Any Dudes Wanna Get Married?

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
443

[quote]Gambit_Lost wrote:
I’m just popping in to make a tangential point for the argument about raising children. There are LOTS of kids still in the system and LOTS of bad foster and adoptive homes (as well as lots of bad "regular homes too, or there wouldn’t be a need for state intervention in the first place). So if we step out of the ivory tower for a second, there is a distinct need here in the real world. It’s one thing to dislike homosexuals and prefer that kids be raised by heterosexual couples. It’s another thing (IMO) to hate homosexuals so much that you would prefer kids to be raised by the state or in a series of foster homes.

…

This, of course, is the one thing I love about Michele Bachmann.

Sooo, yeah, if you’re able, please foster and/or adopt.

/side rant[/quote]

You really think that homosexual marriage will have an actual, meaningful impact in creating new homes for foster kids and orphans? This is really a societal problem that needs solving by transforming one of our most deeply held and ingrained traditions and saying, “But we HAVE to. It’s for the children! And also for the disenfranchised romantic life-partnerships (but only some and not others). And besides, what could go wrong??”

444

It really is funny how many of the posters on the pro-gay-marriage side of the aisle have refused to acknowledge that Sloth’s question (asked how many times at this point?) even exists. You’d think that there was a special advanced ignore setting for just that question.

445

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]Gambit_Lost wrote:
I’m just popping in to make a tangential point for the argument about raising children. There are LOTS of kids still in the system and LOTS of bad foster and adoptive homes (as well as lots of bad "regular homes too, or there wouldn’t be a need for state intervention in the first place). So if we step out of the ivory tower for a second, there is a distinct need here in the real world. It’s one thing to dislike homosexuals and prefer that kids be raised by heterosexual couples. It’s another thing (IMO) to hate homosexuals so much that you would prefer kids to be raised by the state or in a series of foster homes.

…

This, of course, is the one thing I love about Michele Bachmann.

Sooo, yeah, if you’re able, please foster and/or adopt.

/side rant[/quote]

You really think that homosexual marriage will have an actual, meaningful impact in creating new homes for foster kids and orphans? This is really a societal problem that needs solving by transforming one of our most deeply held and ingrained traditions and saying, “But we HAVE to. It’s for the children! And also for the disenfranchised romantic life-partnerships (but only some and not others). And besides, what could go wrong??”[/quote]

You can’t play this card both ways, either it’s large enough to actually have an impact on heterosexual relationships, or it isn’t. You can’t sit there and say “this is big enough to have an effect on society” and then turn around and say “oh it’s not going to do much for adoption, there are so few of them”.

446

[quote]Otep wrote:

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:

How so?
[/quote]
I think its all the <<<<>>>> business.
I assume it has to do with your background in database stuff.[/quote]Nah, that’s just a big ellipsis for ease of reading. It indicates that I have edited the quoted post. Been doin that for the past 5 or 6 years I’ve been around here.

447

[quote]forlife wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]forlife wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]forlife wrote:

Are you denying that you have an aversion to homosexuality? Do you honestly believe it’s morally acceptable for gays to have a committed long term relationship? If so, I would be pleasantly surprised. And please do answer the question, it’s not rhetorical.
[/quote]

Look, forlife, it doesn’t matter if I’m a Nazi member of the Ku Klux Klan attending Westborough Baptist crushing a kitten’s skull under my jackbooted heel as I type, you are still obligated to address the actual arguments I make, or we might as well all go home. This is exactly what you got so upset at TB for supposedly doing to you, yet here you are assigning or implying latent motives to my arguments where none are necessary.

The “double standard,” and the point, to bring us back off this side-track, exists because one kind of relationship confers upon its society basic benefits that the other kind of relationship does not. Period.

You have yet to demonstrate otherwise.

[/quote]

No. YOU are the one that brought confirmatory bias into the discussion, and started lecturing me on it, as if I haven’t said a million times that I’m as subject to confirmatory bias as anyone else. I’m honest about that fact, how about you? I just turned YOUR question back on you, and asked if in fact you have a moral aversion to homosexuality. Not surprisingly, you still haven’t answered the question.

I wrote TB off, not because he accused me of confirmatory bias, but because he questioned my sincerity and my integrity. I believe all of us are subject to confirmatory bias, but I also believe we are sincere in what we post here. To question someone’s basic integrity is crossing the line.

Yes, let’s get back to the discussion. I would appreciate an answer to the point I’ve made a couple of times now. You asked what value gay married couples can provide to society, and I pointed out that adopted children are better off with married parents than with unmarried parents. Gay couples can and do adopt children. Don’t you agree those kids are better off with the stability and security of their parents being married, irrespective of whether they are gay or straight?[/quote]

That’s okay. I’ve made my point. You tend to drop the confirmatory bias point/explanation/rebuttal/dismissal pretty casually in the religious threads, as if it neatly compartmentalizes and explains everything. I just wanted to afford you the opportunity to see how it feels when it’s turned on you. You certainly don’t appear to like it too much.

As for moral aversions, we all have them. Much of the time they serve us very well. Occasionally they don’t. Either way, though, their mere presence is still not going to tell you diddly-squat about what IS. And bringing them up in a debate and attacking them as if they have any bearing upon that reality, well, there’s a word for that and I’m sure you know what it is.

As far as your final question goes, I already answered it in this very discussion, I’m copying and pasting from text above:

“…one kind of relationship confers upon its society basic benefits that the other kind of relationship does not. Period.”

We don’t need married gay couples to adopt or raise our children. We need society overall, as a whole, to function in a certain very important manner. Indeed, the behavior and familial arrangements marriage seeks to encourage are integral to the very fabric of our society. That is, first, its own propagation, and, second (among others), the closest-to-ideal family unit to nurture, raise and provide a balanced parenting to this progeny.

Gay marriage does NOT provide this benefit, the benefit for which the first kind of marriage was created in the first place. There’s a reason for all of this. Believe it or not, it has nothing to do with bigotry, but is just as simple to understand. [/quote]

Let’s get this straight. You bring up confirmatory bias, and I completely, 100% agree that I’m as subject to confirmatory bias as everyone else. I’ve said as much multiple times, when raising the subject in the religion threads. I then point out that YOU are equally subject to the same confirmatory bias, and you throw a hissy fit. I’ve never complained about you bringing up confirmatory bias, and in fact I’ve agreed with you every time you’ve brought it up. The person that doesn’t seem to like it is YOU. Stop blaming me for your own defensiveness.

Your aversion to gay marriage is obviously informed by your moral aversion to homosexuality. JUST LIKE MY PROMOTION OF GAY MARRIAGE IS OBVIOUSLY INFORMED BY MY BEING GAY. Do you get it yet? EVERYONE is subject to confirmatory bias. It shades the way we interpret and apply evidence, in support of what we already believe to be true. Nobody is immune to it, INCLUDING YOU AND ME.

You still haven’t addressed my point.

I didn’t ask if you thought children should be raised by gay couples.

I pointed out that gay couples CAN and DO raise children. Nothing you do will change that. The question pertains to what arrangement is in the best interest of those children, given that they will be raised by gay parents.

So answer the question already.

ARE ADOPTED CHILDREN BETTER OFF IF THEIR PARENTS (WHETHER GAY OR STRAIGHT) ARE MARRIED?

If you agree they’re better off if their parents are married, then you implicitly acknowledge the benefit to society provided by allowing gay couples to marry.[/quote]

Look, forlife, I do get what you are saying. If I seem evasive it is because I feel that either we have not progressed to that point in the discussion or because you are willfully ignoring my own points.

The answer to the question you pose above DOES NOT MATTER. I already answered this. I understand it is not the answer you want to hear, and that you’d like me to concede your point because then you’ll be able to dangle that point in front of me when I next try to object. You can say, well, see, you even agreed that kids will be better off in a gay family rather than no family at all (or whatever). So we agree that SOCIETY would therefore be better off affording gays the same rights to marry as straights.

Problem is, it is not such a simple syllogism. What you repeatedly ignore, over and over and over, is that marriage is a REWARD system intended to bring about certain behaviors, on the whole, through the numbers, it’s not gonna happen every single time but this is the arrangement that brings it about so that’s the one we must attempt to foster and the inclusion of any OTHER arrangements than this is going to serve to WEAKEN the original model, there-by making it LESS EFFECTIVE in bringing about the function it was originally created to ensure.

So, although I think there are certainly gay couples who would raise very fine children, I am sorry to say that it doesn’t matter. Whether or not the enactment of gay marriage will result in more intact families for kids is not germane to the argument at hand, because it fails to take in mind the overall NET EFFECT that tinkering with our oldest and more deeply ingrained institutions will engender.

That’s the thing. We’ve come back to it again and it isn’t going away.

Here it is one more time, in simple words:

Hetero marriage results in a NET INCREASE in children born into intact families with a biological male and female parent to raise them. This is indisputably a positive for society at large with very little downside, if any.

Gay marriage DOES NOT result in a net increase for the above (that behavior we as a society would seek to encourage).

Being that that is the case, the onus is upon gay marriage proponents to demonstrate to just what makes their particular case so special. Remember, it had better be something pretty good, because let’s be honest, we are talking about gay marriage muscling into hetero-marriage’s house and setting up a living space for itself. If I’m hetero-marriage, I want to know how you’re gonna pay the rent.

448

Thunderbolt had a great point a couple weeks ago too that everybody ignored. That being that for the past 50 years at least the social revolutionaries have been decrying marriage as the antiquated vestiges of patriarchal religions whose time was thankfully coming to an end. Some even going so far as to declare it legalized prostitution that enslaves women into trading sex for security. Whatever the specific charge, marriage had to go.

NOW that this rank perversion wants in, it’s suddenly the most sacred institution ever. Full of virtue and benefits for mankind if only it not be reserved for one man and woman which IS what marriage has always been since the 3rd of Genesis. I interpreted his point my way, but it’s still his point.

449

[quote]Makavali wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]Gambit_Lost wrote:
I’m just popping in to make a tangential point for the argument about raising children. There are LOTS of kids still in the system and LOTS of bad foster and adoptive homes (as well as lots of bad "regular homes too, or there wouldn’t be a need for state intervention in the first place). So if we step out of the ivory tower for a second, there is a distinct need here in the real world. It’s one thing to dislike homosexuals and prefer that kids be raised by heterosexual couples. It’s another thing (IMO) to hate homosexuals so much that you would prefer kids to be raised by the state or in a series of foster homes.

…

This, of course, is the one thing I love about Michele Bachmann.

Sooo, yeah, if you’re able, please foster and/or adopt.

/side rant[/quote]

You really think that homosexual marriage will have an actual, meaningful impact in creating new homes for foster kids and orphans? This is really a societal problem that needs solving by transforming one of our most deeply held and ingrained traditions and saying, “But we HAVE to. It’s for the children! And also for the disenfranchised romantic life-partnerships (but only some and not others). And besides, what could go wrong??”[/quote]

You can’t play this card both ways, either it’s large enough to actually have an impact on heterosexual relationships, or it isn’t. You can’t sit there and say “this is big enough to have an effect on society” and then turn around and say “oh it’s not going to do much for adoption, there are so few of them”.[/quote]

Wrong.

Hetero-marriage is a VERY tried and true institution that indisputably serves to stabilize and perpetuate human society. Pretty much ALL human societies have come to the exact same mutual conclusion.

That means that the onus is upon gay-marriage proponents to demonstrate not only that there will be virtually NO HARM to the institute of marriage as it serves society as a whole, but also that the institution of their thing brings some substantial benefit to the table as well.

You are suggesting that it goes both ways, but it does no such thing. Traditional marriage and its benefit to society aint broke, so when someone comes in wanting to “fix” it, we are right to be suspicious.

450

[quote]Makavali wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]Gambit_Lost wrote:
I’m just popping in to make a tangential point for the argument about raising children. There are LOTS of kids still in the system and LOTS of bad foster and adoptive homes (as well as lots of bad "regular homes too, or there wouldn’t be a need for state intervention in the first place). So if we step out of the ivory tower for a second, there is a distinct need here in the real world. It’s one thing to dislike homosexuals and prefer that kids be raised by heterosexual couples. It’s another thing (IMO) to hate homosexuals so much that you would prefer kids to be raised by the state or in a series of foster homes.

…

This, of course, is the one thing I love about Michele Bachmann.

Sooo, yeah, if you’re able, please foster and/or adopt.

/side rant[/quote]

You really think that homosexual marriage will have an actual, meaningful impact in creating new homes for foster kids and orphans? This is really a societal problem that needs solving by transforming one of our most deeply held and ingrained traditions and saying, “But we HAVE to. It’s for the children! And also for the disenfranchised romantic life-partnerships (but only some and not others). And besides, what could go wrong??”[/quote]

You can’t play this card both ways, either it’s large enough to actually have an impact on heterosexual relationships, or it isn’t. You can’t sit there and say “this is big enough to have an effect on society” and then turn around and say “oh it’s not going to do much for adoption, there are so few of them”.[/quote]

Oh, sure they can! They’re right and we’re wrong because they say so. Haven’t you learned that yet, Mak? :wink:

451

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]forlife wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]forlife wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]forlife wrote:

Are you denying that you have an aversion to homosexuality? Do you honestly believe it’s morally acceptable for gays to have a committed long term relationship? If so, I would be pleasantly surprised. And please do answer the question, it’s not rhetorical.
[/quote]

Look, forlife, it doesn’t matter if I’m a Nazi member of the Ku Klux Klan attending Westborough Baptist crushing a kitten’s skull under my jackbooted heel as I type, you are still obligated to address the actual arguments I make, or we might as well all go home. This is exactly what you got so upset at TB for supposedly doing to you, yet here you are assigning or implying latent motives to my arguments where none are necessary.

The “double standard,” and the point, to bring us back off this side-track, exists because one kind of relationship confers upon its society basic benefits that the other kind of relationship does not. Period.

You have yet to demonstrate otherwise.

[/quote]

No. YOU are the one that brought confirmatory bias into the discussion, and started lecturing me on it, as if I haven’t said a million times that I’m as subject to confirmatory bias as anyone else. I’m honest about that fact, how about you? I just turned YOUR question back on you, and asked if in fact you have a moral aversion to homosexuality. Not surprisingly, you still haven’t answered the question.

I wrote TB off, not because he accused me of confirmatory bias, but because he questioned my sincerity and my integrity. I believe all of us are subject to confirmatory bias, but I also believe we are sincere in what we post here. To question someone’s basic integrity is crossing the line.

Yes, let’s get back to the discussion. I would appreciate an answer to the point I’ve made a couple of times now. You asked what value gay married couples can provide to society, and I pointed out that adopted children are better off with married parents than with unmarried parents. Gay couples can and do adopt children. Don’t you agree those kids are better off with the stability and security of their parents being married, irrespective of whether they are gay or straight?[/quote]

That’s okay. I’ve made my point. You tend to drop the confirmatory bias point/explanation/rebuttal/dismissal pretty casually in the religious threads, as if it neatly compartmentalizes and explains everything. I just wanted to afford you the opportunity to see how it feels when it’s turned on you. You certainly don’t appear to like it too much.

As for moral aversions, we all have them. Much of the time they serve us very well. Occasionally they don’t. Either way, though, their mere presence is still not going to tell you diddly-squat about what IS. And bringing them up in a debate and attacking them as if they have any bearing upon that reality, well, there’s a word for that and I’m sure you know what it is.

As far as your final question goes, I already answered it in this very discussion, I’m copying and pasting from text above:

“…one kind of relationship confers upon its society basic benefits that the other kind of relationship does not. Period.”

We don’t need married gay couples to adopt or raise our children. We need society overall, as a whole, to function in a certain very important manner. Indeed, the behavior and familial arrangements marriage seeks to encourage are integral to the very fabric of our society. That is, first, its own propagation, and, second (among others), the closest-to-ideal family unit to nurture, raise and provide a balanced parenting to this progeny.

Gay marriage does NOT provide this benefit, the benefit for which the first kind of marriage was created in the first place. There’s a reason for all of this. Believe it or not, it has nothing to do with bigotry, but is just as simple to understand. [/quote]

Let’s get this straight. You bring up confirmatory bias, and I completely, 100% agree that I’m as subject to confirmatory bias as everyone else. I’ve said as much multiple times, when raising the subject in the religion threads. I then point out that YOU are equally subject to the same confirmatory bias, and you throw a hissy fit. I’ve never complained about you bringing up confirmatory bias, and in fact I’ve agreed with you every time you’ve brought it up. The person that doesn’t seem to like it is YOU. Stop blaming me for your own defensiveness.

Your aversion to gay marriage is obviously informed by your moral aversion to homosexuality. JUST LIKE MY PROMOTION OF GAY MARRIAGE IS OBVIOUSLY INFORMED BY MY BEING GAY. Do you get it yet? EVERYONE is subject to confirmatory bias. It shades the way we interpret and apply evidence, in support of what we already believe to be true. Nobody is immune to it, INCLUDING YOU AND ME.

You still haven’t addressed my point.

I didn’t ask if you thought children should be raised by gay couples.

I pointed out that gay couples CAN and DO raise children. Nothing you do will change that. The question pertains to what arrangement is in the best interest of those children, given that they will be raised by gay parents.

So answer the question already.

ARE ADOPTED CHILDREN BETTER OFF IF THEIR PARENTS (WHETHER GAY OR STRAIGHT) ARE MARRIED?

If you agree they’re better off if their parents are married, then you implicitly acknowledge the benefit to society provided by allowing gay couples to marry.[/quote]

Look, forlife, I do get what you are saying. If I seem evasive it is because I feel that either we have not progressed to that point in the discussion or because you are willfully ignoring my own points.

The answer to the question you pose above DOES NOT MATTER. I already answered this. I understand it is not the answer you want to hear, and that you’d like me to concede your point because then you’ll be able to dangle that point in front of me when I next try to object. You can say, well, see, you even agreed that kids will be better off in a gay family rather than no family at all (or whatever). So we agree that SOCIETY would therefore be better off affording gays the same rights to marry as straights.

Problem is, it is not such a simple syllogism. What you repeatedly ignore, over and over and over, is that marriage is a REWARD system intended to bring about certain behaviors, on the whole, through the numbers, it’s not gonna happen every single time but this is the arrangement that brings it about so that’s the one we must attempt to foster and the inclusion of any OTHER arrangements than this is going to serve to WEAKEN the original model, there-by making it LESS EFFECTIVE in bringing about the function it was originally created to ensure.

So, although I think there are certainly gay couples who would raise very fine children, I am sorry to say that it doesn’t matter. Whether or not the enactment of gay marriage will result in more intact families for kids is not germane to the argument at hand, because it fails to take in mind the overall NET EFFECT that tinkering with our oldest and more deeply ingrained institutions will engender.

That’s the thing. We’ve come back to it again and it isn’t going away.

Here it is one more time, in simple words:

Hetero marriage results in a NET INCREASE in children born into intact families with a biological male and female parent to raise them. This is indisputably a positive for society at large with very little downside, if any.

Gay marriage DOES NOT result in a net increase for the above (that behavior we as a society would seek to encourage).

Being that that is the case, the onus is upon gay marriage proponents to demonstrate to just what makes their particular case so special. Remember, it had better be something pretty good, because let’s be honest, we are talking about gay marriage muscling into hetero-marriage’s house and setting up a living space for itself. If I’m hetero-marriage, I want to know how you’re gonna pay the rent.
[/quote]

Just because children are born into a stable home doesn’t mean that home stays stable or that they grow up stable. Plenty of kids end up fucked up whether they grow up in a mother/father household or not and plenty of kids grow up to be normal while still coming from a “broken” home. Using children as the basis of an argument against gay marriage is stupid. It’s like parents who use their kids as a bargaining chip in divorce. Children should never be used as leverage. Despite all of your posturing about kids and two parent households, you cannot give me any absolutes of the outcome of a marriage and children raised in that marriage.

452

[quote]forlife wrote:
The question pertains to what arrangement is in the best interest of those children, given that they will be raised by gay parents.<<<>>>ARE ADOPTED CHILDREN BETTER OFF IF THEIR PARENTS (WHETHER GAY OR STRAIGHT) ARE MARRIED? >>>[/quote]There are no such things as gay parents OR gay marriages. Never will be no matter what stamp of approval some perverted state attempts to put on it. Children in gay households are by definition in a morally, spiritually and socially degenerate and abusive environment and God help the people who make this happen. The specific label it’s given is irrelevant.

453

[quote]Grneyes wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]forlife wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]forlife wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]forlife wrote:

Are you denying that you have an aversion to homosexuality? Do you honestly believe it’s morally acceptable for gays to have a committed long term relationship? If so, I would be pleasantly surprised. And please do answer the question, it’s not rhetorical.
[/quote]

Look, forlife, it doesn’t matter if I’m a Nazi member of the Ku Klux Klan attending Westborough Baptist crushing a kitten’s skull under my jackbooted heel as I type, you are still obligated to address the actual arguments I make, or we might as well all go home. This is exactly what you got so upset at TB for supposedly doing to you, yet here you are assigning or implying latent motives to my arguments where none are necessary.

The “double standard,” and the point, to bring us back off this side-track, exists because one kind of relationship confers upon its society basic benefits that the other kind of relationship does not. Period.

You have yet to demonstrate otherwise.

[/quote]

No. YOU are the one that brought confirmatory bias into the discussion, and started lecturing me on it, as if I haven’t said a million times that I’m as subject to confirmatory bias as anyone else. I’m honest about that fact, how about you? I just turned YOUR question back on you, and asked if in fact you have a moral aversion to homosexuality. Not surprisingly, you still haven’t answered the question.

I wrote TB off, not because he accused me of confirmatory bias, but because he questioned my sincerity and my integrity. I believe all of us are subject to confirmatory bias, but I also believe we are sincere in what we post here. To question someone’s basic integrity is crossing the line.

Yes, let’s get back to the discussion. I would appreciate an answer to the point I’ve made a couple of times now. You asked what value gay married couples can provide to society, and I pointed out that adopted children are better off with married parents than with unmarried parents. Gay couples can and do adopt children. Don’t you agree those kids are better off with the stability and security of their parents being married, irrespective of whether they are gay or straight?[/quote]

That’s okay. I’ve made my point. You tend to drop the confirmatory bias point/explanation/rebuttal/dismissal pretty casually in the religious threads, as if it neatly compartmentalizes and explains everything. I just wanted to afford you the opportunity to see how it feels when it’s turned on you. You certainly don’t appear to like it too much.

As for moral aversions, we all have them. Much of the time they serve us very well. Occasionally they don’t. Either way, though, their mere presence is still not going to tell you diddly-squat about what IS. And bringing them up in a debate and attacking them as if they have any bearing upon that reality, well, there’s a word for that and I’m sure you know what it is.

As far as your final question goes, I already answered it in this very discussion, I’m copying and pasting from text above:

“…one kind of relationship confers upon its society basic benefits that the other kind of relationship does not. Period.”

We don’t need married gay couples to adopt or raise our children. We need society overall, as a whole, to function in a certain very important manner. Indeed, the behavior and familial arrangements marriage seeks to encourage are integral to the very fabric of our society. That is, first, its own propagation, and, second (among others), the closest-to-ideal family unit to nurture, raise and provide a balanced parenting to this progeny.

Gay marriage does NOT provide this benefit, the benefit for which the first kind of marriage was created in the first place. There’s a reason for all of this. Believe it or not, it has nothing to do with bigotry, but is just as simple to understand. [/quote]

Let’s get this straight. You bring up confirmatory bias, and I completely, 100% agree that I’m as subject to confirmatory bias as everyone else. I’ve said as much multiple times, when raising the subject in the religion threads. I then point out that YOU are equally subject to the same confirmatory bias, and you throw a hissy fit. I’ve never complained about you bringing up confirmatory bias, and in fact I’ve agreed with you every time you’ve brought it up. The person that doesn’t seem to like it is YOU. Stop blaming me for your own defensiveness.

Your aversion to gay marriage is obviously informed by your moral aversion to homosexuality. JUST LIKE MY PROMOTION OF GAY MARRIAGE IS OBVIOUSLY INFORMED BY MY BEING GAY. Do you get it yet? EVERYONE is subject to confirmatory bias. It shades the way we interpret and apply evidence, in support of what we already believe to be true. Nobody is immune to it, INCLUDING YOU AND ME.

You still haven’t addressed my point.

I didn’t ask if you thought children should be raised by gay couples.

I pointed out that gay couples CAN and DO raise children. Nothing you do will change that. The question pertains to what arrangement is in the best interest of those children, given that they will be raised by gay parents.

So answer the question already.

ARE ADOPTED CHILDREN BETTER OFF IF THEIR PARENTS (WHETHER GAY OR STRAIGHT) ARE MARRIED?

If you agree they’re better off if their parents are married, then you implicitly acknowledge the benefit to society provided by allowing gay couples to marry.[/quote]

Look, forlife, I do get what you are saying. If I seem evasive it is because I feel that either we have not progressed to that point in the discussion or because you are willfully ignoring my own points.

The answer to the question you pose above DOES NOT MATTER. I already answered this. I understand it is not the answer you want to hear, and that you’d like me to concede your point because then you’ll be able to dangle that point in front of me when I next try to object. You can say, well, see, you even agreed that kids will be better off in a gay family rather than no family at all (or whatever). So we agree that SOCIETY would therefore be better off affording gays the same rights to marry as straights.

Problem is, it is not such a simple syllogism. What you repeatedly ignore, over and over and over, is that marriage is a REWARD system intended to bring about certain behaviors, on the whole, through the numbers, it’s not gonna happen every single time but this is the arrangement that brings it about so that’s the one we must attempt to foster and the inclusion of any OTHER arrangements than this is going to serve to WEAKEN the original model, there-by making it LESS EFFECTIVE in bringing about the function it was originally created to ensure.

So, although I think there are certainly gay couples who would raise very fine children, I am sorry to say that it doesn’t matter. Whether or not the enactment of gay marriage will result in more intact families for kids is not germane to the argument at hand, because it fails to take in mind the overall NET EFFECT that tinkering with our oldest and more deeply ingrained institutions will engender.

That’s the thing. We’ve come back to it again and it isn’t going away.

Here it is one more time, in simple words:

Hetero marriage results in a NET INCREASE in children born into intact families with a biological male and female parent to raise them. This is indisputably a positive for society at large with very little downside, if any.

Gay marriage DOES NOT result in a net increase for the above (that behavior we as a society would seek to encourage).

Being that that is the case, the onus is upon gay marriage proponents to demonstrate to just what makes their particular case so special. Remember, it had better be something pretty good, because let’s be honest, we are talking about gay marriage muscling into hetero-marriage’s house and setting up a living space for itself. If I’m hetero-marriage, I want to know how you’re gonna pay the rent.
[/quote]

Just because children are born into a stable home doesn’t mean that home stays stable or that they grow up stable. Plenty of kids end up fucked up whether they grow up in a mother/father household or not and plenty of kids grow up to be normal while still coming from a “broken” home. Using children as the basis of an argument against gay marriage is stupid. It’s like parents who use their kids as a bargaining chip in divorce. Children should never be used as leverage. Despite all of your posturing about kids and two parent households, you cannot give me any absolutes of the outcome of a marriage and children raised in that marriage.[/quote]

Ah, I see.

Well then why have marriage at all?

Please answer, as you’ve repeatedly ignored this question in favor of patting Mak and forlife on the back and assuring each other how right you all are.

454

@Grneyes and others, to repeat:

What is the PURPOSE of the institute of marriage? Please be unambiguous.

455

Also…for anyone who remembers that lesbians are part of the gay community, here is a 2010 study on parenting:

An interesting statistic, for those who live by those things: In a study of nearly 90 teens, half living with female same-sex couples and the others with heterosexual couples, both groups fared similarly in school. Teen boys in same-sex households had grade point averages of about 2.9, compared with 2.65 for their counterparts in heterosexual homes. Teen girls showed similar results, with a 2.8 for same-sex households and 2.9 for girls in heterosexual families. Granted, 90 teens isn’t a lot, but it’s a start.

The consensus is, however, since this phenomenon is new, there are no firm data on the effect of being raised by a same-sex couple. The data that is available shows that kids turn out just fine. Most of the data is on lesbians since more lesbian couples adopt or have biological children than male same-sex couples.

In the same article is a link called “Why Gays Don’t Go Extinct”…taken from 2008: Why Gays Don’t Go Extinct | Live Science

456

The purpose of marriage? To publicly declare to your family, friends, and society that you love someone so much you want to commit to him/her for the rest of your lives. The End.

457

[quote]Cortes wrote:
@Grneyes and others, to repeat:

What is the PURPOSE of the institute of marriage? Please be unambiguous. [/quote]Genesis 1

[quote]26-Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27-God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28-God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”[/quote] and 2 [quote]23-The man said,
“This is now bone of my bones,
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was taken out of Man.”
24-For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.[/quote]People are much too “sophisticated” for this anymore as is on full display in the rotting decaying moral junkyard this nation has become and which has brought us to the brink of financial collapse. Yes the former is the direct cause of the latter.

458

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:
@Grneyes and others, to repeat:

What is the PURPOSE of the institute of marriage? Please be unambiguous. [/quote]Genesis 1

[quote]26-Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27-God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28-God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”[/quote] and 2 [quote]23-The man said,
“This is now bone of my bones,
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was taken out of Man.”
4-For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.[/quote]People are much too “sophisticated” for this anymore as is on full display in the rotting decaying moral junkyard this nation has become and which has brought us to the brink of financial collapse. Yes the former is the direct cause of the latter.
[/quote]

Okay, now answer the question using your brain and thinking for yourself.

459

[quote]Grneyes wrote: Okay, now answer the question using your brain and thinking for yourself.[/quote]By your definitions of these? No thanks. I had no idea how to use my brain while I was thinking for myself. It wasn’t until the God whose created order you so abhor subdued my sick sinful mind and breathed into it new life in Christ that I learned what “thinking” actually meant. Go ahead and give me your predictable post modern enlightened answer. I can’t wait to hear it for the millionth time.

460

[quote]Grneyes wrote:
The purpose of marriage? To publicly declare to your family, friends, and society that you love someone so much you want to commit to him/her for the rest of your lives. The End.[/quote]

And now if you could please explain to me the compelling interest the state has in promoting the virtue of her denizens publicly declaring their love and desire for commitment.

461

[quote]Grneyes wrote:

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:
@Grneyes and others, to repeat:

What is the PURPOSE of the institute of marriage? Please be unambiguous. [/quote]Genesis 1

[quote]26-Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27-God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28-God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”[/quote] and 2 [quote]23-The man said,
“This is now bone of my bones,
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was taken out of Man.”
4-For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.[/quote]People are much too “sophisticated” for this anymore as is on full display in the rotting decaying moral junkyard this nation has become and which has brought us to the brink of financial collapse. Yes the former is the direct cause of the latter.
[/quote]

Okay, now answer the question using your brain and thinking for yourself.[/quote]

There are plenty of secular arguments here, as well, produced by actual human brains. Have at them.

462

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]Gambit_Lost wrote:
I’m just popping in to make a tangential point for the argument about raising children. There are LOTS of kids still in the system and LOTS of bad foster and adoptive homes (as well as lots of bad "regular homes too, or there wouldn’t be a need for state intervention in the first place). So if we step out of the ivory tower for a second, there is a distinct need here in the real world. It’s one thing to dislike homosexuals and prefer that kids be raised by heterosexual couples. It’s another thing (IMO) to hate homosexuals so much that you would prefer kids to be raised by the state or in a series of foster homes.

…

This, of course, is the one thing I love about Michele Bachmann.

Sooo, yeah, if you’re able, please foster and/or adopt.

/side rant[/quote]

You really think that homosexual marriage will have an actual, meaningful impact in creating new homes for foster kids and orphans? This is really a societal problem that needs solving by transforming one of our most deeply held and ingrained traditions and saying, “But we HAVE to. It’s for the children! And also for the disenfranchised romantic life-partnerships (but only some and not others). And besides, what could go wrong??”[/quote]

  1. It was a side rant, not the crux of the argument, as you are aware.
  2. I’m fairly certain the “it’s for the CHILDREN!!!” attack is primarily used by those against gay marriage.
    3)[quote] You really think that homosexual marriage will have an actual, meaningful impact in creating new homes for foster kids and orphans?[/quote] Yes. Don’t you?