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
"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'"
Physicians might not know, but homo recruiters certainly have a program to "substantially alter the basic, underlying templates of growth that guide our babies, our children and our teenagers in their progress toward adulthood." It's called "perversion". Homomarraige is part of the program.
The reason visitation is separated from child support is because a child shouldn't have to do without contact with a parent based solely on that parents inability to pay.
It is not in the best interests of the child.
How is it that someone can learn to read and write and be unable to think?
The author is a fool and hysterical.
NOTHING he said is in anyway based on legitimate science.
After the foley scandal.
The fewer homosexuals with access to children the better.
10% of homosexual men are born that way. The rest just get sucked into it.
Mr. Friedlander has a problem with basic logic.
Translation: "I'll do anybody". That's ALL these people are about, wanting sex with whoever and whenever without consequences.
What's not in the best interest of the child?
The writer was talking about the conclusion drawn by some study... I'm thinking it came out about 6-8 months ago.
Gotta love newspeak. And fatherless America is producing rotten fruit.
." It's called "perversion". Homomarraige is part of the program.
a.k.a. your local public school and the teachers' union
This is as far as I could force myself to read stupidity masquerading as persuasion.
It presumes, absolutely and finally, that gayness is not a lifestyle choice.
The jury is still out on that one...
Our babies will not grow up to become homosexuals if we keep them away from the likes of you and your indoctrination!
Then I wonder how the first homosexual came to be?
True or not, doesn't matter. A child's right to have two parents, one of each gender takes precedence
So does that mean that if a child can't find a man/woman couple tough luck?
Does that mean that babies should therefore be taken away from single moms, single dads and only given back when they couple again?
Just wondering. with millions of homeless children in this world are we to allow only those who are lucky enough to find a man/woman legally married couple a chance in life?
How can we be so cruel and uncaring that unless circumstances are perfect we're willing to deny any chance in life for millions who are very likely to die otherwise?
Amen to that! :)
And what happens if the child can't be matched with a mother and father. I guess the child is just out of luck, huh?
but homo recruiters certainly have a program
I wonder who recruited the first homosexual.
It all has to do with the rights of the parties affected versus a state's interest in promoting something. The state is the least interested party & has to demonstrate a compelling interest to change a status quo.
Find what: "the gods" or "science"
Replace with: "God"
Hit the Replace All key.
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