Dr Rick

It's bitter to have to accept the existence of prejudice homophobes and only natural for reasonable people to find them repulsive.

Rick

dk

hmmm, The phrase “prejudice homophobe” proposes an answer from its own effect, which is of course unsubstantial like every argument you’ve put forward on this thread.

yguy

Then you can easily comprehend why some of us find the self-congratulatory sanctimony displayed by so many on your side of the issue equally repulsive.

Glad we understand each other.

dk

yguy while I agree with you wholly on the substance issue, I also think it important for us to overcome our natural repulsiveness to discussing gay issues. Most people avoid commenting on this topic because they find it repulsive and oppressive. If nothing else this thread shows just how difficult SSM discussions can become, and how quickly they regress into ad hominem chit chat. I know many participants contributed by doggedly asking difficult questions. I've been guilty of at times of deflecting questions that I felt to complex or laden with preconcieved conclusions. Its a personal weakness.

FOIL

My apologies for the delay in reply. I had a VERY hectic weekend...

Well, not in an absolute sense, and that's why your answers to my questions in this area have not been generally dispositive.

I guess my questions in this area could be reframed: "what limitations, if any, do you see legitimately being placed on the rights of natural parents?"

AND...

"What necessarily separates an adoptive n-family from an adoptive x-family?"

I ask these as I am still unable to discern the principle operating behind your reasoning in this area.

I remember it well. I agreed with that decision wholeheartedly. I find it strangely ironic that the great majority of people who agreed with that decision will most likely have no problem with SSM and the majority of the people who derided it as a crime against young Elian will probably also be among those who oppose SSM.

Perhaps your answer to this could clarify at least one question I still have regarding your argument. Do you agree with this decision?

Well, frankly, no.

Nothing that you've provided so far gives me any information on how SSM will necessarily have the "broad, far-reaching" impacts on current law that you argue it will have. I read the article you posted, but find that I can substitute a male for one of the females involved (in the lesbian relationship) and still come out with a situation that is possible today.

Perhaps you could help by detailing exactly what different sorts of issues courts will have to consider when SSM becomes a reality. As it is, I don't see any reason to believe that current law is insufficient to deal with the situations posed with SSM. The only material difference I can see is that both of the parents are of the same sex; otherwise, current law covers all possibilities.


Hmmm....OSM couples where one or both of the partners is sterile are in the same boat here. Are they also "second class families".

Again, I'm really at a loss to discern the principle by which you reach these decisions. In current case law, biological rights are NOT absolute. Therefore, there are times when marital or other parties rights ARE equal to or supervenient upon them. If that is already the case, and it is, how can SSM possibly be the cause of a situation that already exists?

You could really help here by delineating what you see as the legitimate limits, if any, to the rights of natural parents, and then delineating how SSM will necessarily change current case law. So far, in all of your examples it's been possible to substitute sex freely without any affect to the resulting outcome.

Huh? That's odd, I thought we were discussing your beliefs. how could they possibly be non-substantive in the context of a discussion about them?

I'll agree that you've made a strong statement, but I can't agree that you've made a strong argument.

You've laid out a great deal of information that you claim supports your case, but, and I'm sure that I speak for many of the other participants, you really haven't connected any of that information to your argument. You've asserted that it's connected, but you've consistently failed to specify or delineate the connection. I've been asking questions in an attempt to discern exactly what that connection might be, but so far I've been unsuccessful.

But this isn't an answer at all! I specifically asked you who would be in the best position to determine what's in the child's best interests when the question at stake is whether or not the child's continued residence with the biological parents is at question. Obviously in such a situation, the biological parents cannot be the ones to determine the answer. Your response seems to indicate that either you don't feel that anyone ever has any business questioning anything a biological parent does to/with his/her child, or that you believe that biological families are always of the "Ward and June Cleaver"-type.

I find it difficult to believe that this is really what you're saying, but absent your actual answer to my question, I'm unable to figure it out. Perhaps when you address the "limitations on biological parents rights" question, I'll have a better idea where you stand.

That's an interesting point, but it's completely unrelated to the question I asked: does biological standing trump other considerations?

Truer words were never spoken...

It's not "mysterious" at all. I have to wonder, why do you seem to be so reticent about answering a straightforward question?

Given these facts that are beyond dispute:

* some parents abuse their children.
* some of these abusive parents abuse their own biological children.
* child abuse has serious consequences reaching beyond the immediate danger to the child's health.

Why is it seemingly so difficult to conceive a hypothetical situation in which a decision might need to be made regarding the welfare of a child in an n-family?

Hmmmm...your scenario somehow "mysteriously" paints all foster homes as "abusive and degenerate".

You don't seriously believe that all n-families are loving & nurturing and that all foster familes are evil, do you? I don't think you do, but that's what your dancing around the answer to this question is beginning to look like.

SSM might contribute a stable and loving multiple-parent home to an abused child desperately in need of some love and direction, but that's not really the point. The issue is whether or not SSM will necessarily cause MORE problems than exist today. Whether or not SSM has any positive effects is another issue entirely. To be honest, I don't care. If it could be proven that SSM families were not suitable to child-rearing, I'd have no problem with their ineligibility as adoptive parents. As far as I'm concerned, it's a separable issue.

Oddly enough, I have reviewed the Moynihan Report. The actual correlations don't appear to be anywhere online (if you have a link, that would be appreciated). However, unless they represent factor-analytic studies, they won't yield the answer for which I'm looking. As it is, the Moynihan report itself doesn't seem to reference any single-factor causality and in fact seems to indicate very strongly that there are other factors at work.

You said that "boys without a healthy male role model are statistically the most dangerous of all." I'm calling your attention to the fact that the data upon which you rely to make that statement does not appear to support that inference.

"Lack of a healthy male role model" is only one of a number of factors that are correlated with that specific negative outcome. In order to make the statement that you made, one would have to either use factor analysis (essentially multiple regression in a matrix) to "separate" the influence of each possible causal factor. You can then get separate R^2 values for each variable. Straightforward regression gives you one R^2 for the lot and separate correlation coefficients for the individual variables, but without a factor analysis, even those correlation coefficients are affected by any auto-correlation between variables that is present.

I'm not sure where you got THAT from, but it's nowhere to be found in the Moynihan report. In fact, the report specifically states that the rising welfare rates were caused by the breaking up of familes rather than the other way around. It's the title of the sixth paragraph of the second chapter (?):

Just what I said: Moynihan notes that there is an existing socio-economic factor, unrelated to the presence of a male parent in the family, that affects negative outcomes for white children: "White children without fathers at least perceive all about them the pattern of men working."

In other words, children who lack a male parent are at less risk due to a factor in the environment in which they are being raised. That is positive evidence that "lack of a male parent" is not the sole factor influencing negative outcomes.

Well, as that's NOT what Moynihan found, I'm not really sure how to address this.

I'm not looking for a gene, just some good statistics. What you've provided doesn't answer the questions.

Correlation coefficients provide grounds for causal inference, but in the case of complex situations, like this one, simplistic reduction to one or two causes is often not possible. It's certainly not possible to make such inferences validly when all the evidence one has to go on is the result of multiple regressions. When auto-correlation exists, as it certainly does here, only a factor-analytic study can even get close to determining the true correlations of individual variables to the outcome. None of the information you've provided so far comes close to providing this. None of the studies you've examined even tried to do what you claim they do, least of all the Moynihan report.

If I'm unable to "wrap my mind around" them, it's because they simply aren't "simple facts", no matter how much you want to believe they are.

I also thought I'd touch on a few other issues that came to my mind during the last couple of days.

You have said repeatedly that you're concerned with "third-party" interests in the n-family. However, even in a society composed exclusively of n-families, third-party interests are impossible to avoid.

Consider that even if no family ever divorced or broke up and no parents were abusive, some parents might still be killed accidentally or die prematurely due to illness. The children must be cared for, and in cases where both parents have died, it will be impossible to avoid a third party interest.

But even more compelling is that your own argument depends upon the need for third-party interests. In any society, all individuals have a stake in how other individuals raise their children. You've provided tons of data to support the idea that negative outcomes follow ineffective or defective parenting. Because those negative outcomes may indeed affect me, I do care and must care about how you raise your children (and vice versa). So the issue of third-party interests with respect to any family is effectively moot.

You've also claimed that the n-family is "autonomous" and "self-replicating", but as I've demonstrated above, "autonomy" only goes as far as the rights of the next guy. Autonomy certainly isn't absolute. And n-families certainly aren't self-replicating unless genetic abnormalities and an increased risk of mental retardation is a good foundation for a society. The n-family is just as dependent upon society for it's continued existence as you argue society is upon it. So, the issues of autonomy and self-replication are also moot.

Finally, I wanted to reply to your post regarding the arguments for SSM. I actually wouldn't advocate ANY of these and they seem more like parodies of arguments than the arguments themselves.

To my mind, civil marriage is nothing more than the legal recognition of a binding relationship between two people. As such, we grant it certain social and economic privileges (tax benefits, property transfer, civil responsibilities, etc.) in our society. Unless these privileges are provided solely on the basis of or motivated by an interest in child-rearing, there should be no reason why any adults in a committed relationship should not be accorded the same privileges. As even childless OSM couples receive these benefits, it begs the question why childless SSM couples should not.

FOIL

yguy

My comment had nothing to do with homosexuality per se. I've similarly insulted sanctimonious religionists in the past, and there isn't a dime's worth of difference between them and and the gender neutrality evangelists, generally speaking.

I am aware that not everyone on the other side is a bigot. Salmon of Doubt, for example, has done her best to be fair, in my view.

Refusing to answer questions which you know will lead nowhere is not a weakness. Some of these people desire more than anything else to confuse the issue, and the only hope is that there will be enough of a wisp of truth in their obfuscations to enable you to elucidate your point to onlookers. Absent that possibility, it is best to disengage.

dk

I appreciate your thoughts. I agree fanaticism run across all religions and/or ideologies.

keyser_soze

Are you going to respond to foils assessment of your argument? Or are you and yguy going to have a circle jerk? What about the euro stats provided earlier. See, if you could just address one single point....then we would probably be more receptive to your bigotted speech. Try it out.

Treacle Worshipper

Well, my argument for SSM goes like this:

Het couples are legally allowed to marry.
Therefore, it is unfair that same-sex couples are not legally allowed to marry.

There are 2 solutions:
1) Allow same-sex marriage.
2) Ban het marriage.

Both put everyone on an equal footing, much as reducing gay male age of consent in Britain from 18 to equality with het & lesbian A-of-C at 16 did.

TW

yguy

Fortunately, I do not possess an irony meter such as Dr. Rick evidently has, or it would no doubt have taken out my house and those of my neighbors on each side of me.