Poll: NYers back same-sex marriage

[Mursilis]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
I think the survivability of bigotry depends on an acceptability of that bigotry in the culture one identifies with, and the range of ones cultural identification often grows as young people mature and acquire more exposure to the wider world and cultural trends out there.

It is easy to be a bigot when your family and its circle of acquaintances are bigots, but as one reached high school and college age and travels or develops outside cultural identities, one may reject traditional bigotries an uncool or backward, exposing one to shock or even insult that one displays such 'backward' traits. One has a chance, at that point, to question and decide how one is going to conduct ones life, as a modern growing wider culture player, or an insular old fashioned bigot. The course of action may depend on just how much one feels oneself and enjoys the feeling of being an idiot. If one has been deeply programmed to enjoy being a member of a clique of assholes, one may stay in the fold, but it is quite common, I think, at this point for the more awakened and inwardly independent to evolve.

I've never found demonizing those who oppose gay marriage to be that useful. Sure, some anti-gays are actually hateful (see Fred Phelps), but most I've known are at best ambivalent, with maybe some revulsion at the idea of gay sex, but little to no hatred of gays themselves. Being heteros, they have no personal stake in legalizing gay marriage, and thus they succumb to weak arguments against it. Many of these can and will come around with gentle persuasion - not the sort of gentle persuasion that comes from calling them 'bigots', 'idiots', and 'assholes'.

 

[EndGame]

Originally posted by: Common Courtesy

Originally posted by: BoberFett

Originally posted by: Common Courtesy
Rather than starting a new thread:

Link



According to this article, NH is also moving forwards. That will leave only Rhode Island standing alone in the New England area.


This is progress - Yes, it is coming from the liberal ares or the country, but it should also provide momentum for CA to open its eyes.

Progress can then squeeze in from both coasts to get rid of the bigots.

And Iowa.

I do not know to which states it may be able to spread out from Iowa. MN or IL. MO is questionable in the near term.

If CA falls back into line, I can see OR and WA starting to rethink.
I could envision from NY heading south to NJ & DE

Missouri is questionable? Didn't Missouri just pass an ammendment a few years ago banning/invalidating any marriage that was not between a man and a woman? I grew up there and remember people talking about it on a trip back home to my parents. If I recall correctly the ammendment passed with like 80+% voting for it......I'd say Missouri is unlikely at best.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

Originally posted by: RapidSnail
A serious question: Why is it incorrect to believe that child raising should remain with those biologically capable of having those children?

I'm not going to vote against gay marriage, but what is the outrage against the protection of traditional child-raising? I don't care about legal, sexual/emotional unions, but I've always wondered if there was good reason why nature made it possible for only a man and woman to have a baby. One would think that there's more to raising a child than love, although that is extremely important. Aren't there also physical, psychological, and emotional necessities that can only be met by a mother (female) and father (male)?

I didn't see this post the first time around, and I realize I'm a bit late to the table, but I'm responding anyway.

You raise many interesting questions, and I'm pretty sure I can provide answers to all of them. But as a broad theme, every question you raise concerns the topic of reproduction and raising offspring. To that end, I'll respond to your questions with another question: should reproduction be required in a marriage? It seems a bit ridiculous to bring up reproduction in a thread about who has the right to marry unless one is specifically making the claim that only people who reproduce should be allowed to marry. That's not the law we have now. Why even bring the issue up in this context?

Now that I've got that out of the way, let me address your questions.

"Why is it incorrect to believe that child raising should remain with those biologically capable of having those children?"

From a naturalist standpoint, I suppose one could make the argument that any reproductive species should be responsible for the health and wellbeing of it's own offspring and the hell with the other members of the species. But even that doesn't hold up when you look at countless examples of collectivism in the natural world for the good of the survival of the species, even outside your own lineage. This collectivism can be seen in humans as well. As we are inherently social creatures, we've bonded together to ensure our continued survival as a species, which includes watching out for homo sapien offspring, even if they don't happen to be our own; as the old adage says, it takes a village to raise a child.

So with that in mind, from a natural perspective, we're inherently drawn to rear children in a community, rather than in isolation from other people. On this natural instinct we've built a societal framework that sees many people helping in the raising of any given child; a child will presumably have a different person performing all of the various tasks that it takes to raise a child, from the numerous teachers they will have, to the doctors and dentists they will visit, to their babysitters, afterschool caregivers, swim instructors, soccer coaches, piano teachers, bus drivers, and all the family that gets called in for impromptu babysitting. Sure, the parents have the primary role in raising the child, but there's a wealth of input from a wide community of people.

And society has extrapolated from this division of labor that we don't necessarily need to have the biological parents raise the offspring themselves. This is why we allow adoption. This is why we have foster care. This is why we don't let orphans starve to death in the streets. Our societal understanding is that a strong parental role is important in every child's life, and the biological father or mother may not be the best candidate to provide that. Whether or not it is the best way to rear children is irrelevant; it's what we've determined as a culture is what we deem acceptable for raising our offspring.

"What is the outrage against the protection of traditional child-raising?"

No one is attempting to discredit traditional child-raising, so this is a pointless question. It's not like if gay marriage is passed, straight people will no longer be able to bear children and raise them. That's an idiotic claim to make.

"I've always wondered if there was good reason why nature made it possible for only a man and woman to have a baby."

Nope. Nature doesn't have a reason. Life doesn't have a reason. Life exists, and species that are alive seem compelled to reproduce and continue the chain of life. But there is no driving force behind nature with a desire or will to see a specific outcome, unless you believe in a metaphysical force, in which case the determinism of nature must be taken on faith. Even if you do take it on faith, it's anyone's guess as to what that metaphysical force actually desires from the natural world, and it would be a bit brash to base our public social policy around our interpretations of that which we cannot possibly hope to understand.

"One would think that there's more to raising a child than love, although that is extremely important."

Of course there is. Given that we live in a capitalist society, one must have money or be able to earn money to help provide for a child's welfare. Beyond that, we tend to require that a child be raised in a way that's deemed socially acceptable; that may include mandatory education, vaccinations, or other constraints that are socially determined to be in the best interest of children. If a parent is unable to meet these societal obligations, the state can intervene and take the child.

"Aren't there also physical, psychological, and emotional necessities that can only be met by a mother (female) and father (male)?"

No. If they were necessities, than any child that didn't grow up with a mother and father present would die before reaching adulthood. The prevalence of single-parent households, gay parents, and other non-traditional families shows that the idea of any "necessities" is an illusion. This is also the case in families where one parent may be absent for an extended period of time; military families, or families where one parent is in prison. None of these indicate that a mother and father are a necessity for a child, though I don't think you'll find anyone who will argue that some form of parental figure is not needed.

Really, the only necessities from a mother and father are an egg and sperm. With invetro fertilization and surrogates, we don't even need the "mother's" womb (and when you get to this level, determining who exactly qualifies as the mother is not as easy as who provided the egg). With the egg and the sperm in place, the biological parents don't need to be present, but a child can still be raised by loving parents in a caring community to be a contributing member of society. Millions of children have grown up in adopted families to lead normal lives; if there were any sense of biological necessity in having the biological parents present, this would not be possible.

And really, it all comes back to us being social creatures who are capable of complex reasoning and abstract thought. We can rise beyond the basic level of "eat, sleep, fuck, genes must live" and start thinking about what the best way is to rear our offspring in a way that we deem beneficial not just to the parents who want their genes to survive, but to society as a whole. That's part of the social contract we've implicitly agreed to by virtue of our role in the society.

 

[jonks]

Originally posted by: RapidSnail
A serious question: Why is it incorrect to believe that child raising should remain with those biologically capable of having those children?

This question cannot be answered as phrased. A belief about a normative position cannot be incorrect or correct.

"I believe everyone should wear seat belts."

That statement can't be correct or incorrect; it merely asserts a belief or preference for a particular behavioral norm. The statement can be true or false, depending on whether that's actually what you believe, but that's a different question.

If you want to know why it's a faulty argument to use m/f child rearing as a basis for argument against gay marriage, AP tackles that one above. I'll merely add that the two aren't necessarily correlated since marriage is not a prerequisite to adoption in the majority of states.

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: Mursilis

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
I think the survivability of bigotry depends on an acceptability of that bigotry in the culture one identifies with, and the range of ones cultural identification often grows as young people mature and acquire more exposure to the wider world and cultural trends out there.

It is easy to be a bigot when your family and its circle of acquaintances are bigots, but as one reached high school and college age and travels or develops outside cultural identities, one may reject traditional bigotries an uncool or backward, exposing one to shock or even insult that one displays such 'backward' traits. One has a chance, at that point, to question and decide how one is going to conduct ones life, as a modern growing wider culture player, or an insular old fashioned bigot. The course of action may depend on just how much one feels oneself and enjoys the feeling of being an idiot. If one has been deeply programmed to enjoy being a member of a clique of assholes, one may stay in the fold, but it is quite common, I think, at this point for the more awakened and inwardly independent to evolve.

I've never found demonizing those who oppose gay marriage to be that useful. Sure, some anti-gays are actually hateful (see Fred Phelps), but most I've known are at best ambivalent, with maybe some revulsion at the idea of gay sex, but little to no hatred of gays themselves. Being heteros, they have no personal stake in legalizing gay marriage, and thus they succumb to weak arguments against it. Many of these can and will come around with gentle persuasion - not the sort of gentle persuasion that comes from calling them 'bigots', 'idiots', and 'assholes'.

But is it not too late for that. You may not know it but you DO feel like a bigot, an idiot, and an asshole. Where people have no organic shame, they can sometimes be induced to have it by ridicule. It is ridicule that causes sheep to form into flocks and everybody to point to the black sheep in the family. For those who choose to stick with bigotry because the they fear leaving an antique way of thinking, how does it hurt to redress that imbalance with equal or greater ridicule going the other way. People who are bigots hate folk who are not. Why not show them the same hate? My whole point was that many a bigot converts when he sees what a provincial ass he has been.

Let me go after the bigoted assholes and you work on the rest with your kindness and love. You may not have found demonetization that useful. What are your statistics on love?

I have said, I have no idea how many times now, 'You can tell a bigot, but you can't tell him much." Note above how cubby begins by saying he doesn't care what anybody thinks? He means, of course, he doesn't care what he thinks. He has no organic shame.