02-27-2004, 10:34 PM
Having a "traditional" family does not make the family whole. Being gay does not make you a bad mother/father.
Since nobody is perfect, and there are a million other factors involved, you are right on both counts. By the same token, one specific single mother may do a better job of raising a family than one specific married couple. One orphan may grow up better than a kid in an extended family. These anecdotes are possible not because it is insignificant to have a mother and a father, but because life is too complicated to isolate that one factor.
I would suggest the reason we are seeing the "typical" family disentegrate is that the family is no longer a neccessity at all. A hundred years ago, you had a big family or you were probably dead. Children were needed to help on the farm or work for the family. That's simply no longer the case in most First World Countries. Rasising a family is no longer a need, thus, there is no set direction for the family to take.
This seems strongly misguided to me. There are few things in life as important as family.
I wonder what you think about women working while men stay home. I'd like to point out that until very recently, having a stay at home father and a working mother would have been considered a "broken home."
Since having two working parents is now the norm, having any stay-at-home parent would have to be considered a luxury in contemporary society. I think infants and very young children certainly benefit from having their mother around (and all other things being equal, I think the mother/infant relationship is inherently stronger and more important than the father), but the family and society also benefit from having that same mother's contribution at work.
"Obviously, because homosexual acts are immoral."
This is your OPINION. I will defend to the death your right to believe and say this, but I will fight harder to defend that this is an OPINION, not fact.
Of course it is an opinion. I generally do not feel obligated to write "in my opinion" before every sentence that happens to be an opinion, especially when the sentence cannot possibly be misconstrued as a fact. But anyways, a great deal of law and social structure is based on opinions, with varying degrees of factual support. The ideal speed limit for a road is a compromise of safety vs. speed (amongst other things) and therefor is a problem with no right answer, but that does not prevent us from enforcing speed limits.
As a quick note: when I refered to laws, the bill of rights, etc, in the states preventing discrimination against sexual orientation, I was refering to the Supreme Court's decision that preventing gay marriages was unconstitutional. THEY were very clear concerning discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation.
If you wish to say that the Supreme Court has made something clear, that is very different from saying the Constitution makes it clear. The Supreme Court is capable of overturning it's own precedent without any relevant change to the Constitution (as they did in the 2003 decision you refer to), so clearly there is a higher priority to things explicity written in the Constitution than there is to things explicitly written in previous Supreme Court cases. The full scope of this ruling is certainly debatable, and the Supreme Court will surely take on cases in the coming years which will give them the opportunity to clarify it.
That's what this is really about -- who is impressing their opinions on others.
The degree to which people are entitled to liberty and freedom is based in opinion. You are using an opinion to enforce the idea that opinions shouldn't be enforced. A more libertarian viewpoint cannot automatically be accepted as a more correct one.
Tell me how two people you have never met being married takes away from your liberties. Tell me how the behaviour of two people you will never meet takes away your freedoms.
It will not affect me personally any more than prostitution, gambling, or dealing cocaine. The societal affects we have already hashed through plenty.
Since nobody is perfect, and there are a million other factors involved, you are right on both counts. By the same token, one specific single mother may do a better job of raising a family than one specific married couple. One orphan may grow up better than a kid in an extended family. These anecdotes are possible not because it is insignificant to have a mother and a father, but because life is too complicated to isolate that one factor.
I would suggest the reason we are seeing the "typical" family disentegrate is that the family is no longer a neccessity at all. A hundred years ago, you had a big family or you were probably dead. Children were needed to help on the farm or work for the family. That's simply no longer the case in most First World Countries. Rasising a family is no longer a need, thus, there is no set direction for the family to take.
This seems strongly misguided to me. There are few things in life as important as family.
I wonder what you think about women working while men stay home. I'd like to point out that until very recently, having a stay at home father and a working mother would have been considered a "broken home."
Since having two working parents is now the norm, having any stay-at-home parent would have to be considered a luxury in contemporary society. I think infants and very young children certainly benefit from having their mother around (and all other things being equal, I think the mother/infant relationship is inherently stronger and more important than the father), but the family and society also benefit from having that same mother's contribution at work.
"Obviously, because homosexual acts are immoral."
This is your OPINION. I will defend to the death your right to believe and say this, but I will fight harder to defend that this is an OPINION, not fact.
Of course it is an opinion. I generally do not feel obligated to write "in my opinion" before every sentence that happens to be an opinion, especially when the sentence cannot possibly be misconstrued as a fact. But anyways, a great deal of law and social structure is based on opinions, with varying degrees of factual support. The ideal speed limit for a road is a compromise of safety vs. speed (amongst other things) and therefor is a problem with no right answer, but that does not prevent us from enforcing speed limits.
As a quick note: when I refered to laws, the bill of rights, etc, in the states preventing discrimination against sexual orientation, I was refering to the Supreme Court's decision that preventing gay marriages was unconstitutional. THEY were very clear concerning discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation.
If you wish to say that the Supreme Court has made something clear, that is very different from saying the Constitution makes it clear. The Supreme Court is capable of overturning it's own precedent without any relevant change to the Constitution (as they did in the 2003 decision you refer to), so clearly there is a higher priority to things explicity written in the Constitution than there is to things explicitly written in previous Supreme Court cases. The full scope of this ruling is certainly debatable, and the Supreme Court will surely take on cases in the coming years which will give them the opportunity to clarify it.
That's what this is really about -- who is impressing their opinions on others.
The degree to which people are entitled to liberty and freedom is based in opinion. You are using an opinion to enforce the idea that opinions shouldn't be enforced. A more libertarian viewpoint cannot automatically be accepted as a more correct one.
Tell me how two people you have never met being married takes away from your liberties. Tell me how the behaviour of two people you will never meet takes away your freedoms.
It will not affect me personally any more than prostitution, gambling, or dealing cocaine. The societal affects we have already hashed through plenty.