LDS letter on same-sex marriage

[gnomon]

Society should treat all people, along with their children, with respect. But society has the right to vote according to what it sees as best. Best for children especially. The best for children is a father and mother, married, raising their children together. No divorce, no pre- or extra-marital sex. Keeping as much risk out of a child's life as possible. No third bio-parent floating in or out of the child's life. No replacement adult figures. No confusion or complication, if at all possible.

When things beyond our control happen, we do the best we can through adoption, help from outside family, etc.

I will continue to speak out for the optimum for children.

Don't worry. Many of us will continue to speak out against spiritually driven bigotry.

I have a relative who has not held a steady job in years, if ever. He has children from various women, whom he is raising. He has continuously mooched money off of his aged, limited income parents, because they can't bear to see the children suffer.

What is the answer? Are his children suffering because society doesn't accept his lifestyle and pay him for not working? Or for bringing children into the world without planning and preparing? His children suffer because of his irresponsiblity and selfishness. Yet we are expected to suppliment him, which we do, because of the children.

So no attempts at explaining this.

Very well.

Note: There is no right to gay marriage in the California Constitution. There is no right to gay marriage in the U.S. Constitution.

Nor is their a right to a heterosexual marriage in either. In other words, this is a pointless argument. The requirement to insert language into state Constitutions explicitly against homosexual marriage is pretty telling.

 

[Orontes]

Your argument is insulting and belittling. And I am trying real hard to take the high road and walk the straight and narrow.

My post isn't meant to be insulting. It is meant to address the legal question and why the state would have an interest in one relation and not another.

 

[Starfish]

So, you supprt outlawing divorce? What punishments should people who have sex outside of marriage be subjected to? Should children of single parents be forcibly removed and sent into the already-overloaded foster care system?


... equal treatment under the law...


Except you're not. Even if I accept your entirely subjective notion of what's optimum, you're advocating punishing children for their parents' decisions.

I'm for advocating situations that do not set children up to be "punished". I'm for going back to a time when most pregnancies happened within marriage. When men were expected to stay and raise their children. When unwed pregnancies were not applauded and glamorized. When differences between men and women were expected and valued. When society saw that children need both men and women in their lives. When the invaluable nurturing of a father was not considered expendable or replaceable.

Oh, and please don't bring up the ills of the past (ie. slavory). You know what I mean.

 

[Orontes]

As has been pointed out, queer couples end up parenting anyway, so what is your justification for denying those children equal protection under the law?

Children, as minors, do receive equal protection under the law. The equity claims that were discussed is whether two relationship (gay and straight) are the same or not from a state interest perspective. The state can clearly distinguish between the two along rational lines based on the base ability to produce people.

 

[Storm]

I'm for advocating situations that do not set children up to be "punished".

Like allowing their parents to be married so they can receive the law's protection? No, you're not. You're advocating the opposite.

I'm for going back to a time when most pregnancies happened within marriage. When men were expected to stay and raise their children. When unwed pregnancies were not applauded and glamorized. When differences between men and women were expected and valued. When society saw that children need both men and women in their lives. When the invaluable nurturing of a father was not considered expendable or replaceable.

Tough. Not going to happen. Now will you pull your head out of the sand and deal with the real world?

Oh, and please don't bring up the ills of the past (ie. slavory). You know what I mean.

Yes, and it's a fantasy.

 

[gnomon]

I'm for advocating situations that do not set children up to be "punished". I'm for going back to a time when most pregnancies happened within marriage. When men were expected to stay and raise their children. When unwed pregnancies were not applauded and glamorized. When differences between men and women were expected and valued. When society saw that children need both men and women in their lives. When the invaluable nurturing of a father was not considered expendable or replaceable.

Oh, and please don't bring up the ills of the past (ie. slavory). You know what I mean.

That time when homosexuals were openly discriminated against by the majority of society, when they were beaten, when Jim Crow laws oppressed blacks, when a man and woman of two different races were discriminated against, laws existed against them marrying, when their children would be oppressed, attacked, ridiculed, murdered.........

There never was a time of Ozzie and Harriett. Ever. Period. End of discussion.

I do know what I mean.

 

[Storm]

Children, as minors, do receive equal protection under the law.

Children of same sex couples don't.

The equity claims that were discussed is whether two relationship (gay and straight) are the same or not from a state interest perspective. The state can clearly distinguish between the two along rational lines based on the base ability to produce people.

Problem is, that line of reasoning is fallacious, as has been pointed out to you a number of times.

 

[gnomon]

Children, as minors, do receive equal protection under the law. The equity claims that were discussed is whether two relationship (gay and straight) are the same or not from a state interest perspective. The state can clearly distinguish between the two along rational lines based on the base ability to produce people.

So the states only interest should be in parents and their children. Not married couples no matter their sexual basis.

An argument I've put forth before and can very well endorse.

The potential doesn't matter. Most people have the potential to be a parent. That's what matters. Until that time an individual is a parent the state has no interest in that individual's relationship to a minor.

 

[Starfish]

Don't worry. Many of us will continue to speak out against spiritually driven bigotry.



So no attempts at explaining this.

Very well.

As you wish. Why do you set up situations that can hurt a child, then expect society to bend itself around what you've created?
When you created a same-sex unmarried home, which you've every freedom to do, and bring a child into it knowing that child may not be raised by married parents, knowing that child has a bio-parent who might reappear and interfere, knowing the current laws and limitations that might place risk to that child, but do it anyway . . . then blame us for not adjusting our laws to what you've put together.

Why is that someone else's fault? To expect everyone else to change the laws that have existed since the beginning because of your wants, because of what you purposely did, and then blame us for punishing your kids?

 

[Orontes]

In other words, using modern science and alternative means to allow prior infertile couples to conceive counts as part of the potential but a lesbian using a donor doesn't. This is absurd.

Hello,

Infertility correctives cover a wide array of actions (hormone treatments, endometriosis surgery, insemination, etc. but in general remain contained to the potential heterosexual parents (male and female). A gay married couple must look to another outside the relationship to have children, therefore any action taken is an action that is not restricted to the married couple proper. The gay couple has no possibility for children alone.

 

[Storm]

As you wish. Why do you set up situations that can hurt a child, then expect society to bend itself around what you've created?
When you created a same-sex unmarried home, which you've every freedom to do, and bring a child into it knowing that child may not be raised by married parents, knowing that child has a bio-parent who might reappear and interfere, knowing the current laws and limitations that might place risk to that child, but do it anyway . . . then blame us for not adjusting our laws to what you've put together.

Why is that someone else's fault? To expect everyone else to change the laws that have existed since the beginning because of your wants, because of what you purposely did, and then blame us for punishing your kids?

This same argument could have been used against interracial marriage, and probably was. Who was right then, Starfish?

 

[Starfish]

This same argument could have been used against interracial marriage, and probably was. Who was right then, Starfish?

There is no difference between a black or white man. Only skin color. There is a vast difference between men and women.

 

[Storm]

There is no difference between a black or white man. Only skin color. There is a vast difference between men and women.

You're dodging. Who was right on interracial marriage?

 

[Orontes]

So the states only interest should be in parents and their children. Not married couples no matter their sexual basis.

An argument I've put forth before and can very well endorse.

Perhaps.

My comments have been mostly concerned with rights manufacture and equity claims. What you quote from me relates to the current situation and why the two are not similarly situated and thus why the state may distinguish.

 

[Asalgado]

One of the beauties of the American government is the the seperation of religion and state. If the Judeo-Christian faith honors a certain set rules and traditions for marriage, and they follow those rules and traditions- what does it matter what is legal by "man's law".

 

[gnomon]

As you wish. Why do you set up situations that can hurt a child, then expect society to bend itself around what you've created?
When you created a same-sex unmarried home, which you've every freedom to do, and bring a child into it knowing that child may not be raised by married parents, knowing that child has a bio-parent who might reappear and interfere, knowing the current laws and limitations that might place risk to that child, but do it anyway . . . then blame us for not adjusting our laws to what you've put together.

It worked for anti-miscegenation laws.

How hard does it have to be to do the same for laws against gay parents.

One would think with the precedence we have of overcoming one type of institutionalized bigotry it would be easier to overcome another.

After all, it is the religious institutions and their adherents to blame for maintaining the standard. Homosexual parents just want the same thing heterosexual parents want. But because some people to choose to believe a bunch of silly little books and a council of men who know no better........

 

[Starfish]

You're dodging. Who was right on interracial marriage?

I'm not dodging. It's just not the same thing. Same-sex marriage is new to a major society. Interracial marriages have been around for centuries.

 

[Autodidact]

OK, but I didn't ask if he would ever want to. Just if it was possible. You don't sound sure. Shouldn't you be sure?

Why? You know the oldest is 19, right? I mean, if you and your husband got divorced, he could certainly seek custody, and...

It's not a problem, Starfish, he doesn't want to and could not get custody, so why do I need to worry about it. Lawyers never answer anything definitively, as there is always a possible legal universe in which weird things could happen. I could be hit by a tornado, and he could seek custody.

 

[Orontes]

Children of same sex couples don't.

Yes, they do. There is nothing in California's Legal Code that excludes the children of gays from goods and services or denies them legal protections etc.

Problem is, that line of reasoning is fallacious, as has been pointed out to you a number of times.

No, it is not. One has potential to produce the other has no such potential. This is a base difference and one the state may take interest in.

 

[Storm]

I'm not dodging. It's just not the same thing. Same-sex marriage is new to a major society. Interracial marriages have been around for centuries.

Allow me to rephrase the question.

When interracial marriage was illegal, was it immoral for interracial couple to reproduce? Or was it immoral to deny them equal protection under the law?