equality blooms with spring, pt. II

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You're not willing to "let" it happen, except when you're ready.


And the best part, nathan? You never answered my question. :)

Actually, I did -- I said it didn't apply, at least to the issue I raised. Am I obligated to answer the question "why doesn't George play football" in a conversation about eating meat?

In any event, your situation reinforces my point about gender. For most people, the process of getting married revolves around making babies (at the very least creating the possibility), which -- for most -- is somewhat impossible biologically speaking without someone from the opposite sex. (When IVF is $15K a pop and adoption easily costs that much, most people still make them the old-fashioned way.) But even when you take reproduction out of the equation, the differences between the sexes still clearly matter and are recognized as having value, in and of themselves. So in a society which still legally defines marriage as one man/one woman, your marriage is still valid.
 
what is it about his gender -- and gender only -- that would be impossible to be filled by two women?

Besides his role in conception? (Which is kind of the starting point for fatherhood, for most people.)

Or his role in effectively raising sons, per the statistics I cited?

Or his role in modeling opposite-gender relationships for both sons and daughters?

Just off the top of my head.

Irvine, Martha, and the rest -- do you believe that there are differences between genders?

Maybe we should start there.
 
Or his role in effectively raising sons, per the statistics I cited?


Or his role in modeling opposite-gender relationships for both sons and daughters?

Just off the top of my head.

These statistics you keep referring to are practically meaningless for a couple of reasons.

1) You keep mentioning psychology and sociology as though you know what you're talking about. But one of the first things taught in either discipline is that correlation does not equal causation. I've given you examples of things that make those correlations spurious, and yet you keep insisting on using them.

I've read studies - not magazine articles, not dry statistics on a chart open to interpretation, but actual peer reviewed studies and academic papers that say that the key thing in helping a child through family break up is to have at least one parent consistently there for the child, and involved, even if that means setting aside their newfound ability to date and socialize for a while. The child needs a parent to be present and plugged in to parenting rather than building a new social life for themselves. Couple the failure to do this with the economics of most situations, and you have a situation much more complex than just having an absent father.

2) Say for the sake of argument that your "statistics" are completely accurate and that is the sole cause of all the harm to children that you say it is. It still doesn't matter. As long as there are allowed to be heterosexual parents of one gender heading families, then the same should be extended to homosexual families. Unless you're prepared to go to every single parent family and remove their kids, you have no argument here.
 
There are plenty of kids who have fathers physically present in the home but are still essentially fatherless-due to their fathers being emotionally unavailable or just not present in any way for other reasons-due to work obligations and/or choices of their own making. Just checked out in many cases, leaving the woman to essentially be a single parent. Where does that fall in these statistics? Is it just father there, check? I'd rather have any gay or lesbian parent than a straight one who is checked out. It's about the kind of parent, not the gender or sexual orientation.
 
Besides his role in conception? (Which is kind of the starting point for fatherhood, for most people.)


this is not parenting.


Or his role in effectively raising sons, per the statistics I cited?


per the statistics? i'll just point you back to VP's posts. again, nothing exclusive to gender -- just that fathers are important to their families, especially to poor families. we agree that straight men have a lot of work to do.


Or his role in modeling opposite-gender relationships for both sons and daughters?

is this something mom can't do?


Just off the top of my head.

keep digging.



Irvine, Martha, and the rest -- do you believe that there are differences between genders?


of course. but i see no gender difference that makes successful marriages or parenting impossible for same-sex couples, nor do i believe that gender difference confers a superior status onto a heterosexual couple. many of the practical differences in gender -- the ability to actually support a family, women as actual property -- have been done away with for decades by feminism and straight people themselves.

and that's what the original questions were about. this pie-in-the-sky, fast-and-loose discussions of "sociology" -- which you bring up in vague terms and when convenient -- as well as the clear misreading of both Obama (a politician) and that Newsweek article draws your sidestepping conclusions -- that have yet to answer the actual questions, which is whether or not a gender difference is absolutely indispensable from marriage and family -- into a rather suspicious light.
 
but i see no gender difference that makes successful marriages or parenting impossible for same-sex couples, nor do i believe that gender difference confers a superior status onto a heterosexual couple. many of the practical differences in gender -- the ability to actually support a family, women as actual property -- have been done away with for decades by feminism and straight people themselves.

I agree. And men certainly have no inherent inability to love and parent their children as well as women can. Straight or gay. The only inequalities exist in their socialization or in their own minds or their own choices and in outdated societal norms.

The physical act of conceiving a baby is NOT the beginning of fatherhood. The beginning of fatherhood is love and commitment to be a father. How it happens is irrelevant-and certainly irrelevant to that love and commitment. That act can happen and then gee, there's no love or commitment there. Or the act doesn't happen, well not in the "traditional" way (I hate to use that word but just for lack of a better one off the top of my head...and w/ the technology we have what is that now anyway? Technology doesn't make it any less valid.). But yet there can be the best love and commitment imaginable.
 
More statistics of the effectiveness of fatherlessness:

In a longitudinal study of 1,197 fourth-grade students, researchers observed "greater levels of aggression in boys from mother-only households than from boys in mother-father households."
Source: N. Vaden-Kierman, N. Ialongo, J. Pearson, and S. Kellam, "Household Family Structure and Children's Aggressive Behavior: A Longitudinal Study of Urban Elementary School Children," Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology 23, no. 5 (1995).

"A family structure index - a composite index based on the annual rate of children involved in divorce and the percentage of families with children present that are female-headed - is a strong predictor of suicide among young adult and adolescent white males." Source: Patricia L. McCall and Kenneth C. Land, "Trends in White Male Adolescent, Young-Adult, and Elderly Suicide: Are Ther Common Underlying Structural Factors?" Social Science Research 23 (1994): 57-81

"Fatherless children are at dramatically greater risk of suicide." Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Center for Health Statistics, Survey on Child Health, Washington, D.C., 1993.

"...the absence of the father in the home affects significantly the behavior of adolescents and results in the greater use of alcohol and marijuana."
Source: Deane Scott Berman, "Risk Factors Leading to Adolescent Substance Abuse," Adolescence 30 (1995)

"Father hunger" often afflicts boys age one and two whose fathers are suddenly and permanently absent. Sleep disturbances, such as trouble falling asleep, nightmares, and night terrors frequently begin within one to three months after the father leaves home.
Source: Alfred A. Messer, "Boys Father Hunger: The Missing Father Syndrome," Medical Aspects of Human Sexuality, January 1989.

"The economic consequences of a [father's] absence are often accompanied by psychological consequences, which include higher-than-average levels of youth suicide, low intellectual and education performance, and higher-than-average rates of mental illness, violence and drug use."
Source: William Galston, Elaine Kamarck. Progressive Policy Institute. 1993

Kids who exhibited violent behavior at school were 11 times as likely not to live with their fathers and six times as likely to have parents who were not married. Boys from families with absent fathers are at higher risk for violent behavior than boys from intact families.
Source: J.L. Sheline (et al.), "Risk Factors...", American Journal of Public Health, No. 84. 1994

Fatherless children -- kids living in homes without a stepfather or without contact with their biological father -- are twice as likely to drop out of school.
Source: U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, Survey on Child Health. (1993)

63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes.
[U. S. D.H.H.S. Bureau of the Census]

90% of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes.
85% of all children that exhibit behavioral disorders come from fatherless homes.
[Center for Disease Control]

80% of rapists motivated with displaced anger come from fatherless homes.
[Criminal Justice and Behavior, Vol. 14 p. 403-26]

71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes.
[National Principals Association Report on the State of High Schools]

70% of juveniles in state operated institutions come from fatherless homes
[U.S. Dept. of Justice, Special Report, Sept., 1988]

85% of all youths sitting in prisons grew up in a fatherless home.
[Fulton County Georgia Jail Populations and Texas Dept. of Corrections, 1992]

85% of all children that exhibit behavioral disorders come from fatherless homes (Source: Center for Disease Control)
90% of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes (Source: U.S. D.H.H.S., Bureau of the Census)
71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes (Source: National Principals Association Report on the State of High Schools.)
75% of all adolescent patients in chemical abuse centers come from fatherless homes (Source: Rainbows for all God's Children.)
63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes (Source: U.S. D.H.H.S., Bureau of the Census)

the clear misreading of both Obama (a politician)

"Clear misreasing". Of a Father's Day speech. About fatherhood. To the nation. With statistics about the effects that fatherlessness has on boys. Maybe you should go back and count Obama's references to fathers. It would actually be a clear misreading to pretend that he WASN'T talking about the importance of fathers in the lives of children.

I understand the dangers of too easily equating causation and correlation. I'm not necessarily saying that correlation proves causation either. However, one can assemble enough statistical evidence to draw certain conclusions. It's pretty clear from the statistics above, in addition to those quoted in Newsweek, in addition to those cited by President Obama, that the role of fathers is crucial. Those who underestimate that role, do so in the face of reality...
 
I understand the dangers of too easily equating causation and correlation. I'm not necessarily saying that correlation proves causation either. However, one can assemble enough statistical evidence to draw certain conclusions. It's pretty clear from the statistics above, in addition to those quoted in Newsweek, in addition to those cited by President Obama, that the role of fathers cannot be underestimated. Those who do, do so in the face of reality...

So what are we going to do about what clearly presents an enormous menace to our children: STRAIGHT MEN?

Perhaps sterilization at birth would be an effective technique in ensuring that STRAIGHT MEN aren't sowing their seeds, ruining their children's lives and placing enormous social and financial burdens on womenfolk.

What this has to do with the idea that two men or women should be allowed to marry is beyond me (still).
 
you've entirely missed the boat on this discussion, it seems.

of course children do better with their fathers when their fathers are invested, loving, supportive parents. no one is going to debate that two parents are more effective than one, as the Obama speech pointed out.

but this has nothing at all to do with gender essentialism. that's entirely your own concoction.

again, nathan, let's hear those specific, indispensable qualities that ONLY men have a woman could never have and that children with two mommies are going to be deprived of and become part of the statistics that you've outlined above.
 
Movement under way in California to ban divorce

By Judy Lin, Associated Press Writer | November 30, 2009

SACRAMENTO, Calif. --Til death do us part? The vow would really hold true in California if a Sacramento Web designer gets his way.

In a movement that seems ripped from the pages of Comedy Channel writers, John Marcotte wants to put a measure on the ballot next year to ban divorce in California.

The effort is meant to be a satirical statement after California voters outlawed gay marriage in 2008, largely on the argument that a ban is needed to protect the sanctity of traditional marriage. If that's the case, then Marcotte reasons voters should have no problem banning divorce.

"Since California has decided to protect traditional marriage, I think it would be hypocritical of us not to sacrifice some of our own rights to protect traditional marriage even more," the 38-year-old married father of two said.

Marcotte said he has collected dozens of signatures, including one from his wife of seven years. The initiative's Facebook fans have swelled to more than 11,000. Volunteers that include gay activists and members of a local comedy troupe have signed on to help.

Marcotte is looking into whether he can gather signatures online, as proponents are doing for another proposed 2010 initiative to repeal the gay marriage ban. But the odds are stacked against a campaign funded primarily by the sale of $12 T-shirts featuring bride and groom stick figures chained at the wrists.

Marcotte needs 694,354 valid signatures by March 22, a high hurdle in a state where the typical petition drive costs millions of dollars. Even if his proposed constitutional amendment made next year's ballot, it's not clear how voters would react.

Nationwide, about half of all marriages end in divorce.

Not surprisingly, Marcotte's campaign to make divorce in California illegal has divided those involved in last year's campaign for and against Proposition 8.

As much as everyone would like to see fewer divorces, making it illegal would be "impractical," said Ron Prentice, the executive director of the California Family Council who led a coalition of religious and conservative groups to qualify Proposition 8.

No other state bans divorce, and only a few countries, including the Philippines and Malta, do. The Roman Catholic Church also prohibits divorce but allows annulments. The California proposal would amend the state constitution to eliminate the ability of married couples to get divorced while allowing married couples to seek an annulment.

Prentice said proponents of traditional marriage only seek to strengthen the one man-one woman union.

"That's where our intention begins and ends," he said.

Jeffrey Taylor, a spokesman for Restore Equality 2010, a coalition of same-sex marriage activists seeking to repeal Proposition 8, said the coalition supports Marcotte's message but has no plans to join forces with him.

"We find it quite hilarious," Taylor said of the initiative.

Marcotte, who runs the comedy site BadMouth.net in his spare time, said he has received support from across the political spectrum. In addition to encouragement from gay marriage advocates, he has been interviewed by American Family Association, a Mississippi-based organization that contributed to last year's Yes on 8 campaign.

He was mentioned by Keith Olbermann on MSNBC's "Countdown" during his "World's Best Persons" segment for giving supporters of Proposition 8 their "comeuppance in California."

Marcotte, who is Catholic and voted against Proposition 8, views himself as an accidental activist. A registered Democrat, he led a "ban divorce" rally recently at the state Capitol in Sacramento to launch his effort and was pleasantly surprised at the turnout. About 50 people showed up, some holding signs that read, "You too can vote to take away civil rights from someone."

Marcotte stopped dozens of people during another signature drive in downtown Sacramento. Among them was Ryan Platt, 32, who said he signed the petition in support of his lesbian sister, even though he thinks it would be overturned if voters approved it.

"Even if by some miracle this did pass, it would never stand up to the federal government," Platt said. "And if it did, there's something really wrong with America."

Other petition signers said they were motivated by a sincere interest to preserve marriages. One was Ervin Hulton, a 47-year-old dishwasher who said he believes in making it harder for couples to separate.

"The way I feel, why go out and spend all these tons of money for marriage, the photography and all that? And along down the line, it's going to shatter," said Hulton, who is single.

The U.S. divorce rate is 47.9 percent, according to data provided by the National Center for Health Statistics reports. That figure, however, does not include California, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Louisiana and Minnesota because those six states no longer report their divorce rates to the center.

California stopped because of budget problems, said Ralph Montano, a spokesman for the California Department of Public Health.

While most people would not support banning divorce, it does make sense for couples to be educated about the financial and emotional commitments of marriage, said Dan Couvrette, chief executive and publisher of Toronto-based Divorce Magazine. The publication has a circulation of 140,000, including a regional edition in Southern California.

"It's a worthwhile conversation to have," said Couvrette, who started the magazine in 1996 after going through his own divorce. "I don't think it's just a frivolous thought."
 
I understand the dangers of too easily equating causation and correlation. I'm not necessarily saying that correlation proves causation either. However, one can assemble enough statistical evidence to draw certain conclusions. It's pretty clear from the statistics above, in addition to those quoted in Newsweek, in addition to those cited by President Obama, that the role of fathers is crucial. Those who underestimate that role, do so in the face of reality...

It's fine to pull quotes that serve your purpose out of studies, but do you know how to really assess them? What do they say about third variables? What statistical procedures did they use? Did they use any that would partial out any third variables? Not every study is done perfectly, there are ways to critique just about all of them, and unless the study did something to address the spurious variable problem, I wouldn't put much stock into it.

FYI, even researchers know their studies aren't perfect, or completely comprehensive, or generalizable to the entire population. In fact, if you look toward the end of any decent psychological study, you'll find a subheading where they address limitations of the study. Researchers know that there's danger in doing just what you're doing, pulling quotes to suit your purpose without the full context. That's why I really hate to read newspaper or magazine articles about studies, because a lot of it's taken out of context and interpreted by laypeople, you have to go to the source to get the full story, and be able to recognize exactly what it is that you are reading.

For example, just by reading the following that you posted, I see one glaring issue:

In a longitudinal study of 1,197 fourth-grade students, researchers observed "greater levels of aggression in boys from mother-only households than from boys in mother-father households."
Source: N. Vaden-Kierman, N. Ialongo, J. Pearson, and S. Kellam, "Household Family Structure and Children's Aggressive Behavior: A Longitudinal Study of Urban Elementary School Children," Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology 23, no. 5 (1995).

The key thing that sets off alarms for me is in the title, I don't even need to read the whole study: A Longitudinal Study of Urban Elementary School Children. Just that one word tells me that there's a lot more going on for these children than just fatherlessness.

Anyway, as I've said, and as others have said, none if this even matters to the discussion at hand. I mentioned that unless you're planning on removing kids from single parent families, your stance is hypocritical. As Irvine pointed out, all you're doing is showing that there is a big problem with straight men in our society, one that homosexual families shouldn't suffer for.

So, trot out all the quotes you need to prove your point, but the fact is, they really don't. I doubt you'd ever admit to that though, and I feel like I'm talking to a brick wall at this point, so I'm done with this strand of the conversation. :wave:
 
Nathan, I do not think those stats mean what you think they mean. :) They are comparing the effects on kids raised in a one-parent household vs those raised in a two-parent household. What we're talking about are the differences between households that both have two parents, none of whom leave their families. The only difference is that one is a same sex couple.

So when Irvine is asking for those qualities that only men can provide, he's not asking for the challenges families with only a mom face, he's asking for those challenges that a family with two moms could not meet as well as a mom and a dad. None of your stats speak to that.
 
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what's interesting here is that the line "children do best with a mother and a father" actually *is* a core reason that many use to justify their opposition to same-sex marriage. it's in the "talking points" that i posted earlier that NOM has on their website in order to help their supporters construct arguments.

so in many ways, all this has been quite useful. we've done a very good job in this thread of exposing that fact as a red herring -- sure, kids do better with two parents, which most often is a mother and a father, but that doesn't mean anything to the success of children with gay parents, nor does it mean that there aren't single parents doing a great job, nor does it also mean that one parent might be so destructive that his absence actually makes the family better.
 
Nathan, I do not think those stats mean what you think they mean. :) They are comparing the effects on kids raised in a one-parent household vs those raised in a two-parent household. What we're talking about are the differences between households that both have two parents, none of whom leave their families.



i wonder, though, that if we had an epidemic of "deadbeat moms" if we'd see the same social problems that we see with deadbeat dads.
 
so in many ways, all this has been quite useful. we've done a very good job in this thread of exposing that fact as a red herring -- sure, kids do better with two parents, which most often is a mother and a father, but that doesn't mean anything to the success of children with gay parents, nor does it mean that there aren't single parents doing a great job, nor does it also mean that one parent might be so destructive that his absence actually makes the family better.

Nor does it really have anything to do with marriage equality. :scratch:
 
of course children do better with their fathers when their fathers are invested, loving, supportive parents. no one is going to debate that two parents are more effective than one, as the Obama speech pointed out.

Did you read the speech? Obama talked about the need for fathers, Irvine. Fathers.

but this has nothing at all to do with gender essentialism. that's entirely your own concoction.

Biology is a concoction? *shrug*

again, nathan, let's hear those specific, indispensable qualities that ONLY men have a woman could never have and that children with two mommies are going to be deprived of and become part of the statistics that you've outlined above.

As I said earlier, gender roles shift and change over time. What's not in dispute based on the statistics posted, from such controversial sources as the US Census Bureau and the Dept of Human Health and Services, is that kids do better with their fathers in the home.
 
The key thing that sets off alarms for me is in the title, I don't even need to read the whole study: A Longitudinal Study of Urban Elementary School Children. Just that one word tells me that there's a lot more going on for these children than just fatherlessness.

You should have paid attention to the next quote:

"A family structure index - a composite index based on the annual rate of children involved in divorce and the percentage of families with children present that are female-headed - is a strong predictor of suicide among young adult and adolescent white males."
"Trends in White Male Adolescent, Young-Adult, and Elderly Suicide: Are There Common Underlying Structural Factors?" Social Science Research 23 (1994)

When studies corroborate evidence across racial and socio-economic lines, the need for fathers then isn't merely isolated to African-American urban youth (as Irvine implied a few pages back when he said that Obama was simply addressing the African-American community).

Interestingly, the statistics for girls without a father are also interesting:

Girls without a father in their life are two and a half times as likely to get pregnant and 53 percent more likely to commit suicide. Boys without a father in their life are 63 percent more likely to run away and 37 percent more likely to abuse drugs. Both girls and boys without a father are twice as likely to drop out of high school, twice as likely to end up in jail, and nearly four times as likely to need help for emotional or behavioral problems.

Source: U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services press release, "HHS Launches 'Be Their Dad' Parental Responsibility Campaign" (March 26, 1999)
 
they're also the most likely people to sexually abuse children, especially girls.

Actually, it's interesting -- in 1983, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found that 60% of child abusers were women with sole custody. I realize that child abuse and the specific case of sexual abuse are different, but still -- I wasn't aware of that. (Things may have changed since those days.)
 
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