Dio, the OP’s recanted his position - not really fair to ask for evidence backing his old proposition…
The emphasis is not on the actual sexuality on the parents. If a child had a homosexual mother and father, there would be no concern about the child’s position. I suppose this happens once in a blue moon under strange circumstances, but that is not my point.
It is the different sexes of the parents. Children, growing up, should have adequate exposure to members of both sexes, for guidance, experience, and bonding (for lack of a better word). The question was not “can a kid grow up stabily with homosexual parents” it was “can a kid grow up stabily without parents of both sexes”. There is a clear distinction.
Joey
Thanks, Atticus.
Dio, as I said, clearly a child isn’t going to meet people of only one sex if they have parents of only one sex. As I no longer have a concern about the maturing of any children that might grow up in these marriages, I quite naturally support the legality of gay marriage.
Joey
I missed the post where you recanted. My apologies and welcome to SDMB.
Death, I’m very happy that you’ve changed your mind. It is truly rare that someone actually reconsiders a belief they hold strongly, and you should be proud of yourself. I hope you continue to be an active member of the board.
I would like to continue to discuss it, yes. I’m curious, what kind of “observations” are we talking about here? A similar argument came up in a conversation IRL once, and someone said, “I know a kid who was raised by gay parents, and he’s pretty f***ed up.” My response was, “You know a kid? As in one kid? That’s a pretty small sample space. I’m sure some gay couples are unfit as parents, but that’s not because they’re gay, Don’t jump to conclusions.”
So anyway, if you don’t mind sharing, I’m wondering what personal experiences led you to the position you took in the OP* and how you were able to change your mind despite those experiences.
*Just in case you haven’t picked it up already, OP is Original post, i.e. the one that started this thread
I agree. By your standard, any woman who didn’t remarry after a divorce or being widowed would lose her children. Any child born out of wedlock would be immediately swept away to an institution and put up for adoption, by your unrealistic standard. It has been proved over and over that not only do single parent families have the ability to raise happy, healthy kids, but that gay couples are quite capable of doing the same.
And by “your” standard, I mean “the OP’s”. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.
Hey, Death, you seem to have missed my question in post #45 and let the thread die. If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine with me, but I’m bumping in hopes that you will.
And again, I want to thank you for being willing to consider new ideas. Stubbornness is far too common nowadays.
I’ve an issue with this statement. Nobody has, or at least should have “the right” to adopt children.
If it’s actually harmful for the child not to have an adoptive male parent and an adoptive female parent, then no “equal right for homosexuals” argument should trump the well-being of the child. It’s the chid rights that are important, here, not the wish of whatever person to be able to adopt.
So, though you can argue against the argument made by the OP (being adopted by an homosexual couple isn’t in the best interest of the kid) you can’t just wawe it away by just stating “I should have the right to adopt because other people have it”.
I would choose heterosexual to raise my chances of having grand-children. But I’m not sure how this is relevant to the issue at hand…
This is a bullshit argument. In this case we’re still talking about arbitrarily imposing a different standard for one group which is not imposed on other groups. Perhaps it would suit your sophist objection a little better if the “right to adopt” is rephrased as the "right to be considered for adoption.
And how about ponying up some evidence that it is “harmful” for a child not to be raised by heterosexual parents.
Nope. If not having two parents of a different sex is harmful, and if for this reason you restrict adoption to heterosexual couples, there isn’t a double standard.
For instance. I’ve a clear dislike for people who think they somehow have a “right to adopt”.
And it’s not sophistic. The OP stated “I believe X is harmful for children”, and the poster I quoted replied by stating that homosexual should have equal rights. That’s completely irrelevant. The only issue is the interest of the kids. Your right to extend your arm stops where my nose begins and all that. If you’re unfit as a parent, your desire to have an equal right to adopt cildren goes down the toilets.
The post I was responding to appeared to me as a “me, me, me” post (my rights, my rights, my rights), while the only points to consider regardig adoption is “they, they, they” (the interests of the children).
Why should I provide evidences for a statement I didn’t make?
Nope. If not having two parents of a different sex is harmful, and if for this reason you restrict adoption to heterosexual couples, there isn’t a double standard.
For instance. I’ve a clear dislike for people who think they somehow have a “right to adopt”.
And it’s not sophistic. The OP stated “I believe X is harmful for children”, and the poster I quoted replied by stating that homosexual should have equal rights. That’s completely irrelevant. The only issue is the interest of the kids. Your right to extend your arm stops where my nose begins and all that. If you’re unfit as a parent, your desire to have an equal right to adopt children goes down the toilets.
The post I was responding to appeared to me as a “me, me, me” post (my rights, my rights, my rights), while the only points to consider regarding adoption is “they, they, they” (the interests of the children). The poster statement about “equal rights” was not an argument, it was an irrelevant slogan.
Why should I provide evidences for a statement I didn’t make?
If there is no evidence that not having hetero parents is harmful then you have no point. You’re just inventing a BS hypothetical. You might as well say that IF it can be shown that it is “harmful” for a child to be adopted by Armenian parents then it isn’t discriminatory to exclude Armenians from consideration. It’s logically true but has nothing to do with reality. The REALITY is that there is no such evidence and so there is no reason to treat same-sex couples differently than hetero couples. They have the same RIGHT to be considered for adoption and your hypothetical has no more practical application to the debate than if it could be hypothetically proven that parents with red hair turn into werewolves when there’s a full moon.
Your point can be simplified as follows:
Person A: Gay people should have the same rights as hetero people.
You: Nuh UH…not if gay people are * brain eating zombies*.
Logically, it’s true, but practically, it’s meaningless.
Then we need to immediately eliminate the laws that make it legal for a single person to adopt, in every state in the U.S., and in every western country that I can find the laws for.
No one individual should automatically have the right to adopt, as that should depend on the fitness of the individual (and their partner, if they have one). But, without evidence showing that not having two differently gendered parents is detrimental to the child, AND unless you eliminate the ability for single people to adopt, then barring homosexuals from adopting is discriminatory. Since that is a logical AND above, and since we currently allow singles to adopt, it’s currently discriminatory in those places where gay couples can not adopt. Do you have any reason to believe that two female parents are somehow worse than a single female parent? If you do, then my logical statement would be invalid, so I’ll happily listen to your argument on that, if you have one.
The OP stated “I believe X is harmful for children”, and then went on to say that they believed that that is why countries such as New Zealand is attempting ot bar gay couples from adopting. When I showed that New Zealand didn’t have any problems with single people adopting, the OP recanted.
Appearances can be deceiving. I’m not even gay, although I don’t think that’s germaine to this conversation, so let’s toss your “me, me, me” out the window. It’s not a slogan if I can show that discrimination occurs, and that it is not occuring for the sake of the children. I did that.
Because without evidence, it’s discrimination. If I think that blacks are worse parents than whites, without having actual proof, and think that they therefore shouldn’t be allowed to adopt, I’m discriminating. Without any evidence to back you up, how is your stance any different, and even if it was different, how do you reconcile it with the ability of single people to adopt everywhere?
Folks, simmer down. As far as I can tell, clairobscur is not asserting that gays are worse parents than straights. What he’s doing is saying that if it were to be proven that gay couples’ being gay made them suboptimal adoptive parents, then it would be acceptable to deny gay couples adoption.
I know but it’s a pointless point. If were to be proven that Luherans suck the souls out of infants then it would be acceptable to deny adoption to Lutheran couples. That’s not something that’s going to be proven. Why raise hypotheticals that have no application to reality?
I don’t need to reconcile anything, since I’ve no issue with gay people adopting children.
I was irritated by the “they must have equal rights” which is irrelevant to a question about adoption, as it implied that these equal rights would somehow supercede the interests of the kid hence that the question about whether it could be harmful to them didn’t need to be adressed. You didn’ t answer “it’s not harmful to children because blahblahblah” or even “cite?” but just “equal rights hence right to adopt hence you’re a homophobe”.
I admit I might have overeacted on this issue, but it’s not in the same league as “soul-drinking lutheran” because the argument stating that children should have two parents of different gender as role model is an extremely widespread one, and was even more so when Freudian views were generally accepted by the educated population at large (and these theories still have a significant level of acceptance).
Of course, there are already homosexual couples with children, and single parents, etc… But in the case of adoption, since there’s a “shortage” of adoptable children (“adoptable” being children people are willing to adopt, i.e. very young, with no health issues, and sometimes of european descent) you can be as picky as you want so you’ll logically pick “ideal parents” for the child, despite not all other kids being in this ideal situation, and in this case, if you favor the “role model” theory, you won’t be willing to let an homosexual couple adopt. For instance, in France (I don’t know the situation in other countries), though it’s legal for a single parent to adopt, it’s AFAIK essentially impossible in practice if the adoptee isn’t either a relative you’ve been granted custody of or an adult himself (adoption laws also cover the case of adopted adults, though its generally not the first thing people think about).
I didn’t call anyone a homophope. I did say that a stance was anti-homosexual. If a government allows a single female to adopt a child, not allowing a married lesbian couple to adopt is discrimination. The only way it could be considered anything else is if one felt that having a single female parent was more beneficial to a child than having two female parents. That’s true even when your entire goal is the best interest of the child.
If you wish to take the stance that the single parent above is more beneficial than the two same sex parents, then make that argument. Otherwise, you’re making no sense. Rights are relative, and can change. Changing them to the disadvantage of a particular group, without justification, is discrimination. Today, none of us have the “right” to enter a restaurant. If tomorrow, Congress passed a law giving that right, but only to white people, it would be discrimination.
Then argue that we should outlaw allowing single parents to adopt and take a stand. I’ll still ask you for a cite to show that two parents of the same gender are not as good for the child, but at least it will make sense. As long as singles are allowed to adopt, not allowing couples, of any gender mix, to adopt, is discrimination.
Well, if you can provide evidence that a male/female set of parents is better for the child than a male/male or female/female set, then I’m fine with hetero couples getting first dibs at the “little healthy white babies”, and then letting gay couples and singles pick up the “leftovers.” You haven’t shown that to be the case, nor has anyone else in this thread. Until you show that, I think the priority should be couples of any gender mix first, followed by single parents, and if the single parent had a good enough support network to help them spend more time with the child, I’d even consider bumping them up to the same level.
Ironically, I don’t care about homosexuals adopting, but oppose Gay Marriage (duh, dih, daaaaaaah!) Of course, this gets very complicated because I also disagree with how society deals with marriage today anyway. And that ties into law versus religion and so forth. Marriage in this country is so degraded that it hardly means anything more than a tax break.
So, basically, I despise a vast portion of life and consider it a huge endorsement of systematic evil. Suffice it to say that I think the government has no authority over marriage, certainly not the power to dissolve it, regardless of what priveleges it claims it has. As far as I am concerned, there is no marriage outside the Church.
Now, in practical terms, I oppose Gays & Lesbians having sexual encounters with each other. (That didn’t come out right; you know what I mean). Beyond that, I don’t really care and it’s wholly unimportant what desires they feel. Of course, the church has plenty of openings should anyone be interested.
Finally, hatred is hatred. It has no place in the human spirit and only leads to evil. Homosexuality, as much as I disagree with it, is a relatively minor sin in the grand scheme of things. Murder, mayhem, and violence is not.