I felt very embarrassed for Michael Potemra. His statements will make it difficult for me to take him seriously in the future. Too bad.

"When I speak to my friends who favor same-sex civil marriage, they tend to rely on two false trump cards to support their view that the struggle for marriage is over. First, they claim that supporters of marriage have run out of arguments for their position."

You're right, Matthew, that this is a false argument. But one of the key problems isn't that the pro traditional marriage group doesn't have an argument, it's just that the gay marriage arguments are, in a sense, simpler.

Here's what I mean: "Marriage equality! We just want what you have. We want equality."

Whether true or not, the gay marriage argument is easily distilled into soundbite form, is palatable to many hearers' ears, and hits with an emotional punch. After all, who would be against equality? It sounds so simple.

On the other hand, the pro traditional marriage people have sound arguments, but with more nuance, arguing for societal stability, procreation, traditional values, the sound upbringing of children, etc. etc. These are arguments that take a little more argumentation to get to their cores, and require more, like an essay or lengthier op-ed, to present a full and accurate presentation. Essentially, it's not as easy to "soundbite" them.

This isn't the only reason why NYS passed gay marriage, or why gay marriage nationwide is gaining in popularity. There are certainly other things to consider. But I would argue that this is certainly an important element.

If same-sex marriage is accepted by the whole world, and that causes heterosexuals to "clean up" opposite-sex marriage, no matter what you feel about same-sex marriage, I don't see how anyone could conclude there was not a tremendous net gain.

" It is the marriage revisionists who lack arguments and must instead rely on hollow accusations of bigotry and bad faith."

Very true. The situation is very similar to the abortion debate.  The pro-life side has always had the most reasonable arguments, while the abortion side has always relied more on obfuscation and falseness.  The tide us turning in that struggle.  I expect the same eventually will take place in this one.  History is a long time.

@David Nickol,

There really is no such thing as same-sex marriage or opposite-sex marriage, there's just marriage.

If a large number of homosexuals invented a word for something they think and do, no one would care. No one would even know about it. This debate is a political debate to redefine the word marriage.

The use of your terms is a tautology. You present a conclusion as a premise. It is not a capitulation on your part to argue that the U.S. government should redefine the meaning of the word marriage. Why then does the movement to redefine marriage so prefer tautology to argumentation without logical fallacies?

Anyway, I thought I'd take a stab at rewording your comment without the tautology:

If the whole world agrees to redefine the meaning of marriage, and the redefinition causes heterosexuals to behave differently in accordance with the new definition, no matter what you feel about the new definition of marriage, I don't see how anyone could conclude there was not a tremendous net gain.

I can see how you use the tautology to advance your argument. I hope you can also see how what you asserted makes no sense without the tautology.

David Nickol, that's not going to happen. If anything I've been seeing more calls for government to get out of the marriage idea entirely, and that will not clean up anything.

@Matthew

You write:

When I speak to my friends who favor same-sex civil marriage...

I liked your post, but I think you put yourself at a profound disadvantage by using the term "same-sex marriage." There is no such thing anymore than there are such things as "seated-standing" or "walk-flying." As I argued to David Nickol, your friends are presenting a conclusion ("marriage" is inclusive/synonymous with "same-sex marriage") as a premise, and by using their terms you are letting them get away with it.

To avoid the tautology, I never allow the use of the terms "gay marriage" or "same sex marriage" when I debate friends. After a little struggle, I can get them to agree that we are indeed talking about the government redefining the word marriage, and I can get them to agree that the government did not invent marriage. From there, the debate gets interesting...

If you are interested, here's my crack at it written more than a year ago.

My apologies! I had used HTML in my comments, but I now see it does not work on "On the Square" as it does elsewhere on First Things.

Anyway, I referenced a blogpost I wrote about a year ago. If anyone is interested, you can read it here:
http://crisisofthehousedivided.blogspot.com/2010/08/personal-thoughts-on-what-gay-marriage.html

"We can’t help our urges, and we should not lie to our partners about them."

From Dan Savage, touted in a NY Times article linked to the one above (Many Successful Gay Marriages Share an Open Secret).

Isn't that the crux of liberal ideology? The claim that humans cannot help a single sexual urge, so each and everyone of them must be legitimized if they are in the realm of sexuality, no matter how violent, deformed, or harmful?

Isn't that the greatest lie that homosexual activists have foisted on the American public? That sexuality in any way, shape or form cannot be "helped" nor does it have concrete causes?

No one dares ask what produces dysfunctional sexual desires. We can ask what produces the desire to murder, to commit white collar crimes, to jump from a bridge, but nothing must be asked about sexual desires.

"Some people need more than one partner, he writes, just as some people need flirting, others need to be whipped, others need lovers of both sexes."

The question is why does American society produce so many deformed people concerning sexuality?

Until Americans face this question squarely in the eye and start putting in place preventive measures, preoccupying oneself only with marriage is like putting on a band-aid on a hemorrage.

Douglas Johnson,

If marriage is permanent (and it seems clear to me that Jesus prohibited divorce, not merely remarriage after divorce), then it seems to me that to be consistent in arguing there is no same-sex marriage, you would have to argue there is no such thing as divorce. I think you are playing word games. Two people legally married, whether they are a same-sex couple or an opposite-sex couple, are legally married. Two people who are legally married and who divorce are legally divorced, no longer legally married, and free to enter into another legal marriage without being charged with bigamy. If you want to argue there is no same-sex marriage in the eyes of God or of the church, that's fine. But if you argue that there is no such thing as civil same-sex marriage or civil divorce, then at minimum you're going to have to get into a whole argument about what civil governments can and can't do. As I have argued elsewhere, in the United States, a corporation is a legal person. Now, a government can make a natural person, but it can recognize a legal person, and grant a legal person some of the same rights as a natural person. If it can do that, it can create same-sex marriage as a legal relationship between two persons.

Catholics, by the way, recognize natural marriage and sacramental marriage, and they make a distinction between the two. So although they would agree that there is no same-sex marriage, they would disagree that there is "just marriage."

Thank you for this article.

As many others have pointed out previously, homosexual marriage is not, and cannot be holy matrimony in the sight of God, no matter what the gay rights movement and their supporters think or say. All they have succeeded in doing is forcing the hands of the civil authorities to agree to issue persons of the same sex with a certificate legally recognizing their union, which was an act previously limited to opposite sex persons.

By necessity therefore the ball stops there. Neither the state, nor those supporting gay rights possess the innate ability to transform what is not, into what is. Calling gay unions a "marriage" does not make it so. For example an enterprising individual may travel to Thailand to buy an imitation Gucci handbag, and bring it back home for display in a glass case among other high-priced items in a luxury store. Does this elaborate process somehow miraculously transform the knockoff into a genuine article? Of course not. All that a prospective buyer has to do is examine the fake closely, outside the glass display, and the truth is immediately apparent.

In other words a false label has no power to transform an imitation into something that it is not. It remains now and forever phony, fraudulent and a worthless counterfeit.

What the New York lawmakers have done is exactly this - place an imitation item among the genuine, label it as though it belongs there, and ascribe to it the same value as the real items. Sooner or later, when people stop looking at the imitation from outside the contrived falsity of the glass case and open it for themselves to see what it contains, the truth will be revealed and the forgery discarded.

@Alessandra -

You hit the nail on the head. In America (and the West more generally) sex trumps everything, and sexual urges should never be denied. Witness the 'human-interest' stories which are increasingly common, of people who were happily married, until they encountered each other. At which point, their unfortunate spouses can only stand aside, and let destiny take its course.

I don't know that it is 'homosexuals' who have foisted this lie on the American public. I think that they, as much as anyone else, have had the lie fed to them, as well. I'm no sociologist, but I'm more inclined to look to Sanger and Kinsey and their ilk. . .

Okay, I'll bite.

There is a difficulty with saying that heterosexual marriage is innately better than same-sex marriage because of its unique qualities of "procreation, permanence, and exclusivity." Namely: according to the 2010 census, about 25% of same-sex couples are raising children together; and according to studies in countries where same-sex marriage has been legal for some time the same-sex divorce rate is perhaps a third of the divorce rate of opposite-sex couples (http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/199705/lessons-gay-marriage; http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=425657).

I'll admit that the divorce rates of same-sex couples are likely to even out, and look more like the rates of opposite-sex couples, after there's no longer this huge jump in people-who-have-already-been-together-for-decades getting married.

However, that doesn't change the fact that a tremendous number of same-sex couples procreate and form families to raise children together, and that a tremendous number of same-sex couples make permanent, lifelong bonds.

And while you may have read studies which suggest otherwise, you may want to consider the sources of those studies. A tremendous bulk of the "scientific" studies that show homosexuality is harmful are published by people like Paul Cameron (who was expelled from the American Psychological Association in 1983 for shoddy research and questionable ethical practices), George Rekers (who in 2010 was famously discovered with a male prostitute), and other people whose fervent anti-gay views lead them to publish research which is highly questionable.

The American Psychological Association's in-depth review of *all* the research on same-sex parenting, on the other hand (http://www.apa.org/redirect.html?aspxerrorpath=/pi/parent.aspx), finds that same-sex couples raise healthy children. If the purpose of marriage is to create stable units of people for the care and protection of children and the community, people in same-sex marriages are far from threats-- we are allies.

@ Ruth Garrot,

You make the astonishing statement that:

"However, that doesn't change the fact that a tremendous number of same-sex couples procreate and form families to raise children together...."

Kindly explain how same sex couples "procreate", unless I'm missing something here. 100 percent of people in the world who understand the meaning of the word "procreate" also understand it to mean something that homosexual couples, by definition, CANNOT do.

Kindly explain how same sex couples "procreate", unless I'm missing something here. 100 percent of people in the world who understand the meaning of the word "procreate" also understand it to mean something that homosexual couples, by definition, CANNOT do.

Okay, "bring children into the world and raise them."

Once they're here, does it particularly matter whether they got here by artificial insemination or surrogacy or adoption?

David Nickol,

You write:

"Two people legally married, whether they are a same-sex couple or an opposite-sex couple, are legally married. "


Okay, let's look at how we got to this. Sometime after about 1990, David and Bill sodomized each other and want to refer to what they were doing/feeling as "marriage." What's preventing them from doing this? The common law understanding of what constitutes marriage. What then must they do? Just change the definition. That's the tautology on which you stand.

As for the rest of your reply you argue that essentially the federal government can do whatever it wants without restraint, as for instance Congressman Peter Stark argued in the video attached to my blog post (click on my name to view).

There you are at the core of the marriage debate: The government did not create marriage and the natural family, but rather these pre-governmental institutions are the building blocks of the civilization that our government was created to protect.

I agree that real hope resides with youth, and over the last few years I've seen more and more young, intelligent and charitable voices making the case for the restoration of what marriage really is.

I believe our failure to stem the tide of the sexual revolution resides with a misinformed charitable fixation: we want everyone to have a chance at real happiness, and it was from this sentiment that we just let things slide (especially the lies being taught young, impressionable children in sex education classes), never realizing that the real goal, most often concealed from even the zealots, was the destruction of the divine institution called marriage, the domestic church, by redefining it out of existence.

Many jumped on board with the destruction of the institution of marriage because they had sad childhoods, and we could sense their sorrow when they made their angry demands, and we gave in, saying, "Well, what's the big deal anyhow? They're just people like us who are stumbling along looking for happiness." We had no inkling that the dangerous lifestyles associated with gay culture would be indoctrinated into the minds of youth as early as 6 years old as lifestyles that are normal and healthy and worthy of experimenting with, while sex liberationists, including gay activists, kept insisting there is no such thing as a gay lifestyle.

I'm convinced there is only one real enemy in all of this: Satan. He knows that the best assault on the image and likeness of God, a relational reality, is an assault on the nuclear family, the domestic church. The difference today is that many thoughtful youth, unlike their charitable but naïve elders, have witnessed the effects of this assault, growing up with divorced parents and forced to endure aborted siblings and rampant venereal diseases among other tragedies. It is with these youth that hope abides, and I, too, am optimistic because of them.

"...according to studies in countries where same-sex marriage has been legal for some time the same-sex divorce rate is perhaps a third of the divorce rate of opposite-sex couples."

One of many possibilities: in heterosexual bonding fidelity is considered an absolute bonding requirement, which, if violated, very often leads to divorce, whereas, according to Andrew Sullivan and many other gay activists, fidelity is not only not a requirement in gay marriage, the freedom to have sexual relations with other men while married is considered a superior form of bonding, wanting EVERYTHING for the one you love, especially the partner's sexual fulfillment - no repression! Especially since one's identity is construed solely out of a sexual equation/fixation/obsession, not the gestalt of who a person is.

Please pray for the children raised in these environments who are not only deprived of the depth-oriented love and modeling of a mother and father (only in this pairing can the depth be reached), but are being warped into thinking through an identity paradigm constructed out of lies.

Alessandra,

We got to give Dan Savage kudos for being honest (he's up there with Andrew Sullivan). When Mr. Savage was adopting a child, he started thinking about hiding all his S&M equipment, but would not truck this repression and actually published the information about these indulgences, and was still able to adopt. Also, on a cover of his weekly, "The Stranger", an issue devoted to sex, he portrayed a little girl kneeling before a urinal in a men's bathroom (http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/CoverArt?oid=6401&year=2001). Again, you have to respect his honesty, and then ask ourselves why we support what this leadership plans for children?

"Especially since one's identity is construed solely out of a sexual equation/fixation/obsession, not the gestalt of who a person is."

Could you please explain what you mean by this? I don't know any gay people who think of themselves as nothing *but* gay-- my sexual orientation is just one part of me, along with my goals and profession and race and religion and favorite food, and my wife loves me for all of these things, not just one of them.

Could you also explain what this means, and why you think it's true?

"the depth-oriented love and modeling of a mother and father (only in this pairing can the depth be reached)"

I'm not sure what you mean by "depth"? As I pointed out in the links above, large-scale, longitudinal studies have shown that the children of same-sex couples usually grow up emotionally healthy and well-prepared for relationships.

@ Ruth,

Thanks for clarifying your position about children and homosexual "procreation".

Since as you say, it does not matter how children are brought into the world, as long as they are here, I will therefore use the deserted island analogy to examine if this is true.

Assume that 3 sets of couples are shipwrecked on 3 different deserted islands at the same time. One couple is two gay men, the second couple is two lesbians, and the third couple is a normal straight heterosexual couple. They have no means of reaching each other. They are left this way forever, lost to civilization. A century later, you are the captain of a ship seriously in need of replenishment of both food and water. You have the choice of docking at one of these three islands. You have only one chance, you will not be able to change your choice once you make it, and each island is clearly identified. Which island are you going to exercise your ONLY choice in favor of?

Your answer to this dilemma is also the answer to your question whether or not it matters how children are brought into the world.

My larger point is that not only in matters of procreation, but in their very ability to practice their lifestyle, (I would even say their very existence), homosexuals depend entirely upon artificial conditions created by law or public policy, which are mostly found in western societies. In those societies (e.g. in the third world for instance), where there are no provisions for legal adoption, and no official provision for social security in old age, it is also impossible for people to practice homosexuality. That is why in those societies, it will remain aberrant for the forseeable future.

""...according to studies in countries where same-sex marriage has been legal for some time the same-sex divorce rate is perhaps a third of the divorce rate of opposite-sex couples."

Actually, a recent study from Sweden and Norway reveals the rates are much higher. In addition, same-sex couples are far less likely to enter into these purportedly permanent relationships.

https://same-sex.web.ined.fr/WWW/04Doc124Gunnar.pdf

@ Ayodele,

You make an interesting argument! The difficulty is that humans almost never *do* create civilizations on desert islands-- we're *all* part of a much larger, interdependent social network. (And fortunately, too-- two people alone on a desert island would almost certainly not be able to produce children who would create a viable population! If I showed up to that island a century later, I'm not sure how much I *would* want to make my only choice in favor of an island of incestuous people with all the serious genetic abnormalities you'd get with that much inbreeding. (Even Cain went out to Nod and found a wife there... I'm guessing not his sister...)) Luckily for us, we're nowhere *near* dying out as a species-- and besides, even if gay people never gave birth to children of our own, there are more than enough kids who need to be adopted or are in the foster-care system to go around.

And you're right that gay people in America, like everyone else, depend on doctors and architects and farmers and so on to make our lives comfortable. But that doesn't mean there aren't gay people in non-industrialized countries. Different cultures have different views, and from motsoalle relationships in Lesotho to two-spirit people in Native American cultures to kathoey in Thailand, there are many, many, many ways that same-sex relationships are a normal part of the culture in many, many "third world" countries. Though their laws and social institutions are different, they also have ways of recognizing people's connections and socially sanctioning ways for people to take care of each other in their old age.

So... you're right that some specific aspects of the lives of gay people in America are inextricably interwoven with other aspects of American culture. How does this make us different from straight people?

@ Ayodele,

A shorter way to say what I mean, in response to this:

"in their very ability to practice their lifestyle, (I would even say their very existence), homosexuals depend entirely upon artificial conditions created by law or public policy"

is, exactly how many "artificial conditions" do you think people need to have to fall in love?

I don't exactly understand what this "homosexual lifestyle" people refer to means, but pairs of men and pairs of women have been falling in love and building lives together since before humans were human, and everywhere in the world. Where on earth do you get the idea that homosexuality is impossible outside of modern, industrialized countries?

@Douglas Johnson:

"There really is no such thing as same-sex marriage or opposite-sex marriage, there's just marriage."

What a totally bizarre thing to say. Of course there is such a thing as same-sex marriage. They just passed it in New York, and several other states allow it as well.

No-one denies that same-sex marriage is a new social and legal development. That's why they call it "same-sex marriage". Because it is new. Someday it will be old news and they'll just call it marriage. But when things are new, there has to be a way to refer to the new thing. In this case, the new thing is called same-sex marriage.

You raise a useless and insignificant semantic objection to what is really a simple thing.

People can argue about the merits vs. social costs of allowing same-sex marriage, but arguing that it doesn't exist is absolutely absurd - so absurd that it poses zero threat to same-sex marriage.

And I have to make another comment that has been bugging me for a while. Opponents of same-sex marriage like to throw around the accusation that same-sex marriage is bad for kids. That is, to begin with, a highly controversial assertion that will not be definitively answered any time soon.

But even if, for the sake of argument, it is conceded that there may be a grain of truth to it: So what? Big deal!

The ability of a couple (whether same-sex or opposite-sex) to provide the optimum environment for child-rearing has never been a precondition for marriage. Child molesters can waltz on down to the courthouse and get a marriage license. Convicted felons, drug addicts, pornographers, adulterers, and long-tongued liars can get married any time they want. What are the chances that these people will provide an optimal child-rearing environment?

Kids grow up in all sorts of homes. Their parents are of wildly varying quality. There is, of course, a base level of parenting that is required of all parents - you can't severely abuse or neglect your kids. And if that is violated, then the government can remove the kids from the home. It is always tragic when that happens, because the foster system is no great alternative.

But same-sex couples, even if it is assumed (solely for the sake of argument, I remind you - because I don't believe it myself) that same-sex households are marginally inferior, there is no basis for concluding that they pose such a substantial and severe risk to a child that the couple has be prevented even from marrying, let alone having kids.

That is all the more true because same-sex couples aren't actually prevented from having or raising kids. So the real comparison is between kids raised by unmarried same-sex couples vs. kids raised by married same-sex couples.

Even if one of marriage's purposes is to provide a stable home for children, the government does not invade the home to insure that it is stable. And frankly, we don't want it to. Imagine if the government denied a marriage license to everyone except for those few individuals who could prove, up front, that the home they were creating was optimal in every respect for child-rearing. Right now, apparently, only same-sex couples are subject to such an intrusive review of their parenting capacities.

Ayodele,

You say: "In those societies (e.g. in the third world for instance), where there are no provisions for legal adoption, and no official provision for social security in old age, it is also impossible for people to practice homosexuality."

Whatever do you mean by "practice homosexuality"?

Ayodele,
The problem with your thought experiment is that is does not address marriage. The heterosexual couple may produce children, but that does not make them "married". If they generally detest each other, frequently bicker and argue, seldom spend time together, etc., then you have a broken family much the same as we have in the "real world." So what would be the point?

CKG says:

I don't know that it is 'homosexuals' who have foisted this lie on the American public. I think that they, as much as anyone else, have had the lie fed to them, as well. I'm no sociologist, but I'm more inclined to look to Sanger and Kinsey and their ilk. . .
=======
I wrote very concisely. I was actually thinking about the claim that homosexuality is innate and cannot be resolved. This is the central piece of homosexualist propaganda. I do agree with you that other foundational, but equally outlandish sexuality claims, have been put forth by a series of horrible "researchers," commentators, and more recently any two-bit brained celebrity with a groupie following.

and other people whose fervent anti-gay views lead them to publish research which is highly questionable.
=================
Just as those fervent pro-gay researchers publish research which is not only highly questionable, but at times has been proven to be absolute rubbish.

"A tremendous bulk of the "scientific" studies that show homosexuality is harmful are published by people like Paul Cameron (who was expelled from the American Psychological Association in 1983 for shoddy research and questionable ethical practices), "

What did he do exactly?

It is interesting that the claim is exactly the opposite: only the FRI (Cameron's research group) has been able to publish — unchallenged in the professional literature — three different peer-reviewed articles proving scientific malfeasance on the part of the American Psychiatric Association (APA), the American Psychological Association (APA), the National Association of Social Workers (NASW), and other professional organizations in their handling of homosexuality.

@ Ruth Garrott:

You ask, what artificial conditions do people need in order to fall in love?

I lived in Africa for 35 years. Not once did I see a homosexuality being openly practiced anywhere. I'm not saying that there were no people with homosexual inclinations, just that they generally did not practice it for reasons of practicability. In other words, societal and environmental conditions made it impossible in most cases.

For homosexuality to thrive, there must be an enabling socio-economic environment, personal privacy (or at least anonymity), and ultimately, a favorable legal environment. In the village environment especially, none of these factors exist, thus no practice of homosexuality. In fact to exhibit homosexual traits was dangerous, if not fatal. Of course things are changing now, but in general, open homosexual relationships are still very rare.

In most of the developing world, elderly people's well-being in old age and financial security depends entirely on their immediate family, by which I mean children. There are no other provisions for old people when they are no longer able to work, because there are no artificial government constructs such as social security or medicare. Homosexual relationships cannot enter into this picture because it would fail to provide security for old age in form of children. Also in a mostly agrarian culture, children provide the bulk of the workforce needed to till the fields. For this reason, adoption is very rare. Thus homosexuals would starve once they are no longer able to work in the fields.

@ David Nickol,

You ask, what does it mean to practice homosexuality? I had assumed this was self-evident, but I will explain it in this way:

There is a world of difference between INCLINATIONS and PRACTICES. This is everyday reality. One does not practice everything that one is ordinarily inclined to. For instance, if I believe that adultery is wrong, then no matter how much I'm attracted to another woman other than my spouse, I cannot practice adultery with her. It does not matter whether I will be found out or not, the restraint is internal. Ditto for stealing. Most people don't shoplift even if they're sure they won't be found out simply because they believe stealing is wrong.

The human mind, as designed by the Creator, cannot simultaneously affirm two contradictory positions. Therefore if one has homosexual inclinations, but also believes that homosexuality is a sin against God, then he/she concludes that they cannot PRACTICE homosexuality, no matter how strong the inclinations, out of obedience to God. But if one does not believe this, then they are free to practice that to which they are inclined.

There are many people who have trod the path of obedience, and chose chastity rather than practice that which offends their own conscience and fundamental beliefs. I would rather salute one who takes this path because of firm conviction, over someone who rationalizes away the clear provision of scripture in order to satisfy their longings.


@ R Hampton,

You ask, what is the point of the thought experiment and how does it address marriage?

You are correct, the point of the experiment was not about marriage, but about procreation. I was responding to a post that claimed it did not matter HOW children were brought into the world. The point I was making was that homosexuals cannot INNATELY participate in procreation, except through third parties, or by artificial methods. The desert island scenario removes both third parties and artificial methods. In a state of nature, without natural procreation, death of the species is imminent.

Ruth Garrott says:
"Especially since one's identity is construed solely out of a sexual equation/fixation/obsession, not the gestalt of who a person is."

Could you please explain what you mean by this? I don't know any gay people who think of themselves as nothing *but* gay-- my sexual orientation is just one part of me, along with my goals and profession and race and religion and favorite food, and my wife loves me for all of these things, not just one of them.
===============

If you didn't define yourself by your sexual orientation, you would correctly explain that you are a heterosexual woman with a homosexual problem.

You could not merely change your homosexual orientation (whatever you mean by that) and not change the profound depths of your dysfunctional sexuality psychology, because it is the latter which produces the former. If deeper dysfunctional dynamics remain the same, changing your homosexual orientation is impossible. It is only if you resolved to a much greater depth what has deformed your sexual psychology that you would resolve your homosexuality problem, and you would no longer define yourself by your sexual disorientation.

@ Ruth Garrott,

You say:

"The difficulty is that humans almost never *do* create civilizations on desert islands-- "
False. Read Mutiny on the Bounty.

You also say:

"....two people.........would almost certainly not be able to produce children who would create a viable population!"

Obviously you have not been watching The Duggars on TV. But my point really is that heterosexual capacity to reproduce is almost infinite, while homosexual capacity is zero. Therefore you would be more likely to find life and sustenance on an island that has been inhabited by heterosexual people, as opposed to one inhabited previously by homosexuals.

Finally you say:

"......specific aspects of the lives of gay people in America are inextricably interwoven with other aspects of American culture. How does this make us different from straight people?"

In this way - if you extricate the life-support afforded to gay people by the rest of society, then homosexuality will totally die out within a space of two generations, since there would be no fresh blood to resupply it. I mean, think about it, would you, an avowed homosexual, want to live in an all-gay or all-lesbian country? Is that really your goal? Heterosexuals, on the other hand, do not at all mind living in an all-heterosexual country.

"Gays" do define themselves by their proclivities (how else could they, since there is no objective way to identify them): just take a peek at one of their infamous parades. And tell me they aren't the most likely of all groups to consume pornography.

Studies clearly show that children are safest with their natural parents. And the "gay" movement is a danger to our culture and to our children, largely because of the "educational" component. They are constantly on the prowl for new "members." And they have infiltrated public education. Take a look at the latest "science" and biology and sex-ed books, especially in the coastal states. This is all part of an evil agenda.

†

There's a big difference in the social dynamic created in gay groups vs. straight groups. When you bring 200 straight couples together to spend an afternoon and evening in a State Park, you're likely to see a church picnic break out. When you bring 200 gay male couples together to spend an afternoon and evening in a State Park you're likely to see an orgy break out. That's just the way it is. There's nothing equal about the two relationships. The stark differences show up when people are concentrated in one place, as in San Francisco.

To an extent I think gay/lesbian parents are possibly unusually motivated to be good parents. Or at least they're probably less likely to be "accidental parents" in the way heterosexuals may. So that gives a self-selecting factor. Although the APA study makes me think another factor is gays/lesbians are probably more likely to believe in what child-psychologists say and therefore raise their children in a way psychologists approve. (Psychology is one of the most overwhelmingly secular/non-religious of academic fields)

So in the terms of secular psychology Gay parents probably do actually do fine. I'd agree their kids are no more likely to be schizophrenic, bipolar, drug addicts, criminals, and so forth. It's possible they are less likely to be things psychologists have at times deemed unhealthy like: political conservatives (Adorno I think) or orthodox followers of a religion (Freud et alia). Although the studies actually seem to be somewhat limited and I'm not sure if they say much on kids of opposite sex being raised by same-sex couples. (Boys raised by lesbian parents, girls raised by gay parents) I'm also not sure it says about how kids raised by same-sex parents do in terms of marriage and children. Is their marriage rate average? Divorce rate? What is their fertility rate? I might look through it again, but I'm guessing it might be too soon to know on these.

@ Ayodele,

"In this way - if you extricate the life-support afforded to gay people by the rest of society, then homosexuality will totally die out within a space of two generations, since there would be no fresh blood to resupply it."

I'm not sure why it's not occurring to you that in an entirely homosexual world, people would still practice artificial insemination, and kids would continue to be born. (Also, people would continue to be born gay-- they might not feel comfortable expressing it in the world you describe, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't be there. They'd just be unhappy.)

"I mean, think about it, would you, an avowed homosexual, want to live in an all-gay or all-lesbian country? Is that really your goal?"

Wait, you mean, a country where I have all the legal rights of a citizen, people like me appear in all the fiction and movies and TV shows, and no-one ever calls me unnatural because of who I love? Sign me up!

No, seriously-- I love my heterosexual (and bisexual, you seem to be forgetting the existence of bisexuals) friends and family, and I think a country with a diversity of lifestyles is better off. But that's not because there's anything wrong or unsustainable with being queer-- it's just because we're better off in a world with lots of different ideas and options and possibilities. An all-gay world would be less interesting, but it would be just fine.

"Heterosexuals, on the other hand, do not at all mind living in an all-heterosexual country. "

And on the same note, all of my straight friends and family would be sad to live in a world where I wasn't, and where my relationship wasn't. The people at my wedding were a wide mix of orientations, but they were all there to celebrate my relationship with my wife because it means something to them and they value it. A world without gay people would be less rich and interesting, and my straight friends and family certainly would mind living in it.

@ Alessandra,

"What did [Paul Cameron] do exactly?"

*he refused to take part in an ethics investigation;

*he did a study in which he conflated pedophiles-who-molested-children-of-the-same-sex and people-attracted-to-other-adults-of-the-same-sex in order to produce results which made it look like normal homosexuals are more likely to be child abusers, and child abusers are more likely to be homosexuals

*he claimed that gays were more likely to die young based purely on sampling obituaries in gay newspapers, without trying to get a population sample of how many live gay people there actually were

*he draws most of his data from a survey conducted in 1983-1984 which had a very small sample size (due in part to the majority of the people asked not actually taking part in the study, or refusing to complete it halfway through), used a complex and confusing format without any internal-consistency checks, was not entirely anonymous, and perhaps most significantly, he *advertised ahead of time in the newspaper that he was hoping to get results which would make it easier to pass laws against gay people,* giving respondents a strong motivation to lie or exaggerate to give him these results. (http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/facts_cameron_survey.html)

I don't care what your politics are-- any of these things are simply sloppy research, which will skew your results towards what you want them to be.

Can you provide links to the articles he wrote about the various professional organizations?

The real fundamental problem behind this issue is that America was specifically founded as a country where people could exercise freedom of religion; this is true whether or not you believe the founders themselves were Christian (which is what leads some to erroneously state that America was founded as a Christian country). Despite this, the original government still decided to incorporate marriage, an inherently religious tradition, as a recognized event. This should have never been. The fact is, marriage is about a sacred covenant between 2 people, one man and one woman. This should have nothing to do with tax breaks and inheritance, etc!

If we ever hope to restore marriage to its true meaning, we would need to change how our government reacts to it. This is a huge undertaking. Tax breaks should go to those cohabitating, even roommates, regardless of the relation. This is but one of many, many examples of the kind of reform necessary to take marriage away from the government, and put it back where it belongs, in the church.

@ Lida Hasbrouck,

"If we ever hope to restore marriage to its true meaning, we would need to change how our government reacts to it. This is a huge undertaking. Tax breaks should go to those cohabitating, even roommates, regardless of the relation. This is but one of many, many examples of the kind of reform necessary to take marriage away from the government, and put it back where it belongs, in the church."

*nods* A great advantage to this idea is that it would allow religions which forbid same-sex marriage to live without it, while religions like mine-- for whom same-sex marriage is a holy ceremony and a sacred covenant-- to practice it freely.

So... questions like legal inheritance and hospital visitation and who can be on whose health insurance and such would be determined by civil unions, available equally to all, whereas marriage would be purely religious?

Ruth Garrott says:
@ Alessandra,

"What did [Paul Cameron] do exactly?"

*he refused to take part in an ethics investigation;
==========
Conducted by people who are not ethical themselves by any chance?

*he did a study in which he conflated pedophiles-who-molested-children-of-the-same-sex and people-attracted-to-other-adults-of-the-same-sex in order to produce results which made it look like normal homosexuals are more likely to be child abusers, and child abusers are more likely to be homosexuals
==========
Have you ever seen studies that produce pro-gay results where groups were conflated or results are manipulated?

*he claimed that gays were more likely to die young based purely on sampling obituaries in gay newspapers, without trying to get a population sample of how many live gay people there actually were
=========
And yet, this is what lifesitenews has reported:

WASHINGTON, DC, June 6, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A new study which analyzed tens of thousands of gay obituaries and compared them with AIDS deaths data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), has shown that the life expectancy for homosexuals is about twenty years shorter than that of the general public. The study, entitled “Gay obituaries closely track officially reported deaths from AIDS”, has been published in Psychological Reports (2005;96:693-697).

In an interview with lifesitenews.com, Dr. Paul Cameron, the President of the Family Research Institute and the scientist who headed the study, indicated that he was not at all surprised by the findings. Rather he said that it only served as further confirmation for what had long been known and other studies have already shown


*he draws most of his data from a survey conducted in 1983-1984 which had a very small sample size (due in part to the majority of the people asked not actually taking part in the study, or refusing to complete it halfway through), used a complex and confusing format without any internal-consistency checks, was not entirely anonymous, and perhaps most significantly, he *advertised ahead of time in the newspaper that he was hoping to get results which would make it easier to pass laws against gay people,* giving respondents a strong motivation to lie or exaggerate to give him these results. (http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/facts_cameron_survey.html)

I don't care what your politics are-- any of these things are simply sloppy research, which will skew your results towards what you want them to be.
=============
I question your statement-- it seems to me you care very much what people's politics are. Can you list a list of pro-gay research which is equally faulty or misleading?


*Can you provide links to the articles he wrote about the various professional organizations?

http://www.familyresearchinst.org/ (not sure if he provides enormous levels of detail)

more detailed info here about the smear campaign against him:

http://www.personal.psu.edu/glm7/m771.htm

excerpt:

An Important Vindication by Paul Cameron

To close, let me set the record straight on some of the attacks on my reputation that have been repeated ad nauseam by gay rights activists and gay-sympathetic academicians. Just a few years back, a graduate student used some of these bogus claims in his Ph.D. dissertation.

While there is no obvious way to correct defamation on the Internet, once a 'hard copy' appears, there is. This is part of the correspondence between Dr. Toby Canning and myself:

"I believe you have chosen unreliable sources on which to base your statements. In addition, I conclude that you have been poorly served by your dissertation committee, which should have given you better guidance in the choice and use of scholarship.

Unfortunately, each of the statements about me which you published and continue to publish on the worldwide web, contains demonstrable untruths:

Specifically:

"'Paul Cameron, an opponent of gay fatherhood, was not only denounced by the American Sociological Association, but he was also expelled from the American Psychological Association for willfully misrepresenting research on the punitive effects of gay male parenting on children. Despite the psychological community's condemnation of Cameron's unethical practices, numerous publications and court
proceedings have continued to rely upon his research (Stacey & Biblarz, 2001).'Page 42"

and

"'Personal and political motivations have influenced the research on gay and lesbian parents as well. Some of the research in gay and lesbian studies does not use careful, respectable research practices.

One example is research by Paul Cameron. Paul Cameron was expelled from both the American Psychological Association and the American Sociological Association for willfully misrepresenting research on gay and lesbian parents.However, it is unlikely that the vast majority of misrepresentations in research on gay and lesbian parenting are intentional.' Page 96"

It is true that in the interests of children I oppose gay fatherhood. It is also true that 'numerous publications and court proceedings have continued to rely upon his research' -- why shouldn't they? After all, they are all published in peer-reviewed journals.

The following statements are untrue. Specifically:

"2) I was not 'expelled from the American Psychological Association,' as you can see from our website (www.familyresearchinst.org ). Having no APA charges against me, 26 years ago, on November 7, 1982, I resigned and got a letter of acknowledgement from the President of the APA November 29, 1982. My letter explaining my
reasons for my resignation, as requested by the APA President, was published in the Monitor in March 1983. My letter said that I believed the APA had abandoned its scientific stance and become an advocate for abortion and gay rights. Following the publication of this letter, the APA informed me I had been dropped from membership while under charges. I have since been asked at least three times to rejoin.

"3) I was not 'expelled' from the APA for 'willfully misrepresenting research on the punitive effects of gay male parenting on children.' Indeed, the first professional journal article I published on homosexual parenting was in Adolescence in 1996. Indeed, I have published a number of articles on this topic, all in peer-reviewed
journals.

"4) The phrase 'willfully misrepresenting' assumes an insight into my motives without offering evidence to support such a conclusion. I have yet to read anywhere a detailed analysis of my studies or evidence of their inaccuracy; much less one that proves I knowingly misrepresented or distorted the data or its meaning.

Disagreements over the interpretation of raw data are inevitable in the social sciences. The only proper response to scholars whose conclusions disagree with your own is to question either their methodology or their conclusions. In fact, people with different perspectives often draw opposite conclusions from the same data. Those who disagree with the findings of a contrary study should respond by
attacking the data or its use. Ad hominem attacks -- allegations of base motives -- have no place in scholarly discourse. I am the frequent victim of such attacks, particularly on the Internet.

However, I don't expect to find them in university dissertations.

=============
Ah, but in social sciences led by homosexualists, smear campaigns are what they call "science."

Ms Garrot, unless you can produce an equal or larger number of criticism in reference to shoddy pro-gay research, you prove yourself to be intent on smearing Cameron because of his politics. And I would take you to task to prove your smear against Cameron is not politically motivated because of your own homosexual condition.

@ Alessandra,

Your challenge is easy to meet. I'll agree that there are people who make unfounded claims in order to support pro-gay arguments; Kinsey comes to mind as the most famous researcher whose methodology was seriously problematic, leading to the unrealistic claim that 10% of the population is primarily same-sex attracted, where most reasonable people think that the percentage is more like 4%.

However, I cannot agree that everybody's research is *just* two biased groups of people pushing their own agendas. The American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and the National Association of Social Workers are groups which have all released progay statements (saying that they believe homosexuality to be a normal human variation, not a mental illness. They have all gone on to say that ethical psychologists, psychiatrists and social workers should not attempt to change sexual orientation, but rather, should help their gay clients/patients to feel better about themselves and their orientations), but none of them are groups whose *main* agenda is to advance homosexuality. Rather, their purpose is to find ways to make people happy and mentally healthy, and to research what gets in the way of that. And they're quite wide-ranging in pursuing the goal of human happiness and health-- there have been any number of highly reputable and well-regarded studies on the importance and positive value of religion in people's lives, and the APA has an entire division focused on helping their practitioners work with spirituality and understand the value of faith in their clients' lives (http://www.division36.org/). Individual psychologists may want their research to show that gay is good in order to make themselves feel better, but the organization as a whole is much more interested in the result of overall human happiness, and I have no doubt that if the bulk of the research showed that homosexuality itself (and not the results of homophobia on people with same-sex orientations) was harmful, their statement would be different.

The goal of the Family Research Institute and NARTH, on the other hand, is explicitly and openly to advance a set of Christian values. FRI says openly that their purpose is to "to produce sound, scientific data on pressing social issues — especially homosexuality — in an effort to promote traditional policies."

That's not how good science *works*. The FRI and NARTH are *starting out* with the results they want to see, and then working backwards to make sure they get them. Real scientists, on the other hand, look to find what's actually *there,* and *then* decide what would be good policy based on the *data*. Real scientists can change their minds based on the data-- that's why homosexuality was originally considered a mental illness, but was removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-- because there was too much data that said homosexuality itself wasn't inherently unhealthy. And while it's true that every researcher has biases, the whole point of the scientific method and the peer-review process and the replication of results by other researchers is to combat those biases, and find out the truth. (That's why it was so easy for me to think of Kinsey-- of *course* there are researchers who are shoddy. We know that. And the same means by which I can identify them are the means by which I know I can trust the research that isn't.)

It's not that I distrust Mr. Cameron because he says something opposed to my view. There are any number of preachers and ministers who say something opposed to my view, and while I disagree with them, I trust them to tell me the truth about their area of expertise, using honest methods-- they're doing their jobs well. Mr. Cameron, on the other hand, is trying to make science say what he wants it to based on his beliefs, rather than using science to explore the world and find out what's there, even if it requires him to change his mind.

In short: Mr. Cameron starts with what he believes, and tries to make science back him up. A real scientist starts with data, and changes his/her beliefs based on it.

"In short: Mr. Cameron starts with what he believes, and tries to make science back him up. A real scientist starts with data, and changes his/her beliefs based on it."

But what about, as I indicated on another thread, someone like Robert Spitzer, who was instrumental in 1973 in the APA's removal of homosexuality from its list of clinical disorders, who 30 years later reversed his position, and believes that reorientation therapy can work with at least some individuals? Spitzer changed his position based on interviews he had done, yet he was villified by many of his colleagues and by the gay community. Do you consider that response scientific?

Gil Costello says:
Alessandra,

We got to give Dan Savage kudos for being honest (he's up there with Andrew Sullivan). When Mr. Savage was adopting a child, he started thinking about hiding all his S&M equipment, but would not truck this repression and actually published the information about these indulgences, and was still able to adopt.
==============
Good God. I didn't know about this. Yet, what happened to that wonderful, loving Christian foster parent couple in the UK? They were treated like criminals and barred from foster parenting.

And Savage (appropriate name, no?) who loves to sadistically hurt other human beings is given a green light to parenting. The world is just too disgusting at times.

Who of these liberals even cares what Savage is doing to his child's mind, even if he is not directly sexually abusing the child?

Reminds me of Lombard, in any case:

The on-line rape of his 5-year-old adopted son by Duke University's openly-gay, Frank Lombard, is no anomaly. Instead, Lombard's molestation fits the pattern that emerged in the latest review of the scientific literature about gay fathers.

Lombard lives with his gay partner, another Duke University employee. The Arrest Warrant documents that Lombard sodomized one of his two adopted African-American sons and made the boy give him oral sex on-line. He offered other gays the same opportunity. Although the boy was drugged, "it is likely he developed interest in gay sex through these activities," said Dr. Paul Cameron, an expert in gay fostering/gay adoption and author of the latest review.

==========
It's the first time we directly exchange, but I have appreciated many of your posts. I even copied one of them to my blog

http://socimages.blogsome.com/2011/05/15/a-beautiful-and-healthy-sexuality-philosophy/

Best regards

@ Brian English,

Spitzer is tricky. I think that some of his colleagues were reacting to his non-random sampling methods, his criteria for success (e.g., 89% of the male respondents and 63% of the female ones reported that they still had homosexual attractions and feelings, though they had been able to significantly change their behaviors), and the use of self-reported data from people highly motivated to give certain responses whether or not they were true.

On the other hand, I agree that the tendency to present only the data that supports what you already believe, rather than all the data, is not unique to the anti-gay side of the argument. People on both sides have strong feelings about the issues, and sometimes act on their feelings rather than on logic.

*shrug* Science is a hard discipline to follow. It's very, very challenging to question what you believe, and not everyone manages it. But as I said, good science has structures built into it to keep us honest. Even with people's feelings about Dr. Spitzer's study, it was still peer-reviewed and published and is now easily accessible to anyone interested in it. And so have hundreds of studies and meta-analyses of studies which suggest that homosexuality is a healthy, normal variation.

The structure of science was designed to compensate for our natural human desire to be proved right. It works eventually, though it may take some time. But it works.

Ruth Garrott,

You asked me to explain what I meant when I wrote "Especially since one's [gay person’s] identity is construed solely out of a sexual equation/fixation/obsession, not the gestalt of who a person is."

My many associations and friendships with gays over the last 50+ years make many things perfectly obvious to me. I know we live in an age of high abstraction, and that living through a monitor has played a big role in this (Marshall McLuhan being the first to prophetically observe). I just decided a long time ago to live in the real world as best I can, and one way of doing that is to pay attention to what is actually going on around me in diversified environments (especially in sex education classes, where the real horror show persists). Here are some of my observations concerning the persons who define themselves as being gay:

The many gay men I have known have, unlike heterosexually oriented men, made it a point that sexual longing is foundational in how they define themselves. I have never met a heterosexually oriented man who does the same, but I’m sure there probably are, persons we would rightfully observe as sex addicts. For example, I had a close friend (I was one of two of his many friends he would allow to visit him during his final days in a nursing home). When he was in the final stages of his illness, he was still going out to the bars looking for sex. I told him that it was wrong that he didn’t tell the persons he was picking up that he had AIDS. He got really angry and said, “They know what they’re getting into!” Please understand that this person was one of the finest persons I have ever known. He was easy to love. In understanding this, I was also able to understand he truly believed that the fulfillment of sexual longing was the primary act in self-affirmation. In other words, he didn’t see himself as a person (in a gestalt sense) who happened to have a homosexual orientation that he could act on or not act on. To BE, he had to be involved sexually with someone. It was truly a question of sustaining an identity, what he believed he was: a gay man, not a man with a homosexual orientation.

I had another friend who was in the same predicament. Right before he went into a hospice, he told me with the greatest sorrow, “What’s really killing me is that I don’t have a sexual partner.” His life was tragic because he indoctrinated himself into believing his identity, his raison d’être, was fixed in his sexual longing.

I had another friend who was at my house one night and he got drunk, and as he went to leave I told him he shouldn’t drive, that he should stay the night. When I was asleep he came into my bedroom and climbed into bed with me and started groping me. I told him he had to leave the bedroom. I chalked it up to him being drunk and was prepared to just forget about it. But that morning he gave me an angry lecture on how he truly believed I was his friend. I insisted that I was, and he responded, “If you were really my friend, you would have had sex with me last night.” That day I went to a mutual friend who is also gay and told him what happened, and his response was, “I agree with_______.” In other words, this truly intelligent, even wise and loving person agreed that if I were really a good friend, I would have had sex. Again, the problem here is that both men are fixed in a sexual ontology that defines every aspect of their existence.

Many things are kept hidden in our public discussions about the gay lifestyle, even to the point that otherwise intelligent and informed persons, including heteros, will deny there is any such thing as a gay lifestyle, again moving into high abstraction and refusing to pay attention to the real world in their arguments. Again, if one chooses to live in the real world, all you would have to do is pick up any of a variety of gay publications, read brochures of gay getaways and what is involved, and read other vast literature written by gays on the gay lifestyle. Or better yet, hang out with groups of gay men and party, and if you do this with no women around, you will hear relentless misogynistic jabs. This can occur with heterosexually oriented men, but it’s usually in reference to girlfriends or wives, and it isn’t obsessive. With gay men it is generalized, it’s “all those fish”. But we can’t talk about this, can we?

We also can’t talk about how at the gay pride parades for many years the gay leadership invited NAMBLA (men who go after boys) to march in their parades. Why? I’ve heard all the ridiculous answers, but again, I live in the real world.

I’m now hearing ridiculous claims about why most of the Catholic priests who abused children were gay. But the real reason is simple: the vast majority of heterosexually oriented priests let go of their sexual longing (which they never defined as an ontological essence) in a spiritual process that makes them more manlike! But a gay man who defines his very existence by his sexual longing has a far more difficult time in doing this because of how he is ontologically driven. Emotionally and psychologically he is stuck in his primary road to self-affirmation, regardless how good-intentioned he is in wanting to be a priest.

You cannot subsume the gestalt of who one is into any particular without doing harm to the person, including one’s sexuality. Yes, a heterosexually oriented person can indoctrinate himself into a sexual identity, but it would be easy for any of us to see the absurdity of it, but in a charitable fashion we have chosen not to see the absurdity of a sexual identity in gays.

The perennial question: why don’t gays in their pride parades just wear regular clothes? Because the parades affirm a sexual identity, and how do you make visible that identity? Keep in mind that there are seriously committed gay activists who have argued that they should stop the sexual displays because it does give the impression that sex is all that matters to gays, but they will never win, because it would be tantamount to denying a sexual identity. That’s the point of gay pride parades, sex in parks and public bathrooms and all the other public sexual activity: you cannot be who you are if you cannot be who you are in public, and if you take on a sexual identity, you have no choice: sex in public affirms that identity at the highest level.

And finally, Tennessee Williams wrote one confessional play, the one that explores the sexual identity he got trapped in, especially in how it related to engaging young boys in sex. It was his most brilliant play in every way (it was certainly his most poetic). Truth sometimes hurts, but it is so glorious!

Alessandra says @ Gil Costello, “It's the first time we directly exchange, but I have appreciated many of your posts. I even copied one of them to my blog”

I was pleased and surprised to see you respond favorably to a conservative commenter. I would have thought it more courteous that you ask for Costello’s permission to copy his post to your blog before doing so, but nonetheless I give you credit for responding to a conservative. Although you’ve stated a wish that the site were free of liberal commenters, I’ve observed that in fact you prefer to respond to liberal posts. And despite your stated desire that posts should bring fresh information rather than rehash tired points, I observe that you don’t bring any fresh material to your exchange with Costello. You simply praise him. While I’m sure Costello is gratified by your praise, such a gesture is contrary to your stated desire for a vibrant, information-rich conversation among conservatives only. Perhaps you need liberals to satisfy some deeper desire.

I have repeatedly written here that anyone is free to use anythinv I write here, especially persons like Alessandra who fight to save the children.

What this group should do first is mount a legal challenge against Gov. Cuomo. The entire process to pass gay marriage in New York was one of the dirtiest deals I have ever seen. Here is a link talking about what really happened that night. Are we some third world country? If this is allowed to stand, then Democracy as we know it is out the door. Cuomo should be impeached.
http://www.gothamgazette.com/blogs/wonkster/2011/06/25/why-sen-kevin-parker-got-mad/

@Gil Costello,

You raise many specific issues about the raison d'etre of the gay lifestyle which are instinctively obvious to every right thinking person, but for some reason totally denied by promoters of gay rights. No matter how compelling the arguments against it, they feel compelled to justify it no matter what, caring not that the destruction of the essence of social morality will be the result. No matter which way you look at it, its a very self-centered lifestyle and ultimately can only come to a catastrophic end.

This is what a Comment calls a convincing argument for same_sex civil marriage.

He writes:
...gay marriage arguments are, in a sense, simpler.
Here's what I mean: "Marriage equality! We just want what you have. We want equality."

This is not a simple argument. It is an illogical argument, that sounds mathematically appealing to those who don't think in-depth. But it isn't mathematically correct. You have to be uneducated to not to understand the problem with such a statement.

Supporters of the same-sex marriage law (to be reversed) start out by claiming they are "different", yet want "equality" - that's a mathematical contradiction. It is a simple-minded mistake, not a simple and elegant argument.

@ Ruth Garrott

You are stating how "good" science works, as if we are to take your word for it. It is very possible that large associations of professionals (meaning people with diplomas) interested in the "happiness" of individuals (also difficult to define concretely) could prefer not to spend time with patients of homosexual behavior as a deviant behavior, and yet it is deviant because it diverges from the norm, statistically. If you want to keep a crazy person, happy, give them what he/she wants.

If another scientific association tries to point out, also through research and data, that the mainstream associations are prejudiced, and only seek the "happiness" of people of homosexual behavior, and do not try to remedy, obviously it leaves a vacuum which is going to be filled by other scientific associations who are of the opinion that homosexual behavior is not just deviant (as is alcoholism), but it is socially undesirable due to its typical consequences on the individual's happiness.

It is more humane to treat homosexual behavior as behavior that can be changed, than to regard it as irremediable, or immutable (as Obama states). No wonder there is such suicide levels in teens of homosexual behavior.

Note i do not fall into the trap of the homosexual vs heterosexual dichotomy. It is a behavior, and all of us can play mental games with homosexual thoughts - that doesn't make us one, and neither is that categorization system valid. Once we avoid this pitfall in categorization, we can see everyone for whom he is and how he/she acts.

Hey.
This article is not about homosexual behavior. It is about changing the definition of civil marriage in different States. Note that the new NY State law is not a law specifically for couples of homosexual behavior, nor couples who believe themselves to be naturally what they call gay for lack of a better term. The State law is about taking gender out of the definition of marriage (in NY State). I like experimenting with humans. It would be illegal for a scientist to do so, except under careful scrutiny, and very limited. But it is not illegal for politicians to experiment with social engineering. As a scientist, I can't wait to see the complex social consequences. I am smiling, already... :)

@Manuel Little -Social engineering is certainly in progress, but as a scientist I am not smiling about the complex social consequences. (If you were merely jesting, you are forgiven.) Professionals and clergy outside academia will have to pick up the pieces of human lives suffering from such disastrous policy as "taking gender out of the definition of marriage", and in some fields there are already not enough providers for all the damage already done to the family by prior policy mistakes. Politicians in some quarters seem ready to through "social issues" like marriage under the bus. We need to find ways to educate the public about the strong rationales for man-woman marriage and family life, because most people are not hearing it.

@ Manuel Little:

"I like experimenting with humans...... I am smiling, already..."

By all accounts, Josef Mengele also immensely enjoyed experimenting with humans....in the Nazi death camps. Except that unlike you, he didn't smile.

Anonymous for Alessandra says:
Alessandra says @ Gil Costello, “It's the first time we directly exchange, but I have appreciated many of your posts. I even copied one of them to my blog”

I was pleased and surprised to see you respond favorably to a conservative commenter. I would have thought it more courteous that you ask for Costello’s permission to copy his post to your blog before doing so, but nonetheless I give you credit for responding to a conservative.
============
How interesting that you should be monitoring my posts on this blog. I was not aware that copying a comment that I found wonderful to my blog was a rude thing to do. I would also appreciate that if Gil has found the action rude, he could write to me here or directly in my blog. So far, he hasn't. Only you seem to have a problem with it.

"Although you’ve stated a wish that the site were free of liberal commenters, I’ve observed that in fact you prefer to respond to liberal posts. "

They present so much disinformation and distorted views, I find it important to do so. Apparently you have a problem with that.

"And despite your stated desire that posts should bring fresh information rather than rehash tired points, I observe that you don’t bring any fresh material to your exchange with Costello. You simply praise him. While I’m sure Costello is gratified by your praise, such a gesture is contrary to your stated desire for a vibrant, information-rich conversation among conservatives only. Perhaps you need liberals to satisfy some deeper desire. "

Thank you for ignoring everything that was in my post. If I want to share with Costello that I find his points are important and very appreciated, I should now be silenced by people like you? Just because you don't think sharing is worthwhile? Do you think you are to dictate what I should find worthy to comment on here? A curious thought.

You have your ideas about what makes for a good discussion environment and I have mine. Do you think you have added anything to make the environment here better? What did you have to say about the marriage subject of the thread that contributed in any way? Try nothing. It is for reasons like these that I would very much to have threads that were reserved for a conversation among conservatives only. (BTW, can you post the link to the thread where I said this "stated desire for a vibrant, information-rich conversation"? I don't recall using the same words you have ascribed to me. In fact, I remember saying some quite different.)

And you wouldn't be a liberal, would you?

Ruth Garrot says:
However, I cannot agree that everybody's research is *just* two biased groups of people pushing their own agendas. The American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and the National Association of Social Workers are groups which have all released progay statements (saying that they believe homosexuality to be a normal human variation, not a mental illness. They have all gone on to say that ethical psychologists, psychiatrists and social workers should not attempt to change sexual orientation, but rather, should help their gay clients/patients to feel better about themselves and their orientations), but none of them are groups whose *main* agenda is to advance homosexuality.
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But these are all liberal organizations and they subscribe, promote, and dictate a liberal ideology about homosexuality. You're quibbling when you say that's not their main agenda. That is their main agenda as far as homosexuality is concerned. Furthermore, there is a difference between the formal statement the organization puts forth, and what thousands of its members think. I personally know very ethical APA professionals who do not agree with the APA on a number of issues, including homosexuality. The same is true for other organization members.

Secondly, the APA, in particular, released the same statement about pedophilia ("saying that they believe pedophilia was not a mental illness") and it was thanks to NARTH that they were forced to back down.

All in all, official statements are political and they are expressions of a particular non-scientific ideology. They often represent much more of a political ideology than real science.

"They have all gone on to say that ethical psychologists, psychiatrists and social workers should not attempt to change sexual orientation, but rather, should help their gay clients/patients to feel better about themselves and their orientations)"

And they have done this, generally forcefully, even for cases where it was the express wish of the client to want to change their orientation. A curious position for an organization that likes to make grand statements that it's putting the client's wishes and happiness first.

The APA et al have failed miserably in providing much of an explanation as to what causes an individual to develop a homosexual psychology. How can they even talk about helping people with a homosexual condition, if they are so very ignorant on the subject matter of the root causes? It would be a ridiculous position indeed.

As far as I am aware, they haven't fared much better in treating pedophilia and a host of other dysfunctional problems, whether related to sexuality or not.

'The goal of the Family Research Institute and NARTH, on the other hand, is explicitly and openly to advance a set of Christian values. FRI says openly that their purpose is to "to produce sound, scientific data on pressing social issues — especially homosexuality — in an effort to promote traditional policies."'

Yes, it means that they are concerned with working within an ethical framework. You see, if Kinsey or that John Money monster would have had a foundation of ethics for their work, maybe several people wouldn't have been abused by these researchers in various ways and at least one horrible suicide could have been prevented (the boy Money insisted in raising as a girl). And perhaps all the harm produced by their disinformation could have also been prevented.

'That's not how good science *works*. '

I can see that you have never read a book on the history of medicine and psychology then. For you to claim that the APA has not made horrible claims in its history is simply ridiculous. "Good science" is not something humans are very good at no matter what their ideology is.

Here is just one tiny issue in the history of your little APA:

In 1969, APA members frustrated over the sexism, and lack of sensitivity and representation within the association, formed the Association for Women Psychologists (AWP). During the August 1970 APA annual convention in Miami members of the AWP stormed a Town Hall meeting and issued the historic list of 52 resolutions on the general status of women. As a result, only in October 1970, almost 80 years after its launch, the APA Council of Representatives voted to establish a Task Force on the Status of Women in Psychology.

Before this, all their peer-reviewed research that you praise so much, had never found a problem with the blatant sexism infused in the APA, its research or its publications.

This is what people like you call a solid, scientific organization. Your categorization is a joke at best.

'The FRI and NARTH are *starting out* with the results they want to see, and then working backwards to make sure they get them. unhealthy. '

Given that you have never read their research, that's not something you could know, is it? Are you even able to analyze a research study yourself to point out study design flaws, much less review the findings? I would wager not.

'Real scientists can change their minds based on the data-- that's why homosexuality was originally considered a mental illness, but was removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-- because there was too much data that said homosexuality itself wasn't inherently unhealthy. '

And they did the very same thing with pedophilia. This goes to show that the APA can manipulate concepts in unethical ways, present their manipulation as "good, solid science" and have people like you reinforce their shoddy manipulations because you are unable to evaluate anything they do from a scientific perspective.

You are staunchly defending an organization that stated pedophilia is not a mental illness, which in lay parlance easily gets translated into "there's nothing wrong with pedophilia," in the same way that you derive the "there's nothing wrong with homosexuality" from their Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders restructuring of homosexuality.

'because there was too much data that said homosexuality itself wasn't inherently unhealthy'

Well, we can all play these kinds of games. I can construct at least 30 studies showing that dishonesty is not inherently unhealthy--and, therefore, indirectly affirm that it's a good, principled attitude and behavior. I can do the same with promiscuity, cheating on your spouse, and, if I wanted to think like the APA, I could also whip up a study showing that pedophilia itself is not "unhealthy."

The issue is not to play games with words and concepts however. But the APA does not rise above this.

Furthermore, the entire model of psychotherapy is enormously problematic. Take the issue of homosexuals and bisexuals sexually harassing other people. What has the APA done to prevent or ameliorate this problem? Nothing as far as I know. What you call a preoccupation with people's happiness is often an expression of an elitist, irresponsible organization that will not tackle issues that go against its dogmas and the interests of the privileged groups which control it.

What is the APA's position on homosexual promiscuity? Or on other heterosexual topics such as abortion on demand? Or adultery in general? Or what about other sexuality issues such as S&M or pornography?

Unlike you, I do not think the research world is divided into all good and all bad. The APA, having members dedicated to carrying out an enormous volume of research, has produced invaluable, important findings and made significant progress on a variety of topics. Nevertheless, its history is riddled with a colossal list of horrible misuses of "science," unethical practices, and political manipulations that have nothing to do with science.

I believe they are seriously irresponsible and ignorant concerning a variety of issues dealing with sexuality.

Gil says:
I have repeatedly written here that anyone is free to use anythinv I write here, especially persons like Alessandra who fight to save the children.
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Ah! I hadn't gotten to this comment yet as I skimmed the thread replies and wrote my answer to "Anonymous."

Thanks Gil. I do very much appreciate your writing.

*he draws most of his data from a survey conducted in 1983-1984 which had a very small sample size (due in part to the majority of the people asked not actually taking part in the study, or refusing to complete it halfway through), used a complex and confusing format without any internal-consistency checks, was not entirely anonymous, and perhaps most significantly, he *advertised ahead of time in the newspaper that he was hoping to get results which would make it easier to pass laws against gay people,* giving respondents a strong motivation to lie or exaggerate to give him these results. (http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/facts_cameron_survey.html) If a large number of homosexuals invented a word for something they think and do, no one would care. No one would even know about it. This debate is a political debate to redefine the word marriage.

"If a large number of homosexuals invented a word for something they think and do, no one would care."

This used to be true until sex educators started indoctrinating youth with invented words like "fisting" that describe behavior peculiar to the gay lifestyle and affirming this behavior as normal as it has successfully done with anal intercourse, although legitimate doctors know these behaviors are in EVERY instance harmful (something one cannot say about vaginal intercourse). The best example of persons who have politicized same-sex attraction expropriating a word and utterly altering its meaning is the coining of the first word that for them best describes their gestalt sexual identity, “gay”. I'm certain these politically driven persons were certain from the start that their peculiar words describing peculiar behavior would never be accepted by a majority of Americans, but their efforts weren’t even directed for that cause: these words were invented to affirm a collective notion of a sexual identity, with the singular purpose of being left alone to behave as they want in their sub-culture, insisting they had no motives to corrupt children with their words and the behavior they describe: the argument was that every sexual action performed via mutual adult consent (although it didn’t take long for gays like Elton John and many others to start raising money to get the age of consent between men and boys lowered) is an affirmation of a sexual identity, and therefore a basic human right for those who have adopted a sexual identity, but again, never moving towards an imposition of those words, behaviors and identity on malleable children caught in a difficult time towards full maturation, sexually and otherwise. The choice of the word “gay” was to establish a cover: an insistence that all is fine with the gay lifestyle, all joy and happiness, and we can no longer talk about why a cover was needed, for the cover has been embraced even by those who object to the behavior. This was long before the gay leadership realized that most people run to the refuge of a “charitable” lukewarmness when confronted with difficult political questions. This is true in every age.

And so it was that the first word chosen by politicized same-sex advocates to be fed to the masses was a word that HIDES the gay lifestyle with all its diseases, psychological infirmities and premature death. And now that the evidence is in, that from the highest office in the land they now have permission to go into our schools and indoctrinate children into at least experimenting with the gay lifestyle as a physical way of being not only tolerant, but empathetic and affirmative, and why what used to be almost exclusively gay sexual practices (anal intercourse, fisting and a variety of other dangerous acts) is now being widely practiced among heterosexually oriented teens, especially boys who seek sadistic delight in having anal sex with their reluctant girlfriends, the latter apparently in defiance of what they were taught in sex ed, the normalcy of the behavior, and its affirmation of love and intimacy.

Words do matter when they are used as impositions that alter the lives of children.