winstonjen

So? They don't have to marry brother and sister. They can marry others. It's pretty much an all-encompassing right among straight people of legal age. Gay people have no such rights.

yguy

Fine. Lesbians don't have to marry women, they can marry men. Of course they wouldn't want to, but siblings desirous of an incestuous relationship wouldn't want to marry outside the family either.

Blind people don't have the right to drive that sighted people do either.

dk

1 of n: The Connection
dk: No, if gay and lesbian marriage is legalized then the nuclear family becomes the x-family in law, and the nuclear family ceases to exist. The x-family supplants the nuclear family as the basic unit of our nation. The x-family fundamentally changes an individuals relationship with government, society, and community. The x-family lacks the autonomous and self replicating properties of the nuclear family therefore the x-family’s existence depends upon the discretion and pleasure of government and society. The ramifications effect cohabitation rights, domestic tort theories, death boundaries, child custody, child support, etc… The effect impacts more than gay and lesbians.
dk: The nuclear family is held together by natural bonds that connect one generation to the next. The nuclear family is autonomous, self replicating, irreducible and resilient. The x-family is arbitrarily ordered by government, and completely dependent upon government.
[quote]The Moynihan Report found, ”Negro children without fathers flounder -- and fail. “ and explained, “Children today still learn the patterns of work from their fathers even though they may no longer go into the same jobs.” Perhaps if social scientists and engineers hadn’t thrown the Moynihan in the trash as more, “blame the victim” rhetoric we’d have a fuller understanding today. Still this is the most credible social research we have. It was extrapolated from real data about real people that has been time tested. I suspect history will look back upon the Moynihan Report as an overlooked opportunity. Oh well.
FOIL: I'll agree that it's certainly very compelling. However, I don't see the relevance. I questioned how the "social ills" in Moynihan's report are necessarily linked to the sex of the parent. Moynihan mentions fathers in terms of the sex roles of the 1960s, but such roles are simply not the case anymore. But even that's not really at issue. I see a very strong case for necessary support and role modeling, but none for the necessity of male-female relationships.
dk: I challenge your assertion. Remember %50 percent of children being raised in the US are determined to be AT RISK, and the majority of the at risk children live in x-families, in fact the x-family form comprises 3 of the 5 criterion used to determine at RISK Children. But, I’ll withhold my comment so you have an opportunity to present your evidence.

Philosoft

Hoo-kay. You've gone from, "subconsciously constrained from calling a spade a spade" to, "militant homosexuals intimidating the APA." I'm getting tired of chasing you. As soon as you figure out what in the blue hell your actual argument is, you let me know, mm-kay?
I'm just trying to figure out what qualities a "witch" possesses that justifies discriminating against her. There is apparently something obvious I'm missing, so it shouldn't be too much trouble to point it out.

yguy

Maybe it shouldn't, but correcting what appear to be deliberate misperceptions is getting to be tedious as hell.

I think that, ideologically speaking, you're comfy where you are; and as far as I'm concerned, you can stay there.

Philosoft

I'm shocked, yguy. I can't even count on you anymore to set my dumb-ass straight?
Anyone who can read 'ideology' into my comments and questions is in full evasive action. I only hope you can avoid what's chasing you.

Dr Rick

FOIL

Well, yes, so you say, but as I said previously, it does appear to be the case that you've defined the "x-family" to be "anything other than the traditional male-female biologically-related family". Okay, that's fine. So far no problem.

But I still don't see any necessary connection between the "x-family" and all that nasty stuff you've said is going to happen when the "x-family" replaces the "nuclear family". I also don't see any reason why the two can't coexist.

I mean, men and women will still get married and have children, right? SSM isn't going to suddenly cause that to stop is it? So why does the extension of legal rights to SSM necessarily affect these kind of relationships?

I don't get this at all. All of the issues you propose as the effects of the "x-family" currently exist. If the "x-family" doesn't already exist, how can it be the cause of these changes? And if it already exists, how can SSM bring it into existence?

You make a point regarding child support, custody, domestic tort law, etc., but it's unclear in the extreme how SSM will cause those things to change WRT the existing paradigm of marital relationships. You say that it will, but why should I accept that?

I also wonder what it means to be "autonomous" and "self-replicating". Individuals in non-marital relationships are also autonomous WRT society and government. Why then are "nuclear families" autonomous and "x-families" are not? Perhaps the answer lies in your definition of "autonomy?"

And any male-female relationship is capable of self-replication, unless one or both of the individuals involved is sterile. Which raises another issue. Marriages where one or both partners are sterile or who choose not to have children would not appear to be "self-replicating". Are these part of the "x-family" as well? If not, why not?

By "natural bonds" you mean "biological bonds", right? Does this mean that adoptive familes are part of the "x-family" as well?

In terms of "arbitrarily ordered", marriage, as a legal entity is no less an "arbitrary" ordering regardless of the sex of the participants. It cannot survive without government and is therefore just as dependent upon the government. The specifically legal recognition of a relationship is all that we're talking about here. So, if both types of marriage (SSM and OSM) are both dependent upon government for their existence, how can this possibly be an issue?

I suppose you have now clarified your definition of "nuclear family" as one that is specifically biological. However, you've still not answered the question I posed before. Do you believe that biological relationships should form the primary bias in determining a child's best interests? In other words, would it be preferable on your view to place a child with its abusive natural parents or loving adoptive ones? Your argument would seem to commit you to the former, but I'd like for you to clarify.

But I'm not making an assertion. I'm asking you to provide argument or evidence for one you've made. Specifically, that having parents of both sexes is of primary importance in child-rearing. What I said was that while the Moynihan report clearly shows that it was the absence of fathers that caused the social ills covered in the report, it would be going beyond the evidence to suppose that the report proved that the lack of a member of the male sex was a causative factor. That would necessarily ignore all of the social issues at work in the environment of those at-risk children. I was asking you if you had any evidence to demonstrate the link between sex and the issues the report covered.

I guess in light of your recent comment, can you provide evidence that AT RISK equates to MISSING A FATHER and not to any other socio-economic factors?

FOIL

winstonjen

From what I can understand from DK's posts, we should kidnap (although he wouldn't call it that ) children of widows and widowers, and send them to a 'loving nuclear family.' Oh my.

:boohoo: :boohoo: :boohoo:

Nowhere357

Just thought I'd pop in to say - this has been one HELL of a train wreck.

Long live freethought and tolerance.