Scientists counter Bush view: Families varied, say anthropologists

SFGate ^ | Feb. 27, 2004 | Charles Burress

[DemWatch]

The primary organization representing American anthropologists criticized President Bush's proposed constitutional ban on same-sex marriage Thursday and gave a failing grade to the president's understanding of human cultures.

"The results of more than a century of anthropological research on households, kinship relationships and families, across cultures and through time, provide no support whatsoever for the view that either civilization or viable social orders depend upon marriage as an exclusively heterosexual institution," said the executive board of the 11,000-member American Anthropological Association.

[Salman]

So wealthy Romans considered their house slaves "family"? Not exactly a new discovery. I wonder how the slaves felt.

What exactly does this have to do with 'gay marriage'?

[Verginius Rufus]

The "Greek vice" was popular in ancient Greece, and in some circles in ancient Rome, but that doesn't mean there was same-sex marriage; both cultures had prostitution too, but prostitutes were not wives. Nero apparently went through marriage ceremonies with two men, but that seems to have been regarded with bemused contempt by his contemporaries. The notion that Christianity has ever endorsed same-sex unions comes from a book written by an American homosexual scholar who is generally acknowledged to have misread the evidence.

Sodomy was practiced in some American Indian cultures--Bernal Diaz mentions it with disgust in his narrative of the conquest of New Spain. There's a "berdache" character in the movie Little Big Man. They existed, but that doesn't mean there were same-sex "marriages" in these societies.

[DestroytheDemocrats]

"Christianity NEVER sanctified homosexual unions."

Right and neither did Jews. What we are seeing is the deconstruction of the Judeo-Christian traditions of 1000's of years in favor of doing what pagan cultures have done. I don't think a lot of it can be stopped. The constitution did not anticpate this onslaught.

[DestroytheDemocrats]

This is from the same people who told us in the 60's and 70's that divorce does not hurt children. We lost a whole generation over that one. So we are embarking on another grand experiment... gay marriage. Let's see how that one screws up the world we are leaving our children.

[O.C. - Old Cracker]

Anthropology, like psychology and psychiatry is pseudo-science and fit only for the dustbin.

[concerned about politics]

Wonder why he doesn't mention any? The Greeks and Romans, both collapsed civilizations, are hardly good examples, and certainly not ones that would be considered 'stable and humane' by todays standards at all.

All dead. Wiped of the face of the earth. Exterminated.
Gosh, let's be just like them - NOT!!!!

[bayourod]

"The society in Sodom and Gomorrah is still thriving isn't it. "

No it isn't, but the lesbian society from which Wonder Woman came prospered for four seasons.

[bayourod]

"a vast array of family types, including families built upon same-sex partnerships, can contribute to stable and humane societies,"

"Can", not "have". And only if there are a "vast aray" of heterosexual families to offset the perverts.

[Ursus arctos horribilis]

(LIBERAL COMMIE GREEN WEENIE) Scientists counter Bush view: Families varied, say (DISGUSTING HETROPHOBE) anthropologists

[VxH]

Pagan marriage vs. Christian marriage.

 

Same old same old.

 

Ps 106:35-39
35 but they mingled with the nations and adopted their customs.
36 They worshiped their idols, which became a snare to them.
37 They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons.
38 They shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters,
     whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was desecrated by their blood.
39 They defiled themselves by what they did; by their deeds they prostituted themselves.

 

 

[Carolinamom]

God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Alan.

[Intolerant in NJ]

"If he were to take even the first semester of anthropology, he would know that's not true," said Segal...geez, I took the first semester of anthropology, and even a second to fulfill whatever course requirement it met - that was forty years ago, and about all I recall after all that time is that cultural values are set by people - and with polls showing sixty percent plus of the people in this culture say they reject homosexual unions and agree with Bush that marriage between a man and a woman represents the best arrangement for establishing a stable, nuturing environment for raising the next generation, it doesn't matter much at all what a bunch of anthropologists think......

[longtermmemmory]

SF Gate

To understand what the homosexuals are doing,

read "The Pink Swastika"

it tracks them PERFECTLY!

[longtermmemmory]

This should not surprise anyone. Horowitz on frontpagemag.com can done an extensive effor to docuemnt the 90+% of professors are on the left or far left.

They would oppose Bush if he said the sky was blue.
They would oppose Bush if he said the earth circle the sun.
They would oppose Bush if he was giving away free money and promised to tax everyone 110%.

[TejasRose]

There are Christian anthropologists....I know....my son is one!! Here's his response to this article:

Segal's comments are in error about the Greeks and Romans sanctioning same sex marriages in Christians. By "Christians" he proabably means some of the heretical sects of Christianity like Gnosticism or Ariansim (bishop Arius--not Nazis), who would have had no problem with homosexuality. This is the part of Anthropology I really don't like....on the whole it is extremely LIBERAL (as you've probably figured out from talking with me).