Same-Sex Couples and Adoption

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That FOR sure is not what they were talking in the 70s. Does not mean it is not so today.

The sociological problems surrounding the proper rearing of children who don't have even one worthwhile parent are legion.

There is absolutely no shortage of people willing to adopt a white infant. I have known people who desperately wanted to raise children and could not have their own, who waited on lists for years and years.

There is, however, a troubling shortage of people willing to adopt black babies. It's an ugly fact but there it is.

When you get past infants, there is a troubling shortage of people who are both willing and qualified to care for young children and adolescents who have behavioral or emotional problems caused by their incompetent parent(s).

Among all that, I think the question of whether or not the prospective parents have complementary or identical sexual organs seems trite.

However, a lot of people seem to have a problem with the possibility that children may grow up thinking that there is nothing wrong with people being gay.

I don't buy the line that people are afraid that their children might turn gay if exposed to a positive image of gayness. I suspect that they are simply cowards and don't want to have uncomfortable conversations with their children. And wake up in the middle of the night terrified by the thought of their children experimenting instead of just going along with the old social norms.

I think that's really what they're afraid of. Not that any child will get "programmed" to be gay, but that they will grow up understanding that gay people are just people, like everybody else.

Wishful thinking. Sorry, Phil, but being treated like you are sub-human and somehow deserve to be treated horribly has a crippling, demoralizing effect on your psyche, whether you want to know it or not. Cruelty exists in our society because cruelty is remarkably effective at what it is designed for: utterly destroying people. Pretending that it is otherwise is just a way for people who have been treated horribly to comfort themselves and pretend that their tormentors haven't really accomplished anything. The sick truth is that, if people set out to weaken you and render you ineffectual, pulling out all the stops, there are pretty good chances of them getting exactly what they want.

You can be reduced to a pathetic, laughable and hopeless wreck of a human being. You can be driven to alcoholism and drug abuse. You can be so deeply emotionally castrated as to leave you incapable of holding down a job. You can be driven to take your own life. It is possible for someone to destroy you.

And there are people I would love to destroy as completely as possible. Phil, you cannot understand because you are straight. You can never understand if you haven't been through it. And you haven't, no matter how much you may protest otherwise. You really don't have any context for understanding it.

In all honesty, as the parent of a daughter, if my little girl chooses to be sexually active in her teen years (which I'm praying to God is not the case!), I certainly hope that she would consider experimenting with lesbianism, as no unwanted pregnancies can result from that.
And yes, I am being absolutely serious.
Just the same, my wife and I would like to be grandparents, someday - - when my daughter is an adult.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

I don't care how normal, human, or natural your responses may be. It was perfectly normal, human, and natural for those kids to beat you up because you were different. That didn't make it right, not for them and not for you.


You knew this, and yet you had no problem talking about 'Christian weirdos' who should have their eyes cut out. As both a Christian and a weirdo, I'm in your target group, but I don't deserve it.

Your rage will just keep getting bigger and more painful if you keep feeding it. I don't know if you made any good points amongst all the ranting. If you did, I missed them, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one.

Mr. Delaney, you should perhaps consider moving to a more gay-friendly locale for your own mental health.

I have no kids, but i can see how it's all very awkward for the parents anyway.

A friend of mine got a rude awakening about his 15 year old daughter in the form of his neighbor angrily approaching him while brandishing a ladder, demanding to know if it was his, and it was. And had been found leaning against his teenage daughter's window.

The neighbors did not approve, to say the least.

Does not compute. How is it "wishful thinking" to say attack will not say "oh dear me, so solly" if attacked back? Like snarling is the way to get a pack of hungry wolves to back off? Are you even speaking English here?




How does this connect with ANYTHING I have said? Like I have denied cruelty? Like I have denied the effects of cruelty?

Is this an insane Turing test? Is there anyone there capable of imagining I exist?



Get over it and open your bloedig eyes. "You can never understasnd because you are heterosexual" "You can never understand becauser you are white" "You can never understand because you are male." "You can never understand because you are not a Muslim or a Jew, or a Pole, or an Irish Catholic, or an Albanian Kosovar, or a Stratificationalist, or one of the Fir Bolg"

GREEN MONKEYS GET HIT!. Depending on where and when and the level of civilized policing you get it differently. All I got was being an introverted budding pedant nonCatholic thought to be homosexual in a neighbourhood of working class 2nd or third generation Italians. I was always under the eyes of teachers, I got minimal physical contact, a lot of verbal harassment and some property damage. None of which made sense because I had never had it explained WHY the Green Monkey needs to be torn apart.

Oh, I would not understand. Of course not. I did not fantasize shooting up the school, I - so civilized - just wanted to kidnap some of them and imprison them with a spot of torture.

You are right - I do not understand someone who would rather arrack a potential friend than listen to anybody but himself.

Gayness should be reclassified as a mental disorder.

No, you have to dominate them and beat them into submission. Snarling isn't sufficient. You really seriously have to pick up a big stick and beat them bloody for a while. When they start whimpering, beat them some more. Make it hurt. Make it hurt a lot.

But usually, the veterinarian patches up his wounds. I have a friend in Rockingham, NC, who was taken off of the drugs that were keeping the Multiple Sclerosis out of his brain. The doctor heard that he was a homosexual and said, "oh, that explains what is happening to you. You really have HIV, so you shouldn't be taking Multiple Sclerosis drugs." The doctor gave him less than a year to live. I remember trying to carry on conversations with him, and his memory kept getting worse. His hearing started to go. He started having painful, lingering headaches.

It was months before he got to see a doctor in UNC Chapel Hill to schedule a spinal tap and some other procedures. Weeks later, the results revealed what the MS was doing to him, and he was put back on the same drugs that had been keeping him more or less able to care for himself.

But the new doctor failed to realize that he was already taking acetylcholine, so the doctor wrote him a prescription for it accompanied by a barbiturate to enhance its effects. He started vomiting profusely and coming down with most of the more horrible side-effects of the drug. It got so bad that, by the time he received medical care, he had several severe hernias and needed emergency surgery. He was in rehab for a long time.

Now he's been released from rehab, but now the service that is helping him to pay for his bills requires him to be housebound to receive the financial assistance that he needs. That means he isn't allowed to drive, even though he still had the ability to do so, even to get his prescription drugs or keep a doctor's appointment.

My boyfriend and I talked to him, and we finally convinced him to start calling up his niece, the one relative in his family of arrogant Missionary Baptists who would give him the time of day. She complained about having to interrupt her religious services to take him to the doctor, but she was willing to help a little. By the way, she's the only person represented in his will, not that he's going to have anything in his estate.

That doctor tried to murder him, Phil. He tried to murder that man, and he knew that he could get away with it. You people don't seem to understand. The people out there who are really seriously anti-gay would not and do not stop short of murder. They are evil. Don't you freaking understand? Does it just not compute? What do I have to say or do to get you people to understand how sick this really is?

The extremists think that the gay people are not only defective but defective and sinful. They see gay people as a disgrace. They see gay people in the same light as a pedophile or someone who has sexual relations with animals. They see the gay people as horrible perverts. To them, we are people are so morally weak that we don't deserve for anyone to give a damn whether we live or die. It really is that horrible, and I don't know what I have to say or do to get you people to understand it. We are dealing with people who don't think we're fit to live.

It's not just a controversy or "hot button issue." It's literally a quiet war, where people are dying by the thousands. It is a silent and endless genocide.

I don't wake up crying and cursing under my breath anymore. It's actually very rare now that the rage boils over like it used to. What helps the most is identifying the real-world, concrete reasons for it. Rage gets out of control when it becomes its own justification. That's what leads to insanity. When you single out concrete, real-world reasons for it and identify concrete, real-world things that can be done about it, it can be controlled.

And one thing that I am doing about it is making it clear to you people that gay rights is not something that is up for debate. It is not something that can be discussed civilly. This is not one of issues where we can hold hands and sing "Cumbaya, I'm okay, you're okay, smoke up the dope." It's not allowable.

You know, addressing the subject that started the thread, let me point out once again what I said earlier:

Argument against gay adoption: it's healthier for a child to be raised with his or her biological mom and dad, therefore gay people should not be allowed to adopt children.

Rebuttal: the problem with the argument is that it falsely insinuates that same-sex adoptive parents are being presented as a substitute for a biological mother and father, therefore the argument is quietly mendacious right off the bat. The reality is that same-sex adoptive parents are being presented as a substitute for life in foster care.

Revised argument against gay adoption: it's healthier for a child to be raised in [a series of foster homes, where the "foster parents" are often hoping to profit from it ( http://www.fosterparenting.com/foster-c ... rates.html )], therefore gay people should not be allowed to adopt children.

Rebuttal: foster care is really not a desirable alternative to a stable home, and children tend to develop a lot better if they are able to stay in one place with a family that is capable of providing a good education and emotional nourishment.

Second revision to argument against gay adoption: it's healthier for a child to be raised [by adoptive parents of the opposite sex], therefore gay people should not be allowed to adopt.

Rebuttal: for one thing, this falsely assumes that there is an unlimited supply of opposite-sex families for the children who are in the system. Although infant children are always in demand, it is a lot harder to find homes for older children. The insinuation being made by this argument is that opposite-sex parents would no longer be able to adopt at all.

Another argument I hear often: same-sex parents would cause sexual confusion for the kids.

Rebuttal: the assumption being made by this argument is that somehow children develop their sexuality by watching their parents' behavior. The fact of the matter is that our sexuality is largely hard-wired and biological in origin. People do not have to learn that they have sexual desire. They do not have to be taught that they have these needs. Mating impulses are the most primitive and basic of all human behaviors. Furthermore, children tend to learn more about this from their peers and through the media than from their parents, and it is actually not typical for parents to instruct their children on courtship.

There is no credible argument against same-sex parents having a right to adopt, but the opponents of same-sex adoption seem to enjoy using this issue to excite and energize people who still believe that gay people are all wicked sexual deviants. It's a political device used to stir up people's insecurities.

A. We have too many things classified as mental disorders already.

B. On what grounds exactly?

C. Should my great aversion to the sight of eyes [human or vertebrate - insect and gastropod eyes are fine, though I suspect cephalopod eyes will be included] be classified as a mental disorder?

Actually, I have felt for a long time that homosexuality should be classified as a mild disorder of mental sexual development, and any pattern of treatment should be aimed at improving the quality of life for people who are affected by it. If homosexuality were treated like any other illness, most medical professionals would perceive correcting the disorder as secondary to reducing harm that might result from it.

In fact, most medical professionals would be loathe to attempt to treat a condition that is not likely to cause any harm, especially if the treatment itself could be injurious. It would be like doing open-heart surgery on an aortic stenosis that is not yet life-threatening: although it would correct the stenosis, the treatment could kill the patient or cause other problems to suddenly manifest.

So I'm calling your bluff. Let's try applying standard medical practices to homosexuality. Anyone working in medicine would tell you exactly what the liberals are telling you, though: "acceptance is the best medicine." It's the only program that does any good at all. Classifying homosexuality as a mental disorder would only result in a more organized application of the same thing we're already doing.

Thank you for reclaiming your inside voice and rejoining those of us who prefer reasonable, measured discussion to invective.

I disagree with your claim that, "[Gay rights] is (sic) not something that can be discussed civilly." I believe that it is entirely possible to have a civilized debate about gay rights--and some of our greatest victories have come through civilized debates. Decriminilization, anti-discrimination laws, the freedom to marry and adoption have all be won in the courtrooms and in the legislatures--not through demonstrations or violence. That is not to say that demonstrations do not have their place--it is the "lunatic fringe" on both sides of a question that helps us frame the debate and find the middle ground.

But at the end of the day I will never raise my voice against the person who believes me to be a sinner, or to be disordered. I will counter that person's arguments to the utmost of my intellectual capacity, but I will never abandon the moral high ground. I will reach out and help people like me who have been damaged by people like that--but I will never reduce myself to attempting to do the same in return.

I lament the victims of gay bashings that continue to occur. I lament the victims of shoddy medicine and clinical psychology. I lament those who have been made to suffer by others whose opinions are uncaring and unfeeling. But I will not bash back. I will use the civil tools at my disposal to fight intolerance and ignorance.

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Some of the wording of your point A [my labelling] strikes me as strange. I think you are talking about harm to the patient, not harm to society?

I do wish your assertion were true. Apart from the vexed question of elective surgery, botox and the like, I am very much more conscious than I like of such things as the effects of chronic use of drugs adressing Parkinsons.

As for your point B - I quite agree that a large proportion of the profession [not all, of course] regrettably buys into the consensus textbook view of things. And I do rather doubt the classification would be a positive move. Basically, it would lead to a move in government and education to marginalize and segregate - maybe some attempts to socialize acceptable surface behaviors.

But what if there were enough of a group seeking a possible cure to stimulate a research program that might turn up some drug or geene spicing that would fix the aberrants?

I suspect you and I would both be modified into unrecognizable new people.

I haven't had much luck trying to be diplomatic, though. When I try to explain my position on the subject, the bigots behave like I'm making a lawyerly attempt to justify something that they consider to be unjustifiable.

You would be surprised at how much you can accomplish if you just say what you believe with a sense of strength and conviction. It's really the only way you can get through to people who truly have their ears plugged. I'm sorry it has to be like that, and I know it goes against your principles (which are ones I consider to be very laudable), but people who don't respect anything in the world besides strength of conviction are not ready to listen to lengthy explanations about biologically wired behavioral tendencies or statistics. They are people who only pause to think if you say loudly and confidently, "I am right, and I know I'm right. I am willing to fight you." It goes back to Code Duello.

It's not that I disagree with your beliefs about sticking to your guns and preserving what you consider to be the moral high ground. It's nothing like that. I just know that sometimes you're going to have to deal with people who see your principles, which I personally agree are virtuous, as a lack of conviction and a sign of moral frailty. I'm sorry that it has to be like that, but that's part of the world we live in.