Creation vs. Evolution

[shoredivr]

The question is, why do they feel that way? Apparently, they think it's in the best interest of the child. Maybe they're right and maybe they're wrong but you make it sound like the law is on the books just to discriminate against gays.

I don't know what specific concerns are behind the law. You could probably do some research and find out though.

Ok, then:

Gay Couple Challenges Florida Ban on Homosexual Adoptions - New York Times

"Gay people are the only group categorically restricted from adopting children in Florida. Even people who have abused drugs and alcohol or people who have a history of domestic violence may adopt under some circumstances.

State courts have upheld the law, with a state appeals court ruling in 1993 that the ban could be justified because homosexual parents are unlikely to be able to give heterosexual children sound dating advice.

The Supreme Court has said that states are required only to offer plausible rationales for laws that single out homosexuals. Florida officials have offered two.

Judge James Lawrence King of Federal District Court in Miami rejected the first, that the law was a ''legitimate expression of public morality as it bears on the questions of what environments are best for children, and what groups of people are entitled to recognition as families.''

''The court,'' he wrote, ''cannot accept that moral disapproval of homosexuals or homosexuality serves a legitimate state interest.''

But he accepted the second reason, that children are better off with married heterosexual couples.

Children, the state's lawyers wrote, should be ''raised in homes with married mothers and fathers due to the stability provided by marriage and the contribution of male and female influences to childhood growth and development, including heterosexual modeling.''


Studies on gay parenting which dispute the second reason:

CONCLUSION, Lesbian and Gay Parenting

"In summary, there is no evidence to suggest that lesbian women or gay men are unfit to be parents or that psychosocial development among children of lesbian women or gay men is compromised relative to that among offspring of heterosexual parents. Not a single study has found children of lesbian or gay parents to be disadvantaged in any significant respect relative to children of heterosexual parents. Indeed, the evidence to date suggests that home environments provided by lesbian and gay parents are as likely as those provided by heterosexual parents to support and enable children's psychosocial growth."

U.S. study backs allowing gays to adopt -- Queer Lesbian Gay News -- Gay.com

U.S. study backs allowing gays to adopt
published Friday, March 24, 2006

Children adopted by gays and lesbians fare no better or worse than those raised by heterosexual adults, and barriers preventing gay parents from adopting should be removed, said a report released Friday by the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, entitled "Expanding Resources for Children."

"Based on both the available research and growing experience," the report concludes, "adoption by gays and lesbians holds promise as an avenue for achieving permanency for many of the waiting children in foster care."

The report is part of an extensive yearlong project intended to provide a research-based context for the ongoing debate over adoption of children by gays and lesbians. Report findings include:

* Children reared by gay and lesbian parents fare comparably to those raised by heterosexuals on a range of measures of social and psychological adjustment.

* Tens of thousands of children in the foster care system are disadvantaged by laws that bar gays and lesbians from adopting them. "


A bit of history: note the terminology used here, which is used today, too.

Anita Bryant - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In 1977, Dade County, Florida (now Miami-Dade County) passed a human-rights ordinance sponsored by Bryant's former good friend Ruth Shack, that prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Anita Bryant led a highly publicized campaign to repeal the ordinance. The campaign was waged based on what was labeled "Christian beliefs regarding the sinfulness of homosexuality and the perceived threat of homosexual recruitment of children and child molestation."

Her view was that "What these people really want, hidden behind obscure legal phrases, is the legal right to propose to our children that theirs is an acceptable alternate way of life. [...] I will lead such a crusade to stop it as this country has not seen before." The campaign was called 'Save Our Children', the start of an organized opposition to gay rights that spread across the nation. Jerry Falwell went to Miami to help her.

Bryant made the following statements during the campaign: "As a mother, I know that homosexuals cannot biologically reproduce children; therefore, they must recruit our children" and "If gays are granted rights, next we'll have to give rights to prostitutes and to people who sleep with St. Bernards and to nail biters."

On June 7, 1977, Bryant's campaign led to a repeal of the anti-discrimination ordinance by a margin of 69 to 31 percent. [....] In 1998 Dade County repudiated Bryant's successful campaign of 20 years earlier, and re-authorized an anti-discrimination ordinance protecting individuals from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation by a 7 to 6 margin. In 2002, a ballot initiative to repeal the 1998 law called Amendment 14 was voted down by 56% of the voters. The Florida statute forbidding adoptions by gay persons, however, remains law; in 2004, a federal appellate court upheld Florida’s adoption law against a constitutional challenge."

Yes, Mike, I would say it is discrimination.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Those aren't the only two options. But I don't mind at all where you get your principles from - I'm just not that good at watching people try and foist them on to others.

All laws foist some views onto someone. Voting is about trying to get things to go the way you think they should.

Anyway....I thought you just said you'd decided abortion was murder BEFORE you opened the Bible.

True.

So how come your definition of what constitutes a child differs from the doctors? If you didn't get the definition from the Bible....where did it come from? There's a contradiction there.

No contradiction. I didn't "get the definition". It was just there. Way back when I was very young and long before I ever read a Bible, followed politics or payed much attention to anything other than what I wanted to do at the moment, my girlfriend told me that she was pregnant. Somewhere during the hours we spent trying to decide what to do, she offered to have an abortion. My response was to ask her not to kill our baby. It was reflex...God given...instinct...take your pick. I didn't have to ask a doctor if it was a child.

BTW, rather than being insulted or feeling imposed upon, she was relieved that I didn't want her to get an abortion... though I think I could have gotten her to do it.

Your Supreme Court decided that abortion was OK in Roe vs Wade. Presumably THEY didn't class it as murder as you keep doing.

No they didn't class it as murder but you can read the basis for the decision yourself.

You don't seem to be very happy at accepting definitions that you don't agree with -

The legality of abortion has nothing to do with whether or not it's a child. It has to do with when the child is granted rights and protections under the law.

and the religious Right in the US has been trying to rebuild the Supreme Court ever since so that they can reverse the decision.

And the non-religious left is always trying to rebuild the Supreme court to get the decisions they want. That's how the system works. I always have found it interesting how often Supreme Court rulings are split down party lines.

I guess the left and the right often read the constitution differently. In reading our constitution, one of the first things I notice is that the very first unalianable human right mentioned is life...which is the first right that is denied to victims of abortion.

In the UK viability is set at 24 weeks. There was just an attempt to reduce the limit to 20 or 22 weeks but it was voted down due to medical evidence. That's what governments are deciding on in most places - the medical evidence. For the rest the principles of viability seem to be fairly uniform. It's only the US that might shift the ground....and it's hard to see it's for much more than religious reasoning - much lke the whole Intelligent Design argument.

Late term abortions in the US... Late-term abortion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia We have them in some states and the pro-choice crowd wants more of them. They apparently aren't happy with the "viability" definition either!

 

[Sas]

I try to maintain my bias as a human being. I've found that trying to put people into boxes and predict what they will be like is actually often at best, counter-productive, and even....flat out wrong.

I was told I had a black man's soul once..... I have trouble with the supposed differences.

BTW.....it's Friday night here too....so cheers!

I try to as well, not always successfully. But I know I am treated differently because I am a woman in many cases, especially when I have traveled in certain countries. Some places I have needed a male chaperone! It gives you a different perspective on things sometimes... that was what I was implying with Mike. He probably does not really understand what it is like to be a female engineer by virtue of the fact... he isn't female . I have a few female friends that are mechanical engineers and they have a pretty tough time sometimes in such a male dominated industry. Sure, it is not the same for all female engineers but I was just trying to show Mike that there are people out there that have a completely different experience to him in the same industry.

But yea, probably I didn't put it that well

 

[Soggy]

Late term abortions in the US... Late-term abortion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia We have them in some states and the pro-choice crowd wants more of them. They apparently aren't happy with the "viability" definition either!

Well, I'll agree with you on this one. Late term/partial birth abortions are pretty brutal. They take a child that is clearly capable of surviving outside the womb, and more importantly, capable of experiencing pain and pretty brutally kill it by stabbing a needle in it's skull and more or less sucking out the brain.

 

[Sas]

No contradiction. I didn't "get the definition". It was just there. Way back when I was very young and long before I ever read a Bible, followed politics or payed much attention to anything other than what I wanted to do at the moment, my girlfriend told me that she was pregnant. Somewhere during the hours we spent trying to decide what to do, she offered to have an abortion. My response was to ask her not to kill our baby. It was reflex...God given...instinct...take your pick. I didn't have to ask a doctor if it was a child.

Sure. I'd feel the same way if I became pregnant unexpectedly. I would not want to terminate the pregnancy as I would want to know the child that the fetus would become... But yea, if I had an abortion I would not think it was murder, just the destruction of a potential child. Big difference in my book and one that I am happy for people to decide on their own.

Edit: Just saw Soggy's post. I am in the camp where I think abortions should only happen when the fetus cannot live on its own so find late term abortions pretty brutal too. But if it came down to the mother's life versus the fetus, I would say the mother has the right to decide.

 

[ChilledMammal]

I can't stop the next person from getting their principles from the gutter and they can't stop me from getting mine from the Bible.

I personally feel an opinion arrived at through experience, education and a persons own thoughts and judgement is infinitely more valuable than, blindly following the words of someone else. The fundamental issue with religion is it forgoes reasoning, self analysis and judging a situation on your own feelings.

Personally, I feel empathy when I see another person suffer. I believe in equality for all people. I believe in diversity and sustaining biodiversity. I believe in equal opportunity. I believe in a persons right to work. Just to name a few, this isn't from any bible, or someone else's words written 4.5 billion years after the earth was formed. We don't need no bible to know what is right and what is wrong, in fact the bible completely messes up peoples otherwise rational judgment.

 

[Kim]

And the non-religious left is always trying to rebuild the Supreme court to get the decisions they want.

And why do you think that is? Do you think that non-religious liberals are just interested in promoting murder and whatever just for fun? Maybe it has something to do with the original US idea of secularism in national life (private life being clearly different).
Allowing abortion doesn't make it happen - it simply gives a choice. Those who feel as you do are completely free to do what they like and not have one. In spite of your protestations of freedom of choice in so many areas...employment comes to mind just from todays postings....you seem to want to remove that choice. That would mean that people who don't agree with YOUR definition of what viability, or a baby, actually is, would still have to go along with it...because it was law. For someone who professes to believe in freedom of choice I really don't understand this from you.

Of course they wouldn't - history shows that quite clearly. They head overseas, or into backstreets.

 

[ChilledMammal]

I'd like to confirm a common understanding of God.

1. He is all knowing. omniscience
2. He is everywhere. omnipresence
2. He is all powerful. omnipotence
3. He is benign (all loving, perfect goodness). omnibenevolence

Mike do you believe these are true of your God?

 

[MikeFerrara]

And you don't think this is a valid concern? You don't think mother and father each have an important function? You think two men or two women are interchangeable with a mother and a father?

Studies on gay parenting:

CONCLUSION, Lesbian and Gay Parenting

"In summary, there is no evidence to suggest that lesbian women or gay men are unfit to be parents or that psychosocial development among children of lesbian women or gay men is compromised relative to that among offspring of heterosexual parents. Not a single study has found children of lesbian or gay parents to be disadvantaged in any significant respect relative to children of heterosexual parents. Indeed, the evidence to date suggests that home environments provided by lesbian and gay parents are as likely as those provided by heterosexual parents to support and enable children's psychosocial growth."

Yes, Mike, I would say it is.

Apparently, the courts aren't convinced by the studies or lack of them. I don't have time to read any studies right now but you need to look at them pretty close because there are studies that show just about anything you want to show, not to mention how often the results of a study are misrepresented.

Personally, I'd like to see what they are measuring and how. I raised my two children by myself for quite a while and it did disadvantage them. Each (one boy and one girl) definately missed having a mother in a different way. I later remarried and that solved some problems and created others.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that the best thing for children is to be raised by a mother and a father....and preferably their own mother and father. That shouldn't be a aurprise either since that's the way God set the whole thing up to work... excuse me, the way things evolved.

 

[Sas]

And you don't think this is a valid concern? You don't think mother and father each have an important function? You think two men or two women are interchangeable with a mother and a father?

No. Not necessarily. Yes. To answer your questions.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that the best thing for children is to be raised by a mother and a father....and preferably their own mother and father.

Dunno if I'd trust a rocket scientist personally to make decisions on how children should be raised. Depends on the rocket scientist though... Ok more seriously, no I don't think it is always in the best interests for a child to be raised with a mother and a father, I think it is in the best interest of a child to be raised by loving and caring parent/s. Regardless of gender.