Over on the MarriageDebate blog, Eve writes:
Hey, look, you can get a nice review of literature here.
However, the link Eve provides is to an anti-gay-equality site, which – surprise, surprise – links only to papers which conclude that there’s no evidence that kids of gay parents turn out as well as kids of straight parents. Both of the papers Eve links to were commissioned by anti-gay-equality activists; neither one has been subjected to peer review. Neither link Eve cites provides any evidence that children raised by lesbian or gay parents have any negative outcomes, compared to the children of straight parents.
To balance things out, Eve might want to add the following links, which summarize the social science evidence and conclude that the children of gay parents don’t suffer any ill effects:
- “(How) Does the Sexual Orientation of Parents Matter?” (pdf link), from American Sociological Review April 2001.
- The brief written by the American Psychological Association in Delong v. Delong.
- The brief written by the APA and the National Association of Social Workers in Boswell v. Boswell.
- This pro-same-sex-marriage site, created by the ACLU, usefully summarizes 22 studies (including their shortcomings).
But what about the studies Eve links to? They make some serious points – the studies that exist in the real world do have shortcomings, such as small sample sizes. However, the conclusion that therefore all the social science data should be ignored entirely is too extreme. As social scientist Judith Stacey argues:
A: The studies that have been conducted are certainly not perfect – virtually no study is. It’s almost never possible to transform complex social relationships, such as parent-child relationships, into adequate, quantifiable measures, and because many lesbians and gay men remain in the closet, we cannot know if the participants in the studies are representative of all gay people. However, the studies we reviewed are just as reliable and respected as studies in other areas of child development and psychology. So, most of those so-called experts are really leveling attacks on well-accepted social science methods. Yet they do not raise objections to studies that are even less rigorous or generalizable on such issues as the impact of divorce on children. It seems evident that the critics employ a double-standard. They attack these particular studies not because the research methods differ from or are inferior to most studies of family relationships but because these critics politically oppose equal family rights for lesbians and gay men.
The studies we discussed have been published in rigorously peer-reviewed and highly selective journals, whose standards represent expert consensus on generally accepted social scientific standards for research on child development. […]
There is not a single, respectable social scientist conducting and publishing research in this area today who claims that gay and lesbian parents harm children.
UPDATE: See also this recent study, published November 2004, which is mythologically more rigorous than most previous studies.
We drew information for our study from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, in which researchers conducted interviews with and collected information from thousands of American adolescents and their parents. The two groups we studied had several similar characteristics, including age, gender, ethnicity, level of parental education, and family income. There was an equal number of girls and boys, and an overall average age of 15.
We found that adolescents whose parents had same-sex romantic partners were developing in positive ways. We found no significant differences in their school achievement or psychological well-being when compared to their peers with male/female parents.
Adolescents whose mothers had same-sex partners were neither more nor less likely than those whose mothers had opposite-sex partners to report they were involved in a romantic relationship during the past year, or that they had ever engaged in sexual intercourse. Adolescents in both groups were generally well adjusted, with relatively high levels of self-esteem, relatively low levels of anxiety, few symptoms of depression, and good school achievement. […]
Summarized from Child Development, Vol. 75, Issue 6, “Summary of Psychosocial Adjustment, School Outcomes, and Romantic Attractions of Adolescents With Same-Sex Parents” by J.L. Wainright, S.T. Russell, and C.J. Patterson
Good catch! I hadn’t bothered to follow her link. Every time I look at the MarriageDebate blog I see some anti-marriage-rights post that pisses me off with the insanely low quality of its argument, and get all distracted.
Check out Family Scholars Blog at http://www.marriagemovement.org/. Elizabeth Marquardt, who favors civil unions, worries that the legitimization of “gay marriage” as a norm will further erode the norm that children are best off having their actual mother and actual father rearing them (absent the unusual abusive situation, of course). Consider this post, or this one.
A long quote from Marquardt:
QUOTE: The point is that children need and yearn for the mother and father who *created* them, unless that mother or father proves unfit and loses parenting rights. Children need their mother and their father, not just any two “parents.”
When a single hetero mother brings a new man into the house her child does not have two “parents” in the home. The child has a mother and a mother’s boyfriend, as well as a father floating somewhere on the margins. If her mother marries the guy the child has a mother and stepfather, and a father somewhere else. With the passage of years and the building of trust the child might come to feel that the stepfather is her parent as well. But nothing in law or in the child’s perceptions makes the man her parent just because mom brings him home.
Similarly, when a single lesbian mother brings her new partner into her home, her child does not suddenly have two “parents” in the home. She has a single mother, a mother’s girlfriend, and a father floating somewhere on the margins. With the passage of time and the building of trust, the child might come to see her mother’s girlfriend as a “parent” as well. But legalizing same-sex marriage does not make the mother’s girlfriend trump the child’s father either in law or in the child’s perceptions.
These are precisely the kinds of reasons that I am concerned about same sex marriage. When a same sex couple has a baby the baby comes from *somewhere* but the child’s two biological parents are not and will never be married to one another. The child begins life as a defacto child of divorce. Gays and lesbians are as good or bad at parenting as the rest of us, but same sex parenting of necessity takes a less satisfactory child raising model — divorce or single parenting — and makes that the starting point of the child’s life. Then it adds in a parent’s partner and hopes the whole thing will gel. Sometimes it will, sometimes it won’t, but even when everybody gets along great the child will always wonder, as all children do, why that father or mother floating out there on the margins didn’t want her. ENDQUOTE
Sorry, that link didn’t work. Try this post, or this one, this one.
Another quote:
PS — You might ask, well, what if the lesbian mother doesn’t start out single? What if she and her partner are together before the child is born and they are the only two caregivers the child ever knows? Yes, the child will in all likelihood see them as her parents. But parenthood isn’t like a tank of gas, you fill it up with any two parents and you’re ready to go. There’s still that pesky father out there on the margins. Yes, you and I and those lesbian mothers would definitely like to forget about that guy. The problem is that the child can’t forget. As she grows up she will, like almost all adopted children, children of sperm donors, and fatherless children do, routinely confront the question, “Who am I?”, look in the mirror, and wonder what in that image gazing back at her came from the father she never met.
These arguments of course presume that a child, in some amorphous sense, “does better” when living in the same location as both biological parents. While this is a very convenient argument when trying to limit the rights of women and homosexuals, it doesn’t seem to be based on any quantifiable, factual information, but rather on people’s desire for it to really, really be true. There was an excellent post on Trish Wilson’s blog a few months ago featuring several studies the conclusions of which seemed to indicate that it is more important that the two parents of a given child get along well and act well toward one another than that they actually live in the same place. There were also studies that seemed to indicate that a “broken home” does not, in and of itself, limit a child’s ability to “do well,” whatever we can agree that that means.
Furthermore, the position put forth that children born to a lesbian couple or adopted by a gay or lesbian couple or present in a gay home of any kind is a defacto child of divorce is just so much garbage. If that were true it would have to extend to all adoptions and all couples who need to use a sperm donor because the father is incapable of fertilizing an egg for whatever reason. Let’s just see what happens when we try to deny those people their rights. Heretofore it will be illegal for all infertile men and women to marry and adopt children. Bummed out because you can’t marry the man you love, madam? Well, you should’ve thought of that before menopause.
Look, simply put, there are no secular arguments against gay marriage or adoption that aren’t at their heart based on bigotry, prejudice, and opposition to equality and personal liberty. You can try to say that it’s about the kids, but it’s simply not borne out by any facts. And frankly, marriage isn’t all about the kids, either.
Man. Imagine what would happen if anti-gay marriage folks channeled all their energy into initiatives that would objectively be in the kids’ best interest–like helping families out of poverty, improving the school system, and offering support for the myriads of pressures (social, physical, intellectual) growing up entails.
Instead, it seems like they’re trying to ruin families, merely because they’re uncomfortable with the idea that two people of the same gender can love each other.
Am I simplifying their motives? Maybe I am. Maybe they really are interested in children’s well-being. I just don’t understand how banning same-sex marriage will achieve any kind of kid-friendly goal.
There’s an article today on the Boston Globe website about the research on whether homosexuality is inherited or not. My impression, after a quick skim, was that there is some evidence that it may be innate, but the research is inconclusive.
Hey, I was adopted and I wonder all the time about my “parents”, but my real parents raised me and they are the ones I am attached to-and always will be. Despite the opportunity to find my “parents” I haven’t chosen to look because I don’t need other parents.
The anti-gay marriage crowd needs to be careful that they don’t argue themselves out on to a ledge they can only jump from. Actually, I think it is inevitable that they will.
If you separate the issue from a question of a moral objection to homosexuality, there is no a single argument against same-sex marriage that holds up to the myriad of reasons to support it.
Quick question, Joe M. Do you believe that gay and lesbian couples ought to be allowed to adopt?
—JRC
there’s all sorts of problems with Joe M’s thesis. By his measure, no one should be able to adopt, because there will always be the “real” parents out there that the kids are yearning for. All those kids adopted from Asia, Romania and South America. Doomed. And who knows what to do with orphans and abandoned kids. Obviously they’re doomed from the start. Widows, widowers, all screwed if they have kids. No point in remarrying because the kid will just pine for the biological parent and that’s what marriage is about anyway.
Ridiculous on its face.
I worked in academic publishing (for a firm which published 15 different academic journals) for 2 years, and so I know a fair bit about peer review. It’s interesting how the vast majority of unpublished research which ‘confirms’ anti-gay viewpoints is almost always unpublished and has not been peer reviewed. Frankly, if a paper hasn’t been peer reviewed by AT LEAST two independent experts, then it’s completely worthless.
The peer review process is a lot more complicated that people often realise – it’s pretty rare (at least for the journals that my company published) for a paper to be accepted unconditionally i.e. without the reviewers saying that it should be modified in some way. The process of modifying the paper and sending it back to the reviewers for re-review can go on for quite some time, and any author who wants to get into print will usually be happy to modify their work. So the fact that the authors of these studies are apparently unwilling to submit their work for peer review speaks volumes.
You would be surprised by the amount of papers that are submitted in a really terrible state – spelling mistakes, incomplete diagrams, appalling grammar etc. And the authors expect their paper to be published in that state! People who submit papers often seem to do so with the expectation that their wonderful paper will be published un-modified, but things very rarely turn out that way.
So anyway, if an academic author is not prepared to submit their work to critical scrutiny (and to modify their work is necessary), then they really haven’t got a leg to stand on, because their work is almost certainly seriously flawed in some way. Academics know the system, they know that work has to be peer-reviewed before publication in any respectable journal, and if they can’t cope with that fact, then they’re probably in the wrong job.
Here’s the deal. The anti-gay-marriage crowd figure that if they make life difficult enough for gay couples, and find ways to take their children away, those children will have to go to perfect 2.3-kid heterosexual married couples living in good Republican small towns in the heartland, and they’ll all be saved and grow up to be just like Ronald Reagan.
Mary-Jane, out of curiosity, does it work the same way for Math papers? Or do you deal with Math papers in your job?
Sorry for the tangent, this is my future career here so I’m curious.
Interesting aside, during Cauchy’s day back in the 19th century, the Paris Mathematics Journal imposed a strict 5-page limit to math papers – otherwise they’d go out of business from printing expenses from publishing all of Cauchy’s papers. If you take any course in Analysis or Algebra or many other courses, you’ll find Cauchy’s name pops up all the time.[\tangent]
Joe M, is there any real evidence that this norm actually has eroded over time?
And if it has, and you really are concerned about it, wouldn’t a more direct and effective approach be passing legislation making it illegal for birth parents to give a child up for adoption, thus limiting adoption to orphans? And also eliminating foster care?
Start with basics — why does the state recognize marriage at all? There is no official recognition of any other form of human relationship — friendship, acquaintance-ship, best-friend-ship, neighbor, cousinhood, mentor, one-night-fling partner, etc., etc. Why pick out marriage as something to recognize at all? Why should society care about two people living together who occasionally have sex (married people) as opposed to two people who live together but may not have sex (roommates)? What’s the difference? You really have to answer that question before you can think clearly about the gay marriage issue.
Joe, please answer the question I asked. It would also be nice of you to follow up by answering the question Avram asked.
After you address our questions, I’m sure we’d be glad to discuss yours.
—JRC
On adoption and foster care: These are concessions to the unfortunate reality that in some unusual instances, a child’s real parents are abusive or dreadfully neglectful. In those situations, the child’s real parents — by definition — are unwilling or unable to be good parents. Thus, in those situations, our society allows other people to step in and attempt to take the place of the real parents; better that than life in a orphanage.
But this doesn’t mean that the state should treat absent-parent situations as normal, much less positively _encourage_ people to get involved in situations where they have children apart from at least one of the real parents.
As a scientist, I wanted to support Mary-Jane’s point: if a scientific paper has not gone through rigorous peer review, it is not in fact a scientific paper. That these works cannot pass the review of other social scientists – who are in general pretty used to controveersial findings – is a telling statement of their lack of reasonable standards of research. In short – yes – worthless.
Joe M.’s point on “real parents” is also not upheld by sociological literature, I should point out. While in the United States there has been a recent movement toward finding one’s “real” (biological) parents, this has by no means been universal over different cultures and time periods – suggesting it’s not a fundamental biological drive. If society put less effort into telling kids that their identities are determined by their genetics, and more effort into encouraging them to explore their own potential and form their own self-identification, we might all be better off.
First of all, absent parent situations are normal–look around you. There are probably almost as many children in single parent/divorced/step/adoptive families as there are children in homes with their two married, biological parents. Maybe more. And that number isn’t going to get smaller, no matter who thinks it “should” get smaller. We need to make a move toward accepting all parenting situations that are nurturing and caring, and not abusive or neglectful, as normal. Particularly for the purposes of laws.
And the State should definitely encourage any model that gets children into a situation where they are cared for, loved, and looked after. The State is bound by its very construction to serve all people equally. That means that for the purposes of law, and frankly for the good of us all, we must recognize all willing and committed family models. What is do difficult about that?
My only point is that children are better off, all else being equal, if they are raised by both of their actual parents. Think of it in Darwinistic terms: The parents have the most genetic investment in children. It is only logical that on average it will be the parents who will be the most devoted to the welfare of their children. Are there bad parents? Sure. Just as there are bad people, period. Are there people who are good at taking care of other people’s children. Sure. But on average, it’s still true that parents are best at caring for their own children. This is an utterly obvious truth, at least to anyone without an ideological and irrational prejudice against it.
Dan: “First of all, absent parent situations are normal–look around you. There are probably almost as many children in single parent/divorced/step/adoptive families as there are children in homes with their two married, biological parents.”
The question is not what is statistically common, but what is the ideal. There are lots of children growing up in situations where one of their parents was too irresponsible to stick around, or too disagreeable to get along with the other parent. No one who cares about children thinks that this is good.
Dan: “Maybe more. And that number isn’t going to get smaller, no matter who thinks it “should” get smaller”
Who says? Are you psychic? In the past, more people got married and stayed married than do today. Who are you to say that people can’t relearn how to be responsible and mature adults who are capable of being good spouses and parents?
Joe M.,
I am not sure what your experience in life is, but it doesn’t reflect mine. As I said yesterday, I am adopted. My adoption was the best thing possible for all around. My biological parents were too young to accept the responsibility and my parents were very willing to accept it. And I can’t thank them enough for that decision. I suspect, given what I know about my biological parents, that they would have cared for me and done a good job of it- they were in college and had the support of their families. But they chose not to. I don’t have angst over them. I don’t need to meet them.
To say that my parents- who raised me and my sister who was also adopted- don’t have an investment in me that is as deep and important and valuable and emotional as a parent who is a biological parent is one of the most offensive things I have ever heard. To say that my connection to my adopted mother and father is somehow less than my connection to my biological son is offensive and wrong. You don’t know what you are talking about- at least not in my case or in the cases of the number of people I know who have adopted or are waiting to adopt children.
The argument that ssm is wrong because it is wrong for children based on the arguments you bring up is wrong. Children can and do bond to the people who care for them. Children should bond and be connected to- legally and socially to the people who love them.
This is a much stronger response than I would normally write, but your closemindedness really makes me angry because it has the potential to damage a whole lot of children.
But on average, it’s still true that parents are best at caring for their own children. This is an utterly obvious truth, at least to anyone without an ideological and irrational prejudice against it.
Some things are “utterly obvious truths;” I’m not convinced this is one of them. I’m not convinced that a child who grew up in an adoptive or single-parent family would have been any healthier or happier in a family that consisted of both her biological parents (assuming all other things equal, which they never are). And I’m certainly not convinced that we should eliminate, or even discourage, the opportunity for kids to grow up with stable, loving parent(s) just because one or both of them don’t share the same genes as their child.
You can’t argue against same-sex marriage in these terms unless you also argue against divorce, adoption, single parenthood, care by a non-parent relative. Are you prepared to do that, Joe? Are you prepared to say that biological parents should always raise their children, unless their situation crosses a particular line? And where is that line, anyway?
The problem with “ideals” is that there are so many of them that you’re never going to be able to raise children in a perfect environment. But we don’t legally require a parent to stay at home; we don’t legally require parents to have x amount of money or spend x amount of time with their kids (in our society, we don’t even really encourage it); we don’t legally require kids to eat certain kinds of foods, live in certain kinds of places, etc.
And we don’t legally require kids to be raised by their biological parents. Do you think we should?
See, my ideal, is that a child grows up with someone who cares about her well-being (and supported financially, emotionally, physically, and intellectually by her parent(s) and a network of other services–but that’s another post). For me, love trumps genetics any day.
If I’m being irrational, by all means, let me know.
Raznor, my former employer publishes engineering journals, and I imagine that the review process for Maths papers works in much the same way. My sister’s boyfriend is a statistician and publishes papers fairly often, and whenever I’ve talked to him about the subject, he’s indicated that he usually has to modify his papers in some way before publication. (Modifications requested by referees can involve anything from a few minor spelling errors to an almost total re-write. In my experience, one of the top reasons for requested modifications by referees of engineering papers is that the maths is poor and that the equations need to be re-worked.)
In my experience, the authors who tended to get most annoyed about being asked to modify their papers were either non-academics working in business or PhD students who hadn’t published much before. Any experienced author will know the score when it comes to being asked to modify their work.
Sam: Your personal experience seems to be clouding your judgment as to what is best on average, and as to what the ideal should be. Some birth parents fall far short, and some adoptive parents are just great. But that doesn’t change the fact that on average, children are not going to be better off if society encourages more parents to abandon their birth children.
Hestia: Love trumps genetics. Fine. But the point is that, for completely obvious Darwinistic reasons, people are more likely to love and care for those with whom they share a genetic connection. Society shouldn’t try to destroy this connection by setting up institutions whereby people are less stigmatized when they abandon their birth children.
And I do argue against divorce, single-parenthood, etc. I think those are all situations that fall short of the ideal. That doesn’t mean they should be made illegal — but neither do I say that gay couples should be illegal. I’m just saying that the rest of society need not approve of such situations as if they were ideal.
Joe M. your arguments regarding Darwinism are, to put it politely, pure bullshit. (okay, so that wasn’t so polite, but who cares?) Humans are social/tribal animals, therefore we’re evolutionarily inclined to raise children as part of our tribe/society rather than nuclear families raising children unilaterally. So biological parents is an entirely arbitrary element. Or is your judgment clouded by your personal experience and homophobia? Just asking is all.
Mary-Jane, I asked about math papers because in my experience they circulate around theorems and proofs, and most peer-review is on whether the proof is sufficiently rigorous. So I’d wonder if there’s ever complete rewrites. I guess I’ll have my own experience on this soon enough. Thanks for indulging in my curiosity though! :)
But the point is that, for completely obvious Darwinistic reasons, people are more likely to love and care for those with whom they share a genetic connection.
Really? Where does it say that? It’s not “completely obvious” to me. In fact, the studies Ampersand posted above seem to indicate that there’s no difference in the care a child receives from biological parents versus nonbiological parents.
Besides, I assume that a large majority of families already consist of a biological mother and a biological father, so reality already matches your “more likely” scenario. Just because something is “more likely” doesn’t mean that everything else is harmful or wrong.
Society shouldn’t try to destroy this connection by setting up institutions whereby people are less stigmatized when they abandon their birth children.
How in the world do you connect legalized gay marriage with parents abandoning their children in greater numbers, or with a decrease in stigma of those who do so? What, exactly, about legalizing gay marriage will lead to either outcome, and how will banning gay marriage prevent them? I don’t get it. It makes no sense.
I’m just saying that the rest of society need not approve of such situations as if they were ideal.
Hey, you can disapprove of gay marriage all you want–but you’re arguing that it should be banned. You think that your ideal should be imposed on everyone else’s, in every circumstance. Why, then, shouldn’t we ban divorce, single-parenthood, and adoption? What’s the difference?
April: Nothing that I said remotely implied determinism. And Raznor: Your support of group selection theory and dismissal of biological parents as “arbitrary” is completely misguided. Before either of you comment further, you might benefit from reading some very basic introductory literature, e.g, this Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on Biological Altruism.
First response to Joe’s comment:
Why don’t you blow it out your ass?
Second, calmer, more measured response to Joe’s comment:
Do you know what I don’t like about you Joe? You don’t bother debating the issues. Instead you give us assigned readings that we’re expected to read and emerge from in complete agreeance with your positions – like a burnt-out anthropology professor with a sweet tenure position.
Yeah, biological altruism is interesting, but it doesn’t add anything to this debate. It’s just another way for you to say, “I’m smarter than everyone else here, therefore my opinions are more valid. I mean, look at all this stuff I know.”
One thing you didn’t count on, Joe, is that this is my fourth year at Reed College. I can recognize empty, arrogant, pseudo-intellectual bullshit pretty easily, and it annoys me to no end when I hear it being used. So please, Joe, give us an ounce of respect and actually defend your positions while you post here rather than hiding behind a straw wall of authoritative legitimacy.
Raznor — cool your jets, pal. You’re the one who entered the debate by saying that my views on Darwinism were “bullshit,” even though you clearly had no idea what you were talking about. To say that “biological parents are entirely arbitrary” in terms of evolution — you might as well say that gravity doesn’t exist or that the sun revolves around the moon. It’s so misinformed that I scarcely know where to begin, other than to suggest some introductory material on the subject.
Joe, you know what I love about you, your unique ability to completely mischaracterize your opponent’s argument and debate against that mischaracterization. I didn’t say biological parents were arbitrary to evolution, but were relatively arbitrarty to the raising of the child. Which, since it’s only been relatively recently that people have learned that the male plays a part in pregnancy from an evolutionary standpoint, is the case.
That doesn’t make any sense either. To say that biological parents are “entirely arbitrary” to raising the child goes against virtually everything that we know about Darwinism, according to which it is utterly obvious that organisms that take care of their own genetic offspring will do much better, over the long run, than organisms that don’t. Darwinism easily explains and predicts that parents will, on average, care more deeply for their children than anyone else in the world.
What Darwinism has trouble explaining is why altruism exists at all. Various theories (group selection, kin selection) are invoked to explain altruism. But your post implied that group selection is all there is, which is nonsense.
I’m waiting to see if Joe answers JRC’s question…
Darwinism shouldn’t be used to justify law, and as far as I know (I could be wrong), it hasn’t. So as far as I’m concerned, it’s a moot point.
JRC poses a false dilemma — although one that could just as easily be used to argue for the legalization of polygamy. (“If you really favor children, you’d say that polygamous families can adopt, because a polygamous family is better than none at all. But if you favor adoption by polygamous families, then you should favor allowing polygamous marriages so that everyone can have health insurance.”)
The dilemma is false because it assumes that there are no secondary effects of policy changes. Yes, a few kids are in awful circumstances, and have to be put up for adoption. And yes, a home with homosexuals might be better than no home at all. But that doesn’t mean that same-sex marriage should be recognized — IF recognizing same-sex marriage means relying on principles that in the long run would erode social pressure for biological parents to take care of their own children.
Joe, your Darwinistic arguments ignore factors of groups raising children, which you can’t deny happens in human society as well as with any social/pack animals. You also assume a Darwinistic view of evolution can tell you every detail from generation to generation. It can’t, for any noticeable changes to take place by means of natural selection takes millions of years, a generation is comparatively a very brief moment.
So you aren’t arguing from a Darwinistic perspective, but rather you are grossly simplifying Darwinism to coincide with your short-term policy goals. Which is, to put it colloquially, utter bullshit.
More to the point, Darwinism isn’t a guide to how things ought to be, it is a biological theory to explain how things are. If alternative families are detrimental to human evolution, in a million years, all genes that would lead to alternative family situations would be eradicated, whether or not you decide to ban same-sex marriage now.
So, according to all these studies, children raised by same-sex parents show no evidence of any negative outcomes? Right?
Including the effects of the social stigma and osctracization from peers and society due to the fact that they are being raised by same-sex parents?
Does this meen there is no social stigma and ostracization directed toward them?
Or that there is, but it, also, has no negative effect on them?
Or is the argument that there is social ostracizing, and it does effect them negatively, but that behavioral science is so advanced that whatever effect it has on them can be 100% recognized as being the result of the ostracization, with no doubt whatsoever, and that all other possible influences on the negative effects can be fully ruled out, especially any suggestion that the same-sex parentage itself could be contributing to the effect in any way? Oh, yes, those behavioral scientists have determined cause-and-effect perfectly? I see. Otherwise, we would see some acknowledgement of negative effects with at least the honest opinion that whether those effects are the result of the social ostracization or of the same-sex parenting itself requires further study.
Well, which one of the above is it? No social ostracization, no negative effects of the ostracization, or that behavioral science is a perfect discipline that has answered all questions of cause-and-effect?
What’s wrong with this picture? What’s wrong with all these studies that say ‘no negative effects’, or are characterized as such? Does nobody see the logical problem here?
To use the logic of the anti-SSM folks here:
What’s wrong with this picture is the ostracizing of children with same-sex parents. Which the ban on same-sex marriage furthers. When same-sex marriage is legitimized, the social stigma of same-sex parents will begin to disolve.
I’ll bet you don’t agree with that logic. And doesn’t it annoy you that it is along the same lines as you’ve been using (allowing SSM will make society worse)? Of course I have nothing to back up my theory on the stigma of same-sex parents disolving should SSM be allowed. Just as you have nothing to back up your theory of social harm should SSM become legal.
Thbbbbbt!
To further Moebius’s quandary, do these studies even exist? Do we even exist? Or are we just thoughts in the cosmic void? In that case why even bother debating SSM in the first place? Doesn’t existentially noting the limitations of knowledge make me seem smart? Doesn’t it make you want to agree with me? Why not?
Hee! In the words of that sign hanging in the front of Hard Rock Cafe NYC: “This is not here.”
So, Jake agrees that there is indeed ostracizing of children with same-sex parents.
And I take it he also agrees that there are negative effects from this ostracization.
But then he dodges addressing the obvious implications this has on the question of those studies saying that same-sex parenting has no negative effect on the children involved.
If such children are ostracized, and this has negative effects on them, then there are negative effects from same-sex parenting, secondary though they may be. If this is so, then there will be some noticeable difference observed between the children raised by heterosexuals and those raised by parents of the same sex.
And the studies would detect this. Wouldn’t they?
So, then, on to the next question. Whatever the effects of the ostracization, would all of them be of a nature that they would be readily obvious to behavioral scientists as attributable only to that, and not to the same-sex parenting itself?
I don’t contend that none of them would be (as Raznor seems to imply in his/her unsuccessful attempt at a reductio ad absurdum). I only contend that, based on the complexity of human behavior and development, and the fact that it has taken behavioral scientists years to link many causes to their effects, that many of the effects that ostracization may have would not be apparent to the scientists for a very long time. And that some of the effects would not be directly linked to their cause for a very long time.
Hence, in an honest study, if ostracization produces negative psychological effects, we would see some such effects that could not be definitively linked to it at the time of the study, especially not if another cause for the effect is possible.
Thus, we should see an acknowledgement, at least, that there were some negative psychological effects on the children raised by same-sex parents that could not, at the time, be conclusively linked to either social ostracization or to the same-sex parenting directly, but could possibly be attributed to one or the other in the future, pending further study.
That the studies referred to do not admit to even this much makes it highly suspect that the ‘no effects at all’ conclusions given are pre-conceived and tainted by political correctness. This suspicion is reinforced by the fact that the psychological associations have been under intense pressure from radical elements of the gay community for at least a generation. (And this is a very likely reason why the criticisms of these studies have not been peer reviewed—no peers want to see their careers destroyed).
Now, regarding Jake’s belief that SSM will result in the end of the ostracization of the children of same-sex parents: He’s right, he doesn’t know that it will any more or less than I know that it won’t, although I certainly think he’s engaging in wishful thinking there. (That Loving vs. Virginia did not mean the end of racial bigotry may or may not be relevant, and I realize raising it as a comparison could expose both me and Jake to accusations of hypocrisy, though I could defend myself against the charge if I wished to go off on a tangent, as I imagine he could also).
But anyway, let me also give my answer to the question JRC posed to Joe. If the social stigma and the octracization of peers are the only negative effects of same-sex parenting on children, then I would certainly agree that that is not a sufficient reason to deny the right of same-sex couples to adopt children. But if there are also negative effects of same-sex parenting in and of itself, as I strongly suspect but can’t prove at this time, then such parents are placing a double burden on the children, even if unintentionally. And if, as I suspect, this is in the future shown to be the case, then I definitely would feel that same-sex adoption should be ceased. Because it was an untested experiment (and really still will be, probably until the first generation of children raised under it raise children of their own), I and others should have opposed it more strongly when it first was proposed, but right now that it’s in effect and until and if the negative effects are proven it would be politically impractical to advocate it’s outlawing. And even if I did, making it retroactive would, I agree, be a bit much.
Yes, there are more children in need of adoption than there are couples willing to adopt them, but the best answer to this problem is to encourage more married heterosexual couples to adopt. And let’s not forget that they can adopt more than just one. And that many married heterosexual couples who do wish to adopt are denied for trivial reasons.
In conclusion, let me just say this about SSM: It’s a radical change to a universal institution, and an untested experiment, and it will be about a generation (i.e., 30 years) before we really know it’s effects. Is it so unreasonable to suggest that we not do this here in America (or any other country that has not yet legalized it) for at least about thirty years, so that we can see what happens in the Netherlands, Belgium, and, apparently, Ontario and British Columbia? It is puzzling how liberal progressives tend to argue that the physical environment and ecology are so fragile, delicate, and susceptiuble to the slightest change, while simultaneously insisting that human culture is so resilient and adaptable to change. And, yes, the hypocrisy is just as bad in reverse, from economic conservatives who insist that the environment and ecology are perfectly adaptable to everything man does to them in the name of economic growth, but that the culture is so fragile. I believe the environment and the culture are both fragile and should be changed only with extreme caution and testing wherever possible.
Moebius: ” ….if there are also negative effects of same-sex parenting in and of itself, as I strongly suspect but can’t prove at this time”
That’s a big “If” to be denying equal rights for. I can think of other big ifs that I suspect but can’t prove. The difference between us is that I will not restrict freedoms based on unsupported guesswork. I mean, I certainly believe that you are engaging in wishful thinking if you believe that a continued ban on SSM does more good than harm for the largest number of people. As others have more eloquently stated & supported w/ facts……… it just ain’t so.
Also, if you believe that continued ban on SSM will do more to help ostracized children of such households than societal acceptance of such households will, you’re barking. Although the racial bigotry has certainly not ended, I think that we can all agree that the situation is better than it was 40, 50 or 120 years ago.
Moebius: “In conclusion, let me just say this about SSM: It’s a radical change to a universal institution, and an untested experiment”
That is a patently false claim. See the Netherlands & Belgium for the last decade plus. Do we think that the Netherlands has dropped to the bottom of the pleasant society meter? Oh, and permitting adoption by same-sex couples there has heard precisely the same arguments that were heard against SSM. There was a NY Times article a couple of years ago (when this was an issue) in which a priest said (and I paraphrase) that SSM had in no way harmed society in the ways that he had feared, but that allowing same-sex couples to adopt……….would harm society in precisely those ways.
As eloquently as Moebius writes (and it is quite so), Moebius’ posts have no factual support. It’s more of the same, “I believe it to be, therefore it is & therefore I am correct,” hogwash we have been subjected to. I’m sorry to suspect your motives, but I have heard no compelling, FACTUAL reason to keep SSM illegal. It’s all been just so much speculation about what might happen to cover for the bigotry y’all are afraid to admit.
Again I must ask, “Does it do more harm or more good”? In my view, it does more good to be accepting of lifestyles that harm nobody than to ostracize those engaging in lifestyles different from my own.
And all this blather about the effects on children (which might be, but we can find no factual support for) reminds me of that “Far Side” panel…….. “Kill it, kill it before it gets to the chiiiiildrennnnn!” An absurd argument and the last refuge of the bigoted. If we want what’s best for the children, we want (as Mary Garden so correctly stated on the other, related thread) stable, loving households more than anything else. And SSM only adds to the number of stable, loving households legally entitled to raise children with the same rights as OSM gives couples.
Why can’t we just wait to see how it turns out in the Netherlands a generation from now? Because there is no compelling, factual evidence that there is ANY danger to society (or the chiiiildreennn) by allowing SSM and accepting and fully integrating gay & lesbian couples into our society.
I do hope that one day you get to live in your idea of Utopia. One person’s heaven is another’s hell & all that.
Shorter Moebius:
Some claim that there are no negative effects from black couples raising children, but at the same time they agree that these children face racism as a result of their blackness. So the obvious implication is that there are negative effects from black parenting, secondary though they may be.
Oh look. More blame the victim bullshit from the Right. Ho Hum.
Biff Boffo, that is pure genius. And a right giggler too. Thank ‘ee very much.
Jake: “That’s a big “If” to be denying equal rights for. I can think of other big ifs that I suspect but can’t prove….”
Like, perhaps, that a chemical that struggling farmers want to spray on their crops to make them grow, feeding their families and helping them escape poverty, just might damage the environment years down the line and negatively affect us all for years to come?
But, of course, the farmer’s rights must prevail, because, according to Jake, “The difference between us is that I will not restrict freedoms based on unsupported guesswork”.
Uh-huh. And besides, that chemical has already been used in a few other places over the last few years, and no negative effects have been proven yet. As was the case with DDT for at least twenty years…
If you believe this is not analagous, please explain why.
Or perhaps you are going to argue that this doesn’t involve a “right”. You’re referring to the right to be treated equally, or the right to marry a person you love.
So I guess speculation about the effects of any change in marriage laws is just “unsupported guesswork” which is insufficient basis for you to “restrict freedoms”…or are we only talking about what’s being referred to as freedom in current vogue?
Have the courage of your convictions, Jake, even when the freedom is not one that’s being referred to as such in current pop wisdom. As gay marriage never was referred to as recently as thirty years ago.
Jake: “I mean, I certainly believe that you are engaging in wishful thinking if you believe that a continued ban on SSM does more good than harm for the largest number of people. As others have more eloquently stated & supported w/ facts……… it just ain’t so.”
Oh, and they know this? Right. Where’s the historical model? More below, re Netherlands, etc.
“Also, if you believe that continued ban on SSM will do more to help ostracized children of such households than societal acceptance of such households will, you’re barking. Although the racial bigotry has certainly not ended, I think that we can all agree that the situation is better than it was 40, 50 or 120 years ago”
Because of Loving? Please note, I fully support Loving, and yes, I already did when I first heard about it as a kid in the 1960s (and there are plenty of people my age and younger who still don’t accept it). It was certainly a significant event in the legal history of the civil rights movement. But to argue that it was the main event, or even a significant event, in the changing of America’s attitudes about race takes a big leap of the imagination. The years immediately after Loving gave us some of the ugliest instances of white racism (not because of Loving, mind you). I venture to say that the civil rights movement and the changing of American attitudes would probably have proceeded almost exactly the same whether the Loving decision had come down in 1939, 1959, or 1989.
What really changed American attitudes about race was, believe it or not, television. But that’s another story.
Jake: “That is a patently false claim. See the Netherlands & Belgium for the last decade plus. Do we think that the Netherlands has dropped to the bottom of the pleasant society meter? Oh, and permitting adoption by same-sex couples there has heard precisely the same arguments that were heard against SSM. There was a NY Times article a couple of years ago (when this was an issue) in which a priest said (and I paraphrase) that SSM had in no way harmed society in the ways that he had feared, but that allowing same-sex couples to adopt……….would harm society in precisely those ways.”
For the last decade plus!! Read your recent history, Jake. It was a mere three years ago that the Netherlands became the first country in modern history to androgynize the concept of marriage, and merely one year ago that Belgium did. If you think that’s sufficient time to gauge the effects of such a change, well, you’re obviously not familiar with how long it’s taken for behavioral scientists to finally admit the negative effects of such things as no-fault divorce and universal day care, both lauded a generation ago and only recently acknowledged to be on balance far more harmful to children than beneficial. You really don’t see the results of these changes, and can’t declare them a success or failure, until a generation grows from infancy to adulthood under them, having just accepted them their entire life.
Jake: “As eloquently as Moebius writes (and it is quite so), Moebius’ posts have no factual support. It’s more of the same, ‘I believe it to be, therefore it is & therefore I am correct,’ hogwash we have been subjected to”.
None of us “know” how SSM will or won’t affect us down the line, Jake. Including yourself, as you have admitted. Tu quoque. So, what this debate really hinges on is the question of what side to err on in the case of untested (okay, insufficiently tested) proposed changes. Do we err on the side of caution, or on the side of experimentation? That’s where we disagree, and will continue to disagree, I guess. Thanks for the compliment anyway.
Jake: “I’m sorry to suspect your motives, but I have heard no compelling, FACTUAL reason to keep SSM illegal. It’s all been just so much speculation about what might happen to cover for the bigotry y’all are afraid to admit.”
Not to examine the possible negative effects of a change before enacting it is the height of irresponsibility. The idea that we should simply enact a radical change, without knowing its effects down the line, because we haven’t proven it harmful, is essentially the John Stuart Mill argument, or what David Stove has called the “Columbus argument”, as in “They all laughed at Christopher Columbus, didn’t they?”. Forgetting, of course, that Columbus didn’t even get to the destination he was hoping for. Anyway, this widely accepted belief can easily be shown to be erroneous. Because unless the universe changed somewhere, it is axiomatic that the more complex the organism, the more it is likely that an arbitrary change in the workings of that organism is going to be harmful rather than beneficial. Or are you going to argue that human culture is not a complex organism?
As for “the bigotry y’all are afraid to admit”, this is just another variation of the ad hominem attack. If you can’t deal with the arguments, attack the person. Incidentally, if I have a problem here, it’s not with homosexuality, it’s with androgyny, and as I see it SSM is not so much about the former as it is about the latter.
Jake: “Again I must ask, ‘Does it do more harm or more good’? In my view, it does more good to be accepting of lifestyles that harm nobody than to ostracize those engaging in lifestyles different from my own.”
First of all, I have no intention of ostracizing gays or anyone else with lifestyles different from my own, and I never have. (Unless you regard this argument as ostracization, in that case, too bad). Secondly, you don’t even know that SSM “harms nobody”. Not withstanding how it may effect kids raised by SSM parents, if, to mention just one possible effect, it totally screws up the ‘latency period’ and ruins friendship for all others growing up in a world in which marriage is defined androgynously, it will not have harmed nobody. (I know, speculation, speculation).
Jake: “And all this blather about the effects on children (which might be, but we can find no factual support for) reminds me of that “Far Side” panel…….. ‘Kill it, kill it before it gets to the chiiiiildrennnnn!’ An absurd argument and the last refuge of the bigoted.”
So anybody who makes an argument about possible negative effects on children from any proposed change is just being bigoted. Like with no-fault divorce, day care, etc. Just trust those that advocate the new idea. They always know best. Uh-huh.
“If we want what’s best for the children, we want (as Mary Garden so correctly stated on the other, related thread) stable, loving households more than anything else. And SSM only adds to the number of stable, loving households legally entitled to raise children with the same rights as OSM gives couples.”
Again, Jake, please have the courage of your convictions, and apply the same to the other possible stable, loving households not yet accepted by society, and also not yet in vogue according to popular wisdom as the latest civil rights issue.
Jake: “Why can’t we just wait to see how it turns out in the Netherlands a generation from now? Because there is no compelling, factual evidence that there is ANY danger to society (or the chiiiildreennn) by allowing SSM and accepting and fully integrating gay & lesbian couples into our society.”
Is it too much to ask that before we enact gay marriage, we at least ask ourselves the question as to why virtually no other societies have done so, even among the vast majority of non-Judeo-Christian ones? And why no other society has for any long-term period treated the concept of marriage as androgynous (rather than merely granting special-case gay unions)? Even those societies which tolerated and accepted homosexuality far more than ours did until quite recently.
And, please, don’t answer with anything reducible to “Because they just weren’t as enlightened as us.” Does anybody really think that all those other societies never considered the idea, or that it wasn’t put to tests of some form at various times throughout the centuries?
Because there is NO long-lasting precedent for this, waiting to see what happens, over a generation. in the Netherlands is the least we should do before rushing into this.
Jake: “I do hope that one day you get to live in your idea of Utopia. One person’s heaven is another’s hell & all that.”
And, as we’ve all heard, the road to hell is often paved with good intentions.
Biff: “Some claim that there are no negative effects from black couples raising children, but at the same time they agree that these children face racism as a result of their blackness. So the obvious implication is that there are negative effects from black parenting, secondary though they may be.”
“Oh look. More blame the victim bullshit from the Right. Ho Hum”
When you can’t deal with the arguments, resort to quips and false analogies, and especially try to make the racial analogy any way you can. Right.
Moebius: “If you believe this is not analagous, please explain why.”
Ummm, because DDT wasn’t banned until it’s harms were scientifically proven? That’s what I get from my reading of the records anyhow. Perhaps I’ve misread?
Moebius: “What really changed American attitudes about race was, believe it or not, television. But that’s another story.”
Like “Ellen” or “Will and Grace”? For American attitudes about homosexuality I mean. You keep drawing parallels to the civil rights movement with regards to race. And I think that you’re right on. Except that your position here is analagous to those that opposed those rights.
Moebius: “Incidentally, if I have a problem here, it’s not with homosexuality, it’s with androgyny…”
Maybe I don’t understand what you’re saying. How are you defining androgyny? As I’m familiar with it, adrogyny means having both male & female characteristics. And I’m not sure how that relates to SSM.
WRT my statement about a cover for bigotry. Sorry to attack you like that. It’s just what it looks like from where I sit. Bigotry. At least you know the impression that your arguments are giving me.
Moebius: “So anybody who makes an argument about possible negative effects on children from any proposed change is just being bigoted.”
No, anybody who makes an argument about the possible negative effects on children blah, blah, blah….without any factual support, yet refusing to accept the possibility that the effect on children may, in fact, be positive (WRT SSM) is being bigoted. I accept that at some later date it may be proven to be harmful to children. I don’t believe that will happen, but I am open to the possibility.
Moebius: “Again, Jake, please have the courage of your convictions, and apply the same to the other possible stable, loving households not yet accepted by society, and also not yet in vogue according to popular wisdom as the latest civil rights issue.”
I do have that courage as I stated earlier (perhaps on the other thread?). I stated that, yes, roommates, best friends & polygamists should all have the right to be married so long as they are adults with the ability to consent to the relationship. What more do I need to say to show you that I do “apply the same” to yadayadayada?
Moebius: “Read your recent history, Jake. It was a mere three years ago that the Netherlands..”
You are correct. I was wrong. I mistook my countries. It is Denmark to which I was referring. Which has had legalized SSM since at least 1989. And I quote, “The Danish Registered Partnership Act states “Two persons of the same sex may have their partnership registered” and “the registration of a partnership shall have the same legal effects as the contracting of marriage.”” 10/1/89 dude. Is Denmark suffering any problems as a direct result of this?
And I really do see Biff Boffos reconstructing your argument & applying the same logic you have used (ostracization) to miscegenation as analogous. Especially because I see the civil rights movement WRT race to be analagous with the civil rights movement WRT homosexuality.
Moebius: “Is it too much to ask that before we enact gay marriage, we at least ask ourselves the question as to why virtually no other societies have done so, even among the vast majority of non-Judeo-Christian ones?”
Absolutely not. I think that we have been asking this. And we have no answer that supports the view that it is detrimental to society other than that “no other societies have done so.” (Which I’m not sure is true – I’ll have to do some research. But which doesn’t support the detriment to society view anyway). And if it was “put to tests of some form”, the results aren’t available to us and so cannot be used to either support or oppose SSM.
Moebius: “you don’t even know that SSM “harms nobody”.”
When I’m shown the data I’ll believe that it harms somebody. I mean, you don’t even know that SSM harms anybody. It doesn’t intrude on the lives or rights of others does it? If you think it does, please explain.
I’ve noticed these posts getting exceptionally long & strung out & hard to follow. In future I shall try to limit myself to responding to one facet per post.
As much as I disagree with Moebius, I’ve enjoyed the back and forth here. It’s remained rather civil & even if neither of us convinces the other we are at least affording each other the opportunity to voice our beliefs on the matter. Even if I do think you represent the forces of evil on this ;)
Childhood is difficult- for everyone. As my father-in-law says, if it weren’t no-one would ever leave home. Growing up has painful moments no matter what situation you are in. The argument that ssm will hurt children is not provable unless you can remove all other variables- like poverty, braces, glasses, lack of athleticism, athleticism, intelligence, lack of intelligence, social abilities, lack of social abilities etc…
I am going to rely on my experience- which Joe says clouds my judgement- except my experience is supported by years of teaching and study of children and educating children and adults.
Children need consistency, love, boundaries, support and positive role modeling to become relatively well adjusted adults.
Children face- regardless of their home situation- ridicule, isolation, identity crisis, self-esteem issues, contradictory social messages and physical, mental and emotional challenges as part of growing up. (Teach middle school for a year and you will see both the worst of humanity and the best- sometimes in the same kid).
What ssm will provide for children is the opportunity to have a stable loving home environment which is legally protected. Legal recognition for the relationship of two people who are going to be committed regardless of the legal recognition provides another layer of security and stability for their children.
For people who oppose ssm, I believe they are opposing the “positive role modelling” aspect because they don’t believe that gay parents can be positive role models. It is not really about protecting children despite every argument to the contrary. It is about protecting a particular vision of what people are supposed to be like and what society is supposed to be like.
Jake: “Ummm, because DDT wasn’t banned until it’s harms were scientifically proven? That’s what I get from my reading of the records anyhow. Perhaps I’ve misread?”
No, you haven’t misread. But are you saying that it was OK that DDT caused the damage it did over the years? And that we were right approving it without knowing more about its potential for damage?
Jake: “Like ‘Ellen’ or ‘Will and Grace’? For American attitudes about homosexuality I mean. You keep drawing parallels to the civil rights movement with regards to race. And I think that you’re right on. Except that your position here is analagous to those that opposed those rights”
But it’s you and others (like Biff) who support SSM that keep drawing parallels with regard to race, without also noting the important ways in which they are not analagous.
Here is David Wagner’s recent post from MarriageDebate.com:
“Why Loving does not mean a right to same-sex marriage:
“Virginia, and other states that had anti-miscegenation statutes, had layered onto marriage an additional requirement (race-sameness) that is not part of it, not only abstractly speaking, but also within our legal tradition. That tradition had/has a very clear notion of what it takes to make a marriage legally valid and non subject to annulment at will: things like consent, proper age–and penile-vaginal intercourse. Race sameness was not part of that pack of elements. It was never part of what common-law judges, applying common-law principles, considered to be part of marriage, in the absence of special anti-miscegenation laws.
“(Cites supporting the above claims about the elements of marriage can be found in Robert George’s essay “Marriage and the Liberal Imagination,” published as ch. 8 of his book Defense Of Natural Law (Oxford, 1999), and previously published in the Georgetown Law Review.)
“Loving, therefore, did nothing to alter the nature of marriage; it merely removed an extraneous and unconstitutional add-on. Goodridge, by contrast, takes an element of marriage consistently treated as such in American (not to say Western; not to say universal) legal history, and characterizes it is an extraneous add-on.
“Even Virginia, pre-Loving, did not deny that bi-racial marriages were marriages; it simply considered them illegal marriages (and in so doing, violated the Constitution). By contrast–this is something that may vary state by state, but in general–states that are loosely said to “ban” SSM by failing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples are actually denying that such unions are marriages. Virginia did not do this in regard to the marriage of Richard Loving and Mildred Jeter Loving. What it did do–and what the Court found to be unconstitutional–had to do with racial discrimination, not with marriage.”
There are many other ways in which the two issues (interracial marriage and SSM) are not analagous, but the main one is that IRM does not require a change in the definition of consummation which has been understood to be central to marriage throughout history, and which has linked marriage to procreation even if not all married couples have children or are fertile.
Jake: “Maybe I don’t understand what you’re saying. How are you defining androgyny? As I’m familiar with it, adrogyny means having both male & female characteristics. And I’m not sure how that relates to SSM.”
More broadly defined, androgyny is the belief that gender is of no significance in society whatsoever, with all that this ultimately applies, SSM definitely being one part of it. I could elaborate on this a lot more, but that would take too much time for now.
Jake: “WRT my statement about a cover for bigotry. Sorry to attack you like that. It’s just what it looks like from where I sit. Bigotry. At least you know the impression that your arguments are giving me.”
“No, anybody who makes an argument about the possible negative effects on children blah, blah, blah….without any factual support, yet refusing to accept the possibility that the effect on children may, in fact, be positive (WRT SSM) is being bigoted. I accept that at some later date it may be proven to be harmful to children. I don’t believe that will happen, but I am open to the possibility.”
“I do have that courage as I stated earlier (perhaps on the other thread?). I stated that, yes, roommates, best friends & polygamists should all have the right to be married so long as they are adults with the ability to consent to the relationship. What more do I need to say to show you that I do “apply the same” to yadayadayada?”
Okay, you do have the courage of your convictions in regard to polygamy, and in not believing that marriage should even relate to consummation. I wish all of those who use the “love is all we need” argument (the post directly above, for example) had the same consistency of principle. But what about in regard to non-adults with the ability to consent? There, you get into a lot of gray areas. When are we adults? At eighteen? At sixteen? Under your convictions, on what grounds can you deny marriage between an adult and an intelligent 13, 14, or 15-year-old who is capable of giving their consent.?
Also, you don’t cover the issue of first-cousin marriages. Or of brother-sister and parent-child marriages in which (to get rid of the ‘birth defects’ argument) the partners agree to adopt rather than have their own biological children. Or, because you support SSM, what about the case of two brothers or two sisters who decide to get married. The birth defects argument doesn’t apply there. Your conviction leaves no room to deny them the right to marry, either. If you agree, fine, and I’d have a lot of respect for you if you come out up front and admit this whenever you argue for SSM.
But, since you say you believe opponents of SSM are “bigoted”, by your convictions do you also believe that opponents of polygamy, interfamilial marriage, and the other things mentioned (if you support them) are also “bigoted”. If not, why not?
Jake: “You are correct. I was wrong. I mistook my countries. It is Denmark to which I was referring. Which has had legalized SSM since at least 1989. And I quote, “The Danish Registered Partnership Act states “Two persons of the same sex may have their partnership registered” and ‘the registration of a partnership shall have the same legal effects as the contracting of marriage. 10/1/89 dude. Is Denmark suffering any problems as a direct result of this?”
At this point, I don’t know, and again, I don’t believe we’ll really know until a full generation passes. But there is a crucial difference: Denmark, like Vermont, did not call them marriages. By calling them marriages, as the Netherlands does, the entire concept of marriage is androgynized. When it is not called marriage, at least there’s some hope children won’t be growing up with the idea that marriage is between any two “people”. How this will affect that stage in childhood in which boys and girls become uncomfortable around the opposite gender out of their fear of that “mushy” stuff (the “latency period”, as psychiatrists have called it) is anybody’s guess. Will children fear all their friendships now? Anyone who just assumes that their childhoods would not have been vastly different had marriage been defined androgynously when they were young either has not thought about it or does not remember their childhood very well. At least let us find out before jumping in to this.
Jake: “And I really do see Biff Boffos reconstructing your argument & applying the same logic you have used (ostracization) to miscegenation as analogous. Especially because I see the civil rights movement WRT race to be analagous with the civil rights movement WRT homosexuality.”
I think I’ve essentially responded to this above. Also, note from my earlier post: “If the social stigma and the octracization of peers are the only negative effects of same-sex parenting on children, then I would certainly agree that that is not a sufficient reason to deny the right of same-sex couples to adopt children.” As for Biff, he should look in the dictionary if he doesn’t know the difference between “effect” and “blame”.
Jake: “Absolutely not. I think that we have been asking this. And we have no answer that supports the view that it is detrimental to society other than that ‘no other societies have done so.’ (Which I’m not sure is true – I’ll have to do some research. But which doesn’t support the detriment to society view anyway). And if it was ‘put to tests of some form’, the results aren’t available to us and so cannot be used to either support or oppose SSM.”
So I guess you don’t think that culture is a complex organism at all. Arbitrary changes can be made without any harm. Like with DDT and the environment. OK. Or do you think you can change the circuitry of a complex computer when you don’t know how it works, and that it will then still work just as before?
“When I’m shown the data I’ll believe that it harms somebody. I mean, you don’t even know that SSM harms anybody. It doesn’t intrude on the lives or rights of others does it? If you think it does, please explain.”
To make a long answer short, cultural collapse leads to dictatorship, and we all lose all our rights then. Taking a chance on this with a change this radical is just as irresponsible as trying to change the weather without regard for its complexity.
Jake: “As much as I disagree with Moebius, I’ve enjoyed the back and forth here. It’s remained rather civil & even if neither of us convinces the other we are at least affording each other the opportunity to voice our beliefs on the matter. Even if I do think you represent the forces of evil on this ;)”
Jake, I respect you for your civility too. And while you may think I represent the “forces of evil” on this (as, I take it, do those who oppose polygamy or the other things we’ve mentioned), I don’t feel that way about you. I do think, intelligent as you are, you represent the “forces of naivete” as naivete denies the wisdom of time and tradition and assumes that radical change can be made arbitrarily. But as I’m not offended by your statement, I likewise hope you’re not offended by mine.
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Geez, I’m a gay woman living in Orangeburg, SC. There are these two closet lesbian fake-ultra-religious gay bashers that live here, one named Sammy and the other Jane. They are both married and yet have this secret lesbian relationship. Fine. But they go around doing their “witnessing” thing like at a local coffee shop and do nothing but bash on gay men! What makes people do this type of thing? The real kicker is that Sammy, the meaner of the two, is a hair stylist at a place called “First Lady.” YIKES! It’s all just too much to take. Sorry, I just had to vent, because they need to be stopped.
QUOTE: The point is that children need and yearn for the mother and father who *created* them, unless that mother or father proves unfit and loses parenting rights. Children need their mother and their father, not just any two “parents.”
Not necessarily, I may not be an expert, but as a species humans are less fit to be parents than others, Humans abandon there children more often than other Species. As such Human Children have developed a neat trick, they become picky about who they accept as their parent, constantly looking for the people in the community who is best suited to raise them. Now translate that into today’s families, If the best suited people to raise that child happen to be two men, or two women. Would that child reject them because they weren’t the child’s natural Parents? NO, and I’m talking about the current situation where the child is born to that family, weather they are the natural parents or not.