.

I'd like to see what S. has written ,---no suppression of press here PLEASE.

yadddayyyaaaGOT S ?

Maybe I happened onto a thread that was just meant to be amoozing and shouldn't have tried to have a serious discussion.  Just seems to me that those who wish to alter society have the burden of persuading those of us who would rather maintain the quaint custom of one-man-one-woman marriage.  I gotta say, no one has done a sufficient job of that so far on this thread either. 

The Netherlands was the first country to legalize same-sex marriage a few years ago.  They made several recommendations to those Americans in their quest for the same.  One of their suggestions was not not alienate the other side with accusations of religious bigotry or to equate them with racists.  That was wise. They thought that such an approach would lead to the same sort of animosity that exists today with abortion pros and cons when a decision is made by the judiciary and not voting citizenry.  Slow and steady, they advised. Let the process move slowly and maybe in due course the majority of voters see it the way a handful of judges have. 

Yes, redbear, you are right about Greek civilization.  And the discussion of Greek civilization and the homosexual acts of otherwise heterosexual men, married or single, is worthy of a comparison to what I should more narrowly described as 5000 years of the Judeo-Christian scope of Western civilization.  Since I am also a Grecophile, I'd love that discussion too, though a face to face conversation might be easier than short blurbs here.

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

my beliefs on this issue can be summed up in two main points:

"gay marriage will benefit gay people by granting them rights equal to our own, and benefit the rest of us by continuing the american tradition of considering all men to have been created equal." this is a positive statement, one i can make about how i think gay marriage is a good thing. if you reject this idea, then it's up to you to explain why.

"gay marriage does no harm to anyone" is, unfortunately, a negative. and it's not really possible to prove a negative. therefore, the onus is upon you to prove that it WILL harm people. sorry about that.

now i can't help but notice that you've fallen back on that "5000 year tradition" thing again, and i have to once again point that this tradition was only held by a certain portion of the world, and is by no means some kind of universally undeniable truth about The Way Things Are.  and, in those select areas where this tradition WAS in place, it's reseblance to our current tradition was shaky at best-- Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon, and others all had multiple wives. and these wives were property.

your point about having a man and woman present in the house to raise a child with a good one, but as i pointed out, we don't screen for other types of diversity. this is an undue burden upon gay people, that we do not enforce upon the straight.  

we let assholes marry. we let the ugly marry. we let the poor marry.  we let people who liked to get pissed on marry. so what, exactly, is the unique factor that makes gay people so unsuited to share their lives and get a few tax breaks?

Hi Susan, long time no talk. I don't have any problems with discussing pros and cons. The thing is that unless you know a close friend or relative who is gay you may not realize all the crap they take from society just for being born a certain way. I certainly understand why those who support gay rights would not be very tolerant when they have been shown nothing but intolerance for most of their lives. (Especially holier than thou intolerance from the religious right!)

To me marriage does not seem like a very radical change at all, the most radical change that took place is that now gay people are more open in society. They have always been there, usually hiding from an intolerant society.

As for gay marriage laws I would like to see this as a state issue and let each individual state decide in due process. Constitutional amendments banning it seem anti-democratic to me.  Eventually I believe most states will adopt it and it will become federal law. Our country is always evolving and I say let the political democracy take its course. Either way I think gay marriage will be majority reality in the next 10 years or so. 

R_Flagg  (Current Mood )

Ah, sweetie, I was joshing back atcha for whatever it was that I did say, which I have long since forgotten, in response to what you said. 

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

So let me understand, Susan did a piece on marriage and because someone couldn't stand the post to be made the rest of us don't get to read it ?

As far as length of posts goes, I am slow on the keyboard or my posts would be longer. So, are we all limited to dumbed down little twits ( they are easy to type) as responses here ?

I just realized i am a breeder and I remain one click left of the anarchists  : )

No, actually, Susan decided not to post because she didn't think her post was going to be taken seriously or that it was not worth her time since the rest of us have already made up our minds. Certainly no one told her not to post!

(to be fair, she's not the only one to have ducked out of a thread in this forum recently)

"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

 I just found your post, R Flagg. 

I'm LOLing to myself over the highlighted section above.  I have lived in Los Angeles for the past 39 years so trust me, I have had many, many very close friends who are homosexual.  Family members?  Mmm, maybe.  I don't know of any off hand but we have all had our suspicions about one P.E. teacher cousin, so it's possible. I'm sure I don't have to enumerate but in the closest proximity to me, there are my two elderly (now married) lesbian neighbors with whom I have a wonderful relationship.  Across the street from me, a young man grew up and was my son's friend since 5th grade.  After he graduated from college, he wrote me a letter telling me he was gay. I wrote back and told him:  A) I was not surprised and figured as much for years and B)  that 'news bulletin'  had absolutely no effect on the way I felt about him, which was (and had always had been), as a second son. 

Loving the homosexual friends I have known over the years does not change my opinion about same sex marriage however, even while fully understanding that some (though not all) homosexuals want this change. I don't think of homosexuals as 'second class citizens' and do not think any less of them.  For whatever the reason, I actually think higher of most of them but that's another discussion.

You mention "being born a certain way."  I'll grant you that many homosexual men are genetically predisposed to be attracted only to the same sex.  But do you think it impossible that societal attitudes can alter the sexual behavior?  In another thread I was reading about the mock lesbian sexual dancing that has been all the rage for the past 20 years or however long it's been since that Sharon Stone movie.  Are they necessarily "lesbians" if two women have sex?  Nah.  Are two men who have sex necessarily "gay?" Nope.  If all sexuality was fixed at birth, then Greek society may have had a tough time convincing their otherwise heterosexual men to engage in sex with adolescent boys. If all sexuality were fixed at birth, we wouldn't expect the fluidity of homosexual practices.   

So, while some may believe it's not a necessarily bad thing for sexual behavior to include sampling both sexes, I think it's pretty clear that societal approval encourages a wider range of sexual behavior just as the birth control pill or the day after pill did in its time.  Then the dispute shifts to whether we would like to offer these choices without any attached societal tabboo to each successive generation.  As these things go, each adjustment sets the stage for the next one to come until such time as the pendulum swings back again.

For those of you who are parents or plan to be one day, it's worth thinking about how you'd like to present sexuality to your kids as they grow.  Would you find yourself feeling a bit shady and hateful if you spoke these words to a daughter:  "One day when you grow up and marry the man of your dreams..."  If you are a parent of a young child, do you feel not the slightest hope that your child does grow up to marry the opposite sex and have children too?  I may be so far out of the current parental loop to understand, but I thought that was the deal with procreation.   "Go forth and multiply" being an ideal if not necessarily a given for all. 

Speaking of parenting, a couple of weeks ago at my work, I watched as a new father met with his newborn baby boy in the hospital nursery.  The grandmother stood outside the nursery watching him through the glass window.  She told me the baby was born to an unwed, unemployed teenager and that her son was adopting the child.  Moments later the second half of the adoptive parents arrived.  The two men had flown in from NJ after arranging a private adoption through a lawyer who sought the right situation for the men.  Over the course of the next three days, before the baby could be turned over the guys, the girl changed her mind more than once stressing out all parties.  Ultimately she signed away her rights to the guys though she would still have 30 days to change it again.  Now these guys seemed to be loving dads.  The one grandma would be helping out for a few weeks after which I'm not sure who would be the caretaker while both guys did their daily stint working at their respective jobs in Manhattan.  

Is that baby better off with those two men as dads instead of the teenage mom?  My guess.  Most probably.  But would that baby be still better off with a mother and a father all else being equal?  I think so. 

As time goes by and these situations become more and more commonplace, so will the complications increase.  This child, for example, begins life with one birth mother, one birth dad (who doesn't even know of his existence and may still come out of the legal woodwork), and two adoptive dads.  I don't know if they are "married" or not but if the adoptive parents' relationship doesn't last (and can we at least agree that homosexual men are statistically ess likely to remain monogamous???) -- and if later both dads go off with two other men, that baby boy ends up with an array of male dad figures and one long lost mom. If there's fundamentally no difference between men and women, then I guess that doesn't make much difference. 

Finally, I agree that same sex marriage will ultimately prevail as the law of the land over time.  I think it's a bad idea whose multitudes of ramifications can only be imagined right now.  But after a few generations,  no one will be able to put that genie back in the bottle, and a radically new societal structure will be in place.  I don't believe it will be a simple matter of homosexual couples having equal "rights" either. 

Too many words again but there you go.

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Susan said:

"...don't know if they are "married" or not but if the adoptive parents' relationship doesn't last (and can we at least agree that homosexual men are statistically ess likely to remain monogamous???) -- and if later both dads go off with two other men, that baby boy ends up with an array of male dad figures and one long lost mom."

Since we've decided that divorce and single parents are OK in our society, this seems like a trivial consideration compared with heterosexual divorce and non-parental caregivers that are fairly common.  (just my opinion here).

   If you show me some actual statistics showing gay couples in the position to have kids have higher separation rates that similar heterosexual couples, I might agree with you here.  I'd actually bet the opposite is true.  Gay couples probably have to jump through so many extra hoops to get kids that they may be more committed than the typical boy-girl pair.  And here's a chicken-and-egg argument for you: maybe, just maybe, having homosexual relationships treated as equivalent might do something to the self-image of gay people so they might view their own relationships in a more positive light. 

Well, of course you have to allow divorce in a civilized society but is it "okay?" It's not harmless to children of any age.  And we can't decide social policy based on the mistakes but rather around some sort of an ideal.

The point I was making was not limited to a separation/divorce issue but the multiple dad (or multiple mom) issue without a mom-dad situation.  See, I just don't think the sexes are interchangable. I think there is an inherent value in having one of each.  It's almost breathtaking that such a point would need to be asserted but then this is the Brave New World of 2009 when all previous wisdom is forsaken for the utopian dreams of a few.

Check out some gay websites for your anecdotal stats on lack of monogamy among gay men.   "Monogamy = Monotony" is a popular discussion.  Really, is this in serious dispute anywhere???  Not among the gay men I know.  Interestingly, the proportion of homosexual marriages that have taken place to date are much more among the lesbian couples.  Draw what conclusion you will from that.

I just think it is the nature of a man to be more of a free spirit when it comes to settling down and when you put two men together, that's doubling the issue. 

I don't know about the self-images of gay people being a problem either but I think I know what you're suggesting.  I grant you there's always a difficulty in being a minority but then again, life is a great challenge for all. 

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

"The point I was making was not limited to a separation/divorce issue but the multiple dad (or multiple mom) issue without a mom-dad situation.  See, I just don't think the sexes are interchangable. I think there is an inherent value in having one of each."

I actually don't disagree with you on this, but for me it isn't relevant to the marriage issue (this is probably more breathtakingly weird for you?)  Also, in our society where kids are exposed to all kinds of adults through teachers, churches, friends' parents, other family members, I really think any developmental effects of same-sex parenting are likely to be VERY small.  As an exercise:

 Scale of good parenting

------------------------------------------------------------------->

bad                                                                             good

my opinion/belief in heterosexual parenting (2) vs. homosexual parenting (1)

        1111111111111111111111111111111111111

          22222222222222222222222222222222222222

------------------------------------------------------------------->

bad                                                                             good

Maybe the worst homosexual parents would be worse than the worst heterosexual parents (not sure why I think this is true), and maybe the best heterosexual households would be better than the best homosexual households, but there is so much overlap in the distributions that I could not see discriminating against homosexual couples just based upon their partner preference.  And of course when you consider adoptions/foster kids, if one or more of the couple already had kids through a separate relationship, etc, then this difference in parenting would become irrelevant (in my opinion).

Would be interested to see where you put the 1's and 2's, Susan.

Check out some gay websites for your anecdotal stats on lack of monogamy among gay men.   "Monogamy = Monotony" is a popular discussion.  Really, is this in serious dispute anywhere???  Not among the gay men I know.  Interestingly, the proportion of homosexual marriages that have taken place to date are much more among the lesbian couples.  Draw what conclusion you will from that.

I just think it is the nature of a man to be more of a free spirit when it comes to settling down and when you put two men together, that's doubling the issue. 

Let's be clear that I was including lesbians and gay men together.   And except for the onion, I don't think anyone is going to make gay people get married.  Again, this is a distributional issue- should the Average Monogamy Potential of all people in a group determine the rights of individual couples that are committed?  This kind of argument would be like saying there is a math achievement gap between girls and boys, so you shouldn't let women into mathematically intensive careers.

They aren't interchangeable, and no one is saying they are, even if men and women can-- and do-- adopt the other's traditional gender roles.

But it's not as if a kid with same-sex parents is going to go through life without being exposed to the other one in positions of leadership and influences at friends houses, at school, at extracurricular music or sports programs, at church/synagogue/mosque etc.

I also disagree that gay men, even ones who choose marriage, are going to be rabid butt pirates with no self-control, leading to more divorce etc etc. That's speculation based on a stereotype. In the animal kingdom, including the human one, women actually have more promiscuous tendencies.

If I were to guess, too, I'd say the odds for a gay married man cheating and a straight married man cheating, and it ruining the marriage, will be about the same.

One would hope that anyone who is married with kids would think twice before cheating; they have more to lose. Marriage could, pardon the pun, straighten the gay guys out.

That argument is on "straight" websites, too. Like this one. :P The cruising website might be an inaccurate cross-section.

It's a phenomenon (and ongoing joke) among gay women that as soon as they start dating, they start buying houses and dogs together. Dunno if that makes them loyal or insecure, but they're all about the illusion of security and nesting. Oh, and sex changes are ridiculously more common among lesbian women than they are with gay men.

What are the laws for someone with a sex change getting married, anyway? If they've changed the box for the tackle, and it says M on their license...

I'm taking a hoory [sic] for gay break.  Nefud and I are going on a Rosey O'Donnell tolerance cruise and I have to pack.  Back in a jiff!

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

It's less about tolerance and more about being reasonable.

Of all the ways straight parents screw up their kids, in quantifiable ways, a paranoia about the uncertain consequences of a kid not getting adequate exposure to opposite sex role models seems... paranoid.

You're right, Susan. We absolutely can't predict how gay parenting will affect society 5 or 6 generations from now. It might have a positive effect, a negative effect, or a completely ambivalent effect.

(eg. of a positive effect: two gay men raise a girl; no father-daughter incest.)

With the taliban 60 miles from Islamabad and our new administration junking contract law and bullying and threatening bondholders for the benefit of the unions, i discounted this same sex marriage proposal as almost a luxury, a diversion. I am wrong on that approach, it is a serious change. With the diminution of opposite marriage and a fear of folks to bring children into the world the mix of society is compromised. second and third world populations do not have this fear or aversion. they are multiplying. Europe will become subject to Sharia law- it is in instances already there. The native European population is dying off and not being replaced. here in the US our latino population are still having families. These folks who i know intimately are on the whole great hard working unselfish loving citizens. They are the receivers of the baton and we are fortunate to have them. They are the American future - unafraid.

i'm still not jumping back into this, i just have a question, is this phrase really being used non-ironically now?