Should same-sex marriages by legally recognized?

[Chanak]

@HLD: I heartily agree with you concerning the foster system. Point-blank, it is an atrocious system, and from time to time I've heard the tales of people who were shuffled about from foster home to foster home as a child. Generally speaking, theirs was a troubled life, as most had great difficulty adjusting in social situations. A lucky few spent time with a series of good families...but most were treated like a slab of meat by the state, tossed to and fro as the law dictates.

I don't believe that the nuclear family need reside in the same dwelling...nor do I necessarily believe that either parent-figure needs to be biologically related to the child in question in order to supply him or her with the most important needs. However...I do think a child needs stability, and keeping the same parent-figure throughout their developing years is crucial to emotional and mental security. This needn't be a love interest of the custodial parent...it can be anyone. And I think ethnic background matters little here, as long as the individual in question is a principled person with the interests of the child in mind.

I use the term "parent-figure" loosely here because any adult can be a parent to a child. The first ingredient, I think, is care. The next most important criteria would be an enduring interest in the welfare of the child, coupled with a palpable presence in their life. Someone needs to encourage them to face life's little obstacles, which we all know are imposing mountains to a child. What I do feel is crucial is that one parent-figure needs to be female, and the other needs to be male. I think a number of subtle factors are at play within the mind of a child, and a child needs the balancing factor of both sexes as parents. It's okay to have two fathers, or two mothers...just as long as you have both a "mother" and a "father" somewhere in the mix.

[fable]

Originally posted by HighLordDave
There are lots of children who grow up in single-parent homes and they are generally not any better or worse off than other kids who are raised by both parents (in a nuclear family or two-family situation).

Aren't they? I don' t know. We seem to be discussing personal reactions gained as outsiders, not research.

In most instances, these kids are raised by their mothers and have absentee fathers. The single parent is forced to perform both roles, but for gender-stereotypical roles, children will often look outside of their immediate household and to extended family or community groups for gender-specific role-models.

Again, I mean infancy, when the sex of the nurturer *is* known by the child (or so psychologists claim), and that adult person or persons furnish almost all the contact with the outside world. Emotional impressions made during this period have an enormous impact on children; all research shows this. So I really do wonder whether the absence of one sex or another from the nurturing process can have some kind of emotional impact on that child through life.

This might even explain why men weren't considered nurturers in our culture for so very long--because they worked outside the home, and saw the infant for a very short period of time, while the mother was always around. This kind of polarized role within the household may have had a longterm negative impact on how men saw themselves after growing into childhood and maturity, based on the absence of a father figure in the role of nurturer during infancy.

Again, I'm merely speculating.

[HighLordDave]

Originally posted by fable
I haven't encountered this interpretation before of Roman sexual attitudes strictly as power, so please don't take my questioning as a heated debate; I'm genuinely interested in the source for this. Can you provide any suggested reading material that makes this point in a convincing and well-researched manner?

Check out this link at About.com for some suggested reading.

Modern sexuality offers a two-tiered dichotomy based on sexual preference. A homosexual is characterized by his exclusive sexual preference for same-sex relationships. Similarly, a heterosexual favors exclusive sexual relationships with members of the opposite sex. Ancient sexuality, on the other hand, finds its basis in status. The active partner, i.e. the partner of a higher social status, assumes the role of the penetrator; whereas, the passive partner, i.e. the partner of inferior social status, takes on the penetrated position.

The author of the page says that the above is an oversimplification of Roman sexuality, and certainly not all Roman sex was about power or status (it is fun!), but the roles of penetrator/penetrated were reflective of social standing. Check out the link for some links to other sources.

[Littiz]

I'm sorry, I really don't understand what you mean by that first sentence - could you rephrase it?
Yes science requires belief, but very little, and very reasonable belief

What makes science attractive is that it builds a coherent structure with exactitude. Hovewer, it bases itself on a chain of beliefs, so the whole structure suffers of the same "limit".
Consider also, that exactitude is referred just to the Level of Representation (models), not to reality (example: in geometry you consider perfect circles: their circonference is exactly the radius moltiplied by "greek P". But there are no such circles in nature!)
You admit it, so the problems moves from quality (or nature) to quantity.
So pretending to have opinions somehow of a better quality 'cause they derive from science, is only an opinion (or a belief!).
Then, what does "little" and "reasonable" mean? I tried to explain how "little" can turn to "immense".
I recall a debate that I followed after its conclusion, when I noticed that Sailor Saturn was banned.
She stated that reading the Bible and really understanding it, necessarily leads to the acceptance of God.
Certainly she felt -similarly- that the amount of belief needed was just "little and reasonable"...
There's not a final and definitive difference in the nature of such types of convinctions, that was my meaning.

And this isn't an academic question - unless we've got good reason to prevent homo-adoption, we're denying homosexuals a fundamental right.

Fundamental right? Why should it be defined as such?
Sorry, I'm strongly against such a view.
This is not "life", or "freedom", or "religion": this would be a "right" built upon another person.

I can debate the opportunity of adoptions as an useful tool for society, they can give to families what they lack, and the same to children.
But certainly it's not a matter of "right" of the family.
It's only an option, so I can see it in reverse, and allowing it only when I'm sure it is for the best.

I think I see what you mean - even if it causes no long-term harm, it still causes short term harm, ie. the lack of a father/mother figure. If I'm wrong (again ), please tell me how - this is important.

Correct interpretation, except for the short/long part.
If a parent is missed, it'll probably remain as a permanent little wound. We all carry such little wounds all life long, don't we?

As it is, implying that homosexual parenting is like child abuse is offensive.

It wasn't my meaning, I was only countering the cause/effect relation in debate. I don't believe that suffering, whatever the kind or the intensity, makes the person worse. It depends on the person. Often the opposite is true.

But unless we exclude all lazy people, or timid people, or busy people or whatever, then that group is still being tested, thus we still have applicable data for that group.

Maybe not ALL the lazy, but surely ALL the extremely lazy. It depends on where you draw the line.

Have you ever taken part in a psychological test, for example an IQ test?

No I am too lazy!

And the essential point again - psychological hypotheses aren't founded on single test, or a few tests - they're founded on hundreds of tests. The idea that significant groups are left out of some tests is at least tenable, but for all of the tests?

We're running circle here. I keep suggesting kinds of matters that could go unconsidered, and you keep focusing in what is percevaible now.
But I try again to remain on this ground. What is a "group", again? How wide is it?
To the limit, everyone is a single instance of a theorically possible group. This would be a pretty scientific impostation, mind you. How many groups go untested in a few hundreds of tests?

If you think these tests are 'good enough' for most purposes, then why not in this case? Why do we need absolute proof before we allow homo-adoption?

They will be used in fact, and probably with no tragical consequences whatsoever. Still, I'm not the majority of people, and I'll state my opinion when asked. (the second question was already answered).

I'd still love to see your definition of reasonable doubt

Definitely I was unclear. I meant that reasoning in terms of "reasonableness" is not reasonable!
See my first answer.

@HLD:

Right now, there are more children in need of adoption than there are people (single, hetero- or homosexual) willing to adopt.

I agree that if this is true, it would make the debate secondary.

children will often look outside of their immediate household and to extended family or community groups for gender-specific role-models.

This is like saying that the child is able to "heal the wound himself". Not a point for inflicting it on purpose.

[frogus]

Littiz - perfect circles are very different to scientific theories.

Perfect circles exist just because we think them. When I imagine a locus of points equidistant from a centre, I have conjured a circle into existance. It is the imaginary shape which has properties defined by me.

Nothing in nature prompted the concept of circles - they are entirely academic entities, if you see what I mean. No faith is required to believe in circles. Nobody believes in perfect physical circles, because due to their defining characteristics they cannot exist in the physical world, and everybody believes in the idea of a circle because it is an idea which needs no other beliefs or observations to have, other than conception of what a line and a point is.

A scientific theory is based on the experiences of a world that everybody shares.
The point of science is that it deals with nature - science observes a natural phenomenon and then observes it again and again, finding the most likely nature of the phenomenon by the nature that it appears to show time after time.
The first guess at a phenomenon's nature will likely be wrong. The nature which is exhibited three times in a row will probably be more true than that, but not as true as the nature which appears a thousand times in a row.

In this way, a theory becomes more and more likely to be true the more it is demonstrated by nature, and when a phenomenon behaves in a certain way every single time that it is ever observed (like gravity), the likelihood of its truthfulness approaches infinity, and science assumes to know its real nature, recognising that its nature will be in question again as soon as apples start flying upwards off the trees.

So surely you can see that, as a human, with all our sad failings, our innacurate senses, we can know hardly anything for sure, and our ideas about the world will always be a bit flawed - but there is nothing to base our beliefs on other than observation of the world as it appears to us (which is what science is).

[Beowulf]

Originally posted by Littiz
What makes science attractive is that it builds a coherent structure with exactitude. Hovewer, it bases itself on a chain of beliefs, so the whole structure suffers of the same "limit".
Consider also, that exactitude is referred just to the Level of Representation (models), not to reality (example: in geometry you consider perfect circles: their circonference is exactly the radius moltiplied by "greek P". But there are no such circles in nature!)
You admit it, so the problems moves from quality (or nature) to quantity.
So pretending to have opinions somehow of a better quality 'cause they derive from science, is only an opinion (or a belief!).
Then, what does "little" and "reasonable" mean? I tried to explain how "little" can turn to "immense".
I recall a debate that I followed after its conclusion, when I noticed that Sailor Saturn was banned.
She stated that reading the Bible and really understanding it, necessarily leads to the acceptance of God.
Certainly she felt -similarly- that the amount of belief needed was just "little and reasonable"...
There's not a final and definitive difference in the nature of such types of convinctions, that was my meaning.

I'm too lazy to think of, and list, all the suppositions needed to accept science, and frogus has done that very well already, but the essential belief is that the world we see is the real world. By what definition is that unreasonable?

Fundamental right? Why should it be defined as such?
Sorry, I'm strongly against such a view.
This is not "life", or "freedom", or "religion": this would be a "right" built upon another person.

I can debate the opportunity of adoptions as an useful tool for society, they can give to families what they lack, and the same to children.
But certainly it's not a matter of "right" of the family.
It's only an option, so I can see it in reverse, and allowing it only when I'm sure it is for the best.

It's a fundamental right because every heterosexual person may apply to adopt, and have the application judged on its merits. This does not apply to homosexuals, which, in the absence of scientific justification, amounts to state sanctioned discrimination.

Correct interpretation, except for the short/long part. If a parent is missed, it'll probably remain as a permanent little wound. We all carry such little wounds all life long, don't we?

Why would this little wound go undetected (in all cases), whereas the results of other damaging behaviour carried out over the timescale of a child's upbringing, in most cases are detectable?

It wasn't my meaning, I was only countering the cause/effect relation in debate. I don't believe that suffering, whatever the kind or the intensity, makes the person worse. It depends on the person. Often the opposite is true.

Yet the children of homosexual parents (whether as adults, or during their upbringing) don't report, or show signs of, this suffering you claim would happen. How do you explain this?

Maybe not ALL the lazy, but surely ALL the extremely lazy. It depends on where you draw the line.

This is becoming petty. The extremely lazy of any sexual orientation shouldn't be given adoptive children.
Claiming that certain minute sub-groups haven't been tested, is, IMO, extremely flimsy justification for discrimination.

We're running circle here. I keep suggesting kinds of matters that could go unconsidered, and you keep focusing in what is percevaible now. But I try again to remain on this ground. What is a "group", again? How wide is it?
To the limit, everyone is a single instance of a theorically possible group. This would be a pretty scientific impostation, mind you. How many groups go untested in a few hundreds of tests?

Which significant groups could have gone unnoticed, given random sampling over several hundred tests, including tens of thousands of volunteers? Do we have any reason to believe they have been left out, or that if homo-adoption were allowed, these groups would be given children who they would damage?
Anyway, regardless of the groups left out, the groups who were tested show that homosexuals can be good parents - once it's been shown that homosexuals are not innately bad parents, let them apply for adoption like everyone else, and get accepted or rejected on their own merits.

They will be used in fact, and probably with no tragical consequences whatsoever. Still, I'm not the majority of people, and I'll state my opinion when asked. (the second question was already answered).

Aha! You admit it yourself - 'probably with no tragical consequences whatsoever'. (yesyesyesyesyes ).
Anyway, I never objected to you having (or stating) your own opinion - I just dislike it when people who have different opinions to science try to discredit science to support their own views (incidentaly, system A being wrong does not necessarily make system B right)

This is like saying that the child is able to "heal the wound himself". Not a point for inflicting it on purpose.

Why do you believe that there's a wound in the first place? Again, it's offensive to say that homosexual parenting 'wounds' the child unless you've got proof.
Besides, the child doesn't do this as a way of compensating for deficiencies at home - it's a normal part of development.

Definitely I was unclear. I meant that reasoning in terms of "reasonableness" is not reasonable!

*sob* We're never going to agree on this, are we?

Finally, what frogus says is true - mathemathics is not concerned with an accurate representation of the real world, science is. Thus, it proves nothing for you to take examples from maths.

[Scayde]

How did the question of extending legal recognition to gay marriages turn into a debate about the efficacy of science ?

@HLD: You have done a wonderful job of expressing my own views on gay couples adopting children

Just to beat the hornets nest further though

Suppose, just suppose, that children who are raised by gay families are more predisposed to accept and even take on a non-traditional sexual image. It seems to me, that a child who is born predisposed to heterosexuality, would at the very farthest, grow up with an experimental nature, and perhaps engage in some bisexual activities, yet would not truly change his sexual orientation so far that he became homosexual, but would broaden his horizons to include partnership choices from both sexes. Remember, true homosexuality, is as exclusive in orientation as true heterosexuality.

I have seen many studies that show strong evidence that most children go through a phase of ambiguity during preadolescence. If cultural norms help to shape us at this time and lead us into certain gender specific directions, such that we become sexually secure as heterosexual adults, then it stands to reason that growing up in a gay community would help a child be more accepting of this ambiguity, and they would feel more comfortable with attractions which they might feel for both sexes.

Now, here is the kicker. if that is the case, would that be a reason to prevent gay couples from adopting children?

My position is no. A person's sexuality is perhaps the most personal of issues, and as long as they are not predatory, one can not be held up as ideal over the other. I do not see that it is more 'desirable' for a child to grow up heterosexual than to grow up bisexual or homosexual. These are moral judgments which no one IMO has the right to inflict on another.


@CE: Very interesting theory re: Homosexuality as a positive force in natural selection. Thank you for posting it

[Littiz]

if mods feel like moving this..

Littiz - perfect circles are very different to scientific theories.

mathemathics is not concerned with an accurate representation of the real world, science is. Thus, it proves nothing for you to take examples from maths.

Please don't take the following as offensive, but maybe you don't know enough about the role of maths. Mathematical research is pushed on by the need of scientific models, it doesn't go on as a stand-alone. Integrals, Banach Spaces, Dirac Impulses, Fourier and Laplace Transforms, Differential Equations, all has been conceived AFTER the need of models for reality, 'cause science uses SIMPLE concepts with no true adherence to reality to modellize it.

Circles. Sinusoidal Waves. Impulsive Forces.
No one of these has a perfect corrispondent in reality, but we do use them to try and control phenomenons, cause we need to handle SIMPLE and regular concepts. Maths, geometry and physics provide to science the means to approximate reality. Formulas in physics -built upon mathematical and geometric structures- are just that: proposed approximations of reality. That is, scientific theories!

The nature which is exhibited three times in a row will probably be more true than that, but not as true as the nature which appears a thousand times in a row.

Actually in science the re-occurring of results is firstly a sympton of a "common mode failure" in the observations. What we're really after, are theories that coherently explain *different* phenomenons. This is also why I claim true knowledge cannot be obtained, as we divide fields from the start.

..the likelihood of its truthfulness approaches infinity, and science assumes to know its real nature, recognising that its nature will be in question again as soon as apples start flying upwards off the trees.

Again, it's not about apples flying upwards, it's about the current formula used for gravity being wrong and simplified, and anyways only partial. BTW... we're practically saying the same thing eek: ): you can claim to be infinitely close to Truth but only after an infinite amount of time! Which brings us all to the starting point We are just now infinitely FAR from truth! Such is the nature of infinity...

Again the application of planes. The model is considered "good enough" to build planes. Indeed it is, in the sense that only a small percentual of planes will fall because of technical failures or unconsidered events. With time, this begins to translate in thousands of deaths caused by plane crashes. We learn by mistakes and refine the model AFTER each. But still deaths go on.
How really far now is the model of "flying machine" from the perfect implied behavior, in a historical perspective of millions of deaths?

Similarly, how far from Truth is a social model which seems to explain things in average, but can't predict the social behavior of the single? How many things are still missing from that model?
How far is any scientific theory from truth, in a historical perspective of possibly infinite revisions/expansions of that theory?

but the essential belief is that the world we see is the real world. By what definition is that unreasonable?

No, even I am giving it for granted. The essential belief is that MODELS built to describe it are correct ("enough").

It's a fundamental right because every heterosexual person may apply to adopt, and have the application judged on its merits.

I'm not allowed to do many things that I'd like. Something that involves altering the lives of children who usually don't have even a word for it -for me- is not a fundamental right.

The extremely lazy of any sexual orientation shouldn't be given adoptive children.

Uhm. Why?

Claiming that certain minute sub-groups haven't been tested, is, IMO, extremely flimsy justification for discrimination.
...
Which significant groups could have gone unnoticed, given random sampling over several hundred tests, including tens of thousands of volunteers?

The first statement makes no justice at all to me and the debate I sustained. The second would force me to repeat myself, which I won't. So I put it this way. You have the tests, you have the scientists. You believe in their completeness. You're the one who must provide this information: what are the groups in which human society is divided? How many? 12 maybe, as in astrology? Maybe 147 ? Can you please elencate them? Can social sciences -today- predict if subject A, under specified circumstances, will behave one way or another? Can they predict -exactly- what subject A will feel? Can primitive tests with crossed answers and volunteers explain how a single human subject behaves?

No, I already know. The model built upon them seems to work, of course - in "average".What will happen in the cases when it won't work? Only a few will notice, and nobody will care. And the model will be kept, just as planes keep to fly after crashes.
The fact that we don't know anything about the single subject shows how many things of the "knowledgeable" we haven't even started to modellize yet. And when (if) we'll start, they'll be just models, again.

Aha! You admit it yourself - 'probably with no tragical consequences whatsoever'. (yesyesyesyesyes ).

Yes, but I also admit the possibility of some tragic events here and there (ex: some child who won't accept the condition and act insanely). If they will be only a few, you won't notice the correlation, and you'll feel fine.

Anyway, I never objected to you having (or stating) your own opinion - I just dislike it when people who have different opinions to science try to discredit science to support their own views

So I dislike when people try to use science to discredit my opinions, and since I'm not an ignorant in the matter, I don't let it go unchallenged.
It should be evident that I *love* science beyond reason: I'm not discrediting it, I'm remembering what science *is*.
Given the limits of science, there's still a lot -infinite- space for personal opinions, and I have mine.
As I stated elsewhere, a tool is good as long as you don't overcharge it with weights it's not suited for, otherwise it's dangerous (analogy: elevator...). Alas, we keep doing it with science everyday, and we pay the price - everyday.

[frogus]

Littiz, here is the question that me and Beowulf would really like answered -

If science is so limited that it should not necessarily be believed in the case of homosexual adoption, and you chose a belief which is equally plausible, although not supported by science (which is perfectly reasonable IMO), what *do* you base your belief on?

Having a 'personal belief' in an area where science is not qualified to inform us is fine, but please, what is your belief informed by?

[Littiz]

I had smoothed my positions about homoadoptions, though, @frogus.
I'm no more absolutely against them, I only say that imho they have a big negative point, the lack of a parent.
Given equivalent conditions on the rest, I'd choose a hetro-couple.

What are the bases for my opinions? Quoting myself:
"I only try to see things as part of an unitarian, surely simplified but possibly coherent scheme that lives in my mind, that's all."
Science has a role in forming my opinions, as everything else that contribute to shape my mind - every instant. In the end they're just... opinions.
Instead of trying to invalidate each other's ones, since they're probably all invalid somehow...
We can confront them and possibly alter them. But then... we have to accept them and if necessary vote them
Then time will bring the good and bad consequences that every human decision generates

[fable]

Guys, this discussion of the theory of science has nothing to do with the subject of this thread. You wanna discuss it, start another thread. Thanks.

[Chanak]

Done.

[Scayde]

Supreme Court strikes down Texas sodomy law

"The petitioners are entitled to respect for their private lives," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the court's majority. "The state cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime."

They say progress occurs in baby steps...

Here is the article