Posted on 05/04/2004 4:18:13 AM PDT by scripter
Of all the arguments against same-sex marriage, the most immediately compelling is that it hurts children. If children have a right to anything, it is to begin life with a mother and father. Death, divorce, abandonment, a single-parent's mistakes – any one of these deprives children of a mother or father. But only same-sex marriage would legally ensure children are deprived from birth of either a mother or a father.
Why, then, doesn't a child's right to begin life with a mother and father have any impact on the millions of people who either advocate same-sex marriage or can't make up their minds on the issue?
Among gay activists, the reason is narcissism. Though gays already have the right to raise children without an opposite-sex parent, and the right to adopt children, gay activists want society to enshrine one-sex parenting with its highest seal of approval – marriage. For gay activists, the fact that a child does best with a good mother and good father is of no significance (or worse, denied). All that matters is what is good for gays.
And what about the heterosexuals who support same-sex marriage? They ignore the issue of its effects on children because they either do not want to confront the issue or because they are so intimidated by the liberation trinity – "equality," "rights" and "tolerance" – that even children's welfare becomes a non-issue.
Advocates of same-sex marriage have, therefore, many good reasons not to talk about issue of children. Even the most passionate advocate does not argue that it is better for a child to have two mothers and no father or two fathers and no mother.
But, the same-sex marriage advocates will respond, while children may not be better off, they will be just as well off, with two fathers and no mother or two mothers and no father.
This claim, however, is dishonest. So dishonest that it leads to a certain cognitive dissonance among many of those who make it. On the one hand, they don't really believe mothers (or fathers) are useless, and they do not wish to lie. On the other hand, they know they have to say a mother and father are no better for children than two same-sex parents or they will lose the public's support for same-sex marriage.
Were they to admit the obvious truth – that same-sex marriage means society will legally and deliberately deprive increasing numbers of children of either a mother or a father – few Americans would support the legal redefinition of marriage and family.
So, same-sex marriage advocates now argue that children do not do better with a mother and a father.
To buttress this absurdity, they repeatedly ask, "Where are the studies" that prove children do better with a father and a mother? Not only are there no such studies, they claim, but in fact, "studies show" that children raised with parents of the same sex do just as well as children raised by a father and a mother.
But this claim, too, is dishonest.
As Professor Don Browning of the University of Chicago recently wrote in the New York Times, "We know next to nothing" about the effects of same-sex parenting on children."
"The body of sociological knowledge about same-sex parenting," he and his co-author wrote, "is scant at best. ... There are no rigorous, large-scale studies on the effect of same-sex marriage on the couples' children."
"Steven Nock, a leading scholar of marriage at the University of Virginia, wrote in March 2001 after a thorough review that every study on this question 'contained at least one fatal flaw' and 'not a single one was conducted according to generally accepted standards of scientific research.'"
So the statement that "studies show" that children don't do better with a mother and father is as factually mendacious as it is morally repugnant. Why then are so many fooled by it? Because "studies show" has become the refuge of those who do not wish to think. I hear this lack of thought regularly from college-educated callers to my radio show who refuse to think an issue through, or to make a moral judgment, without first having seen what "studies show."
But does anyone who thinks, rather than awaits "studies" to affirm their biases, really believe a mother is useless if a child has two fathers, or a father is unnecessary if a child has two mothers? The idea that men and women do not have entirely distinctive contributions to make to the rearing of a child is so absurd that it is frightening that many well-educated – and only the well-educated – people believe it.
There are many powerful arguments against same-sex marriage, and in subsequent columns I will offer them. But if you have to offer only one, know that those who push for same-sex marriage base their case on something factually indefensible – that children do not benefit from having a father and a mother; and on something morally indefensible – ignoring what is best for children.
You have me at a disadvantage here, or perhaps you're confusing me with somebody else, or perhaps I'm just too darn busy to remember, but I'm not that familiar with your posts.
Did you receive an answer to your "gut" question from your liberal acquaintance?
No Problem. The phrase "scripter's database" is forever etched in my memory. I've posted vehemently on retaining the current definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman. However, when it comes to homosexuality itself, I decline to condemn it, morally or any other way, and have waxed vehement on that score. Many more times than once I was invited, by yourself and others, to peruse "scripter's database" so that I might be enlightened as to homosexuality's disease, choice, and proselytization aspects. Rather than undertake that daunting project, I was inclined to demur from those particular debates.
Did you receive an answer to your "gut" question from your liberal acquaintance?
Not really, but I like to think it sunk in somewhat that the intuitive expectation would be that having one parent of each gender is advantageous.
Good point, bump to the top for wide reading.
Here on FReeper, seminar disruptors like to post what I call "onion links" to some statement or other that "proves" or at least "documents" their position. That statement on inspection turns out to be a passage from a position paper or public testimony quoting someone else in passing; and the someone else turns out to have been writing a book about something else in which she quotes two other people opining in a public forum about someone or something more or less germane to the topic, but not in a peer-reviewed medium or in any venue where the speakers' statements would be subject to examination and questioning. In one case, the person quoted as an eyewitness to someone else's professionalism, or lack of it, is dead -- and the statement is criticism which it is important to know more about, whether the speaker was making a truly dispassionate, measured professional evaluation, a political statement, or a professional "hit" in furtherance of a political agenda. In any case, the statement could not be evaluated -- which is the whole idea of an "onion quote".
Our friends scripter and EdReform probably recall and are familiar with the situation in question, in which a seminar poster, madg, put up a link to an "article" on a site operated by Poppy Dixon, a Christian-bashing lesbian ex-fundie, who quoted testimony given in an Australian pornography hearing, in which the person giving testimony quoted in extenso a book by libertarian authoress Avedon Carol, who in turn was quoting sexologists Robert Figlio and the late Loretta Haroian on the early work of Judith Reisman.
Good point, bump to the top for wide reading.
Here on FReeper, seminar disruptors like to post what I call "onion links" to some statement or other that "proves" or at least "documents" their position. That statement on inspection turns out to be a passage from a position paper or public testimony quoting someone else in passing; and the someone else turns out to have been writing a book about something else in which she quotes two other people opining in a public forum about someone or something more or less germane to the topic, but not in a peer-reviewed medium or in any venue where the speakers' statements would be subject to examination and questioning. In one case, the person quoted as an eyewitness to someone else's professionalism, or lack of it, is dead -- and the statement is criticism which it is important to know more about, whether the speaker was making a truly dispassionate, measured professional evaluation, a political statement, or a professional "hit" in furtherance of a political agenda. In any case, the statement could not be evaluated -- which is the whole idea of an "onion quote".
Our friends scripter and EdReform probably recall and are familiar with the situation in question, in which a seminar poster, madg, put up a link to an "article" on a site operated by Poppy Dixon, a Christian-bashing lesbian ex-fundie, who quoted testimony given in an Australian pornography hearing, in which the person giving testimony quoted in extenso a book by libertarian authoress Avedon Carol, who in turn was quoting sexologists Robert Figlio and the late Loretta Haroian on the early work of Judith Reisman.
"Onion links/onion quotes" -- thanks for two powerful concepts. I got the explanation of how phony advocacy "studies" work from Sandra Stotsky, in her painstakingly researched book, Losing Our Language: How Multicultural Classroom Instruction is Undermining Our Children's Ability to Read, Write, and Reason. Perhaps I should call phony advocacy studies "onion scholarship."
To really mess with your mind I'd like to get the phrase in a Chinese cookie you open next week!
It does appear we agree on the issue of keeping the traditional meaning of marriage intact, but the rest of it, indeed, we disagree.
I can imagine reading scripter's database (sorry, couldnt' help it) is a daunting task. Although it may appear that way, it is never my intention to overwhelm someone with information.
Because I saw an overwhelming amount of interesting information on homosexuality, I created the database as a place to collect and refer to better help folks discuss the issues. Similar to why FreeRepublic was created, the database was created to rollback decades of misinformation on homosexuality. It's not meant to be a balanced, it's meant to present the truth. Sure, some articles are biased but many are not and we have the major media outlets to compete against.
I'm glad to see we have at least one thing in common.
No way madg didn't come into that thread to seriously screw with people.
Not only do children do better with a mother and a father, but they do better with mentally healthy parents.
People are born heterosexual. They are born either male or female. Those who find themselves leaning toward a different sexuality (nature never offers homosexuality, it offers asexuslity) or toward a different gender, than they are born with, are mentally ill. The correct answer for them is treatment.
I recognize that there are many mental illnesses. It might become very difficult to determine that people with such mental illnesses may no longer get married. But homosexual mariage isn't about denying people a privelege they currently have, it's about granting people a privelege they have never had before through the centuries of recorded history. Before we make such a radical change, we should be absolutely sure it is the right thing to do.
There is no such assurance with homosexual marriage.
Shalom.
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