Homosexual marriage II

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

Yes, I meant it at the reactive level. When I hear stories about mothers wanting their biological child back after some other family has raised it for years the injustice of it bothers me.

In a broader sense, it would be nice if parents had to go through some of the same things those who want to adopt must in order to have a child, because there are a lot of bad parents out there, but there is no practical method of enforcement.

Maybe one day we will come of with a pregnancy vaccine that you can't have reversed 'til you can prove you are ready.

How are you going to arrange for adoptive parents to go through what biological mothers do? It looks like you and your wife have no fertility problems, have babies as married people with jobs, not recently raped, not 15...nice work if you can get it. A lot of biological mothers don't have the same advantages. Not to mention the men... as Gaffer posted, some of them don't even hear about it.

So how are you going to give adoptive couples that experience?

I know folks on all sides of the adoption experience, and folks who've faced problem pregnancies with different outcomes, and folks with fertility problems, and adoptive families who've lost their kids, and regular families that have struggled with the state for custody, or asked for help and had none forthcoming, and parent's who check their email every day after their kids turn 18, hoping they'll choose to get in touch. I was named for an adopted child by a person descended from a sibling who missed them.

Parenting is the biggest bet on the table. The ante's too high for a lot of people. But that doesn't mean we can just count them out. The world needs more support for all kinds of parents, not just ideal ones, and it needs a little more openness for solutions outside one father, one mother, 2.x kids in a house in the suburbs.

[littleadanel]

Originally Posted by sisterandcousinandaunt

Parenting is the biggest bet on the table. The ante's too high for a lot of people. But that doesn't mean we can just count them out. The world needs more support for all kinds of parents, not just ideal ones, and it needs a little more openness for solutions outside one father, one mother, 2.x kids in a house in the suburbs.

I just.... I know you don't know me, few people remember me anyway because I hardly ever come around here anymore... but I just had to give a hug for you, for that.

*hugs*

[brownjenkins]

I agree with your post sis, though it has little to do with what I posted.

My point is that you have to go through more work to get a dog from the humane society than you do to have a kid. On top of that, the methods for dealing with children in bad parental situations are woefully inadequate. A parent basically has to be a criminal before they will take kids away from them and, sometimes, even that is not enough.

Personally, while I believe that everyone deserves a lot more support from society than they get, it's children that are lacking in it to an exponential degree as compared to parents. And where the troubled ones are lacking the most is at home. If our children were all brought up in good environments, a great many of the issues we have to deal with in the adult population would disappear.

[Rían]

Originally Posted by sisterandcousinandaunt

... and it needs a little more openness for solutions outside one father, one mother ...

If there's no absolute truth about anything, then who's to say who's right about this? The majority? The minority? That's the problem

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

If there's no absolute truth about anything, then who's to say who's right about this? The majority? The minority? That's the problem

Simple. Results!

Many non cookie-cutter families work very well. If they can, so can others.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

Simple. Results!

How do you determine whether or not the result you get is good? And who decides whether a repercussion is negative or not?

For instance, gladiatorial games made a lot of people happy at a terrible expense to a smaller number of gladiators. The result was good for the Roman government, in that it kept the people distracted. There were a small number of negative repercussions. There was at least one gladiator revolt, and there also was anger stirred among oppressed populations that the government could easily squash. Some of the Roman people bore the brunt of these negative repercussions, but not very many, and profit exceeded cost for the people on the top. So it was "good" from their perspective.

If one is looking for results, then drug lords are the kings of morality, for their system of abuse creates a lot of very positive results for them.

Results are independent of morality. They do not say who should benefit or who should be harmed, or how much some should benefit and how much others should be harmed. If one is looking for results, then, in theory, everyone should do what makes them happiest, for that's the desired result. But practically speaking, one person's happiness is often another person's misery, and the happy person, if he is skilled, might get away with it.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

Many non cookie-cutter families work very well.

As we were seeing in the divorce thread (though the evidence there does not apply to homosexuality), this isn't true.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

If there's no absolute truth about anything, then who's to say who's right about this? The majority? The minority? That's the problem

I've never suggested "there's no absolute truth about anything." I don't happen to believe that.

But the emphasis on nuclear families with two kids in suburban houses who keep kids in daycare while both work... the "norm" we're sold these days, is a new one. We dissolved the network of support that extended families and neighborhoods used to provide, and the impact of that has been that parents who would have been marginal are failing. I don't really care who steps in to fill that gap. I just know we need to. Because children need us.

I think you know that, too. (and I hope Mother's Day was awesome, in your neck of the woods.)

[Count Comfect]

Originally Posted by Lief

As we were seeing in the divorce thread (though the evidence there does not apply to homosexuality), this isn't true.

I think you're confusing "all non-cookie-cutter families work very well" with "many non-cookie-cutter families work very well." The former is disproved by the evidence in the divorce thread. The latter is not.

[inked]

WARNING! Data follow!


Divorce in homosexual marriages the latest!

"Homosexual Unions: Rare and Fragile

Progressive activists in the United States have argued strenuously in recent years that giving homosexuals the legal right to marry will improve life for homosexual couples and will consequently benefit society as a whole. A new study of same-sex marriage in Scandinavia, however, casts serious doubt on such assertions. For, as it turns out, relatively few homosexual couples avail themselves of this revolutionary right. And a surprisingly high percentage of those who do so end up in divorce court.

To analyze the demographics of homosexual marriages, a team of German and Norwegian scholars recently examined data collected in Norway and Sweden since these bellwether countries discarded centuries of legal tradition by authorizing homosexual unions (in 1993 in Norway and in 1995 in Sweden). Both countries have thus now enacted laws granting homosexuals “the legal right to registered partnerships, a civil status that [the researchers believe], in practice does not deviate much from the concept of marriage.� The legal equivalence of homosexual unions to heterosexual marriage indeed largely explains why the researchers use “the terms registered partnerships and same-sex marriage interchangeably.� Similarly, the researchers “use the term divorce to refer to [homosexual] partnership dissolution because the divorce procedures of the marriage act [in both countries] apply to registered [homosexual] marriages as well.�

As the German and Norwegian scholars survey the available data for homosexual unions, they cannot avoid one obvious reality: “the incidence of same-sex marriage in Norway and Sweden is not particularly impressive.� Between 1993 and 2001, while Norway recorded 196,000 heterosexual marriages, the country witnessed the legal registration of only 1,293 homosexual partnerships. Similarly, while Sweden recorded 280,000 heterosexual marriages between 1995-2002, the country saw the formation of only 1,526 registered homosexual partnerships. The researchers accordingly calculate “a ratio of around 7 same-sex marriages to every 1,000 new opposite-sex marriages� in Norway and a comparable “ratio of 5 new partnerships to every 1,000 new opposite-sex marriages� in Sweden. The researchers remark that the numbers of same-sex marriages have run “considerably lower� than might have been expected by those relying on recent surveys of sexual behavior. These surveys have indicated that “well over 1%� of women and between 1 and 3% of men have had a same-sex partner during the last year, with between 4 and 9% of men and approximately 4% of women reporting that they have had a same-sex partner at some time during their lives. (The authors of the new study are too well informed to rehash the now discredited absurdity—promulgated by Alfred Kinsey—that fully ten percent of the adult male population is homosexual.)

The data for same-sex unions in Norway and Sweden indicate, however, not only that such unions are relatively rare, but also that they are remarkably fragile, ending in divorce significantly more often than do the heterosexual marriages of peers. The statistics indeed reveal “that the divorce risk for partnerships of men is 50% higher than the corresponding risk for heterosexual marriages and that the divorce risk for partnerships of women is about double (2.67) that for men (1.50).� The researchers then re-examine the data in statistical models that take into account age, education, and other background characteristics, but these multi-variable models “do not alter the basic relation between divorce risks in different family types.�

The German and Norwegian scholars acknowledge that “divorce-risk levels [that are] considerably higher in same-sex marriages� than in heterosexual marriages would hardly have been predicted by those who have supposed that “the symbolic meaning of partnership formation for a group that has just acquired the right to marry [would have been] related to a higher commitment to this civil status and to lower divorce risk.� On the other hand, homosexual couples’ distinctively high propensity to break apart would not have surprised those who recognize “the group’s lower exposure to normative pressure to maintain lifelong unions.� Among homosexuals, the researchers predict, “past relationship experience� is likely to cause “lesbians and gay men…[to] have lower expectations of relationship duration than will heterosexual couples.�

In their concluding comment on their groundbreaking study—the first such study of “an unambiguously defined population of gay and lesbian couples�—the researchers emphasize the applicability of their findings well beyond Norway and Sweden. “Many of the demographic characteristics of our Scandinavian couples,� they remark, “resemble those found for other populations of same-sex couples, such as same-sex co-residents in the United States…. Evidently, some aspects of gay and lesbian lifestyles are common for different countries.�

Before American jurists and lawmakers press ahead with the dubious project of granting homosexuals a legal right to marriage or marriage-like civil unions, they should ponder this new study and its conclusions. For the revolutionaries who congratulate themselves on having smashed centuries of tradition may soon realize that they have wrought this destruction for the benefit of very few couples, a high proportion of whom are soon separated.

(Source: Gunnar Andersson et al., “The Demographics of Same-Sex Marriage in Norway and Sweden,� Demography 43 [2006]: 79-98.)"

http://www.profam.org/pub/nr/nr.2012...re_and_Fragile

Apart from the rarity, it would appear that there is substantially increased risk of failure compared to heterosexual couples. Note - comparatively increased risk. Surely that has implications for differently configure families with responsibility for children (as my initial posting on the biology issue raised).

And, note, this is the largest available sampling with the longest history - dating back to 1993. So it may be a tad more revealing than even the
American two year history in Massachusetts?

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

I like this phrase. wrought this destruction

It has that, "This is science, not polemics" ring to it.

Hey, look at it this way. Even if gays get the right to marry, they won't. That's good news, isn't it?

[The Gaffer]

Firstly, even if you take it at face value there is a "so what?" aspect to this story.

The main thrust seems to be that homosexual unions fail more often than heterosexual ones. Does that mean that homosexuals should be denied equal rights?

Interestingly:

For both heterosexual spouses and registered partners, we find a clear age gradient in divorce risks in that persons who contract a marriage or register a partnership at young ages have much higher divorce risks than persons who do this at more mature ages. In most cases, we find that a relatively large age difference between the two partners is related to an elevated propensity for divorce.

I assume we will be arguing for a 30 year age of consent and banning all marriages where the partners are >10 years age difference?

Now, as far as I am aware, the divorce statistics for heterosexual couples are pretty unedifying to start with.

Secondly, the issue of uptake reveals some important cross-cultural differences. There were over 15,000 CPs in the UK in the first 12 months after they were legalised in December 2005. I am looking out the window now and I can tell you the sky hasn't fallen in, priapic sodomites are not roaming the streets and that straight marriage is just as viable as it was before.

The only difference is that gay couples can, if they want, enjoy the same legal and cultural recognition that is afforded to straight couples.

But again, "data" about uptake doesn't affect the moral argument IMO.

[Insidious Rex]

You know ever since slave times blacks have not been educated at the same level as whites EVEN THOUGH THE OPTION HAS BEEN AVAILABLE TO THEM. So I think we should return blacks to slavery since its clear they dont utilize the same rights given to whites and that when they do they dont perform as well. Clearly allowing blacks to have an education makes a mockery of the institution of higher education and is a waste since they dont utilize it at the same rates as whites being naturally shiftless and lazy and all...

So where are the calls for making a constitutional amendment banning blacks from having state funded educations...

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

As we were seeing in the divorce thread (though the evidence there does not apply to homosexuality), this isn't true.

What CC said.

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by inked

Apart from the rarity, it would appear that there is substantially increased risk of failure compared to heterosexual couples. Note - comparatively increased risk. Surely that has implications for differently configure families with responsibility for children (as my initial posting on the biology issue raised).

And, note, this is the largest available sampling with the longest history - dating back to 1993. So it may be a tad more revealing than even the
American two year history in Massachusetts?

This all assumes that divorce is a bad thing. I'd argue that it's one of the best advances in recent decades, for both parents and children.

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

How do you determine whether or not the result you get is good? And who decides whether a repercussion is negative or not?

You determine it by which societies flourish the most longterm. By and large, the oppressive ones have failed, or are in the process of failing, as have the ones with very orthodox religious points of view. Or ones that try to push a "one size fits all" moral point of view (i.e. communism).

By comparision, the societies which take a more tolerant approach to moral differences within their own countries have done very well. Even today's China, while far from perfect, is less oppressive than either it's monarchical past or its totalitarian communist recent history.

Survival of the fittest on a social level.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

You determine it by which societies flourish the most longterm. By and large, the oppressive ones have failed, or are in the process of failing, as have the ones with very orthodox religious points of view. Or ones that try to push a "one size fits all" moral point of view (i.e. communism).

By comparision, the societies which take a more tolerant approach to moral differences within their own countries have done very well. Even today's China, while far from perfect, is less oppressive than either it's monarchical past or its totalitarian communist recent history.

Survival of the fittest on a social level.

Brownjenkins, all due respect, but that's completely a-historical. The Vatican state has lasted longer than any other medieval country of more flexibility. China was shooting protesters in the square in 1989, and people have been fleeing Hong Kong in droves. You can hardly claim them as a victory for 'openness.' The Ottoman Empire ran from 1299-1922...show me one of your "open societies" with similar longevity.

If that's your criteria, Lief's point wins.

[Count Comfect]

Rome? Although I actually disagree with BJ's idea.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

Rome? Although I actually disagree with BJ's idea.

You would consider the Roman Empire an open society? In what respect?

[Count Comfect]

Morally.

Not politically. Not socially mobile. But, as bj was commenting on morality, morally.

[Lief Erikson]

While its morals were strongest, Rome was at its strongest. That was during the earlier years, the time of the Republic. Rome was actually very conservative in many of its moral values back then. The openness you describe led to decadence that was one factor in corroding the discipline that made Rome strong.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

You determine it by which societies flourish the most longterm.

What do you mean by "flourish"? Do you mean in terms of economics? And this ignores my comment from before that it doesn't define who should flourish and who not, who should be harmed and who should benefit, and how much either one should benefit or be harmed. It doesn't explain how to interpret the results. It can't say what to consider good and what to consider bad. It's extremely vague.

Also, as I commented earlier, if one is looking for results, then in theory, everyone should do what makes them happiest, for that's the desired result. But practically speaking, one person's happiness is often another person's misery, and our happy criminal, if he is skilled and careful, might get away with it.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

By and large, the oppressive ones have failed, or are in the process of failing, as have the ones with very orthodox religious points of view. Or ones that try to push a "one size fits all" moral point of view (i.e. communism).

You said that we should be looking at the long term. The fact is, though, that democracy is only a very new kid on the block. It has been around in a manner that is at all dominant on the world scene for only a few hundred years at most.

The strong orthodox religious points of view only ceased to dominate in Western governments around the mid-twentieth century. One could say that the morality was deteriorating ever since the Enlightenment, but it's only in the mid-twentieth century that societies themselves and the laws in significant ways really turned the corner toward modernism, post-modernism, anti-Victorianism, secularism, relativism, and all the rest.

Countries' rigid position on morality did begin to deterioriate in the 19th century, in a kind of lead in to the modernist revolution. That turn around opened the doorway to Britain for huge drug problems, a lot of sex, a host of STDs, poverty and the deterioration of their empire. I received a lecture on the expansion of these problems as a kind of precursor to modernism, in English 285. If societies back then hadn't turned away from religious values, the STDs would not have been a problem, and neither would have been the drugs or family break-down. That all is the modern result of a lack of religious values.

Openness hurt their society badly back then, and it's sure mangling modern society too. We saw an article showing the deterioration of British society as a result of increased openness, in the divorce thread. According to my political science professor from college, the same is happening in Russia. I haven't sufficiently researched the rest of the Western world yet, to know for the other countries that the situation is similar. It's only logical, though. If one believes that those actions are wrong in God's sight, one will put a greater effort into resisting engaging in them. Some people might behave in moral ways without a belief in God, because of believing actions commonly considered immoral are self-destructive, but without the religious argument believed, more people will believe they can get away with it or will resist believing those behaviors are actually problems. So the problems tend to be bigger without the religion.

One can see this when one contrasts modern Western society with Islamic society. Oman has an incredibly low rate of STDs. They're almost unknown, in the country. Homosexuality and sexual promiscuity are illegal, and the vast majority obey the laws, so AIDS is no problem at all. Those social problems do not exist because orthodox religious values are mandated in law.

Religious values dominated nations and their laws and often even their governments for over a thousand years. It persevered, at least partly, because it worked. The modern change is an abberation that modern evidence is showing does not work. The evidence of what has become of "open" societies, their decadence and subsequent collapse, is very strong. Modern society is suffering very badly because of its license, and it is essential that we reform it, to bring it back to principles that work.