| This thread has been locked, it will not receive new replies. |
|
Locked on 02/14/2004 11:16:48 AM PST by Lead Moderator, reason:
Since discussion of the issues and article ended long ago, the rest of the discussion ends now. Those who were continuing the flame war consider this your warning- I don’t care who drew first blood. That was pulled and it should have ended it. Both sides were continuing it, and neither side has a single thing to whine about when I end up suspending of banning you. So don’t push it. |
Posted on 02/13/2004 11:22:02 AM PST by eccentric
A caller to Rush Limbaugh today (Friday) compared gay marriage to inter-racial marriage. While it is easy to take offense to the comparison (as Rush did), there is some truthfulness in it. For people of 50 years ago, who who not bigots, what was their major objection to inter-racial and even inter-cultural marriage? What was the first concern they expressed to their children when faced with this possiblity? "What about the children?" And years ago, and in someways, even today, this is a very real concern. Children in inter-racial and inter-cultural homes had a much more difficult social situation to deal with.
And that is what the push for legal homosexual marriage is all about: the children. When Heather has 2 mommies, both mommies want equal standing in custody, school, medical care.... When Heather wants an abortion ---no, strike that. She wouldn't go to mom for permission for that. When Heather wants her ears peirced, both moms want equal rights to give consent. When the moms get divorced, they want equal standing in the court for custody and child support.
So what? This shouldn't concern my family.... yes, it does. When given equal standing with man-woman marriage, homosexual couple demand the right to adopt and foster other people's children. This has already happened for one mother who placed her baby for adoption and then found he was given to a homosexual couple. The courts told her she had relinquinshed her right to object to who raised her birth-son.
So you wouldn't place your child for adoption, but what about foster care? Suppose you were traveling out of state. You are injured in a car accident and hospitalized. Thankfully, your child is uninjured but needs someplace to stay until relatives can come get him/her. Would you want your child placed in a homosexual home? Even overnight?
This whole issue IS about children and having equal rights to raise someone else's children. But unlike inter-racial marriage, homosexuality is defined by a behavior, not an appearance.
One's sexual conduct is the product of free will and not an immutable, morally neutral characteristic like one's ethnicity or gender. Even if you could somehow prove that one's sexual orientation is genetically predetermined the capacity for free choice in terms of behavior still remains.
Only a complete nihilist would want to advocate the equality of all behaviors in the same way that we should affirm racial or gender equality.
You incorrectly stated Dr. Paul Cameron founded NARTH and then tried to use that as justification to ignore the text of the article. Cameron was not a founder of NARTH. From the NARTH site:
Drs. Charles Socarides, Benjamin Kaufman, and Joseph Nicolosi founded NARTH in 1992 in response to the growing threat of scientific censorship. The organization has grown rapidly to include over 1,000 members.Here's my post rewritten just for you, with full references to source material:
The more science studies homosexuality, the more we see the major factor determining homosexuality is environment. That's not a bold statement, it's what science continues to report.
We should heed the words of John Adams when he said:
"Facts are stubborn things, and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."As two of the three little pigs learned, we must build our house out of something solid. This was an important teaching of Jesus as well. He said it is foolish to build your house on sand, or to build your core position on something that is easily washed away. Instead, we should build our position on something solid, something which stands firm under scrutiny.
In regards to homosexuality and genetics, the work of homosexual activist Dr. Simon LeVay has often been used to support the idea that homosexuality is genetic, and his work is still quoted to this day. But what did LeVay really find? Here is what LeVay said of his own work in a March 1994 interview with Discover magazine:
"[His 1991 research] made the unassuming LeVay one of the most misunderstood men in America. "It's important to stress what I didn't find," he points out with the courtly patience of someone who long ago got used to waiting for the rest of the world to catch up. "I did not prove that homosexuality is genetic, or find a genetic cause for being gay. I didn't show that gay men are 'born that way,' the most common mistake people make in interpreting my work. Nor did I locate a gay center in the brain --INAH3 is less likely to be the sole gay nucleus of the brain than part of a chain of nuclei engaged in men and women's sexual behavior. My work is just a hint in that direction--a spur, I hope, to future work."Source: Interview with David Nimmons (March, 1994) "Sex and the Brain", Discover, Vol. 15, No. 3, p. 64-71.
Ten years later still nothing from LeVay or anybody else.
In 1973 the APA (American Psychiatric Association) declassified homosexuality as a mental disorder. According to LeVay, it wasn't science that propelled the APAs change, he said "Gay activism was clearly the force that propelled the APA to declassify homosexuality."
Source: Simon LeVay, Queer Science, MIT Press, 1996, p. 224
Dr. Robert L. Spitzer played a pivotal role in the above 1973 decision made by the APA. Spitzer used to believe homosexuals couldn't change but after studying the results of therapy he now believes homosexuals can change:
"I thought that homosexual behavior could be resisted--but that no one could really change their sexual orientation. I now believe that's untrue--some people can and do change." Spitzer completely changed his mind whether or not some homosexuals can change. And then Spitzer concluded with:
"the mental health professionals should stop moving in the direction of banning therapy that has, as a goal, a change in sexual orientation. Many patients, provided with informed consent about the possibility that they will be disappointed if the therapy does not succeed, can make a rational choice to work toward developing their heterosexual potential and minimizing their unwanted homosexual attractions."Source: Spitzer made the above comments at an annual APA meeting, May 9, 2001. The study was reported in the May 9, 2001 issues of The Washington Post, The New York Times, USA Today and it was also released to many local newspapers via the AP. ABC, CBS, FOX and MSNBC all reported the study.
Spitzer went from believing homosexuals can't change to where they can, and then he goes so far as to say mental health professions shouldn't ban the very therapy resulting in that change. To deny this isn't a 180 degree change is to demonstrate bias beyond belief.
According to the ABC report:
"A well-designed survey, [Spitzer] said, can determine whether or not a respondent is credible. And his respondents, each of whom was asked some 60 questions over 45 minutes, have all the earmarks of credibility."In fact, he said, to dismiss his survey would be to dismiss an awful lot of psychological and psychiatric research. The methods used in designing his study are the same as those used to determine the effectiveness of drugs, he says."
Spitzer completely changed his mind as a result of the study. According to the NARTH article, Spitzer "expressed his gratitude to the National Association of Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), and to the ex-gay ministry Exodus, "without which this study would not have been possible."" To remain skeptical after reading the above is a choice you can make if you like living in denial.
You're misrepresenting Spitzer's capitulation. You make it sound as if he's denounced his earlier findings and has become a cheerleader for conversion therapy. That's not the case at all. I think I gave a pretty clear picture of where he stands in my previous post to you.
Again I ask, do you not think there might be potential problems with his data and the research methodology used? I know he and NARTH say there isn't, but ask anyone who's familiar with accepted research methods. It's glaringly obvious there's a problem. He based his 'new' conclusion on 45 minute telephone interviews with subjects supplied to him by proponents of conversion therapy. Still see no problem with objectivity?
It may be LeVay's opinion that the APA changed their classification of homosexuality because of political pressure. There are a number of people who seem to believe that. However, that's still just one man's opinion.
And I suppose you are aware that the two co-founders of Exodus have denounced it as a fraud, right?
Exactly. I stand with the majority of Americans who want to preserve marriage as it is, one man / one woman. Some of the arguments we use today are similar to those used by the anti-miscegenists who were also in the majority, as Luis Gonzalez points out. You can observe those similarities all day long if you wish. I will grant that these two issues deserve to be looked at together closely, but the mere fact of the similarities proves nothing about justice.
Western society changes, slowly. Challenges are given to every generation. Modernity, with the mobility available to people ever increasing, continues to present difficulties in terms of maintaining stable family institutions across generations. In my studied opinion, the institution of marriage is vulnerable to changes that will be wrought by the proposed redefinition.
"the right to marry means little if it does not include the right to marry the person of one's choice"
And while many in this forum argue that there is no "right to marry", I think that the Courts will agree with the Massachusetts Court when it said that "the right to marry is not a privilege conferred by the State, but a fundamental right that is protected against unwarranted State interference."
So where does that leave those who want to stop this from happening?
Set standards for each individual State, and stand on the Constitutional argument that defining marriage is a State power as defined by the US Constitution.
Ah yes, the old, tired standard of attempting to suggest that any poster who stands against the homosexual agenda and dares to stand for the moral traditions of this nation must have repressed homosexual tendencies.
Of course, if someone did have such perverted tendencies, the fact that their morals overrule them is precisely what the homosexual agenda swears can not happen.
In reality, it is nothing more than an attempt to silence a different opinion by engaging in a personal attack. These are the preferred tactics of the left, of course.
Every bit as impressive as suggesting that some original organizers of Alcoholics Anonymous fell back into alcohol abuse.
Yes, the perversion has a power grip on some people and they attempt to turn reality on its head by denying that there's anything wrong with it or with them.
Of course, they're claim that they "were born this way" is a tactic admission that they know it is wrong or they wouldn't have to attempt to excuse it with such nonsense.
Any combination of people are free to make commitments to one another. It is a different matter what licenses are given out by government and what are the legal incidences of those licenses.
It would be the height of absurdity to say the people through legislation have no control over who is eligible for marriage licenses. Since it is the government giving out the licenses, the government must define how they can be obtained. We need not legislate anything about the love or sex shared by the licensees. Since there is no point in regulating combinations of individuals who do not procreate, the government properly defines the eligibility of marriage licenses to include the combination that consists of one man and one woman. That is not to say marrieds must intend to procreate in order to obtain a license. Just that they must be one man and one woman, which is the logical and traditional combination.
Again, the love and passion that one man may feel for another man is none of the government's business. Since the government is not interfering in their love or commitments, the only purpose these two men have for obtaining a license is to legalize their commitment and to obtain society's approval for their coupling. While I sympathize with their desire, it is an insufficient reason to change the legal definition.
What a hypocrite you are.
I post a response to a guy who levels an unwarranted ad hominem attack at me suggesting that because he perceives my posts as being "pro queer", I "must be one of them".
Noone ever takes Amendments lightly. But not Amending the Constitution when we should might allow developments injurious to the Republic, that could have been prevented. As general statements, I assume you agree. I also know that your statement: ("Leaving the Constitution unchanged is to everyone's best interest.") is given in the specific instance of marriage law, which in a limited fashion, is currently left to the states. All things being equal, I agree.
But everything is not equal. Limits on the judiciary are governed by the legislative branch. OK, then the state legislatures need to govern and rein in each of their judiciaries. However, a federal Amendment that limits state judiciaries but not state legislatures is in no way anti-democratic, and I think if the super-majorities needed to ratify the FMA are there, so be it. I am in favor of it myself.
free dixie,sw
And now they are issuing "marriage licenses".
Uh, no, there is not. People of the same sex cannot join together as husband and wife, and therefore, cannot be married. However, a black man and a white woman can join together as husband and wife, and, therefore, can enter into marriage.
And my pointing this out warrants a specious ad hominem attack on me. How very predictable. [Yawn.]
Hey, those might prove handy to have around if Von's runs out of Charmin. You just never know.
Your continued attempts to soften the blow of Spitzer's study is very telling. Your continued attempts to denigrate Spitzer's study is very telling as Spitzer himself has said that dismissing his survey would be to dismiss an awful lot of psychological and psychiatric research. Spitzer's own words are a harsh judgment on your very telling bias.
Your posts are identical to those of a homosexual activist and there's no place at FR for homosexual activism.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.