I'm sorry, but your syntax makes it impossible for me understand what you are saying. I'm not being evasive. Perhaps I can get at your meaning by asking some questions: 1) If I have said gay marriage laws should apply to two gay men who will not have children, how do you interpret that to mean
I'm not concerned about the rights of children (assuming that's what you mean?). 2) In at least two posts I have said that inasmuch as researchers have not reached consensus re. the effect of same-sex parenting on children, we should opt for the conservative approach and prohibit gay marriage; i.e., we shouldn't gamble with the welfare of children. I should note, however, that the Social Science Research peer-reviewed studies I posted a day or two ago cast serious doubt on the belief that same-sex parenting doesn't affect children negatively. As I noted, the old (2005) APA study, which has been cited by many pro-same-sex-marriage advocates for years, has at least one major methodological error that renders it all but useless.
I encourage you to restate your charge that I have not been concerned about children or women in this discusssion. Please use shorter sentences.
I will be pleased to respond.
It's getting increasingly hard to search this long thread, and especially hard to find references about which we continue to argue page after page. I took a little time to search, but it is too tiresome to do again. I hope this will do it:
I refer you first of all to post 8848, a subject that has come up before, in which, to an anecdotal case cited by Loss Leader, in which no children are involved, you state "You cite an individual, special-circumstances case. What if laws affecting the entire citizenry were passed using that criterion? Moreover, if he were to be married,
would he love his partner more? How so?"
You then claimed limited understanding or confusion in post 8874 when, referring to that post, I suggested marriage involves more than the question of whether a person love his partner.
In a further exchange debating whether Mormons consider homosexual activity a sin, or whether the idea of "sin" is somehow not included in the characterization of an activity as morally impermissible and forbidden, as Mormon sites seem to concur. I pointed out that if one criterion for the morally impermissible is (as Mormon rules seem to imply)
any extra-marital sex, and if at the same time Mormon rules make homosexual marriage impossible, then clearly the protection of marriage is out of the question, and they are in a double bind. Your response to that was, verbatim, in post 8910 the following:
"
Marriage was instituted primarily as a means to raise children with legally sanctioned protection. What protection do two adult males, who will not have children, receive as a result of being married? Perhaps you're referring to financial matters."
In a response to the issue I raised regarding gay marriage in general, your response was to refer to "two adult males, who will not have children." This as part of a long argument, repeated page after page after page, of which the post referenced was a part, in which I have made the point that protection of children in marriages (an issue we both consider central) must include those who actually exist, including those who actually are part of gay based families. If you did not understand that I was making that point after page after page after page of repetition, then "limited understanding" is a gross understatement. I am alleging that your response did not include mention of women, and did not include: (I will break this up for the comprehension of those who cannot grasp long sentences)
1: existing natural or adopted children of gay persons;
2: Women;
3: gay persons who intend to adopt children;
4: gay persons who intend to become parents of children.
I do not believe that my inability to find any of those subjects in the cited sentence is due to limited comprehension on my part.
So now, just to put the record straight, and be done with this:
You, Skyrider44, and I both, I believe, agree in part that central to the issue of marriage is the matter of how children are to be protected and nurtured. It is, among other issues, one of the core issues that I am told the Vermont Supreme Court considered when rendering the historic judgment that resulted in civil unions.
It may well be that the ideal situation is a happy, heterosexual pair of parents with children they want. I certainly hope so, because it's what I grew up in, and I'd like to think I came out moderately well. But the world is far more complex. Many people do not fit into that category, and many children exist who do not, cannot and never will find themselves in that category. A real life consideration of the welfare of children who actually exist in the world, and children who actually will exist in the future, will not be reached by forbidding the families that actually exist and will exist from enjoying the protections and obligations of marriage.
I will end this little diatribe, however, by pointing out that I favor "gay marriage" for several reasons, and consider it a positive step for society in addition to the matter of child welfare, An argument against my position would have to show conclusively that the institution of single sex marriage itself would have a net harmful effect on the society that actually exists at this moment. My job is, I believe, much less demanding than yours. If you are to argue that considerations of child welfare make gay marriage inadvisable, you will have to find cogent arguments, and those arguments must include an explanation of how the existing children of homosexual parents, with or without partners, would be harmed by allowing their parents to marry the people they love. That is a very hard argument to make. It has not happened yet. Limited comprehension is not an asset here.
