Oh Isn't It Wonderful - Elton John And His Husband

[Brother Adam]

[quote name='Jesus_lol' timestamp='1293771825' post='2195383']
He is right you know. you basically said "i dont really know what i am talking about, but that doesnt make it not true."

which technically is true. You could possibly be right, flip of the coin.
[/quote]

That is not at all what I said though. Look at it from a different angle. We can say that there are some crimes that are so serious it should preclude a person from being permitted to adopt children. You can make such a rational conclusion without having the expertise to make judgments that require a certain level of expertise as to exactly which crimes and what cases would end up doing so. You can rightly speak on extremes - being a serial murderer or child molester would do so, but shop lifting would not. Border line areas would take a certain level of authority to make a judgment. The same thing with mental illness.

[Semper Catholic]

[quote name='Brother Adam' timestamp='1293772805' post='2195391']
Your posts have a certain quality to them that is almost trollish. I am not sure if you are just trying to provoke people, or are simply being obtuse. There is nothing wrong with stating that people with certain types of mental illnesses should not raise children without trying to make a judicial statement on specific cases where no data exists based on your one line post.
[/quote]

>Bring up rational point
>LOL HE'S TROLLAN

There is something wrong with saying that a significant group of people should not be allowed to raise offspring, especially when that opinion is backed up with little to know (hazing myself for know instead, of no) research and evidence. At the very least it's an extremely loaded statement that should be formed after hours of research.

I know science is evil, but a simple google scholar search on "parents with mental illness" brings up over 3,000,000 hits. Believe it or not if there is a question suitable for asking it's likely someone in the academic field has done research on it.

Edited December 31, 2010 by Semper Catholic

[Semper Catholic]

[quote name='Brother Adam' timestamp='1293773220' post='2195393']
That is not at all what I said though. Look at it from a different angle. We can say that there are some crimes that are so serious it should preclude a person from being permitted to adopt children. You can make such a rational conclusion without having the expertise to make judgments that require a certain level of expertise as to exactly which crimes and what cases would end up doing so. You can rightly speak on extremes - being a serial murderer or child molester would do so, but shop lifting would not. Border line areas would take a certain level of authority to make a judgment. The same thing with mental illness.
[/quote]

WHATISTHISIDONTEVEN

You're about 10 seconds from getting LOL WUT Pear'd

[dominicansoul]

[quote name='Semper Catholic' timestamp='1293772515' post='2195390']
My point is if you are making statements talking out of your rear end, then proceeding to admit you are poorly educated on the topic, you should probably refrain from forming an opinion on the topic.
[/quote]


[quote name='Semper Catholic' timestamp='1293773422' post='2195395']
>Bring up rational point
>LOL HE'S TROLLAN

There is something wrong with saying that a significant group of people should not be allowed to raise offspring, especially when that opinion is backed up with little to know research and evidence. At the very least it's an extremely loaded statement that should be formed after hours of research.

I know science is evil, but a simple google scholar search on "parents with mental illness" brings up over 3,000,000 hits. Believe it or not if there is a question suitable for asking it's likely someone in the academic field has done research on it.
[/quote]


[quote name='Semper Catholic' timestamp='1293773551' post='2195398']
WHATISTHISIDONTEVEN

You're about 10 seconds from getting LOL WUT Pear'd
[/quote]

[img]http://knowyourmeme.com/i/151/original/n725075089_288918_2774.jpg[/img]


I beat you to it!

[Semper Catholic]

[quote name='dominicansoul' timestamp='1293774250' post='2195403']

[DAT PEAR]


I beat you to it!
[/quote]

Uggh worst part is I mixed up my knows and no's. Feels bad man.

[4588686]

[quote name='Brother Adam' timestamp='1293768619' post='2195358']
Ironic on only the most shallow of levels by taking it out of context, but sure, I see your point. After all the Romans accused Christians of being cannibals and martyred them. Such an argument is based on stupidity though. Arguing that it is inappropriate to place a child with two men or two women that are openly celebrating their brazenly harmful sexual sin is rational.[/QUOTE]

It is not based on stupidity. It is arrogant and trite in the same sense that your sweeping claims about the ability of gay people to be parents are.

You, as an orthodox Roman Catholic, hold a set of beliefs that the vast majority of people would consider highly questionable both because their appear quixotic and contradictory to the basic physical laws of the universe and the methodological assumptions that the modern Western world makes in trying to understand the world. To the militant atheist the matter is pretty clear cut. You are a grown man who regularly talks to a being whose existence is about as objectively verifiable as an imaginary friend that a child would have. You believe that this being is real, once came to earth,was in some sense killed, but in another sense continues to live. You believe that after a man who has been specially designated by your Church hierarchy mutters some words over bread that this bread and wine becomes the real flesh of this being and that you must partake in this being's divinity by consuming Him.

How can the state leave a child in the care of a man who believes such far fetched, unsubstantiated, and morally repulsive things?

That is not unreasonable for an individual in our culture. Your beliefs do not fit easily into the modern West (particularly the anglophone world with it's foundation in Anglo-empiricism).

I have no problem admitting that you can hold beliefs that I find, in regards to their truth value, highly questionable and still be a wonderful father I have (no doubt you are), because I subscribe to a philosophical conservative that recognizes the complexity of human beings, the limits of the ability of human beings to fully understand the world, and the humble view that society should take in trying to reorder society along strictly 'rational' lines.

You are much more ideologically aggressive. You have private, unproven beliefs which you seem happy to force other people to conform with. I find this highly arrogant and fanatical.


[QUOTE]Fanatical is in the eye of the writer. As you said though Dawkins has intellectually lost it. He showed potential, but after reading his last book, I wonder if he is basically through as a "credible" scholar. He may appeal to a more popular lay base of atheists, but not be taken seriously. [/QUOTE]

I said he was a twit and a fanatic. He's by all accounts a pretty talented biologist. His misguided ventures into philosophy and politics do not negate the work he did and continues to do as a scientist. He is like you in that he has a rigid, questionable world view that he aggressively promotes and seeks to force on other people. Both of you move beyond mere differences of opinion and seek to force some of your very questionable opinions on other people by force of law.

[QUOTE]My fanatical views are not original or uncommon.[/QUOTE]

The are not original. Measured by both the span of human history, and against current global opinion, your beliefs in total are fairly uncommon.

[QUOTE]It is a new phenomenon to make up a culture around who or what you have sex with and then celebrate it and throw children into the mix. That has nothing to do with humanity. I wonder just what atheists of 100 years ago would have thought about the modern "gay" cultural movement.
[/quote]

Allowing gay couples to adopt gay children after study after study confirms that such homes produce just as well balanced children as straight couples is not a radical restructuring of society.

[dominicansoul]

[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1293774827' post='2195408']
You, as an orthodox Roman Catholic, hold a set of beliefs that the vast majority of people would consider highly questionable both because their appear quixotic and contradictory to the basic physical laws of the universe and the methodological assumptions that the modern Western world makes in trying to understand the world. To the militant atheist the matter is pretty clear cut. You are a grown man who regularly talks to a being whose existence is about as objectively verifiable as an imaginary friend that a child would have. You believe that this being is real, once came to earth,was in some sense killed, but in another sense continues to live. You believe that after a man who has been specially designated by your Church hierarchy mutters some words over bread that this bread and wine becomes the real flesh of this being and that you must partake in this being's divinity by consuming Him.

How can the state leave a child in the care of a man who believes such far fetched, unsubstantiated, and morally repulsive things?

[/quote]

how can you dare compare our religious beliefs with homosexual deviant behavior?

you always cross lines, Hasan, and you are in no way that stupid to think your words are not offensive to the majority of us here on this forum

(I reported this by the way...)

[4588686]

[quote name='Brother Adam' timestamp='1293768172' post='2195356']
I am not a competent authority to speak on such specific grounds. That does not make my original statement any less true.
[/quote]

You seem to consider yourself a competent authority to decide that the psychology establishment was wrong to remove homosexuality as a mental illness and that this alleged mental illness should bar couples from adopting children.

[4588686]

[quote name='dominicansoul' timestamp='1293775061' post='2195409']
how can you dare compare our religious beliefs with homosexual deviant behavior?[/QUOTE]

I didn't. I compared Bro. Adam's ideological aggressiveness with that of a militant atheist.

[QUOTE]you always cross lines, Hasan, and you are in no way that stupid to think your words are not offensive to the majority of us here on this forum[/QUOTE]

There is nothing that I said that should be offensive. I gave the point of view of a militant atheist and specifically mentioned that I would disagree with that line of reasoning. I even described the reasoning as arrogant and trite.

[QUOTE](I reported this by the way...)
[/quote]


I think that you are much too eager to be offended.

Edited December 31, 2010 by Hasan

[dominicansoul]

[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1293775261' post='2195411']
I think that was immature.
[/quote]

our points are that the homosexual lifestyle is deviant, the Catholic church will never bow to the pressure of the world to ever say it is morally acceptable behavior, nor will She ever pronounce that it is a good thing for a child to be conceived in such a mechanical way, apart from the marital act so that two gay men can celebrate their agenda and live out a fantasy that somehow they can be considered a "normal" family...

Satan has ripped apart the family unit since the 1960's, when contraceptive mentality took over the rational thinking of men and women...and here, satan is replacing what is true and good with a false image of family, in his own satanic image, and you guys are glorifying this image and making it seem like it's okay and 'normal"

you don't have to insult Brother Adam by continuing to misread and purposely misunderstand his posts so you can take potshots on our beliefs. for you to use such a disgusting example as to belittle our belief in the Eucharist is going a bit too far...

[4588686]

[quote name='dominicansoul' timestamp='1293775691' post='2195413']
our points are that the homosexual lifestyle is deviant, the Catholic church will never bow to the pressure of the world to ever say it is morally acceptable behavior, nor will She ever pronounce that it is a good thing for a child to be conceived in such a mechanical way, apart from the marital act so that two gay men can celebrate their agenda and live out a fantasy that somehow they can be considered a "normal" family...


Satan has ripped apart the family unit since the 1960's, when contraceptive mentality took over the rational thinking of men and women...and here, satan is replacing what is true and good with a false image of family, in his own satanic image, and you guys are glorifying this image and making it seem like it's okay and 'normal"[/QUOTE]

Have I argued here that there is anything wrong with believing this? The only problem I have expressed here is some of you trying to use the force of law to make other people conform to your beliefs.


[QUOTE]you don't have to insult Brother Adam by continuing to misread and purposely misunderstand his posts so you can take potshots on our beliefs. for you to use such a disgusting example as to belittle our belief in the Eucharist is going a bit too far...
[/quote]

I have not insulted Bro. Adam, I have not misread him, or taken potshots at your beliefs. If you want to continue claiming this please quote me in context. I did not belittle your belief in the Eucharist. I presented the views of a militant atheist. I described such views as arrogant and trite, explicitly said that I disagree with their reasoning, and provided the view as an example of a fanatics arrogant attempt to use the law to dissuade Catholics from behavior and beliefs that they fanatic disagrees with.

[dominicansoul]

"hasan is a dumb arse"

Oh, that's not me saying that, that's the way some obnoxious troll would say it in a thread like this...


...that's exactly what you just did to the Eucharistic beliefs we hold so dear...you trashed it and excused trashing it by making up that "this is the view of some militant atheist." Why do you do that? All.the.time?

anyways, i'm outta this thread...

continue with your militant atheist imaginary character and continue to trash the Eucharist if you want...I'm praying for you...

[4588686]

[quote name='dominicansoul' timestamp='1293776927' post='2195419']
"hasan is a dumb arse"

Oh, that's not me saying that, that's the way some obnoxious troll would say it in a thread like this...


...that's exactly what you just did to the Eucharistic beliefs we hold so dear...you trashed it and excused trashing it by making up that "this is the view of some militant atheist." Why do you do that? All.the.time?

anyways, i'm outta this thread...

continue with your militant atheist imaginary character and continue to trash the Eucharist if you want...I'm praying for you...
[/quote]


We both know that was just a petty attempt to insult me without getting yourself in trouble. We know that because you are attempting to knock a new whole in my 'fat head' as you so eloquently put it in chat, before I had entered the chat room. I may be brusque and at times, though not here, rude, but I try not to level any insults against anyone in private that I won't say to their face. You obviously have no problem doing just this. So let me do you the courtesy of expressing my feelings to your face rather than scurrying off to spout them. I find this argument annoying and ridiculous. I was not trying to insult your faith. I was very clear to point out that I did not agree with the views I was expressing and that I found such views arrogant, trite, and fanatical. If you cannot read a view that you don't like without throwing a tantrum and slinking off to trash me behind my back then it is probably best that you do leave the thread. I have not tried to insult or offend anybody here. If Bro. Adam feels that I have insulted him then I will apologies to him. If you took offense to my revelation that militant atheist hold your religious beliefs in contempt then I apologize for being the one to bring this troubling truth to your attention. I myself find their dismissal of your beliefs arrogant and consider Dawkins a twit. Why you want to marry me to their views I do not know. Thanks for offering your prayers, but I think that taking the time to pray for me might get in the way of your stated wish to get me suspended and tear numerous new holes in my fat head.

[Jesus_lol]

Gotta say, i am with Hasan here.

This "how dare you compare us to them" junk has gotten way way out of hand.

One could say "how dare you compare something as natural as sexual orientation to their religious fundamentalism and fanaticism?" and it would be equally ridiculous.


If you have a problem with someones arguments, make a post contradicting them. no need to try and get the posts deleted or the poster banned based on some trumped up insults that dont exist.

[MIKolbe]

[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1293774827' post='2195408']
Allowing gay couples to adopt gay children after study after study confirms that such homes produce just as well balanced children as straight couples is not a radical restructuring of society.
[/quote]
Here is an interesting article regarding this... perhaps for a different thread..unsure..but found it relevant.

[quote]There is an inherent risk that anyone who has anything to say about gay male or lesbian parenting, no matter how cautious, will be misunderstood at best and vilified at worst. Nevertheless, the mission of a university professor includes seeking new ways to look at old issues, to resist all forms of intimidation, and to ensure that multiple sides of controversial issues are considered. Since there are more voices promoting the virtues of parenting by people defining themselves as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender (GLBT), I will present here an alternative, possibly minority, view that focuses on some of the possible risks associated with gay and lesbian parenting.

This is a challenging area. As one hint about the difficulties, consider this: when a group of authors published three articles (two even in the same journal) on data from the same set of lesbian parents about 1980, the two articles reporting favorable outcomes were cited 65 times compared to only two citations for the one article reporting unfavorable outcomes. In other cases, the worse the methodological quality of the research, the more likely it is to have been cited in major reviews of the literature.

The methodological quality of much of the literature is poor. Many studies have not controlled for parental educational and family per-capita income differences between lesbian and heterosexual families. Regardless, between February and June of 2010 no less than three articles have concluded that two lesbian mothers may, on average, tend to be better parents than heterosexual parents (Biblarz & Stacey, 2010; Gartrell & Bos, 2010; Biblarz & Savci, 2010) -- quite a controversial position. However, serious concerns remain.

Sexual Fidelity

Research is increasingly clear that many lesbigay partners enter into their versions of a committed relationship with expectations that cheating is acceptable. Some research suggests that gay men have more stable relationships only if cheating is permitted. Michael Bettinger (2006) reported: “An important difference between gay men and heterosexuals is that the majority of gay men in committed relationships are not monogamous”.

Dr. Esther Rothblum has reported that whereas women (lesbian or heterosexual) seldom permit sexual affairs, “40 percent of gay men in civil unions have an agreement that non-monogamy is permitted and over half have had sex outside their current relationship”. If gay marriage means accepting sexual non-monogamy within marriage, we must accept an inherent change in the intrinsic meaning of marriage and ultimately the meaning of responsible parenting.

Relationship Stability and Children

Another issue concerns the relationship between having children and staying together for the sake of the children. Though gay and lesbian couples in some studies appear to have higher quality, more satisfying relationships, they also appear less likely to remain stable when children are involved. Recent studies by Patterson and by Nanette Gartrell in the United States, as well as Scandinavian research, confirm this outcome, even when the GLBT subjects sampled had much higher levels of education than the heterosexual subjects.

Recently, Gartrell and Bos reported that over 56 per cent of lesbian parents had separated by the time their child was 17 years old. Based on the mothers’ reports of the children’s psychological adjustment, the adverse impact of that instability was not quite statistically significant. Comparable studies of heterosexual parents have found rates of separation ranging from 3 per cent to less than 30 percent over similar timeframes.

As yet, we have no published data on the stability of legally married LGBT parents. However, recent evidence indicates that very few GLBT individuals come together with the intention of having children and few, in fact, ever have children; if they do have a child, few spend the entire year with that child.

Effects on Children

Richard Redding, writing in a 2008 issue of the Duke Journal of Gender Law and Policy, concluded that gay parents were more likely to have gay children. My meta-analyses of 26 studies and ten books on GLBT parenting concur with his findings (Schumm, in press). Furthermore, my research indicates that many literature reviews have systematically excluded information about negative child outcomes associated with gay parenting -- that is, greater levels of insecure attachment and drug abuse among daughters of gay fathers. The most recent review of literature on GLBT families did not mention Sirota’s (2009) research, even though I reported a summary of it two years ago.

Space does not permit an adequate treatment here, but some research suggests differential effects on sex role orientations of children and their views of non-monogamous sexuality. My hunch is that delayed gratification orientation may be an important intervening variable for understanding the influence of parental sexual orientation on child outcomes, but I am not aware of any studies on that variable.

Again, there appear to be differences in reporting of child outcomes, depending on the source of the data – whether parents, children, or teachers, for example. My sense is that maternal reports tend to be influenced by what the writers understand to be socially desirable outcomes, especially if the mothers sense the political purposes of the study.

Ends do not justify the means

One could probably write a book on the misuse of research regarding LGBT individuals and families. Even if the political goals of the researchers were laudable, the misuse of science would not be. In my view, the ends do not justify the means. Numerous legal and social science scholars have virtually sworn that the idea that GLBT parents might tend to have GLBT children was nothing but a myth; however, close examination of multiple sources of data suggests otherwise, as my forthcoming article will show.

Today, some would say, so what? That might be a plausible position, but it was not the position taken by most scholars between 1990 and 2005. Then, and now, I presume, most of the public would deem relationship instability to be unfavorable for the welfare of children, and would want to consider the evidence that lesbian parents have much less stable relationships than do married heterosexual parents.

As I noted at the beginning, it is risky to express such views about same-sex parenting, no matter how objectively based they are. But the public has a right to consider all the evidence in such an important matter, affecting as it does the welfare of children.

Dr Walter Schumm is a Professor of Family Studies in the School of Family Studies and Human Services at Kansas State University. He has published over 250 scholarly articles and book chapters and is co-editor of the Sourcebook of Family Theories and Methods: A Contextual Approach (Plenum, 1993; Springer, 2009). He is a retired colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve, a former brigade and battalion commander. His views may not reflect the positions of Kansas State University or the US Department of Defense.

For further information, including a list of references for the above article, contact Dr Schumm at schumm@ksu.edu[/quote]