Ruth Institute Blog

To everyone here (as opposed to a particular poster) why is it, if all of your claims of how Same Sex Marriage will cause hetrosexual marriage to become “less” special and cause it irrepriable harm, that this scientific peer reviewed scientific data was not presented at the Prop 8 Trial? Do you blame your pro-8 lawyers for being unprepared for trial? SSM exists in many countires, Canada being one of them. What evidence can you provide that SSM has hurt hetrosexual marriage in Canada? How about Massachusetts?

I am very happy for this study, as our planned twin grandchildren, who were conceived with an anonymous sperm donor appear statistically to be headed for a very happy life .

I will answere the 3 questions although they are all kind of “loaded questions” LOL.
#1 – Do not believe women are per se better parents. Good moms and bad moms exist, just like good dad and bad dads exist. Yes the study shows that 2 women can produce healthy happy children without a man. I do not believe men are dengerous though, I htought that was stupid to write into the question.
#2 – The study compares Lesbian raised children in comparison to hetro raised children. And yes the main problem reported is harrasement by hetrosexuals. But that does not mean that they ahve “no” problems all kids has issues. The point is the lesbian raised children do not have more “issues’ then hetro raised kids, in fact they have less.
#3-
The children of lesbian parents were intensely planned and deeply wanted. Therefore, manufacturing children through Donor Insemination is superior to conceiving children through an act of sexual intercourse.
I actually pasted the whole question above so I could respond to it as it is indeed such a “silly” question. Hetro couples want children and increase the number of times they have sexual intercourse in order to become pregnent, so those children are certainly planned and wanted. The bottom line for me is it doens’t really matter how you got pregnent as a couple. Plenty of hetro children were “accidents” and are still loved by their parents. Would you take this logic to it’s conclusion and say that children who are born to hetrosexual families are “better off” than unplanned children born to hetrosexual children. The manner in which you were conceived; planned hetro/un-planned hetro/Sperm donor to lesbians/surrogates to gay men/adoption by either hetro or same sex, is not at all important. What is important is that once born you are raised in a loving low clonflict home by a parent with sufficient economic means to raise you. Of course it is easier on the parents if there are 2 to share the load but it very well can be done by one. So, no, Donor Insemination is not superior.

Am I the only one who thinks these questions are darn right silly?

As long as some opposite-sex unions do ever use donated gametes, and that is considered acceptable within opposite sex marriage, it cannot be used as a criteria to deny same-sex marriages or equivalent unions. Nor can being childless be a criteria when opposite sex marriages are allowed to be so.

As far as the original blogpost, I already clearly called BS to all three points. Same sex-led families are no different from opposite sex-led ones, lesbians (or gay men) are no better or worse as parents, and the kids are no better or worse for their parents.

Put clearly, a woman and a man can be equally effective bringing up a child conceived with 3rd party gametes as two women. An opposite sex pair can be just as effective with a child gestated by a surrogate mother as a gay male pair. No better, no worse- just parents.

I’m signing off this blogpost as well to concentrate here. Feel free to have the last word here, too. I can’t compete with you in word count, and will simply concentrate eventually to one blog to keep the basic discussion going. I still feel I have something to learn, and perhaps something to teach, but not at the expense of my own family.

I now shall be off to present my daughter with her birthday present- a telescope!

LWW said: “As long as some opposite-sex unions do ever use donated gametes, and that is considered acceptable within opposite sex marriage, it cannot be used as a criteria to deny same-sex marriages or equivalent unions. Nor can being childless be a criteria when opposite sex marriages are allowed to be so.”

Use your superficial thinking, as quoted above, to test your own proposed procreation restriction on opposite-sexed duos who’d procreate together.

Your absolutist tendencies lean heavily toward totalitarianism: you really think that the Government “allows” married people to be childless? If that is the way you think, then, you are not really concerned about the meaning and implementation of equal protection under a system of justice.

LWW said: “Same sex-led families are no different from opposite sex-led ones, lesbians (or gay men) are no better or worse as parents, and the kids are no better or worse for their parents.”

At one point you insisted that you were not advocating that society reward homosexual behavior or promote gay identity politics.

You have not addressed the structural similarities that all one-sexed arrangements, homosexual or not, have with childraising arrangements that fall short of the standard (as per the wide social scientific consensus) of married mom-dad raising their own progeny. This is a related, but seperate, topic from the question of eligibility to marry, by the way.

The related? Well, the sexual basis for the marital presumption of paternity can not apply to any one-sexed arrangement — homosexualized or not.

LWW said: “No better, no worse- just parents.”

1. You clearly are referring to types of arrangements and the evidence does not show what you claimed.

2. If you mean that there are no variations by structure of family, then, again you are mistaken. There are importance variations in terms of outcomes for children.

3. See the point about structural similarities — even with step-parenting and adoptive parenting. No one here is taking swipes at step and adoptive parents who are very often heroic.

Earlier, in our exchanges, you admitted that there is insufficient evidence for asserting the sort of social scientific conclusion you just put into pixels in that comment. I’ve “called BS” on your approach to the evidence and you have not yet developed your hypothesis, or pointed to someone else hypothesis, such that gayness or lesbianism makes all the difference to overcome the structural similarities that “same-sex parenting” shares with other types of parenting scenarios that fall short of the married mom-dad optimum.

Look, I’ve been careful to discuss the intact and low-conflict married mom-dad family and if you were paying attention you might also have wondered about high-conflict marriages raising chidlren. These, too, are substandard. The issue is not really about sexual orientation or identity politics, contary to your latest admission of advocating on that basis, but rather structure.

You talked of the number two but that was shown to be superficial mimickry rather than an actual structural basis for assuming, as do you, that homosexuality is the special ingredient that makes-up for fatherlessness or motherlessness in other arrangements.

I’ll add that instead of a “special ingredient” you could also be simply asserting a lowering of the standard such that no differences can be deemed worthy of your dogmatic view of parenting. The mountains of social scientifice evidence provide ample grounds to being more discriminating — (not in the rhetoric of civil rights but in terms of assessing strengths and weaknesses of structures) — when it comes to outcomes for children.

Indeed, if you want to deny there are significant differences, then, you don’t even need to cite evidence. Just make the asserted denial, pat yourself on the back, and proclaim victory. That’s not how you began your discussion of parenting, but it looks like that is where you are heading now.

LWW, thank you for granting me permission to comment here. Very kind of you.