Susan, I'm interested in your argument.  What the forecast if children of gay families become a substantial part of the population?

I've read (in Biology and Psychology of Gender classes) that a slightly different chromosomal makeup has been found in *some* gay people.  I can also imagine that two same-sex couples will take on complementary gender parenting roles.  ie. There will be a bitch and a butch in a male or female couple, or at least enough differences in their personalities that normal child sexual development and individuation will happen.

This discovery seems to have evidence in many of the ancient cultures believed in more than two genders, and they were all good for society and the had no negative influences on child-rearing.

I've only really studied Lacan's ideas about child psychology, but a child doesn't have to see the genitals of their parents to realize that two parents fulfill something for one another that they can't, and that they are authority figures as well as nuturers.  But I'm just guessing. This isn't my area of expertise.

Families are ick.  The one thing gay people have going for them they want to fuck up with taking on the burdens of breeders, in the name of equal rights.

Equal rights for women in the workplace only lowered wages for men. 

Just caught up on this thread.

I'll be brief.

Moreover, as an adopted person, I see being wanted and planned for is the seed for the least dysfunction. You aren't likely to be beaten or abandoned or starved.

Here's my hypothesis for a future of wanted, planned for generations:

Being wanted and planned for is, at the other extreme, the seed for overparenting. This trend started with the Cult of the Child and culminated in birth control over the past hundred years. Kids of middle and upper class couples are wanted. They are all "little miracles", even though everything reproduces.

It's the reason for the proliferation of whiny titty babies (Gen X, Gen Y) with no character or work ethic who eat, drink and spend too much. They go to college, are disappointed that the didn't become famous overnight because they were told they could be whatever they wanted to be, and move back in with mom & dad, where its safe.

I think I'm a victim of this. Most of the kids I know who grew up in excessively warm, stable, loving homes are. This is the only risk of same-sex parenting I can see.

More lazy, hippie liberals who feel entitled to suck at the government teat and save psychopathic criminals (also "little miracles") from capital punishment, lol.

All the people I know who were smacked around a bit and urged to leave the nest and make their own way as soon as possible have turned out to be the most productive, mature, and responsible.

Yes, parents can do this even if their child was wanted and planned for, but it's not the norm. Not in anglo-American culture, anyway.

"Harry, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don't plan it, don't wait for it, just let it happen. Could be a new shirt at the men's store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot, black coffee. Like this."  -Dale Cooper

Remember- I'm for gay marriage, I'm just not blind to the thorns in the roses of social progress. Everything has a price.

I won't bother with my paragraphs I'd been working on in an attempt to clarify my position.  It's pretty clear that your eyes only pick up that which fits your tidy template. It's a shame, really, but not surprising.

The futility of language.

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Meh.

On the one hand I am for equal rights for all.  On the other hand I can't get too worked up about yet another out group being elevated to official IC2 status (Imperial Citizen, Second Class) and acquiring all the rights (bigotry!) and responsibilities (PR flakage for the essential justice of the established order) that said status brings.

I've been told that this is, in part, about tax advantages.  Why is the state giving tax advantage to married couples anyway?  Marriage, having kids and owning a home are choices and I think it's high time that those who make these choices take responsibility for them.  Why should single, childless renters subsidize married home owners who have kids?  God damn socialist government.

(WARNING: Significant parts of preceding post  might have been meant as sarcasm and/or irony and as such may not represent the actual beliefs/understandings of poster.)

"It's not so bad as long as you can keep the fear from your mind." - D. Cooper

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind killer." - P. Atreides

"Whoever can see through all fear will always be safe" - L. tzu

"A bill to allow the partners of gay and lesbian state employees to share in state health care coverage in the way married couples can passed the [Colo.] state Senate on final reading today." -Denver Post

So if I want these benefits, I will need to be gay or married. Mmm-kay...

is it unreasonable to discuss the pros and cons about same sex marriage?  I mean, we are talking about something fairly radical in western civilization, you know.

Should all dissenting viewpoints regarding same sex marriage be categorized as impossibly backward and contemptible?

Are those of us who have not bought into the change supposed to silently accept this major societal shift without question?  

Seems to me that is the harsh and intolerant attitude. 

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

If it's about "state health care" just wait another year or so when we can all get the "wonderful" Obama-care. Then it's a moot point.

Jordan .

Hmmm....

Wasn't ancient Greece the 'cradle of Western Civilization'? Wasn't there a whole lot of that Gay stuff going on in ancient Greece?  I think I've been told that, probably all just a bunch of queer propaganda though.

"It's not so bad as long as you can keep the fear from your mind." - D. Cooper

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind killer." - P. Atreides

"Whoever can see through all fear will always be safe" - L. tzu

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/00796/caligula-horse-460_796078c.jpg

 "No Sir, I don't like it."

Edit; removed pointless clarification, ya get it or ya don't

"It's not so bad as long as you can keep the fear from your mind." - D. Cooper

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind killer." - P. Atreides

"Whoever can see through all fear will always be safe" - L. tzu

It actually fits with Greek attitudes toward queerness:

In Plato's Symposium, there's a discussion of a double-standard of the era: "Upper-class mores encouraged men to fall in love with and lay suit to beautiful boys while at the same time commending boys who spurned such attentions" (1). The oxymoronic "poikilos (complicated, shifting) nomos (fixed law)" is the code of conduct for Athenian men and their boy lovers: lovers should be chased but never caught. Preserving the eroticism of the homosexual act was of foremost importance.

Aphrodite is not the dutiful wife of Hephaistos, she's Aries' mistress. (She encourages love between men and women, women and women, women and girls, and men and boys. Her worshipers were sacred prostitutes.)

(from Eros: The Bittersweet by Anne Carson, a great little book)

The paradox of marriage (for Greece), the author says, is that it's more about business. There is spousal affection and respect, but love's place is outside marriage.