Same-Sex Adoption = Child Abuse

[quote]katzenjammer wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
tom8658 wrote:
A NARTH doctor cites evidence published by the Institute for American Values, both non-profits dedicated to defining marriage as solely heterosexual, and it’s supposed to be convincing?

My post was going to be much longer, but I don’t feel like arguing with you. It’s like wrestling a pig in the mud.

I honestly don’t understand what you (and other conservatives) have against homosexuals.

Homosexuality is fine, so long as gays don’t adopt children because its ‘fashionable’ and don’t try to re-define sacred values, such as marriage and parenthood.

If we’re supposed to be respectful of other cultures, why do gays try and change ours?

What is so sacred about marriage. It has had many different definitions over the years even within the Christian faith.

Marriage is a sacrament. Please expand on your second statement - examples, etc.[/quote]

Marriage only became a sacrement to certain arms of the church during the 12th Centrury. There are still churches which accept or even promote polygamy. Mixed race marriages would have been seen as horrific a hundred years ago (in many states the laws against them stood as recently as the 60s.)

How about Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians

(taken out of context I know)

Go back to the 19th Century and a wife became a possesion of the Husband. She couldn’t own property, she couldn’t pay taxes or even sign a contract (in fact these laws stood as recently as the 20s in some states of the US.)

If you want to go to a church that doesn’t accept Gay Religious Marriages then go ahead. The legal contract of a civil union between two consenting adults is a totally separate issue and none of any Churches business.

[quote]forlife wrote:
tom8658 wrote:
A NARTH doctor cites evidence published by the Institute for American Values, both non-profits dedicated to defining marriage as solely heterosexual, and it’s supposed to be convincing?

Exactly. The major medical and mental health organizations have done the research on children raised by same sex parents, and have unanimously concluded that these children are equal on measures of emotional and psychological health.

Of course, these organizations are all “biased”, and only NARTH is objective enough to give us the real scoop on the homo agenda.[/quote]

Would any of these be the same mental health organizations that classified both homosexuality and/or homophobia as diseases?

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
tom8658 wrote:
A NARTH doctor cites evidence published by the Institute for American Values, both non-profits dedicated to defining marriage as solely heterosexual, and it’s supposed to be convincing?

My post was going to be much longer, but I don’t feel like arguing with you. It’s like wrestling a pig in the mud.

I honestly don’t understand what you (and other conservatives) have against homosexuals.

Homosexuality is fine, so long as gays don’t adopt children because its ‘fashionable’ and don’t try to re-define sacred values, such as marriage and parenthood.

If we’re supposed to be respectful of other cultures, why do gays try and change ours?
[/quote]

Culture is individual. Everyone has their own ideas. Culture is in those ideas tied to our basic understanding of language.

The idea of “family values” being some sort of universal cultural phenomenon is just nonsense.

What is a “family” and what are the “values” attached to it?

Children can be raised in a multitude of cultures with no ill effect to their psyche. It does not matter what culture they are raised in; in fact, without “culture” we are all dead anyway.

[quote]lucasa wrote:

Would any of these be the same mental health organizations that classified both homosexuality and/or homophobia as diseases in the 1980’s?

[/quote]

Fixed that for you.

[quote]lucasa wrote:
Would any of these be the same mental health organizations that classified both homosexuality and/or homophobia as diseases?
[/quote]

Would any of these be the same scientific organizations that once classified the earth as flat?

Thankfully, science progresses.

And later (sometimes much later, kicking and screaming but moving forward all the same), religion does as well.

[quote]forlife wrote:
lucasa wrote:
Would any of these be the same mental health organizations that classified both homosexuality and/or homophobia as diseases?

Would any of these be the same scientific organizations that once classified the earth as flat?

Thankfully, science progresses.

And later (sometimes much later, kicking and screaming but moving forward all the same), religion does as well.[/quote]

No, homosexuality was classified a mental disorder up until the DSM III, which actually wasn’t that long ago. The It was first removed in the DSM IV witch is still the current manual I believe.

It was removed in 1973, based on evidence that had accumulated to that point. In the 36 years since then, further evidence has substantially reinforced the correctness of that decision.

Some religions have progressed as well during the past four decades, but like the flat earth theory it has been slow in coming.

[quote]Beowolf wrote:
lucasa wrote:

Would any of these be the same mental health organizations that classified both homosexuality and/or homophobia as diseases in the 1980’s?

Fixed that for you.[/quote]

You didn’t fix jack shit, they took a break under the Bush Administration, but as recently as 2000, the CDC is/was trying to blame homophobes for homosexuals contracting HIV/AIDS.

You didn’t even read the post, or if you did, your brain was clearly on autopilot.

You said:

[quote]Cockney Blue wrote:

What is so sacred about marriage. It has had many different definitions over the years even within the Christian faith.
[/quote]

Well, you haven’t provided ANY evidence that marriage “had many different definitions” within the Church. Even were it so, why should this mean that we should now honor homosexual marriage?

[quote]
Marriage only became a sacrement to certain arms of the church during the 12th Centrury. [/quote]

Marriage did not become a SEPARATE sacrament until the early middle ages. That is true. So what? Your St. Paul quote is wildly out of context - so why use it as you do? St. Paul, in fact, repeatedly used traditional matrimonial/nuptial language to describe the relation between the church and Christ - he used this language precisely because that language was deeply respected by the culture. You might also be aware that St. Augustine repeatedly referred to marriage as a sacrament.

So what? They’re heretical. The Church does not condone this, much less advocate it.

That was terribly wrong. So therefore we should now accept homosexual marriages as valid? That seems pretty weak to me.

[quote]
If you want to go to a church that doesn’t accept Gay Religious Marriages then go ahead. The legal contract of a civil union between two consenting adults is a totally separate issue and none of any Churches business.[/quote]

Fine as long as the homosexualmafia doesn’t push the Church to recognize their unions - or even respect them; as is happening among Anglicans at this very moment.

[quote]pat wrote:
This is a tough one. Obviously, the best place for a child is a stable married couple of both man and woman. But, is it better for a kid to rot in an orphanage unloved, or be loved by two homo’s? If the home is stable enough, perhaps the homo home is better than an orphanage, but I really don’t know.[/quote]

I agree - I think a child is best off in a traditional marriage; but I’m still not sure about the orphanage v. homomarriage - or even if that predicament is real.

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:

Culture is individual. Everyone has their own ideas. Culture is in those ideas tied to our basic understanding of language.

The idea of “family values” being some sort of universal cultural phenomenon is just nonsense.
[/quote]

Lifty, this is really quite incoherent; and where it is slightly coherent it’s just flat wrong. If culture is truly “individual” as you say - then how can you say anything about it? If it does not exist as something held in common, then you cannot say it even exists beyond your own head. You cannot even say what it is because it could not be expressed. Et cetera. Furthermore, you do realize that you are using absolutist language in your attempt to undermine universal values/truth, right?

A family is a group of people who are related by blood and are - like any community - mutually interdependent in a whole host of ways. It’s values are those values that are held in common. What is so hard to understand about this?

[quote]
Children can be raised in a multitude of cultures with no ill effect to their psyche. It does not matter what culture they are raised in; in fact, without “culture” we are all dead anyway.[/quote]

Of course it matters - if I were to present a social order replete with inconceivable cruelty & horrors, you would eventually say, “yes, that’s no good for any child to grow up in.” And you would do so by appealing to reasonable values, however carefully you couched them.

[quote]forlife wrote:
It was removed in 1973, based on evidence that had accumulated to that point. In the 36 years since then, further evidence has substantially reinforced the correctness of that decision.

Some religions have progressed as well during the past four decades, but like the flat earth theory it has been slow in coming.[/quote]

Despite enlightenment charactitures & canards, transmitted as brainwashing via textbooks, the Church throughout the middle ages did not deny the sphericity of the earth; indeed, the middle ages were times of great learning, scientifically and otherwise; and far from discouraging this, the Church adamantly supported in a myriad of ways scientific pursuits of all kinds. To maintain some inherent opposition between the Church & scientific progress is silly, unhistorical secularlist dogma.

[quote]katzenjammer wrote:
If culture is truly “individual” as you say - then how can you say anything about it? If it does not exist as something held in common, then you cannot say it even exists beyond your own head. You cannot even say what it is because it could not be expressed. Et cetera. Furthermore, you do realize that you are using absolutist language in your attempt to undermine universal values/truth, right?[/quote]

I should have stated it better. Culture is understood individually.

However, there is a different culture for every idea that exists. They all have their own languages (jargon, etc) that make their ideas expressible. This is cultural relativism taken to the utmost extreme – for example, T-Nation is its own culture. What makes a culture is how these ideas are expressed and shared by people related to it but due to the constraints of language everyone experiences it differently.

[quote]
A family is a group of people who are related by blood and are - like any community - mutually interdependent in a whole host of ways. It’s values are those values that are held in common. What is so hard to understand about this? [/quote]

That is your understanding of family. What about adopted children. Are their adopted parents not their family? Family is much simpler idea than what you state. It is a group of related people – how they are related is irrelevant.

I won’t even attempt to wax poetic about what their values are. It is impossible for every member in a family to have the same values as everyone else in that family. Values are individual as well.

The culture you describe could not exist anyway. Any culture that includes children that is not nurturing to them – even minimally – will not produce adults. The problem takes care of itself. To my mind there is no culture such as this.

[quote]katzenjammer wrote:
You said:

Cockney Blue wrote:

What is so sacred about marriage. It has had many different definitions over the years even within the Christian faith.

Well, you haven’t provided ANY evidence that marriage “had many different definitions” within the Church. Even were it so, why should this mean that we should now honor homosexual marriage?
[/quote]

Yes I have, you just have a very narrow definition of the Church. When you say ‘The Church’ you mean ‘My Church’ which is very different. You are speaking from a minority position and trying to force your views and opinions on the majority, then you accuse homosexuals of doing exactly the same thing. There is a name for that.

OK here are 8 different types of marriage described in the bible. Which one represents traditional values to you?

  1. The standard nuclear family: Genesis 2:24 describes how a man leaves his family of origin, joins with a woman, consummates the marriage and lives as a couple.

Marriages were generally arranged by family or friends; they did not result from a gradually evolving, loving relationship that developed during a period of courtship.

A bride who had been presented as a virgin and who could not be proven to be one was stoned to death by the men of her village. (Deuteronomy 22:13-21) There appears to have been no similar penalty for men who engaged in consensual pre-marital sexual activity.

  1. Polygynous marriage: A man would leave his family of origin and join with his first wife. Then, as finances allowed, he would marry as many additional women as he desired. The new wives would join the man and his other wives in an already established household.

Polygyny was practiced by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Mormons, until the practice was suspended, a least temporarily, in the late 19th century. It is still practiced by separated fundamentalist Mormon groups which have left and been excommunicated from the main church.

There are many references to polygynous marriages in the Bible: Lamech, in Genesis 4:19, became the first known polygynist. He had two wives.
Subsequent men in polygynous relationships included:
Esau with 3 wives;
Jacob: 2;
Ashur: 2;
Gideon: many;
Elkanah: 2;
David: many;
Solomon had 700 wives of royal birth;
Rehaboam: 3;
Abijah: 14.
Jehoram, Joash, Ahab, Jeholachin and Belshazzar also had multiple wives.
From the historical record, it is known that Herod the Great (73 to 4 BCE) had nine wives.

  1. Levirate Marriage: The name of this type of marriage is derived from the Latin word “levir,” which means “brother-in-law.” This involved a woman who was widowed without having borne a son. She would be required to leave her home, marry her brother-in-law, live with him, and engage in sexual relations. If there were feelings of attraction and love between the woman and her new husband, this arrangement could be quite agreeable to both.

Otherwise, the woman would have to endure what was essentially serial rapes with her former brother-in-law as perpetrator. Their first-born son was considered to be sired by the deceased husband. In Genesis 38:6-10, Tamar’s husband Er was killed by God for unspecified sinful behavior. Er’s brother, Onan, was then required by custom to marry Tamar. Not wanting to have a child who would not be considered his, he engaged in an elementary (and quite unreliable) method of birth control: coitus interruptus. God appears to have given a very high priority to the levirate marriage obligation. Being very displeased with Onan’s behavior, God killed him as well.

Ruth 4 reveals that a man would be required to enter into a levirate marriage not only with his late brother’s widow, but with a widow to whom he was the closest living relative.

  1. A man, a woman and her property – a female slave: As described in Genesis 16, Sarah and Abram were infertile. Sarah owned Hagar, a female slave who apparently had been purchased earlier in Egypt. Because Hagar was Sarah’s property, she could dispose of her as she wished. Sarah gave Hagar to Abram as a type of wife, so that Abram would have an heir. Presumably, the arrangement to marry and engage in sexual activity was done without the consent of Hagar, who had such a low status in the society of the day that she was required to submit to what she probably felt were serial rapes by Abram.

Hagar conceived and bore a son, Ishmael. This type of marriage had some points of similarity to polygamous marriage, as described above. However, Hagar’s status as a human slave in a plural marriage with two free individuals makes it sufficiently different to warrant separate treatment here.

  1. A man, one or more wives, and some concubines: A man could keep numerous concubines, in addition to one or more wives. These women held an even lower status than a wife. As implied in Genesis 21:10, a concubine could be dismissed when no longer wanted.

According to Smith’s Bible Dictionary, “A concubine would generally be either (1) a Hebrew girl bought…[from] her father; (2) a Gentile captive taken in war; (3) a foreign slave bought; or (4) a Canaanitish woman, bond or free.” 1 They would probably be brought into an already-established household. Abraham had two concubines; Gideon: at least 1; Nahor: 1; Jacob: 1; Eliphaz: 1; Gideon: 1; Caleb: 2; Manassah: 1; Saul: 1; David: at least 10; Rehoboam: 60; Solomon: 300!; an unidentified Levite: 1; Belshazzar: more than 1.

  1. A male soldier and a female prisoner of war: Numbers 31:1-18 describes how the army of the ancient Israelites killed every adult Midianite male in battle. Moses then ordered the slaughter in cold blood of most of the captives, including all of the male children who numbered about 32,000. Only the lives of 32,000 women - all virgins – were spared. Some of the latter were given to the priests as slaves. Most were taken by the Israeli soldiers as captives of war.

Deuteronomy 21:11-14 describes how each captive woman would shave her head, pare her nails, be left alone to mourn the loss of her families, friends, and freedom. After a full month had passed, they would be required to submit to their owners sexually, as a wife. It is conceivable that in a few cases, a love bond might have formed between the soldier and his captive(s). However, in most cases we can assume that the woman had to submit sexually against her will; that is, she was raped.

  1. A male rapist and his victim: Deuteronomy 22:28-29 requires that a female virgin who is not engaged to be married and who has been raped must marry her attacker, no matter what her feelings were towards the rapist. A man could become married by simply sexually attacking a woman that appealed to him, and paying his father-in-law 50 shekels of silver.

There is one disadvantage of this approach: he was not allowed to subsequently divorce her.

  1. A male and female slave: Exodus 21:4 indicates that a slave owner could assign one of his female slaves to one of his male slaves as a wife. There is no indication that women were consulted during this type of transaction. The arrangement would probably involve rape in most cases.

In the times of the Hebrew Scriptures, Israelite women who were sold into slavery by their fathers were slaves forever. Men, and women who became slaves by another route, were limited to serving as slaves for seven years. When a male slave left his owner, the marriage would normally be terminated; his wife would stay behind, with any children that she had. He could elect to stay a slave if he wished.

Again with your narrow minded narrow definitions. Polygamy was promoted throughout the Old Testament as shown above.

As I explained, you personally don’t have to accept anything. The law however should treat people as equals.

[quote]If you want to go to a church that doesn’t accept Gay Religious Marriages then go ahead. The legal contract of a civil union between two consenting adults is a totally separate issue and none of any Churches business.

Fine as long as the homosexualmafia doesn’t push the Church to recognize their unions - or even respect them; as is happening among Anglicans at this very moment. [/quote]

The Church mafia is far more powerful than any homosexual mafia. The problem for you is the ammount of closet homosexuality within the church. Ironic huh?

The problem is that it’s a moral judgment.

If you classify homosexuality as a genetic defect (from a religious, or evolutionary procreation standpoint), then it would seem bad to me to expose children to it. I can see that argument.

Moral judgment like that are culturally based. Take the African tribes that do the neck rings. If parents over hear tried to do that to a young daughter, social serves would probably take them away and I’d bet most people would consider it immoral.

But if they do it in their tribe in Africa, is it immoral? I’d say no.

Judgments like this are essentially cultural decisions.

So really what forelife is asking for is not a scientific change (as he claims) but a cultural one. Moral judgments about right and wrong have little if nothing to do with science. Murder isn’t wrong because of the science of decay, it’s wrong because of cultural decisions.

You would in this case have to account for cultural differences even between states. This is why, I think it’s best left to states to decide. That way California and NewYork don’t have to live according to the culture of the Bible Belt and vice versa.

[quote]katzenjammer wrote:
forlife wrote:
It was removed in 1973, based on evidence that had accumulated to that point. In the 36 years since then, further evidence has substantially reinforced the correctness of that decision.

Some religions have progressed as well during the past four decades, but like the flat earth theory it has been slow in coming.

Despite enlightenment charactitures & canards, transmitted as brainwashing via textbooks, the Church throughout the middle ages did not deny the sphericity of the earth; indeed, the middle ages were times of great learning, scientifically and otherwise; and far from discouraging this, the Church adamantly supported in a myriad of ways scientific pursuits of all kinds. To maintain some inherent opposition between the Church & scientific progress is silly, unhistorical secularlist dogma. [/quote]

Actually there was a real dichotomy at the time. Christian leaders were battling to control knowledge and power however the Universities of the day were Religious. If someone wanted an education pretty much their only route was the clergy.

Don’t forget that much of the scientific progress during the middle ages was actually happening in India, China and the Middle East, Western Europe under Christian influence lagged seriously behind.

[quote]Cockney Blue wrote:
I hate Christians.
[/quote]

You are under the impression that if you ever held an incorrect belief about something you are forever invalidated on the subject. Apparently if people who came before you in your lineage did something currently viewed as wrong, any current thoughts on the subject are invalid.

So Mr. cockney, I’m surmising you’re from around London? Who are your ancestors? Celts? Welsh? Perhaps Danes? They used swords either way. So today you have to agree that everyone should be allowed to carry swords. Because that tradition is part of your past. I would argue this point about everyone carrying swords, but I have Danish ancestry, so I’m forbidden.

There are stonings in the Bible too. So if you’re a Christian you shouldn’t stop someone from stoning someone.

Hell, as an american I believe african americans are only 3/5ths of a person right? So now I can’t have any opinion on racism.

You’re argument isn’t logically coherent.

[quote]katzenjammer wrote:
To maintain some inherent opposition between the Church & scientific progress is silly, unhistorical secularlist dogma. [/quote]

Explain Copernicus. Or how about Galileo, who was brought before the Church as a heretic, forced to recant his heliocentric heathenism, and placed under house arrest for the rest of his life?

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
You are under the impression that if you ever held an incorrect belief about something you are forever invalidated on the subject. Apparently if people who came before you in your lineage did something currently viewed as wrong, any current thoughts on the subject are invalid.
[/quote]

Tell that to the guy who mentioned homosexuality was once considered a psychological disorder, and used that to justify invalidating the revised conclusions of science, based on an additional four decades of research on the subject.

[quote]forlife wrote:
katzenjammer wrote:
To maintain some inherent opposition between the Church & scientific progress is silly, unhistorical secularlist dogma.

Explain Copernicus. Or how about Galileo, who was brought before the Church as a heretic, forced to recant his heliocentric heathenism, and placed under house arrest for the rest of his life? [/quote]

Then you explain how gay men have raped young boys. That’s right there are gay men who’ve done bad things. You come up with a way to excuse them from their actions and I’ll come up with a way to excuse distant Christians who’ve done bad things.