What's Best For The Kids

Allowing more people to marry, and raise their kids within a marriage, will ruin marriage. Right.

The key to understanding this mindset, I'm convinced, is the "scarcity model" of marriage, freedom, and human worth in general. In the scarcity model, it's a zero-sum game: for someone to gain value, someone else must lose value. In particular, the validity and worth of a traditional family depends on keeping other kinds of families from having validity and worth.

The key fear driving conservatives here stems from a core assumption that many conservatives hold: "If everybody is somebody, then nobody is anybody."

This quip began as a snappy comeback to Jesse Jackson leading chants of "I am somebody" among his constituents. Quite a lot of conservatism is based, either overtly or unconsciously, on the feudal-system assumption that your validity depends on a lesser class of people not having validity.

Seen from this angle, the worth of your marriage *really does* depend on "undesirable" classes of people being denied marriage. And letting them marry *really will* invalidate the meaning of your own marriage!

Unless, that is, you adopt another, better, post-feudal idea, one that modern conservatives ought to know: "My freedom is not diminished by your freedom."

Oh yeh, another thing. She has a genuine point that "adult centric freedoms" can clash with kids' safety. If conservatives cared about that, they would bans guns in the home.

A gun in the home is many times more likely to end up killing or wounding a family member or innocent outsider than it is to end up defending the home against a threat. Gun owners would have to give up their "adult centric" freedom to have their toys, but kids would certainly benefit.

Of course conservatives aren't in this to ban guns, they're in this to ban gays. Even if it means keeping children of gays from growing up with married caregivers.

Why do they harp on this fatherlessness issue? They make the assumptions that a.) kids don't have relationships with their biological fathers and/or b.) that only lesbians have kids...who knew that we (gay men and lesbians) have grown so powerful so as to actually "threaten" heterosexual marriages. I really can't understand how they (the conservatives, Catholic Church, Family Institute) spend so much time and money on fighting "the gays" when we have pedophiles like "father" Foley still at-large, or men who terrorize their wife and children, who, to me seems like a true threat to families and kids.

The empiracle evidence shows how dangerous homosexual activity is, and how devastating the effects will be on the traditional family if they're 'priviledged' are allowed to continute. Look up the 'Family Research Institute' run by Dr. Paul Cameron, and also the book 'The Politics of Truth' by Jeffrey Satinover, M.D., explaining the infusion of the 'gay' agenda into mainstream 'science'. The 'Quest for God' (1996) by historian Paul Johnson admits that once they allowed the decrimination of homosexuality, they thus faced a rampant beast that would soon overtake the underpinnings of their very society on the pretext of 'equal rights'.

I think that we should outlaw gays with guns. Then our families will be truly safe.

I respect your right to object to homosexuality on religious grounds,and, unlike Chicklet, I don't think your views make you a bigot. However, I don't see how allowing civil unions will increase the divorce rate among heterosexual couples. As for your concerns about children being influenced to accept homosexuality, I think that the violence, drug use, and promiscuity promoted by pop culture is much more of a threat to my children's values than a gay couple quietly raising the kids nextdoor. Besides, religious values are often in conflict with worldly ones. For example, some religions prohibit the consumption of alcohol, yet the sale of alcohol is legal in the U.S. and those religions continue to thrive here.
The reality is that gay people (single and partnered) do have children either through adoption or artificial insemination. The law should protect those children against deadbeat parents no matter what their sexual orientation may be. Generally speaking, laws that encourage human beings to take responsibility for each other are a good thing.

What about lesbian couples who involve the father? Because there are plenty of those.

Farfel, I get it... you're one of the quintessential "American Red Necks" we hear about on the other side of the world, aren't you?

Bet you're really handy on the banjo.

Are you nuts? If children suffer without a father, then, according to your argument, children of gay men will have unfair advantage. What a silly person you are.
I am sorry that you have abandonment issues centered around the passage of CT divorce legislation, but take that up with a shrink, not the state. Many women suffered in abusive relationships before divorce laws were modernized. Obviously you only care for your own condition, but try to think of someone else's sometime. It's a good way to grow as a human being.
My father lost his mother in childbirth and was reared in an institution. According to your logic he would have turned out to be a serial killer. Instead he grew to be a man of great compassion and worth. There was no more loving and protective and family positive man than he. In turn my brother has fathered and raised two brilliant well loved children. I'm sorry, but your arguments simply hold no validity. You simply grasp at straws as you spread lies and hatred for cash.
You and your husband are PAID to speak out against gays and lesbians. Show your silly article to your bosses and then crawl back into your mouse hole. As an American you ought to be ashamed of yourself.

Some children suffer because of a father. Some fathers are violent and abusive.

My own father was a kind and gentle man. He raised me to be kind and gentle. Sadly, some men are beating their women and children, and the US and UK give even rapists the right to see the children born as a result of rape, and threatening protective mothers with jail. This is happening every single day in the secret Family Courts in the UK and US. I know this, because the man who raped me has been taking me to court for 6 years for contact rights. The man is an obsessed psychotic stalker, and yet the law is on his side. But I am getting to the point that I feel glad that this has happened to me, as I have met hundreds of other women in similar circumstances. I would never have known what was going on if it had not happened to me. And my son is lovely - happily, much more like his grandfather physically and intellectually than his rapist father.

Sweeping judgements are so dangerous, and can have a catastrophic effect on society.

There are a few things wrong with the point of view presented in this article.

First... The argument centered around the study about which children do best is based on a study that was centered around SINGLE MOTHERS. Applying it to a gay couple is like taking a study on ants and applying it to chimpanzies. There are studies that the author doesn't go into that show that children of committed gay couples do just fine and are perfectly well adjusted.

The second thing that is glaringly wrong with the article is that if marriage is strictly about rearing children, then childless couples including elderly should be denied access to marriage and/or have their marriage annulled/revoked. With the growing trends in infertililty problems... yeah... I can see that happening. But based on the arguments presented, there would be no reason for marriage between childless couples.

Only the sexual relationships of men and women together produce children. Therefore, only the sexual relationships of men and women together require governmental regulation because of (1) THEIR CAPACITY TOGETHER TO CREATE SOCIAL DISORDER, and (2) that reproduction is a fact and does have important and inevitable consequences on society both good and bad if it is not regulated. Thus, it inevitably must implicate the political and public aspect insofar as the production of future citizens is not only vital to the survival of a nation, but that the REGULATION OF THIS PRODUCTION OF FUTURE CITIZENS IS JUST AS VITAL.

How we ever came to such a state, were something as profound and obvious as the begetting of children is divorced from all reality and routinely denied…is not just Orwellian, it’s Carol -wellian.

"Constitutionally protected fundamental rights need not be defined so broadly that they will inevitably be exercised by everyone. For example, although the ability to make personal decisions regarding child rearing and education has been recognized as a fundamental right (see, e.g., Pierce v. Society of the Sisters (1925) 268 U.S. 510, 534- 535), this right is irrelevant to people who do not have children. Yet, everyone who has children enjoys this fundamental right to control their upbringing. A similar analogy applies in the case of marriage. Everyone has a fundamental right to “marriage,” but, because of how this institution has been defined, this means only that everyone has a fundamental right to enter a public union with an opposite-sex partner. That such a right is irrelevant to a lesbian or gay person does not mean the definition of the fundamental right can be expanded by the judicial branch beyond its traditional moorings."

In re Marriage Cases, Cal. App. 2006, McGuiness, P. J.(writing for the majority.)

heyy

Nimrod wrote:

Tammy, you are "glaringly wrong" on both counts. Go to www. ctfamily.org and link to the video transcript of the Public Hearing of March 26th, and listen to the testimonies (and answers to questions) given by Maggie Gallagher and Dawn Stephanowicz, in which you will find both of your criticisms addressed and refuted.

Briefly, the few "studies" done of children raised by gay couples are neither long enough nor scientifically valid, because the low numbers (of gay families) studied were self-selected, rather than being an adequate sampling, done under controlled conditions.

As far as your second argument (I'm sure taken from the tired old gay agenda list of 'talking points'), Maggie Gallagher totally refuted it, as have many, many other authorities, professionals, or simply logical thinking people.

Correct:

"Fewer than 40 comparative studies on the effects of homosexual parents have been published. Only one [31] was based on a random sample, and another [32] followed the children for 14 years. The rest were based on small samples of volunteers, and those usually with children under the age of 10. These studies seldom addressed traditional concerns — for instance, molestation, or recruitment by parents or their lovers. Nor did they tend to consider the effects on teenagers. Instead they were ‘snapshots’ of a particular moment in the lives of these children.

Yet the empirical evidence supports what common sense would expect." - See link above, FRI.

She forgot to mention that the sky would fall as well. Just making sure the message is complete.

No falling Sky - Just the further undermining of a fundamental social institution.

Not the re-affirmation of love.. Rather the joining and providing of children with their own Mother & Father within a married relationship.

(the only state interest worth governmental recognition)

My first thought was that why should I go to a propoganda website that preaches morals and values that I deem illogical not to mention wrong? Like telling gandhi to go to a KKK website to hear "true facts".

However, went and listened to the video. LOVED the state comptroller as well as guy from the Hartford mayor's office AnD the state senator's comments. THOSE are smart, logical and beautiful comments from logical, thoughtful and equality based individuals.

"Fundamental social institution" -- at one point slavery was considered by many to be a fundamental social institution.

What exactly does 2 gay men marrying have to do with NOT allowing a mother & father to marry and raise their children? I have yet to understand this argument. I hear it a lot but no one has made a clear reasoning why the 2 gay men down the street suddenly means that I wouldn't be allowed to marry a man and raise a child with said man.

Articles like this stress the obvious and scientifically grounded reality of family life and biology. Fifty years of social science has told as quite a bit. While some make much of the limited (and often controversial & flawed) science on “gay” parenting… the science we do know is accurate paints a better picture.

(summarizing the consensus)
"“Children from step families don't look a whole lot better than those from single-mother households. Those kids are not as likely to be poor, but they have more problems in school, with drugs, with early sexual activity, with going to an elite college, etc. Those kids have suffered through a divorce, but then how do we explain the inconve¬nient fact that children living with cohabiting par¬ents also enjoy few of the benefits of intact parents?”"
by Kay S. Hymowitz

Now anyone would presume that children from gay couples would look more like either the divorced family or the co-habitating family. To say anything less usually involves (a) denying biological attachments and kin altruism (b) playing semantics with the word “parent” and also piggy-backing on the social science on the benefits of “marriage”{conflating it with same-sex “marriage”}(c) Denying the importance of a biological Mother or Father with whom a young boy or girl ultimately has a unique and irreplaceable relationship within their development.

But of coarse the argument doesn’t rest with how the “children” of gay couples fair. Even crude rule utilitarianism says that we should have the rule that dose the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Marriage quo “marriage” sets the standard that children should be born into families with their own Mother & Father. There are any numbers of exceptions to this: from ones we can’t prevent (death of parent, adoption) to ones we can work to diminish (illegitimacy, divorce, cohabitation)

Same-sex “marriage” sets the standard that there is no real standard. No one suggests that any individual child’s head will explode or that he’s more likely to contract chicken pocks, simply by being raised by two lesbians. Yet articles like this assume that very straw man. Much like the imposition of a “the shy is falling” presupposition onto defenders of marriage, with calls for us to demonstrate “destruction” of family forms.

Well, it took 40 years of social science to re-affirm common sense and traditional understandings when it came to illegitimacy, divorce, biological connectedness and the importance of fathers. No doubt many would like us to spend another 40 years examining gay families in isolation as we continue to run the experiment known as same-sex “marriage”.