I think the best we can come to at this point is simply to recognize our different presuppositions and how they shape our conclusions.
First, I assume that men and women are very different and that these differences are genetic, not societal.
Second, I assume that fathers bring something to a child that a mother cannot. Likewise, a mother to her children. These influences are unique to the sexes and are so vitally important for a child’s upbringing.
Third, I believe that women especially have a hardwired attachment to the children they carry and give birth to. To squash this is to do serious harm to a woman’s emotional wellbeing.
Fourth, I believe that there is a capacity for procreation in different-sex couples that does not exist in a same-sex couple.
I believe that our disagreements about the same-sex marriage debate centers around these four assumptions which I make, and you do not.
So…hot about the marriage thing, but totally cool with the judgement part? What brand of Christianity condones putting the sins of others ahead of focusing on your own sins?
If you can’t grasp the basics of your own faith, why would anyone care about your interpretation of who ought to get married?
I thought you said, in all caps, that they TEND that way – so some women have the stereotypically masculine traits, and some men stereotypically feminine ones.
In some different-sex couples. Again, some different-sex couples are only allowed to marry if they can show that they lack the capacity for procreation.
As you say, incidentally implied. Not the main purpose.
So what?
Actually, for the sake of the argument I’ll differ from andros on this one and say that the norm, as in the vast-majority case, will still be as a matter of fact, upbringing by a hetero parental couple.
What’s “a problem” with, in the face of a minority of children not being raised from infancy to adulthood by the same hetero couple that first brought then mome, removing the burden of stigma from it and giving their families full equal rights?
Oh, of course, but you mean it will “no longer be normal” in the sense that it will no longer be seen as that it’s “wrong” to do it some other way? Again, sorry, that ship sailed decades ago!
And I notice you mentioned “heroic” foster and single parents that are “exceptions” :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes: …and danced your way around addressing hetero couple *adoptive *parents – who BTW in the eyes of the Law ARE the “actual” parents. You also ignore blended families from second marriages. A loving, caring stepfamily is a superior childrearing environment to one in which one of the parents is a hostage and the other is feeling shackled to a spouse and child.
Men making an anonymous donation to a commercial sperm bank for money? No, they don’t feel any attachment to any children produced, they are probably completely unaware of their existence.
Men who are friends who make a donation? That varies from pretty much the same attitude at the sperm bank donor to being a full part of the kid’s life. It’s up to the adults involved.
I’m sorry - are you unaware that there are women do not want the product of conception? For example - women are are pregnant due to rape, who never intended to be pregnant, who are forced to bear the child anyhow (for whatever reason), and who do not want a constant reminder of their rapist around them for the rest of their lives.
There are women who, awful as it is, so much do not want their children they kill them. Or abandon them to die.
I realize that to some people the fantasy that every birth is an occasion of joy and every women a naturally good mother is all warm and fuzzy but that’s not reality.
Please provide some examples of things that one gender brings to a child that the other gender cannot.
This is new. How, exactly, does allowing same-sex marriages (and calling them “marriages”) in any way “squash women’s hardwired attachment to the children they carry and give birth to.” Clearly, I missed this part of your presentation.
I believe that a man/woman’s ability to create and birth a child can make them parents.
I also believe that a man’s a man/woman’s capacity to create and birth a child does not make them good parents.
I bring this up because you seem to disagree with the second point.
You’ll find that there are a lot of people who would rather have beliefs that agree with evidence, as opposed to clinging to their beliefs in spite of evidence. Since you seem to be one of the second group, I can’t imagine why you’re wasting your time preaching at members of the first. To be clear, the fact that you’ve assumed something (for no good reason that you can articulate) does not qualify as useful evidence for anyone else.
The “vast majority of human history” required fertility tests before allowing people to marry? What about all those cultures that allowed multiple wives for men? Or the few that allowed multiple husbands for women? or that didn’t have any formal ceremony at all? Or condoned a man kidnapping and raping a woman and then declaring her married to her rapist?
And I think you meant “monotheistic” religions - there are a crapload of “theistic” religions, in fact, pretty nearly all of them are “theistic”, sometimes even more so than Christianity what with having multiple gods and such.
Just the usual Abrahamic arrogance, thinking they’re all of humanity, history, and culture and just forget about those several billion other people, they don’t count.
Clearly your parents are lesser human beings. I mean if I met your parents I’d treat them with respect, like I wouldn’t spit on them or anything, I’d even invite them to BBQ’s. I have no contempt for you either, I just pity you because you were denied your basic human rights by being raised by them.
We’ll have to agree to disagree on the quality of your upbringing. It’s self evident to me it was terrible.
Setting aside the old chestnut about what “assume” does, if it is only your assumption with no actual supporting data, we my dismiss it as frivolous.
again with assuming. And, again, with no actual data to support your belief. I think you should spend some time looking at different societies and periods in history. If you had ever done that, you would realize that the manner in which fathers and mothers have raised their children have differed widely across the miles and ages. Assuming that traits that you impose on parents, based on your own North American, late 20th century upbringing, are actually genetic traits that have always occurred in all times and places is simply wrong.
Given the number of women I have known with no desire to be a mother, including women in the 1950s who were actually raising children, (though not well), I can pretty well declare this little more than a romantic dream.
I am not sure why a couple of people have argued against this in this thread. It is not so much inaccurate as pointless and meaningless. I will grant you that a same sex couple may not (at this time) produce children on each other by engaging in sex. I will further note that that has nothing to do with anything–aside from your insistence that Jesus of Nazareth was raised in a suboptimal and probably dysfunctional family. Telling adoptive parents that they are, in some fashion, a problem, is a silly, if mean-spirited, assertion.
You have repeatedly harped on the pro-creation aspect of marriage, yet there has been no Western society in my memory that has ever imposed a pro-creative test on a couple seeking matrimony. If your claims were valid, widows beyond menopause should have been routinely denied the opportunity to marry and no couple should have been permitted to marry until the woman had achieved at least one pregnancy, yet the religious teachings tend to go in the opposite direction, insisting on virginity prior to marriage, so that there could be no way to know whether the couple could procreate.
This is a debate forum. Stating that you have odd assumptions is all very well, but refusing to provide a reason, suppoerted by data, for any of those assumptuions means that there can be no debate, (because you refuse to participate), and we can simply close this thread.
As to your original question, this board has numerous threads pointing out the reasons behind the desire for marriage among same sex couples: the ability to provide medical instructions that are limited to “family” members, the public declaration of a life-long loving commitment that is recognized by all of society, establishing inheritance without having to have a lawyer draw up a specific contract, etc.
I’m not IMPLYING that, I’m STATING that - yes, I think it is perfectly acceptable for a child to be raised by two people of the same sex who are in a committed relationship. I have zero problem with that. My religion has zero problem with that.
Given how f’ed up some biological parents are, IMO there are far worse things than being raised by someone other than your biological gamete donors.
Maybe one of you could be tough, and the other one rough? Don’t give up. I’m sure there’s a way to provide some sort of “rough” supplements…for the sake of the children you will never have, I think you owe it to yourself to try.
At least you have the comfort of knowing. For all I know, my spirit is smooth and creamy. More likely, parched and corroded. Crap, I’m not even sure that I have one.