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06-08-2006, 03:52 PM | #1 |
Lecturer
Join Date: May 2006
Location: Atlanta
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Grave Consequences For Children With Gay Parents
The above fucktard works for Dobson's Focus on the Family. He wrote an editorial in our paper this week that stated: The argument for gay marriage boils down to two words: "I want." It's not about what's best for children, or society, or future generations — it's about the "right" of 2 percent to 3 percent of the population to redefine the nature of marriage, regardless of the consequences. Then he notes: "...and mountains of social science data tell us that comes with grave consequences for children." This data must have come from the same "mountain" that gave us creation science. 2 to 3 percent? Are you kidding me? Talk about wishful thinking. The most conservative estimates I've seen for the total number of homosexuals in America is around 7%, and I've seen estimates as high as 15%. Does anyone out there have a substantiated percentage% Aren't heteros are more likely to abuse and/or molest their kids than homos? That's what I've read.
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06-08-2006, 04:04 PM | #2 |
Bioengineer and aspiring lawer
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No, the most conservative you've seen would be 2-3%. You just believe 7% is about the right number. And frankly I have as much reason to doubt the people who spew numbers as high as 15% as those who lowball at 2%.
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06-08-2006, 04:38 PM | #3 | |||
May Ter Dee
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The percentage is immaterial. Even at 2%, that comes out to six million Americans. That's what, twice as many people as live in the Chicago metro area? Almost as many as live in Los Angeles. The entire population of Arkansas.
Not that I think the entire population of Arkansas is gay. I don't want to piss off Arkansas. There are a lot of states that you could get away with pissing off, but I don't think Arkansas is one of them. And as to gay marriage being all about 'I want'... well, sure. We want, first and foremost, to make sure that our children have the same protections that all other children in this country have. That they can't be ripped away from us on the whim of a court. That if one of us passes away, they don't suddenly lose the other parent because of judicial myopia. We want more, of course. We want to make sure that we get the same return on our Social Security investment that everyone else does. We want to be able to insure our partners. We want to be able to leave all the posessions that we bought as a couple to our partner, without them being taxed as if we were complete strangers. We want to visit our partners when they're sick or dying, something we currently do at the variable sufferance of hospital administration. We want to be able to make each other as happy and as secure as we possibly can. Is it selfish to want these things? When the vast majority of society takes them for granted, gets them instantly with a visit to the county courthouse or the local Elvis impersonator? When there has never been any harm demonstrated that will come from, or has come from, such unions? After all, Massachusetts hasn't been reduced to smoking rubble as of yet and they've been doing the gay marriage thing for months now. But that's not the worst part of that article. The article goes on to use Rosie O'Donnel's son Parker as a shill, painting a mental image of the kid lying in bed wishing he had a daddy. To wit: Quote:
He's probably not mature enough to realize that his chances of succeeding in life are much, much better with two parents, no matter what their genders, than with just one. I don't know where the Religious Right gets the idea that there are an infinite amount of Ward and June Cleavers just waiting in the wings, ready to adopt any adoptable infant and take the kids of gay parents under their wings (as well as to support all the children that are born as a result of abstinence-only education, but that's another rant). The reality is that kids have divorced parents, single parents, gay parents, and parents who are altogether absent. That doesn't mean those kids should be discriminated against. That means that they should be provided with all the help we can muster. That means recognizing the marriage of two people of the same sex, so that the children they raise don't become wards of the state, they don't lack for Social Security, they don't miss out on the benefits that society has decided that kids need in order to grow up well. As to your question on the child sexual abuse issue, here are some links. Suffice it to say that the idea that gay people abuse children is the big boogeyman in the religious right's arsenal, designed to scare people into being stupid about this issue. http://www.thetaskforce.org/download...exualabuse.pdf From here: Quote:
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06-08-2006, 04:50 PM | #4 | ||
We have to go back, Kate!
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I think it's fascinating the way so many Christians latch on to the few references in the bible which deal with this topic and conveniently forget about the whole poverty thang. Jim Wallis makes a good case for it in an interesting article : http://www.motherjones.com/news/qa/2...im_wallis.html Quote:
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06-08-2006, 05:10 PM | #5 | |
Bioengineer and aspiring lawer
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Quote:
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06-08-2006, 05:59 PM | #6 |
Person who doesn't update the user title
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Slight but I believe related thread hijack, branching off a point DanaC raised: capitalism does something about poverty. The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success, by Rodney Stark, traces the somewhat surprising interrelationship between the medieval Catholic church and early capitalism, among other factors that worked in combination to make Western society materially and financially successful beyond all other societies, and offers some opinions why. It's more a history than a work of advocacy, though there's a bit of that too here and there.
The Catholic church nowadays has an anticapitalistic, antibusiness reputation, but this was not always so; it grew, says Stark, out of disenchantment with the abuses of the Industrial Revolution. In earlier times, the sheer scale of the business of managing the monastic estates and their assets, plus the Church's not trying to suppress the late-medieval Italians who were inventing banking and high finance, pretty much required that capitalism be devised.
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06-08-2006, 06:47 PM | #7 |
The future is unwritten
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During the Industrial Revolution, weren't most of the big money people Protestants, leaving the Catholic church financially dependent on the working class, in England and the US?
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06-10-2006, 12:10 AM | #8 | |
When Do I Get Virtual Unreality?
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06-10-2006, 12:21 PM | #9 | |
Bioengineer and aspiring lawer
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06-10-2006, 03:41 PM | #10 |
Slattern of the Swail
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i got a recorded phone call the other day from a "married mother of three" who was concerned about the possibility of gay marriage and she urged-nay, BEGGED-me to push #1 and record my vote AGAINST gay marriage for posterity.
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In Barrie's play and novel, the roles of fairies are brief: they are allies to the Lost Boys, the source of fairy dust and ...They are portrayed as dangerous, whimsical and extremely clever but quite hedonistic. "Shall I give you a kiss?" Peter asked and, jerking an acorn button off his coat, solemnly presented it to her. —James Barrie Wimminfolk they be tricksy. - ZenGum |
06-10-2006, 05:37 PM | #11 |
We have to go back, Kate!
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*Shakes head*
Reminds me a little of a group who set up in Yorkshire just recently. Theyre an auxillary group to th far right fascist party BNP, but they call themselves 'Mothers Against Paedophiles'. For some reason if you put a 'married mother of three' in the frame they suddenly become more acceptable. |
06-10-2006, 05:55 PM | #12 | |
I can hear my ears
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06-10-2006, 06:09 PM | #13 | |
Paramour of Paradigm
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The Church could no longer control the populace as it had pre-plague, and it could no longer control government as it moved toward the nation-state, so its power had to expand in another way...global wealth...and with the global expeditions and discoveries of the time, and the mutual back-scratching of the wealthy, it achieved its goal. The Church knew it could guarantee its survival only through the power of assets. Capitalism does raise the quality of life, no question. But the time for the free market, Adam Smith routine is over. The evolutions of our societies and systems since the Industrial Revolution have brought new standards. Laissez-faire systems, particularly now, are just abusive to a majority of the populations. |
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06-10-2006, 06:33 PM | #14 |
The future is unwritten
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Yeah, it's really hard to drag the peasants away from the TV long enough to get a good pitchfork and torch parade.
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The descent of man ~ Nixon, Friedman, Reagan, Trump. |
06-10-2006, 07:26 PM | #15 | |
Bioengineer and aspiring lawer
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Quote:
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