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Same-sex marriage ban may affect you someday
Capital Times ^ | 10-5-06 | Bernard Z. Friedlander

Posted on 10/05/2006 4:42:21 PM PDT by SJackson

"Throw those babies overboard!"

"Why?"

"To protect the family."

"Whose babies?"

File photo A newborn infant is held in this 1998 photo. "I don't know. Maybe yours. Maybe mine. Maybe your best friends' babies. Maybe my best friends' babies."

"This is crazy. What are you talking about?"

"Don't ask questions. It's the law. Just throw those babies overboard."

Sound insane? It's no more insane than Wisconsin's gay marriage ban amendment on the Nov. 7 ballot.

The people in favor of this amendment don't seem to understand what they're doing. They don't comprehend that what they want will bounce back at some of them and wound them and their own families - in their wallets, in their legal rights, and in their confidence in the basic sanity of their state.

It will wound them as deeply as it will wound the currently visible gay and lesbian and otherwise unconventional couples, who they mistakenly think are the only targets of their blind prejudice.

They don't understand that their own precious babies whom they cuddle in their arms, to whom they pour out their hearts, and for whom their families have their highest hopes are just as likely to grow up gay or lesbian as other people's babies down the block, across town, or at the other end of the universe.

The people who support this amendment don't seem to understand or to care that the infants who are at the very center of their families' dreams have exactly the same chance of growing up to be targets for bullies, objects of fear, scorn, hatred and ugly, unfair constitutional amendments as any other babies whose arrivals are recorded in each day's birth announcements.

And they don't seem to know or care that there is not a single iota of genuine evidence that the targets of this amendment are less capable of fulfilling the responsibilities of citizenship and of parenthood than any other group in the state's population.

Biologists know the basic facts about the hormones that circulate in each baby's blood within a few weeks after it is conceived. These hormones set the delicate balance of masculinizing androgens and feminizing estrogens in the fetus and the baby's later development. These androgens and estrogens determine how each baby's body and mind will grow into the indefinitely varied combination of male and female physical and mental traits that define us all.

Physicians know that no program of treatment or prayers can substantially alter the basic, underlying templates of growth that guide our babies, our children and our teenagers in their progress toward adulthood. Their sexuality and their gender identities will become superstructures that are built "above the waterline," on foundations of biology that are shaped by God or by nature, depending upon how one chooses to view these fundamentals of life.

We know that most of the leaves will fall off most of the trees in the next few weeks. The leaves and the trees will obey the laws of nature as they have evolved in the Wisconsin environment.

It is equally lawful in nature that about 3 percent to 8 percent of the children born in Wisconsin (and everywhere else) will grow up with some pattern of androgen and estrogen balances that misguided, misinformed or hostile people judge to be "unnatural" or "abnormal." That judgment is plain and simply wrong. These people are the way they are, like leaves on the trees, as God or nature made them. There's nothing unnatural or abnormal about it. It is the most natural thing in the world for things to be this way.

There is only one thing that is unnatural or abnormal in this picture. It is that even in modern times there are still so many people among us who are willing to listen to misguided leaders, leaders who try to establish separate sets of laws and citizenship for people whose otherwise legal patterns of partnering are different from their own.

About 70,000 babies are born in Wisconsin every year. At the rate of 3 percent to 8 percent with unconventional sexual and gender identities, this means that there are 2,100 to 5,600 new babies every year whose future rights as Wisconsin and American citizens would be limited and thrown overboard if this amendment passes on Election Day. In 10 years this could be more than 50,000 people. In 20 years, it could be more than 100,000 people.

No one can predict or control which baby will grow up to be in which category. That is the heart of the matter.

Remember, voters: If this amendment opposing same-sex marriage passes, the babies and the adults you throw overboard into second-class citizenship may be your own.

Bernard Z. Friedlander is emeritus research professor of human development at the University of Hartford in Connecticut. He now lives in Wisconsin. Published: October 4, 2006


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: barfalert; crap; homosexualagenda; leftistgarbage; samesexmarriage
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To: gidget7

then I stand corrected.


101 posted on 10/06/2006 4:57:47 PM PDT by Joan Kerrey
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To: Antoninus

You need to get behind the facade...

No thanks but I'm not so sure I'd want them behind mine either.


102 posted on 10/06/2006 4:59:10 PM PDT by Joan Kerrey
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To: olderwiser

So. Persist in your fantasies. But my right is to refuse to participate in them.

Somewhere I think we got lost in the text. I'm not defending gay marriages and believe as you do that marriage should be just as you describe. I think I was attempting to question the charge that those outside of marriage aren't capable and shouldn't be allowed to raise children. I'm suggesting that there are thousands out there who don't fit the mold who could and would raise a child in a loving enviroment. Gay, straight, married, single shouldn't be the only criterion when so many children are alone, unloved and will never have a chance in life without the help of those willing to help but are denied the opportunity.

I am in full agreement that the ideal situation is for a loving married couple to raise a child. I do believe however that there are millions of kids who will never be part of that perfect family and we shouldn't write them off simply because the perfect married couple is not available.


103 posted on 10/06/2006 5:10:53 PM PDT by Joan Kerrey
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To: Joan Kerrey
Can a "transgendered" woman become pregnant? Can a "transgendered" man father a child?

"Biologically" not, but legally yes. These days the courts have power to declare such things same way as two men to be "married".

This is nothing new, after all Caligula made his horse to be a Senator.

104 posted on 10/06/2006 6:27:20 PM PDT by A. Pole (XIV century English rhyme: "When Adam delved and Eve span, who was the gentleman?")
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To: SJackson
The state does not grant favor on marriage because the state wants to promote "love". The state enjoys a benefit from procreative couples bringing on the next generation of citizens - and therefor encourages procreative unions. A same sex union would do nothing of the sort, and so the state does not encourage such unions. Gays are boringly stupid about this fact.
105 posted on 10/06/2006 7:23:03 PM PDT by GregoryFul (cheap, immigrant labor built America)
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To: Joan Kerrey

The stats I've seen (here on Free Republic) said child molesters are 30 TIMES more likely to be "gay" than straight. The homosexual agenda gets around this by saying ANY act of child molestation, by it's very nature, can not be gay - even if the child is of the same sex as the perpetrator. (Huh?) The fact that you mention "orientation", shows you have internalized a bit of the (what used to be ultra-radical, but is now mainstream) "gay" agenda. There is nothing sexual about what they do. In my book, they are perverts; if they share their perversion with the world, they are jerks. (They might worship and abuse each other's body parts, but I will not worship or respect that.) To be honest I avoid working, associating, or treating them with respect. I will not let them teach my children, nor will I allow my child to associate with them or their homoadopted children.


106 posted on 10/07/2006 4:11:31 AM PDT by August West (To each according to his ability, from each according to his need...)
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To: August West
To be honest I avoid working, associating, or treating them with respect. I will not let them teach my children, nor will I allow my child to associate with them or their homoadopted children.

Wow, such honesty about staunchly resisting this militant enemy is rare these days - and much needed. The only way the homosexual flood will be stemmed is not by legislation alone (or primarily - it has been said that when laws are needed for an issue, the battle is already being lost), but by society's members steeling themselves against this PC poison and saying, unpopularly, that we won't have any of it. No explanation, no debate... because those committed to perversion will not be swayed by the most potent argument against them or by the most self-evident natural truths. We used to be a country of few laws, but with a cultural framework of morality that restrained evil.

107 posted on 10/07/2006 6:39:14 PM PDT by fwdude (LEFT LANE ENDS . . . MERGE RIGHT)
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Comment #108 Removed by Moderator

To: Joan Kerrey
So are you saying that those 10% are naturally homosexual?

It was a joke, dude. Chill.

It is a variation of an old Clinton joke. It wasn't his fault. He didn't want to have sexual relations with that woman. He just got sucked into it.

109 posted on 10/08/2006 8:56:10 AM PDT by Bubba_Leroy (What did Rather know and when did he know it?)
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To: brooklinema
Gender is just a bunch of stereotypes from society

That's the stupidist thing I have ever heard. Gender existed for millions of years before society ever developed.

110 posted on 10/08/2006 9:06:40 AM PDT by reg45
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To: SuziQ
Mr. Friedlander has a problem with basic logic.

Problem with it? He doesn't appear to have so much as the faintest relationship or familiarity with it.

111 posted on 10/08/2006 9:17:21 AM PDT by savedbygrace (SECURE THE BORDERS FIRST (I'M YELLING ON PURPOSE))
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To: SJackson

Really dumb article. Passing or not passing a law isn't going to change anyone's attitude.

Gay people who aren't welcomed in their home town/state will do what they've been doing for years -- move someplace where they can live their lives as they see fit.


112 posted on 10/08/2006 9:19:39 AM PDT by durasell (!)
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To: Radix
...we have been repeatedly denied the opportunity to vote and prove it.

We're with you, Radix. All eyes are on Massachusetts. What each state decides on controversial issues like this one affects the entire U.S.

Some of your congressional members should have been "thrown overboard" a long time ago. They are, IMO, an abomination.

113 posted on 10/15/2006 9:47:08 PM PDT by IIntense
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To: MamaTexan
...visitation is separated from child support... It is not in the best interests of the child.

I can understand the reason for that conclusion. It's an easy cut-and-dry formula for a family court's decision. Yet, when it comes to a serious consideration of other factors, of which there are a number, the same court does not always rule in the best interest of the child. Each situation deserves to be looked at thoroughly.

My advice: don't do anything that will land you in court if you don't want the judicial system deciding for you.

I'm preaching to the choir LOL.

114 posted on 10/15/2006 10:19:45 PM PDT by IIntense
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To: fwdude
...but by society's members steeling themselves against this PC poison, and saying, unpopularly, that we won't have any of it.

August West stepped right out there and spoke his mind. While I agree that homosexuality is unnatural and active homosexuals indulge in pervert acts, I haven't been as forthright as August West.

Yet, when I recall a case in 2005 where David Parker asked to be notified when homosexuality would be a subject in his son's kindergarten class, he was arrested because he refused to leave school property until he got an agreement to that. This occurred at the Estabrook School in Lexington, Massachusetts.

Yes, the queer crowd has an evil agenda and they've got too many of the misguided and dangerous PC advocates behind them. They deserve to be shunned...nothing else is working!

115 posted on 10/15/2006 10:57:22 PM PDT by IIntense
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To: IIntense
Local Politics
Mitt vs. Mass.: Slams state on gay weds in nod to national GOP
By Jessica Fargen
In a passionate pitch simulcast to millions of Christian conservatives across the nation, Gov. Mitt Romney blasted gay marriage in Massachusetts as a danger to kids and urged the passage of a national ban on same-sex marriage.
 
 
The Boston Herald for whatever reason is always trashing Mitt Romney. 
 
Here is today's Mitt slam.  
 
Gov. Mitt Romney last night called for a national ban on gay marriage at a forum hosted by the Family Research Council. (Staff photo by Tim Correira)
 
http://news.bostonherald.com/localPolitics/view.bg?articleid=162563

116 posted on 10/16/2006 8:41:25 AM PDT by Radix
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