God Hates You.......

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If I marry someone and our relationship is the status quo, then another couple gets married (not status quo), how did my relationship change at all? How did our status change at all? This already happens right now. Why can't people be responsible for their own relationships?

we can make up what ever labels we want for our selves and our relationship, but those labels only have any meaning outside of ourselves if the meanings are commonly understood. Likewise, when we take a label with a definition that is commonly understood in the collective and apply it to ourselves then our identity becomes in part that label....change the meaning of the label and you change the identity of each person who claims that label as their own.

You have very clearly shown in many threads that you have no understanding of the link between the individual and the collective, that for you we are all a bunch of self contained and self determining individuals running around, so I don't expect you to understand.

Actually, I think the reality is that the average level of education and income among gays who choose to partner and then parent is probably higher than that of the average heterosexual couple.

Anecdotally, I've also noticed and would hazard to put forth that because these parents have made an alternative choice, and they're aware this may well affect their childrens' day to day lives in their schools and community, if anything, there's an increased diligence in making sure the children receive the emotional support a nuclear family can provide.

I have to say that when I was working in adoption, though I have absolutely no homophobic thoughts at all - I was always a little sad when a female child was adopted by two men. It was incidental to me that they were gay - even if they'd just been brothers adopting these little girls, my first, initial gut feeling was negative...why? Not because they were gay- not at all. It was because I know how much I valued my mother in my life and it made me sad that these little girls would never have a mother.

And I still believe and feel that - no matter how many times I see a successful adoption by a same sex couple- I always have this little pang for that child (especially if it's a boy being adopted by two women or a girl being adopted by two men). But I have to admit, that pang always goes away pretty quickly when I see how happy these kids are in what usually turn out to be pretty exceptional homes.

I think it's alright to say that someone believes a marriage should be between a man and a woman if that's what s/he believes.
And I don't think it means that person hates gay people.
I think it's alright to say that someone believes that ideally a child should have a mother and a father - and it doesn't mean they hate gay people.
It doesn't mean they hate single mothers or single fathers either.
It doesn't mean they hate anyone.
They're just stating what they believe is the ideal.
But I also think if we want the ideal for all children, we should do a better job of finding some way to provide it.

OE writes

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How would that happen? That's the core thesis of your whole argument, but you don't explain why you think that would happen.

Yes I have. When you make something different that it was, what was no longer exists.

I have lived a rather long life now and have seen too many miserable results of good intentions producing unintended terrible consequences.

Diminishing and devaluing traditional marriage and the nuclear family has certainly produced miserable results so far, and I am not willing to risk promoting and accelerating more of the same.

You certainly are entitled to your own point of view and promoting whatever you wish to promote.

What's your point? That given legal gay marriage when a straight person says they are married that others will become confused as to what their sexual orientation is

Please try to follow without being insulting....up till now marriage has been understood to be a union of man and woman right? If gays are allowed to marry it will no longer be thus, right? Do you see a change? If the change happens and I am married it will no longer mean that I am in union with a woman, it will mean something else, this something that has not yet been determined. It might mean that I am in a legal union which affords me rights from the society, it might mean that I am in union with a person that I care about, it might mean there after nothing much at all. It will however not mean what it has up till now.

If I want a label for my relationship that means between man and woman then I will need to make a new label, because that which I had, which belonged to the man/woman union for all of history, was taken from that meaning.

There has never been a time when there was one unified view on what a traditional marriage means. It's always been in flux depending on the time.

The traditional definition of marriage has always been and continues to be a legally recognized union between a man and a woman. Nothing more. Nothing less.

The laws in the civil contract required by the state have at times been detrimental to civil rights and could not be justified by any reasoned argument, but I believe all or most of those have now been changed or the few stupid laws that remain on the books are simply ignored.

And yees, there has been cultural revolution that has resulted in marriage being devalued as an institution and deemed unnecessary either to live together or have kids and/or marriage is often viewed as something we'll try out to see if it feels good, and if not, well divorce is ugly but not all that big a deal, etc. (And before the peanut gallery jumps on that one, I am NOT saying that there is no justification for divorce.) Certain laws favoring single parents has further eroded the institution by punishing families for a husband/father being present and that in turn has encouraged single parenthood with the result of unacceptable child poverty statistics. Note again to the peanut gallery: that fact is not changed by the fact that all children of single parents do not live in poverty.

But spite of all of this, the definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman has not changed either legally or effectively except in the State of Massachusetts where I think the people will at some point elect to return to the traditional definition. Or not. It does not change my opinion one way or the other.

walter and oe, this is what I've been trying to get at with ff.

There has never been a time when there was one unified view on what a traditional marriage means. It's always been in flux depending on the time.

This is what I mean by saying ff world is small. She is looking at a very limited time frame, within a very limited population, and stating that is what traditional marriage is.

She still hasn't answered the question what exactly the harm would be, except to say she has stated it before, and doesn't want to waste her time going over it again.

Interesting reading. After reading the last several pages, I am wont to wonder what the concensus could be if the word marriage was not used for the union of a gay couple. Would there be objection to said union if another word, other than marriage, was used to describe the bond?

I have no objection whatsoever to the union or what they choose to call it. I object to changing the legally recognized definition of traditional marriage.

ABSTRACT

Twenty"three empirical studies published between 1978 and 2000 on nonclinical children raised by lesbian mothers or gay fathers were reviewed (one Belgian/Dutch, one Danish, three British, and 18 North American). Twenty reported on offspring of lesbian mothers, and three on offspring of gay fathers. The studies encompassed a total of 615 offspring (age range 1.5"44 years) of lesbian mothers or gay fathers and 387 controls, who were assessed by psychological tests, questionnaires or interviews. Seven types of outcomes were found to be typical: emotional functioning, sexual preference, stigmatization, gender role behavior, behavioral adjustment, gender identity, and cognitive functioning. Children raised by lesbian mothers or gay fathers did not systematically differ from other children on any of the outcomes. The studies indicate that children raised by lesbian women do not experience adverse outcomes compared with other children. The same holds for children raised by gay men, but more studies should be done.

My definition of marriage is the same definition that spans at least 4000 to 6000 years. I suppose you could consider that an unacceptably small sampling, but in my tiny world, I choose to think that is rather significant.