The Gay Megathread (see mod note on post #2212)

Zombrex wrote: »

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that Ecce_Agnus_Dei is fully aware of that, and is in fact just being facetious for effect.

While breastfeeding is certainly encouraged, particular in new born babies, only something like 25% of women breastfeed after their child is 12 months old (compared to 80% of new born babies).

Considering the average age a child is at adoption is 3 years old, with only 2% of adoptions being children under 12 months, I can't really see the inability of a male homosexual couple to breastfeed making any significant difference to the development of an adopted child (which their children would be considering they can't naturally produce children either) who would most likely be on formula or even solid foods long before they reach the stage in their adoption where they are placed in the care of the couple.

*American and UK statistics, but I imagine that is the case here as well considering how strict the adoption process is

I was being facetious in my reply. The fact gay men cannot breastfeed is hardly relevant whether they adopt a newborn or a weened child. Plenty of women cannot breastfeed for various reasons.

In today's Irish Indo'.

Leading FG figures back plans for referendum on gay marriage.

A referendum on gay marriage is expected to be given the green light by the constitutional think tank this weekend.

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/leading-fg-figures-back-plans-for-referendum-on-gay-marriage-29191167.html

NuMarvel wrote: »

It's encouraging to see senior members of a party that's traditionally conservative speak out in favour of same-sex marriage. I really liked Minister Fitzgerald's comments:

"I think it's a great compliment to marriage that gay couples would want to be married. I see it as stabilising rather than threatening."

This is what bemuses me. What do people honestly think will happen when gay marriage is legalised? Will the country be hit by a wave of homosexuality? Will orphans all be sucked into abusive households? Will our hospitals collapse under the weight of gays visiting their partners when they're ill? Will God send a hurricane?

aloyisious wrote: »

Thing's to consider when making up one's mind about highly emotive topics. Dublin street life on Wednesday last.

http://www.gcn.ie/Gaybash_on_Georges_Street

Edit: There's a chance to see our republic making history now. Go to Constitution.ie, click on the "Watch lve video" and see the Constitutional Convention live.

Reminds me of a story I heard once about chickens. Oh look that chicken has different plumage lets peck it to death.

Bloody sad that some people are so uncomfortable in their own skins that they have to attack those who are.

SD

Zombrex wrote: »

To be clear, I don't think anything is inconsequential in child rearing. I don't think living in Limerick rather than Cork is inconsequential. I don't think having a child when you are 19 instead of 32 is inconsequential. I don't think having black parents is inconsequential.

The question is whether a homosexual family is a significant factor in damaging the.... development of the child.

Ok.

It is easy to point out that two homosexual men raising a child will produce a child different to a heterosexual couple (and this is confirmed by studies, though the differences are what most people would say an improvement), just as raising a child in London will produce a different child to one raised in north Scotland.

The question that should matter is whether this has a negative effect on the child, whether a child will suffer developmentally by not having a mum and dad raising them.

And the evidence seems to overwhelmingly say no they won't, that the gender or sexual orientation of the parents is not a significant factor in child development.


What you want is each child to be given the chance and opportunity to make the most of their development, and the evidence shows that a homosexual family can provide this as well as a heterosexual family.

Because they go to college? Have a good job? Have a relationship? Talk to psychologists who think, 'They seem fine to me'?

Guess what? My fatherless nephew would likely tick all those boxes. We cannot measure the impact like some science experiment. Its EVEN HARDER given the tiny number and various makeups of 'alternative families' there are. We cannot raise a child with a nuclear family, then raise it again with a same sex one and see what the difference is. In fact, if we take children from their parents forcibly, and give them to other adoptive parents to raise, it would probably come up with similar results: Good job, education, socially good etc. The fact is, people don't really care about these social studies until it is lending weight to the position they already hold. Men and women are different hormonally, biologically, emotionally. How they react to a variety of things is different, how they deal with loss, trauma. How they rationalise, problem solve, play, express themselves. The list goes on and on, and no book should need reading to know it!! It SHOULD go without saying that further on from having a loving family unit, it is best for a child to have the wholeness of the gender spectrum shining on their lives. Providing positive role models, and included in this, gender-centric role models giving them the practical implicit experience for understanding the idiosyncrasies of the sexes. Sure, a single mother/father can raise a child, and they will be a normal, functioning member of society. Great Job, good education, and be socially functioning. However, you really cannot measure what they COULD have had. All I can do is ask people to have some consideration for the ones who have no voice in this. Those who DON'T get the choice. Yes, they'll grow up knowing no different, and will likely think, 'I'm grand' in not knowing any different. However, as a society, we will have consigned children to these un-natural (in a gender sense) family make-ups when there would have been the alternative to give them the natural gender-centric family they would have enjoyed if their natural parents could have raised them. No doubt, children will continue to be denied parents for multitudes of reasons. However, when the circumstance so arises that a child for whatever reason is up for adoption, society has an opportunity to try give them the best they can, rather than pander to emotional blackmailing, agenda bombardment, and people pretending that its actually scientific.
I still believe, that but for divine intervention, this argument is lost. The brainwashing through media implicitly through entertainment, and explicitly through the vilification and shouting down of any dissenting voice is winning the day. The fact there is such conformism on this rather HUGE matter that changes our understanding of parentage and the needs of children should in itself ring alarm bells. Sure, people will cite studies as if that somehow is a QED, but the fact is that most people will not have read them, nor questioned them, nor even cared that they exist if the truth be told. They are just glad that there is something there with the word 'science' in it that somebody who has letters after their name compiled that appears to back up their already held notions. Nobody cares about the 'evidence'. They care about their agenda's, which is why they pass over their responsibility to think to googling, 'Studies to prove my position'. Ironically, its those of us who DON'T pass over our responsibility to think, who are made out to be the irrational ones. How arrogant of us to think that we can think, and see that the emperor has no clothes.

It seem's to me that saying a child being brought up by two same-sex parents will be deprived of a gender-inclusive rearing is incorrect. The child will have plenty of gender-inclusive moments, with both adults and other children.

JimiTime. Your quote: "All I can do is ask people to have some consideration for the ones who have no voice in this. Those who DON'T get the choice. Yes, they'll grow up knowing no different, and will likely think, 'I'm grand' in not knowing any different. However, as a society, we will have consigned children to these un-natural (in a gender sense) family make-ups when there would have been the alternative to give them the natural gender-centric family they would have enjoyed if their natural parents could have raised them. No doubt, children will continue to be denied parents for multitudes of reasons. However, when the circumstance so arises that a child for whatever reason is up for adoption, society has an opportunity to try give them the best they can, rather than pander to emotional blackmailing, agenda bombardment, and people pretending that its actually scientific":un-quote, sound's like the "will no one think of the children" emotional call to adults from agenda-bound groups, who will claim that what they say is based upon reports from experts on the "facts".

That sound's remarkably like social science studies being used to justify a point of view in how, in their opinion, things should be done. IMO, the only way a child would be brought up without any "gender-normative" connections throughout their childhood would be in total isolation from anyone from outside their family. That sound's very strange and not the usual way Irish society work's, unless you were to include a type of cloistered lifestyle.

Lately, however, I've become very suspicious of "facts" and "scientific social studies" as the media have revealed that both are very suspect, as well as those who used them in the past.... EDIT (and in the present)..... to push their agenda.

I listened to some people in the Constitution Convention quote US Psychology studies to further their point yesterday and i was minded that the US Psychology Expert bodies have abandoned the studies as being no longer relevant.