MooseBreath Posted 18 July 2013 Posted 18 July 2013 I take issue with your use of the word 'abnormal' - which implies there's something wrong with it - the term is actually 'unusual.' Just because a gay couple is uncommon and in a minority does not make them abnormal. What about ethnic minorities? They're uncommon so are they also abnormal? No, they're just human beings like the rest of us, there's nothing wrong with them and there's nothing wrong with being gay. My real problem though is that, despite you're insistence that this debate is not about homophobia, you come across as rather homophobic to me. "It is not natural" suggests that you have a problem with homosexuality and quite a big problem at that. If that's what you think of them then I wouldn't have thought you'd be willing to accept them in society. They don't behave 'naturally' like normal human beings after all so how can they possibly integrate with the rest of us? Argue over the words used if you want. I won't bother. Typically, you've seen homophobia where you want to see it. Anyone can do that. It doesn't make you special. What I actually meant by "not natural" was exactly that. Two gay dads isn't natural. It doesn't work, biologically speaking. It's not the way we were designed.
MooseBreath Posted 18 July 2013 Posted 18 July 2013 As you say yourself, we are talking about a rather small subset of the population, so there isn't much in the way of large-scale studies to analyze the effects of growing up in a household with two parents of the same sex. The largest study done on this topic, though, seems to show that the kids are all right in same-sex-parent households. The "normal" family was once an extended family with several children where the fathers provide and mothers nurture. Now, the nuclear family is considered the norm, birth rates have fallen, and it is more likely that households with children have two working parents than just one breadwinner. Of course, throughout all of this, the unit of mother-father-children has mostly been at the core of the concept of family. But even that isn't always the case today, as single-family households are becoming relatively more prevalent than they were with each passing generation. Children in single-family households used to be teased a lot, too, but I'd guess most kids today think a "bastard" is someone that officiates a football match rather than, say, a fatherless child. Concerns about the well-being of children should of course be the highest priority when we're talking about adoption. However, concerns about the well-being of children should be well-founded. In the past, it was deemed OK for children to spend all day working in factories and that it wouldn't stunt their development or be unhealthy for them. Conventional wisdom once had it that children would suffer if mothers left the home to work. It was supposed to be weird for children if they were adopted by parents of a different race, and that those children were going to be teased. If a gay couple can or are as capable of being good parents as a heterosexual couple, then this matter does become a gay-rights issue. The way I see it, "think about the children" is thrown around often by an anti-gay crowd that's really not concerned with children's well-being at all; they will use that blanket argument as a smokescreen to mask what really is an anti-gay agenda. That crowd has no interest in learning how families with gay parents can be a successful and healthy variation of the nuclear family because they think homosexuality is immoral and wrong, and anything related to it must be as well. In the past this and in the past that is all well and good as a way of suggesting how things night change in the future. But we're not in the future, we're in the present, and in the present putting kids in with two gay dads is an unnecessary risk, with potential benefits felt only by a small aspect of society, not the kids themselves. The rest of your posts is just accusing me of homophobia. So we're back to either martyring kids in the name of equality or if you can't accept that you must be homophobic.
MooseBreath Posted 18 July 2013 Posted 18 July 2013 So really, it's irrelevant then, because kids are always going to have some differences to each other. If it's not about that, they'll make up some other reason to bully each other. You've just invalidated your own argument there. If you're happy to add to a child's potential problems in life in order to satisfy a handful of adults then fine, there's not a great deal more to this particular aspect of the argument against gay adoption than that.Lots more of societies imperfections could be helped along by throwing kids into the mix and letting them take the brunt. Social eugenics. Maybe you're onto something.
MikeyT Posted 18 July 2013 Author Posted 18 July 2013 Are there any gay members on Foxestalk? It would be interesting to hear your points of views on the subjects raised in here.
ozleicester Posted 18 July 2013 Posted 18 July 2013 Are there any gay members on Foxestalk? It would be interesting to hear your points of views on the subjects raised in here. Parent of a gay daughter if thats any help
Guest MattP Posted 18 July 2013 Posted 18 July 2013 Parent of a gay daughter if thats any help That's what happens when you don't let her taste sausage.
Alf Bentley Posted 18 July 2013 Posted 18 July 2013 Argue over the words used if you want. I won't bother. Typically, you've seen homophobia where you want to see it. Anyone can do that. It doesn't make you special. What I actually meant by "not natural" was exactly that. Two gay dads isn't natural. It doesn't work, biologically speaking. It's not the way we were designed. Here are some other activities that could be deemed "biologically unnatural": - Oral sex (straight or gay) - Driving a car or catching a train/plane - Wearing a condom - Shaving - Withdrawing from a woman's vagina before ejaculating - Walking through a football turnstile However, many of us perform several of those activities as they are personally or socially convenient or pleasurable. That has been part of the development of human civilisation. Do you really want to go back to the "biologically natural" life of the apes...or is it that you want to select unnatural activities that you deem acceptable and others that you do not? I wonder why?
MooseBreath Posted 18 July 2013 Posted 18 July 2013 Here are some other activities that could be deemed "biologically unnatural": - Oral sex (straight or gay) - Driving a car or catching a train/plane - Wearing a condom - Shaving - Withdrawing from a woman's vagina before ejaculating - Walking through a football turnstile However, many of us perform several of those activities as they are personally or socially convenient or pleasurable. That has been part of the development of human civilisation. Do you really want to go back to the "biologically natural" life of the apes...or is it that you want to select unnatural activities that you deem acceptable and others that you do not? I wonder why? Yawn. You can misinterpret my post to satisfy your craving to clamber aboard the moral high ground and accuse me of homophobia all day long if you want. What's the point though? We're talking about parenting here. Two men cannot become parents. Why you've started going on about walking through football turnstiles I honestly have no idea whatsoever.
Alf Bentley Posted 18 July 2013 Posted 18 July 2013 I don't think they will - there is less likelihood of a child being bullied or victimised for having good, straight parents than good, gay parents. 'Progression of society' will not change that fact. Kids risk being bullied for all sorts of reasons: because they or their parents are from a different race, are fat/thin, tall/short, hair colour, size of breasts/nose etc. etc. Surely the answer is to address bullying long-term? Or should adoption be limited to people deemed "bullying-free": heterosexual, white skin, average height/build, no disabilities, no ginger hair etc.? Sort of like a new version of the Aryan master race? In countries where black people predominate, white people could be banned from adopting, together with any black people who were chubby or had unusually-sized noses....
Rincewind Posted 18 July 2013 Posted 18 July 2013 What does 'biologically natual' mean? As far as I am aware humans are made up of many compounds so whichever way we come out is the product you get. A quirk of nature mixed a couple of things up. We are all different but still have blood that pumps through the system and a heart that beats until it is too worn out to carry on. Just think of everyone unique but the same.
MooseBreath Posted 18 July 2013 Posted 18 July 2013 What does 'biologically natual' mean? As far as I am aware humans are made up of many compounds so whichever way we come out is the product you get. A quirk of nature mixed a couple of things up. We are all different but still have blood that pumps through the system and a heart that beats until it is too worn out to carry on. Just think of everyone unique but the same. It means gay sex doesn't lead to pregnancy.
Monk Posted 18 July 2013 Posted 18 July 2013 Waa waa - 'you can't change the definition of marriage'. Yes you can. It's a legal definition, not a religious one. You can change the definition/laws of any section of British law if there is a mandate to do so. The whole 'You can be together just don't call it marriage' argument is one of the weakest around. It's LAME.
Guest MattP Posted 18 July 2013 Posted 18 July 2013 Only on Foxestalk could gay marriage be compared in some way to walking through a football turnstile. You can only start to imagine Peter Tatchells sort of arguments when him and the gay lobby want to start fcuking 12 year olds, "ohh its as natural as going to work on the bus".
Monk Posted 18 July 2013 Posted 18 July 2013 It means gay sex doesn't lead to pregnancy. Why is that unnatural? There's loads of instances in nature where homosexuality is common? Surely that means it IS natural? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual_behavior_in_animals
Zingari Posted 18 July 2013 Posted 18 July 2013 What does 'biologically natual' mean? As far as I am aware humans are made up of many compounds so whichever way we come out is the product you get. A quirk of nature mixed a couple of things up. We are all different but still have blood that pumps through the system and a heart that beats until it is too worn out to carry on. Just think of everyone unique but the same. I don't think we need to worry too much about all this sex and marriage and who can shag who stuff at our age Ken
leicsmac Posted 18 July 2013 Posted 18 July 2013 Only on Foxestalk could gay marriage be compared in some way to walking through a football turnstile. You can only start to imagine Peter Tatchells sort of arguments when him and the gay lobby want to start fcuking 12 year olds, "ohh its as natural as going to work on the bus". You're smarter than ad hominems, Matt. It means gay sex doesn't lead to pregnancy. The last time I checked, reproduction wasn't the be all and end all of life. Yeah, it's damned important, but sex for recreation is a fair bit more popular than sex for procreation. Both seem to be reasonably natural to me.
MooseBreath Posted 18 July 2013 Posted 18 July 2013 Jesus fvcking Christ. Two men can't have a child together. They cannot become parents. Therefore having two male 'parents' is not natural.
Alf Bentley Posted 18 July 2013 Posted 18 July 2013 Yawn. You can misinterpret my post to satisfy your craving to clamber aboard the moral high ground and accuse me of homophobia all day long if you want. What's the point though? We're talking about parenting here. Two men cannot become parents. Why you've started going on about walking through football turnstiles I honestly have no idea whatsoever. The original topic was gay marriage, not gay adoption, but never mind. "The point" is to challenge the damaging influence of homophobes. This is personal to me as, although I happen to be straight, I was a victim of homophobic bullying as a gentle, rather unworldly, maybe slightly camp teenager and it made my life a misery. Which of my 6 "biologically unnatural" activities would preclude someone from parenting? If they wouldn't, why would sexuality do so? While procreation is clearly biological, parenting is mainly social, surely? Hunter-gatherers had starkly divided male/female roles, the rural communities of the Middle Ages went in more for parenting by extended families and work from home, the parenting of industrial society was probably closer to hunter-gatherers, but post-industrial society has taken us away from that again, to some extent. Which of them is "natural", then? I don't know any male couples who are parents, but a friend of my daughter's has "two mothers" and she seems as well-adjusted as your average kid. Thinking of a couple of gay blokes I know, I'd imagine that one would be an excellent parent (steady, insightful, fun-loving) and the other would be rotten at it (far too flighty and selfish, if entertaining) My brother ended up as a single-parent and didn't do too badly - or is it OK for one man to be a parent, but not two? His elder son happens to be gay, something of which my brother had no experience, but he did his best to adapt and to help his son as an individual....or should he have handed his son over for gay adoption?! I wouldn't see my parenting of my daughter as "biological". I deal with the individual that she is and try to help guide her to a well-rounded, contented and enjoyable life. I'm probably a bit more "traditionally male" than my missus in my parenting, but the difference is fairly marginal. In some ways, I'd say that my Dad was a more "traditionally female" parent than my Mum - a gentler, more sensitive soul, though she was probably more patient and nurturing as well as being tougher....gay or straight, we're all individuals who may or may not be good parents....and different children suit different sorts of parenting.
leicsmac Posted 18 July 2013 Posted 18 July 2013 Jesus fvcking Christ. Two men can't have a child together. They cannot become parents. Therefore having two male 'parents' is not natural. If we're sticking to purely biological constraints here, fair enough. Neither can infertile different-sex couples. But I reckon agreeing to disagree is the best policy at this point because you're certainly not going to change your view on the whole thing, and I don't reckon I nor the other members of the debate are either.
Alf Bentley Posted 18 July 2013 Posted 18 July 2013 Jesus fvcking Christ. Two men can't have a child together. They cannot become parents. Therefore having two male 'parents' is not natural. By the same token, a male/female couple who adopt a child is not natural....but they can become (adoptive) parents, as 2 men can. Being a parent involves more than providing sperm or egg! On which note, I'd better get on with some work or I'll earn no money and so be a very poor parent!
purpleronnie Posted 18 July 2013 Posted 18 July 2013 Jesus fvcking Christ. Two men can't have a child together. They cannot become parents. Therefore having two male 'parents' is not natural. But it does happen in nature. But why is gay marriage thread suddenly turned to why two same sex people can't have children....well duh.
MooseBreath Posted 18 July 2013 Posted 18 July 2013 But it does happen in nature. But why is gay marriage thread suddenly turned to why two same sex people can't have children....well duh. You know of examples of two male humans procreating? News to me. I think the thread took a turn because gay marriage is a no-brainer. It should be allowed, who cares. Gay adoption is the next talking point, and is far more debatable.
purpleronnie Posted 18 July 2013 Posted 18 July 2013 You know of examples of two male humans procreating? News to me. I think the thread took a turn because gay marriage is a no-brainer. It should be allowed, who cares. Gay adoption is the next talking point, and is far more debatable. No I mean homosexuality happens in nature so how can it be unnatural. And I agree it is a no brainer.
Monk Posted 18 July 2013 Posted 18 July 2013 Why is a single parent family any more natural than a gay parent family? Neither have parents of both sex.
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