Posted by randall - if homosexuality is socialy acceptable in all realms, areas, etc, except for the church, what will the church become in the next 5,10,20 years.

Hopefully, the church will become obsolete and we’ll likely have a kinder, gentler nation.

...I could tell you that all those benefits that I listed are comparisons of hetero to homosexual couples, I wasn’t simply listing the benefits of male-female relationships just for your enjoyment, they are comparisons!

This is not quite how I read your post. Be that as it may…

Since different-sex couples can marry and same-sex couples cannot, there is no proper basis for comparison regarding their respective long-term relationships. I am unconvinced that same-sex couples are intrinsically worse candidates for marriage.

Further, I question your assertions concerning child raising. In a nutshell, the vast majority of “other situations” probably amount to single-parent families, which indeed have the deck stacked against them. Can you point out unbiased research that directly compares same-sex and different-sex parenting?

Brock- “but marrying to show love and support for another of the same gender is bad for society?”

I’m saying that it’s worse for society than what we’re doing now, not at all saying that society is great now, just that it will be worse for society than just heterosexual marriages.

“Don’t tell me you’re a Christian too.”

haha wouldn’t that just be horrible eh Brock?

“Hopefully, the church will become obsolete and we’ll likely have a kinder, gentler nation.”

You’ve got it bang on Brock, ‘applauds’ ‘cheering’

Also to nowiser-
Holy Crap!! Glenn Stanton’s job is analyzing social issues! QUICK lets plug our ears! He certainly doesn’t know what in the world he’s talking about!
Hey man, I just read the article and then presented it, that’s all. Everyone and their wanting of “unbiased” research, it’s near impossible to please you guys unless some grand atheist stumbles upon some info, then your quick to buy into it. That’s like me saying “well I don’t believe a word of evolution until it comes from someone exactly like me, because then and only then will it be true.” I could just as easily accuse all non-Christian scientists to be completely wrong in everything they do because they have a preconceived idea that there is no God and they’re out to prove Him wrong. But angles like these are useless ways to look upon things. Truth will be truth despite yours or my will of its truth.

Brett, read your own original posting again.  Unless you were badly paraphrasing the original report you read, NONE of it gives any justification for its claim that male-female marriages are better for the participants than same-sex marriages.  You can claim now that that’s what you meant, but the assertions themselves don’t make the case for the distinction.

The only place where you make that assertion directly is the one you quoted again (“Just as both male and female are needed to create new life, they are both needed to bring a young child to HEATHY maturity”). 

That’s just an opinion.  I don’t see any facts backing that up.  As elweddrische pointed out, there’s probably no hard data comparing completely equal hetero and gay marriages with children.  You MIGHT be able to make a case for comparing gay and straight non-wedded couples who are parenting—but I’ll bet none of the studies compare multi-parent households, so you’re no closer to proving that two of ANYTHING is the optimal number.  (Maybe three is!  Remember, the isolated nuclear family as such is a relatively new invention in civilization; what worked better for millions of years was the raising of children in an extended family or tribe.)

And for crying out loud, if an analyst is paid by a group that has a vested interest in hearing a certain answer, how likely do you think I am to believe him??  I wouldn’t trust a Focus on the Family analyst any more than I would trust a Polygamy ‘R’ Us analyst.  There are plenty of scientists out there who are NOT starting from a foregone conclusion when they start their research, incredible as that may seem to you.

There are plenty of reasons why marriage helps us and society, and for that reason I believe there should be MORE of it for anyone who is old enough to make that responsible commitment.

Oh, and the church changing its stance on homosexuality?  It already has.  Good on Gene Robinson, the first OPENLY gay Episcopal bishop.  Things are changing, slowly but surely, as the last vestiges of unreasoning prejudice ooze away from the primitive minds of America.

The church has changed its stance on a lot of things over the last two thousand years.  It’ll have to keep doing so to keep up with our society as it matures.  Either that, or it WILL become a useless fossil. 

Even religion is subject to natural selection, as it turns out.

Everyone and their wanting of “unbiased” research, it’s near impossible to please you guys unless some grand atheist stumbles upon some info, then your quick to buy into it.

I beg to differ.

The organization Mr. Stanton is at least associated with promotes a religious and/or political agenda. Under the circumstances, it is not an unreasonable request to ask if researchers that do not have this kind of bias reach the same conclusions.

What you say amounts to “Why can’t you just believe us?” - it is very telling that your complaint tries to pit belief and truth against the scientific approach.

Having said all that, even if same-sex couples were without objection second-rate spouses or parents, I would remain unconvinced that same-sex marriage is a bad thing to be opposed. Ignoring the discriminatory aspect of your line of reasoning, shouldn’t we then submit every couple that wishes to marry to an in-depth psychological and financial investistigation to make sure that their union has sufficient benefit?

elwedriddsche,
4,000 years of field research doesn’t count? (Actually, you probably would say millions of years). I don’t recall Brett mentioning specifics, he’s making his case based on averages.

But I’d be for testing folks thinking about having children. although I’d say the very desire to have kids is proof enough . I just don’t think we’d ever agree on a standard.

Ok guys, so you honestly believe that two fathers can provide a proper mother and father figure in a child’s life, and that two mothers can provide a proper father and mother figure. Which is fine I suppose if that’s what you want to believe, however I would say that the two guys would have no problem with the fathering (other than screwing up the Childs perception of masculinity) and a tough time with the mothering. (And the opposite of that)

When you think about what I’m saying, it’s like this. - To light a room efficiently a light and a socket are used in partnership together for the “parental energy” to flow through them and light the room. What your saying is that two light bulbs crammed together have that same potential. (I’m not talking sexually) Which just isn’t so, sure you can still raise kids in that dimly lit room but you can’t tell anyone or myself that a father makes a better mother than a mother does.

Sure there are crappy mothers out there if you want to make that argument, but with the best mother up against the best father trying to be a mother, the mother would certainly have better results. (I would still say that the vast majority of mothers would have better results) The unique duties of parenting have special qualities that are best carried out by the male or the female in certain parenting situations. They work in a perfectly balanced partnership that is unattainable by a counterfeit.

Geekmom- “The church has changed its stance on a lot of things over the last two thousand years. It’ll have to keep doing so to keep up with our society as it matures. Either that, or it WILL become a useless fossil.”

Truth does not change, nor does the God I worship, He is immutable. If a church starts catering to the will of the people and not the will of God (which is so clearly made manifest in His word), then it already IS a useless fossil.

A religion that slowly bends to new wills of the people or new discoveries, (the only reason it would bend is that it’s inconsistent within itself) is about as useless as a theory that does the same, such as evolution, (not bashing evolution hard, just saying that the theory changes) 20 years ago evolutionists believed things much different than they do today, as whole heartedly as the do today. That is to say that even IF they are right today, they were most certainly wrong back then, which brings to mind the question; are they correct now? Are we that arrogant that we think we’ve got it figured out?

The point that I’m trying to make is that truth itself doesn’t change and the only thing that I can put my trust in is a being that is all-powerful, omniscient and above all, unchangeable. If God could change, what good would it do us to believe anything He has said to come? God would be utterly useless if that were the case.
So yes, I think we’ve already got quite a few “Fossil” denominations out there today.

Posted by Brett - Who’s the bigger sinner? I’ll tell you who’s better off, NONE OF US. We’re all sinners.

Speak for yourself - I’m not a sinner. Just because you and G W Bush sin, it doesn’t mean you can call others sinners. YOU AND HE SHOULD JUST STOP SINNING!

How divorce hurts parents and children, according to Stanton:

Research on suicide published in Social Science Quarterly showed that, of
many variables, divorce had the strongest relationship to suicide rates and
marriage had the weakest. Research done by the Centers for Disease Control
and published in the American Journal of Public Health reveals that divorced
individuals are three times more likely to commit suicide than those who are
married.

Dr. Walter Gove, working from Vanderbilt University, found that divorced men
are over 9 times more likely to die of tuberculosis and over 4 times more
likely to die from diabetes than their married counterparts. A divorced male
is 3.4 times more likely to die from any cause than a married male and a
divorced female is 2.0 times more likely to die from any cause then her
married counterpart.

From 1973 to 1992, the violent crime victimization rates for females (per
1,000 females age twelve or over) were 45 for divorced women and 11 for
married women. This rate was 43 for single women.

Link

Dr. Robert H. Coombs, Professor of Behavioral Sciences at UCLA, conducted a
review of more than 130 published empirical studies measuring how marital
status affects personal well-being. He concluded that scientific
investigations, conducted from the 1930s to the present, “attest that married
people live longer and generally are more emotionally and physically healthy
than the unmarried.” Coombs specifically looked at the areas of alcoholism,
suicide, morbidity and mortality, mental illness and self reports of
happiness.

Coombs, literature review revealed, “empirical support extending back to the
19th century shows that the highest suicide rates occur among the divorced,
the widowed, and the never married and lowest among the married.” The intact family creates a cohesive, integrating effect on its members, which
serves as a strong deterrent to suicidal tendencies.

Research published in Psychological Reports reveals that marrieds are less
likely to report feeling lonely than those of other marital status. This is
meaningful given loneliness was defined as “the absence or perceived absence
of satisfying social relationships” which the authors explain is “not
synonymous with aloneness, solitude, or isolation.” In a random sample of
over 8,500 adults, the percentages of those feeling lonely are as follows:

Marital Status % Lonely
Married 4.6
Never Married 14.5
Divorced 20.4
Widowed 20.6
Separated 29.6

Link

Aren’t they saying marriage is better for everyone and if you get married you should stay married. Don’t gays deserve healthier, happier lives through marriage too?

Posted by Brett - Are we that arrogant that we think we’ve got it figured out?

Apparently you, David and randall are that arrogant!

And the bulb and socket analogy - man you are a pretty dim bulb yourself.

Your God is your God - Your personal God. Also, I think your argument for male and female role models stinks. It’s probably better if a boy doesn’t learn to play football or hunt. It’s probably better if a girl learns the world should give her an equal chance in life.

Are you guys the best the Christian camp has to offer? Are any of you not dead-headed?

I define sin as a broken relationship with God. Anything done that interferes with your relationship with Him is sin. Since Brett is using this in an obviously theological context, I think any other definitions you might try would be out of context. So Brock, since you do not sin, you have a close relationship with God? I never knew.

And I think you do deserve all the benefits of marriage. Please do get married. Since your studies seem to be defining marriage as only that which happens between a man and a women (not 2 men or 2 women) I don’t see where we have disagreed. The studies stop being meaningful when we change the definitions of marriage.

Wow, Brock, I just had an insight. Do you work for the FDA?

Wow, Brock, I just had an insight. Do you work for the FDA?

I doubt you’ve ever had an insight David. You can twist things to make them work for you, but that doesn’t count as insightful. Try again - you still have a million clues to get.

other than screwing up the Childs perception of masculinity

Thank you for making your bias explicit.

From an anthropological point of view, the predominant environment in which children are raised is an extended family or even a tribe. You have yet to forward an argument that the proverbial nuclear family is superior in that regard.

Even if we assume for the sake of argument that same-sex couples are inferior parents, it’s a non-sequitur that they should not be allowed to marry. And not to forget, we are talking of a minority within a minority - hardly a number that is of statistical significance to society of a whole.

A religion that slowly bends to new wills of the people or new discoveries, (the only reason it would bend is that it’s inconsistent within itself) is about as useless as a theory that does the same, such as evolution

So you are saying it was wrong for the Catholic church to abolish the Inquisition? And to tut-tut the burning of witches? If it was God’s will back then, it must remain God’s will today.

You also misunderstand science. Science is not about truth, but a means to understand the world as we can observe it by formulating theories that accurately describe what we can observe, and more importantly, correctly predict the outcome of observations and experiments we have yet to make.

There’s an interesting experiment that somebody conducted. He used a PAL chip (programmable array logic) and a genetic algorithm to evolve a circuit configuration that correctly detected whether or not an input signal fell within a predetermined frequency range, using a minimal number of logic gates.

The results of this experiment are remarkable and very pertinent to the discussion of evolution as a theory. The designs that the genetic algorithm converged to surpass the capability of human engineers to design and possibly even to analyze. In fact, some designs failed when unconnected circuit structures were removed. What this demonstrates is that highly complex and functional systems can evolve using nothing more a few simple rules and selection criteria without intervention of a higher being.

I define sin as…

And thus begins another rousing round of:

DEFINITIONS OF WORDS ACCORDING TO DAVID!

The game where David redefines the meanings of words on-the-fly to suit his purposes! Will our panel of contestants be able to guess how David will rewrite a particular word’s definition ahead of time? The contestant who manages to come closest to David’s version could go home with tons of valuable prizes!

You know, what I think is truly frightening is someone who is unable or unwilling to change his opinion when presented with new facts.  Someone who is that deliberately blind isn’t thinking; he’s just parroting.

Fortunately, there are plenty of clergy who are smarter than that.  Even if the words in the holy text stay the same (and, as we all know, they DON’T, thanks to multiple translations and mutations in the language), their interpretation can be changed based on what we learn and know. Anybody with a shred of intellectual honesty will recognize when the current dogmatic interpretation is wrong (such as support for slavery) and will be brave enough to stand up and say so. 

That’s also what scares me about Bush.  He makes up his mind beforehand, tosses out any facts that might disagree with his opinion, and refuses to waver even when things start going south.  That’s “leadership” only if you’re looking to be led down a deep, dark hole. 

Science is a method for trying to understand the universe which accepts that from time to time our guesses about it might be WRONG.  If a theory fits the known facts, and can be accurately used to predict the outcome or existence of things not yet discovered, then it works and it’s the best one to hang onto.  It SHOULD be tested from time to time, and that’s how we know the ones we have are robust.  The main point is to keep re-evaluating and be ready to encounter new facts.

(Gee, if my only “sin” is in refusing to create an imaginary friend, and refusing to believe in someone else’s, then I must be doing pretty well on the moral scale ...)

Elwedriddsche, you said…

“So you are saying it was wrong for the Catholic church to abolish the Inquisition? And to tut-tut the burning of witches? If it was God’s will back then, it must remain God’s will today.”

Who ever said that it was Gods will to burn “witches” in the first place? When did I ever say anything about that being Gods will?  Uhh Good one…..I guess…

On to this next point that you attempted to make-

“What this demonstrates is that highly complex and functional systems can evolve using nothing more a few simple rules and selection criteria without intervention of a higher being.”

Well, first off you’ve just stated that you DO need rules, and you DO need selection criteria, so right there, there has already been intervention. You’ve added two things to the equation that do not exist eternally within themselves, two things that need to be established or set in motion by, in your experiment’s case, the scientist, and in the universe’s case, God.
If you had said that it takes nothing for something to happen (a fundamental violation of all logic) then you may have found something to support your theory.
From nothing, nothing comes, and if ever there was a time that there was nothing, the only thing that could possibly be now, couldn’t possibly be now.
The only way the there could ever be anything now is if something has the power of BEING within itself. The power to exist always. Otherwise what ever IS now, would have had to create itself, which is mind boggling to believe because SOMETHING would have had to have existed, and not existed at the same time and in the same relationship in order to form itself, which isn’t, but at the same time IS!! It’s an impossibility!

Brock-
“Aren’t they saying marriage is better for everyone and if you get married you should stay married. Don’t gays deserve healthier, happier lives through marriage too?”

No Brock, what they are saying is that heterosexual marriages are better for everyone, those are the people who your beloved tests were done on. Or maybe you overlooked that; I don’t know…I agree whole-heartedly with David on this one.

Oh, and Elwedriddsche, I liked when you said-

Elwedriddsche, you said…

“You also misunderstand science. Science is not about truth.”

Haha that’s good, at least you admit that you don’t seek truth, I mean, who’s accusing who of being willingly ignorant?
You can go on and on about how “we all know that the bible is false, and we all know this and that” and whatever. But you’ve done nothing other than claim that because you think that everyone knows something, then it must be true.
But after all, truth isn’t what your after anyways….or is it?

OK, very funny, Les. Just find me a definition of sin in the theological sense that is substantially different than what I gave.

Or shall we assume that Brett meant that he’s a wave form?

Oh, but it’s OK for the people you like to agree with redefining what science is. I think one of your basic stumbling blocks is that you confuse science with naturalism.

So how’s this for combining the two concepts: you post a reputable dictionary definition that is substantially different than mine, and I’ll buy you a copy of “Miracles” (by CS Lewis). For our panel of Judges: Brett, Geekmom, and nowiser. Valuable prizes, Mind stretching questions, but you’ve got to play to win! (or is that valuable questions and mind stretching prizes?)

David, I’m done playing with you. I prefer to sit back and be amused by your antics.

peggeylc, where’s those contradictions you were so sure of?

Guess it took you only 9 minutes to search the web dictionaries and crap out, eh? Well, I live to amuse. Guess I’m a success. Thank you for making me feel fulfilled.

Science is about understanding reality/actuality, theorizing on how natural phenomona occur.  Therefore, science is about understanding truth.

I’m interested in truth, not Truth.

I didn’t bother to search, David. I told you I’m done playing with you.

Or shall we assume that Brett meant that he’s a wave form?

So how’s this for combining the two concepts: you post a reputable dictionary definition that is substantially different than mine,

Haha that’s good, at least you admit that you don’t seek truth, I mean, who’s accusing who of being willingly ignorant?

You really go to great lengths to misconstrue what I say and if that doesn’t suffice, you make up things. However, in this particular instance you are correct - all I strive for is to understand the world as I experience it to the best of my abilities. Truth is a question of ethics, not of science.

You appear to presuppose that the world as we know it has a purpose to it and you attribute the world’s complexity to an external influence. My position is that even tough we will never fully comprehend the universe, what we can observe suffices to construct internally consistent theories that stand on their own.

Who ever said that it was Gods will to burn “witches” in the first place?

Religious zealots did.

However, none of this is really pertinent to same-sex marriages. I still don’t see reason why it’s a problem.