First published in Between the Lines, May 31, 2007
The day after Jerry Falwell's funeral, Mary Cheney-who is a LESBIAN, in case you've forgotten the Bush-Kerry debates-gave birth to a baby boy.
If I were the world's scriptwriter, I would have reversed the order: Cheney gives birth, then Falwell keels over. No matter: just as nature abhors a vacuum, so does right-wing foolishness. With Falwell gone, someone else will step up to blame the world's problems on Tinky Winky, environmentalists, and lesbian moms.
For the record, my condolences go out to the Falwell family. That the man said profoundly stupid things about gays and lesbians (among other subjects) does not alter the fact that he was also a husband, father, and friend.
If only Falwell and his followers could muster up similar empathy. Whatever one might think about lesbian parenting, Mary Cheney is a mother, and Samuel David Cheney is her son. None of this will stop the so-called "family values" crowd from accusing her of child abuse simply for bringing him into the world. It's a nasty accusation, and it needs to be countered forcefully.
Vice President Cheney seems to understand this point. Some months ago, CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked him to comment on criticisms of Mary, and the vice president responded with harsh verbal smack-down. Blitzer didn't deserve it (don't shoot the messenger-or in this case, the interviewer). But it was hard not to admire Cheney's exceedingly effective "Don't fuck with my family" attitude, or to be grateful that for once his belligerence was (almost) well-aimed.
When gay or lesbian couples decide to have children, they obtain them one of two ways. First, they may adopt, thus giving a home to a child who has none. Parenting is an act of loving sacrifice, and those who adopt children ought to be applauded and supported. To treat them otherwise not only insults them, it also harms their children-not to mention other needy children who may be deprived loving homes because of misguided "family values." Shame on those who stand in their way.
The other way-the one used by Mary Cheney and Heather Poe-is pregnancy, either by insemination or implantation of an embryo. I do not wish to minimize the moral questions raised by reproductive technology. Most of these questions, however, are not unique to lesbian and gay parents, who constitute a minority of its users.
But aren't same-sex families "suboptimal" for children? The research says otherwise. So does every mainstream health organization that has commented on the issue: the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychology, the American Psychiatric Association, and so on.
Jerry Falwell's crowd would have us believe that these organizations have all been hijacked by the vast "Homosexual Agenda." Trust me: if we had such power, we wouldn't be having this debate.
Forget the research for a moment and consider the following: if Mary Cheney had not chosen to become pregnant-by whatever means she used-Samuel David Cheney would not exist. After all, he is a genetically unique individual, as pro-lifers frequently remind us. The practical alternative to Samuel's existing in this lesbian household is his not existing at all, and it is hard to argue that he'd be better off that way. So the claim that they harm him, simply by bringing him into this situation, rings hollow.
Metaphysical subtleties aside, the fact is that Mary and Heather will provide this child with a loving home, not to mention many material advantages. The more people see that, the more ridiculous charges of "child abuse" sound.
And that last point gives me great cause for optimism. When I came out of the closet nearly twenty years ago, myths about gay and lesbian people abounded: we were sick, we were predators, we were miserable, we were amoral. Such myths still exist, of course, but they are far more difficult to float (and thus, far less common). The main reason is that we are much more visible now, and so people know firsthand that the myths simply aren't true.
While many people know openly gay or lesbian people, relatively fewer know gay or lesbian parents. That's changing, and as it does, so too will the ability of the right wing to float nasty myths about them. Their influence will wane in the face of simple evidence.
Samuel David Cheney begins his life in an America with fewer Jerry Falwells and more Mel Whites; fewer Pat Buchanans and more Andrew Sullivans; fewer Dr. Lauras and more Ellens. Good for him (and the rest of us).
Corvino, John
{ 88 comments }
When gay coupls chose to become parents it is not a “oops” event. Whether thru adoption or artificial instemination methods it all takes careful thought, planning, and resources. These are children who are wanted and very much loved. In fact, I would venture to guess the rate of abortion with gay couples is pretty much non-existent..
I hope the Looney-Left and Right-wring nUt jobs will leave Mary, Heather, and Baby Samuel alone and let them raise their baby with the love and support he deserves.
I am not big Dick Cheney fan, but he can give the unconditional love and support to his family when it is needed.
Thanks!
?While many people know openly gay or lesbian people, relatively fewer know gay or lesbian parents. That’s changing, and as it does, so too will the ability of the right wing to float nasty myths about them. Their influence will wane in the face of simple evidence.?
The ?nasty myths? are a convenient demon raised more by the left than the right.
The point of pro-family advocates is that a crucial, universal, and morally consistent principle is being undermined. Children should be conceived and born into the married couple of their natural Mother & Father.
Were not talking about adoption even, were a child is already born and whose parents abandon it or are unfit, and another couple steps into the breach.
Mary Cheney “acquiring” a child manifestly deprives that child of her Father.
No, we are talking about intentionally conceiving a child with the express purpose of its natural father abandoning it. To make matters even worse, no male is made the Father of this child.
When pro-family forces spent the last 40 years talking about ?family values? ? you didn?t really believe we were somehow confused as to what ?family? meant, did you?
It?s called a standard; and as standards go its more important than most.
Gay parenting as exemplified by Cheney is no moral benchmark or progressive development. Rather it represents the selfish desire of adults over the needs of children and community.
When a blue color male impregnates his girlfriend we need a consistent ethic that says he A) should not have impregnated her outside marriage & B.) Should marry the women and be a good husband and Father to his wife & child.
It is not altogether uncommon among the underclass for a young woman to have three children from three different Fathers.
By what ethical system can we admonish this young woman (or encourage her not to behave in that manner to begin with) in the face of acts like Mary Cheney.
All the platitudes about ?love? and ?commitment? and ?parenting? and ?wanted? wont help rebuild the family amidst widespread cultural consensus that the term has no essential meaning or core values.
“Gay parenting as exemplified by Cheney is no moral benchmark or progressive development. Rather it represents the selfish desire of adults over the needs of children and community.”
Selfish desires? Really? Any more than having a child out of a desire to have an heir? To meet the conditions of an inheritance? To gain status or favor from relatives or from the community? To appear to conform to society’s norms?
Heterosexual people have kids for all sorts of dumb reasons, so I’d be curious if the “selfishness” referred to above also counts for people of that ilk.
“Heterosexual people have kids for all sorts of dumb reasons, so I’d be curious if the “selfishness” referred to above also counts for people of that ilk.”
You answer your own question. Whatever else their motivations, when heterosexual couples have a child together they are providing that child with its own natural mother and father & are (hopefully doing so) within marriage.
The better analogy (and ones I believe equally hennas) are the Childfree by choice women & intentionally unmarried parents.
Since when is other peoples bad behavior and expectable excuse for more bad behavior?
I’ll let you connect the dots…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/...
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20070...
http://www.choosingsinglemotherhood.com/
http://www.gaycitynews.com/site/news.cfm ?
newsid=18352736&BRD=2729&a mp;PAG=461&dept_id=569342& amp;rfi=6
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/...
Fitz, your statements are specious and an oft repeated phrase which has no basis in how we respect GOOD PARENTS, period.
Regardless of whether they are the biological, adoptive or legal guardian.
Heterosexuality is simply a human condition. So is fecundity and fertility. None are indicators of a talent for nurturing, character or virtues.
It’s no guarantee that a child will be cared for properly. Otherwise you’ll have to explain why so many children are available to adopt and exhausting every social service for children.
Gay parents don’t live in bubbles where two mom or two dad families have no attachments or familial and social networks with the opposite sex.
Your argument makes as much sense as a white parent shouldn’t adopt a child of color, or else they are ‘depriving’ the child of a parent that’s their same color.
Good parents encircle themselves with everything their child needs. Heather and Mary have lived a long time with each other and their social situation. They know what it is, and what they can provide their son.
Judging them solely in a no dad or no mom issue, doesn’t keep heterosexuals from doing exactly what they always have.
Nurturing a child isn’t a talent bestowed on groups, it’s bestowed on individuals.
There are gay folks plenty capable of being good parents, the nurturing gene doesn’t skip homosexuals.
And having the same overwhelming urge to have a child to love and raise, shouldn’t be a surprise or even considered a detriment to society or children.
Besides, I know plenty of gay households, that if they don’t have children… have well tended pets.
A sure sign of a compassionate and nurturing tendency.
A couple is a better option than NO parents, or perhaps a single one.
Singlehood however, doesn’t always have to be permanent.
But marriage isn’t exactly encouraged for gay parents, now is it?
Straight folks too obviously need backup, when it comes to the care and support of children, whether directly or indirectly.
And few lives are static Fritz. People’s situations change, and often gays and lesbians are called on to look after children they ARE related to, like nieces and nephews.
Indeed, many children are being raised by their grandparents.
A generational tragedy if there ever was one.
At any rate, the man/woman model isn’t going anywhere, and it’s not gay parents that are part of the problem, but an obvious solution.
You’re wrong about the childfree by choice as analogous to selfishness, or intentionally unmarried parents.
The childfree are a different category and are often accused of being selfish, when the opposite is usually true.
These are people who lend their time, disposable income and professional dedication to children in a way that’s far more generous that couldn’t happen if they were parents.
Childfree couples are the most happy and financially secure and become excellent material and social support for nieces and nephews or other children.
Many are in caring professions that support children.
I’m not saying there aren’t any that simply don’t give a rat’s butt about children, but at least they are honest about what they can do for any BEFORE the fact, UNLIKE many straight people.
Mary and Heather aren’t INTENTIONALLY unmarried parents, if they could be, I’m sure they would be.
They aren’t the ones to criticize. It’s the system of government that’s so hypocritical and inconsistent that it KEEPS free citizens FROM doing their duty and enabling their commitment as couples and parents that’s not done to ANY other citizen whatsoever.
At least, not since black slavery, in this country.
The point of pro-family advocates is that a crucial, universal, and morally consistent principle is being undermined
I wonder if the statist-socialist “social conservative” right understands what they’re doing when they make this “point.”
If “family” is something that’s determined by popular vote with “crucial universal principles” to be enforced by “society” over the objections of gay and lesbian folks who think differently in their own lives, then isn’t it government — through “popular will and moral principles” (presumably dreamt up by the majority) that defines family?
In other words, social conservatives are not only arguing that it “takes a man and a woman” to have a family, but also that “it takes a village.”
And wasn’t there a book written by someone rather prominent with the same title not all that long ago?
Regan and Brian bring up excellent points.
What Fitz advocates is simply the latest, warmed-over version of totalitarianism. Periodically it gets a shiny new wrapper and is trotted out under this brand new guise. But underneath, it’s the same ol’ same ol’.
To Make it that much easier for you to connect the dots yourselves.
Its about are ability to maintain a standard. Any number of situations fall short (intentionally & unintentionally) below our standards.
None of that is to say that we can surrender or alter a social standard without neccessary consequences.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20070…
http://www.choosingsinglemotherhood.com/
http://www.gaycitynews.com/site/news.cfm ?
newsid=18352736&BRD=2729&a mp;PAG=461&dept_id=569342& amp;rfi=6
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/
Another part of the “social standard” here in America is tolerance — and of the humility that comes from listening to other people instead of just shutting them down and turning them off.
The Taliban thinks it’s simply maintaining a social standard, too. Too bad we can’t ship some of the people who fail to understand this country over to a land where the maintenance of this “standard” is more vigorously attended to.
Well “warmed-over version of totalitarianism” & “The Taliban thinks it’s simply maintaining a social standard, too” are both rather far afield from trying to promote intact married childrearing.
Remember, multiple countries have prohibitions against IVF as well as many more with prohibitions against IVF for couples who are not married.
It is a consistent, intelligable & humane ethic that we promote.
The links above can inform.
Trying to cite the fact that “multiple countries” do something as the moral reason for continuing to do it is absurd.
“Multiple countries” used to trade in slavery. “Multiple countries” burned uppity women at the stake as witches. “Multiple countries” invaded countries in wartime and slaughtered even the smallest of children. “Multiple countries” let rape victims be stoned to death to preserve the “honor” of their husbands.
I’m sure the Islamofascists with whom you so heartily agree would consider their ethics to be “consistent, intelligable (sic) and humane.”
As for trotting out “married” versus unmarried, it certainly isn’t our fault we can’t get married. Your cutesy little argument is disingenuous to the extreme.
Moreover, there is nothing “humane” about it.
How revealing that when a genuine “fundy housewife” type shows up here, the Daleas head for their little hidey-holes.
They don’t care what is being done to gays and lesbians, supposedly in the name of Christianity. They’re too busy attacking gay Christians.
How many, many allies anti-gay Christians do have! Their supporters run the gamut from the Taliban to the anti-Christian bigots at IGF.
“If “family” is something that’s determined by popular vote with “crucial universal principles” to be enforced by “society” over the objections of gay and lesbian folks who think differently in their own lives, then isn’t it government — through “popular will and moral principles” (presumably dreamt up by the majority) that defines family?”
This is an excellent point. Yes, one of the problems with democracy is that fundemental truths can get politicized. If a majority votes for something, and it goes through the normal democratic process then it is ergo legitimante.
Obviously this is not the case, if people voted for slavery or torture they would not ssuddenly become humane or just practices.
Ass Benjamin Franklin wrote: “Democracy is the very worst form of government:
Except for all the others”
Democracy itself promotes this type of attitude (so does capitalist consumerism also, by the way)
Never the less, it?s our only civilized way of settling a dispute. The trick is not to let such fundamental issues become politicized to begin with.
Marriage and the Family are properly understood as pre-political, pre-liberal institutions. They are not about rights and equality, but rather about duty and obligations that transcend politics.Government does not create them, it merely helps encourage and codify their practice.
“In other words, social conservatives are not only arguing that it “takes a man and a woman” to have a family, but also that “it takes a village.”"
There is a very real truth in this. (outside of the code-speak for massive new government programs) Its communitarian ethos is commendable.
It would be more correct to say ?it takes a village (a whole civilization, multiple government, civic, private & religious organizations ?the culture) to uphold the family? & then the family raises the child.
40 years of family and social breakdown should have taught us this by now. When the family breaks down you don?t get less government?.you get a whole heck of a lot more government.
LINK
Lori Heine
“Trying to cite the fact that “multiple countries” do something as the moral reason for continuing to do it is absurd.”
I site “multiple countries” (the most prominent that bans IVF even for married opposite sex couples is Italy) not as a moral argument – but as a way of demonstrating that other countries do in fact uphold different aspects of the intact married (i.e- opposite sex) couples as the standard.
?As for trotting out “married” versus unmarried, it certainly isn’t our fault we can’t get married. Your cutesy little argument is disingenuous to the extreme.?
I don?t ?trot this out? ?as you are well aware, the standard of childbearing (and sex as well) within marriage exclusively is a well established (although beleaguered) social norm.
If Mary Cheney went to Boston and ?married? her partner it would still be anti-social and inhumane to intentionally bring a child into this world outside of a married (opposite-sex) marriage.
“If Mary Cheney went to Boston and ?married? her partner it would still be anti-social and inhumane to intentionally bring a child into this world outside of a married (opposite-sex) marriage.”
Again, how artfully disingenuous. People like you, Fitz, are the ones who have made the situation as onerous as it is for same-sex couples. And then you want to turn around and cite the very situation you helped to create — as if it just dropped out of nowhere — as a supposed ironclad reason for why things “must” be a certain way.
That is priceless circular reasoning. But then those of your ilk will doggedly go right on believing whatever you want no matter what anyone else has to add to the discussion.
If I were Dalea, I would rage and sputter and fume at you, and threaten to get your ISP number so I could “deal with” you. But since I don’t deal with people that way, I’ll leave the sputtering, raging and fuming to people like him.
(I still say “him,” though it’s becoming increasingly obvious that Dalea is really Donna in Nebraska, penning her evil screeds while her proper Southern Baptist hubby brings home the bacon).
One of these days, perhaps the noble missionaries who venture into the darkness of GLBT cyberspace will actually display a willingness to explore the issues in a way that engages gay people as human beings. Until that happens, we’ll get…well, the same sort of mess we’ve been getting.
Some of us will actually bother trying to engage you. Others will lay in wait to attack us, as if we are the problem. For those who irrationally hate the Christian faith and all it stands for, it is nonconformity to political correctness that is the real transgression.
New rule for the Independent Gay Forum forum; Nobody listens to Fitz at all, for any reason, ever.
“But it was hard not to admire Cheney’s exceedingly effective “Don’t fuck with my family” attitude, or to be grateful that for once his belligerence was (almost) well-aimed.”
Are you serious? Admire his fuck-you attitude? Asking the VP his opinion on how the government, HIS government, should deal with same-sex-headed families LIKE HIS DAUGHTER’S should elicit an honest, intelligent response, not nasty bluster. The man is a mean bully, protecting his family while actively working to harm millions of Americans.
Lori Heine
?That is priceless circular reasoning. But then those of your ilk will doggedly go right on believing whatever you want no matter what anyone else has to add to the discussion.?
Well certainly we are determined, as I suspect a whole lot of proponents of same-sex ?marriage? and child rearing is. However, there is nothing ?circular? about contending that society is more just and humane when it upholds the standard of married (yes that means opposite sex) childbearing and rearing.
What you seems to have missed is that one side (me) is concentrating on the whole of society and expecting homosexuals to conform to these norms for the good of the whole.
The other side seems to be more interested in its personal wants, and will treat children as consumer goods to the point were depriving a child of their natural father is a matter of coarse. (like Mary Cheney)
These same norms are consistent with our reasoning on everything from polyamory, to adultery & divorce, IVF, ?single moms by choice?, illegitimacy and the list goes on.
?One of these days, perhaps the noble missionaries who venture into the darkness of GLBT cyberspace will actually display a willingness to explore the issues in a way that engages gay people as human beings. Until that happens, we’ll get…well, the same sort of mess we’ve been getting.?
I consider it an engagement of gay people as human beings to expect the same strong standards and moral consciousness from them that I expect from everyone. To do otherwise would be paternalistic.
I don?t except single motherhood by choice, child abandonment, easy divorce, or polyamory as morally valid and socially healthy.
It would be inconsistent of us not to expect homosexuals to likewise share the same common and well established moral norms that we expect from all those other manifestations of selfishness.
It is indeed odd that Fitz chooses to obsess over a tiny minority within the overall population, harassing them on their websites instead of dealing with the single hetero mothers and divorced heteros he claims are equally his concern.
Then again, the fact that we ARE a tiny minority pretty much explains it. Why go after the big boys and girls when you can pick on a minority — especially in cyberspace, shielded by a cutesy alias.
I don’t have much respect for this sort of crap. By now that should pretty much be obvious. It is, of course, a free country — which means that you’re free to indulge in it, and I’m free to call it what it is.
What sort of morality do you practice, Fitz? In what sort of sexual conduct do you engage? Don’t you dare say Word One to me about how “rude” I am to ask you that. You come here and do that to us all the time. And if you’re going to dish it out, it’s fair you also learn to take it.
Heterosexual misconduct has done such devastating damage to society that reversing its ill effects would be a full-time job — a life’s work, in fact — for a whole multitude of well-intentioned people.
Instead, they vent and flail at us.
And of course we can all go adhere to HIS standard — which is the right standard because (A) most people have it (actually, they merely pay lip service to it, but what the hell) and (B) there are more of them than there are of us.
This is the attitude of a bully and a coward.
Hey, as a right-handed person, I get tired of those lefties out there. I think everybody ought to become left-handed. A single standard!!! What’s wrong with that…it’s fair.
It’s old, it’s consistent and most people adhere to it. (For centuries, left-handed children were actually bullied into switching to their right hands, so the reasoning I’m describing is not as silly or far-fetched as it may sound.)
There is a reason this sort cavorts so freely in cyberspace. You don’t see many in person anymore — unless they’re surrounded by a comfortable crowd. But this is a rare chance to look at a bigot up close and personal.
As long as you stay polite and behave as if you’re at least moderately housebroken, Fitz, vent and flail away.
But don’t expect everyone to buy into your attitude of condescension and automatic hetero moral superiority. We have every bit as much right to lecture you as you do us.
Lori, are you channeling me, or am I channeling you?
Meanwhile, to the matter at hand:
The other side seems to be more interested in its personal wants, and will treat children as consumer goods to the point were depriving a child of their natural father is a matter of coarse. (like Mary Cheney)
Fitz, as I stated yesterday, when you see a child with gay parents, you can rest assured that a considerable amount of time, effort, screening, legal rigamarole, and cash went into the process. Indeed, if straight parents had to go through the same levels of required involvement, vetting, and whatnot that gay ones do, society would be far better for it.
I hear your concerns that gays and lesbians are having children as a trophy, and in some cases, I do believe that was one of their motivations. But we have all heard the married celebrity and politician stories about them having children as trophies and neglecting them, so having kids for selfish reasons is not exactly something that we can fix by looking at the external circumstances of the parents.
What I want to stress is that, in my opinion, we agree on several points. We agree that kids are a precious and special gift from God. We agree that kids should be treated with the utmost in respect and dignity regardless of their background. We believe that the motivations of the parents are paramount and most important in why one brings a child into the world.
Where we don’t agree is that a specific type of structure means success or failure. A specific structure, given our culture and population distribution, may have better odds of being more optimal than others, but a heterosexual married couple can screw up a kid just as easily as a gay single parent if they a) have it for the wrong reasons and b) don’t seek the right help.
Therefore, what I would suggest, Fitz, is that we focus on fixing the points at which we agree. I think we can honestly say that having a child for the wrong reasons is a major problem, be you gay or straight.
For example, a common statement of single mothers, especially teens, is that they just wanted “someone to love” — but that they are overwhelmed by what a baby requires and end up making decisions that negatively affect their lives. We need a strong outreach on both sides of the gay/straight fence to help people examine and realize what a great responsibility having a child actually is — and what a life-changing event it can be, for better or worse. We need to educate and inform people about the pros and cons of each, then let them make their own decisions.
Banning gay marriage, gay parenting, etc. may seem like a reasonable solution. But the simple fact of the matter is that you’re attacking something that represents a tiny, tiny fraction of families, many of whom have enormous potential to do great things for and with children — while ignoring things that are far more damaging to children, such as single parenthood and out-of-wedlock births.
Good grief — die hyperlink, die!
about are ability to maintain a standard
Presume, if it’s about “are” (sic) standards, you’re going to have to define who the “us” is.
And in any event, again, you’re simply reviving Hillary Clinton’s argument that government, “society” and neighbors — “the village” — raises a child.
Which means that you’re still advocating a socialist, collectivist approach to raising children where parents matter less than the priorities of a collective “society.”
The question isn’t whether you’re trying to “maintain a standard,” the question is whether the standard makes any sense. As Mary Cheney pointed out, there is no evidence of any harm to children of same-sex couples compared to those of opposite-sex couples. So, there’s no reason to have a standard that excludes same-sex parents and their children.
It’s still possible (maybe even probable) that children are generally better off having two parents who are married to each other than they would be in other situations. But, in this context, that’s an argument for gay marriage, not against gay parenting.
Fitz says: It is not altogether uncommon among the underclass for a young woman to have three children from three different Fathers.
What is this fascination with ‘class’? It is also not uncommon in both the middle class and upper class for women to have children by three different husbands as they move from sacred marriage to sacred marriage.
What this points to, in my mind, is that demand by women for the services of a male is in decline. Men are rapidly loosing their economic value. The Economist, a Millian journal, examined the data and concluded that men are becoming obsolete. How do you propose to deal with this Fitz?
Ummm, you probably don’t know this but to produce a child without having sex with a male, all it takes is a turkey baster and a warm teacup. There is no plausible method of banning in home fertilization.
Fitz is always fun to watch. Between his inability to spell common English words and his cheerful willingness to promote parochial taboos as universal standards, great addition.
Okay, Fitz really is too easy a target, but two of his comments (in the same post) struck me as interesting:
Fitz:
(1) What you seems to have missed is that one side (me) is concentrating on the whole of society and expecting homosexuals to conform to these norms for the good of the whole.
(2) I consider it an engagement of gay people as human beings to expect the same strong standards and moral consciousness from them that I expect from everyone. To do otherwise would be paternalistic.
It seems in comment 1 he is asking gays to “take one for the team.” If this is truly his stance, he’s asking a great sacrifice from a small minority and you would think his posts would take on a more charitable tone.
But then in comment 2 he proclaims he’s not asking any more of gays than is asked of everyone. It’s the old fallacious and disingenous argument: “nobody is allowed to marry or parent with someone of the same-sex, so we’re all equally ‘burdened.’”
You seem confused, Fitz. I’m hoping your true view lies closer to comment 1. The least you could do is clearly admit that your philosophy on “how things should be” explicitly requires that gays remain marginalized in a way that heterosexuals are not. After admitting this, the tone of your posts should also change. Rather than constantly blaming gays, you might, as a fellow human being, understand why gays and lesbians might be resistant to your insistence that they, a group who has already suffered a hugely disproportionate share of discrimination and persecution, take yet another one for the team.
Always remember, you extoll the great virtues of marriage, parenting and family as the bedrock of society and in the same breath request that gays and lesbians be excluded. This is why you are accused of not treating your gay brothers and sisters like human beings. You have the pompousness to claim perfect knowledge of what makes society tick and the audacity to tell some people they can play no part in it. And to top it all off, you then go and call these people “selfish.”
“Forget the research for a moment and consider the following: if Mary Cheney had not chosen to become pregnant?by whatever means she used?Samuel David Cheney would not exist. After all, he is a genetically unique individual, as pro-lifers frequently remind us. The practical alternative to Samuel’s existing in this lesbian household is his not existing at all, and it is hard to argue that he’d be better off that way. So the claim that they harm him, simply by bringing him into this situation, rings hollow”
This strikes me as a suprisingly poor argument from an usually rigourous thinker. If we except this argument then there is no circumstance in which we could harm a child by allowing it to be born since, after all, it is probably better than the alternative: non-existence. Catholic maniacs who fear contraception in any and all cases could take a similar line of argument. Anti-animal rights thinkers often use a reminescent example to justify the torture of livestock and poultry–after all without the meat industry so many cows and chickens wouldn’t be allowed to live at all. Certainly all sentient creatures have, post facto, basic rights that make claims on our moral behavior toward them but one cannot argue backwards that these current claims confer duties on us before the person or creature exists. In other words, the existence of Mary Cheney’s baby makes moral demands on Mary and society now, but one can still believe that bringing the child into existence in the first place was immoral and should not have been allowed. To be clear, I find the right wing view of this issue horrible but not from the argument Corvino uses in the above quote.
[QUOTE who="Johnny Jazz"]
Yeah, but all the cool kids call it Balkanization.
You’re right tho’ – God doesn’t have walls so why do churches?[/QUOTE]
Yes they do, like the Balkans themselves.
That?s what societies look like that allows them to be “atomized”
The important thing to remember here is that all the different “sects” are not expressly religious. Many are secular cults of ideology (feminism, sexual libertinism, and homosexual-ism)
Societies travel on a common currency of sexual norms & expectations. The destruction of these norms and the replacement of them with an inferior and inhumane set of norms is the particular protagonist in this episode of sectarianism.
“Always remember, you extol the great virtues of marriage, parenting and family as the bedrock of society and in the same breath request that gays and lesbians be excluded.”
I don?t request that they be excluded…they are excluded. This may not make them feel included, but there are far worse injustices in the world than people?s bent feelings.
One such great injustice is the 70% illegitimacy rates among African Americans.
We have very real heavy lifting to do in this society and only the institution of marriage can do it.
You are being selfish, selfish people never think they are…that?s why their selfish.
My ?true views? lie closer to this?
“Marriage is neither a conservative nor a liberal issue; it is a universal human institution, guaranteeing children fathers, and pointing men and women toward a special kind of socially as well as personally fruitful sexual relationship. Gay marriage is the final step down a long road America has already traveled toward deinstitutionalizing, denuding and privatizing marriage. It would set in legal stone some of the most destructive ideas of the sexual revolution: There are no differences between men and women that matter, marriage has nothing to do with procreation, children do not really need mothers and fathers, the diverse family forms adults choose are all equally good for children. What happens in my heart is that I know the difference. Don’t confuse my people, who have been the victims of deliberate family destruction, by giving them another definition of marriage.”
Walter Fauntroy-Former DC Delegate to CongressFounding member of the Congressional Black CaucusCoordinator for Martin Luther King, Jr.’s march on DC
What marriage needs to make it solid has nothing to do with complementary gonads and everything to do with responsibility.
Where’s yours, Fitz?
Precisely what the hell are YOU — and I mean you personally — doing to repair the instabilities in the institution, caused by irresponsibiilty (and the “selfishness” you so decry but seem to think yourself incapable of)?
People like Fitz babble about secondary considerations precisely because they don’t want to deal with the primary considerations.
You quote various sources as piously self-righteous as yourself, and you bloviate and pontificate endlessly. What you DON’T do is offer yourself as a part of the solution.
No real mystery as to why not.
The whole hoopla about “homosexuality” boils down to this: straights will NOT take responsibility for problems that they — being the overwhelming majority in society — refuse to work or sacrifice to solve.
Again, as gays are a tiny minority, it is safe to pick on them.
Irresponsible and dishonest people — the sort of frauds perpetuating Fitz’s rhetoric — are merely using gays as convenient scapegoats. Scapegoating is always employed by those who cause the problems, so they won’t have to take the rap for them or do anything substantive to correct them.
You are a coward and a hypocrite. Offer a real solution. Put up or shut up.
Right after I posted that challenge, I already saw the futility in it.
You can’t have a battle of wits with an unarmed person. The premise that an overwhelmingly-heterosexual problem, obviously cause by heterosexuals themselves, could possibly be the fault of the tiny minority excluded from marriage is so insane that no rational person could make it.
Famous people? Surely. People involved in noble endeavors, such as the civil rights movement, who may be granted infallible status and quoted as if they were God-like authorities on every subject under the sun? Why not?
You caused it, Fitz, so you solve it. At your own expense, like a real grownup.
Fat chance.
Precisely because marriage is a “universal human institution,” it is an institution in which all humans should have the opportunity to participate.
It is marriage for love that has caused the instability in marriage.
“Take one for the team,” Fitz. Show yourself willing to sacrifice THAT for the sake of marital stability.
Again, fat chance.
To add some evidence-based grit to the case for the benefits of same-sex parenting, might I suggest:
Judith Stacey and Tim Biblarz
“Does the Sexual Orientation of Parents Matter?” American Sociological Review April 2001:
159-183…?
It’s been repeatedly cited in Canadian court cases, Australian and New Zealand select committee hearings into same-sex parenting
reforms, and is available at a range of websites.
Craig2
Wellington, New Zealand
(And despite having profound political disagreements with Dick Cheney, may I congratulate him on his grandparenthood? Cute sprog, too)…
Craig2
“To add some evidence-based grit to the case for the benefits of same-sex parenting, might I suggest: Judith Stacey and Tim Biblarz “Does the Sexual Orientation of Parents Matter?” American Sociological Review April 2001:159-183.
The vast majority of these studies compare single lesbian mothers to single heterosexual mothers.
As sociologist Charlotte Patterson, a leading researcher on gay and lesbian parenting, recently summed up, ?[M]ost studies have compared children in divorced lesbian mother-headed families with children in divorced heterosexual motherheaded families.?16
Most of the gay parenting literature thus
compares children in some fatherless families to children in other fatherless family forms. The results may be relevant for some legal policy debates (such as custody disputes) but, in our opinion, they are not designed to shed light on family structure per se, and cannot credibly be used to contradict the current weight of social science: family structure matters, and the family structure that is most protective a child well-being is the intact, married biological family. Children do best when raised by their own married mother and father.
16Charlotte J. Patterson et al., 2000. ?Children of Lesbian and Gay Parents: Research, Law and Policy,? in Bette L. Bottoms et al., eds., Children and the Law: Social Science and Policy 10-11 (available from lead author at cjp@virginia.edu); see also Charlotte J. Patterson, 2000. ?Family Relationships of Lesbians and Gay Men,? Journal of
Marriage and Family 62: 1052-1069.
In 1995, prominent Berkeley sociologist Diana Baumrind reviewed various parenting studies, including the work of Charlotte Patterson and David Flaks. Diana
Baumrind, 1995. ?Commentary on Sexual Orientation: Research and Social Policy Implications,? Developmental
Psychology 31(1): 130.
In her review, Professor Baumrind evaluated, among other things, the claim that children of homosexual parents suffered no adverse outcomes, and were no more likely to develop a homosexual sexual orientation than were children not raised in such homes. Problems Baumrind found with the research she reviewed included the use of small, self-selected convenience samples, reliance on self-report instruments, and biased study populations consisting of disproportionately privileged, educated, and well-off parents. Due to these flaws, Baumrind questioned the conclusions on both ?theoretical and empirical grounds.??the methods used in these studies are so flawed that the studies prove nothing.? Robert Lerner & Althea K. Nagai, 2001. No Basis: What the
Studies Don?t Tell Us About Same-Sex Parenting (Washington, D.C.: Marriage Law Project): 6.15 Judith Stacey and Timothy Biblarz, 2001. ?(How) Does The Sexual Orientation of Parents Matter??, American
Sociological Review 66:159, 166.
And all this babble means…what, Fitz?
You and your fellow heterosexuals have allowed marriage and family life to deteriorate to such a pitiful and pathetic state that you’re actually reduced to the comical spectacle of BLAMING A TINY MINORITY FOR IT ALL.
A “tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
When non-religious gays tell me they think Christians are self-righteous, self-deluded bastards, this is the sort of bullshit they’re thinking of.
There’s a reason, fellow IGF-ers, why I keep asking my pesky little question about whether Jerry Falwell would have been a better person if he hadn’t been (at least supposedly) a Christian.
Is the sort of arrogance, pomposity and selfishness — selfishness so pathological it must resort to trying to deflect itself off onto others — the result of his “Christianity,” or is he simply a bastard?
And would he have been any less of a bastard if he hadn’t been a “Christian?”
It’s the content of their character, people. Or, more specifically, it is the lack thereof.
If anybody spoke to me in person the way Fitz does to all of us from the safety of cyberspace, I would knock him on his ass.
One thing I wouldn’t do would be to blame it on my Christianity.
Get ‘em Lori Heine!!!!
What *I* love about Fitz is he spends so much time massaging himself and pontificating to us about how wonderful it is for kids to be raised by their natural parents. As if all he has to do is keep repeating that mantra and it will happen. While obviously they SHOULD feed what they breed, sometimes they don’t OR they fail miserably. Apparently Fitz doesn’t listen to anything I have to say!
Right, Bill. We keep making sharp and thoughtful arguments to challenge the Fitz mentality, to which he (and others like him) respond with:
(A) “Studies” made by people who already knew they didn’t like us, designed to prove predetermined “points” — “proving,” for example, that we would harm our children. And always without honestly recognizing that the conditions that supposedly make marriage and parenthood unfavorable for us and our kids WERE CAUSED BY STRAIGHTS WHO HATE US IN THE FIRST PLACE.
(B) Letters from obscure bishops, dug out of the dust of the early Middle Ages, that supposedly “prove” God has always been against us.
(C) Scripture passages, snipped out of the Bible the way want-ads are snipped from the newspaper — totally out-of-context, and often (as is the case with Romans Chapter 1) using the snippet to “prove a point” the entire rest of the epistle argues against.
Strictly because of an accident of birth, Fitz presumes to pass judgment on us. We see through this sham. He will, undoubtedly, keep on digging up “studies” to show how horrible and destructive we are, and we’ll just keep on laughing.
To bad the study I point out (the one I quote and you wont read) is from Charlotte J. Patterson and others who support gay rights. This was in response to Craig2 who brought her up.
Neither of the studies mentions anything about “harm by gays” to children. They simply bring up the fact that studies to date are insufficient, methodologically flawed and don?t draw the conclusions activists claim they do.
They also reaffirm what we do know for certain through science. That the intact biological married family is the best environment for raising children.
Your persecution complex is showing.
Fitz,
The study (which I did read) is indeed inconclusive — but your point, that only a “traditional” male-female family is the right environment for children, is still based upon evidence found in a culture that is drastically biased against same-sex couples raising kids. In a society that places so many hurdles in the path of gay families, of course there are going to be adverse effects on those families and their children. Your answer is to obliterate those families instead of helping them.
I would like to see a study that takes this basic fact into account, and discusses what constructive steps might be taken to change this.
Traditional families have come in many different forms — not simply the “Ozzie and Harriet” model. In many of them, men have little or nothing to do with raising the kids. Are you prepared to study whether some of those other forms might actually have better historical track-records than the one you espouse?
Of course not.
As the problems plaguing the family in our society are, to an astronomically huge degree, heterosexually-generated problems, it remains ludicrous to put such an unjustly disproportionate amount of the blame on gays.
The real reason why our “culture warriors” do this is (A) to raise money — as hate and fear are always so greatly able to do and (B) to move the focus off of heterosexuals — who don’t want to bite the bullet and make the necessary sacrifices to turn the situation around.
Whatever humane and equitable solutions we might find, they would certainly involve some degree of sacrifice not only for straights, but also for the sort of gay people (I think a minority within the minority) who want kids for the same reason that a kid would want a puppy.
Again, it’s a content of character issue.
Gay people, like straights, are individuals — and each of us deserves to be seen as such. I can do no more about the fact that some gays and lesbians are irresponsible and selfish than any individual heterosexual can about the fact that A GREAT MANY MORE straights are.
We can’t even begin to discuss the situation until all the stupid scapegoating of gays has subsided.
This whole panic, on the part of heterosexual men, about “fatherless families” can be remedied ONLY by these men themselves. Not by bashing or blaming gays, but by simply stepping up to the plate and taking responsibility for their own relationships and offspring.
Most of the dire circumstances they decry have come about precisely because they would not do this.
My own father worked very hard to provide for our family. He stuck around, he was always there, and he never abandoned us. His politics were to the Right of Genghis Khan — but he never sat around whining and bellyaching about all those evil feminists and queers. He was too busy being an adult.
The real culprit in all of this is the degree to which liberal victim-think has invaded the thinking of what now, pathetically, passes for the political Right.
Those who made America great never sat around bellyaching or scapegoating. They got off their asses and did all they personally could.
Individually.
Based upon the content of their character.
“Again, it’s a content of character issue.”
I agree..as I originally wrote
The point of pro-family advocates is that a crucial, universal, and morally consistent principle is being undermined. Children should be conceived and born into the married couple of their natural Mother & Father.
Were not talking about adoption even, were a child is already born and whose parents abandon it or are unfit, and another couple steps into the breach.
Mary Cheney “acquiring” a child manifestly deprives that child of her Father.
No, we are talking about intentionally conceiving a child with the express purpose of its natural father abandoning it. To make matters even worse, no male is made the Father of this child.
When pro-family forces spent the last 40 years talking about ?family values? ? you didn?t really believe we were somehow confused as to what ?family? meant, did you?
It?s called a standard; and as standards go its more important than most.
Gay parenting as exemplified by Cheney is no moral benchmark or progressive development. Rather it represents the selfish desire of adults over the needs of children and community.
When a blue color male impregnates his girlfriend we need a consistent ethic that says he A) should not have impregnated her outside marriage & B.) Should marry the women and be a good husband and Father to his wife & child.
It is not altogether uncommon among the underclass for a young woman to have three children from three different Fathers.
By what ethical system can we admonish this young woman (or encourage her not to behave in that manner to begin with) in the face of acts like Mary Cheney.
All the platitudes about ?love? and ?commitment? and ?parenting? and ?wanted? wont help rebuild the family amidst widespread cultural consensus that the term has no essential meaning or core values.
“We can’t even begin to discuss the situation until all the stupid scapegoating of gays has subsided.”
No one is doing this, you simply “feel” like this yourself. The pro-family movement has been researching and talking about divorce, illegitamacy and irresponisble sex since the begining. We have been actively politically engaged since the sexual revolution.
Its those on the cultural left who say “all family forms are equel” that champoined divorce and easy ses..(and still do)
Dont kid yourself into thinking your some poor burdened victim.
This is a situation of society trying to deal with the false notions of a sexual revolution.
Not some false dichotomy of straights vs gays.
“Its those on the cultural left who say “all family forms are equel” that champoined divorce and easy ses..(and still do)”
Your interesting spelling aside, Fitz, you are stereotyping again. Every gay in the universe cannot automatically be lumped in with “the cultural left,” as a long way from all of us agree with it.
That pesky truth and reality thing again, Fitz.
Gay conservatives are calling for a SINGLE STANDARD for both gays and straights — one that calls for individual responsibility. One in which people who become parents do so out of commitment to children and family — not out of any self-indulgent desire.
Gays are no less capable of that than straights are. Even though we get far less legal and societal encouragement for our efforts.
“Dont kid yourself into thinking your some poor burdened victim.”
Oh, really? My experience with straight men is that there are no bigger crybabies anywhere. If you had to put up with a hundredth of the bullshit you routinely expect us to just graciously accept, we’d really hear some hollering.
“This is a situation of society trying to deal with the false notions of a sexual revolution.”
Society includes gays as well as straights, and false notions of a sexual revolution have certainly been evidenced far more often in heterosexuals than in gays.
Pot. Kettle. Black.
Nothing shows you people as the squirmy hypocrites you really are better than your attitudes about gay marriage. For decades you claimed you opposed us because we supposedly didn’t want to make commitments or raise kids. Then when you found out we did, the spin changed. Now we’re trying to destroy the world because we DO want to get married and raise kids.
Unless you are willing to offer evidence of your own moral superiority (real, rather than imagined — and based upon something more substantial than an accident of birth), no one here has any compelling reason to listen to you.
People like Fitz babble about secondary considerations precisely because they don’t want to deal with the primary considerations.
Yep.
This bears out in the statistics as well. States that embrace equal marriage (like Massachusetts) or even separate-and-sorta-equal status (like New Hampshire, Connecticut and Vermont) have very low divorce rates and are in the bottom 20th percentile of divorce frequency.
States seeking to “protect marriage” and “keep the institution sacred and enduring” by banning gay marriage — such as Alabama, Nevada, and Oklahoma — are well above the national average in divorces.
It’s not gay people getting divorced in those states, nor are gay people flocking to them in droves to “undermine” marriage. The states where gay people have some (or complete) equality in legal treatment have a lower divorce rate.
Looking at the statistics, Fitz and his cohorts should be embarrassedly sitting down and shutting up and taking lessons from married Vermonters, Massachuttans and New Hampshirites on marriage and “keeping marriage strong” rather than lecturing those states from their own high-divorce platforms.
Of course, that would assume that their concern grows out of actual concern over “marriage” — and not the anti-gay animus that is truly at the core of “marriage protection” initiatives.
I’m afraid (as you assume) that we are at an impasse.
Your fundamental worldview is different than mine and so you cannot see what I am trying to point out. (I on the other hand understand why you come at it from the angle you do)
Statements Like
“Gays are no less capable of that than straights are. Even though we get far less legal and societal encouragement for our efforts.”
While you may look at society through the prism of US against THEM; we do not.
When you say things like…
“Society includes gays as well as straights, and false notions of a sexual revolution have certainly been evidenced far more often in heterosexuals than in gays. ”
It reveals how you approach the topic. I see it as an entire society (gays included) roiling under the weight of 40 years of uninterrupted sexual revolution.
I see a marriage movement trying to confront divorce, illegitimacy, and promiscuousness and so on.
There is no US versus THEM in the world of family values. It is simply a question of what standards help produce what most people NEED, most of the time. (including giving children their Mothers and Fathers)
Blocking any advance have been sexual revolutionaries, cultural leftists, feminists and the like.
They shriek about a ?return to repression? and the 1950′s
Enter into this battle (suddenly) a supposed family values oriented subculture that insists on re-defining the ONE core foundational institution that human sexuality is geared towards Marriage & the Family.
#1.) I have no reason to believe the bulk of the cultural left will somehow (once you have made your gains) start promoting two parent responsible procreation.
#2.) I have no reason to believe that your new standard (if enacted) will actually not harm ?marriage?
I read IGF and occasionally comment with what I find germane. You are welcome at our site to do the same. (It will at least inform you as to our true perspective)
While you may look at society through the prism of US against THEM; we do not.
Sure you do — in fact, you’re writing laws that put the putative “us” in a legally privileged position and “them” in a legally hobbled position. Please abandon the laughable pretense that it’s otherwise.
a supposed family values oriented subculture that insists on re-defining the ONE core foundational institution
And yet again, you ignore the fact that the places that are supposedly “undermining” this core foundational institution by opening it up to gays have a lower divorce rate and lower single-parent family rate than the states taking your tack and excluding gays.
If your thesis was at all correct, “defense of marriage” jurisdictions like Oklahoma, Nevada and Georgia would have rock-bottom divorce rates while Massachusetts, California, Vermont and Connecticut would be falling to pieces in terms of divorce.
The reality is that the places that adhere to your worldview are in marriage meltdown, while the inclusive places have strong families and low divorce rates.
Ergo, it’s your perspective which is both qualitatively and quantitatively resulting in the destruction of families — there can be no other conclusion drawn from the empirical data.
Another dose of simple-minded demonization, stereotype and outright lying from Fitz.
He knows next to nothing about me, but concludes ALL SORTS of things — not only the basis of what I say, but simply because his mind was made up before he even started.
Brian Miller has made a wise and reasoned attempt (yet again) to respond to Fitz. But you can’t reason with the unreasonable.
One standard (the same one for all), emphasizing responsibility and commitment, would indeed be the best course.
But people like Fitz are too busy demonizing others to try it.
It is interesting to note that the states with the laws that treat gays the most fairly are doing the best in terms of keeping families intact, whereas the ones least fair to gays (particularly in the so-called “Bible Belt”) are those that are struggling.
I have noticed a similar trend in the individuals I know. Those who blindly condemn gays (and who like to rail against “liberalism”) have personal lives as untidy as the riot scenes painted by Picasso. This has proved true to a striking degree. While those with gentler, fairer and more reasonable views have happier and more stable families.
It’s the principle, set in motion, that proves the necessary part.
All too many of the loudmouths out there who trumpet their “conservatism” are actually immoral little creeps. They simply hope that if they go on shouting loud enough, we’ll all keep on condemning gays and pay no attention to their own messy, sordid little lives.
Are there exceptions to this? Of course there are.
But there are surprisingly few of them.
Uh- Brain. (you sosiologist you)
Are you accounting for the fact that you get less divorce when the marriage rate overall is less.
And are you correcting for income variations?
For the Junior Sociologist.
How to explain these differences? The following factors provide a partial answer:
More couples in the South enter their first marriage at a younger age.
Average household incomes are lower in the South.
Southern states have a lower percentage of Roman Catholics, “a denomination that does not recognize divorce.” Barna’s study showed that 21 percent of Catholics had been divorced, compared with 29 percent of Baptists.
Education. Massachusetts has about the highest rate of education in the country, with 85 percent completing high school. For Texas the rate is 76 percent. One third of Massachusetts residents have completed college, compared with 23 percent of Texans, and the other Northeast states are right behind Massachusetts.
Nope- nothing about same-sex “marriage” (& that was the Boston Globe)
But none of that is supposed to matter, Fitz, because you yourself are arguing that the institution is destroyed when gays are allowed into it.
If gays are a thermonuclear bomb that destroys marriages and cause divorce and family breakdown, then Massachusetts, Vermont, California, etc. should be in thermonuclear breakdown.
Since they’re not — and doing much better than the various states you’ve listed excuses for — your thesis becomes quite questionable.
Now, let’s assume that your statistics are correct, and the reason that marriage is melting down in “family values” areas is because of younger marriage ages, not enough Catholics, lower education, etc.
It then becomes clear that:
1) Gay marriage has no statistically significant impact on states that permit it, BUT
2) All these other excuses you’re making have a HUGE impact on marriage, divorce and “the family.”
THUS, if your position grew out of a sense of “protecting the family,” your “defense of marriage” law would consist of mandatory education, higher ages for marriage, etc.
Since they don’t (and you’d presumably oppose such efforts, or at least certainly not advocate them), we can reasonably assume that your motivation isn’t “the good of families, regardless of inconveniencing some people” but rather the simple exclusion of gay people from family life.
Either way, you are *soooooooo* busted as they say here in California.
I see a marriage movement trying to confront divorce, illegitimacy, and promiscuousness and so on.
I don’t. I see lots of people who are in strong marriages who don’t feel the need to tell other people how to live their lives — as well as lots of people in loveless marriages who are cheating on the side wearing a mantle of faux-righteousness to make up for the inadequacy and artifice of their own unsustained relationship.
The former tend to not care about gay marriage one way or the other, the latter tend to be “family values advocates” (and divorc
“But none of that is supposed to matter, Fitz, because you yourself are arguing that the institution is destroyed when gays are allowed into it.”
If gays are a thermonuclear bomb that destroys marriages and cause divorce and family breakdown, then Massachusetts, Vermont, California, etc. should be in thermonuclear breakdown.”
See Brian.. you cant show me arguing this level of hyperbowl anywere.
Same-sex “marriage” locks in and reinforces an already fragile understanding..
My ?true views? lie closer to this?
“Marriage is neither a conservative nor a liberal issue; it is a universal human institution, guaranteeing children fathers, and pointing men and women toward a special kind of socially as well as personally fruitful sexual relationship. Gay marriage is the final step down a long road America has already traveled toward deinstitutionalizing, denuding and privatizing marriage. It would set in legal stone some of the most destructive ideas of the sexual revolution: There are no differences between men and women that matter, marriage has nothing to do with procreation, children do not really need mothers and fathers, the diverse family forms adults choose are all equally good for children. What happens in my heart is that I know the difference. Don’t confuse my people, who have been the victims of deliberate family destruction, by giving them another definition of marriage.”
Walter Fauntroy-Former DC Delegate to CongressFounding member of the Congressional Black CaucusCoordinator for Martin Luther King, Jr.’s march on DC
. Gay marriage is the final step down a long road America has already traveled toward deinstitutionalizing, denuding and privatizing marriage.
It’s interesting to see that since your argument has been factually decimated, you’re going to present your idealized definition of what marriage should be.
Why am I not surprised that you’re calling for a socialist approach?
Government institution publicly funded, publicly evaluated, “not privatized,” and completely open to the evaluation of all.
I never understand the right wing socialists. You’d think that before government got in the marriage business (in the 1860s) that people weren’t having children or getting married.
What *were* families doing without government “institutions” to make their relationships a public affair? How *did* the human race survive?
The mind boggles.
“See Brian.. you cant show me arguing this level of hyperbowl anywere.”
What, on the Good Lord’s green earth, is “hyperbowl?”
Whatever it is, we hear Fitz arguing it all the time.
It bears the unmistakable odor of phoney baloney.
Fitz is … correct.
There is nothing noble or even benign about two women deciding that a man is someone to hire for his gametes, and should remain anonymous to his children the rest of their lives. The same is true for the two men deciding that women are a womb for rent.
The egregious nature of sex-segregation does not equalize genders, and it hits children even more egregiously. It treats children like chattel, purchased and commissioned to adorn a relationship.
Someone (as no one has yet done this) tell me why this is something to celebrate. Perhaps it is impolite to look so narrowly at their joy and success, perhaps it is just so pitiful for the child that we don’t want to rub his/her nose in it. But those are excuses for not doing anything about it. I see no reason to celebrate this at all, and more reason to question the nobility of people striving to re-create humanity with family headed without the shared governance of the other gender.
First of all, there’s the assumption that same-sex couples somehow screen out the possibility of any involvement, in the child’s life, by any significant adult of the opposite sex.
I know a lot of same-sex couples with kids (I daresay more than Fitz or “OnLawn” put together), and most of them have a substantial place in their family lives for uncles, grandpas and close male friends (if the couples are women) and aunts, grandmothers and good female friends (for those who are men).
I know quite a few people raised by opposite-sex couples who wish they’d had the sort of love and devotion lavished on many of the kids of gay parents.
Unlike straight people, who behave, half the time, as if their kids are nuisances that just — oops! — popped up because somebody forgot to take a pill, we have to fight like hell for the right to have kids. And, very often, for the right to keep them.
It would be nice if these pseudo-conservative trolls lived in the real world for a while before showing their ignorance here.
Comments on this entry are closed.