Ruth Institute Blog

Sounds to me like it’s time for heterosexual men to get with the program and evolve already! Hyper-masculinity and machismo need to give way to more gender-balanced men who can contribute to parenting their children in non-violent and emotionally interactive ways. There’s no reason for men to be marginalized from the family unless they marginalize themselves, which in many ways, they are already doing by abandoning their kids. Nobody is kicking men out of the family or out of the lives of their children–they are choosing to be uninvolved and are failing to live up to their responsibilities. And, yet again, same sex marriage has absolutely zero to do with heterosexual men and their ability to be the kind of fathers that their children desperately need. Stop blaming gay people for the failures of straight men already. It’s a tired argument that doesn’t make any sense. If straight men want to be involved in parenting, nobody’s stopping them. And this idea that “the only good man is a gay man” is foolishness. No matter how wonderful a gay man may be, he’s not going to have sex with a heterosexual woman or give her that type of relationship–she’s still going to want a straight man for that. Whether or not there are any decent ones around to consider for marriage and/or raising children is another matter entirely. Seriously, this seems like much ado about nothing, and confirms for me what my straight girlfriends have been complaining about for years: straight men aren’t stepping up to the plate and acting as decent men and fathers. Too many of them are stuck in a prolonged adolescence with porn, video games and sexist attitudes. If straight men want to remain in the family, they need to get with the program and become family-oriented men!!

One thing I see no mention of here is the masculine involvement in the upbringing of boys (and girls too) in lesbian relationships. When my wife and I embarked as two women on childrearing, we made a conscious effort to integrally involve men in the childrens’ lives. My father, brothers-in-law on both sides, and the very masculine husbands of the two couples that are our best friends have been actively involved with both our kids. We’ve made sure our boy, especially, knows he can go to these men for *anything*, and we’ve given these carefully selected men permission to hold confidence with our kids at their discretion. Men are as critical as women to childrearing, no argument from me. That said, the men involved don’t necessarily need to be a parent. I love my children, and we parents love each other- dearly, deeply, and after 20 faithful years more powerfully now than when we first exchanged vows. i don’t think the kids are deprived at all, and their success in life so far bears that out.

@lawfully_wedded_wife
lww:

OK, you’ve made sure your kids have a male role model. Well actually a whole bunch of male role models, the way you describe it. The problem is that numbers can not compensate for the fact that a mere role model is not what children need. (In fact, it would seem that the numbers would just confuse things.) What all children do need – both boys and girls – is an *actual* father and mother.

It’s true that choosing men related to you to be involved with your kids will make a big difference, especially if you are the biological mother. (Any children born to you are your father’s – and mother’s – progeny too, after all.)

But is there *one* of these men to whom your children are as answerable as they are to you? Or one of them who is every bit as responsible for your children’s well-being as are you – and truly seen as such by your kids? Is he there to tuck them into bed every night? Do they see him demonstrating by example – 24/7, day in and day out – how a man and a woman build a life together?

Young children don’t have an abstract understanding of the significance of various levels of commitment/responsibility/authority, but that doesn’t mean they have no sense of it at all. And it doesn’t take a rocket scientist (or a child psychologist, for that matter) to figure out that it makes all the difference in the world when it comes to everything from their feelings of security to their ability to form enduring (and healthy) attachments with others in life.

By the way, do your kids know who their biological father is? What have they asked you about it? What have you told them about that? Do you have any thoughts to share with us about the issues grown children of donor fathers are dealing with later in life? (Search this blog to find a number of posts on that if you like…)

None of the actions you describe (tucking in bed, etc) require specifically a man or a woman to perform. As far as making a relationship work, after 20 years of doing so I think you might be surprised how similar that is for two women as for a man and a woman. My kids spend plenty of time with my parents, my sister’s family, my wife’s sister’s family, and a few others we hold dear. All of them good, traditional, dedicated heterosexual relationships. They’ve got lots of opportunities to compare and contrast.

We do talk with the kids. I do so as much as I can given I do work so I can’t be the 24/7 example you claim a man would always be. My wife is a stay-at-home mom, though, because we are fortunate enough to be married and have that option. Although I am not their gestational mother, I did contribute to their genetics. They did know their dad. They regularly see their grandparents on his side, even spending nights there every few weeks. I can convey that they have said to us and others that, although they miss having a dad sometimes…in those moments society expects them to, they personally are very glad to have us and wouldn’t change that.

In my experience, the most important thing for the relationship development you describe is that the kids grow up with healthy examples around them. My kids seem to be fine for the examples they are seeing, including between their parents. I really think ALL kids look beyond their parents when modeling relationship behavior. My parents both came from abusive households, but they saw households growing up that weren’t that way and chose to model those rather than their own parents. I had several friends growing up that looked to my own parents as more of a model than their own, one such became pregnant at 13 by her own father so you can imagine the wreck she had at home, and have become much better adults for the example my parents set. That friend I mention was assisted by my dad in achieving her dream of joining elite military service. Fortunately, my kids’ home front is nurturing, and better still not afraid to let them reach out to others. I see the blossoming adults they are starting to become, and like any proud mom I am excited to witness what they will do with their potential.

Sad that @lawfully_wedded clearly recognizes the importance of fathers and masculine involvement in her son’s life, but he still has to settle for uncle’s, friend’s, and duly-assigned “role models” instead of a Dad of his very own.

Because asking Mommy to settle for a “husband” is simply out of the question right?

lawfully wedded wife, great points made that I think I’ve been neglecting to make in my comments on this site. My children have always had the influence of male role models too. My biological daughter has a father who has been very involved in her life since day one, even though her father and I did not stay together. And my niece (my partner and I are her legal guardians), has the involvement of uncles and male friends. Her own father wants nothing to do with her and would willingly have his rights terminated so that he doesn’t have to pay child support for her. This idea that children must have parents of each sex in order to thrive ignores the reality of the world for many children whose heterosexual parents have failed them, and it also ignores the fact that same-sex parents take care to ensure that their children have role models of each gender. Not to mention the fact that kids are exposed to other kinds of families, including heterosexual couples! It’s like there is some strange idea out there that the children of same-sex parents are hidden away from the rest of the world and never interact with adults of the opposite sex from their parents or never have access to other family forms than their own. It’s so funny how much these right-wingers talk about all the alleged harm that is occurring to our children. I wonder how many of our kids they’ve actually talked to? The children of same-sex parents that I’ve known (including my own) are all pretty healthy, happy and well-adjusted kids. The only harm they suffer is that which is caused by people with hateful, cruel and discriminatory attitudes about their families!

“The children of same-sex parents that I’ve known (including my own) are all pretty healthy, happy and well-adjusted kids. The only harm they suffer is that which is caused by people with hateful, cruel and discriminatory attitudes…”

I know disabled kids who feel the same way. Perfectly well adjusted & happy, except, well… you know.

At least they weren’t intentionally disabled.

Marty, do you really think it’s better for children to grow up in a sham marriage while mommy and daddy go and bang other people on the side, since they can’t get what they want/need from their spouse?

More importantly, as concerned as you are for children growing up without fathers, I hope you do work for Big Brothers, Big Sisters or a similar organization.

My kids knew their dad and have make it perfectly clear they’d rather have me. They excitedly invite both of us to recitals, performances, and sports events they play at. My wife enjoys very much being a baseball and soccer mom, and I take my daughter to all her weekend soccer games and as many of my son’s baseball games as I can. We made it together to his post-season games and were cheering him on to big toothy grins. My daughter works with her teacher each year to have me come speak to her class on poison prevention (I’m a pharmacist). The school knows about us, and they know we do not discuss our family circumstance, period, when we are invited to the school in an official capacity, or at all during school hours.

I’m sorry, Marty, but the same argument you are making has been used to argue against allowing interracial marriage, and procreation from such unions. In fact, it was often worse in those cases because the kids were “marked”, as the term was used, and punished accordingly by society. I’ve spoken at length about having a dad, with both my kids but especially with my daughter who is older. She knows we could never remarry if we divorce due to DOMA, and has made it oh so clear we can do no such thing. My son doesn’t understand the laws, but has made it clear he’d never want us to divorce.

Ultimately, I’m married. I’m a promise-keeper in my own way. I am true to my word, and will never break trust with those I love so dearly. I am proud to be among the <10% of teen marriages to survive. No way in Heaven or Earth that I'd add to that statistic.

My kids aren’t disabled Marty, and none of the kids of other same-sex couples that I’ve met are either, although you may be, intellectually and emotionally at least. Seriously, why are you so bent on judging other people’s families? Why are you so concerned about the emotional well-being of other people’s kids? Why do you assume harm where none exists? If that harm is so self-evident, why isn’t there evidence to support it? The studies I’ve seen confirm what I as a parent know to be true: that it is the quality of the parenting, and not the gender of the parents, that truly matters for successful child outcomes. I’d suggest that if you want to help kids who really need it, you should mentor some kids who have been abandoned by their parents (mostly heterosexual fathers). You should teach them what it means when an adult values them. My kids are just fine, really. So are the kids of every other same-sex couple I know who are raising them. You see a disability where none exists. And frankly, your attitude mirrors the ignorance of men who think that all a lesbian needs is a good man. Ugh. Your rhetorical question of lawfully wedded wife–”Because asking Mommy to settle for a ‘husband’ is simply out of the question right?”–displays a gross ignorance of sexual orientation. Asking “Mommy” to “settle for a husband” is asking her to ignore the truth of her innate identity and is asking her to forgo a relationship with a partner that fulfills her needs–all so gender norms and stereotypes can be reinforced. As Mrs. Palin would say, “thanks but no thanks!”

To even make such a comparison between the children of same-sex parents and children living with a disability is really terrible. I know, I know, marrying a man solves everything, right? Except when lesbian mom realizes the awful mistake she’s made and she divorces hubby to go live with a female partner–then we’ve really complicated things, haven’t we? Or maybe hubby cheats on lesbian mom because lesbian mom doesn’t want to have sex with hubby–that’s always good for the children! THINK. I know it may be asking a lot to think about real people’s lives instead of your idealized moral absolutes, but just consider the implications of the world you are trying to champion. More broken homes, more conflict-filled marriages, more animosity and misery. Do we really have to regress to a time when people felt compelled to live a lie?

I know you hate it, but you are just going to have to come to terms with the fact that gays and lesbians are daddies and mommies too, and we have a right to raise our children as we see fit, just as heterosexuals can and do. You worry about the well-being of your kids, and I will worry about the well-being of mine. That’s called the right to privacy. Just out of curiosity, I wonder what the rate of child abandonment is for same-sex parents? I’m betting that it is much, much smaller than the rate at which straight dads walk away from their kids.

Heidi “I know it may be asking a lot to think about real people’s lives instead of your idealized moral absolutes, but just consider the implications of the world you are trying to champion. More broken homes, more conflict-filled marriages, more animosity and misery. ”

The results of a world with morals is not as you describe. The results of the world we live in now is because of the “free love” mentality that has exploded. Sex has become a commodity of which everyone thinks they can do with whomever and whenever they want. We now have many marriages based on clouded decisions because of this free love (along with many other issues). We have opened pandora’s box and are living in an over sexualized culture of which same sex marriage is contributing to the problem.

The ends could be good, children who are loved. Good can always come from some bad decisions, but that does not justify the means. There are absolute truths and if you look at our bodies and how they are made you will find one absolute that can’t be changed, unless you force it, and I wouldn’t suggest using force. Our minds can most definitely play havoc with issues regarding our sexuality but that doesn’t change our bodies. Being with the same sex can feel good and seem safe and thus liberating. What is more liberating, though, is finding the absolute truth written in our bodies and embracing it. I think we could agree that men need us, but the truth is we need them too, that is why our bodies were created the way they were.

I’ll be the first to agree that “free love” and promiscuity is a bad idea, and bad for society. I don’t represent that. As I’ve stated in my comments, I personally don’t advocate any agenda but my own conscience. I’m politically moderate, even bordering on conservative much to my left-tilted dad’s great annoyance. I believe in abstinance until marriage, and life-long marriage (or handfasting if discrimination denies the real thing) when you achieve that joyous union. Yes, Heidi, I know I’m naive. My parents have lived that example, as has my older sister- both in beautiful heterosexual marriages. I wasn’t lucky enough to achieve the abstinance, although being raped while delivering for Dominos wasn’t exactly my idea of a good time. I have achieved the fidelity with the partner I know I was meant for by God. I’ve known her since I was 10 years old, and after a youthful of dating, it always came back to her. I can’t help what we are, and on the verge of our 20th wedding anniversary, I can’t imagine changing now. We need each other, and together we are greater than the sum of our parts. The fact we are missing something “Anonymous” holds dear hasn’t held us back, nor is it going to hold back our son or daughter from achieving their dreams. Bummer so many others want to shoot us down.

There are only a handful of ways a boy can grow up without a father, and all of them are tragic. Abuse, abandonment, death, prison, etc. Sometimes necessary, but always tragic.

So why is “because Mommy doesn’t like boys” any less tragic than the others? The result is the same: Daddy is gone.

Heidi told us why:

“Asking “Mommy” to “settle for a husband” is asking her to ignore the truth of her innate identity and is asking her to forgo a relationship with a partner that fulfills her needs–all so gender norms and stereotypes can be reinforced. “

Yep. This is clearly MUCH more important stuff, than a child’s right to know and love the man he’s descended from. Gotcha. Gender stereotypes etc.

I think Heidi and I have maintained our kids knew their fathers.

Anyway, I’ll bite. Then what about two dads, Marty?

The late William Golding-author of “The Lord of the Flies”-was commenting on the dysfunction in merry old England-the rise illegitimacy and the decline of the nuclear family- he said “What children really need is a mother for love and a father for strength” he further stated he had no politcal axe to grind but was speaking as a 90 year old man-to that I would add one who has seen and done more than most. Anyway, I was a stay at home dad in-of all places ‘Frisco-yep my wife worked and I styaed home with our two children-and they NEVER loved me-or missed me-they same way they missed their mom. I was never jealous over that beacuse I was loved but it was not the same-and no matter what-it never will be

Same difference lawfully, Moms and Dads are different, and separate is never “equal”.

@James: I think Golding was referring to broken families and single-parents. As far as the love and strength thing, my kids would be the first to maintain my wife is the “strong” one. She’s the disciplinarian, the powerful presense. I’m the “love” one, and will negotiate on their behalf.

@Marty: Human beings are all different. There are strong female personalities and loving male ones. I’ve seen families where the roles are certainly not traditional, despite there being a man and a woman. The stereotypes don’t hold. My experience, and it is first hand, is that the variation between heterosexual parents encompasses the variation within same-sex ones.

@James: Funny, my daughter would probably go to her father for love (he is more of the nurturing type than I am) and would probably consider me as her model of strength. So much for gender stereotypes.

@anonymous: I’m not entirely sure how I became associated with the free love movement, lol. I happen to believe in and practice monogamy. Why do you think I want to get married?!? Yes, I had a child out of wedlock as a teenager. Yes, that made things more difficult. But considering that I went from teenage mother on welfare to practicing attorney, I’d say that I managed to make the best out of a difficult situation. And my daughter’s father has always been around and involved in our daughter’s life, even though we ultimately and mutually decided that getting married and staying together wasn’t good for either of us or for our daughter.

Same-sex marriage is not contributing to over-sexualization. If anything, it’s the opposite of such! The reasons for gays and lesbians to marry are the same as they are for heterosexuals–to love, honor, cherish, and sacrifice for your partner in fidelity and faith.

“There are absolute truths and if you look at our bodies and how they are made you will find one absolute that can’t be changed, unless you force it, and I wouldn’t suggest using force. Our minds can most definitely play havoc with issues regarding our sexuality but that doesn’t change our bodies. Being with the same sex can feel good and seem safe and thus liberating. What is more liberating, though, is finding the absolute truth written in our bodies and embracing it. I think we could agree that men need us, but the truth is we need them too, that is why our bodies were created the way they were.”

Hmmm…this is just a little too weird for me to respond, but I’m going to try. First, the mind-body connection is something that cannot be denied. And if you’re really talking about “forcing” something, it is what happens when someone tries to make his or her body do that which the mind does not allow; that which the mind screams out is wrong. I am bisexual, so I am just as capable of sex with a man as with a woman. I just happened to fall in love with a woman. My partner on the other hand, is a complete and total lesbian. She did try to mess around once with a boy back in high school, mostly to try to “force” herself to be something other than what she knew she was for the sake of her parents. That little excursion failed miserably for her, and confirmed what she always knew to be true–that she could never be with a man. It was just unnatural for her. For her, being with a man would NOT be liberating, it would be devastating. Finally, I cannot speak for other women, but I can tell you that neither my partner nor I “need” a man, except as friends and extended family. We are quite happy and content with one another.

Okay, so one more thing to add: in addition to my teenager, my partner and I are raising my niece, whose mother is a drug addict incapable of taking care of her, and her father is a drug dealer who wants nothing to do with her and would voluntarily terminate his rights to avoid child support. In our home, this child is loved, protected, nurtured, taught, and has a beautiful smile and an incredible bear hug to prove her happiness. How dare any of you tell us that we are not fit for raising children? How dare any of you preach about the superiority of the heterosexual model that has so clearly failed this child?

Happy families are all alike;every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. As a stay at home dad in ‘Frisco I noticed so many of these ‘families’ trying to hard to be happy-trying to hard to justify themseleves-now over in Alameda they want ‘protected status’ for them and their families. Hells Bells you wanna swim against the tide and attract attention to yourself as being different then deal with the fallout. oh and in “The Lord of the Flies” it was a man who rescued the boys from themseleves. Lastly-if ya can’t do it in 100 words or so-you are trying to hard-JB ps-brownie points to whoever knows the author of the first sentence.

@lawfully wedded–you are SO right! When I was with my daughter’s father, he was so much more the nurturing and soft one, and I was the disciplinarian. Now that I’m with a woman, my role is the same, and she is the softie. What’s really funny about it is that she looks more “masculine”–short hair, no make-up, wouldn’t be caught dead in a dress–and I am the “girly” one. Yup, the stereotypes do not hold, but I DO think that every successful couple has a balance between so-called “masculine” qualities and so-called “feminine” qualities, which are really just human qualities. Oh, and we are a very happy family with lots of love and support, and our kids know that they are loved.

Betsy:
That quote comes from the opening line of Anna Karenina.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Karenina

And it was Leo Tolstoy.

Heidi,
Masculine qualities, feminine qualities they’re all just human qualities? What I think you’re trying to say is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne7fPpxAnuM

Don’t worry it’s not some hippie song.

@ James Brown: “Hells Bells you wanna swim against the tide and attract attention to yourself as being different then deal with the fallout.” Hmmm, same was said of the abolitionists. Same was said of the civil right movement- Heaven’s knows Rosa parks heart that same argument. Same was said of those who married “outside their race”. Same is said of whistleblowers that save our society from hidden dangerous acts by the powerful. Same is said of all those who resist tyranny. Just go with the flow- it’s easier. Just go with the flow- and maybe they won’t notice YOU. Until they come for you.

My personal hero is John Adams and his incredible wife Abigail. He refused to shut up over independency, and he birthed a new nation. The progressives created this nation, to great opposition I might add from those conservatives who wanted the status quo with only slight adjustments, who didn’t want to “make a fuss”. Who didn’t want to take the hard road. This Patriot is certainly glad John Adams, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and the other progressives won that argument.

Lawfully Wedded:
To lump the Founding Fathers in with the Progressives is inaccurate to the point of blasphemy.

First of all, I cannot think of an example of the Founders referring to themselves as “progressives.” If you can find an exemplar from their writings I will stand corrected.

If you are using the term “progressive” as meaning wanting radical social change, then the same term can be applied to revolutionaries of all types. Many types of revolutionaries are completely odious people.

If you are using the term “progressive” in the modern sense, the term is about a hundred and twenty years old. That ideology has much more in common with Bismarck and the changes he made in Germany than anything the founders did. In fact, Bismarck’s ideas are in many ways diametrically opposed to those of our nation’s Founders.

@Arlemagne: I am using the term from Webster’s- an advocate for change. Conservative is to be reticent if change. I’ve said I don’t adhere to agendas, other than my own conscience, and that would certainly include the unifier of Germany, Otto Von Bismark. I look to the people not afraid of change, of trying new things. Looking forward, not back. More recent presidents like Abe Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt fit the definition, however much both fell into change against their initial desires. Like Jefferson before them, some of the great progressives (lower case, Webster’s basic definition) didn’t start out planning to change the world. In the end, though, they embraced it.

The United States was a Grand Experiment. Never been done before. The “shot heard ’round the world”. We were the first colony to say, no more. We created the modern concept of a non-monarchal head of state- voted by the people and not coronated or ordained by God. All of these were radical, not reactionary, concepts. They were unnatural to everything the status quo held dear. Gloriously so.

The word Progressive has a very specific meaning. By your definition a conservative who wants to go back to a pure capitalist system would be a progressive, because by removing the calcified mass of big government from the backs of the people he would be rebelling against the status quo. By misusing labels that have specific meanings, meanings become unclear.

As far as people who “were unnatural to everything the status quo held dear” I doubt there was ever such a person. The status quo holds a lot of things dear. Nobody wants to overturn all of it.

If it’s existed before, going back to it is reactionary, not radical- conservative, not liberal or progressive. Pure capitalism existed in the US for a period after the Civil War, until the excesses got so great that Teddy Roosevelt and eventually his nephew had to help reign it in. Revolution or rebellion can be conservative or progressive, depending on whether it’s moving forward or back. The American Revolution was liberal, and the formation of the United States under the Constitution rather than the Articles of Confederation was as radical as it gets. Yes, our Constitution built on the experience of Magna Carta, and gestated as the Constitution of Massachusetts (again, bless John Adams), but a nation governed by a set of clearly written principles to which everyone and everything was held- that was brand new. The Founding Fathers entered almost entirely uncharted territory, and I am profoundly grateful to them.

I’m actually a passionate constitutionalist (small ‘c’ in that I am not a member of that political party- they scare me). I swore twice in my life to uphold and defend the Great Document, once for the Army Reserves and later for the Navy (I root blue with my Dad during Army-Navy ). Like I suspect you do as well, I cringe at the ignorance over the 10th Amendment and am baffled by the Dept of Education. I shiver at the size of the trucks we drive through the Interstate Commerce clause. For all our flaws, though, I still think ol’ Ben Franklin was right when we optimistically said it was a rising and not a setting sun (cookie if you get the reference).

“If it’s existed before, going back to it is reactionary, not radical- conservative, not liberal or progressive.” Not necessarily.

“Pure capitalism existed in the US for a period after the Civil War, until the excesses got so great that Teddy Roosevelt and eventually his nephew had to help reign it in. ” This is mythology. In many respects the progressives, by regulating businesses, made their excesses worse. Take the meat packing industry. Roosevelt regulated it. At the meat packers’ request. The packers wanted it. It helped to keep their smaller competitors’ cost of business up and kept them out of the market. Capitalism turned into crony capitalism.

“Revolution or rebellion can be conservative or progressive, depending on whether it’s moving forward or back.” Who decides if the direction is forwards or backwards? What if some aspects are forward looking and some aspects are based on experience of the past? What then?

“I swore twice in my life to uphold and defend the Great Document, once for the Army Reserves and later for the Navy.” Thank you for your service to our country.

While the anecdotal posts are interesting, and no doubt those in same sex relationships are proud of the success both as a couple and in a larger family unit, to use anecdotal stories to justify the larger picture doesn’t persuade me.

I think same sex marriage and parenting are in the big scheme of things inferior to heterosexual relationships. I am bothered by the fact that in a same sex arrangement, one parent is never biological, for it takes three to make a child in those arrangements (actually still only two physically). Even those that favor same sex parenting on this blog acknowledge the importance of opposite sex influence. A heterosexual union is a much more efficient way of achieving both impregnation and gender influences.

I think I would rather my son had a woman for a wife than another man, and I bet most parents would agree. The idea of offspring and who they belong to genetically is more powerful than most people want to admit to.

Then there is the case of the woman who had a baby while in a lesbian relationship who later became a born again Christian and decided she wasn’t a lesbian. There was a huge court battle between her and her former partner, because she was the biological parent, did not want to share custody or expose her daughter to that lifestyle. Or the girl who’s mother wanted a child and paid for artificial insemination who really wanted to know who her father was. She wanted to know because there is a desire to know where you came from, notice the popularity of ancestry searches. The New Testament starts with the lineage of Christ.

I believe that homosexual relationships are not God’s plan for producing offspring and raising them.

Anna Karenina was the book-”Gender Matters” is another one. I am of the opinion that children are fascinated with as well as nurtured by the differences between their mom and dad. My wife and I can look into our children’s eyes and tell them they are our treasure-created by the love both of their parents have for one another. Comparing the Founding Fathers to Heather’s Two mommies is quite a stretch but it doesn’t surprise. Another book is Orwell’s “Animal Farm” where the rules keep changing-”Four legs good-two legs bad-then Four legs good-two legs better” Now comes these so-called studies say “Mom and Dad good-two mommies better!”

lawfully: “My experience, and it is first hand, is that the variation between heterosexual parents encompasses the variation within same-sex ones.”

Except no two women will ever have an idea what it means to be a father, or a son, or a husband. No two men will ever know what it’s like to be a mother, daughter, or wife.

Smells like simple gender bias to me.

Lutheran, answer this question for me: in the case of the lesbian mother turned born-again Christian, is it fair to her child to deprive her of a loving relationship with a parental figure just because she has changed her mind about being in that relationship? It seems to me that it would be far more damaging to a child to lose a parent he or she loves than to be “exposed” to the reality of diversity in sexual orientation. And Lutheran, in adoptive families, NEITHER parent has a biological connection to the child. That doesn’t make them any less the child’s parents. My close friend was adopted, and while she was curious about her biological parents and eventually found and met her biological mother (still working on the father), she is adamant that it is the people who raised her, who tucked her in at night, who loved and nurtured her, who are her parents. And there is no biological connection to them. Wanting to know where you come from is very different from wishing you had been raised by the people who supplied the genetic material for your creation. Because I can tell you, my friend wouldn’t trade the parents who raised her for the parents who created her for anything. My niece would be absolutely devastated if she lost the bond that she has with my partner. Believe it or not, she has formed the primary parent-child bond with a person with whom she has no biological connection. And she did it while her mother and my sister was living in the same household with us because my sister just wouldn’t or couldn’t bond with her, and my partner was there to respond to her emotional needs.

Marty, you are really tied up in your gender identity, aren’t you? Are you something more than male sex characteristics and hormones? Something greater than the sum of your parts? To me, I am a human being first and a female second. You’re right, I don’t know what it is like to be a father, a son, or a husband. But I DO know what it’s like to be a human being, to crave liberty and equality, to believe that in this country everyone is entitled to a liberty of conscience that includes private decisions about who to love, and whether or not to have children and how many. I think it is more gender-biased to insist that we must all view the world through a gendered lens. Line up ten men and I’m willing to bet that they all have different ideas and experiences about what it means to be a father, husband, and son, even if there are some similarities that can be found because of cultural influences. We all perform our gender differently, with wide variations in identity, behavior, attitudes, etc. Men, while having the same body parts, all come in many different individualized emotional and psychological make-ups, and the same is true for women. Some men are macho and tough, some men are gentle and nurturing. Some women are born leaders, and others are content to play a secondary role. People are different. There is no universal male and no universal female. Your worldview assumes that all men provide the same qualities to their children and that all women provide the same qualities to their children that are the exact opposite of what men provide. Not true. Some of us had strong and domineering fathers, others had fathers who were not. Some of us had mothers who were nurturing and gentle, and others had mothers who were tough and commanding. People are unique, and it scares me to think that we should all be the same types of people depending on what is between our legs. How sad and limiting.

Ari, I liked your song choice. That song always inspired me as a child and confirmed my Christian upbringing that we are all God’s children, equal in His eyes and loved unconditionally. It’s just too bad that you would choose a beautiful song like that to mock me. When did life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, equality and justice become concepts for mockery? When did our country change from holding a passion for religious liberty to a quest for religious conformity? I realize that you are not Christian, but for me, as one who is a Christ-follower even as I detest being called a Christian because of all the bad things said and done in His name, I can’t help but wonder whose rights he would have tried to suppress. I can’t help but wonder whether he would condemn love. Everything in my heart and soul tells me that God intended for my partner and I to raise my niece. In fact, if I hadn’t believed that God was telling me to do it, I’m not so certain that I would have chosen to start parenting all over again when my own daughter is almost grown. But if you could only see the love in my family, and the way that baby’s face lights up when her non-biologically related other mommy comes home to greet her. Hmmm….a home with a loving same-sex couple of “aunties” or a home of abuse and neglect by her biological parents–which one do you think this child would prefer if she could choose? Open your heart, and see the love in the many different families that is all around you. Make fun of me if you wish, but my deeply held religious beliefs boil down to love.

James, as I said at the top of these posts, I think this study says less about male-female parent combos versus female-female parent combos than it does about the crisis that exists in American masculinity. We teach boys that it is not okay to cry, to show emotion, to be soft, to be nurturing, that they must be tough and never let anyone see them as weak, and then we wonder why there is a crisis in fatherhood in this country. How does one effectively bond emotionally when one is emotionally stunted? Did you know that studies have shown that boy babies are more emotionally vulnerable than girl babies are? So, if boys are MORE emotionally vulnerable, why do we teach them that “real men” don’t cry? We train them to go against their own nature and then wonder why they have difficulty forming emotional attachments to their children such that they would willingly live up to their responsibilities to them.

Phew! I think I just wrote a book or something!

Heidi said: “But my deeply held religious beliefs boil down to love.”

Why am I not surprised? Mine don’t. G-d is also about hate. (I’m not talking about the Westboro Baptist Church thing here…). Read accounts of the deeds of Bogodan Chmelnitzki, or the pogrom at Kishinev, or the deeds of Paul Blobel, not to mention the awful deeds of Stalin Mao Tzetung, Kim Jong Il, etc. (I’d stick in Hitler, but he’s so overdone in this context).

G-d hates people like that. Some say that the concept of Hell is an awful thing to teach children. Not me. Though I don’t believe in the Christian version, I’m going to teach my children about Hell right before I teach them about what happened, for instance at Babi Yar. G-d hates those men who did those things.

Maybe religion to you is about love, but in this world there’s a whole lot for G-d to hate. Maybe you have not read enough about history to know the true depths of human evil, but I have. And when I read it, statements about “religion is love” make me ill. There is too much to avenge.

By evil, I hope you realize, that I’m not talking about prosaic stuff. I’m talking the real heavy duty stuff as exampled above).

One thing I just cannot STAND is people who ‘know’ what God wants, thinks, or feels. Speaking details for God, to my mind, is the utmost blasphemy. As much as I agree with you about the evilness of every one of those men, I won’t ascribe my own feelings to God. I have no idea what motivates him. Not sure where the Book of Job stands with you, but it’s good reading on the subject. Where these people, or anyone else for that matter, ends up isn’t up to you, me, or anyone in this existance. Thank God!

Okay, I wrote that in passion. Let me rephrase something. My original words were, “I have no idea what motivates Him.” Clearly, that’s wrong. Still, we have no idea what His perspective is on each situation. His understanding is so much greater than ours. Trying to speak for Him or His actions is treading on very, very thin ice.

Lawfully wedded:
Please see Psalm 94.

H: You’re right, I don’t know what it is like to be a father, a son, or a husband. But I DO know what it’s like to be a human being, to crave liberty and equality…

Crave on, but you’ll never ever be “equal” to a father, a son, or a husband. It’s absolutely impossible for you to have ANY firsthand experience to offer on those topics.

Tilt against the windmills if you must, but we cannot help you win.

H: Marty, you are really tied up in your gender identity, aren’t you?

Funny you should say that when I’m not the one here who sounds like he majored in “gender studies”…

Like I said-if you have to go on and on and on-you’re trying to hard-anyway There is a chapter in “Anna Karenina”-I forget which one-where Anna and her paramour are at a luncheon in dedication to a hospital built with their largess. The hospital staff could’nt and/or would’nt give them the approbation they so desperatly wanted. There was a gulf between them which is not unlike the gulf we have in America-its something I see while channel surfing the Sunday morning talk shows from Washington D.C.-something I saw while raising my kids in “Frisco. Its called hubris. (well even in death Anna craved attention-any kind of attention-but never got)

Actually, Marty, I majored in media studies, with a double concentration in professional writing and in theory & criticism. I minored in philosophy. One thing I learned from both is how reality is constructed and how easy people are swayed by the cultural images and messages around them, including those about gender. I learned all about propaganda and how it is used to control people, and about how our conceptions of gender have radically changed over the centuries, as have our cultural symbols used to connote those conceptions. Then, after working in child abuse prevention for a number of years, including parent education and support, and crisis intervention, I went back to school and majored in law.

James, if you think that complex subjects like sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, parenting, family composition, etc. can be summarized into talking points, well then, I suppose you’re content with just scratching the surface on these topics, much like a person who relies on television news for their information about the world around them.

Heidi,
Theory and criticism? Sounds an awful lot like critical theory. Who did you study? Adorno? Gramsci? Marcuse? Apple? Judith Butler? If you studied any of that trash, you might as well have majored in Womyn’s Studies or any of the other flavors of oppression studies. It’s all the same thing but with a different emphasis– a rehash of Frankfurt School Marxism.

Arlemagne1 :
Lawfully wedded:
Please see Psalm 94.

I think we have different Bibles between us here, and will leave it at that my respected friend. I won’t be so silly and ineffective as to quote New Testament verses to you.

I will add that my theology is so caught up in the New Testament and the writings of CS Lewis as to have little meaning for you. I’ll keep that in mind when formulating future arguments and keep theology out of it with you. I suspect you’ve already recognised my handicap. Hopefully I haven’t lost all credibility from square one given I couldn’t even get my Messiah right…

lawfully_wedded_wife :
…we have no idea what His perspective is on each situation…

lww,
Could you clarify a little more for me? Do you believe the Book of Job and/or the other books of the Bible can offer us any clues at all as to “what His perspective is” on any of the situations discussed in those books? Do you not believe that God communicates with us in any way about His character, viewpoint, attitude, etc?

@Leland:

Job 38.

God’s perspective is such beyond ours as ours is beyond an amoeba. I would never think to speak for God, rather I shall cherish His word within my own heart. I am uncomfortable, at best, by those who deign to speak for something beyond our understanding. Certainly by those who choose to rule over others based on their interpretation of the fractional knowledge we can have of God’s detailed plan. There is a reason the Founding Fathers set us up as a republic and not a theocracy. In my view, coming to know God is a private affair, the personal relationship with God that Martin Luther felt so strongly about that he sundered the Church in the West in defense of the idea.

This isn’t to say that we don’t have a right as a society to deal in this life with the animals in human form that prey on others, whether by genocide, individual murder, rape, or battery. For example (and at the risk of invoking Godwin), Hitler had to be taken down, and there are few points in US history in which I derive more pride than in WWII. I just will never annoint, or stand by to see annointed, a Holy War…or a Holy Cause. Too many of them have been misguided and evil, such as the 4th Crusade. The “Holy” Inquisition harmed Jews far longer than Hitler did. We simply aren’t worthy (or trustworthy) to speak for God, any more than I would trust an amoeba to treat my patients.

Job, chapter 38:1-7

1: Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said,
2: Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?
3: Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me.
4: Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.
5: Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it?
6: Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof;
7: When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

@lawfully_wedded_wife
My point is that you seem to be saying that God is so unfathomable that it is folly for us to lecture one another on His nature and His will for us and that knowing God is solely a “private affair”, etc. However, does that position not seem to be rather self contradictory? (You are lecturing us on God’s nature and will yourself when you make such an assertion, after all…)

And while I do not doubt your sincerity, I do have to wonder why you would cite the Bible to support your position if you truly thought God is so utterly beyond our comprehension. Obviously, as beings with finite intellectual capacities, we could never fully plumb the depths of God’s omniscience. But God gave us His word (and saw to it that it would be preserved for us in the very Bible you refer to) exactly because, even though we could never begin to comprehend everything about God, we are in fact capable of understanding a *lot* about Him and His will for us, etc.

If you ask me, not only is it completely acceptable for us who believe in God to “earnestly contend” with one another over who God is, what His will is, and how we should live in obedience before Him, I actually think we have an obligation to do so.

And to tell you the truth, when you simultaneously posit your views on these issues *and* assert that we should not challenge each others viewpoints on God because it’s a “private affair”, you do risk looking like you’re attempting to lay down the law for us all yourself and then shut down any discussion on the matter before it even begins (by declaring that all knowledge of God is gnostic in nature, or something like that).

Oh, we can discuss it all we want. All I ask is that others don’t rule MY life based on THEIR interpretation of whatever fraction of God they hope to fathom. I am not trying to use religious arguments to tell others how they must live or certainly what they believe or think or feel. Others are trying to do that to people like me. We can all debate what God is, but it is an academic exercise except within our own heart. You are also free to discuss with others your perspective, and try to persuade them freely and willingly. Where I see a line to draw is when one belief restricts or even harms others who are not themselves causing others any clear harm.

I hope it has been clear that I am not trying to change what people believe about same-sex relationships or childrearing. I’m not that naive or arrogant. I have gone much more out of my way to phrase my posts as “suggestions” or “opinions” from my own perspective than many who counter me. What I am hoping to accomplish is a better understanding of those who believe differently from me and, perhaps, to give some enlightenment to those on the other side of this perception divide. I would hope perhaps that some might even feel differently in how they ACT, although not in what they believe, think, or feel. That’s just the optimist in me.

Amen. You said it lawfully wedded. That’s how I feel too. Not trying to change people’s beliefs, just asking that they not use those beliefs to justify denying equality under the law since we don’t live in a theocracy, but in a civil society premised on religious liberty.

So LLW & Heidi,

Since you are both so much against people forcing their viewpoints, beliefs, & morals on others:

Does that mean you’re against anyone using the power of the law to force other people (& employers & insurance companies, etc.) to treat same-sex unions (or same-sex ‘marriages’ if you prefer) the same as a ‘traditional’ marriage (between a man and a woman) even though to do so would require many people (most employers are just people too) to violate their own faith, beliefs, morals, and values?

Incorporated companies and governments are non-persons, and as such it really is impossible to ascribe “faith, beliefs, morals, and values” to them, other than indirectly to boards of trustees and the like. Since they are legal constructs and not people, I don’t see that we’re breaking any personal freedoms or civil rights by placing requirements on them. In the instance of a non-incorporated company owned by an individual or individuals directly, then I see merit to this concern. Similarly, I see merit to allowing religious organizations, those held directly or in trust, to cover or not cover whatever suits them- as long as they put it in writing and don’t arbitrarily change it on existing covered employees.

I feel the same way about other controversial issues such as birth control and abortion.

People can always work elsewhere, That said, if a company changes their policy over time, for example a company purchase or inheritance, there should be protections for existing employees to have coverage they had previously. A “grandfather clause”.

I can say that many companies willingly have same-sex benefits in the absence of any requirement because they draw good people. My own employer is one of them.

“Does that mean you’re against anyone using the power of the law to force other people (& employers & insurance companies, etc.) to treat same-sex unions (or same-sex ‘marriages’ if you prefer) the same as a ‘traditional’ marriage (between a man and a woman) even though to do so would require many people (most employers are just people too) to violate their own faith, beliefs, morals, and values?”

Leland, how does it violate your faith, beliefs, morals and/or values to treat people with respect, dignity and equality? No one is asking you to marry a gay person for goodness’ sake! Didn’t racists who used religion to support their point of view use the same arguments? Isn’t this what the Civil Right Act was all about? Why does your religion entitle you to treat people unfairly just because you don’t agree with them or just because you don’t like them? Is religion a cover for discrimination? But in any event, if I encounted a business person who didn’t want to serve me, I’d rather take my money elsewhere and spend it on someone who believes that I am entitled to be treated like every other human being and citizen of this country, regardless of who I love. No, I don’t believe in hiding behind religion to treat people unfairly, and when someone asks for equal protection under the law, that includes being treated just like everyone else!

excuse me, should be Civil RIGHTS Act.

and encountered. My typing skills are clearly lacking today…

“Leland, how does it violate your faith, beliefs, morals and/or values to treat people with respect, dignity and equality?”

Heidi, what about the “respect, dignity and equality” due to those who are being required by the law to violate their own faith? Why not use the law to prevent people from forcing their religion (or lack thereof) on others so that everyone is free to follow their own conscience in this matter.

“No one is asking you to marry a gay person for goodness’ sake!”

And nobody is stopping you from calling yourself ‘married’ to someone of the same sex as you (if you want to delude yourself like that). Nor is anyone trying to stop your employer from accepting your ‘marriage’ as valid for the sake of insurance and benefits. You’re the one who wants to use the power of the law to force the rest of us to violate our own beliefs by requiring us to accept, approve, and even financially support behavior that our God tells us is an “abomination”. How about if people like you just stop usurping the authority of the law to shove your morality down everyone else’s throats?

“Didn’t racists who used religion to support their point of view use the same arguments?”

Yes, and anti-miscegenation laws (which is what you’re alluding to, I think) that prohibited a man and a woman of different races from marrying were exactly analogous to using the law to force acceptance of same-sex so-called ‘marriage’.

The natural form and function of marriage is the bonding of a man and a woman to one another and both to any children they may have together. Anti-miscegenation laws interfered with the form and function of marriage to achieve a political objective – ‘purity of the races’ and eugenics, in that case. Using the law to force everyone to accept same-sex unions as ‘marriages’ also interferes with the form and function of marriage to achieve a political objective – the social normalization of homosexuality, in this case.

Rinku Mathew left a link on the Prop 8 Trial Closing Arguments thread (http://www.ruthblog.org/2010/06/17/prop-8-trial-closing-arguments/) to an essay by Francis Beckwith that makes the case well, IMHO. You can link directly to the essay at: http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2010/05/1324

I’ve read the Francis Beckwith article and was not particularly impressed. It seems he goes out of his way to twist the obvious: that one group of people (interracial couples) were denied the right to marry by law based on an arbitrary characteristic (race), as are GLBT people. It’s not rocket science to see the obvious analogy, after all. All of the other stuff he includes about common law marriages is superfluous to the analogy. No one is saying that there is an exact link between the histories of the two civil rights movements, only that an analogy can be made between denying a couple the right to marry because of the race of the participants, and denying a couple the right to marry because of the sexual orientation and/or gender of the participants. See how easy that is? It’s because the analogy is so obvious that Mr. Beckwith has to bend over backwards to try to refute it.

Again, I ask, how are YOU being required by law to violate your own faith? You haven’t explained this. Does your faith call for you to treat people unfairly just because you don’t like something about them? What kind of faith is that? There are plenty of people who do things I don’t like, but I don’t fight to deprive them of their civil rights! It’s not like we’re going to be having sex in the streets for goodness sake! Really, get a grip already.

The natural form and function of marriage to YOU might be about matching opposing body parts with one another for purposes of procreation. For ME, it is about love, fidelity, honor, commitment, and sacrifice, for as long as I live. The last time I checked, couples weren’t asked about their intent to produce children at the wedding altar and denied the right to marry if they said they didn’t want them. You don’t get it. Your definition of (religious) marriage doesn’t have to change. You can still believe whatever you want about it. But you don’t get to enshrine your religious point of view concerning marriage into the law to the detriment of others’ rights to equal protection under the law. Just because something has always been the case doesn’t make it RIGHT. YOU are the ones using the law to shove your religious/moral viewpoints down everyone’s throats. I am merely seeking that the law be neutral with respect to religion and to treat everyone FAIRLY. Mark my words, my side of the argument is more constitutionally legitimate. Because to side with you, the United States Supreme Court will have to rule that same-sex couples (and our children, by the way–yes, we ARE raising kids!) are not entitled to liberty or to equal protection under the law. Now the Supremes have certainly made their mistakes in the past (See Plessy v. Ferguson), but I would encourage you to read the Iowa Supreme Court’s marriage decision for the entire thoughtful constitutional analysis, in which the Court shot down every single argument made by your side as unconstitutional and not rationally related to a legitimate state purpose. Either we are a civil society that follows the rule of law, or we are a theocracy. This issue will decide that, and I’m banking on the former.

Oh, and you can believe that same-sex couples are “an abomination.” I happen to believe that people who would use religion to deprive others of civil rights are “an abomination.” But you won’t see me trying to use my beliefs to harm you or your family any time soon.

Wow! What Dr. J says about the Stacey & Biblarz study is really alarming! Stacey & Bibliarz seem to draw/spell out a fiercely strategic culture war attack on traditional marriage, not just to make the homosexual family and parenting acceptable and “normal” in our society, but also to make the heterosexual family and parenting obsolete and deficient, by knocking down the much beated notion and role of fatherhood!
It is true that the euphemistic twisting of “Gender nonconformity” into “gender flexibility” shrewdly disguises what is abnormal or unhealthy, as far as boys being affeminate, or “gay-ish”, as a virtue! But in reality it reveals the bias against heterosexuality and that homosexuality is a learned behavior, since the boys “scored over a standard deviation higher on femininity scales.” They say they are still “normal” boys, but does this mean that they are also open to homo or bi sexuality?! It is scary to see a social engineering trend-strategy here to breed a new type of “man” into our culture. It seems like they want to balance the status quo with more men (and women?) with “greater gender flexibility” and to create a more “androgynous” population, and at the same time force a new fatherless family model. To tear down or downplay the traditional heterosexual family would be a crime against children’s natural right to have a mother and father, and even a hate crime against hetero sexual fathers!?

Heidi,

It would be one thing if you simply disagreed with the analogy between anti-miscegenation and same-sex ‘marriage’ that Beckwith made in his article (and then actually tried to refute the arguments he made in support of the analogy, of course). But one has to wonder why you don’t seem to have understood anything he said in his essay at all, unless your mind was completely closed to the matter when you read it. The concept is not hard to understand. Allow me to put it into a single sentence for you and let’s see if that helps:

Anti-miscegenation laws and laws forcing everyone to recognize same-sex ‘marriages’ are just two different ways for the government to interfere with the institution of marriage for a political purpose.

It’s that simple. Through anti-miscegenation laws some state governments were trying to achieve ‘racial purity’. And (one of the ways that) some people are now attempting to achieve the social normalization of homosexuality is by using the power of the law force everyone else to recognize same-sex ‘marriages’, whether you approve of homosexual behavior or not.

“…an analogy can be made between denying a couple the right to marry because of the race of the participants, and denying a couple the right to marry because of the sexual orientation and/or gender of the participants.”

But nobody is denying anyone the right to call themselves ‘married’ regardless of their “sexual orientation and/or gender”. You are attempting to force your beliefs on the rest of us.

“Again, I ask, how are YOU being required by law to violate your own faith?”

For one thing, if I want to start a business (and I do) I would be required to support/subsidize homosexual behavior through various government mandated benefits that I’ll have to offer to same-sex couples.
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/jun/10062213.html

And churches have already lost tax exemptions for not allowing their facilities to be used for same-sex union ceremonies. Why should any church be penalized for practicing their own faith according to their own conscience?

You could also ask Lisa Miller about being forced to violate her own faith (by Janet Jenkins) or lose custody of her daughter to someone who is not related to her child by either marriage or adoption if she doesn’t…

“The natural form and function of marriage to YOU might be about matching opposing body parts with one another for purposes of procreation.”

Come on, Heidi! Beckwith even quoted Dr J on that issue in his essay:
“…marriage between men and women is a pre-political, naturally emerging social institution. Men and women come together to create children, independently of any government. By contrast, same-sex ‘marriage’ is completely a creation of the state. Same-sex couples cannot have children. Someone must give them a child or at least half the genetic material to create a child. The state must detach the parental rights of the opposite-sex parent and then attach those rights to the second parent of the same-sex couple.”

Marriage is what it is regardless of what you or I or anyone else wants to call it. But how about this? What if we let YOU call same-sex unions a ‘marriage’ if you want to. And WE will have to come up with some other term to describe what marriage is in our view. (We’ll call it ‘traditional’ marriage or ‘historical’ marriage or ‘man-woman’ marriage or something…) But we’ll distinguish between the two forms and treat them as two different things because they ARE two different things. Would that be alright with you? Of course not! Because you want to force your beliefs, values, and practices on the rest of us, don’t you?

“Oh, and you can believe that same-sex couples are ‘an abomination’.”

Heidi, when you have to be that disingenuous in order to even sound like you’re making an argument, you probably should reconsider your position (not to mention your attitude towards those you disagree with). What I said was that our God tells us homosexual *behavior* is an abomination. But, if it makes your position sound better (by making mine sound worse) you’ll just respond as if I said same-sex *couples* are an abomination. But take my word for it Heidi, straw-man attacks like that won’t get you anywhere around here.

But it does illustrate an important difference between the general attitudes exhibited by the respective sides of this debate:

Some of us believe that God created all *people* equal, but that people’s thoughts, ideas, beliefs, values, morals, behaviors, etc are not necessarily equal at all. We therefore believe that while assertions and *behavior* can be deplored, they who are making the assertions or even engaging in the behaviors are still worthy of regard. (But for the record: Holding people accountable for their acts and assertions is in no way treating them with contempt. In fact it’s the opposite. One of the most dehumanizing things you could do to someone is ‘relieve’ them of responsibility for what they do and say…)

On the other hand, some behave as if they think that people are only worthy of regard if they believe, say, and do what you think they should. And if they don’t, it’s OK to despise them, demean them, call them names (Bigots! Hate-mongers! Homophobes!) deny them the opportunity to fully participate in the democratic process (by stealing all their yard-signs and vandalizing their cars, homes and churches for example…) or you can even use the power of the ‘law’ to force them into compliance with your world view if you want.

And apparently they also think it’s OK to accuse anyone who won’t kowtow to your agenda of saying something awful that they did not actually say, Heidi…

Telling… Very telling…

The whole idea of same sex “Marriage” is lunacy. This goes far beyond faith, morals, & religion! Natural law dictates the survival of any species. Just because we “think” we are so advanced as to no longer require traditional man & woman conjugal relations for pro-creation, does not mean long term survival of the human race.
Marriage has been defined by man siince the beginning of time. It has been a part of every culture & religion. No historical culture that practices homosexuality has ever survived.

Rstevens :
No historical culture that practices homosexuality has ever survived.

Well, I think it would be more accurate to say that historically the widespread acceptance/approval of homosexual behavior (i.e.: the social normalization of homosexuality) has always come at the end stages of the marginalization of family and marriage in a culture. Oh wait a minute! That’s what is happening in our society today, except that by even talking about putting homosexual relationships on par with marriage we have already sunk much further into that quicksand than any other civilization in history.

Ironically, all this should cause the most concern to those of you who are pushing the hardest for same-sex so-called ‘marriage’. If you think it bothers you so much that most of society won’t be fooled by your ‘marriage equality’ double-speak, you are going to be horrified by what comes next if you do succeed in demolishing the institution of marriage. Refer to Carle Zimmerman’s excellent book on the subject to see what effect it has on a civilization once that occurs. (Be advised though, even our own Dr J described Family and Civilization as “a challenging read”, but if an undereducated fellow like me can get through it – and in fact, I could hardly stand to put the volume down once I started reading – then the rest you should be able to handle it well enough…)

If you would like to see how the breakdown of the family is playing out in western culture today check out Marc Steyn’s America Alone. Basically, he describes how one of the results of the demise of the family is that fertility rates have dropped so low in a few of the ‘developed’ nations of Europe and East Asia that demographers have concluded that they are past the point of no return. Not only will they never grow in population again, their populations will continue to decline until they are displaced by peoples who still have much stronger family structures (and stronger demographics as a result).

And that is exactly what is already happening, in Europe anyway. The only people in Western Europe having enough babies to actually grow in population are the Muslim immigrants of those nations. But it gets worse. Strong families (and the demographics that go along with strong family structures) lead to very powerful cultural confidence indeed. Each generation of Muslims in Europe are actually becoming less culturally (and politically) assimilated into the rest of society than their parents and grandparents were before them. It is now a virtual certainty that Europe will literally become a sharia ruled ‘Eurabia’ within the next generation.

So how do you think homosexuals and their supporters will fare in Europe once the Ayatollahs are in charge? (Maybe about how they do anywhere else under sharia law now?) America may be in somewhat better shape (thanks in part to all those bigoted, homophobic, hate-mongering, over-breeding, Bible-thumping, red-staters) but even here in the USA Islam is the fastest growing religion by far. And if you still don’t think our own liberties are at stake in all this, then consider a question Marc Steyn asks in his book: Do you actually believe “…a country that can’t even enforce its own borders against two relatively benign states will somehow be able to hold the entire planet at bay?”

You who are pushing for us to become a ‘genderless’ society are using your freedoms to undercut your own children’s freedom. They will curse you for it if you succeed, and all our children will curse us for it if we let you.

Okay, first off most people in same-sex unions do not want to destroy marriage. We just want the same recognition. If you want to give us a parallel institution with the same rights and responsibilities, we’ll talk. Many of us, at least, will give you the name if it’s just an issue of semantics, we just want our families and love supported.

And speaking of families, how exactly do same sex marriage reduce birthrates given modern society and those practices and/or technologies offered sterile heterosexual couples? We WANT kids, darn it! We want our kids to be recognised and supported by society just like kids of opposite sex couples. We want to be able to have one partner stay at home with the kids and bring them up with our loving support. Same sex marriage, at least in the manner I and those around me propose, is all about families AND kids. You want more of ‘em, open your horizons.

As far as homosexuals and failed cultures, how many cultures have been created through time, and how many are still left? I don’t think you can identify acceptance of homosexuality in every failed or dead culture any more so than the ones that survived. Homosexuality has always existed- I think we agree on this. It always will exist. It is part of the human equation.

Two entire continents of cultures were destroyed by interaction with god-fearing, missionary-wielding, Bible-thumping, nominally heterosexual Europeans. The literal decimation of the indigenous Americans had nothing to do with homosexuality. I don’t believe the aborigines of Australia, equally ill-affected by Europeans, had rampant homosexuality either.

Those failed cultures where homosexuality was documented significantly had other factors as well. I’d propose the issues with the failure was more an inward-focus and blindness to the broader world, an arrogance and lack of recognition of their dangerous neighborhood, and most especially ignorance of the bottom line as happened with Rome. I think we might agree there, I just won’t attribute homosexuality as anything except an existent element. It simply existed, and the culture was so inwardly focused to actually think to document it.

We can learn from failed cultures. We do need to pay more attention to our birthrate and our bottom line. We do need to be more cognizant of the world around us and how best to interact with it and protect ourselves from it. But if all we do is ascribe their failure to “homosexuality” or even the “destruction of the family”, we won’t be learning the right lessons as I see things.

LWW said: “Many of us, at least, will give you the name if it’s just an issue of semantics, we just want our families and love supported.”

It is not merely semantics.

The merger of marriage and nonmarriage is far more destructive than you credit.

LWW said: “We WANT kids, darn it!”

Who is “we” — I thought you disavowed the emphasis on sexual orientation when it comes to parenting and marriage law. Identity politics was always there, lurking just beneath your supposedly neutral surface, LWW.

The end does not justify the means. And the end is not justifiable in the first place. You stomp your feet and announce that the birthright of children to a mom and dad (barring dire circumstances or tragedy) is inferior to your neediness? That is placing far too much weight on the self-importance of your favored identity group.

By the way, who here among the Ruth Institute’s bloggers have you read giving an endorsement to the abuse of technology? I am not a RI blogger, but in my own comments I’ve objected to this abuse and have pointed out that it is unethical even when husband-wife duos partake of it.

I think you must first grapple with the manufacture of human beings before you glibbly complain that some people abuse technology today so why not your identity group too.

Homosexuality, in the sense you are referring, is a relatively recent notion — maybe 100 years since its first articulation. You are over-estimating the modern gaycentric account of human history and culture.

Note, I did not deny that sexual behavior between persons of the same sex is a recent phenomenon.

When it comes to marriage, no one has proven that any culture has treated same-sex sexual behavior on par with conjugal relations — not as a relationship type and status and not as a fundamental unit of society. Speculative accounts don’t discount the universal features of the social institution of marriage across anthropology and history. When marriage declines, so too society.

Typo correction: I did not *assert* that sexual behavior between [etc.]

“Who is “we” — I thought you disavowed the emphasis on sexual orientation when it comes to parenting and marriage law. Identity politics was always there, lurking just beneath your supposedly neutral surface, LWW.”

I didn’t emphasize the sexual orientation aspect, Leland did. I simply responded to his assertions in my post. I maintain sex or sexuality has absolutely nothing to do with parenting past the inception stage, and we’ve discussed elsewhere that technology for inception must be applied equally.

Homosexuality, in the sense you are referring, is a relatively recent notion — maybe 100 years since its first articulation. You are over-estimating the modern gaycentric account of human history and culture.

In what sense am I referring? Help me understand what happened 100 years ago to bring about this notion of which you speak.

By the way, who here among the Ruth Institute’s bloggers have you read giving an endorsement to the abuse of technology? I am not a RI blogger, but in my own comments I’ve objected to this abuse and have pointed out that it is unethical even when husband-wife duos partake of it.

Help me clearly understand where the line for abuse begins. No 3rd party gametes at all? No surrogacy? What would you propose banning equally to all citizens.

When marriage declines, so too society.

Please explain how you can be certain it is not the other way around. I need further explanation to discern a clear cause-and-effect as you describe.

LWW said: “I maintain sex or sexuality has absolutely nothing to do with parenting past the inception stage, and we’ve discussed elsewhere that technology for inception must be applied equally.”

You maintain? You assert without evidence.

Must be applied equally? You insist that it be applied inequally.

The basis of procreation and of responsible procreation is opposite-sexed and is not sex-neutral. See the social scientific evidence and consensus regarding outcomes for children in homes of married mom-dads in intact and low-conflict relationships. The unity of fatherhood and motherhood is not adultcentric but childcentric, unlike your dogmatic view of the “inception stage” as some arbitrary imposition on parenting.

LWW said: “I simply responded to his assertions in my post.”

Actually, you’ve used euphemisms throughout your remarks in the comments on the blogsite. But if you want to deny the emphasis, it is now on the record and expect to be held to that henceforth. I expect to remind you of this when next you emphasize sexual orientation — obliquely or otherwise.

LWW said: “In what sense am I referring?”

It is your comment. What did you mean to say when you said it? Try not to emphasize sexual orientation as you explain. Thanks.

Regarding the manufacture of human beings, it is unethical and does not merit the shielding that currently is in place either through legislative zig-zags or through the regulatory neglect of this industry.

When you asked about equality, did you mean equality regarding of sexual orientations? Or perhaps regarding sex? Or what, precisely, LWW, did you mean? Because you clearly see children as means to an end for the adults. if that is your meaning of “equality”, it falls short of justice.

You would ban procreation of some married people, as per your SSM idea regarding related couples. And yet you say you are primarily concerned about equality?

As for your cause-and-effect question, based on your previous remarks about evidence I doubt very much that you understand social scientific evidence.

If you want to await the measured results of studying society and marriage in a petris dish under a microscope in a laboratory, you will be sadly dissappointed.

If you would rather operate on the assumption that decline in society causes decline in marriage, go for it. But you probably just shrug because you don’t care about the cause-and-effect relationship. Strong correlations exist but you’d dismiss that as not hard enoughh evidence. I won’t waste the effort on that.

Chairm said, “See the social scientific evidence and consensus regarding outcomes for children in homes of married mom-dads in intact and low-conflict relationships.”

I have, and I have seen nothing in what I’ve read that clearly indicates the evidence relates only to mom-dad rather than two parents. Until someone can show me evidence clearly indicating mom-dad is the “secret sauce” rather than two parents in an intact and low-conflict relationship, I cannot assume that sex has anything to do with it. It has not been proven.

The unity of fatherhood and motherhood is not adultcentric but childcentric, unlike your dogmatic view of the “inception stage” as some arbitrary imposition on parenting.

Explain this further, if you will. I cannot answer since I cannot be sure of your meaning.

Chairm said, “It is your comment. What did you mean to say when you said it? Try not to emphasize sexual orientation as you explain. Thanks.”

My own reference to homosexuality was in response to Leland’s claims about homosexuality.

Leland said, “Well, I think it would be more accurate to say that historically the widespread acceptance/approval of homosexual behavior (i.e.: the social normalization of homosexuality) has always come at the end stages of the marginalization of family and marriage in a culture. ”

I simply questioned whether acceptance of homosexuality was a cause, effect, or simply an existant fact that historical inwardly-looking societies have the luxury to document. You went on to talk about my sense being a “recent notion” of the “past 100 years”. I still need you to elaborate if I’m to make any sense of that.

And as far as the rest of it, I have restated my questions elsewhere. Maybe you’ll answer them there. I do care about cause and effect, Chairm. Despite your derision for me, I am a scientist and practicioner, rather successful in my field, with one doctorate and working on another graduate degree to expand my horizons. While I may not be a social scientist, I cherish the scientific method. That skepticism doesn’t allow A=B then C=D to stand unchallenged. All the data I see batted around presumes just because the research was done using male-female pairing in traditional marriage, that it can be assumed male-female provided more benefit than just two people. Until someone can show that the sex of the pairing has something to do with it, by comparing it with another equivalent model, I can only derive from the data that two people provide an effective model.

A comparison to my own field- medicine. If you test Drug A against placebo, and it is shown to be effective, you cannot then state that Drug B is superior to drug A until you test it head to head. If Drug B has also been tested against placebo, regardless of how well each did against placebo, you can only claim that they’re both effective, not that one is better than the other. Just because Drug A has lots more data still doesn’t say a thing about Drug B…until they are compared against each other, controlling for confounding variables. And sadly, head-to-head studies in drug therapy are almost as rare as they are between opposite-sex and same-sex relationships.

lawfully_wedded_wife :
My own reference to homosexuality was in response to Leland’s claims about homosexuality.
Leland said, “Well, I think it would be more accurate to say that historically the widespread acceptance/approval of homosexual behavior (i.e.: the social normalization of homosexuality) has always come at the end stages of the marginalization of family and marriage in a culture. ”
I simply questioned whether acceptance of homosexuality was a cause, effect, or simply an existant fact that historical inwardly-looking societies have the luxury to document…

Well lww, I did attempt to point you towards Carle Zimmerman’s Family and Civilization in my comment. That’s an expansive work (even in the recently republished abridged version) by a sociologist who was (and still is) renowned in his field. The relationship of cause (the sexual conduct prevalent in society) and effect (the decline of the vitality of the culture) seemed more than obvious to me when I read it. If you are truly open to whatever the data will demonstrate, then you would definitely find it worthwhile to wade through the volume.
Joseph Daniel Unwin deals even more directly with cause and effect in his work, but it is almost impossible to find his writings (at an affordable price, anyway). But the results of his most important study is summarized (if ever so briefly) here. He was so confident in his conclusions as to the effect a society’s sexual practices have on that culture’s welfare that he stated rather boldly that “…if we know what sexual regulations a society has adopted, we can prophesy accurately the patterns of its cultural behavior…”

Well, LWW, if you’d impose the method of the hard sciences on the social scientific evidence, then, you will be disappointed at every turn. The consensus that has been built over the decades was grudgingly achieved. So skepticism has not been wanting.

It seems to me that you would prefer to take a default position that is highly speculative, and thus you’d deeply discount the consensus as being just as highly speculative.

As for your repeatedly citing your own personal knowledge of these things, well, we could go tit-for-tat on that basis and get noplace. If you truly are depending on social scientific evidence, then, apply social scientific standards instead of those of the laboratory or drug tests.

I will note, again, that you have again emphasized sexual orientation in your closing remark. You want head-to-head studies based on “relationships” which is yet another euphemism — like “couples” — for sexualized arrangements. Is it not?

Honestly, is it not?

Thank you, Leland. I will pursue those references. As you said, there’s a lot there. It may be a while before I can respond back on them all.

Relationships most certainly do not mean sex. I have relations with a lot of people I don’t have sex with. Parenting, effectively at least, requires a very intimate relationship. Sex can be a part of that relationship, but it need not be. Any couple that shares parenting will hopefully have a very emotionally and intellectually intimate relationship.

Chairm, I’m not a social scientist. I’ve been either hard science or medical science my whole life. Lab trials or controlled clinical trials are my bread and butter. I’m assuming from your proclaimed certainty that you have professional training in sociology or a related discipline. What is the social science standard for determining what assumptions you can draw from data when comparing to similar groups? If I do a bunch of studies that show a learning benefit from standardized pre-kindergarten education in large groups of African-American kids, would that be absolutely unattributable to kids of other ethnic backgrounds? Or could it be suggestive that ALL kids might benefit? Insert pre-K girls or any other group of pre-K kids you like into the example. Now back to marriage. We have all these studies that show a benefit from male-female relationships. You’re suggesting this data means we must think negatively about other similar couples, rather than positively or neutrally. I can’t quite see it. I would like to know what hard social science standards, and I know they exist, there are for extrapolating to other groups from such data.

LWW, the sexual relationship of mom-dad duos is the sexual basis for your own proposed procreation restriction on related people who’d become parents. You’d limit their options even if they were eligible to marry.

Maybe you could explain how the procreation restriction would be implemented, in rough outline, so that it would be consistent with your view regarding the relationship of those adults who’d share parenting within “a very emotionally and intellectually intimate relationship.”

Meanwhile, there are millions of mom-grandmoms raising children and their adult-adult relationships tend to fit what you just described. Likewise, there are millions of single parents in adult-adult relationships that fit; and most of these adult relationships are nonsexualized, even if some are sexualized.

If the focus is on sharing parental responsiblities, rather than sharing an adult-adult relationship, the range of relationship types expands tremendously. The most obvious is that of divorced or estranged parents. Indeed, even such parents might have the sort of emotional and intellectual relationship you’d hope was the context for the child-adult relationship. These are not intact families.

All of the same-sex households raising children are not intact families. When motherhood and fatherhood are disunited, for all of society via marriage law or parenting law, the default becomes non-intact families. That would mean, rather than treating non-intact families as if they were intact, the general rule is to treat intact families as if they were broken.

Even third party procreation requires the pre-requisite that the “donor” pre-emptively relinquish parental responsiblity. But some courts have decided that is not necessary and have thus assigned two women and the donor full co-equal parental status — tripartite status. Event that scenario in which the mom-mom-dad tripartite forms emotional and intellectually intimate adult-adult relationships, the family is not intact.

If we look at the possible ways that same-sex households can attain children, only a small percentage have adopted (maybe 6%, as an upper estimate) and an even small percentage have used third party procreation (maybe 1% as compared with a tiny fraction of 1% of mom-dad duos). These are not intact famlies due to parental relinquishment or loss.

Most same-sex households have attained children through one (or both) of the same-sex partners’ opposite-sexed sexualized relationships that have since been put aside. So there are non-resident parents of the other sex in the wings, as it were, not included in the same-sex households. These, too, are not intact families.

So by de-emphasizing the sexual relationship, I think you are pointing to broken scenarios. Heaven knows that there are societal problems strongly correlated with such scenarios — apart from the small subset that is homosexualized. This is why I ask how homosexuality could be a special ingredient that overcomes the features that are in common with family structures that, on average, produce outcomes for children that fall short of the benchmark of mom-dad raising their offspring.

Meanwhile, the homosexualized relationship is the sexual basis for the advocates of the SSM merger as per their arguments in the courts, the legislators, and other public forums such as blogsites and well-attended public debates. Thus they attempt to make the presence of children a chief justification for a change in the law both of marriage and parenthood (and childhood) that directly is advocated on the basis of a sexualized relationship. This sort of basis has been argued apart from SSM in parental status cases and proposed legislative initiatives.

Also, there are plenty of relationships between child and adult that are not officially parental but are parent-like in terms of caregiving and attachments, but which do not fit the features of the adult-adult relationship you mentioned.

How would you distinguish between the type of child-adult relationship you have in mind and all the rest? How would you establish that an adult is a parent and ought to be officially recognized as such? What would be the default position for all of society, if we take the sexual aspect out of the picture?

I don’t mean to bury you in questions. To make it easier, perhaps, to think it through, consider those questions in terms of making a sample to study rather than in terms of writing laws or guidelines for parental status.

See, I think that it is responsible to recognize, in principle, that the societal default needs to be that the mom-dad are in a sexualized relationship that has led to the creation of their offspring. This fits all of society. We can add all kinds of hoped-for additional features and seek ways to encourage those features, however, it begins with the opposite-sexed basis for human procreation. And when we promote responsible procreation, we include intentionality and wantedness and all the rest that you and others here have raised up the priority flagpole.

That there are other ways of attaining children can be (and are) recognized as departures from this default. Whatever the merits and demerits of these other means of attaining children, they are not the default. In terms of making a judgement based on ethics and morality, I think the alternatives are compared with the default. The closer the alternative is to the default, the more coherent our society’s accomodations would be. The further, the more strained it would be to accomodate. That informs me that the general rule, or default, is not determined by stretching parenthood out of shape based on the scenarios which are farther and farther afield.

This is the justification, really, for prioritizing married adoptors. And for showing preference for step-parent adoption (the step-parent steps in as the husband of the mother or as the wife of the father). Likewise, when it comes to assisting married prospective parents deal with infertility problems. Even though there are lots of compassionate reasons for encouraging adoption and fertility treatments, there are also equally compassionate reasons to limit, to disocurage, to prohibit the adultcentric emphasis that makes children the means to adult ends. Sometimes a society needs to establish good fences, or to maintain long-standing fences, that buffer against the extremes that would be reached through absolutism — through pursuing perfect consistency.

When it comes to children, and we all began life as such vulnerable and defenseless human beings, the first thing is not the neediness of adults nor merely good intentions that are oft assumed to drive fairness, but rather the birthright of the child. Each is born equal, of a man and a woman, and barring dire circumstances or tragedy there is something owed the child — both a mom and a dad. This is procreative justice — to each his due.

This article is dumb as well as all the arguing for the marriage thing. Why are people so quick to say that homosexuals are bad parents? And why are people worried that homosexuality means the end of the world because they cant procreate? with all the “straight” people dumping unwanted children off at hospitals and police stations, i commend the homosexuals for wanting to parent these children. Not to mention you have tons and tons of children already growing up in a one parent (mostly mother only) household. Lets not even get too deep into the whole divorce thing. All those vows in front of God have been broken time and time again by the “straight” culture. Where are all the nationformarriage people at trying to adopt these unwanted children in the USA? God will make his judgement on all based on their own personal lives and not one of us are saints in any way.

In my former bereavement work, I recall a young woman with complicated grief issues. Her mother had left her father for another woman and abandoned her. She stayed with her father, with whom she was very close, until he committed suicide which she believed was the result of his inability to cope with his wife’s dissertion and choice of a lesbian relationship. The young woman was now faced with abandonment by both parents. Her “hate” focused on her father since her mother was the only parent left. She insisted that her mother’s relationship was fine and that her father was the culprit from the beginning by not being man enough for her mother to stay. This convoluted thinking bespoke her agony. The last time we saw her, she had attempted suicide for the 2nd time.

Wow, so much energy on both sides. I think we have to go back to the beginning. Men and women were designed to come together and procreate. Obviously, this is necessary for mankind to survive. Many believe that God wants us to do that in a committed, permanent and loving way, is for the sake of our children– NOT FOR THE PARENTS! The word for this union is marriage. Each gender is endowed with a different role in that process, and both are important. Children of each sex benefit from having an intimate relationship with their parents of each sex.

So, here we are in 2010 and we have governments all over the world, and legal history to think about, but I think we still need to go back to the beginning of government recognition of marriage. Goverment (not religious) recognition of marriage was to support those unions which can produce our most valuable resource—PEOPLE. (Notice I said they “can” produce–not that they have to). It’s not about favoritism or respect.

Homosexual unions can’t produce people, they are created for a different purpose. Maybe they just need a different name to go with their different purpose. This doesn’t remove any human rights or imply disrespect, it just calls it like it is.

you’re not welcome to your own facts, people. You’re barely smart enough for opinions, but you don’t have the right to institutionalize your bigotry.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/07/david-boies-on-how-the-prop-8-witnesses-fell-apart/59554/

‘chairm’ is Maggie the chairman from NOM (‘Chair M’aggie) just so you know which idiot youa re talking to LWW,