SD on 25/1/2007 at 17:11
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
Has there been any research on this?
On whether being raised by same-sex parents has a detrimental effect to children? There has been quite a bit, yeah. Not that it really ought to have been necessary, but it's out there, and it proved what common sense ought to tell you - that there is no discernible difference between children raised by heterosexual couples and those raised by gay couples. This (
http://www.aclu.org/images/asset_upload_file130_27496.pdf) doodah from the ACLU is a decent look at the issue.
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And as to the term "discrimination" - it's so loaded as to be meaningless now. I certainly think there are certain groups that should not be allowed to adopt on the basis that it wouldn't be practical for them.
I'm pretty interested as to what you do actually mean by this to be honest. And "discrimination" really does still have a valid meaning in society, one just has to be careful what kind of discrimination one is referring to. Naturally, some is justified.
Quote Posted by the_grip
i'm sorry, but i find it ludicrous to force someone to violate peaceful religious convictions and their conscience when they are not limiting the supposedly discriminated group from their actions.
What if my religious beliefs told me that I oughtn't let children be adopted by black or mixed-race couples, would that be okay? Dawkins is right when he says that apartheid proponents missed a trick by not describing their system of discrimation against blacks as a religion; it would have enabled them to carry on all kinds of unsavoury practices relatively unhindered.
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In other words: there are other adoption agencies available, these are private organizations, and no harm is done as a result of their position.
They are "private" organisations, but they're operating in the public domain. And our new laws will make it an offence for schools, businesses and agencies to deny people a service based purely on their sexuality.
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You might find it "progressive" to force them to go against their own conscience, violating religious freedom in the process, and their views "claptrap", but that is opinion, not objective fact.
Nobody's forcing them to act against their own "conscience". But if they want to operate a public service, then they're going to have to learn to treat people equally. Just as we now forbid shops from displaying signs that state "No Dogs, No Blacks, No Irish", Catholic organisations operating in the public sphere are going to have to dump their "No Queers" stance.
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At the rate the UK is going, the children of the closed orphanages would probably be euthanized due to their lack of "quality of life" (okay, that's a little pro-life stab not meant to be taken seriously).
I should damn well hope it's not meant to be taken seriously :rolleyes:
the_grip on 25/1/2007 at 17:39
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Nobody's forcing them to act against their own "conscience".
That's just it - this is a push for legislation against the conscience of these Catholic folks.
Catholic orphanages are founded because of conscience; that is, people of religious convictions realize their responsibility to care for the poor and underprivleged - including orphans. Thus, they establish orphanages out of conscience.
However, the same conscience tells them that they should not allow adoption for same sex couples - not, i might add, out of discrimination, but simply due to the Catholic understanding of family and functionality of the created order. Legislating against these orphanages is thereby legislating against their religious convictions and conscience, not some sense of discriminiation which they don't even hold. (EDIT: to be fair, i can't speak for each individual Catholic - i'm just going off of my understanding of official Catholic teaching based on what comes from Rome, etc.)
As a side note, there is not a "No Queers" discrimination in the Catholic tradition. If you do a terse study of what *Catholics* say on the issue, you will see the difference (it's the same thing on the whole male priesthood thing).
Thus, this is a legislation against conscience, not against discrimination - especially when there are other non-Catholic adoption agencies that don't have a problem adopting to same sex parents.
All that said, i'm not in the UK so i'm saying this as someone from the outside. What the folks across the pond want to do is their business - i'm just offering my personal opinion.
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I should damn well hope it's not meant to be taken seriously
My apologies - i don't mean to offend. i tend to get light-hearted at times on serious issues (in an effort to not get in a negative rut), and i apologize if i treated something too lightly here.
SubJeff on 25/1/2007 at 17:40
Quote Posted by Strontium Dog
I'm pretty interested as to what you do actually mean by this to be honest. And "discrimination" really does still have a valid meaning in society, one just has to be careful what kind of discrimination one is referring to. Naturally, some is justified.
The term "discrimination" in modern Britain is a no-no. If asked on the street, by a news crew with a camera, would you admit to discrimination against anything at all? I wouldn't, because the (incorrect) connotation is one of prejudice and like it or not the majority of people in this country are of that mindset. Political correctness has gone mad here.
fett on 25/1/2007 at 17:41
Quote Posted by Chimpy Chompy
Unless we want to push for 40 pages, can I humbly request we all ignore that last paragraph...
I'd think it would be at least a minor relief to atheists for the pro-life movement to have a medical/psychological/humanitarian stance for their view, rather than a religious/moral one? It seems at the very least it would raise the debate to a place where there is some common context and vocabulary.
the_grip on 25/1/2007 at 17:48
Quote Posted by fett
I'd think it would be at least a minor relief to atheists for the pro-life movement to have a medical/psychological/humanitarian stance for their view, rather than a religious/moral one? It seems at the very least it would raise the debate to a place where there is some common context and vocabulary.
i think there is quite a bit of medical/psychological/humanitarian support on the pro-life side apart from religion and morality. However, if someone thinks an embryo is human life, then does that someone need religion to say, "Hey, stop killing!"? To a pro-life advocate, living under abortion is akin in consequence to a holocaust (not that pro-choice folks are like Nazis, i'm not saying that - i'm simply saying that human life is being snuffed out on a large scale).
Outside of that, there are studies (there was one recently that took 200 medical records of women who had abortions vs. 200 who had not) that show significantly higher medical complications in women who have had abortions (ranging from infertility to cervical cancer), there are studies that show that embryos experience pain in an abortion, there are studies on the psychological effects of abortion that set in on women from about 7 years forward (the pro-life rally in Washington this past weekend heavily emphasized this), and abortion is largely seen as anti-woman and pro-misogyny from the pro-life side. As i mentioned above, i don't want to tangent, but there is a brief medical/psych./humanitarian recap. The difference is the media - media shapes our political outlooks in a large way, and the media (at least in the US) refuses to cover pro-life supporters (i have a recent account of this if you are interested).
In other words, that stuff is out there, but pro-life folks suffer from a. loud mouthed folks who take the worst approach possible to articulating their reasoning (i.e. SUBMIT OR BE EBIL!!!) and b. lack of coverage.
Tiamat on 25/1/2007 at 18:45
I've always thought the pro-life stance was more anti-woman than pro-choice. I can't actually see how pro-choice could be anti-woman, since the whole idea is just to give a choice of whether to have an abortion or not. Pro-life seeks to make the activity illegal, which to me seems to me much more anti-woman, period.
I suppose the largest gap between the sides is whether you consider an embryo to be a person or not. I stand with the USA court decisions of viability - if it isn't physically possible for it to surive outside of the womb, it's a part of the woman and not an individual. But many disagree with this assessment, and think it's murder to abort a fetus at any point after conception. The difference between murder and an appendectomy is a pretty damn big gap, so I don't see the two sides reconciling... ever.
Uncia on 25/1/2007 at 18:51
Well, one could argue that it puts women into a position where they'd be pressured to have an abortion. It's a stupid position, but hey.
the_grip on 25/1/2007 at 19:11
Tiamat,
There is what Uncia said, the fact that it absolves men of responsibility in sex and parenthood and instead puts the brunt of the burden on women, it is part of devaluing women into sex objects, and a number of other points that would fall outside of the scope of this post. The vast majority (and i mean upwards of 90%) of abortions occur strictly because a woman feels unsupported in her pregnancy. Many abortions are the results of pressure from parents or the man - not just a "choice" on the part of the woman.
Pro-life, however, is not about making abortion illegal. It is "pro-life" not "anti-abortion" which means it is in favor of life in every nook and cranny of life EDIT: meaning mother and child.
Regarding viability, a baby can now be viable outside the womb at the end of 24 weeks (and probably earlier, but that's not the kind of stuff you experiment around with). The catch is that the whole thing is so ambiguous - if the fetus is wanted, it is a baby. If it is unwanted, it is tissue.
Anyways, i'm going to shut up about this now - i already made a note to myself not to get off topic, and here i'm going.
Uranium - 235 on 25/1/2007 at 19:12
Quote Posted by fett
Based on that post, I can assure you that you don't. I'm not even sure what point you're trying to make with the whole Leviticus/Deuteronomy thing but it's obvious you've not read any of my preceding posts concerning Hebrew history and the divisions of the Jewish scriptures. I guess we're done here.
Your rationale is interesting - you've not read the whole thing, you obviously know nothing about it's context, nor are you willing to discuss it (rhetoric doesn't count), yet it seems absurd to you so you'll dismiss it. Let's hope you don't approach more practical subjects in the same manner.
And to repeat for the record - I'm not a bible proponent, just a student of it. I am mainly trying to point out that atheists (Dawkins as a possible example) are using bad, outdated, and ignorant arguments that have no impact on the average christian, because the arguments are inherently strawmen. Your rant on lesbianism is a recent example.
So you attempt to point that out by being a belittling troll who has done more word-twisting then anything? What I find particularly interesting is the mention of how I "know nothing of its context". Tell me, what *IS* the context of the Bible then, seeing as how Christians are divided on that question.
And you've done a wonderful job avoiding the whole Deuteronomy thing. You of all people should be familiar with such passages as the one suggesting you should stone a woman who was raped because she obviously didn't cry out loud enough. But I suppose that's another of your 'parts of the Bible we should ignore' and not 'the parts we shouldn't'.
And you're going to tell me that even though your average American considers it a chore to read through a 1,000 page book, all the Christians have read the 780,000+ word bible? If you believe that, I've got a bridge to sell you.
Nicker on 25/1/2007 at 19:14
Now that abortion has been added to the mix let's throw in gun control and 9/11 conspiracies too. Heck, who really killed JFK anyway? And which is better; Thief or System Shock?
There, that should get us up over thirty pages by sundown.
