R.K. –
Those are interesting questions, but shouldn’t they be asked of the researchers themseves? It very well may be that the researchers were able to foresee these problems and did address them – I would assume that a good researcher would have done this. It seems these are the types of questions any good researcher would have asked and tried to deal with BEFORE they conducted the study. I’m not sure anyone on this blog could answer those questions.
Ann,
You stated that same-sex parenting should be dealt with as an equal rights issue rather than as a moral issue.
First of all, equal rights are individual and do not extend to infringe upon the rights of another individual, ie a child. Parenting is not a right, something owed by the state or society to an individual. If that be so, one could say he has a right to be a parent even if he were not able to be one. We are free to do many things, like flying a balloon or taking painting classes, but we don’t need to be awarded a special right for that.
In the case of parenting, any operating rights are derived from individual rights and from family rights: if two people have a child, the child has some rights and the parents too have some claims over that child; together they also form an entity that can claim some rights. However, the essential point is that the state is not under a legal obligation to do everything in its power to help people fulfill their “equal right to be a parent”. In parenting, it’s not about individuals’ rights to check another square of personal fulfilment, rather it is a question of rights arising from a state of facts — two people have a child and the state must ensure that the new situation is legally accounted for to cover all partakers’ rights, both individually and as a whole.
I think we can agree that the best nurturing place a child can have is their natural parents’ home (the unfit parents case does not invalidate the fact that if you look for the as-close-to-the-original state you can only find it in such a setting). So the first recommended solution for children from foster care institutions would be families that resemble most their original type of family, the one that had a mother and a father. Why do I consider this to be the recommended first option? Is it because I consider same-sex partners to be second-class contenders or less fit for parenting? No, but since we can agree that the natural state of having a child is by the union of a man and a woman, as you kindly pointed above, it would be optimal for the child to join such a state as if it were his or her original family.
If no such option exists, it goes without saying that any type of adoption by a fit foster parent or union of two adults can provide a better environment for growing up than the state institution.
My point about resting on moral option was that in very critical issues like this one, where it is not just about gays, or equal rights, or values, or cultural wars, but where the very principle of how life is being welcomed in society and how future individuals are being called to become humans in certain families, we cannot let science to be our guide. Science can help a great deal here, it can supply us with significant facts and brilliant insight, but it can never replace our faculty of making a choice, of judging right from wrong, good from bad. This is what prevails in such critical issues before making any decision, not just debatable data or legal talk. We can do that too, but it’s only to clarify means and possible avenues, not to replace choices. If present science cannot fully detect how gender relations in a family can shape the child’s future gender perceptions and relations in subtle ways that will also have a bearing on society and their subsequent children, we should not assume we are in a priviledged speech situation over our next generations.
I am sorry if you find this view to be ‘coercive and offensive’ and ‘ineffective in garnering support’, but consider the fact that I am not involved in this debate politically, since I do not speak from within your society. My position reflects my own thinking, which is not connected to any American party or movement, be they conservative or not. This also accounts for the differences in the way we relate in this dialogue, which I reckon it unfolds in a way that is typical for the US cultural environment and quite different from my own background. I still ponder whether I should emulate the American style of participating in a debate or remain truthful to my own European one.
JAG, the participation rate in same-sex householding in the USA is very low. Note that same-sex householding is a much broader category than registered partnerships, in whatever form. The low participation rate is found in the countries in your list, including those that have imposed SSM.
Based on the Census 2000 and on related sources, including the HRC’s analysis of Census 2000, about 90% of the adult homosexual population does not reside in same-sex households. About 97% of the adult homosexual population does not reside in such households with children.
In Canada the SSM rate of resident adult homosexual is very, very, very low even in places like Toronto where the SSM campaign has claimed there was a pent-up demand in an urban population they claimed was 15% homosexual.
–> between 8-10 million children living in same-sex households (as of 1990).
That’s bogus. There are far, very far, fewer same-sex households than that in the 1990 Census. Same with the 2000 Census.
In 2000, there were about 72 million children in the Census count. There were only 170,000 same-sex households with children. Let’s round that up to 200,000 households.
Now, if we are to believe your source, there are at least 8 million children living in 200,000 same-sex households.
Do the math. Do your really want to claim that there are 40 children per same-sex household? I’d hope not.
A realistic estimate: About 415 thousand children live in same-sex households.
This also aligns with the census data from other countries such as Canada, Holland, and the Scandinavian region.
Most homosexual adults (89%) do not reside in same-sex households; and most homosexual adults (97%) do not live in such households with children.
According to the pro-SSM statement of the American Academy of Pediatrics, “The majority of these children were born in the context of a heterosexual relationship.”
See the AAP statement
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/118/1/349
See: F. Rottles on calling in-tact marriages a “sham”
http://opine-editorials.blogspot.com/2007/03/f-rottles-on-calling-in-tact-marriages.html
Quote
And same-sex householding is strikingly more common among formerly married homosexual people than among never married homosexual people.
Lesbians are fewer in number than gay men and yet there are almost as many lesbian coupled households as there are gay coupled households. The imbalance shows up with lesbian mothers versus gay fathers. But across the board the indications are that previously married homosexual men and women are more likely to form same-sex households than are never married homosexual people.
Unquote
* * *
See the links in my previous comments.
Also see: Same-sex Householders in US Population
http://opine-editorials.blogspot.com/2006/12/same-sex-householders-in-us-population.html
Also see: Where are the children?
http://opine-editorials.blogspot.com/2005/06/where-are-children.html
Sources — Census and related databases and analyses.
Evan,
I think we can agree that the best nurturing place a child can have is their natural parents’ home (the unfit parents case does not invalidate the fact that if you look for the as-close-to-the-original state you can only find it in such a setting).
No Evan, we cannot agree on this. I think if you had read Pathia’s comments about her own terrible parents earlier on this thread, you would have to concede that. And research doesn’t support your claim that the best nurturing place is a child’s natural home.
And we can absolutely use science as a guide in these matters. If we don’t we are left to every single person’s individual understanding of right and wrong and left to the mercies of people’s biases and prejudices. THAT, would be wrong.
I am sorry if you find this view to be ‘coercive and offensive’ and ‘ineffective in garnering support’, but consider the fact that I am not involved in this debate politically, since I do not speak from within your society.
Evan,
Please know that I respect and admire and appreciate everything you have written – you are not the one or ones I was referring to when I made that statement – I was referring to those on this blog who are condescending and sarcastic and coercive in their remarks when anyone challenged them in an intelligent way regarding same sex marriage. This method does not garner support for them or what they are presenting, rather just the opposite. Few are going to listen to someone abrasive and / or offensive – no matter what they are saying.
I respect you and everything you have said and appreciate all you have written and the way you have written it. I’m going to read the rest of your post now before commenting more – just wanted to get this out now
Evan,
Especially since it is those same biases, fears and prejudices that sometimes shape our understanding of what is right or what is wrong.
We are free to believe what we want to believe, but beliefs are not always objective nor are they always the same as truth or fact.
Why do I consider this to be the recommended first option? Is it because I consider same-sex partners to be second-class contenders or less fit for parenting? No, but since we can agree that the natural state of having a child is by the union of a man and a woman, as you kindly pointed above, it would be optimal for the child to join such a state as if it were his or her original family.
You confuse the CREATION of life with being able to care for and SUSTAIN it. They can be mutually exclusive processes.
If no such option exists, it goes without saying that any type of adoption by a fit foster parent or union of two adults can provide a better environment for growing up than the state institution.
I don’t remember you answering the question I posed earlier which was: When would there NEVER be an option for opposite-sex parents to adopt? Isn’t that option ALWAYS there? That, of course, doesn’t mean they will adopt or want to adopt.
And what about children from sperm banks? Or children from gay fathers who had married and then come out later in life? And what about children who have been fathered by gay men with a surrogate mother.
Good grief, if someone really cares about kids they would agree that the BEST place for them is in a loving, caring, healthy and supportive home. Instead of letting individual ideologies decide what is best for children, why don’t we use science to help us figure that out – and not let our own personal beliefs get in the way.
Evan, your comment about returning to the principles of justice (i.e. to each his due). There is something owed the child. Children are the most vulnerable creatues on this planet. Since humankind is highly social, and thus dependant, the very concept of justice demands that we encourage, and expect, that the man and woman who created a child will stick around to be both that child’s “biological parents” and tht child’s “social parents”.
This is entailed in Responsible Procreation.
* * *
–> it goes without saying that any type of adoption by a fit foster parent or union of two adults can provide a better environment for growing up than the state institution.
I think that orphanages have gotten a bad rap. There have been fantastic institutions of which alumnae can attest. Today we have smaller group homes for children but these, too, can be remarkable.
* * *
Legal guardianship is another viable alternative. Gay identity politics is not the savoir of the children in fostercare. Yet that sort of politics is only too eager to harm children who are available for adoption — how? — by forcing agencies, such as Catholic Charities, out of adoption services. It has happened in Massachusetts, the UK, and Canada.
I agree with Evan about prioritizing married couples as the best pool for prospective adoptors. Attitude surveys indicte that there are far more such couples intersted in adoption than there are children available for adoption in our fostercare system. We need to remove the obstacles that hinder such adoptions.
I do not think that “same-sex parenting” is the solution for children in need of adoption. As Evan said, we ought to seek first to approximate the intact home of mother-father-child.
However, there are exceptions, which should remain as exceptions, where a child might best be adopted by the same-sex sexual partner of his or her parent. But that goes back to the pre-requisite of parental relinquishment.
And it goes back to the fact that most children, by far, who live in same-sex households have migrated from the previously procreative relationships of their moms and dads. It is just that either mom or dad is not resident in the current household. These children have the protections that society affords children of seperation, divorce, and estrangement. And since most of them have both mom and dad, adoption is not in the cards. But even where it is, for a tiny minority of children, the scenario is much more like a step-family than an intact married household.
Third party procreation, via fertility clinics, is a whole different matter. In these cases, the adults cannot be acting for the sake of the children. The children have not been created. And they wouldn’t be created — or rather manufactured — unless the adults make certain decisions. Such as deliberately denying the to-be-conceived child either a mother or a father at home.
The principles of justice do not accord with such actions.
Third party procreation is enabled through “donors” (i.e. the suppliers of sperm and ova who pre-emptively relinquish parental status in a way that could not be done, say, in a bar or on a one-night stand). This instrumentalizes sex and gametes.
The mechanics, the technical methods used in clinics, originated with the compassionate response to married couples who experienced infertility — an actual disability.
But consider that about 10% of married couples experience fertility problems. Almost all of them resolve these through changes in their behavior and do not resort to novel technical interventions. Of these minority of married couples, maybe 1% have used IVF. And of those users, 90% or so do not use “donor” sperm and/or ova. For them, these technical interventions help couples overcome infertility problems.
Now, sure, we have single people — men and women — using these methods in combintion with sperm and ova supplies. Some of these adults are gay identified. Same-sex scenarios are not infertile because they are never fertile in the first place. So there is no disability at issue.
The issue is adult choice to segregate fatherhood from motherhood. This is how “same-sex parenting” via these novel methods becomes very like divorce and or parental loss, in terms of the experience of the children.
But the people who encourage “same-sex parenting” use third party procreation as a sort of affirmative action plan for homosexual adults. This is unjust.
It also demonstrates how single parenting is similar to “same-sex parenting” in that a non-fertile scenario is equated, by its advocates, to the fertile scenario, and, by extension, the nonmarital to the marital scenario.
But this practice points outside of marriage and it points away from the social science consensus that the optimum setting for children is the intact married home — barring high-conflict situations.
Where there is conflict in a marrige the societal expectation should be that the adults lower the conflict, resolve their problems, and see to live-up to their commitment to Responsible Procreation. Because procreation is not just some mechanical means to attain children. Responsible Procreation begins even before the attempt to conceive is first acted upon; it extends beyond the bounds of the social institution marriage, such is the strong fundamental influence of the institution in a strong marriage culture. Responsible Procreation encompasses raising and educting children — by the pre-governmental and organic unit of mother-father-child.
–> research doesn’t support your claim that the best nurturing place is a child’s natural home
The social science consensus says otherwise. In fact, the nature of humankind says otherwise.
Evan,
I was in such a hurry to get my initial response out to you that I am not sure if I made the clarification needed. My comment that you noted was for those who present the case for same gender marriage and do it in an abraisive and condescending way – that turns people off and will not command the respect they are seeking. The way the issue is presented will either garner support or diminish it.
Chairm,
Such as deliberately denying the to-be-conceived child either a mother or a father at home.
Again, as in all your posts, your opinions about what is best for children do not seem to coincide with fact.
Chairm,
What social science has shown us is that opposite-sex parents can often be unfit parents and that same-sex parents can be excellent.
The issue is adult choice to segregate fatherhood from motherhood. This is how “same-sex parenting” via these novel methods becomes very like divorce and or parental loss, in terms of the experience of the children.
Please show me research that shows that same-sex parenting is like divorce or parental loss in terms of a child’s experience. The research we’ve been discussing doesn’t support that.
Chairm,
You, like Evan, confuse the act of Procreation with being able to parent. They are not always found together.
jayhuck – I think we get it – you do not think being raised by opposite sex married parents is necessarily better than same-sex parents. But statements that the opposite view is not fact is not supportable either. We do not that research finds very good outcomes on average with intact opposite sex parents as compared with other arrangements studied. It is an open question whether two intact same-sex parents will do as well on average.
Regarding the questions raised by RK, one needs to review the study to address those questions. I have not had time as yet, but these issues should be addressed by the authors.
Warren, I have no problem with a term like “Christianist.” Do you define it as “one who supports, endorses and promotes Christianity or Christ?” Sounds like a beautiful term to me.
It is used as a derogatory term by Andrew Sullivan and others – Christian sounds better to me.
But statements that the opposite view is not fact is not supportable either. We do not that research finds very good outcomes on average with intact opposite sex parents as compared with other arrangements studied. It is an open question whether two intact same-sex parents will do as well on average.
It was my understanding that the research shows that same-sex parents DO AS WELL AS opposite sex parents.
You say “we get it” to me Warren, as if what I’m saying shouldn’t be repeated, but you don’t say the same thing to Chairm, Jose or Evan who keep repeating their views over and over as well.
Regarding the questions raised by RK, one needs to review the study to address those questions. I have not had time as yet, but these issues should be addressed by the authors.
Exactly Warren – If that is not what I said, that is definitely what I meant to say. It makes me wonder for what purpose RK posed such questions on this blog when we can’t answer them.
Warren,
I also hope that in future studies, researchers take into account whether the parents are married or not, and whether being married aids in raising happy and healthy children. These sorts of things should be taken into account. If gay parents are raising happy and healthy kids more often without the benefits of marriage, that might lead to even greater support for same-sex parents.
My guess is that same-sex parents, on average, operate at a much greater disadvantage than opposite-sex parents.
Warren,
It was my impression that on another thread you mentioned that Meezan and Rauch had investigated the available studies and found that while the evidence supporting same-sex parents was inconclusive, there was no support for the claims of same-sex parenting inferiority.
I propose that this information that you posted is an adequate basis for Jayhuck’s comments refuting the completely unsubstantianted claims made by others.
I also noted that Jayhuck was repeatedly refuting the same baseless assertions made over and over and over and over. I’m not quite sure why he is the one chastized.
Jayhuck has SOME basis for his comments – even a basis that appears to have been the heart of one of your earlier posts. It seems to me that those with whom he was disagreeing have nothing other than bias – or at least no research that was presented.
Jaychuck, the sentence from my comment that you quoted comes from the following intended context.
I said:
–> Third party procreation, via fertility clinics, is a whole different matter. In these cases, the adults cannot be acting for the sake of the children. The children have not been created. And they wouldn’t be created — or rather manufactured — unless the adults make certain decisions. Such as deliberately denying the to-be-conceived child either a mother or a father at home.
* * *
That is factual and not mere opinion.
Except for the last sentence, this applies to the married couple who’d use sperm and/or ova supplied by clinics. About one-third of IVF users who consume “donated” sperm actually mix the husband’s sperm with the 3rd party’s sperm. (In fact, about half of infertile couples already have children and so they experience subfertility.) So only a tiny minority do what each and every one-sex scenario goes to directly.
And that direct route taken by the single indivdual or the single-sex twosome (or moresome) does not begin with the experience of infertility. No disability prompts the decision-making. No child exists so, unlike adoption, there is no pre-existing child in need. The key decision is to create a child and to segregate fatherhood from motherhood.
Sure, there are lesbian couples who have used a known sperm “donor” and have sought to include that man in the lives of their children. But this is a very watered-down form of integration of fatherhood with motherhood. It resembles divorce in that the father is nonresident; it resembles step-family formation in that the both-sexed bond is not intact. But it has its unique features, as well, such as the decision to raise a child, from infancy, in a home in which there will be no father.
Earlier I mentioned the case in Ontario where a family court granted co-equal parental status to three adults. This is unprecedented. It was prompted when a “donor” refused to relinquish his status as the child’s father; the mother resided with another woman who, as the 3rd adult, agreed with the mother and the father than the father’s parental status was “essential” (their word) to the child’s well-being. The three adults also wanted the mother’s female partner to added to the child’s list of two parents — on fully equal terms.
The court said that if emphasized the same-sex union, the presence of the mother and the father, and decided that the father should not have to relinquish his status to enable the 2nd woman to adopt the child and to step-in as the child’s second parent. Instead, the court agreed that the father was “essential” and, based on the agreement of the three adults, that the 3rd adult might as well be considered a full parent, as well. So the mother did not have to relinquish either.
I’ve already pointed out that most of the children in same-sex households, by far, already have both moms and dads. So the Ontario court’s reasoning could apply to most of that segment of the child population.
It could also apply to the rest where 3rd party procreation is undertaken.
And these scenario do indeed resemble the situation of children of divorce whose parents are not together. It also resembles step-family formation where the child has another adult — a quasi-parent — attached to her two parents.
There is a Pennsylvania case along the same lines as the Ontario case, except that the child’s mother and father married and the mother left her female partner. The dispute was about the 2nd woman’s parental status. She, too, got full co-equal status and was treated as if she was a parent whose marriage had busted up. But the father had always retained his parental status throughout the child’s life; the mother, too, did not relinquish her parental status.
So whether you look at these scenarios with rose-tinted glasses, or through the lens of family dissolution, they are far from the standard to which other family forms have been compared and found to fall short.
These are jerry-rigged situations. Something is broken. In the case of 3rd party procreation, where fatherhood is segregated from motherhood in a same-sex household, the mom-dad bond is deliberately broken as a necessary step in creating the child. In the case of the Ontario lesbian couple mentioned above there was no bond except through the child; the father and mother were not committed to Responsible Procreation.
The second woman, because of her same-sex union with the child’s mother, gained parental status — as an additional adult to the mom-dad combination.
The father is also married and has several children with his wife. The lesbians are not presumed the parents of those children; his wife is not presumed the 3rd mother of the child residing with the lesbian couple.
But the usual claim of advocates of “same-sex parenting” is that the addition of an adult can only enhance the child’s well-being. So add another 3rd adult as in the Ontario case. Why not add a 4th — the father’s wife? She already is the mother of that child’s half-siblings.
But put aside the fact that the father is married. Suppose he was gay and had formed a same-sex relationship. Now, could not his male partner become included in the life of his child as a second father? Surely he’d be positioned to do so provided that the four adults agreed that he was “essential”.
The thread that runs through Responsible Procreation (and the principles that underlay our understanding and our standards for protecting the intact family) can be pulled, yanked, cut, and patched, in many different ways as a result of the push for normalizing “same-sex parenting” in our society.
When this is done for the sake of gay identity politics, as it has been discussed here, it will open the floodgates for distortions of family law that will inevitably apply to non-gay scenarios as well.
So, instead of the lesbian union noted above, just combine the far more common scenario whereby a husband and wife have children, divorce, and each remarries. Step-families have not led courts to create tripartite, or quadrupled, co-equal parental status. But maybe that is where the devolution of parenting is being pushed.
These are inferior forms of making homes for children.
Chairm,
Read my above comments as an answer to your most recent post
Well, how does Andrew Sullivan define it? Words can have multiple meanings. I’ve given my clean and clear, non-derogatory definition for “homosexualist.” Some homosexuals just don’t like to be called homosexuals and have invented the term “gay” which I refuse to use because it’s a misleading euphemism.
Another term homosexualists have invented is “homophobia,” which we all know was fabricated to insult those who do not approve of their behaviors. It accuses them of being mentally ill, suffering from a phobia, because they consider such behaviors as perverted or as the Catholic Catechism states, “depraved,” or as the Bible says, “an abomination.” So, as they were struggling to remove homosexuality as a mental disorder from DSM they were busy branding as “homophobic” those recognize homosexuality as a serious problem.
Now, this really has a lot to do with the question of parenting because if indicators of well-being or unwholesome-being are removed from the start from studies on parenting, then the studies are certainly skewed. If for instance stealing is removed as an indicator (which it is not presently in this society) because the parents are thieves and they live in a neighborhood of thieves, then we could say that the child has adjusted beautifully and grown up to be a thoroughly “normal” unconscionable thief. Neither the child nor the parents nor his environment nor the researchers find anything wrong with his social adjustment. Stealing is just not a problem. The problem is getting caught by people who don’t like thieves.
Let’s bring it closer to our situation. Let’s say he is raised in a polyamorous home and has six or eight “parents” who enjoy engaging in all sorts of sexual activities, sado-masochism, you name it, and the boy or girl grows up to be a perfectly “normal” polyamorous adult. He supports himself and does not engage in any criminal activity and gets good grades in school. Well, the research will show that the “parents” have done an excellent job raising that child because certain indicators of serious problems have been removed. Stop calling the problem a problem and puff, no more problem. It’s prestidigitation. It’s contemporary psychology. I’m Ok, you’re Ok. It’s a problem only if you think it’s a problem. Polyamorous relationships are not a problem, getting AIDS is a problem.
Or take the research on intergenerational intimacy. No problem. The kids love it and the adults love it. It’s only those bigots who say it’s a problem.
Promiscuity is not a problem. Getting pregnant is a problem and abortion is the family planning solution. No problems and everyone is “free” and having lots of “fun.” It’s those rigid Christianists who can’t think outside of the box who have the problem and want to give everyone a guilt trip. They want to consider indicators of well-being that we reject. Their guilt trip is so terrible that they even want us to imagine that we not only risk objective moral well-being but salvation itself.
We need to stop focusing on cerebral rationalizations and get to the heart of the problems.
**************
I do believe that we should address issues and not fall into personal attacks. I will try not to even mention names but focus on the substance of arguments and opinions.
Peace.
Chairm,
These are inferior forms of making homes for children.
I’ll keep repeating myself as many times as I need to – suggesting that same-sex parents are somehow inferior is your OPINION, not fact!
Jose,
I do believe that we should address issues and not fall into personal attacks.
I think we should deal with facts and not with personal beliefs, ideologies, prejudices or biases.
Timothy, Meezan and Rauch were quoted by Warren:
–>We believe that both sides of that argument are right, at least partially. The evidence provides a great deal of information about the particular families and children studied, and the children now number more than a thousand. They are doing about as well as children normally do. What the evidence does not provide, because of the methodological difficulties we outlined, is much knowledge about whether those studied are typical or atypical of the general population of children raised by gay and lesbian couples. We do not know how the normative child in a same-sex family compares with other children. To make the same point a little differently, those who say the evidence shows that many same-sex parents do an excellent job of parenting are right. Those who say the evidence falls short of showing that same-sex parenting is equivalent to opposite-sex parenting (or better, or worse) are also right.
* * *
That does not say that, “while the evidence supporting same-sex parents was inconclusive, there was no support for the claims of same-sex parenting inferiority.”
The social scientific consensus is that the intact marital family is the standard by which all other forms of families are compared. The other forms — including those which resemble “same-sex parenting” in important ways — fall short.
If those who would like to encourage “same-sex parenting” have more than ideology to stand on, then, point to the empirical evidence.
Note that Meezan and Rauch sorted through a pile of studies and found only 4 which, in the aggregate, studied just 1000 children.
That’s paltry compared with the extensive research on children in homes other than those featuring “same-sex parenting”. The consensus is strong. The dissent comes mainly from family deconstructionists, themselves advocates of knocking marriage from its special status. The dissent has now added many who endorse the SSM merger with marriage.
As Warren observed, correctly in my opinion,
–> Same-sex adoption of special needs kids should be distinguished from use of reproductive technologies to create kids without hope of knowing a parent of one gender.
In my comments I’ve distinguished those scenarios, based on much more than mere opinion. These are not baseless assertions.
There is something common to both second-parent adoption and the 3rd party procreation. The pre-requisite of parental relinquishment. That is the inverse of the gold standard: the intact marital family.
That pre-requisite is intrinsic to any double-dad or double-mom scenariio — with or without a same-sex union being registered with the government.
The presumption of paternity cannot be based on whatever shared sexual behavior that two men or two women might choose to partake in. Perhaps a different kind of presumption might be concoted based on intent to segregate fatherhood from motherhood. But that would be anti-marriage and would not start with justice for the children.
The share of children in same-sex households who were attained by alternative means, such as adoption and 3rd party procreation and even fosterparenting, is small. Probably 85% or more of these children came from the procreative rrelationships their parents had prior to the formation of their same-sex households. Gary Gates of the Urban Institute estimates that abougt 4% of the children were adopted (and second-parent adoption would pad that estimate). The rest, about 1-2% were attained via 3rd party procreation methods.
So, to do the randomized longitudinal studies of that 1-2% would be very difficult. The study of the 4% adopted might be easier but the comparison with other family forms must take into account the various ways that children become available for adoption.
Meanwhile, the vast majority of these children reside in homes with “blended” features that resemble step-families and single-parent scenarios (including those in which mom is helped by grandmom to raise the children).
There are also the differences that arise from cohabitation that is registered with the government, cohabitation that is not registered, and the type of arrangement in which same-sex partners maintain two residents. Throw into all of this the very common history of current same-sex householders to have been previously married, and you need to take into account factors common to divorce.
We have lots of data on divorce, cohabitation, adoption, blended households, and so forth. Ask yourself: which of these alternative forms of family formation resembles the typical “same-sex parenting” scenario less than the intact marital home? And how significant a difference is it, in terms of the criteria being measured in studies of children?
Chairm,
The social scientific consensus is that the intact marital family is the standard by which all other forms of families are compared. The other forms — including those which resemble “same-sex parenting” in important ways — fall short.
They do not fall short Chairm. Same-sex parents parent as well as straight parents.
Something interesting that the evidence doesn’t show, is how same-sex parents who obviously operate at a disadvantage are able to do such an excellent job of parenting.
Jayhuck, are you making that claim based on comparing 1) intact marital homes with 2) same-sex parenting where children have been attained via ARTs/IVF (i.e. 3rd party procreation methods)?
If not, please state the apples to apples comparison you can point to when making your assertions about the empirical data. Please be precise.
Please state the number of children who have participated in the particular studies of outcomes for children that you depend on when making your repetitive assertion.
* * *
Here are social scientific reviews of the available studies:
Lerner and Nagai, “No Basis: What the Studies Don’t Tell Us About Same-Sex Parenting” (Marriage Law Project, 2001) http://marriagelaw.cua.edu/secure/No%20Basis.pdf
Stacy and Biblarz, “(How) does the Sexual Orientation of Parents Matter?” American Sociological Review 66:159-183 (Apr. 2001)
Wardle, “The Potential Impact of Homosexual Parenting on Children,” University of Illinois Law Review 1997:833-919
* * *
Also see this table –
Children in Same Sex Households (2000)
http://opine-editorials.blogspot.com/2008/01/children-in-same-sex-households-2000.html
* * *
From The Marriage Law Project:
QUOTE
Robert Lerner and Althea Nagai have simply evaluated the studies themselves. They have asked: What are their hypotheses? How do they set about to prove them? What do they conclude? In formulating, executing and analyzing their research, do these studies get it right?
The results are not pretty. Lerner and Nagai identified 49 empirical studies on the subject of same-sex parenting.* After going through them all, inch-by-inch, they found … nothing.
[...]
Take the time to see what Lerner and Nagai discovered about the same-sex parenting studies. These authors know a better or worse study when they see it, and they tell it like it is. Whether we like it or not, we are all in their debt.
UNQUOTE
Also see:
Do Mothers and Fathers Matter?
http://www.marriagedebate.com/pdf/MothersFathersMatter.pdf
Demand for Same-Sex Marriage: Evidence from the United States, Canada, and Europe
http://www.marriagedebate.com/pdf/imapp.demandforssm.pdf
–> how same-sex parents who obviously operate at a disadvantage are able to do such an excellent job of parenting
You just raised the bar on the previous request for the studies you depend on.
Excellence. And “obviously”. And “disadvantaged”. I don’t think you know the subject material if these are the descriptors you use in the context of this discussion.
Perhaps you imagine that “same-sex parenting” brushes aside the similarities with step-parenting and so forth. Or perhaps you think that the exception is the rule based on your own bias.
But here, you need to be more precise in matching the available evidence to your newly qualified assertions. This is now the burden you have assumed.
And, no, we are not talking about the bogus “8-10 million” children claimed upthread to be living in same-sex households.
And, no, we are not talking about studies done for lesbian clients in divorce and custody cases. Nor those which compared lone lesbian mothers with lone non-lesbian mothers.
And, no, focussing just on female same-sex parenting won’t suffice, based on what you have now claimed. You need to point to solid studies of male same-sex parenting.
And, no, we are not talking about reviews and overviews of studies (such are not original studies) nor the political commentary and endorsements issued in statements by this or that organization.
And, no, we are not talking about phantom studies that have somehow been missed by Meezan and Rauch and the rest of us. If you know of studies that have not been on our lists, then, please cite them so we can add them to our lists.
No need to keep repeating your wishful assertions. Your message has been received. Now you need to back it up.
You said you depend on science. Demonstrate that you do. These studies need to pass basic criteria that also match the significance and type of assertion you have made here.
And, to be fair, you also need to point to studies of children raised by same-sex parenting from infancy to adulthood. We have data on children raised by married couples and other forms of families. But not sufficient evidence to support your claims about same-sex parenting which more closely resemble the kinds of family types and scenarios that do indeed experience a shortfall.
And if you have been reading carefully, no one here is claiming that each and every married home is “excellent” and obviously so. And no onehere has been claiming that all nonmarital scenarios are catestrophic. We are discussing family types and situations and optimal results for children.
Perhaps you have misunderstood the basic subject itself.
Jayhuck: “Exactly Warren – If that is not what I said, that is definitely what I meant to say. It makes me wonder for what purpose RK posed such questions on this blog when we can’t answer them.”
Quite obviously, that the answers to these questions relate to whether or not these studies are valid, and whether or not they tell us anything at all.
Your answer to the questions is essentially, “Well, we here have no way of knowing or finding out, so let’s just assume that the authors of the studies dealt with these questions, and that the studies are valid”. Sorry, not good enough. With a little digging, people can find out about these things. Yes, ideally the researchers could tell us themselves. But there have also been those who have looked at these studies and found them flawed. (for example, Robert Lerner and AltheaNagai; also Steven Nock).
In short, without answers to the questions I asked, and others, we have no basis for just dogmatically saying, “studies prove” and using that to dismiss everyone else.
RK –
Quite obviously, that the answers to these questions relate to whether or not these studies are valid, and whether or not they tell us anything at all.
Of course they do RK – but ANY researcher worth their salt would have thought about these and done their best to deal with them. They seem like pretty basic and obvious questions a researcher would deal with.
Chairm,
Perhaps you have misunderstood the basic subject itself.
No, I just know that the studies have shown us that same-sex parents parent as well as opposite-sex parents.
RK –
We also have absolutely NO EVIDENCE that the researchers DIDN’T deal with these items. If what you are looking for is really answers, why aren’t you looking this stuff up yourself?
RK,
With a little digging, people can find out about these things.
Really? Then why aren’t you “digging”?
RK –
You can’t just come up with questions and assume they HAVEN’T been dealt with either. The fact that you RAISE these questions doesn’t in ANY way invalidate the research – which is what you seemed to be doing, IMHO.
I know, professionals say they have been able to determine these things for decades, but I’ve known, read, or heard of too many cases of people, even kids, being able to fool psychologists in interviews
Are you suggesting you are somehow aware of this and the researcher’s aren’t?
No study will ever be perfect RK – but if the researchers have truly done the best they can to get rid of bias and error then I see no reason to accept their findings as valid. I have yet to see any reasonable criticism of these studies anywhere.
If your requirement is 100% error-free studies, NO study that has ever been done will be valid.
Correction – I see no reason NOT to accept their studies as valid
– LOL
Jayhawk,
Do you, thus, see any reason not to accept Professor Nock’s or Professor Lerner’s and Nagai’s criticisms of the studies as valid? Or are you unaware of them? Are you also unaware that pro-SSM Professor Judith Stacey herself agreed that the studies can not be regarded as conclusive?
Evan,
Thanks for your patience in my response to #78943. I have gotten this thread about same sex marriage and the other thread about same sex parenting co-mingled at times. My comment on this particular thread regarding same sex marriage is based on my belief that if same gender couples or unmarried couples are to argue the merits of equality regarding receiving the same rights as married couples, then it should be left there – as an equal rights issue, not a marriage issue. My experience has been that it is argued more as a moral issue demanding acceptance. That argument has not worked, nor will it ever work. My additional comments regarding how it is presented by those who endorse it can either garner support for their thoughtful and intelligent presentation or reduce support if it is presented in a coercive manner. No matter what the advocates have to say, if people don’t like the manner in which they say it, then they won’t listen and will more than likely keep their original position on it. I do agree with you and Jose and Chairm point by point and appreciate all their comments on this.
Regarding the parenting aspect of same gender couples or unmarried couples and various other familial settings – please read my other posts on this thread and the ones I have written on the same sex parenting thread – we concur almost point by point.
Big problem for the studies—because researchers are not allowed to study children without their parents’ permission, the question of whether or not the subjects who were permitted to participate differ from those that were not permitted to participate is valid. (You can’t determine anything about the latter if you are not allowed to study them, obviously). Also, because it is likely that same-sex couples raising kids always suspect that that may be the purpose of the study being requested (regardless of what the researchers tell them), the decision of whether or not to allow their children’s participation is likely to be influenced by whether or not they feel that their participation will produce more favorable results for the study. How to control for this problem without just randomly choosing kids and studying them without the consent of the “parents” is probably insurmountable.
Evan,
I’ve added a few words to this sentence for claification.
My experience has been that it is argued by gay activists more as a moral issue demanding acceptance
Jawhuck,
http://www.marriagewatch.org/publications/nobasis.pdf
http://www.marriagewatch.org/Law/cases/Canada/ontario/halpern/aff_nock.pdf
As for the argument that we should always assume that psychologists conducting studies are able to control for variants which may invalidate their studies, and that THEIR bias does not enter, well, read the aricle linked to below. For many years, people cited John Money’s research to argue that it had been proven that gender identity was just a social construct:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer
RK –
I am aware of some of them. I know that some of the criticisms they have made were made BEFORE some of the most recent studies had been published.
Steven Nock, professor of sociology at the University of Virginia, has also reviewed the full body of literature and arrives at the same conclusion. When asked what we can conclude from the current literature, Nock cautioned, “I don’t think we can draw any conclusions in either direction. These studies, because of sample and methodological problems, just don’t give us enough information to make any pronouncements. The literature is inconclusive.”5 Nock says the only conclusion we can draw is that better research is desperately needed.
I would agree – and I think Meezan and Rauch would agree too – No one has said these studies are conclusive, what we’ve said is something Timothy stated earlier which is: “It was my impression that on another thread you mentioned that Meezan and Rauch had investigated the available studies and found that while the evidence supporting same-sex parents was inconclusive, there was no support for the claims of same-sex parenting inferiority.”
Other questions I would ask of your professors are, what are their own biases? Are there any criticisms of their criticisms? How fair are they really? Have they truly criticized ALL the research or just part of it?
It appears that the bulk of criticism is coming from individuals and organizations promoting their own antigay views – I’ve seen these “critics” used by NARTH and Focus on the Family who have terrible reputations when it comes to honesty and ethics in research.
Other criticisms of Lerner and Nagai:
“The research by Lerner and Nagai was not independent nor peer reviewed.
Lerner and Nagai were paid by a US-based anti-gay lobby to come up with the findings Mr Barich cites. The group even admits to requesting the so-called “research”.
Another “study” by Lerner found African Americans were at least three times more likely to be acquitted of rape than whites. He reached this doctored conclusion from a mere five jury trials involving black defendants.
The “cash for research” by Lerner and Nagai has been dismissed by real academics as junk science.”
I also keep finding articles that say these professors have reviewed over 49 articles on same-sex parenting – I can’t find any evidence that there are in fact 49 studies that have been done on this subject.
Another good article that goes more in depth talking about Lerner and Nagai:
Read the article here
Another great article titled: “The arguments against Gay Parenting and Why They are Wrong” – which also discusses criticisms leveled by the “professors”
Read the Article Here
One quote I’d like to end on for the time being from the article to which I posted a link directly above:
“The anti-gay activists’ characterization of the body of research on gay parents as flawed is baseless. More to the point, they fail to produce any studies supporting the contrary position that lesbians and gay men are less capable parents or that their children are disadvantaged in any way. Those who do claim to have such studies are referring to the work of Paul Cameron. As discussed in Chapter 4, Cameron, who runs the anti-gay advocacy organization, the Family Research Institute, has been thoroughly discredited in his profession for distorting the data on homosexuality.”
RK –
When organizations like NARTH, Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council are supporting research data (such as that put forward by Nagai et al), that should raise more than just a few eyebrows. ALL these organizations have proven to have real problems with truth, honesty and ethics. Focus on the Family itself has been criticized by researcher’s themselves for distorting research data.
I am going to close this thread soon because it is not serving well the purpose for which I started it. RK raised some excellent points about sampling which I will pursue in another thread soon. Mentioning RK does not mean I am ignoring the contributions of anyone. I appreciate the effort all of you have put into this thread. Let me close with a repeat of Meezan and Rauch’s statement about the current research:
We believe that both sides of that argument are right, at least partially. The evidence provides a great deal of information about the particular families and children studied, and the children now number more than a thousand. They are doing about as well as children normally do. What the evidence does not provide, because of the methodological difficulties we outlined, is much knowledge about whether those studied are typical or atypical of the general population of children raised by gay and lesbian couples. We do not know how the normative child in a same-sex family compares with other children. To make the same point a little differently, those who say the evidence shows that many same-sex parents do an excellent job of parenting are right. Those who say the evidence falls short of showing that same-sex parenting is equivalent to opposite-sex parenting (or better, or worse) are also right.
This seems clear. Many efforts to re-state this stretch the statement in ideological directions. Watch for part 3.
Ann,
You lifted a rock from my heart.
Jayhuck,
It’s not for lack of time or application that I did not review the literature on same-sex parenting here, but because I think it cannot tell us much right now. RK voiced some of my concerns with how much can science really resolve this issue in a way that will ensure adequately informed decision.
I don’t think anyone doubts here the general parenting skills of fit same-sex partners who can probably score just as good as any other adults at taking care of children. I don’t think that inherently fit same-sex partners have some serious deficiencies that make them unfit for parenting. No, the problem is whether we are able to tell what effects this experience will have on children’s sense of and attitudes towards gender. This is what underlies this discussion, but we are shy to address it openly.
So, let’s think for the best of children and disconnect our agenda from the back of the mind. If it could be demonstrated that same-sex parenting has measurable effects on a child’s growing up gendered environment would you say same-sex parents have a bias towards raising adopted children in a sex-atypical way? If that were true, do you think it is legitimate to have a child’s life choices nudged in a certain gender direction?
Chairm,
I don’t know about the quality of orphanage care in the US, but I doubt that professional attention can provide the same kind of loving or dedicated care that parents can provide. It’s one thing to have a schedule for doing that and quite another to be a child’s north, south, east and west in the world.
I agree with your stance on Responsible Reproduction and your posts gave me some food for thought, especially on the artificial conception issue. I am of the same opinion that children should not be fabricated for parenting needs. Your posts show a certain rigour in legal issues, do you have a background in that area?
Warren,
The evidence falls short of other things, including dealing the very real fact that gay parents might be operating at a disadvantage.
Evan,
So, let’s think for the best of children and disconnect our agenda from the back of the mind.
Yes, Evan, let’s definitely do this. Let’s begin dealing with facts and not with personal beliefs.
I remember a show several years back about the children of same sex couples -I think Linda Elerbee was the host and it involved comments from the children. That might be a source to consider. If I remember correctly, and I am unsure about this, I believe Rosie O’Donnell’s little boy was on it and he said he really wished he had a dad. Either he said it or Rosie said he said it – I really cannot remember but it was not what they obviously thought he would say.
Also, when Anna Nicole Smith passed away her clothes designer and his partner and daughter were being interviewed. When the reporter asked the 14 year old girl what her relationship was with Anna Nicole Smith, she said well, since I don’t have a mom and always wanted one, she (ANS) was like a mom to me. Again, this was not what they thought she would say and it caused obvious discomfort. For reference, I believe it was on Access Hollywood or Entertainment Tonight.
Please note – my above comments about the tv shows are meant to only provide reference points about what children say both in a controlled environment and an uncontrolled one – both made similar comments.
Ann,
I’m sure there are some kids that might say this – The typical mom and dad family is everywhere. The question I would ask is WHY did the little kid say this? Did he say this because he sees it so much on TV? Kids often want things they don’t have, so I’m not sure how important such a statement really is. A good friend of mine’s son who is struggling with gender identity issues said that he wants to be a girl.
Chairm said in post 78764:
Regarding votes on state amendments that was mentioned above, here are a couple of charts that show the share of YES votes in the various states.
I don’t know where you got the data for those charts but it doesn’t match the election data I got from CNN (and a couple of other sources).
For example your chart claims in 2006 the % voting in favor of gay marriage bans was 67%, From the CNN Election result data, it was only 62.7%. Even excluding the AZ data (which I can see no valid reason for you to do that) the result would only be about 64.2% And averaging in the 2005 results (Texas and Kansas) still only gets you to 65%.
Additionally, of all the data on votes I could find prior to 2003(2002,2000, 1998), the lowest margin was 67% to 33% (Nevada 2002). All of the others were by margins greater than 67%. So I’m curious how you arrived at your 63% figure.
I stand by my original statement that polling and vote data indicate a trend towards greater support for same-sex marriage.
If anyone wants any links to the data I used, I’ll post them. And for the record Chairm I am asking for the data you used to create those charts.
Warren,
I’m wondering why you are creating a separate thread with RK’s questions when we can’t answer them?
Jayhuck,
I certainly am not questioning the quality of their home life nor calling into question the character of either set of parents. My point was to just provide a reference both in a controlled and uncontrolled environment – one with prompting and the other one without any prompting – they both made similar comments. As to your question about why they would say such things – I personally believe it is innate in every boy and every girl to want a role model who they can relate to on a same gender level, who they can look up and aspire to, who they can be proud of, who they can learn from in ways the opposite sex can never fully provide, and who they can love and understand in a way that will satiate any longing they would otherwise have had without this parent. The same goes for children who want an opposite gender parent in the home with their same gender parent. I believe it is an innate desire of each child to have a loving mother and father co-parenting them. What they see on tv and how they see other people live can certainly lend to their desires. Children have curiosities about that which they don’t have or understand and will find ways to satiate that curiosity through their imagination – sometimes that is healthy and sometimes those thoughts can turn unhealthy. I truly believe social ills start when a child is deprived of two opposite gender parents, especially if it is done just to accommodate a parent or parents without consideration as to how it will affect the child.
Ken, There may be discrepancies with news reports of preliminary or incomplete counts of votes from secondary sources.
I went to the primary sources — the official count per state government. The percentages were derived from the vote tallies as published by each state’s election division.
Later this week I’ll post a table of the absolute numbers per state. The data has been triple checked and you could go to the primary sources to check again, if you doubt the accuracy after seeing the new table.
Arizona is an outlier to the question that you and Jose were discussing. The vote result was a virtual deadheat so would not impact the aggregate percentage of Yes votes in any given period of time. In Arizona the No win was not an endorsement of the SSM merger as per your contention and Jose’s reply to it.
* * *
Jayjuck you have now scaled back you recent assertion.
Now you say: “the studies have shown us that same-sex parents parent as well as opposite-sex parents”
Earlier you said: “same-sex parents who obviously operate at a disadvantage are able to do such an excellent job of parenting”
I emphasized your inflated claims by highlighting your addition of “obviously”, “excellent”, and “disadvantage”. You have not cited the evidence in studies that match your embellished assertions.
Meanwhile we have loads of evidence on intact marital homes versus the alternatives, including those in which fatherhood and motherhood have been segregated or where the integration has been watered down.
The “same-sex parenting” scenarios are not easily studied due to the problems arising from the issues I have already mentioned. This is basic stuff.
I also reminded you that even in the 4 studies that Meevan and Rauch identified, only 1000 children were studied. But you have to also consider that this is a tiny share of a very tiny child propulation. And within it there are many different scenarios.
You cannot reasonably here state that all such scenarios are absolutely equally “excellent”, equally “disadvantaged”, and that your assertions are “obviously” evident in the available data.
The social scientific consensus on the marital home makes no such opposite claim about all both-sexed scenarios (see the step-families and the unwed cohabitations and the adoptive families) nor about all “heterosexual” parent scenarios (the full range of single parenting including where a mother raises her kids with the kids’ grandparent or grandparents).
In short, you are making a blanket claim for “homosexuals” versus “heterosexuals” and framing it as “same-sex parenting” versus all other kinds of parenting.
I noted that lesbian couples who have attained co-equal parental status in three-way parenting situations have agreed with courts that the father’s status and involvement is essential — their word and their argument. You seem to disagree for unstated reasons.
* * *
Evan, I’ve been involved in adoption and issues related to family law regarding children for many decades. I’ve some training in the law but I am not a pracising lawyer nor a legal scholar. The devolution of family law has been rapid and a mixed bag — but mostly the devolution has erred on the side of adults rather than children.
“Last year the executive board of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) joined the controversy over gay marriage by issuing a statement that declared
‘The results of more than a century of anthropological research on households, kinship relationships, and families, across cultures and through time, provide no support whatsoever for the view that either civilization or viable social orders depend upon marriage as an exclusively heterosexual institution.’
Ideologically, I suppose this is what one has come to expect from the AAA: a reflexive affirmation of leftist pieties. But still, it is surprising to see a professional organization propound such a breathless lie. As an AAA member for some 25 years, I am embarrassed.”
Peter Wood, Professor of Anthropology, Boston University and provost elect at King’s College.
See complete article at http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/wood200504260810.asp
Ann,
I truly believe social ills start when a child is deprived of two opposite gender parents, especially if it is done just to accommodate a parent or parents without consideration as to how it will affect the child.
I respectfully disagree. The studies so far show no harm from same-sex parenting.
Jose,
The National Review? – The same magazine that published the works of Stan Kurtz on Civil Unions in Scandinavian countries – whose work has been shown to be both misleading and biased?
To say that the National Review isn’t biased or doesn’t reflexively support right-wing politics is probably and understatement.
Oh wow – It wasn’t just the National Review that showed support for Stan Kurtz, It was Peter Wood himself.
R.K.
Your questions certainly put into question the validity of the studies that have been conducted. If we can formulate a study with efficacy and integrity, what age groups would be targeted and at what intervals?
–> the works of Stan Kurtz on Civil Unions in Scandinavian countries – whose work has been shown to be both misleading and biased?
You must be thinking of a differnt Stan Kurtz.
That or you depend on misrepresentations of Stanley Kurtz’s writings about marriage in Scandianvia (and The Netherlands).
His work remains unrefuted by his openly biased critics.
http://opine-editorials.blogspot.com/search/label/Stanley%20Kurtz
http://defendmarriageresources.blogspot.com/2007/02/stanley-kurtz-work.html
Ann –
“If I remember correctly, and I am unsure about this, I believe Rosie O’Donnell’s little boy was on it and he said he really wished he had a dad.”
Well, if you asked that same boy, I bet he really wished he had a new toy race car, a boat, etc….they may also wish they had a different mom or different dad, etc… Kids will say a lot of things if you ask them, and if you don’t…
Research supports that kids are typically not reliable reporters, witnesses, easily led, etc…check out the research. My friend’s child recently told me that she had a dolphin in her back pocket after a trip to Seaworld.
Ann, I am surprised at the hard line you have taken on this subject despite the lack of research that supports your perspective (that hetero couples are superior parents due to child outcome). Also, it would seem that you would then be against same-sex adoption, IVF, marriage, etc. I am quite surprised by this.
You have a right to your opinion, although it seems contrary to your usual openness.
Jag,
I do not consider it a hard line at all and I do have a very open mind. My thoughts have been shaped by personal experiences and observations with others’ experiences and life experiences in general – I have no study, research, or science to refer you to, only what I know that I know that I know through life experiences with a great variety of people and circumstances. It has been an ongoing priority in my life to be involved with children from all backgrounds and circumstances and that has told me more than any research has ever done. I’m glad that the research you and others have referred to is positive and I am grateful for those children who have been in jeopardy to now have a loving home with caring parents but it will not change my mind about what is ultimately best for a child based on what I have seen and experienced. I also think when a child says they really wish they had a mom or a dad it is not the same thing as asking for a toy. One desire they will outgrow – the other one they will probably never outgrow.
Jayhawk,
“I would agree – and I think Meezan and Rauch would agree too – No one has said these studies are conclusive”
Yet you repeatedly refer to them as if to imply that they ARE conclusive.
“I’m wondering why you are creating a separate thread with RK’s questions when we can’t answer them?”
Forgive me, Jayhawk, but it sounds as if you are afraid that somebody can, and that if so, you don’t want to know. Wouldn’t you like to know? There have to be some who have studied the details of these studies more than you or I, and who may be able to post here.
In any case, the criticism of all studies, whether they be of the numerous studies you cite, or of criticisms of the studies such as Nock’s, or Lerner and Nagai’s, is in the DETAILS of how they conducted the research, not in their associations. Associations may cast suspicion, but they alone do not invalidate, just as expertise alone does not validate.
Ann,
“If we can formulate a study with efficacy and integrity, what age groups would be targeted and at what intervals?”
It’s a very good question, and I’m not the one to answer it, but for starters I would say that to guarantee that the sample of kids raised by SS couples be truly representative, some method would have to be devised whereby the couples would have absolutely no idea or suspicion of what the study was measuring, and whereby the children also had no suspicion about it as well.
Also, adult children as well as teenage children would need to be studied, and far more than just whether or not they were homosexual or heterosexual, or whether they were “well adjusted”. (An example of things I’d want to determine: how secure were they in their friendships, that is, that their friendships were just friendships; was their sense of the difference between friendship and romantic attraction distinct or blurred; if opposite-sex attracted/married did they regard the same-sex friends of their spouse/romantic interest as threats; if heterosexual to what extent did they go or feel they had to go to “prove” their heterosexuality; just to name a few….not that all these issues may not seep into the general population as well if marriage is neuterized).
RK –
I never said they were conclusive – but they are the best we have to date. And yes, I do want to know – but if we can’t answer the questions ourselves, why post them? Why not go to the source???? That is just confusing to me.
Associations may cast suspicion, but they alone do not invalidate, just as expertise alone does not validate.
Absolutely RK – and I believe I left behind links that do criticize the details.
And these particular associations RK – with their bad track record of misusing and abusing data, should cast a great deal of suspicion.
Meanwhile – gay people are currently parenting. They will continue to parent and their numbers will most likely increase. Are we doing anything to help them be the best parents they can be? If we care about kids, shouldn’t we do something to help them?
RK – I’m interested in getting answers to your questions.
but for starters I would say that to guarantee that the sample of kids raised by SS couples be truly representative, some method would have to be devised whereby the couples would have absolutely no idea or suspicion of what the study was measuring
First, we don’t know that this wasn’t already done, right? Second, I’m curious about whether this is even possible – from an ethical standpoint I mean. And I’m assuming the same would have to be true for those kids of Opposite-Sex parents as well.
I know I’ve said this before, but I’m fairly certain we can make a good argument that same-sex parents operate at a disadvantage from societal acceptance (schools, neighborhoods, etc) to not being able to marry in various places – I wonder how these things factor in, how much, and how well gay people are able rise above them.
R.K.–
“Jayhawk” would also be a great screen-name but our guy is Jayhuck.
Thanks Eddy
As it happens, my name is actually a play on that word though – since I live in the same town as that college mascot!
Chairm said in post 79136:
Ken, There may be discrepancies with news reports of preliminary or incomplete counts of votes from secondary sources.
I rechecked the 2006 results from the individual state data. the percentage voting “Yes” on banning same-sex marriage went from 62.6% (CNN data) to 61.9% (State data). I think the CNN data is accurate enough, however, I’ll await your data to see.
Arizona is an outlier to the question that you and Jose were discussing. The vote result was a virtual deadheat so would not impact the aggregate percentage of Yes votes in any given period of time. In Arizona the No win was not an endorsement of the SSM merger as per your contention and Jose’s reply to it.
My contention was that the percentage of people voting to support same-sex marriage bans was decreasing. The AZ data shows that it decreased enough to cause the amendment to fail. Of course it is relevant, and has a significant impact. Enough to move the percentage of all people voting to support bans on same-sex marriage in 2006 from 64% (w/o AZ results) to 62% (with AZ results).
“Absolutely RK – and I believe I left behind links that do criticize the details.”
No, you didn’t. The links you posted were almost entirely ad hominem criticisms. Or guilt-by-association.
Jayhuck,
I apologize for getting your name wrong.
Also, adult children as well as teenage children would need to be studied
R.K.,
Thank you for your response. I think this would be imperative and tell a more accurate story than just studying children.
RK –
Something else that I found interesting while I was reading online, is the fact that ALL 49 studies reviewed by Lerner and Nagai came to the same basic conclusion. Its one thing to accept Lerner and Nagai’s statements that all the studies are flawed, but something else to realize that they all came to the same conclusion. Wouldn’t you expect some of them, even if flawed, to have come to a different conclusion?
RK –
One last thing. There have been a few studies that have come out AFTER the publication of Lerner and Nagai’s “No Basis: What the studies don’t tell us about same-sex parenting” review. These are some of the studies we we’ve been discussing on this blog. They may be out there somewhere, but I cannot find evidence that these researchers have commented on the most recent studies.
RK and others,
I guess I wasn’t done after all. I most likely won’t be able to blog tomorrow, and wanted to post this abstract I came across today. The abstract looks very interesting. I may end up purchasing the article later:
“Abstract
Sexuality Research and Social Policy: Journal of NSRC
September 2007, Vol. 4, No. 3, Pages 100–114
Posted online on September 17, 2007.
(doi:10.1525/srsp.2007.4.3.100)
Scientific Positivism and the Controversy Over Research Into Lesbian and Gay Parenting
Aleardo Zanghellini?
Researchers in developmental psychology have concluded that no significant differences exist between children raised by lesbians and gay men and those raised by heterosexuals. Although these scientific studies have attracted criticism, scrutiny has shown that they are actually epistemologically sounder than the body of knowledge that the critics themselves have developed in order to mount their case against lesbian and gay parenting. Nevertheless, to the extent that they are limited by a number of problematic assumptions structuring the paradigm within which they have been conducted, the parenting studies are not a body of maximally objective knowledge. The same assumptions have also tended to inform legal discourse on lesbian and gay parenting. A paradigm shift away from questions about the goodness or badness of lesbian and gay parenting is overdue, both in sexuality-focused psychological research on child development and in the law’s approach to nonheterosexual parenting”
BTW – that abstract is from the University of California Press – Caliber
Ken,
Re the charts of amendment votes. My charts are accurate. Your comment uses an example that is also accurate. But my charts cover more than what you have emphasized.
* * *
Each state has its own amendment and its own vote on that amendment. One of my charts shows the share of Yes votes per state.
It also shows the average Yes Share in a give period of time. That is, each state produced a Yes Share. Take together, these shares produce an average during a given period of time.
That chart does not roll all votes together into a single composite tally, as you have done. Such a tally would not produce an average Yes Share.
* * *
The other chart displays a comparison of 1) the average Yes Share (of all states holding marriage votes during a given period of time) with 2) the share of yes votes, in the aggregate, for all state votes, during the same period of time.
It is the latter that you have described in your comment.
For example, pre-2003 average was 67%; the aggregate Yes vote was 63%. You pointed to the aggregate Yes vote.
The 2004 average was 71%; the aggregate Yes vote was 67%. The 2005-06 average was 67%; the aggregate yes vote was 68%. The 1993-2006 average was 69%; the aggregate yes vote was 67%.
* * *
Amendments, as you know, are state-by-state affairs which necessarily effect one state constitution (or one state’s statutory law) at-a-time. It is legitimate to compare the yes share on a state-by-state basis.
http://opine-editorials.blogspot.com/2008/01/yes-vote-by-state-1993-to-2006.html
It is also valid to compare the aggregate yes vote from one period of time to another period of time.
http://opine-editorials.blogspot.com/2008/01/share-of-yes-vote-on-state-marriage.html
However, none of these votes were a test of pro-SSM support since some significant portion of voters who voted No did so while also supporting the status quo in statutory law which affirms marriage as the union of a man and a woman.
Ken said: “I stand by my original statement that polling and vote data indicate a trend towards greater support for same-sex marriage.”
Pre-vote polling data has routinely underestimated the support for marriage measures. In other words, the trend you detect is misleading because it has already proven to have overestimated 1) opposition to marriage measurs, 2) opposition to the man-woman criterion of marraige, and 3) support for SSM.
To back up your claim about the trend, you’d need to show me the data. I know that the SSM campaign routinely misrepresents survey opinon results, especially during amendmetn campaigns, but this is partly based on surveys of adults rather than of likely voters. The measure of pro-SSM support, such as it is, is often inflated by the way the question is asked. That’s why we hold campaigns and votes rather than decide through opinion surveys.
* * *
–> The AZ data shows that it decreased enough to cause the amendment to fail.
The SSM campaign in Arizona did not highlight gay marriage. It did not build a consensus in favor of SSM. So your contention is undermined by the specific campaign that worked to defeat the amendment. There is super majority support for the man-woman criterion of marriage there. The No campaign misrepresented the amendment as taking away benefits to elderly couples who have formed nonmarital arrangements. That made the difference among the elderly segment of the electorate — a segment in Arizona which routinely responds to opinon surveys in favor of the man-woman criterion.
* * *
If readers would like to see the actual numbers upon which my charts are based, that’s okay. Check at Opine Editorials, if this thread is closed soon by Warren. You’ll find the data is accurately reported.
RK – No problems with the name
There were some arguments against Lerner and Nagai on the Equality Maryland page:
Read the article here
Also, Ken, the opinion surveys in Arizona showed the No side lose ground by the time the votes were counted.
In 2005 the point spread favor the No side by 26 points. In August 2006 that was cut to 13 points. The actual vote saw the point spread reduced to 4 points in favor of the No side.
A statewide Cronkite-Eight Poll of 962 registered voters who indicated that they cast a ballot on the Arizona marriage measure suggested that only 8% of the No support was actually based on support for SSM.
Of those surveyed, 60% said they voted against the amendment. The actual result in the vote count was about 52% against the amendment. That indicates, again, the overestimation of the anti-amendment side.
However, let’s take it at face value. Of the 60% who said they voted No, 30% said they did so because they thought that the amendment would deny benefits to unmarried domestic partners.
This illustrates the impact of the No campaign. The No side did not grow support for SSM but rather succeded by misleading about 15% of the people who voted. (i.e. 30% x 52% No share of votes actually cast = 15% of votes cast).
Most of that 15% would have supported the marriage amendment based on support for the man-woman criterion. Add that 15% to the Yes vote share and you get almost 64% (i.e. 15% + 48% = 64%).
That is pretty much were opinion surveys had put disagreement with SSM in February 2004 which found that 62% believed that “marriage should only be allowed between a man and a woman or should people of the same sex be allowed to marry.” Only 28% disagreed with that statement. And since actual votes on amendments do not include a “no opinion” option, the point spread in this survey was 38 points (i.e. 69% – 31% = 38%).
So the post-vote survey suggested that a tiny share (8%) of the people who voted No on the amendment actually supported SSM.
And, a comparison with the pre-vote survey conducted around the time that the amendment was introduced, suggests that the pro-SSM opinion was almost 5 times higher in 2004 than in the vote of 2006.
Also, comparing the surveys pre and post vote, it does indeed appear that the consensus in favor of the man-woman criterion, and disagreement with SSM, has remained in the range of 62% to 69%.
http://www.azpbs.org/horizon/poll/2006/11-21-06.htm
–> Wouldn’t you expect some of them, even if flawed, to have come to a different conclusion?
Jayhuck, given the flaws in the studies, I think you question rather undermines your primary assertion about the evidence on “same-sex parenting”.
Also, the issue is not one of sexual orientation but of integration of fatherhood and motherhood. That is central to the comparison of marital homes with the various nonmarital alternatives. It is central, also, in comparison of low and high conflict marital homes. It is a very big stretch to wipe that aside when comparing marital homes with scenarios in which either mom or dad is excluded in favor of segregating motherhood and fatherhood.
Suppose we put aside all concern about empirical data and just say, for argument sake, that the evidence today is neutral, at best.
When you are not making “obviously excellent” type claims here, you cutback to a claim of no significant difference for outcomes for children.
So forget the empirical evidence. What is the core of the relationship type that you have in mind when you talk of SSM?
I ask because it remains unclear how SSM could bestow parental status in the way that the nature of marriage does.
I ask becaue if society must treat all one-sex arrangements as if they were both-sexed, and vice-versa, then, based on your assertions about children, we must treat all unions of husband and wife as if they lacked either husbands or wives.
That tosses away the marriage presumption of paternity for all couples who would have marital status in an SSM-merger with marriage recognition.
This means treating segregation of fatherhood and motherhood as superior to the integration of fatherhood and motherhood. Afterall, if you want to abolish something, and replace it with something else, the substitution is supposedly superior.
So, what is that substitution and how is it superior vis-a-vis children?
Jayhuck,
“Wouldn’t you expect some of them, even if flawed, to have come to a different conclusion?”
Depends on whether or not that different conclusion was really an option at all for those who conducted the studies.
Actually, if in reality there was no significant difference, I’d expect a lot more variance in the studies if a significant difference favorable to heterosexuals were really an option at all. Were this truly the case, I’d expect then, by the law of averages and by the variations in studies, to see some showing a significant difference in FAVOR of SS parenting as well as some showing a significant difference in favor of OS parenting. The huge number of studies merely saying “no significant difference” is itself suspicious. It hints that they are probably looking for the null hypothesis, which is a bad way to conduct studies.
If you think there’s no politics in the psychiatric community, or that it does not affect studies (or that it only affects the other side), I think you have a lot to learn about the real world.
And so far none of the links you have given have attacked Lerner and Negai on the details. (And none have refuted Nock). They have merely quoted very general statements of others or essentially argued that the studies are no worse than other studies in the discipline. Now, if attacked on the specific criticisms, then they’d have a better case.
RK –
I think I’m pretty familiar with the “world” RK
When it comes to science though, I’ll err on the non-religious side any day, even though I am a person of faith. Religion and science have never made good bedfellows, and history shows us that religion likes to meddle in science to suit its own ends.
You still haven’t responded to the fact that since Lerner and Nagai’s book was published in 2001 (I think their review was done even earlier) there have been other same-sex parenting studies and I can find no criticism by the researcher’s of these.
I think if you re-read some of the criticisms of Lerner and Nagai, you will see that, at the very least, they show inconsistencies with what these “researchers” say is bad and then do themselves. Criticizing their methods and even their alleged hypocrisy, to me, IS criticizing the details
I think that abstract I quoted above is also very interesting
Marty,
We don’t know for certain if the “flaws” that have been mentioned are indeed fatal or if ALL the studies have really been flawed – All we know for certain is that some researchers were paid by a very conservative organization to find fault with certain studies.
the issue is not one of sexual orientation but of integration of fatherhood and motherhood
Chairm,
This is so important – I have been inadequately trying to convey this in my posts and appreciate you saying it in such a simple and understandable way. Sometimes no matter what the topic is, the blog is used for advocacy instead of discussion even when there is no need to.
–> there have been other same-sex parenting studies
Please list these and precisely connect them to the type of assertions you have made in your advocacy of “same sex parenting”.
Ann, thanks for that.
The presence of children, including adopted children, does not bestow marital status. On the other hand, enactment of SSM, or of civil union, would not establish the legal child-parent relationship that adoption would establish.
Likewise with married step-moms and step-dads. Unless adoption is brought up to support the establishment of more than two legal parents per child, the subtopic of adopted children does not really serve t