Quote from: Randy on July 04, 2010, 03:36:14 PM
What is normal? We redefine what it means to be normal everyday. YOU have defied normal, just by being yourself, and people call us selfish for doing that. Limiting the world's viable parents to straight married couples will not guarantee them a happy life, nor does being in a household with two moms or dads deny them that (and it's not just us gays saying that, studies prove it). Not intended as a "flame" but I do find it highly offensive that you would generalize against a whole people, based on what you perceive to be normal.
I think to a degree you have (understandably) misinterpreted me.
Yes, you're right that kids from a same sex parentage can grow up just fine and have had a happy childhood.
Yes, you're right that being from a heterosexual parentage in NO way precludes having a very dysfunctional UNhappy upbringing.
Yes, you're right that in the past, studies tend to show no significant difference in actual outcome from a same sex upbringing (however the same is NOT true of a single parent upbringing)
I don't challenge or disagree with any of those points.
What I believe however, is that a same sex parental upbringing is a LESS good upbringing than a hextrosexual two parent upbringing. Less good in that the quality of that parenting is lacking by missing either the presence of a mother or (much more frequently) a father. And I believe that while the kind of person that child turns out to be may still be a very happy, functional adult, that kind of upbringing is inferior in quality, and that we should not be purposefully helping them to conceive children for an inferior upbringing.
Quote from: Randy on July 04, 2010, 03:36:14 PM
Good point, Arch. Should African-Americans or Hispanic-Americans, or any other racial minority not be allowed to reproduce solely based on the fact that their kids might be teased and have an altered life of less opportunities based on the color of their skin? Of course you wouldn't. It's not cool to be a racist anymore. Instead we put our focus as a society on making the world better for these kinds of people. Gays still have a huge target on our backs. We aren't to a point of equality yet (and neither, really are racial minorities), and, personally, I think instead of calling them selfish for wanting to bring life into this world, and raise a family, we should be working toward that equality.
BTW, I hate kids. I think there is really no need for them anymore, the world is over-populated as it is, and I never want any of the little brats near me. But, I will fight to the death for our right to have them.
If you think I am advocating preventing people from conceiving children amongst themselves for themselves by say, mandatory sterilization, then you're completely wrong.
There are two major differences here between your example and this one.
One is that different races require NO extra help to have children, gay couples and single parents do, so even if I was saying that some races shouldn't have kids (which of course I am NOT), it's still purely a moral issue and in no way a legal one, cause I'll never support suppression of people having kids to the natural ability that they can. Only in not helping them when they can't.
The other major issue is simply that there is NO inherent deficiency in a hetrosexual non-white parentage, the differences are 100% a social construct. I do NOT believe that all the deficiencies in a single parent or same sex upbringing are socially induced, I think they are inherent to the dynamic of the upbringing, which is to say I think there should be an influence by a member of each gender.
Arguing that it's "equal rights" for gays to have kids, is assuming that homosexual relationships are the same as hetrosexual ones, they're not, they're equally valid, but they're not the same, and they don't have the same things to offer a child. I also outright reject any concept that it's your (straight, gay, anybody) 'right' to have children.
It's not, you have no right to have kids, you have a right to be able to TRY to have kids to the extent you are biologically capable. As soon as anyone else has to step in to help, it's not your right anymore.
Post Merge: July 04, 2010, 07:16:35 PM
Quote from: Arch on July 04, 2010, 10:55:39 AM
As I said before in this thread a couple of pages ago, you can easily make a case that people in all sorts of circumstances should not be having children because the children would be teased or would face some sort of discrimination. Queer, dark-skinned, physically disabled, mentally disordered, fat, unusually short, lower middle class, you name it.
I don't know that physically disabled or mentally disordered, or extremely poor people should be having children either