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

twg73 wrote: »

It not possible for a gay couple to jointly apply to adopt. That is the law today in Ireland. Only married couples or single applicants can adopt.

The best environment for a child to be raised is in a Family with a Father and Mother. Its the natural family. We say nature is best for many aspects.. why not for a child. Breast fed is best fed.. No something 2 men can do. Girls like their mums.. Boys their dads. So where possible the ideal should be to provide the child with the best chances in life.

So you are saying that the law should be aspirational? i'e. it should reflect what we wish to see as best not to regulate what is actually happening!
It's the bit about the ideal that causes the problem when the law actually enforces a less than ideal situation on the child. Currently a gay person may adopt but a couple can not, what actually happens is that one half of a couple adopt and the child is deprived of two parents. Perhaps you would restrict adoption to couples? opposite sex couples at that!
I fail to see the benefit to children in that situation as the implication would be that children of single parent families should be removed and fostered in families of opposite sex couples.
As to nature being best? thats an advertising slogan, please:rolleyes:

Thats an interesting study, thanks.
Just from a skimm reading I wonder if his selection criteria had an impact on his results. ISTM that what he observed was not the influence of gay parents but of bad marriages. Considering his timescale it could be just as much a study of the impact social disaproval of homosexuality has on the children of gay parents.
Of course the study is being spun by one side and vilified by the other but thats par for the course, "good sociology investigates what culture is ,how social structures work, how certain ways of thinking and acting become "normal," how institutions shape our lives, and how social change happens." Which is all that Mark Regnerus claims for his study.

Thanks Corkfeen, I didn't bother reading your links, after reading about a quarter of the study I saw enough flaws to make the conclusion seem...well, trying to be kind here, misplaced. 8 kids raised by a stable couple who were gay was all he had and then he concludes that gay parenting is a bad thing?
Oh why be kind, he lied! distorting his findings, misrepresenting the data and drawing a conclusion that his financiers would like in spite of the evidence. File under junk science.
If anything his study proves what all the studies prove - children in a stable family do best. Not a complete waste of time at least his study is large enough to be a representative sample if only he had analyzed the data properly.

twg73 wrote: »

Because its photos like these that conservatives will use to oppose changing the Irish constitution. Esp if it means the State will put child in the care of couples who believe its fine to express their sexuality marching naked in a gay pride parade. (and in the London Pride Parade there was not just that one photo).

While I might like to play bondage with my wife in the bedroom..Would it be fine to march down the street with half naked telling everyone? How would my child feel if a photo of his parents was shown to him/her?

PS and I didn't cherry pick the photo, it was on the google feed. (safe search google)

https://www.google.ie/search?q=london+gay+pride&safe=off&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=qvbFUdvnGYeN7QbYi4GQBA&sqi=2&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1280&bih=667#safe=off&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=london+gay+pride+leather&oq=london+gay+pride+leather&gs_l=img.3...97836.98871.0.99124.8.8.0.0.0.0.165.685.2j4.6.0...0.0.0..1c.1.17.img.3_WJeSlnhxA&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.48293060,d.ZGU&fp=862d27e8f9c394a8&biw=1280&bih=667&imgdii=_

But that's London and in the past. Plus it's a minority within a minority. If we want acceptance from others, we sometimes have to turn the other cheek and apply the same rule to others within our own community, however "slight" there would be that photos would be used a ammunition in an argument against us as a community or group, in respect of equality desires we might have.

MrPudding wrote: »

I will try to keep this uncharacteristically brief.

This is 'brief'..lol...I don't think you do brief Mr. P

I will say once more. You are not being called a bigot for taking part in the conversation, or merely participating.

Oh, well please tell me why anybody inferred it so, because somebody posted with a different view? Anybody who doesn't think this way is a 'bigot' that's the way it comes across - I don't think that it does any favours to those who are genuine in posting when 'name calling' enters the occasion - and with respect, name calling does little justice to those more invested in this - and not merely this 'thread' on boards. Name calling doesn't help.

Hate? What are you talking about? I have not mentioned hate, nor is it relevant to the point. The point I am making is one can't make laws based on religious beliefs as they may not be acceptable to persons that don't share that belief. I can understand why you might not accept this point, but I can't understand how you repeatedly miss it. Perhaps an extreme example might illustrate what I mean. Imagine in a few years a new extremist type of religion becomes popular with politicians. As a result of one of the tenets of that belief they decide to enact legislation that means that, when outside the house or in the presence of males how are not family, women must be completely covered from head to toe and there must be no flesh visible, further, girls must leave school at 12 years of age and women are not allowed to work.


Now, these politicians sincerely and completely believe their religion. They also sincerely and completely beleive that these new laws are 100% justifable on the grounds of their beliefs. Now, imagine the population of the country is more or less as it is now, with respect to religion. Do you think it would be acceptable for these politicians to enact legislation with the effects above tat would effect all women, irrespective of what religion they followed?

I think your thought experiment is rather an emotional response Mr. P - In reality in this country we can celebrate very very strong women, and no not every single women decries their faith as something that held them back and didn't contribute vastly to their femininity, and allow women to be women. There is a certain freedom in allowing women to be women and not merely humans with different genitals.

Now, please don't give me the whole "that will never happen, therefore i am not going to answer" line. It is a thought experiment. It is supposed to be extreme, and its purpose is to make a point. Think about it and then give me an honest answer.

I don't intend to give you the 'whole this will never happen..' It 'did' happen - we fought damned hard to be able to even practice our faith in public while paying taxes to a foreign government that outlawed us - but I guess you may have forgot that fact.

I don't understand what you are saying here. The double and triple negatives make the sentence, to me, meaningless.

Pardon me - I'm not the best at expressing myself clearly, it's not a gift of mine - what I meant was that I have no problem with equal rights for people who are dependent and living together in civil law - I have no problem with them also looking for legislation for to express the wish that a person who was more involved in the upbringing of a child is always involved in their life as a parent - this could be messy however if a father or mother gets involved too, and I think it's only fair that they too have a chance in court.

Where have I said it is not so important? My whole point is marriage is really important.

No, you think marriage is merely a legal contract no matter the participant - that's kind of obvious.

NO!!! Common sense has nothing to do with it. On this particular occasion common sense and evidence happen to agree but that is not always the case, you next point for example.

See, there you go with you common sense again. I am a father of four. I most certainly don't see myself as a sperm donor. I genuinely believe that two women can raise a child as effectively as a man and a women but that does nothing to diminish my particular role as a father in my particular family.

Good luck with your little ones Mr. P - and I know you love them, I'm not trying to be mischievous with that at all - God knows we do our best.

However, there is a common sense element to the message that would be 'Fathers' are being sent today and also to the breakdown of marriages and attitudes towards sex etc. that contribute to a failing in fathers to be real men - that doesn't help attitudes towards marriage. I'm talking not merely about marriage as some kind of disney version, but marriage as regards self sacrifice for and with eachother where...'family' happens.

Read this, I have to thank Oldernwiser for this:



See, this is where common sense and anecdotal evidence let you down. You might genuinely believe you are correct, but you aren't. You common sense is wrong.

I am not sure why one would fear this. I would prefer my children new what was right, rather than believed something incorrect for that sake that some people think that is the way it should be. We can say that, in general a father or a mother is not important, in respect of rearing a child because that is what the evidence shows. This does not mean that we need to immediately abandon the family. This is not an attempt to force people not to have fathers or mothers, it is simply a response to those that say a child needs a father and mother, therefore no same-sex marriage.

But it isn't the same. We have provided you with evidence, which you ignore. You have provided us with, "it is my religion."

MrP

Cheers Mr. P - You are always quoting others - digging for evidence, it's blatantly apparent for anybody who uses 'google' that these things are inconclusive and some very neatly rigged, as is widely recognised - Do I really need to 'google' and post alternate studies?? Studies where a child has been abandoned by their father and knows it?

I'm not denying that gay couples can raise and love a child - the difference is that a married couple, a mother and father who bring up their own children is what 'marriage' is - it's not merely a legal contract. It's about the family, it's about the building blocks of any society and it's something that I don't understand the need to reduce, because that's illogical, and undermines the family and the child, and mother and father. God knows family law is already hard enough.

NuMarvel wrote: »

Both you and Crystalium are conflating procreation with marriage. We view marriage as being the best environment to raise children, but some people are taking that to mean that it's solely about having children, or solely about having your own children. That's not what marriage today is about, if ever it was about that.

I'm sorry, but 'marriage' is not a 'right' of every individual no matter whom - it's not the right of a brother to marry a brother, or a sister to marry a brother or anything like it for a very good reason - it's not about just romance and sex, although it involves both.


It's more important to promote good parents with a serious view of marriage than to promote it as merely a means to some notion of social awareness and fluffy thinking about who loves who.......It's a simple fact, that children do have a mum and dad. I don't agree and never will with the idea that marriage is merely a contract and that mum and dad are only 'carers' that don't effect a child ever so long as they are replaced adequately.

Terrible message.

NuMarvel wrote: »

You're again conflating raising children with marriage. The ban on same sex marriage does diddly squat in stopping gay couples raising children. There are already hundreds of children in Ireland being raised by gay people, with the express consent and approval of the State in some cases. If you're objecting to same sex marriage because you think it will stop kids being raised by gay people, you're mistaken. It happens and will continue to happen regardless.

I am not, certainly NOT, saying that gay couples have and do not love a child like any parent would, or that their children are somehow less etc. etc. that's a smoke and mirrors way of explaining oneself.

What I 'AM' saying is that 'marriage' is a commitment to eachother and that between an unrelated male and female they most likely have the ability of being a 'parent' to a child. This is a fact.

That's the difference. Despite the notion that one hates 'gays' if they oppose anything at all - which is blatantly untrue, there is a terrible injustice to children as it is as regards 'their' right to a parent, which is the notion of 'marriage' and why it is so important - it's not about 'my' right to have a child but 'their' right to know their parents and be loved.

Despite the idea that some people are cool parents etc. etc. and so on....quite simply, sending a message to parents that they are replaceable anytime is not a good message, especially when Fathers are already thought very little of in family law.

Marriage is not about just a legal contract for 'recognition' - even if some treat it that way, it's about more than just that, it's about real families with real fathers and mothers who live up to life and contribute to society providing stable homes that are promoted as such, because every child has a father and mother, and they know it.

Corkfeen wrote: »

lmaopml, so are families that have same sex parents not 'real' families? Don't those children deserve to have both of their parents recognised? Same sex parents exist already but are ignored by Irish law, can you honestly feel me that this is fair on the children or parents.

I am not saying that they are not 'real' people, real families that contribute to a child and their well being - of course they do - nobody, and no couple is an island, the more input the better!

However, there IS a difference between promoting the nuclear family and saying it's inconsequential - in saying that 'marriage' is merely a representation of 'variety' and the message that sends to people...

As it stands, marriages break up, there is such a thing as dead beat dads etc. and mums who get spiteful, and children caught in the crossfire.

Marriage is about none of those things, it's about the 'united' family unit, where both mum and dad are important parents equally, and where their children most importantly are entitled to 'both' parents, not the other way around. It's a logical conclusion of sex within any society that a child is not merely something one is entitled to - but that 'the child' is entitled to their parents, and to know them to. Why undermine this? Even if ones marriage breaks down, or one is sexually attracted to the same sex, I don't understand why seeing things from a child's perspective is not paramount and always should be.