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Experience, research refute arguments of same-sex opponents
Oct. 29, 2009
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Printer-friendly versionSend to friendPDF versionIn bulletin inserts he had distributed throughout his diocese, Bishop Richard J. Malone of Portland, Maine, called same-sex marriage "a dangerous sociological experiment," insisting that allowing gays to wed somehow threatens traditional marriage. He said that legalizing "same-sex marriage can negatively impact children in several ways."
Ann Lemire of South Portland, called Malone's assertion as "scare tactics" and "untrue."
"Someone who loves them and guides them -- that's what is important" for children, said Lemire, a physician and a former nun. "I happen to know wonderful same-sex couples who are parents, and the children are wonderful, too."
One wonders if Malone has met any same-sex couples, good parents, who wish to marry?
Could he have missed the witness of Yolande Dumont, a life-long devoutly Catholic grandmother who has appeared on TV ads statewide?
Dumont explains to viewers, "My son is a good man in a loving, committed relationship. He and his partner have created a loving home for my youngest grandchild."
In urging Mainers to vote "No on 1," she says, "Marriage is a great institution -- it works and it's what I want for my children too."
While these are personal experiences and anecdotal, social science research is finding that no harm comes children raised by gay or lesbian parents.
"Gay and lesbian parents are doing just fine and look very similar to straight parents in terms of mental health, parental warmth, and the kinds of parenting attitudes and values," said Abbie G. Goldberg, an assistant professor of psychology at Clark University, located in Worcester, Mass.
She is the author of, Lesbian and Gay Parents and Their Children: Research on the Family Life Cycle, the first-book length review and analysis of research on parenting by same-sex couples and their families, published last Sept., by the American Psychological Association.
[A frequent contributor to NCR, Chuck Colbert freelance journalist from Cambridge, Mass.]
Back to the main story: In Maine, same-sex marriage is a Catholic issue
Ideology based positions
Ideology based positions which fail to recognize real life data and experience are not just questionable but they are dangerous. This is particularly true when the "data" and "experience" repudiate the position, and the ideologue rejects reality. Without the discipline of reality and/or common sense such positions also frequently escalate into a system of nonsensical belief that quickly loses any contact with reality. Challenging such positions frequently and quickly exhausts what little credability, if any, in the position(s) rendering the tenuous holding as ridiculous except to the ideologue and followers).
Thus exhausted, the ideologue is not vanquished or convinced of his/her error, but rather adopts additional, escalating levels of defence: obfuscation, half-truths, lies, venom, authority (where available),threat.
It must be extremely disconcerting for hierarchical ideologues that "dis-memberment" no longer implies the ultimate "sting" of actual dismemberment.
Well done
Well done
Who am I to say to God, "You
Who am I to say to God, "You made a mistake in the way you created Gays and Lesbians."? Making such a statement strikes me as the height of arrogance.
Sure, we can say the two
Sure, we can say the two people do not affect anyone or do not threaten hetero couples. In my case my wife became involved with a lesbian woman and has to decide if bi-sexual is possible of the lesbian lover will break up our marriage of many years. It does affect me and our children. What do you think, how could it not?
Would you ask this rhetorical
Would you ask this rhetorical question if your wife was involved with another man? And why would you even consider what sounds like a three-way arrangement regardless of the genders involved?
Infidelity is a character issue... an inability to be faithful to a marriage commitment with anyone. It has nothing to do with a person's gender orientation. It sounds like your marriage was in trouble long before "the lesbian" showed up.
When my wife was lured into a
When my wife was lured into a same sex relationship she learned how hard it is to get out. She may never recover her innocence and find faithfulness again in our marriage. Our daughter suffers and both of us wondering if the lesbian friend will let her go.
The question is not whether
The question is not whether God made a mistake or any other implied extension of the logic of the proposal. The question is whether it is better policy to preserve the institution of marriage as between a man and a woman rather than extending it to same-sex couples.
The traditional family has several characteristics that seem to me to be valuable to society. Members know each other, their strengths and weaknesses, failures and successes and goals and aspirations for life. A family is the place where relationships, virtues, responsibility, citizenship and service are learned, more by example probably than by precept. Families are more effectual in this process than day care, nursery schools, schools, gangs, etc.
Several of these core components are not compatible with the environment lead by same-sex family heads. Traditional families facilitate:
- Learning the skills required for effective inter-gender relationships.
- Learning effective gender role recognition and participation. (Here I do not mean chauvinistic roles.)
- Encountering sex and related issues in normal course at normal age. (This does not mean that same-sex family heads would be necessarily imposing exposure to sex on children in the home but that the fact of same-sex family heads would require explanations and understanding of sex and sex related issues prematurely simply as part of the child's coming to understand his/her identity and place in the world.)
Maintaining the traditional family strengthens society in these ways and therefore, marriage (the origin and essence of family) should be limited to a union between a man and a woman. Other legal forms can protect constitutional rights of gay citizens but that does not require marriage for same-sex couples.
The traditional heterosexual
The traditional heterosexual family is also the setting for the vast majority of sexual abuse, which certainly introduces young children (mostly girls) to sex prematurely.
How do you define 'effective gender role definition and participation'? I suspect your definition is based on accepted assumptions and not objective observation.
"While these are personal
"While these are personal experiences and anecdotal"
You can say that again. Why does the headline suggest a wealth of documentation but the story provides a few tendentious anecdotes?
This isn't "reporting".
I don't care what anyone
I don't care what anyone says, it can't be good for kids to be in these arrangements. How can they not have a distorted view of the way people of the same sex should interact with one another? If two people of the same sex want to live together, then that is their business & there is no law in any state against it but they should not bring children into those arrangements. This is a form of child abuse.
I always find this argument
I always find this argument interesting because it implys that heterosexuality is also a malleable, easily influenced and there for insecure trait.
Please cite the studies that show that gay parents can influence the heterosexuality of their children. I can show plenty of studies that show heterosexual bigotry has a definite effect on gay children and the children of gay parents.
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