Moderators: We seem to have roamed far afield from the Glen T. Stanton column. To GD with the lot of us?
Hugs,
Ace
Ace0Spades, I’d like to take my turn at this statement:
There are also some heterosexual men who are misogynist to the point where they believe that women should be obedient to men at all times, that we are inherently less smart, less capable, and should not hold jobs or have authority in any way shape or form. I even recall one hotly contested thread on this board a while back that claimed that giving women the right to vote ruined America. If I apply your rationale as quoted to this attitude, should men be allowed to raise daughters? If so, mine is in for a rude shock, and on Father’s Day, no less! Yesterday, a man was convicted of starving his infant son to death because of the dictates of his particular sect’s take on Christianity. Does this mean Christians should not be allowed to raise children?
Sorry, I don’t buy your argument that the beliefs of one small subset of a class of people make all members of that subset unfit to do something. I know I’m going to be a tough sell, but please give me a reason why all, or even most homosexuals are inherently unfit to raise children, regardless of other aspects of their characters.
CJ
Heyas 
first post, despite months and months of lurking…
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eh, no i dont think this should be moved to GD as suggested two posts up. not until they flame retard GD or the discourse in here becomes a little more civil…
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and here is my real point
Screw the Canadian findings, here in Sweden the government has been conducting an independant study for the past few years on lgb-families and concluded that there is no difference overall in whether children are brought up in homes with two parents of same or different sexes.
Using the findings of the committee the swedish government voted last week to allow gay couples apply as adoptive parents on the same grounds as straights, and also to be able to get parental leave etc, and to be able to be the legal step-partents of their partners biological children.
wheeee eek, shit, now i have no excuses left panic
Yep, that’s what I’m here for!
…rats.
rofls gladly
Uh… how is it I can see two posts from you, but your post count is at 1?
discrimination no doubt
walks off feeling hard done by
Public Service Announcement:
Ace, you might have missed this, so in case you weren’t aware:
Being in the pit doesn’t mean you get carte blanche to be an asshole.
Thank you, and have a nice day.
Iampunha, :rolleyes: Being your usual pertinent and charming self, I see. Can I have your carte blanche now?
Iteki, Welcome to the SDMB – I’m touched by the delurking on our account. I searched for that Swedish study – all I found were references to it. Cite?
Strawman. Nobody advanced that rather absurd argument. The separtists were illustrative of the possible, and unstudied ramifications of Gay Adoption, and became a rather unintended demonstration of the sticky slope of the debate, as that point devolved into whether they exist or not.
The rest of your argument hinged on the specious “supersets inherit properties of subsets” strawman. Also, you didn’t read the previous thread, where you’d discover we discussed that exact starvation case and also birthing rights vs. adoption rights.
BTW, you’re use of ‘allowing’ normal parents to have children is disturbing. Would you suggest the government stop natural childbirth via abortion and forced adoption, a la China?
So, I promised I’d do some reading today. I checked out “Too High A Price, The Case against restricting Gay Parenting.” It’s a nice summary of the this thread, including the use of the double negative. They couldn’t have said “allowing gay parenting?”
Anyways, it’s produced by the ACLU Lesbian & Gay Rights Project. Here are a couple of things that they have to say:
emphasis mine,
Professor Stacey from the ASA piece earlier is interviewed for the report:
If you believe the ACLU and the ASA, there is no scientific basis as of yet, to “know” whether gay adoption is beneficial or not.
90% of crime, sexual perversity and overall societal badness comes from heterosexuals. I think none of them should be allowed to adopt children - it’s bad enough they make them and raise them on their own!
Esprix
Ace0Spades:
Actually, I was the second poster in that thread. As for the strawman, it’s pretty obvious that we’re not completely understanding each other, but I thought you’d raised that with your question “you allow this sort of bigotry to be raised?” I was speaking strictly of environmental factors.
My exact phrase was “allowed to raise”, echoing your use as quoted above. I got the impression that who is allowed to raise children is exactly what we’re debating. I find your position to be disturbing in that it can read as it’s better for a child to be adopted by an abusive heterosexual couple than a loving homosexual couple. Is that a distortion? Probably just as much as your statement was a distortion of mine. No, I don’t favor forced abortions or sterilization, and the fact that girls are much more likely to be aborted in China is one of the reasons I deplore sexism.
As I have said before repeatedly in this thread, what I object to is saying an entire class of people is unfit to do something based on one characteristic. You seem to be saying the opposite when you say you say homosexual couples should not be allowed to adopt children. If you do not mean all homosexuals, please clarify your position. Also, please note that I do not mean “any” couple, homosexual or otherwise. I am very much in favour of children being raised by two parents, and I’ll even agree with the argument that, as a rule, it’s easiest for a child to be raised by a loving, married, heterosexual couple. That said, given a choice between having a child raised by a loving, married, heterosexual, but abusive family (those 4 characteristics do happen), and a loving, committed, non-abusive homosexual couple, my choice is the latter every time.
All I ask is that people be judged on their individual merits. Yes, some people will choose to raise a child for frivolous reasons, and others will choose to do so for the best of reasons and with the best of intentions, but do a lousy job of it, despite those intentions. I do not believe such people are not confined to any one subgroup of humanity.
CJ
Hell, yeah… or the school nurse, or dozens of other sources. Pre-teen girls do this all the friggin’ time. I know I’m not alone in this: I grew up with a mom in the house, and I think she would have rather spontaneously combusted than talk to me about my periods :eek:
Looking around for english translations of the documents.
They might not be ready yet, the bill was passed about two weeks ago, and the committee leading the investigation has been working for more than two years full time, so there is quite a lot of paperwork. The documents are too long for me to translate unless somone is paying 
Betänkande från Kommittén om barn i homosexuella familjer, SOU 2001:10
Del 1: http://www.justitie.regeringen.se/propositionermm/sou/pdf/sou2001_10a.pdf
Del 2: http://www.justitie.regeringen.se/propositionermm/sou/pdf/sou2001_10b.pdf
Del 3: http://www.justitie.regeringen.se/propositionermm/sou/pdf/sou2001_10c.pdf
Del 4: http://www.justitie.regeringen.se/propositionermm/sou/pdf/sou2001_10d.pdf
I will drop a line when/if I find reliable english translations.
Yes there is: giving kids permanent, stable homes is universally acknowledged to be fabulous. Unless you can come up with some very good studies saying why gay men and lesbians, as a class, should not enjoy the right to create such a home, I think that reason trumps a lack of evidence.
Iteki (does that mean actually in Swedish, or you actually Iteki?)
So this study will be completely new information for us North Americans? Love the SDMB – we’re leading the curve… Till a translation appears – can you give us a sense of how many people, what classes, the summary findings?
The beach calls – next week for the rest of the responses…
Once again, we do not make adoption decisions on what is BEST for children.
We do not take the parents who make 100k a year over the ones that make 30k a year - despite the fact that money brings advantages.
We don’t take parents who have college educations, and not the ones that only went to high school, despite the fact that college educated parents are more likely to be involved in their children’s school, and more likely to have successful students.
We do not take parents who are physically active and fit, and not allow couch potatoes to adopt because the active parents will raise fitter children.
We don’t allow vegetarians with a healthy diet to adopt and not allow people who exist on McDonalds and Pringles to adopt.
In short, we don’t place looking for optimal outcomes. We just don’t want the horror stories (child abuse, parents who end up in prision, people who adopt for reasons other than wanting a child.
(And how, exactly, Ace, am I not a “normal” parent?)
Ooohh… god, what you mean classes there Ace? The divide between rich and poor is hugely different in the states and in Sweden. The poor arent crazily poor, and the rich arent really insanely rich. Everyone can manage more or less… Also everyone is relativly educated… So there are no enormous differences in the classes…
I haven’t read the whole investigation, but I have followed the debates being run through here. The main argument from the “no” side was that it is impossible to determine whether adopted kids would turn out ok in queer families since there are no adopted kids in queer familys to examine (catch 22 there). They also made a big point of the fact that it is therefore unfair to use these children as part of a “social experiment” to determine if they would turn out ok. When people started pointing out that that is exactly what they did when Sweden began partaking in international adoption in the 60’s that argument didn’t really hold. They “experimented” with raising korean etc children in Swedish families. Oops, my korean-adoptee wife just pointed out that they did have that debate at the time, and it sounded exactly like the debate now 
Still, she turned out fine if you ask me, but I am biased.
Uhh… where was I … Sorry that I am so unclear, please bare with me. I should point out that there were two different discussions going in the whole time, one was that of international adoptions (getting chinese babys etc), and the other was that of step-parent-adoptions. The gay community saw the step-parent adoption as the vital fight to win, to protect the children already living with two parents (to ensure them two legal guardians, to allow the parents equal time off work for sick kids etc), but the main focus of the public debate was on international adoptions, so that is what I am mainly referring to.
The “pro” side on the international adoptions debates main arguments were as follows. That Swedish legistature cannot be based on the biases or cultural situations in other countries. In other words, that just because many of the adoptee countries look down on homosexuality, Sweden cannot discriminate on those grounds. In other words, all Swedes should have the same right to apply to the Swedish adoption agencies as prospective adoptive parents. If they dont pass, or there then is no country willing to release a child to that couple fine, but they have to be allowed to be tried in the same manner as straight couples can apply. In brief, that swedish laws could not be based on other countries laws or beliefs. The other main point I have unfortunatly forgotten while I was writing the above point…
The ugliest point of the debate (imho) is where the various adoption agencies in sweden claimed repeatedly in the public debates that their negative feelings about gay adoption were out of “the best interests of the child” their own sites and newsletters explained that the reason they mainly opposed it was because they believed that the countries might stop “supplying” children to Sweden altogether if Sweden were to allow gay parents to apply. In other words, they were working out of the best interests of straight adoptive parents.
Its a hard subject, and one that raises the hairs on the back of pretty much everyones necks… The changes in the laws here (on international adoption that is) wont come into effect for a while, but it will be interesting to see what happens when they do. My suspiscion is that the various agencies in sweden will not attempt to communicate with agencies in the adoptee-countries who might be positive towards adopting to gay couples (they have already stated that they have not attempted to make any such contacts, despite the fact that it has been known for quite a while that the outcome was going to be positive).
Then there is the other question of if we do get kids, what kids will we get? I am going to make a wild guess and say that the first 50 kids brought into Sweden to live in queer families will have some sort of terminal disease or physical disability. This has been the case in fostering around most of the western world, queers have been allowed to take care of the kids that noone else wants, presumably on the theory that “well, they cant fuck him up any worse than he already is”. I wonder what provisions the swedish government has made for that…
sorry about the ramble/rant, but hey this is the pit eh ?
as for the name, i was signed up here a million years ago with iteki, but i forgot the pass and dont know what email it was with. The only appendage to Iteki I could come up with was (actually)…
sigh
Ace, it was an exaggeration for comic effect. You’ll see I quoted the nearly-as-bad original above, where I cut-and-paste your distortions from the original thread.
Why do I have to explain my exaggerations, but you can invent whatever “fact” you feel like (I’m still waiting for an explanation to that 96% rejection rate thing and closeted heterosexuals).
Face it Ace. The post I quoted is a rhetorical attempt to shut me up because you really don’t have answers to my questions, the same questions I’ve been asking since the GD thread. Gay parents rejecting straights, heterosexuals in the closet – none of this makes any sense, and there’s certainly no evidence for it. You’ve been asked to provide substance to your arguments, and you’ve responded by pleading persecution.
Stop stalling.