Dr. Joan Bushwell's Chimpanzee Refuge

Phew! a sane person!

Some sanity checking…
unable to provide a single consequentialist argument against gay civil unions
That is probably because Opine does not argue against “gay civil unions”. Opine recognizes the value of equal gender representation in marriage, and the authors support programs that provide for gay unions among other worthy committed households.
the group of antihomo teeth-gnashers
Surely you jest.
the Op-Ed people being, as a group, slightly more adroit at expressing themselves than the more recent targets of the Refuge
Thank you.
so I admit I haven’t read much of the thread at Fannie’s Room yet.
Actually, that was kind of apparent already.
Now, please point out to me the arguments from your post that you would like people to consider in an intellectual and academic mindframe?
The quote, “They remain nothing but a bunch of spineless, mostly nameless bigots who continue to experience untold amounts of frustration that American society is, for all its idiots and problems, moving steadily away from their Cro-Magnon-esque envisaging of “tradition” and more toward acceptance”, and similar invective rich commentary do not register as very rational on any scale. So I’ll ask you for just what you wished people to rationally consider in your post. I’m just curious, thats all.

My my, your post is almost as worthy as it is timely.

…and similar invective rich commentary do not register as very rational on any scale.

Invective-rich commentary? Sure. Not rational? Nope. Just because you don’t agree with the arguments doesn’t mean that they’re not rational (unless of course your “scale” is whether or not you like them).

It’s kind of embarassing to see all these mindless ad-homeniems strung together on a “scienceblogs” site. I see no science or logic here. I see rage, misrepresentation, and groupthink. Rachel pats you on the back and says you are “sane” because you called us “assholes,” and “a group of antihomo teeth-gnashers,” when she has acknowledged on other blogs that some of us (Fitz and I, for example) are neither.
The 20th century is littered with the victims of demagogues that misrepresented their own groupthink and rage as “science.” There’s no science, reason, or sanity in calling your opponents “assholes” or other ugly names. Any uneducated nitwith can do it. It gets particularly ugly when educated persons do it, and then pass their rantings off as the products of higher thought.
Let’s try to do better.

“The core purpose of marriage is to channel procreative potential into responsible childbearing.
————————–
Thank you for insulting my marriage.”
You’ve made a very disturbing motive inference, Jim. What exactly are you imagining that I (or the person that I was quoting) said about *your* marriage?
I prefer to be more precise than the person who I quoted. SOCIETY’s core purpose for RECOGNIZING marriage is to channel procreative potential into responsible childbearing.
Now I think that was blitheringly obvious from the original statement, since individuals obviously don’t get married to “channel potential procreation.” We’re talking about the social purpose for formalizing and promoting marriage. Not about the individual purpose for seeking marriage. When we speak of institutions that “channel” individual desires towards a greater goal, that’s always a discussion of public policy. For example, Constitutional separation of powers channels the desire for power of individual leaders, in order to curb abuse of power. The marriage culture likewise channels the sex drive and the desire for companionship in order to curb irresponsible procreation.
The only way that what I said could reasonably be construed as insulting your marriage would be if your spouse was putting you out to stud, to systematically impregnate other women while abandoing those offspring. I’ve never heard of any marriage like that, and I don’t think that’s what your situation is (please correct me if I’m wrong), so please explain how you construed what I said as an attack on your marriage.

I lied: One final cookie for you.
I believe That you are sincere in what you say. I find that distressing. You (Opine) complained about KB’s insults but I think all can agree that when KB insults, both he and the insulted person know that an insult was thrown. In your case, however, you did not understand and apparently cannot discern how your statements can be insulting. You create a contrivance to explain away the situation but it falls flat. I don’t mind that your brain is clouded by religious dogma. I only mind the fact that you intend to effectively limit the rights and lives of others in order to have them fit into your little view of the universe. I’m sure you would strenuously object, but you are a religious extremist.
I will go a step further and clarify my position on the subject as I didn’t say much about it before. I do not think that it is any business of the government to decide what does and does not constitute a marriage. I think marriage should be a purely religious ceremony. If a particular religion says only a man can marry a woman, fine. If they say only whites can marry other whites, fine. If they say it is OK for a man to marry three women, fine. I don’t care. Heck, you could marry a cactus for all I’m concerned as long as it’s OK with your church. BUT, NONE of these marriages would have ANYTHING to do with government-approved spousal rights. That is, the government needs to get out of the marriage business. The government would grant spousal rights and benefits to a civil union, period. You want to get married in the church of your choice? Fine. Do it. But if you want spousal rights, you’re going to have to get a civil union as well, period. As the civil union would be defined by our secular government, it would not get involved in the internal affairs of any particular denomination or belief (and vice versa). Our current problem is that we don’t have a nice convenient term for civil union as we do with marriage (as in “Yes, Jane and I will be getting civil unionized in May!”). Consequently, we wind up mixing religious dogma regarding “marriage” with a secular governmental concept of “marriage”.

“You (Opine) complained about KB’s insults”
I (Christian) did not complain about KB’s insults. I complained that KB didn’t do anything *other* than insult. We appreciate all the attention that you and Fannie have drawn to us, and you’re probably doing us a lot of good by making us reasonable in comparison. That comes through even when Fannie edited & misrepresented our posts to justify banning us.
Even Bush-43 said years ago that he’d support same-sex unions. The vast majority of same-sex couples with children are more interested in their rights than fighting your glorious little crusade against marriage. Eventually the monogamous gays will realize that the promiscuous gays that and bandwagon “Straight but not narrows” that dominate the ssm movement really do not care about the rights of same-sex couples. When they smart up and desert your movement, then we’ll see ssus nationally. Not because of people like Kevin, but in spite of him.

You’ve lept to that absurd conclusion that I’m a “religious extremist” based on nothing more than my name, “Christian.”

And this is the sort of “logic” I’ve come to expect from your ilk. My conclusion has nothing whatsoever to do with your name. It has to do with the statements that you have made and support. You can play the part and pretend to be polite Mr. Rational, but the fact remains that a pig wearing lipstick is still a pig. By all means, continue to prattle on about marriage, procreation, and the good of society, but I’m old enough to remember other people making similar arguments years ago only it wasn’t about gay marriage, it was about interracial marriage. Ah yes, “the mongrelization of the species”, such a calamity!
The government shouldn’t be defining marriage as a “union of a man and a woman for life”. The government shouldn’t define marriage at all. I thought I was pretty clear on that but perhaps not. Religions should define marriage (or whatever they choose to call it). The government should only define and recognize civil unions for tax/rights purposes. The government is a secular structure and thus “civil” is within its purview while “religious” is not.

The vast majority of same-sex couples with children are more interested in their rights than fighting your glorious little crusade against marriage.

What? Now you’re telling me that I’m on a crusade against something I am?? More of your astounding logic I see.
Look, if you truly do believe that gay couples and other possible groupings are deserving of all of the rights of marriage, that those rights be as easy to obtain as current marriage rights, and your only complaint is that the word “marriage” should not be applied to them, then I suggest you pull the bug out of your ass and apply your energies to a more useful and productive task, like campaigning for those very rights which are presently denied to these groupings. Complaining about the use of a particular word so that it conforms with your definition of it is about as minor quest as there is.
But, having read a few of the items from opine since KB first brought them up here, I sincerely doubt that that’s the real issue. You’re on the wrong side of history, and the folks who “smart up” will see you for what you really are.

Jim claims that his inference that I’m a “religious extremist” is based on “statements” that I “have made and support.”
Jim, please identify a single statement that I “have made” that justifies your claim that I am a “religious extremist.” Please quote something I actually said on this page, or, if it’s something I said on another page, please link to it. As for statements that I “support,” that sounds like you’re trying to support your motive inferences through other motive inferences.
“The government shouldn’t be defining marriage as a “union of a man and a woman for life”. The government shouldn’t define marriage at all. I thought I was pretty clear on that but perhaps not.”
Yes, you did make that statement, as part of your argument that for the state to define marriage as “union of man and woman for life” could only have a “religious” motive. I responded by pointing to ultra-secular Scandinavia, which continues to define marriage as the union of man and woman for life, for the perfectly secular reason of encouraging a situation where children are raised by a father and a mother.
You can play the part and pretend to be polite Mr. Rational, but the fact remains that a pig wearing lipstick is still a pig.
“Pig in lipstick” is a closer guess than “religious fanatic” since I could stand to lose a few pounds, and since I once played the part of Katherine’s maid in Henry V. :D That was my one experience in drag, and I don’t recall if they actually put lipstick on me. You can imagine me as a religious extremist pig wearing lipstick if that turns you on, Jim, but to others, it looks like you’re poisoning the well to avoid dealing with logical, secular arguments. It also looks bad for you when you have less capacity for staying on topic and making logical arguments than a pig in lipstick.
I said: “The vast majority of same-sex couples with children are more interested in their rights than fighting your glorious little crusade against marriage.”
Jim replied: “What? Now you’re telling me that I’m on a crusade against something I am??”
What you are? You are not marriage, Jim. Marriage is an abstract concept, whereas you seem to be a sentient creature. You’ve said already that “The government shouldn’t define marriage at all.” Since the scope of this discussion is LEGAL, SECULAR marriage, you’ve completely validated my statement that you are trying to destroy marriage, i.e. trying to reduce marriage to a purely religious construct.
“Look, if you truly do believe that gay couples and other possible groupings are deserving of all of the rights of marriage, that those rights be as easy to obtain as current marriage rights, and your only complaint is that the word “marriage” should not be applied to them, then I suggest you pull the bug out of your ass and apply your energies to a more useful and productive task, like campaigning for those very rights which are presently denied to these groupings. Complaining about the use of a particular word so that it conforms with your definition of it is about as minor quest as there is.”
Why don’t you take your own advice, Jim? It seems hypocritical for you to tell me that the struggle over a word is unproductive, while you are fighting over the same word, and denying the actual RIGHTS of marriage to thousands of same-sex families, by refusing to join with the majority of Americans who support SSUs. When you attack the word “marriage,” you force the moderate plurality to vote with the extremists who would ban ssus as well as protecting the definition of marriage.
——————–
“That comes through even when Fannie edited & misrepresented our posts to justify banning us.”
When, exactly, did I edit your posts?
Fannie, we’ve been through this on Jane’s, and I gave you 10 days to explain or correct your deceptions, e.g. when you deleted my polite apology for misattributing Amy’s post to you, and then responded as if I had not apologized. That’s selective editing with no other purpose but to deceive your readers.
“You know exactly why I banned you and Opine.”
Fannie, for the third time, I don’t CARE why you banned me and Opine. It’s your site, and it’s your prerogative who you want to speak with. My complaint was that you lied about what I’d said and done on your site, and selectively deleted posts to JUSTIFY the bannings. You misrepresented both my position on ssm and my behavior on your site. I tried to appeal to your conscience because I thought you had one, but you made clear on Jane’s that you only care about what your friends think of you. Well give them some credit — they will still be your friends even though they know the truth about what you did. So get over it. What you did wasn’t *that* big a deal; doesn’t require this huge Nixonian cover-up. If the truth about what you did shames you, then either change your behavior, or learn to cope with your self-disgust.

Christian,
As someone who purports to be Mr. Polite Rational Guy, you would do better to drop the invective in your own hypocritical comments:
“glorious little crusade against marriage.”
I strongly disagree with your characterization, but if it’s just a “little crusade” then why do you spend so much time fighting it?
You also say:
“I said that society’s purpose for recognizing marriage, was to provide potential kids with a dad and mom. You interpreted this as an “insult.” I asked you why it was an insult, and you called me a religious extremist. That does not answer my question, Jim.”
Raising children with a mother and father is A valid purpose of marriage, but why is it the sole purpose of marriage? And, you act as though men and women stop raising children if two people of the same gender were able to marry.
Your marriage-is-an-important-word argument is insulting to me as a gay person because you would deny same-sex couples the rights and benefits of a state-recognized marriage on the sole basis that it’s called “marriage.” Because right now, there are no civil union options that adequately give same-sex couples (and THEIR children) the same benefits that opposite-sex couples can receive through marriage. So, to exclude same-sex couples from marriage, which as it confers more rights and benefits on a couple than a civil union, is to relegate them to a lesser and unequal institution.
THAT is insulting.
And, it’s insulting that you are unable (or just unwilling) to see it as insulting.
I would be curious to know what your position is on male-female couples who cannot or choose not to procreate would be. Should they only be allowed to get “civil unions” also?
And save the b-b-b-but they’re different/they could if they WANTED to blathering. We’re talking male-female couples who don’t. raise. kids.

Christian,
Are you really, (really?!) continuing to dishonestly portray me?
Choose your word choice more carefully- I did not edit your comments. I deleted them. Editing implies that I tampered with your comments by adding or deleting words.
“Fannie, we’ve been through this on Jane’s, and I gave you 10 days to explain or correct your deceptions, e.g. when you deleted my polite apology for misattributing Amy’s post to you, and then responded as if I had not apologized. That’s selective editing with no other purpose but to deceive your readers.”
(A) When did you give me this ultimatum? Are you serious?
(B) AS I told you ALREADY, I already deleted all the comments on the post to which you are referring. Because they were all irrelevant to my original post.
(c) I never lied about what you said. Your comments were irrelevant, dramatic, and idiotic. And now, YOU are the one trying to save face by characterizing me as some kind of liar without a conscience. Sorry you got schooled by a bunch of chicks, but deal with it, man.
(d) Why do you bring this up on other people’s blogs again? If you truly don’t care about it, you would be over it by now.

“As someone who purports to be Mr. Polite Rational Guy”
I don’t recall identifying myself that way, Fannie. Jane and Rachel are the ones who said that I was polite and rational. I’m just as prone to irrationality as anyone else, but I do make an effort to think and write rationally, and I’m generally polite to folks unless they misrepresent me, insult me uncreatively or without reason, or play stupid. (I don’t recall seeing you play stupid).
“if it’s just a “little crusade” then why do you spend so much time fighting it?”
Fannie, I’ve already answered that question on my blog, on yours, and on Jane’s. On Jane’s, you said that the one word wasn’t worth the fight to you, and that having the rights, under the name “civil union,” would also be adequate. Rachel on the other hand says that the word is important to her, but did not say whether it really was so important to her to delay giving the rights of marriage to same-sex couples for so many years, as is happening now and will continue to happen because of the war over the word marriage. I understand why the word “marriage” would seem attractive, but I suspect that there is enough creativity in the GLT community to come up with a more enticing original term for getting hitched than “civil union.” It’s just a matter of applying the considerable creative talents of your community.

“Jane and Rachel are the ones who said that I was polite and rational.”
Well… I dunno if I’d go that far. Just compared to the rest of Opine. I don’t think that’s saying much.
Anyway, you said:
“Marriage made it more likely that the deadbeat would support and stay with his new girlfriend and whatever kids they might make together.”
Ohhh, I get it. If two people of the same gender are able to call their relationships “marriage” heterosexual fathers will abandon their families?
But really, so why not propose a law requiring men and women who have kids together to be married, with a ban on divorce? That would certainly help with the “deadbeat” dad problem.

Christian,
Please address me at fanniesroom@gmail.com
Not on someone else’s blog.
Indeed, we certainly do have a problem, “counselor.”

“But really, so why not propose a law requiring men and women who have kids together to be married, with a ban on divorce?”
Joke, Christian. It was a joke.

“For, shall I also read the opinion justifying Japanese internment in camps during WWII?”
Of course you should read Korematsu! That was the case that gave us strict scrutiny of fundamental constitutional rights — one of the most important civil rights landmarks in SCOTUS history. And Jackson’s fiery dissent in Korematsu is something to remember!
Korematsu got the law right, but the facts were dead wrong. General DeWitt was lying through his teeth about what the Japanese-Americans were doing; his report was a transparent fabrication, nothing more than a scheme to wrest massive tracts of land in California and Nevada from Japanese-Americans (who had to sell the land at basement bottom prices while they were interned and could not farm). So yeah, read the case, and read the dissent, and learn the lesson that even when you have the law right, that the court can commit gross injustice if it fails to question authority.

Christian said:
“Thanks for your email. I’ve posted mine on your blog and on Jane’s.”
Just email me if you want to talk. Do you really expect me to sift through hundreds of comments to look for the one where you gave your email address?
“I won’t know whether I’ve earned the right to be called “counselor” for another five weeks, Fannie :)”
Why do you think I put “counselor” in quotes?
Accordingly, “thanks” for the “lesson” on Korematsu. ;-)

Okay… can we please go back to the facts and statistics: the thing that makes a topic like this actually more tangible than who said who and when?
I live in a secular state/nation and thank goodness for that. No I don’t live in Sweden or Norway, but in the country that well made a civil marriage legal by legislation. Now this was about 6 or 7 years ago and I think we can say that the concequences of such a thing should be able to be seen or expressed in statistics and research. In 2004 it was reported that the divorce rate of same-sex mariages compared to heterosexual couples who were married in the same year this all was made possible was equal at 1% (give or take, but it kinda debunks this scientific article Maria Xiridou, et al, “The Contribution of Steady and Casual Partnerships to the Incidence of HIV Infection among Homosexual Men in Amsterdam,” AIDS 17 (2003): 1031. which is so often used in the debate especially those of the religious kind and well, it doesn’t hold up… at all), actually it was a bit higher for lesbian couples than for gay men. After that the nr or same-sex marriages went down slowly. The first run on this was when it became legal, after that everything calmed down. Now what I would like to know and it is in mentioned in a comment of Christian that “Ericson and Piaget work strongly suggests that a father and a mother fulfill distinct needs.”
Since this is a science blog, I would like to know which works are well kinda cited here and I would also like to know what kind of studies they have conducted to conclude this. Moreso I would like to know the method they used, which control groups they included in their research. Is that possible to retrieve that information please? It would make a discussion so much easier, titles of papers and scientific articles would already be so great. The thing is, this hinges too much on what ifs and that to really conclude that a samesex marriage does damage children, I am far from convinced you know, especially since I have witnessed the opposite. In order to research this the best way we can, you have to cite a study which is based on a control group study where you can make a scientific comparison between same-sex marriages and man-women marriages. Otherwise it will be guesswork and even more so the risk that we would deny people rights based on a fear or threath to one religious instition would very unfair, don’t you think?
Christian, also for the sake of the argument, can I get a link in which this is stated:
“I responded by pointing to ultra-secular Scandinavia, which continues to define marriage as the union of man and woman for life, for the perfectly secular reason of encouraging a situation where children are raised by a father and a mother.”
If possibly lifted from the Swedish consitution or legislation? I happen to know that this is the case in France, so maybe you are confusing Sweden for France? Because the argument of secular states also stating that a union should be between man and woman for life most certainly doesn’t hold up for my nation. I think if we could have a look at that, it makes things a lot easier to compare and come up with a rational comparision for the European countries. If I come across a study where they are studying the Dutch situation, I will happily pass it on (also the information about the statistics, I saw them this week… argh). Thanks so much for the effort.

Thank you for pushing this towards a scientific discussion, Rhapsody. It’s been years since I saw any ssm discussion progress to anyone actually looking at the research :( (Kevin’s article is sadly typical of the state of the debate), so it will take me a while to locate the Ericson and Piaget stuff that I cited.
In the mean time, I have a few questions for you:
Do you agree with me that outside the BeNeLux group, that Scandinavia is probably more culturally similar to the Netherlands in terms of attitude towards family, children, sex, and religion? From my limited observation, the Netherlands like Scandinavia is highly secular, liberal with respect to sex, friendly to gays and lesbians, and at the same time is more “child friendly” than much of the rest of Europe — your countries tend to produce the happiest children. Is that correct? In other words, can you think of another set of countries which has SSUs but not SSM, which would serve as a better “control” (for want of a better term) to the Netherlands?
I’m simply stating that the purpose of increasing the proportion of children raised by a mother and a father is a secular purpose. Absent evidence to the contrary, I think we can safely assume that the two most secular countries on earth (Denmark and Norway) probably had secular rather than religious reasons for distinguishing ssus from marriage.
I grew up in France and I *really* don’t think that France could possibly serve as an adequate comparison to the Netherlands. I realize that anecdotal evidence is weak, but in absence of other evidence it’s all I’ve got at the moment to explain my resistance to your France-Netherlands comparison:
1. French culture is nowhere near as secular as the Netherlands (as late as the 1970s my family had to petition the state for permission to give my sisters names *other* than Christian saints), and “ce n’est pas Catholique” is synonymous with “that’s not acceptable/proper/decent.
2. Homophobia. Two of the foulest, most hateful and violent words in the French language refer to homosexuality (one starts with a p, the other with an e). While the French are more liberal with respect to sex than most Americans (though not as much as the Dutch or the Scands), the depictions of homosexuality and lesbianism that I saw in France were universally degrading. I remember as a kid seeing 2 women, kissing in a cage, hauled onto a stage during some comedy show, and everyone was pointing and laughing. To my knowledge, homophobia in the Netherlands and Scandinavia is not popular or widespread, but confined to narrow marginal groups like skinheads and certain immigrant groups. (Am I mistaken?) I’m not comparing France unfavorably to the USA in terms of homophobia, but I think that the Netherlands are more analogous to Scandinavia.
3. Existence of SSM/SSUs/”Civil Pacts”
Scandinavia is a better analogy to The Netherlands in terms of legal recognition of same-sex couples.
IIRC, Denmark was the first country (1989) to recognize SSUs, which the Scands call “Registered partnerships.” Norway recognized Registered partnerships in 1993, Sweden in 1995.” These unions as I understand provide all of the rights associated with marriage, differing from marriage mostly in name.
At the very end of 1999, France recognized the “pacte civil” which is distinctly an inferior arrangement, and most aspects of the law treat the gay couple as single, although that is slowly improving. Note also that the passage of the pacte civil was a HUGE argument in France, with controversy closer to how ssm was in Massachussetts than how ssus were treated in Vermont or New Jersey. In the French national assembly, Christine Boutin spoke for five hours, waving a Bible, and stated that: “all civilizations that recognized and justified homosexuality as a normal lifestyle met decadence.” Hell, I don’t even think someone could get away with that sort of inflamatory language in the US Congress today.
If you have more objective scientific data to show that France is a better point of comparison than Scandinavia for the Netherlands in terms of same-sex relationships, attitudes towards sex, and homosexuality, then let’s compare the Netherlands to France, but otherwise, I think that Scandinavia is a more useful comparison.
Eventually France and Spain may be a useful comparison, or Spain and Portugal. But ssm is too new in Spain to have affected the issues that I’m concerned about.
I’d expect the first effects of neutering the word marriage (as opposed to recognizing ssus) to be seen in terms of percentage of children raised by a married father and mother. I’d like to see how the Netherlands compares to Scandinavia on these issues.
One study that proponents of ssm often cite, claimed that the “only” distinction between children of same-sex couples, and unmarried opposite-sex couples, was that the children had “a more liberal attitude towards sex.” I found the study unsatisfactory since I can’t fathom a scientific way of saying that there were no other differences — you can only rule out specific differences that you examined, not rule out *any* difference. Furthermore, the “more liberal attitude” towards sex was disturbingly vague. Based on that study (which I’ll look up and get back to you, if you’re not already familliar with it), I have formed the following concern:
Concern #1 How does being raised by same-sex couples affect a child’s “liberal ideas about sex,” what does this mean individually to the child?
Concern #2: how are these attitudes and effects different among children of ssus versus ssms?
Concern 3: What do “more liberal ideas about sex” mean to societies where such ideas become widespread?
Concern 4: How do these changes play out differently in countries that recognize ssus, as opposed to countries that neuter the definition of marriage?
Other questions not related to attitudes towards sex:
Concern 5. Do same sex “married” couples provide children with the same benefit as married couples provide their children?
Concern 6. Do parents joined in a same-sex union provide children with the same benefit as parents joined in a same-sex “marriage”?
To answer those first 6 questions, the following study would be ideal:
STUDY ONE: What proportion of grown children of (a) “married” same-sex couples in the Netherlands, compared to the grown children of (b) married opposite sex couples in the Netherlands; of
(c) actual married couples in an analogous country where marriage still refers to the union of man and woman for life (e.g. Scandinavia); and of (d) same-sex unions, end up in the following situations:* married?
* divorced?
* having a child out of wedlock?
* failing to pay court-ordered child support?
* in prison?
* institutionalized?
* contracting a venereal disease?
Concern 7: Does being raised by a mother and a father helps to instruct a child on how to be a better mother or father?
To answer Concern 7, the following study would be ideal:
STUDY TWO
Repeat the same study questions as in Study One, except applied to the GRANDCHILDREN of couple categories A, B, C, and D.
Sorry for writing such a long post, Rhapsody. Are you aware of any studies that could shed light on the seven concerns that I listed? If science has already provided credible answers to these 7 questions, you may change my position, save us the trouble of an argument, and save me the trouble of researching in the social sciences, which is *not* my specialty. (My education was in chemistry, literature, and law, with some dabbling in biology).

Science? What science?

Fannie: “you would deny same-sex couples the rights and benefits of a state-recognized marriage on the sole basis that it’s called “marriage.”
I’m sorry to see you saying something that you know is not true, Fannie. You know very well that I support same-sex unions, which exist in SEVERAL US states, and which even Bush Jr. has said that he would support. It’s the ssm-or bust extremists who would deny same-sex couples the rights and benefits of marriage, on the sole basis that they are called something other than “marriage.” I’ve even showed you my proposal of a federal amendment that would require ssu recognition nationwide while reserving the word marriage for the lifelong union of man and woman, and I’ve sent copies of it to my Senator and Congresswoman, both Democrats. I’d be willing to bet that I’ve taken more practical steps to secure the rights of same-sex couples in the USA than you have.
Fannie: “Your marriage-is-an-important-word argument is insulting to me as a gay person because you would deny [insert motive reference below]
That does not answer my question, Fannie. You may pretend that I believe something, and then take offense at what you pretend that I believe, but that does not answer my specific question of how what I actually said, i.e. that “SOCIETY’s core purpose for RECOGNIZING marriage is to channel procreative potential into responsible childbearing,” insults JIM’s marriage.
You’ve shown a history of assuming that everything negative that I say to you is an attack on you as a woman or as a lesbian or as a lawyer. It’s an old game with us, but Jim’s a new player. I’d like to hear him explain how what I said insulted his marriage, and also what I said that pegs me as a “religious fanatic” — or indeed, as religious at all.
Jim again failed to answer my question of how my statement insulted his marriage:
“See, this is the point, you cannot fathom how things you say come across to a dispassionate observer. This whole business of procreation is insulting because you are condescending, Christian.”
Not sure how you can feel insulted if you’re “dispassionate,” Jim. You seem to have shifted from saying that what I *said* insulted your marriage, than to saying that you’re personally insulted because of who I am.
“Society’s purpose? Now YOU get to be the arbiter of society’s purposes? ”
No. I give my opinion of society’s purpose, anyone else can give theirs, and we all make up our own minds, based on the evidence and arguments. Some folks claim that “love” is society’s purpose for marriage, but I’m not sure how I’m affected if you don’t love your spouse. I am potentially affected to some if you don’t fulfill your duties to your spouse, or by how you raise your kids. Since homophylic and homophobic societies alike, since the dawn of each society’s agricultural age until the waning of the postmodern era, defined marriage as the union of man and woman for life, and since such marriage structures evolved separately in several different postagricultural societies (just as fish and porpoises evolved separately to form similar fin and tail structures), I infer that the universal “man and woman for life” structure provides society with some sort of survival benefit, just as fins provide fish and porpoises.
That function could not possibly have been to oppress gays, since (1) that would serve no survival purpose, and (2) homophyllic cultures that recognized and honored same-sex relationships, still maintained a distinction between formal marriage and formal same-sex relationships.
“Man, you are full of yourself.”
Don’t be feel so sorry for yourself, Jim. Your friends are in the majority here. You’re not the one who got introduced on this “scientific” blog as an antihomo teeth-gnashing, spineless, mostly nameless bigoted traditional Cro-Magnon asshole who goes to bed every night angry, mortified, and without oral sex. :D And you’re the one who called me a religious extremist lipstick-wearing pig with a bug up my ass and brain clouded by religious dogma and holding a narrow view of the universe. :D And Fannie now resorts to blurting liar liar pants on fire as it was the Bene Geserit litany against fear.
In light of your behavior, how can you complain that my attitude towards you is less than pure sweetness and light? That’s a little egocentric of you, isn’t it? You sure that I’m the one who is full of himself? The worst I’ve done to you is mock some of your insults against me; I haven’t attacked you personally.
Rhapsody is the only person here that has treated me like a human being. Look at my reply to him, if there’s any condescension or rudeness there, then I’ll humbly apologize.

Rhapsody is the only person here that has treated me like a human being. Look at my reply to him, if there�s any condescension or rudeness there, then I�ll humbly apologize.
Her! The last time I checked I was still a woman (married, agnostic, het and stay at home mom (conscious decision to postpone my career to raise my own child). ;)
I will dig into the legal definitions of marriage of the Scandinavian countries later today, also those of my country in order to answer your questions. From memory (since my marriage was only for law and not for church) there was no mentioning that the civil marriage was only meant for the children: it was solely directed to spousal priviledges and spousal obligations (this also includes that *if* children would be born, they both would equally share the care of it). This would mean that our society does not see the purpose of marriage to have kids and raise them within marriage. One does not need to be married to have kids, because there are plenty of options to arrange this legally outside marriage as well.
Also Christian, even though Kevin ranted a lot, the initial debate that started all of this was Kevin asking Judy Paris for her scientific grounds that would back up her statements. You can see the post here.
So far everyone we asked who is against SSU (or)SSM failed to answer and chose to attack or change the topic. But always dogded the scientific part of the debate. So it is great to have someone who is willing to to come up with scientific research that is conducted with good control studies, so if you still can look up yours, I do my best to look things up for you here on this side of the pond ok? Since you asked a lot of questions I need my time (but lexis Nexis is my best friend for looking up international legistation).

Norway and Sweden are the most secular countries in the world (IIRC fewer than 25% of Swedes believe that there is a god), and have exactly the policy that I’m advocating here: give gay civil unions the rights associated with marriage, but continue to define “marriage” as the union of man and woman.

Missed this earlier. At the time Norway and Sweden instituted civil unions, both had state Churches. Secular population != secular policies.

Re: Christian #35 –
That’s a great idea, Christian. We’ll give homosexual couples every benefit of marriage, but we won’t call it marriage. We’ll call it something else. And if that works out, then we can expand the concept to other things. Like maybe we can have different airplanes, and public restrooms, and voting booths — the possibilities really are endless, aren’t they? Of course, by law all of our separate accommodations would have to be completely equal, right? (No fair crossing your fingers while you answer “sure” to that question.) And if your idea works out well with the homosexuals, then we can try it out with different groups, too. Say, folks whose skin color isn’t the same as yours, or who practice a religion different from yours. Maybe those of middle-eastern descent would be a good group on which to experiment, since they’ve got lots of immutable characteristics that make them easy to spot. What could we call your proposal, Christian? How about “different but equal”? No…doesn’t have the right panache…how about “separate but equal”?
Oh…wait. Sorry, Christian, we’ve already tried that and it doesn’t work.
If you want to subordinate a group on the basis of an immutable characteristic, one that has no bearing on the right to the benefits that society confers (as you, yourself, have acknowledged) then you’ve got to demonstrate a compelling state interest, and show that the state has utilized the least restrictive means of accomplishing that interest. Even if we accept — solely for the sake of argument — your premise about society’s core purpose for marriage, you lose on means testing. That premise is faulty, of course, but let’s assume that a court would buy it. How is your proposal the least restrictive means of achieving society’s compelling interest? (Hint: it isn’t, and you really shouldn’t waste your time — or anyone else’s — trying to argue that it is. It’s trivially easy to defeat such a claim.)

Please see past the typos in my previous comment. *Embarassed*
Christian said,
“You’ve shown a history of assuming that everything negative that I say to you is an attack on you as a woman or as a lesbian or as a lawyer.”
Again, private discussion. Why air it on someone else’s blog?

Apologies for my delay in posting, Rhapsody. I thought I’d been banned last night, but Tim from seedmediagroup looked into it and discovered that I’d been caught in the spam-filter. Following Tim’s suggestion, I have bleeped out the offending word, so that this posts:
Rhapsody, I don’t have access to the same research bases since graduating :(
Here is a more recent study that seems to be using Piaget’s theory of father-son interactions:
The Association between Early Adolescent Boys’ Cognitive Development, Father Attitudes and Nonverbal Behavior
http://jea.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/5/1/45
This article isn’t directly on point but if you have the resources to get the full study, it will have the original references and probably explain the original work. I’ll keep fishing for Piaget’s original work which addressed distinct developmental relationships between father-son, mother-daughter, father-daughter, and mother-son. Then when I have time I’ll fish for Erickson’s stuff, unless someone else beats me to it.
I’ve also seen references to distinct mother-infant and father-infant developmental relationships, e.g. related to speech development. http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=36843
Freud also addressed distinct Mother-son and father-daughter relationships, but IIRC his work was less rigorous, more speculative, and perhaps sullied by his social need to avoid discussing [bleep] as a cause for some of the phenomena that he observed :(
From what I saw, Erickson’s work is less close observation and more statistical comparison, whereas Piaget’s earlier work provides more of a rationale for Erickson’s findings that boys without fathers, girls without mothers, girls without fathers, and boys without mothers each suffer a distinct set of problems. How Erickson’s findings and Piaget’s observations play out with same-sex couples is a question that as far as I know, no one has ever examined.

Apologies for my delay in posting, Rhapsody. I thought I’d been banned last night, but Tim from seedmediagroup looked into it and discovered that I’d been caught in the spam-filter. Following Tim’s suggestion, I have bleeped out the offending word, so that this posts:
Rhapsody, I don’t have access to the same research bases since graduating :(
Here is a more recent study that seems to be using Piaget’s theory of father-son interactions:
The Association between Early Adolescent Boys’ Cognitive Development, Father Attitudes and Nonverbal Behavior
http://jea.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/5/1/45
This article isn’t directly on point but if you have the resources to get the full study, it will have the original references and probably explain the original work. I’ll keep fishing for Piaget’s original work which addressed distinct developmental relationships between father-son, mother-daughter, father-daughter, and mother-son. Then when I have time I’ll fish for Erickson’s stuff, unless someone else beats me to it.
I’ve also seen references to distinct mother-infant and father-infant developmental relationships, e.g. related to speech development. http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=36843
Freud also addressed distinct Mother-son and father-daughter relationships, but IIRC his work was less rigorous, more speculative, and perhaps sullied by his social need to avoid discussing [bleep] as a cause for some of the phenomena that he observed :(
From what I saw, Erickson’s work is less close observation and more statistical comparison, whereas Piaget’s earlier work provides more of a rationale for Erickson’s findings that boys without fathers, girls without mothers, girls without fathers, and boys without mothers each suffer a distinct set of problems. How Erickson’s findings and Piaget’s observations play out with same-sex couples is a question that as far as I know, no one has ever examined.