Acceptance of Homosexual Marriage

[meltzerboy]

Whoa… there. This is a legal and civil rights issue. The burden is not on the oppressed class, it is on those who would deny them their rights.

I never made the claim that prostitution has harmed society, nor would such a claim be relevant to this discussion.

As with all such issues, it is incumbent on those who would deny the right to prove their point. Even if the bible were relevant to the legal debate, this issue would not be whether lesbianism is equated with more conventional marriage, but rather if it is specifically prohibited.

I was merely curious as to whether it is ever mentioned in the bible. My recollection is that it is not.

Nobody here would argue that the CC doesn’t oppose gay marriage. Some would say that the opposition is legitimate. Others would say that opposition irresponsible. Yet others would say that it constitutes evil. Certainly, specific examples are numerous as to the harm that prejudice has caused individuals. That is irrefutable. So, let’s suddenly be realistic, and require those who oppose gay marriage to prove that it is harmful. There are enough marriages that the evidence is plentiful, if it exists. Does it?

My question still remains unanswered. There have been many thousands of legal gay marriages performed in the US and elsewhere. Can anyone on this forum show evidence that harm has come from that?

I am not asking about what you believe, imagine, suppose, postulate, speculate or hypothecate to be true. I am asking for one instance of harm that has come from any of the many thousands of gay marriages which have been performed.

If you cannot provide a shred of evidence as to the supposed evil and harm to society, then you don’t have much to go on. Surely, by now, the evidence would be as plentiful as the marriages.

Lesbianism is not specifically mentioned or forbidden in the Hebrew Bible. However, Talmudic commentary of Leviticus–which forbids male homosexuality according to Torah Judaism–refers to the passage in which Egyptian practices are forbidden, and it is thought that these included lesbianism. Other scholars assume that what is sexually forbidden for men would also apply to women, so that the need to explicitly mention lesbianism is unnecessary. Still others believe–naively, I think–that lesbianism was not practiced by Jewish women in ancient times.

 

[meltzerboy]

Well, actually, two heterosexuals who are no longer capable of coitus, whether they are 30 or 60 or 90, cannot validly marry in the Catholic Church. Many states still hold inability to consummate the marriage as grounds for the annulment of a civil marriage.

Where is there a lesbian relationship equated with a heterosexual marriage in the Bible? How does a lesbian couple “consummate” their relationship? What does that even mean? So if the Bible doesn’t ever mention a lesbian relationship anywhere, where did the idea come from that this is a human right rooted in Biblical principals?

Are there problems that result when siblings live together and support each other and love each other? So why can’t they marry? Aw, because you don’t like their sex lives? Why do they have to have a sex life? Why is it not marriage when there is no sex? Why be so narrow that love isn’t love unless there is sex involved?

Explain how prostitution has harmed societies where it is legal, please. Make sure that this is harm that doesn’t happen where prostitution is illegal, of course. What evidence would prove that harm, if you don’t want to believe there is any harm? If you do believe there is harm, how do you prove the harm is due to prostitution? After all, what harm does it do, when an act is between two consenting adults?

When I meet someone who would withhold the “human right” of marriage from people who don’t have sex and yet can explain how lesbians “consummate” their sexual relationship, I will be very interested in what they have to say. So far, though, no takers.

I had no idea that the Catholic Church does not validate marriage between a man and woman who cannot reproduce. Judaism is different in this respect since it believes the main purpose of marriage is mutual love and companionship rather than procreation. Not that having children is unimportant; far from it! Nonetheless, it is not thought to be the principal function of marriage according to Jewish teaching.

 

[davidv]

I had no idea that the Catholic Church does not validate marriage between a man and woman who cannot reproduce. Judaism is different in this respect since it believes the main purpose of marriage is mutual love and companionship rather than procreation. Not that having children is unimportant; far from it! Nonetheless, it is not thought to be the principal function of marriage according to Jewish teaching.

The correct Churcy teaching is that permanent impotence, not infertility, is a barrier to a valid marriage. Please honor this distinction that the Church has made.

If the couple can perform the act, then the act is ordered toward procreation, whether they are fertile or not.

 

[FormerWarrior]

How I wish someone would wake up and “whoa.” This has been falsely made into a civil rights issue by the false premise that homosexual relations and heterosexual relations do not differ.

OK, I have firsthand experience with a lesbian couple that lived as “wife and wife”. They had a son, only of course the son was conceived outside of the relationship, because a lesbian can’t get another lesbian pregnant. Then, because–and I am not making this up, they told me this–because they wanted to settle their son down, they tried to adopt a little girl. They learned that females don’t all automatically stick together, and that children actually form alliances together against their parents! The little girl was returned to whereever they tried to adopt her from, because she “didn’t work out.” Could a heterosexual couple pull something like that? I guess they could. I’ve never heard of it…and you challenged me to give you one example. That’s the one I know, and it did not impress me.

Homosexuals in Oregon who “obtain” biological children via similar arrangements want both the biological mother and the lesbian mother listed on the birth certificate. They don’t want birth certificates to list “mother” and “father”, but instead, “parent 1” and “parent 2”, as if every human being ever born in the state of Oregon didn’t have both a single literal mother and a single literal father. There may have been doubt some times in the past who the father was, but there has never been a doubt until now about who the mother wasn’t. These are health records! Of course, before you know it, we’ll have to change the birth certificate again, because I can’t see any reason that being in a durable Ménage à trois won’t be a civil right, too!

I mean really: What harm has a ménage à trois ever caused? Let’s face it: it has more of a track record than “gay marriage”, and sometimes it even produces actual biological children.

These “Heather has Two Mommies” pretenses are the kind of falsehood that comes with pretending that gay “marriage” is just the same thing as heterosexual marriage. It cements the false societal concept that marriage really isn’t about procreation at all, that it is about “standing in front of the people you love and promising to be together forever.”

What possible stake does society have in that? Why discriminate against single people in order to give legal advantages to adults who happen to have a sexual partner? Tell me: How is that fair?

This movement has taken a rather simple truth–that is, that heterosexual couples have children and that society therefore has a stake in regulating their unions–and turned it into a romantic falsehood in order to give some people a status that they covet. It isn’t about civil rights. It is about telling a lie enough times that people eventually begin to accept it as the truth, because the lie gives the people who are spreading the lie something they are jealous to have.

That’s the harm. Because it inevitably leads to passing off the false as being the same as the truth. It is a testament to the depth of the “whatever makes you happy must be true” fallacy in our society. If entrenched falsehood doesn’t bother you–hey*! the commandment says "thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor, so I guess that means it is OK to bear false witness in his favor, right?–*then I don’t know what to say.

I think you completely neglect what is accepted with respect to human sexuality by those who study it. It is a civil rights issue because of our understanding of human sexuality. It is not OK, in the light of new knowledge, to discriminate and spread hatred. Regardless of what CC doctrine says today, I don’t think we need to rehash the role that it has played historically. In legal terms, most courts are accepting that homosexuals are a suspect class. This was a significant legal ruling which came out of the California Supreme Court in the Prop 8 decision regarding amendment to the state constitution.

The issue of whether society has a compelling interest has already been decided. So your argument does not stand legally.

I am still waiting to read of actual harm which has occurred? Everyone has a moral opinion, but is there any evidence of harm? I don’t buy that the two women you know are bad parents by virtue of being lesbians, if that was your point. There is some evidence that lesbian parents are more effective than heterosexual parents on average. So, a single case of bad parenting doesn’t prove much. We can find plenty of bad heterosexual parents, but I would not attribute that to their sexual orientation.

 

[EasterJoy]

I think you completely neglect what is accepted with respect to human sexuality by those who study it. It is a civil rights issue because of our understanding of human sexuality. It is not OK, in the light of new knowledge, to discriminate and spread hatred. Regardless of what CC doctrine says today, I don’t think we need to rehash the role that it has played historically. In legal terms, most courts are accepting that homosexuals are a suspect class. This was a significant legal ruling which came out of the California Supreme Court in the Prop 8 decision regarding amendment to the state constitution.

The issue of whether society has a compelling interest has already been decided. So your argument does not stand legally.

I am still waiting to read of actual harm which has occurred? Everyone has a moral opinion, but is there any evidence of harm? I don’t buy that the two women you know are bad parents by virtue of being lesbians, if that was your point. There is some evidence that lesbian parents are more effective than heterosexual parents on average. So, a single case of bad parenting doesn’t prove much. We can find plenty of bad heterosexual parents, but I would not attribute that to their sexual orientation.

I’m not neglecting what is being “accepted.” I’m objecting to it, because in spite of the prevailing wind of “moral opinion”, it isn’t acceptable. If these “rights” you are advocating for are built on “moral opinion” rather than on moral principles, then they are built on sand, my friend. We can only hope that will prove a predictor of their longevity.

You ask for one example, I give you one example, and then that’s not good because it’s only one example. In other words, you want me to dish you some statistics. I thought so. You say “there is some evidence that lesbian parents are more effective”, but if I give you an example of some questionable parenting by a lesbian, then I’m a lesbian-hater because I cited them as an example? Which way is it going to be? And you claim “the issue of whether society has a compelling interest has already been decided”? That is not a physical fact. That is politics, my friend. If you think that sociology and especially what sociological results gets published and what studies are even allowed to be conducted isn’t run by politics, you have your head in the sand.

Has it occurred to you that there is “some evidence that lesbian parents are more effective” because the yardsticks of “effective” are biased in favor of what lesbians do? Is there also perhaps “some evidence that women are more effective parents than men”? Now, let’s think about that raw data. If you’re going to rate someone as more or less "effective,’ it depends on how you define what “effective” is, doesn’t it?

Let me ask you this: are there more boys than girls in juvenile detention because boys are naturally worse-behaved than girls, or is it just possible that the social workers running the legal system have a bias in favor of children who act like girls? What if we started jailing people for ruining other people’s reputations, emotional abuse by social isolation, and mortally attacks on self-esteem, and just told the fist fighters to take up boxing? Who would be filling the jails then? Are the parents of the girls who make life miserable for every female in the class “more effective” than the parents of boys (or girls, for that matter) who get expelled for getting into fist fights? Why is passive and indirect aggression morally superior to direct aggression? Because indirect aggression “doesn’t hurt anybody”?

Systematically leaving known biological parents off of birth certificates and instead lying about who the newborn’s parents are known to be in order to satisfy the jealous desires of lovers to pretend they are parents together is a “moral opinion”? Why doesn’t it bother you that this whole thing is based on a lie, a lie indulged in so as to satisfy the covetous desire to be “the same” as heterosexuals? You see no harm in a pattern of deceit, in other words? So now society has decided that if you “study” something long enough, then false becomes true and the different become the same?

I realize that I live in a society where no one sees any “harm” in it that 40% of babies are born out of wedlock, but that does not mean that this does no “harm” to marriage or family. So I suppose this is why it does not worry you that homosexuals, when they have biological children, always give birth to a child whose biological parents are not married.

Heterosexual parents can procreate, and homosexuals can’t. The first order of business, then, is to distance marriage and procreation as far from each other as the gymnastics of rationalization will allow. Procreation is now irrelevant. Parenthood is about how well you can parent like a woman.

 

[FormerWarrior]

I’m not neglecting what is being “accepted.” I’m objecting to it, because in spite of the prevailing wind of “moral opinion”, it isn’t acceptable. If these “rights” you are advocating for are built on “moral opinion” rather than on moral principles, then they are built on sand, my friend. We can only hope that will prove a predictor of their longevity.

You ask for one example, I give you one example, and then that’s not good because it’s only one example. In other words, you want me to dish you some statistics. I thought so. You say “there is some evidence that lesbian parents are more effective”, but if I give you an example of some questionable parenting by a lesbian, then I’m a lesbian-hater because I cited them as an example? Which way is it going to be? And you claim “the issue of whether society has a compelling interest has already been decided”? That is not a physical fact. That is politics, my friend. If you think that sociology and especially what sociological results gets published and what studies are even allowed to be conducted isn’t run by politics, you have your head in the sand.

Has it occurred to you that there is “some evidence that lesbian parents are more effective” because the yardsticks of “effective” are biased in favor of what lesbians do? Is there also perhaps “some evidence that women are more effective parents than men”? Now, let’s think about that raw data. If you’re going to rate someone as more or less "effective,’ it depends on how you define what “effective” is, doesn’t it?

Let me ask you this: are there more boys than girls in juvenile detention because boys are naturally worse-behaved than girls, or is it just possible that the social workers running the legal system have a bias in favor of children who act like girls? What if we started jailing people for ruining other people’s reputations, emotional abuse by social isolation, and mortally attacks on self-esteem, and just told the fist fighters to take up boxing? Who would be filling the jails then? Are the parents of the girls who make life miserable for every female in the class “more effective” than the parents of boys (or girls, for that matter) who get expelled for getting into fist fights? Why is passive and indirect aggression morally superior to direct aggression? Because indirect aggression “doesn’t hurt anybody”?

Systematically leaving known biological parents off of birth certificates and instead lying about who the newborn’s parents are known to be in order to satisfy the jealous desires of lovers to pretend they are parents together is a “moral opinion”? Why doesn’t it bother you that this whole thing is based on a lie, a lie indulged in so as to satisfy the covetous desire to be “the same” as heterosexuals? You see no harm in a pattern of deceit, in other words? So now society has decided that if you “study” something long enough, then false becomes true and the different become the same?

I realize that I live in a society where no one sees any “harm” in it that 40% of babies are born out of wedlock, but that does not mean that this does no “harm” to marriage or family. So I suppose this is why it does not worry you that homosexuals, when they have biological children, always give birth to a child whose biological parents are not married.

Heterosexual parents can procreate, and homosexuals can’t. The first order of business, then, is to distance marriage and procreation as far from each other as the gymnastics of rationalization will allow. Procreation is now irrelevant. Parenthood is about how well you can parent like a woman.

Wow. I never even suggested or implied in any way that you are filled with hatred or a “lesbian-hater”. I am not sure why you identify yourself in that way. As far as the data on lesbian parents, it turns out that kids raised by lesbians score better on every measure of psychological health, than kids raised by any other sexual orientation combo. This is not a matter of bias, it is a psychological study. But it was not a large study, nor has it been repeated, which is why I qualified my statement. Meltzerboy, who is actually an expert in this area, has confirmed that it makes sense. Females are more nurturing than males. I rejected your example for its irrelevance. You failed to demonstrate how the sexual orientation of the partners had any bearing on their ability as parents. For example, if I said… “please give me an example or a horse?” Your response was, “How about this cow?”

Science is not yours to accept or reject. It does not require your approval. I sense some misunderstanding about the point I was trying to make. We know more now about human sexuality than we did. It doesn’t matter whether you accept that or not. It is simply a fact. What we know is why I take the stand that discrimination over sexual orientation is immoral. I have no doubt that the CC disagrees with my position.

I can’t answer your question about boys and girls in juvenile detention. Sorry I don’t have a clue. My guess is that more boys act out violently than girls. Boys are more physical and kinetic. I don’t quite follow your point on emotional crime, I guess I would call it. How is that relevant to this discussion? Are you saying that gay people loving each other, or getting married, is some sort of “passive” crime? Please clarify what you mean, because I don’t quite follow you.

You are right. I am not so hung up on procreation as a requirement for a loving and supportive relationship. When I see an older couple who are beyond their reproductive years, I think it is a beautiful thing. It does not matter to me if they married before or after they had children, or if they never had children.

 

[rossum]

So I suppose this is why it does not worry you that homosexuals, when they have biological children, always give birth to a child whose biological parents are not married.

Your “always” is incorrect. Some gays get legally married to a person of the opposite sex and then leave that relationship for a same sex relationship. Headlines like “Husband/Wife leaves spouse for another Man/Woman” are not unknown.

Heterosexual parents can procreate, and homosexuals can’t.

False. Some heterosexuals are infertile. My mother procreated but is now too old to do so. She is both heterosexual and a parent but cannot procreate.

You are making mistakes by applying a universal qualifier to things that are not universal. If you changed “all” to “most” in your thinking you would be more accurate.

rossum

 

[Nate13]

Wow. I never even suggested or implied in any way that you are filled with hatred or a “lesbian-hater”. I am not sure why you identify yourself in that way. As far as the data on lesbian parents, it turns out that kids raised by lesbians score better on every measure of psychological health, than kids raised by any other sexual orientation combo. This is not a matter of bias, it is a psychological study. But it was not a large study, nor has it been repeated, which is why I qualified my statement. Meltzerboy, who is actually an expert in this area, has confirmed that it makes sense. Females are more nurturing than males. I rejected your example for its irrelevance. You failed to demonstrate how the sexual orientation of the partners had any bearing on their ability as parents. For example, if I said… “please give me an example or a horse?” Your response was, “How about this cow?”

Science is not yours to accept or reject. It does not require your approval. I sense some misunderstanding about the point I was trying to make. We know more now about human sexuality than we did. It doesn’t matter whether you accept that or not. It is simply a fact. What we know is why I take the stand that discrimination over sexual orientation is immoral. I have no doubt that the CC disagrees with my position.

I can’t answer your question about boys and girls in juvenile detention. Sorry I don’t have a clue. My guess is that more boys act out violently than girls. Boys are more physical and kinetic. I don’t quite follow your point on emotional crime, I guess I would call it. How is that relevant to this discussion? Are you saying that gay people loving each other, or getting married, is some sort of “passive” crime? Please clarify what you mean, because I don’t quite follow you.

You are right. I am not so hung up on procreation as a requirement for a loving and supportive relationship. When I see an older couple who are beyond their reproductive years, I think it is a beautiful thing. It does not matter to me if they married before or after they had children, or if they never had children.

Haha there are a lot of studies that show not having a true father mess a kids life up as well. There is a lot more to raising a kid then making sure he/she is emotionally stable. There is a strong correlation between kids that end up having same-sex attraction and kids with poor fathers. Now I won’t claim this covers all cases but I assume you will give this factor due credit and realize that a child having a male father figure is important.

 

[Nate13]

Your “always” is incorrect. Some gays get legally married to a person of the opposite sex and then leave that relationship for a same sex relationship. Headlines like “Husband/Wife leaves spouse for another Man/Woman” are not unknown.

False. Some heterosexuals are infertile. My mother procreated but is now too old to do so. She is both heterosexual and a parent but cannot procreate.

You are making mistakes by applying a universal qualifier to things that are not universal. If you changed “all” to “most” in your thinking you would be more accurate.

rossum

“She is both heterosexual and a parent but cannot procreate.”
You believe the Bible is just made up of stories with a few facts thus older women can’t procreate and virgins can’t have babies.

I give the Bible a lot more credit…common sense when reading is useful…thus older women can have babies…virgin’s can as well. When you believe in a all powerful God why is this so hard to imagine?

 

[Nate13]

abcnews.go.com/Health/ActiveAging/Story?id=5309018&page=1

If 72 is possible why not 90 haha?

 

[rossum]

“She is both heterosexual and a parent but cannot procreate.”
You believe the Bible is just made up of stories with a few facts thus older women can’t procreate and virgins can’t have babies.

If God is omnipotent, as advertised, then it is just as easy for God to make a 700 year old woman conceive as it is for God to make a man conceive or to make a pair of lesbians conceive.

You problem with “God could do it” is that God could do anything, including make two men or two women conceive a child.

I give the Bible a lot more credit…common sense when reading is useful…thus older women can have babies…virgin’s can as well. When you believe in a all powerful God why is this so hard to imagine?

As I pointed out above, it is your imagination that is limited. God is not limited by your imagination.

rossum

 

[Nate13]

If God is omnipotent, as advertised, then it is just as easy for God to make a 700 year old woman conceive as it is for God to make a man conceive or to make a pair of lesbians conceive.

You problem with “God could do it” is that God could do anything, including make two men or two women conceive a child.

To do so would mean changing someone from a woman to a man. If God wishes to do so, great. So far I have no fact, history, story, or fable to think that he has ever done that in the past or wishes to in the future. I do know he has chosen to allow older couples to have babies.

As I pointed out above, it is your imagination that is limited. God is not limited by your imagination.

rossum

 

[rossum]

To do so would mean changing someone from a woman to a man.

Why? All He has to do is to give the man a uterus while retaining all the usual male apparatus. As I said, God is not limited by your imagination.

Perhaps not even a uterus is needed, there are ectopic pregnancies which happen outside the uterus. It is not as if a man lacks any of the DNA required to have a baby, all men have an X chromosome so all the DNA needed is already present. All God has to do is to activate it without any other changes.

rossum

 

[Nate13]

Why? All He has to do is to give the man a uterus while retaining all the usual male apparatus. As I said, God is not limited by your imagination.

Perhaps not even a uterus is needed, there are ectopic pregnancies which happen outside the uterus. It is not as if a man lacks any of the DNA required to have a baby, all men have an X chromosome so all the DNA needed is already present. All God has to do is to activate it without any other changes.

rossum

haha find me an example and then we will talk about it. At that point though are you really comfortable in distinguishing whether that person is a male or a female? I think that question would have to be answered before we could get anywhere. You would also have to ask the transgendered folks whether they think their sex is determined by their chromosomes or body parts that they were given. Apparently what you think you are is what matters. Before we could go any further down this road we would have to discuss what makes a male male and a female female haha. This is way off the original topic though so start a new thread if you want to have that discussion.

 

[FormerWarrior]

haha find me an example and then we will talk about it. At that point though are you really comfortable in distinguishing whether that person is a male or a female? I think that question would have to be answered before we could get anywhere. You would also have to ask the transgendered folks whether they think their sex is determined by their chromosomes or body parts that they were given. Apparently what you think you are is what matters. Before we could go any further down this road we would have to discuss what makes a male male and a female female haha. This is way off the original topic though so start a new thread if you want to have that discussion.

Hermaphrodites are quite rare. If they have functioning testicular and ovarian tissue, then the the mixed hormonal signals would be expected to prevent pregnancy. I think there is only one documented case of a hermaphrodite with both. The person was unicornuate with 1/2 of an uterus, and functioning testes.

Here is an article, if the topic interests you: urologyjournal.org/index.php/uj/article/view/39/42

 

[EasterJoy]

Wow. I never even suggested or implied in any way that you are filled with hatred or a “lesbian-hater”. I am not sure why you identify yourself in that way. As far as the data on lesbian parents, it turns out that kids raised by lesbians score better on every measure of psychological health, than kids raised by any other sexual orientation combo. This is not a matter of bias, it is a psychological study. But it was not a large study, nor has it been repeated, which is why I qualified my statement. Meltzerboy, who is actually an expert in this area, has confirmed that it makes sense. Females are more nurturing than males. I rejected your example for its irrelevance. You failed to demonstrate how the sexual orientation of the partners had any bearing on their ability as parents. For example, if I said… “please give me an example or a horse?” Your response was, “How about this cow?”

Science is not yours to accept or reject. It does not require your approval. I sense some misunderstanding about the point I was trying to make. We know more now about human sexuality than we did. It doesn’t matter whether you accept that or not. It is simply a fact. What we know is why I take the stand that discrimination over sexual orientation is immoral. I have no doubt that the CC disagrees with my position.

I can’t answer your question about boys and girls in juvenile detention. Sorry I don’t have a clue. My guess is that more boys act out violently than girls. Boys are more physical and kinetic. I don’t quite follow your point on emotional crime, I guess I would call it. How is that relevant to this discussion? Are you saying that gay people loving each other, or getting married, is some sort of “passive” crime? Please clarify what you mean, because I don’t quite follow you.

You are right. I am not so hung up on procreation as a requirement for a loving and supportive relationship. When I see an older couple who are beyond their reproductive years, I think it is a beautiful thing. It does not matter to me if they married before or after they had children, or if they never had children.

Please accept my apologies on the hate charge, I must have gotten my threads mixed up. Yes, I have had people say that those who don’t agree with gay marriage are haters, period. That blunt.

I have a PhD, ma’am, and I can tell you that every paper ever published by science absolutely is subject to rejection. I know what scientists “know.” I know how attached scientists get to their pet theories. I have news for you: That the speed of light is the fastest a particle can travel is up for debate. That’s particle physics, where controlling the variables is relatively easy!! There is* nothing* in psychology or social science that is set in stone.

Again, someone wrote the psychological tests, and decided what was “psychologically healthy.” If I took an alpha wolf to an American Kennel Club event, it would probably lose. They’d throw it out of the competition, because it is not in the animal’s nature to heel or sit upon verbal command. Put in the wild, the wolf would successfully use its considerable social skills to hunt in a pack, and so live and reproduce successfully, while most of the dogs at the AKC event would be near death in a matter of weeks. So which one is healthier, the dog or the wolf? If you let the AKC design the test of “canine psychological health”, I don’t think it would be based on survival skills, let’s just say that. The test would be rigged if favor of “man’s best friend,” Canus lupus familiarus. Like I said: Politics.

Likewise, the crimes of girls are committed within the boundaries of socially acceptable behavior. Females are not less aggressive than males, as any middle school teacher can tell you. Females are less openly aggressive than males. There is a big difference. Yet even though being indirectly aggressive can drive a classmate to cut herself or try to commit suicide, currently it is only direct aggression that will get you thrown out of school.

Put one way, females are not actually more nurturing than males. Rather, females nurture different aspects of the psyche than males, aspects of the psyche that are more ready to be developed in early childhood and that are more prized by psychologists. The aspects of the psyche that are brought out by testosterone: Not so much.

 

[EasterJoy]

Your “always” is incorrect. Some gays get legally married to a person of the opposite sex and then leave that relationship for a same sex relationship. Headlines like “Husband/Wife leaves spouse for another Man/Woman” are not unknown.

False. Some heterosexuals are infertile. My mother procreated but is now too old to do so. She is both heterosexual and a parent but cannot procreate.

You are making mistakes by applying a universal qualifier to things that are not universal. If you changed “all” to “most” in your thinking you would be more accurate.

rossum

The children in your example are the product of a heterosexual marriage, not a homosexual one. Homosexuals cannot procreate. When people whose orientation is towards their own sex procreate within a heterosexual marriage, they are acting as heterosexuals. It may offend their self-identification that they did that, but that is what they did.

The sentence “Heterosexuals can procreate” does not imply that every heterosexual can procreate. It only says that procreation only happens by heterosexual reproduction. There is no homosexual reproduction.

Even if humans were to be cloned, that wouldn’t be homosexual reproduction. That would be asexual reproduction. Homosexual relations do not produce offspring.

So again: Why should homosexuals have some status that other people who currently can’t marry don’t have? They can’t produce children. What is the excuse for giving them any priveleges? Why should their sexual alliance be given any status that a merely emotional alliance would not have?

If marriage is enlarged to include homosexuals, why is it fair to those who are still being left out of the institution…that is, those who are in a relationship of mutual care that does not include sex?

IOW, we can concede that homosexuals add a great deal to society (which they absolutely do), and still ask the question: What does their sex itself add to society that platonic relationships can’t add? I think heterosexuals have an easy answer to that. I think it very clear that homosexuals do not.

 

[FormerWarrior]

Please accept my apologies on the hate charge, I must have gotten my threads mixed up. Yes, I have had people say that those who don’t agree with gay marriage are haters, period. That blunt.

I have a PhD, ma’am, and I can tell you that every paper ever published by science absolutely is subject to rejection. I know what scientists “know.” I know how attached scientists get to their pet theories. I have news for you: That the speed of light is the fastest a particle can travel is up for debate. That’s particle physics, where controlling the variables is relatively easy!! There is* nothing* in psychology or social science that is set in stone.

Again, someone wrote the psychological tests, and decided what was “psychologically healthy.” If I took an alpha wolf to an American Kennel Club event, it would probably lose. They’d throw it out of the competition, because it is not in the animal’s nature to heel or sit upon verbal command. Put in the wild, the wolf would successfully use its considerable social skills to hunt in a pack, and so live and reproduce successfully, while most of the dogs at the AKC event would be near death in a matter of weeks. So which one is healthier, the dog or the wolf? If you let the AKC design the test of “canine psychological health”, I don’t think it would be based on survival skills, let’s just say that. The test would be rigged if favor of “man’s best friend,” Canus lupus familiarus. Like I said: Politics.

Likewise, the crimes of girls are committed within the boundaries of socially acceptable behavior. Females are not less aggressive than males, as any middle school teacher can tell you. Females are less openly aggressive than males. There is a big difference. Yet even though being indirectly aggressive can drive a classmate to cut herself or try to commit suicide, currently it is only direct aggression that will get you thrown out of school.

Put one way, females are not actually more nurturing than males. Rather, females nurture different aspects of the psyche than males, aspects of the psyche that are more ready to be developed in early childhood and that are more prized by psychologists. The aspects of the psyche that are brought out by testosterone: Not so much.

I actually just listened to a well known epidemiologist talking about what he sees as the largest ethical issue in the practice of medicine. He pointed out that the commercial studies are better designed and executed, typically, than the academic studies. Yet, he points out, they always end up with the results that they want. How can this be? In his view it was not the bias built into the design of the studies, but rather the bias built into which study results are released to the public, and which study results are withheld.

There is a medical organization in Europe which is pushing for full disclosure. This lecturer pointed out some very popular drugs, which are in widespread use right now, which he has prescribed, thinking he is more conscientious than the average practitioner. In one case, more than 75% of the study results have been withheld. His claim was that on average, 50% of all study results on anti-depressant drugs are withheld, for example. He made the point that if he were allowed to withhold 50% of the results of a series of coin tosses, he could “prove” that a two sided coin had heads on both sides.

I think that we choose the give more credibility to results that we would like to believe.

Don’t you think, however, that there is a very large body of evidence on sexuality? Much is not known, but the amount of data is really plentiful. We are talking about the consensus of large, and I mean very large, professional organizations, and academics, not some small set of data which has not been critically examined. That is what I am talking about.

 

[EasterJoy]

I actually just listened to a well known epidemiologist talking about what he sees as the largest ethical issue in the practice of medicine. He pointed out that the commercial studies are better designed and executed, typically, than the academic studies. Yet, he points out, they always end up with the results that they want. How can this be? In his view it was not the bias built into the design of the studies, but rather the bias built into which study results are released to the public, and which study results are withheld.

There is a medical organization in Europe which is pushing for full disclosure. This lecturer pointed out some very popular drugs, which are in widespread use right now, which he has prescribed, thinking he is more conscientious than the average practitioner. In one case, more than 75% of the study results have been withheld. His claim was that on average, 50% of all study results on anti-depressant drugs are withheld, for example. He made the point that if he were allowed to withhold 50% of the results of a series of coin tosses, he could “prove” that a two sided coin had heads on both sides.

I think that we choose the give more credibility to results that we would like to believe.

Don’t you think, however, that there is a very large body of evidence on sexuality? Much is not known, but the amount of data is really plentiful. We are talking about the consensus of large, and I mean very large, professional organizations, and academics, not some small set of data which has not been critically examined. That is what I am talking about.

The homosexuals in local politics want homosexual marriage that excludes everyone else who currently cannot marry. Yet they claim this is an issue of civil rights. I can’t see where they get that. Either marriage is about procreation, in which case it ought to be restricted to heterosexuals, or else it is about mutual care and emotional support, in which case sex itself is not a necessary condition for the marital relationship.

Explain?

 

[EasterJoy]

I actually just listened to a well known epidemiologist talking about what he sees as the largest ethical issue in the practice of medicine. He pointed out that the commercial studies are better designed and executed, typically, than the academic studies. Yet, he points out, they always end up with the results that they want. How can this be? In his view it was not the bias built into the design of the studies, but rather the bias built into which study results are released to the public, and which study results are withheld.

There is a medical organization in Europe which is pushing for full disclosure. This lecturer pointed out some very popular drugs, which are in widespread use right now, which he has prescribed, thinking he is more conscientious than the average practitioner. In one case, more than 75% of the study results have been withheld. His claim was that on average, 50% of all study results on anti-depressant drugs are withheld, for example. He made the point that if he were allowed to withhold 50% of the results of a series of coin tosses, he could “prove” that a two sided coin had heads on both sides.

I think that we choose the give more credibility to results that we would like to believe.

Don’t you think, however, that there is a very large body of evidence on sexuality? Much is not known, but the amount of data is really plentiful. We are talking about the consensus of large, and I mean very large, professional organizations, and academics, not some small set of data which has not been critically examined. That is what I am talking about.

As for the science, you can’t make scientists publish every collection of data that you gather any more than you can force writers to publish every piece of prose that they get through the rough draft stage.

Every scientist I know has papers that he or she hasn’t gotten around to writing up, or papers that were submitted and rejected by the reviewers that they haven’t decided what to do with. So even if they could “require” full disclosure, I don’t know how they’re going to enforce it. It is unethical to suppress data within a data set; it isn’t unethical to decide that you have something intelligent to say about one data set and can’t make heads nor tails (or even just lack excitement necessary to think about it) of the other.