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Originally Posted by Infinite_Loser
What do I find wrong with gay marriage? Plain and simply put, in my opinion, it undermines the core values of marriage (Not to say that marriage in most "Western" countries hasn't been undermined already, but gay marriage would further that process along).
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Really? What core value related to marriage can my
wife and I not exhibit as a consequence of our being the same sex? I can't think of any.
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Whether one wants to acknowledge it or not, the issue of children is still a driving force for marriage. I'm not sure of other countries, but I'm perfectly aware that nearly 1/3 of births which occur in the United States each year occur outside of wedlock and I'm also aware of the fact that there are adoptions for single parents. However, it is well documented that children in families which have both a mother and a father generally fair better than those which are lacking one of two (Lower suicide rates, higher test scores, females are less apt to become pregnant younger, etc.)-- As far as child development goes, there is no substitution for a mother or a father.
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Slick. You start with a comparison of two parent families to single parent families and contort that into an argument against homosexual marriage. A comparison between children being raised by two opposite sex parents to those raised by a single parent of either sex says nothing about the fitness of homosexual couples to raise children and the outcome of such situations.
You would have to study homosexual couples raising children to determine what kinds of outcomes could be expected, and such study has in fact been done. All of the evidence indicates that children of homosexuals turn out about the same as heterosexuals, and that being raised by a homosexual couple does not harm children in any way. Outcomes are about the same for both groups on average. The major medical associations dealing with the care of children have policy statments favoring homosexuals being given equal treatment in parenting.
Here a summary of the research, based primarily on the study of children raised by lesbian couples.
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Of course in our modern day culture, many infertile couples choose to adopt a child, which leads me back to my first point about a child needing both a father and mother in a family situation.
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You didn't prove that a child needs a mother and a father. The actual evidence says that a homosexual couple is the equal of a heterosexual couple in rearing children.
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Contraception, in my opinion, is a bit trickier of a subject. I'm not going to go as far as some people in claiming that contraception ruins marriages (I don't really see how contraception leads to higher divorce rates), but I will say that it undermines one of the central premises of marriage; To rear children in a stable environment.
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Don't the children of homosexuals deserve that same protection? Suppose my
wife were to have a child through artificial insemination. Wouldn't that child benefit from the stability that marriage and a legal relationship with me as a parent would provide? We can do the latter--I can adopt as a co-parent, but if the stability of marriage and family is a benefit to children, aren't you harming children being raised by homosexual couples by denying them that stability?
Also, how would allowing legal gay marriage prevent heterosexuals from raising their children together, or lessen any of the benefits of that? I don't see any connection between one and the other.
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Not to be rude, but I prefer the term partner.
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If you don't mean to be rude, please use the correct term,
wife. I'll accept spouse also, as it means the same thing in a gender neutral way. Would you tell the men here who are married that you prefer to call their wives "partners"?
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I can't speak for everyone who's been married or thinking about being married, but generally love is the driving force for marriage as opposed to the legal benefits of marriage, but that's just what I think.
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I can speak for myself and for my reasons for being married, and for my
wife's reasons for being married, and I did:
"If we did not value the love, commitment, and spiritual aspects of marriage, we would not be married.
We also value the several dozen legal rights that come with civil marriage. We also value the social aspects of a state-recognized marriage. It isn't a matter of picking one, all of them matter. Everything on lurkette's list is something that is valuable to us as a married couple."