Same Sex Marriage Thread - Part III

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To be fair and balanced, as some say, here is the CBS news coverage of the study and the fire it has drawn from some of today's experts.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/kids-of-gay-parents-fare-worse-study-finds-but-draws-fire-from-experts/





And yes, there are dozens of new studies, by experts, that claim there are not any differences or harm to children raised by SS couples. A few sites even claim the children fare better in a SS family.



I'm positive the KKK could not do a nonbiased study, but I guess we can trust studies conducted by Left institutions and GL studies.



This is not the first time in history studies and surveys have contradicted each other.



What are the Left institutions and the GL studies? The studies usually cited are done by the APA and other nonpartisan medical groups and associations.

I really appreciated you posting this, because it shows how the media is pulled to the right. The report isn't about the accuracy of the Regnerous study, but about the "controversy" -- which suggests that it's presenting a study of equal quality and value as many others that have been done in the past. It isn't.

But this was the point of this rigged study, similar to how studies that "present a different viewpoint" on global warming function to give people who don't wish to believe the actual facts a liferaft, a piece of flotsam by which to argue or at least pretend that there's a different "side," when in reality, there isn't. We saw a lot of this in the early '00's regarding something as non-controversial as evolution.
 
The Mark Regnerus study has many problems, the least of which is whom he defines as being homosexual. Basically any parent who had at any time a relationship or one night stand fell within the gay father or lesbian mother categories, the parents were specifically never asked to qualify their sexual orientation. The majority of the children did not live with the gay couple for the majority of their childhood. Only 2 I believe spent their whole childhood with their gay parents. I'd say the study looked more at family breakup than anything to do with gay parenting. Plus while he accounted for state gay friendliness, we are talking about interviewing grown children from 18 to I think 39. Nowhere was particularly gay friendly nearly 40 years ago.

Lastly one study does not proof make, what you need is many likely on an international scale to control for local attitudes and the like.




This is an excellent post and pinpoints exactly how the study was rigged so that it could be presented just in time for the SCOTUS hearings on DOMA.

Again, SS parenting and SSM aren't the same issue.
 
Here is the study he is commenting on:
The Kids Aren’t All Right: New Family Structures and the “No Differences” Claim | Public Discourse

It's a long read, but here is a part of the concluding remarks:
Taken together, the findings of the NFSS disprove the claim that there are no differences between children raised by parents who have same-sex relationships and children raised in intact, biological, married families when it comes to the social, emotional, and relational outcomes of their children.

What that study fails to recognize is that homophobia can lead to depression and thoughts of suicide. I could imagine many kids with same-sex parents felt depressed being rejected by society and bullied in school because their family was different.

Luckily, with same-sex parenting becoming more accepted, those problems may reduce for kids of same-sex parents. I could imagine biracial children in the 60s, 70s and 80s felt depressed and suicidal growing up because of society's attitude toward biracials and interracial marriages. But these days, its not a big deal, so those kids have little reason to be unhappy because of that.
 
Guys can we please not drift off to Same Sex Parenting again? :) We have a separate thread for that. This thread is simply on the marriage, and I still do not see why these two terms should be inseparable.

Marriage =/= wanting or having kids. Simple as that.
 
For those of you asking how SSM marriage will harm children or society I'll give you a quick answer. Ideas have consequences and well before the SSM debate the understanding of marriage was drifting from that of a conjugal union to an emotional union.

1. Divorce rates skyrocket because why should a marriage based only in love be restricted by the time limit of "til' death do us part" when love may not last that long?
2. The idea that the nuclear family, single parents, cohabiting couples and now same-sex couples are just different arrangements of equal value in the new norm of "household and family diversity" has had consequences already.
3. By what argument can marriage based on love and companionship be limited to two people? That has future consequences.
4. The idea that gender is superficial and subjective will have consequences.
5. The idea that limiting marriage to a man and a woman being akin to Jim Crow laws has consequences as opposition to SSM - by word or action - will be dealt with by lawsuits, intimidation and 1st Amendment restrictions.

Just the fact that many of you are insisting that parenting and marriage are easily dissociable demonstrates how far this new understanding (misunderstanding) of marriage has seeped into our culture.

Sorry, that's all I have time for today.
 
The Mark Regnerus study has many problems....

The main thing I took away from that study was that daring to challenge the orthodoxy of the Left will get you only personal threats of violence and run out of town by a pitchfork yielding mob of college professors, administrators, LBGT advocates, diversicrats and media PC enforcers.
 
Just the fact that many of you are insisting that parenting and marriage are easily dissociable demonstrates how far this new understanding (misunderstanding) of marriage has seeped into our culture.

Just the fact that many of you are insisting that land ownership and marriage are easily dissociable demonstrates how far this new understanding (misunderstanding) of marriage has seeped into our culture.
 
For those of you asking how SSM marriage will harm children or society I'll give you a quick answer. Ideas have consequences and well before the SSM debate the understanding of marriage was drifting from that of a conjugal union to an emotional union.

1. Divorce rates skyrocket because why should a marriage based only in love be restricted by the time limit of "til' death do us part" when love may not last that long?
2. The idea that the nuclear family, single parents, cohabiting couples and now same-sex couples are just different arrangements of equal value in the new norm of "household and family diversity" has had consequences already.
3. By what argument can marriage based on love and companionship be limited to two people? That has future consequences.
4. The idea that gender is superficial and subjective will have consequences.
5. The idea that limiting marriage to a man and a woman being akin to Jim Crow laws has consequences as opposition to SSM - by word or action - will be dealt with by lawsuits, intimidation and 1st Amendment restrictions.

Just the fact that many of you are insisting that parenting and marriage are easily dissociable demonstrates how far this new understanding (misunderstanding) of marriage has seeped into our culture.

Sorry, that's all I have time for today.


Three times in this post you use the word consequences without specifying what any of them are. Again, if you can specify what the consequences are - and no, some random person being frowned upon for not selling a cake to a gay couple is not a good enough reason to oppose same sex marriage - then I am more than willing to change my mind on te issue.
 
For those of you asking how SSM marriage will harm children or society I'll give you a quick answer. Ideas have consequences and well before the SSM debate the understanding of marriage was drifting from that of a conjugal union to an emotional union.

1. Divorce rates skyrocket because why should a marriage based only in love be restricted by the time limit of "til' death do us part" when love may not last that long?
2. The idea that the nuclear family, single parents, cohabiting couples and now same-sex couples are just different arrangements of equal value in the new norm of "household and family diversity" has had consequences already.
3. By what argument can marriage based on love and companionship be limited to two people? That has future consequences.
4. The idea that gender is superficial and subjective will have consequences.
5. The idea that limiting marriage to a man and a woman being akin to Jim Crow laws has consequences as opposition to SSM - by word or action - will be dealt with by lawsuits, intimidation and 1st Amendment restrictions.

Just the fact that many of you are insisting that parenting and marriage are easily dissociable demonstrates how far this new understanding (misunderstanding) of marriage has seeped into our culture.

Sorry, that's all I have time for today.




Sounds like you really have issues with women since about 1963 or so, not gay people.
 
I get it this is an SSM thread, but if you're gonna talk kids, for a fair statistical analysis you're going to have to compare four or five groups, not just two. One of those groups, which is critical and I haven't heard much about, is adopting straight couples.

Oh and btw, for anyone who has proposed the argument that gay couples are supposedly more likely to have an open relationship or welcome a third into their bed or whatever... have you ever considered that you as a straight wed couple have the freedom to do that too? You're proposing such a slave era argument here. Even if it was more common... you're making an argument founded on pure equality. Regardless of subject matter. Straight open relationships exist. This sounds a lot like a 1950s segregation argument... we acknowledge they are no different than us yet we would like to limit their freedoms because we don't want no dirty queer using out straight bathrooms. Our straight bathrooms hold a higher moral standard you see... even though we do the exact same thing in them. Poop and pee yo.
 
It also seems odd to criticize people for having non-traditional relationship structures when they've been banned from traditional relationship structures until very recently.
 
Honestly I would imagine the occurrence of open relationships is a little higher in gay couples. But I don't think that's an inherently gay thing to do. It happens because you've oppressed that group of people. There is no real group of conservative gays out there that bond together and defend classical relationships. Why? That stuff is already accepted and understood.

Look at segregation. Blacks were more likely to "break the moral code" by disobeying segregation and sitting in at the white lunch counter. Or sit at the front of the bus. Was their disobedience a product of their color of skin? No, it was them being free and standing up against exactly what was oppressing them.

Look at slavery. Same thing. Were the slaves inherently trying to disobey their order by trying to learn to read? By trying to escape to the north? Or was that a product of their oppression? I think we can all answer that for ourselves.

Counter culture in the 60s? A bunch of pot smoking hippies up against "the man"... do you think those people were all inherently just disobedient? Or did they do exactly what they weren't supposed to be doing, plus more, because they didn't like the way they were being told what to do. Fight in wars, don't use your freedom of speech, blah blah blah.

Perhaps I don't have the best of deliveries. But the point is that when you tell someone what they can and can't do, and in turn force them to be oppressed in their eyes, they're going to go above and beyond with defiance to express their freedom. Gay rights activists don't naturally just want to make out in front of a large crowd of people. Pot smokers aren't just dying to blow smoke in your face. Blacks weren't just eager to sit on your lunch counter because you didn't like it. Slaves weren't trying to be free just because slave owners were reaping benefits. All of these people have personal interests in mind. By agitating their desires you only make it worse.

Ill conclude with one last statement. Is pot a gateway drug? No not theoretically. But is it? Sure it is. By not legalizing something that's entirely harmless you create doors for harmless activity and those engaging in the harmless activity are going to be more susceptible to supporting even more then they're bargaining for. Y'know, prohibition caused crime. You're arming activists with weapons you never wanted on the table. Gays are only incredibly liberal and progressive because they are forced and encouraged to be so.
 
I think gay men are, on average, more likely to have open relationships, but that's because they are men, and that's not all men, and the seriousness of marriage is a new thing for older gays who grew up in a different time and likely had different expectations for themselves and of a partner, and in a free society, we let people arrange their lives how they best see fit.

I mean, we should be able to dictate not just who has sex with who, but also how they have sex, BUT GOD FORBID YOU MAKE ME BUY HEALTH INSURANCE FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT'S HOLY!!!
 
The main thing I took away from that study was that daring to challenge the orthodoxy of the Left will get you only personal threats of violence and run out of town by a pitchfork yielding mob of college professors, administrators, LBGT advocates, diversicrats and media PC enforcers.

So I take it my critique of his work is null and void?

The only thing out of all of this that has demonstrated consequences of actual harm is the crappy homophobia those on the right continue to espouse. Where are the increased teen suicides amongst heterosexuals due to 2 men getting married? Where is anyone being beat to death because they are heterosexual? The violence and consequences are there for all to see and they do not touch you in anyway whatsoever. If there is anyone runnin wielding a pitchfork it is those on the right.
 
Does it not make complete and total sense that same-sex parents who adopt are likely to be as good if not better parents than your average hetero parents? That a couple who really, really want a child and have the time, energy, money, and intense desire necessary to be not just a successful SS couple but an adoptive SS couple are going to have in spades the qualities necessary for great parenting? And that nearly all of the qualities we associate with great parents aren't gender-specific? That every child in a same-sex household was carefully planned for?
 
No man, obviously not as if God had wanted them to be good parents, he'd have given them a way to become parents the natural way. :tsk: Like all the amazing straight parents! They are all amazing parents, every single one of them! Cause God wants them to be parents. :yes:
 
1. Divorce rates skyrocket because why should a marriage based only in love be restricted by the time limit of "til' death do us part" when love may not last that long?
2. The idea that the nuclear family, single parents, cohabiting couples and now same-sex couples are just different arrangements of equal value in the new norm of "household and family diversity" has had consequences already.

Am I to conclude that since straight couples have done such an abominable job in maintaining the sanctimony of marriage, we should not let same sex couples have a go at it too?

3. By what argument can marriage based on love and companionship be limited to two people? That has future consequences.
I don't think same sex marriages will lead to you being allowed to be married to both your neighbors, a parakeet and a lamppost at the same time. People who do have such fears probably don't allow sanity to dictate any argument.

4. The idea that gender is superficial and subjective will have consequences.
5. The idea that limiting marriage to a man and a woman being akin to Jim Crow laws has consequences as opposition to SSM - by word or action - will be dealt with by lawsuits, intimidation and 1st Amendment restrictions.
I have no idea what this is supposed to mean.
 
Allow me to just say that, whatever you feel about his position (and I think it's morally wrong), I think it's refreshing and a very good thing that Iron Horse appears to be engaging in debate, rather than the one-and-done posts he did for so long.
 
Sigh, my country sends the prime minister, minister of sport and both our king and queen to the olympic games. Way to send a sign guys... :(
 
helpful point-counterpoint:

Utah, in Opposing Gay Marriage, Finds Three Arguments Are Better Than One
JAN. 13, 2014

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court’s order last week halting same-sex marriages in Utah was two sentences long. It was provisional and cryptic, and it added nothing to the available information on where the Supreme Court stands on the momentous question of whether there is a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.

Utah’s briefs were another matter. They were expansive, and they set out the current arguments for denying gay and lesbian couples the right to marry.

In the trial court, the state had argued that restricting marriage to a man and a woman would make heterosexual couples act more responsibly when they had sex. In the Supreme Court, the state threw that “responsible procreation” argument overboard in favor of one focused on “optimal parenting.” By the time it filed its final brief on Jan. 6, the state had introduced a fresh argument, drawn from the Supreme Court’s decisions on affirmative action.

The state’s first argument, made before Judge Robert J. Shelby of the Federal District Court in Salt Lake City, was that “the traditional definition of marriage reinforces responsible procreation.” The government benefits that come with marriage, the state said, encourage opposite-sex couples to form stable families “in which their planned, and especially unplanned, biological children may be raised.”

Judge Shelby agreed, saying the argument was true as far as it went. Encouraging marriage would make it more likely that the children of heterosexual couples would have parents who were married.

But there was no reason, the judge went on, to think that allowing same-sex couples to marry would change that. To the contrary. By forbidding gay and lesbian couples to marry, he wrote, “the state reinforces a norm that sexual activity may take place outside of marriage.”

In the Supreme Court, state officials changed tack and pressed a different argument, one built on a contested premise.

“A substantial body of social science research confirms,” the brief said, “that children generally fare best when reared by their two biological parents in a loving, low-conflict marriage.”

Lawyers for the couples challenging Utah’s ban on same-sex marriage responded that the assertion “is not true.” For evidence, they cited “the scientific consensus of every national health care organization charged with the welfare of children and adolescents,” and listed nine such groups. The view of the groups, the challengers said, “based on a significant and well-respected body of current research, is that children and adolescents raised by same-sex parents, with all things being equal, are as well-adjusted as children raised by opposite-sex couples.”

Utah responded that it would not be swayed by “politically correct trade associations,” referring to, among others, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association. “We are not ruled by experts,” the state’s brief said.

As with the argument about responsible procreation, it is possible to accept the state’s position that it is best for children to be raised by their biological parents and yet wonder how that would be more likely to happen by denying gay and lesbian couples the right to marry. Utah argued that the two things are linked.

“By holding up and encouraging man-woman unions as the ‘preferred’ arrangement in which to raise children,” the state said, “the state can increase the likelihood that any given child will in fact be raised in such an arrangement.”

Judge Shelby had rejected the argument as illogical and counterproductive. Utah’s ban, he wrote, “does not make it any more likely that children will be raised by opposite-sex couples.” But it certainly demeans and humiliates the thousands of children being raised by same-sex couples in the state, he said.


In the Supreme Court, Utah refined its argument.

“The state does not contend that the individual parents in same-sex couples are somehow ‘inferior’ as parents to the individual parents who are involved in married, mother-father parenting,” the state said.

But, drawing on Supreme Court decisions endorsing the value of diversity in deciding who may attend public universities, the state now said it was pursuing “gender diversity” in marriages. “Society has long recognized that diversity in education brings a host of benefits to students,” the brief said. “If that is true in education, why not in parenting?” The Supreme Court did not take a position on Utah’s several shifting arguments, saying only that it would stay Judge Shelby’s decision while an appeals court considers the case. That will happen over the next couple of months, and the state’s position may evolve further.

Or perhaps it will return to the candor of Stanford E. Purser, a lawyer with the state attorney general’s office. Judge Shelby asked him on Dec. 4 whether letting same-sex couples marry was of “any relevance at all” to the state’s interests in encouraging opposite-sex couples to marry.

“It may end up that there is no difference,” Mr. Purser said. “It may end up that there is. We just simply don’t know.”
 
I think that they are insinuating that if a gay man cannot marry his male partner, that he will instead marry a woman which is ridiculous. Um, it's not the 1950s anymore.

I seriously cannot wrap my head around the argument that if gays and lesbians can marry who they want, then all of a sudden heteros will stop getting married. Does. not. compute.
 
But there was no reason, the judge went on, to think that allowing same-sex couples to marry would change that. To the contrary. By forbidding gay and lesbian couples to marry, he wrote, “the state reinforces a norm that sexual activity may take place outside of marriage.”


:laugh: Yeah because nobody, gay or straight, has sex outside of marriage these days...
 
:laugh: Yeah because nobody, gay or straight, has sex outside of marriage these days...



What people do to realize is that it isn't "gay activists" or the "media academia urban Left" that has brought us to this moment where legal equality for gay couples is a near reality.

It's women. And how women have asserted their social, political, sexual, and personal humanity over the past 50 years.

The enemy is misogyny.
 
What people do to realize is that it isn't "gay activists" or the "media academia urban Left" that has brought us to this moment where legal equality for gay couples is a near reality.

It's women. And how women have asserted their social, political, sexual, and personal humanity over the past 50 years.

The enemy is misogyny.

Yep. Women and the LGBT community know what it is like to have a large portion of the population narrowly defining you and confining you to a box that, until recently, was hard to get out of.
 
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