I swear, every single argument against gay marriage is just a refurbished argument against interracial marriage. These arguments were bullshit then, and they are bullshit now. You should be ashamed of yourself.
It does. "Women in interracial couples will give birth to multiracial kids" or some variant thereof is that parallel.
EDIT: I don't support either position (on gay marriage and interracial marriage). I'm just pointing out that there is a parallel in the reasoning of those who oppose gay couples and interracial couples from the angle of the children they'll raise.
That's not an argument against gay marriage, that's an argument against gay parenting (and to stop that, you need a national ban on turkey basters). Except it's kind of a rubbish argument against gay parenting:
That some state of affairs X in a family is best for children is not an argument that not-X should be forbidden.
Children do better if they have rich parents, who can afford to buy them a wide variety of toys, give them a better education, buy them private tutors and books and plenty of other resources to give them a head-start in life. That doesn't mean that the rest of society shouldn't be allowed to raise children even though those children will be raised in a suboptimal fashion.
If - and it is a big, complex, still-being-debated-by-social-scientists type of if - parenting by opposite-sex biological parents is the gold standard, that doesn't mean that people who still get to silver or bronze shouldn't also be able to parent.
For the record, I am an unequivocal supporter of gay marriage, and I have always voted for it.
The only thing that makes me at all uncomfortable about it is the possibility that it sets a norm where it is considered prejudiced and discriminatory to even ask the question of whether same-sex couples are the best for children.
For example, it is pretty well accepted that having two parents is better for children than just one (all else being equal; abusive two-parent relationships are obviously worse). No one would argue that single parenting should be illegal. But it's not taboo to say that having two parents is probably better for kids than having just one. (Though of course many people have superstar single parents and turn out great.)
Likewise I would never argue that gay parenting should be illegal. I just don't want to see it become an ostracizable offense to ask the question, without agenda, of whether same-sex parent situations are the best for kids.
Yep, political correctness is stifling open debate.
For some strange reason, nobody wants to discuss polygamous marriages, and whether they should be legal or not. It would be the height of hypocrisy to support gay marriage but not allow multiple consenting adults to form a similar union. Yet to even raise the issue invites ridicule.
Another thing, I've often heard gay people use the derogatory term "breeders" to slur heterosexual couples with children. Why is this ok? Why doesn't anyone stand up and say this is wrong?
> For some strange reason, nobody wants to discuss polygamous marriages, and whether they should be legal or not.
To me this is not hypocritical, because I do not see a contingent of people saying "we are living in healthy polygamous de facto marriages and wish to have the state recognize them." I don't think you can reason about this in a logical vacuum, it's about observing what actually happens in reality.
> Another thing, I've often heard gay people use the derogatory term "breeders" to slur heterosexual couples with children.
I've only ever heard this term used in fun. Any term used in a genuinely derogatory way is not ok by me.
> I do not see a contingent of people saying "we are living in healthy polygamous de facto marriages and wish to have the state recognize them."
So the minority should not have any civil rights?
In the US there are currently two different TV shows both featuring a man and his five "wives" and all their kids, and they all seem well adjusted and happy. Yet the law does not allow the man to be married to all of them. One of them has been fighting this stuff in court in Utah.
Why do people support gay marriage but not polygamous marriage? Why aren't there activists on street corners handing out leaflets and asking for donations to help minorities in Utah?
There is obviously some kind of double standard going on here and I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that it is simply human nature at work. Gay people who want to get married only care about their own situation and are simply not interested in polygamous marriages.
So it is somewhat hypocritical to expect the majority, who are not gay, to care about gay marriage when the debate is not truly about civil rights, because if it were, the campaign would also be fighting for the rights of polygamous families.
I'd like to see the discussion take place and not be dismissed out-of-hand.
> So the minority should not have any civil rights?
I said nothing of the sort. Maybe the reason you are not seeing the discussion you want is because you put people on the defensive by misinterpreting their words.
What exactly did you mean by "contingent"? I interpreted what you wrote as meaning that since there aren't a vocal group of polygamous families making themselves seen and heard, it was somehow okay to ignore them because they were so insignificant.
Maybe I misunderstood what you were saying, but I think my point still stands: that the marriage equality campaign is not really about equality for everybody because it does not include minority* groups like polygamists.
*Although in many cultures polygamy was the norm for hundreds and thousands of years and only recently been banned.
> since there aren't a vocal group of polygamous families making themselves seen and heard
Good so far.
> it was somehow okay to ignore them because they were so insignificant.
It's not about "ignoring" anybody because of their "insignificance." It's about legislating around what is healthy, on the whole.
I haven't done a lot of research into polygamy, but my sense based on the little I have been exposed to suggests to me that in many cases where it occurs it is, in practice, an unhealthy power dynamic.
A good comparison for this is the age of consent. Sexual relationships with minors are illegal because in many/most cases they involve an unhealthy power dynamic. Now there are exceptions (and the rules are pretty arbitrary in that a 17/18 year old couple is a completely different thing than a 15/30 year old couple). But on the whole this is good and important.
Now I could be completely off on my understanding of polygamy in practice. But I have a lot more information about what LGBT relationships are like in real life and therefore feel far more conviction that they are healthy and should be fully accepted. Show me people in healthy polygamous relationships who want to see them state-recognized and I am open to changing my mind.
The "healthyness" of them is important, not only to protect vulnerable people from unhealthy power dynamics, but because if legalized, the state would need to become involved in all sorts of questions like what happens when a polygamous marriage is dissolved. What if just one person leaves? How does custody/property work in all of these cases? What if there are disagreements about power of attorney among remaining spouses when one spouse is in the hospital? The legal aspects of marriage get complicated quickly when there are more than two participants. Unless society has a good understanding of what these polygamous relationships mean and how they function, it would be pretty hard for the courts to decide what is "fair" in these difficult cases.
These are the reasons I don't think you can reason about this in a logical vacuum. You can't just extrapolate and say "well if you can marry one man, the stat is being unjust if you can't also marry two." Life and laws aren't a logic puzzle. They are based on our understanding of the human condition and our ideals about a fair/just society.
Studies indicate that kids of gay parents do just as well as kids of straight parents. On the other hand kids of poor parents do less well than kids of rich parents. Therefore, make gay marriage legal and make poor marriage illegal. /s
Wikipedia is a good place to start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_parenting It has links to these studies, as well as criticisms about the limitations of these studies.
Interracial couples will raise children that believe interracial marriages are OK and will be less likely seek a mate and marry strictly within their race.
Many opponents of miscegenation are revolted by the "mutts" produced by interracial couples and believe that they will pollute the "pure" races. This is very much the same fear: "If I allow these couples to have children, they will produce children who reflect the coupling."
