najmelliw wrote:
Can a gay couple truly provide a healthy environment for kids to grow up in?
Studies show that they can and do. Gay couples can adopt children without marriage. So wouldn't it be better to go ahead and let them be married?
http://www.webmd.com/content/Article/113/110762.htm
Quote:Oct.12, 2005 (Washington) -- Children growing up in same-sex parental households do not necessarily have differences in self-esteem, gender identity, or emotional problems from children growing up in heterosexual parent homes.
"There are a lot of children with at least one gay or lesbian parent," says Ellen C. Perrin, MD, professor of pediatrics at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston. She revealed the findings at the American Academy of Pediatrics Conference and Exhibition.
Between 1 million and 6 million children in the U.S. are being reared by committed lesbian or gay couples, she says. Children being raised by same-sex parents were either born to a heterosexual couple, adopted, or conceived through artificial insemination.
"The vast consensus of all the studies shows that children of same-sex parents do as well as children whose parents are heterosexual in every way," she tells WebMD. "In some ways children of same-sex parents actually may have advantages over other family structures."
timberlandko wrote:Something I learned about weddings long ago; always make the gift cash, and never seal the envelope untill you've seen the bar and banquet setup.
*making mental note to self*
Chai Tea wrote:What about lesbians who stick things up each others butts?
Your ideas intrigue me and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
I have always been against any form of persecution of gay people. I believe that everbody should be treated as exactly equal, and with dignity. However, that's not the same as saying that homosexuality is normal. Nature clearly intended sex to be between beings capable of reproducing, which is not to say that it cannot also be used for recreational purposes between two such beings. In my opinion, homosexuality is a birth defect, and just as I would not want a person with one leg to be persecuted, I wouldn't want someone with this defect to be persecutued.
I am, however, against treating it as normal. Right now society treats heterosexuality as normal and homosexuality as an aberration, and I think it should continue to do that. There has been a growing trend in Western society to treat homosexuality as just as normal as heterosexuality, and government sponsorship of gay marriage would merely be another step in this direction. If allowed to occur, then other steps would follow, and in the end, society might be greatly changed. Children growing up might simply be told that someday they would marry another person, rather than a person of the opposite sex. I don't want to live in that society, and, therefore, I oppose every step in that direction.
I await a flurry of posts putting words in my mouth that I neither said nor intended.
Take your offense to the people who ditch the children, not to me. Those kind of parents are the worst kind IMHO.
Whenever someone comes up with that homsexuality is not natural horsesh!t, i always think of
the bonobo.
For those who are too lazy to read that much,
this page gets down to cases rather quickly.
Quote:The second hurdle is human squeamishness about what in the 80s were called PDAs, or public displays of affection, in this case very graphic ones. Bonobos lubricate the gears of social harmony with sex, in all possible permutations and combinations: males with females, males with males, females with females, and even infants with adults. The sexual acts include intercourse, genital-to-genital rubbing, oral sex, mutual masturbation and even a practice that people once thought they had a patent on: French kissing.
Brandon9000 wrote:I don't want to live in that society, and, therefore, I oppose every step in that direction.
I agree completely. I also don't want you to live in that society. Can I help you pack your bags?
Brandon9000 wrote:
Children growing up might simply be told that someday they would marry another person, rather than a person of the opposite sex. I don't want to live in that society, and, therefore, I oppose every step in that direction.
I await a flurry of posts putting words in my mouth that I neither said nor intended.
...but you said that homosexuality was a
birth defect. One that was in place, obviously,
at birth. That would lead me to conlude, based on your thesis, that homosexuality is not
learned behavior.
joefromchicago wrote:Brandon9000 wrote:I don't want to live in that society, and, therefore, I oppose every step in that direction.
I agree completely. I also don't want you to live in that society. Can I help you pack your bags?
A most cogent argument against my reasoning, as usual. It's nice to see that you still respond to perfectly calm, dignified statements of opinion, in this forum for opinions, by insulting the poster.
Instead of leaving, I think I'll try to vote for candidates who agree with my opinion.
Brandon was just trying to do exactly what the thread originator asked for - posit an argument against gay marriage, without reference to religion. I don't know why that should be a reason to invite him to leave the country.
I mean, seriously people - we all know that a lot of people - maybe even the majority of Americans, I have no idea - are against gay marriage. Even though by and large we're so liberal here in A2K in our politics that we bleed Greenpeace green, we can at least let one person have a dissenting opinion on a hot topic without getting twisted, can't we?
[size=7]....can't we?[/size]
candidone1 wrote:Brandon9000 wrote:
Children growing up might simply be told that someday they would marry another person, rather than a person of the opposite sex. I don't want to live in that society, and, therefore, I oppose every step in that direction.
I await a flurry of posts putting words in my mouth that I neither said nor intended.
...but you said that homosexuality was a
birth defect. One that was in place, obviously,
at birth. That would lead me to conlude, based on your thesis, that homosexuality is not
learned behavior.
I do think it's purely physical and not learned, but there are undoubtedly people who can go either way.
So, you're saying that it is a birth defect and a learned behavior?
I most certainly would not switch teams simply through the power of suggestion.
If you're stating that homosexuality is both biological and environmental, then I'd like to see some evidence backing that up.
I appreciate all opinions here. I wanted to start a thread that would pit logic against logic rather than have the usual frenzy of religious dogma.
Of course, our logic stems from religious beliefs sometimes and/or personal experience, but if we are forced to put it in different words, (example: something other than the usual "Because god says it wrong") perhaps we can learn something about ourselves and our beliefs.
That's where I was going with this thread. I just didn't want the typical religious vs. non-religious argument.
Owing to the fact that marriage is largely considered a religious event in the United States it's silly to have the discussion on this topic without discussing the religious aspects.
Ok, so lets change the word (here we go again hung up on a word) to civil union.
Orignal question substituting "marrige" with civil union.
Oweing to the fact that a large part of the argument for legalizing Gay marriage is the push to try to keep religion out of our lawmaking, I think its silly to say the discussion is silly.
I know several gay married couples. They actually seem to have happier marraiges than a lot of the straight marrages I've seen. In order for them to overcome the stigma of gay marraige they must truly love each other.
Does McG purport that one goes to a church to obtain a marriage license?
snood wrote:Oweing to the fact that a large part of the argument for legalizing Gay marriage is the push to try to keep religion out of our lawmaking, I think its silly to say the discussion is silly.
Just testing a hypothesis:
Sometimes, the sky is blue.
McGentrix wrote:snood wrote:Oweing to the fact that a large part of the argument for legalizing Gay marriage is the push to try to keep religion out of our lawmaking, I think its silly to say the discussion is silly.
Just testing a hypothesis:
Sometimes, the sky is blue.
Okay - I'll bite...
Sometimes McG is an abyssmal jerk.
that the result you expected?
