One of the most distressing things about the Right's fetishization of "American Exceptionalism" is that it serves as a cover for making the country more, well, European.

The nascent union of church and state, the hardening of class differences, the crass rejection of international norms, the nativism that infuses the immigration debate, the rhetorical emphasis on the "homeland," the development of an internal surveillance state behind the veil of a jerry-rigged official secrets act -- these developments erode the essence of our exceptionalism. They read like Europe's syllabus of errors.

But I suppose that as long as we beat up on the gays, get our social insurance from imploding car companies, and call them "freedom fries," we're exceptional enough for the Right.

It is a shame that Princeton has to have its good name dragged down like this. But they have to keep this clown, Robert George, on the campus to keep Steve Forbes' annual giving contributions coming.

Doesn't he mean European in the sense that it takes us back to our roots in pre-Enlightenment Europe?

Time to flog my favorite book on this subject again.

Myths America Live By

The author points out the difference between our national creed and how seldom it was obeyed in practice. He carefully stays away from the present which makes his case even stronger.

This country started off exterminating the Indians, then exploited African slaves and has continued up to the present where we are demonizing immigrants and Muslims. This, while claiming liberty and justice for all. If we can't be honest with ourselves, why should anyone else look to us as a model of ethical behavior?

--- Policies not Politics
Daily Landscape

Great post Mark and thank you for doing the hard oppo reasearch necessary to keep track of the American Right.
Unfortunatly it is not silly. It is deadly serious. It is a conception of America that some very powerful people will try to bring into reality. It is a menace. It's a truism that all far right ideas start off as silly little jokes. If you look at far right thinking in 1920s Germany the stuff is rediculous and pathetic. And yet, it was loved, supported and nutured by enough people to grab its chance when chaos and misfortune (the Great Depression) helped to thrust its belivers into office.

We should treat the American Right with the same seriousness you would give to a madman with a loaded gun. You pay attention and try to disarm him as soon as possible.

Neither, gay parenting nor foster parenting are optimum situations for raising children. Two parents of opposite gender is what has been demonstrated to be in the best interest of the child in terms of their growth and development as human beings. This is unequivocal.

Uniquivocal? Fine, let's assume that it is.
You still have a problem. The problem is the behaviour of the parents. If you have a parent that neglects their child, that hits the child continuously, a parent that is an alcoholic or a drug user, a parent with a history of mental illness; THE FACT THAT SHE OR HE IS IN A HETEROSEXUAL UNION WILL NOT HELP THE CHILD.

In that case all other forms of family, adoptive, different race, single parent or homosexual are superior.

And finally you're unequivocal comes into question because children are placed in families that are not their own and go on to live happy full lives as responsible adults. So... unequivocal?

Second point.
I believe that you yourself admit that it is really the character of the Parents that determines the well being of the child when you focus on the historical evidence of promiscuity in the male homosxual community.

Has it not occured to you that the kind of person who would want to form a family and adopt a child would not be involved in constant multi partner sex? I mean the two lifestiles do not go together. So if the character of the homosexual person who wants to adopt is non-promicuous and oriented towards raising a family, what is the problem? You would have to believe in some sort of inherent defect in homosexual people to think that they are inherently not capable. Why are conservatives so afraid to let the facts of each case speak for itself? Why are they always generalising people in to good and bad categories? Always assuming that they can really know right and wrong and good from evil, while in their hearts they are simply doing what is pleasing to themselves.

It's unChirstian and it's unAmerican when you stop and think about it. Judging people on the nature of their birth rather then the content of their character.

WRB, you can keep trying to flog this horse, but you're not persuading me. The stats you offer don't bear directly on the gay marriage issue because of several reasons.

Promiscuity is not measured in an environment where there is an accepted alternative. What I mean is that normal sex has the alternatives of casual and committed, implying a family in the second case. Let's consider two men (read Dan Savage in Village Voce for life stories from his own experiences raising a boy) that contemplate making a family. One thing we don't have to worry about is an accidental pregnancy, so any child will result from adoption or previous normal sex with a woman, the mother. Why should we assume that a decision to become fathers will happen easily and without considering the permanance of the relationship?

HIV is irrelevant to the duscussion.

Discipline vs. nurture is not an issue, either. My experience with my own marriage and friends' is that one partner tends to be the one and the other takes the opposite role. In my case it was Mom that was the disciplinarian. Dad (me) was easy. It seems safe to assume that since gay couples usually have a dominant and a submissive partner those roles would serve in childraising.

Finally, there is absolutely no reason to worry that gay marriages would ever grow beyond a minority of a few percent, and childraising gay families would be only a portion of that small group. Not likely to destroy society. A much bigger factor is uncaring normal parents.

You didn't provide any documentation for the claim that homosexuals are promiscous. You provided some quotes from gay authors of books that, from their titles, sound like anti-gay tracts. I bet it would not be hard to find three or four African-Americans who say that blacks are irresponsible and less intelligent. That doesn't prove that they are.

Even so, promiscuity is different than adultery. Presumably people who wants lots of partners aren't going to promise to have only one from here on out, unless they are liars. Your argument boils down to saying that some gay people have said other gay people are promiscuous, and so non-promiscuous homosexuals shouldn't be allowed to get married.

I think that Devon and Flavius' exchange illuminated what I'm getting at. I’ll readily concede that in many ways, the Right is steering us from the European model as it exists today. And they back it up with the “we-zig-when-they-zag” notion of American exceptionalism that Mark pointed out. I can’t be the only one who’s had to endure an “argument” along the lines of, "hey, you want a rational health care system, or a foreign policy based on something other than macho posturing, or 'science' that's based on the scientific method? Then move to Europe!"

But while the Right has embraced these immediate differences, it has sought to undermine the America’s broader historical uniqueness. We were always the country based on ideals, as opposed to blood and soil. So it’s hard to countenance odes to “American exceptionalism” from people who think that the Constitution is “just a piece of paper” and who see an existential threat from “alien” immigrants in the “homeland.”

I don’t say this to Euro-bash – there is obviously much about Europe that we should emulate. But Europe also made horrible mistakes, mistakes that we avoided because of our unique commitment to liberalism, and mistakes many of which the American Right seems intent on repeating to one extent or another.

I know that this sounds strange from today’s perspective. But American exceptionalism was once equated with liberalism. Take a look at Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.’s “Liberalism in America: A Note for Europeans” from 1956:

In a sense all of America is liberalism. "The great advantage of the American," Tocqueville wrote over a century ago, "is that he has arrived at a state of democracy without having to endure a democratic revolution and that he is born free without having to become so." With freedom thus a matter of birthright and not of conquest, the American assumes liberalism as one of the presuppositions of life.

Surprisingly, the essay avoids the issue of marriage altogether.

WRB, you can keep trying to flog this horse, but you're not persuading me. The stats you offer don't bear directly on the gay marriage issue because of several reasons.

Well Tom, I was not attempting to persuade you. The stats provided were a direct rebuttal to the assertion of the original poster, on gays and monogamy with regard to marriage.

Promiscuity is not measured in an environment where there is an accepted alternative. What I mean is that normal sex has the alternatives of casual and committed, implying a family in the second case. Let's consider two men (read Dan Savage in Village Voce for life stories from his own experiences raising a boy) that contemplate making a family. One thing we don't have to worry about is an accidental pregnancy, so any child will result from adoption or previous normal sex with a woman, the mother. Why should we assume that a decision to become fathers will happen easily and without considering the permanance of the relationship?

Tom, it is really unclear what point you are making here. I am not suggesting that there is a relationship between forming a family and whether a person is monogamous or promiscuous. I beleive that these variables do not correlate. I was addressing the original posters seeming incrudulity that gays were less monogamous than heterosexuals. There is lots of evidence that supports that they are. Which I cited.

HIV is irrelevant to the duscussion.

Incorrect. It was relevant to the sexual promiscuity of homosexuals in that it is a sexually transmitted disease and the rate of transmission from it's inception has been consistently corrrelated with the promiscuity of homosexuals. As such HIV was was scientific factual support for my point. i.e. non-subjective.

Discipline vs. nurture is not an issue, either. My experience with my own marriage and friends' is that one partner tends to be the one and the other takes the opposite role. In my case it was Mom that was the disciplinarian. Dad (me) was easy. It seems safe to assume that since gay couples usually have a dominant and a submissive partner those roles would serve in childraising.

I certainly agree that this is not a discipline vs. nurture issue. I did not raise that as an issue either. My point was simply that the child needs both genders in the parental, home in terms of optimum development. Numerous studies are available which attest to the impact of motherless and fatherlessness on children of both genders.

Nor is this a submissive or dominant issue..it is rather about children having both genders behavior modeled for them and how they learn to interface with each gender. When you read the literature on childhood development it is very clear, that mising either gender creates emotional and interpersonal issues for the child in terms of life long relationships with peers and adults.

Finally, there is absolutely no reason to worry that gay marriages would ever grow beyond a minority of a few percent, and childraising gay families would be only a portion of that small group. Not likely to destroy society. A much bigger factor is uncaring normal parents.

The incidence is not of  concern. Rather, it is the impact on children and their development as human beings that is of vital importance. Behaviors modeled in childhood have lifelong consequences.

whiterosebuddy, perhaps you could show us just how it has been "unequivocally" demonstrated that two parents of opposite gender are in "the best interest of the child in terms of their growth and development as human beings." I'd be fascinated to see how the alternatives were studied....

Howard, all you need to do is google the term fatherlessness and you find an avalanche of data demonstrating the negative impact of single gender parenting.

as for promiscuity, surely you jest: you don't believe there is heterosexual promiscuity? and you don't think your pathetic little list of quotes constitutes some kind of dispositive evidence, do you?

Surely you jest or perhaps you did not read for content but only to rebut. I made no assertion that heterosexuals were solely monogamous. What I asserted is that homosexuals are much more promiscuous than heterosexuals and this is well documented. I cited, other homosexuals, so as not to be accused of 'hating gays or being homophobic' or making personal spurious comments about homosexuals behavior. Are you the type who prefers scientific studies over documented personal homosexual testimonials with regard to their homosexual behavior; if so:

The most reliable studies about and by homosexuals  show that the typical homosexual is quite promiscuous. In fact, the largest study done of homosexual males (Homosexualities by Bell and Weinberg, 1978) finds that nearly half have 500 or more sex partners and that 28% have more than 1,000 partners. A recent American Medical Association study shows that homosexual youths are 23 times as likely to have a sexually transmitted disease than heterosexual youths, and other recent studies show a higher incidence among homosexuals of hepatitis,gonorrhea, syphilis, and other sexually transmitted diseases."

 

 

"The contention that homosexual men are apt to have relatively large numbers of sexual partners is supported by several investigations. In one study, two-thirds of the homosexual male respondents were described as having been engaged in "promiscuous sexual patterns" (Braaten &Darling, 1965). Similarly, homosexual men have been found to have had significantly more partners than heterosexual men (Schofield, 1965; Saghir & Robins, 1973). Saghir and Robins also concluded that lesbians tend to be much less "promiscuous" than their male counterparts. These reports suggest that little credence can be given to the supposition that homosexual men's "promiscuity" has been overestimated.

 

so just to be a good sport, i googled "fatherlessness," and i didn't find "an avalanche of data demonstrating the negative impact of single gender parenting." I found a number of links to studies purporting to link the absence of a father in the home to various social ills, and i found a number of links to studies purporting to debunk said links. I didn't find (at least on the first page, and how much further do you think i'm going to take this?) any studies whatsoever "unequivocally" demonstrating anything, much less the superiority of a father and mother.

my broader point, which appears to have escaped you, is that we don't get to check the alternates: we don't get to place the same child in a single father household, a single mother household, a husband-and-wife household, a birth parent's household, an adoptive parent's household, a polygamous household, a gay couple's household, a lesbian couple's household, etc., and see which one turns out to be "the best." there can never be entirely dispositive data on this matter.

now, as for promiscuity, since you claim to agree that heterosexuals can be promiscuous too, exactly what is your point? if you want to make it illegal for parents to be promiscuous, go for it! but even assuming your data is good (which i don't: when i see cites from 1965, 1973, and 1978, i'm not overcome with admiration for your data), why exactly does it show that monogamous gays are worse parents than promiscuous straights?

more broadly, who the fuck are you to judge how someone's married life should be conducted? especially if (as is true in a modest but nonetheless real number of marriages), if there are no children?

I'm coming in a bit late on this, but the whole children thing is a bit of red herring, no?

Marriage doesn't equal children and in fact many homosexual couples are adopting or having children even though they aren't married.

One can argue the merits of various family settings, but they don't really bear on the gay marriage debate per se. If you want to say who can and cannot have children and in what setting, then that starts down a very slippery slope.

The framework of this debate seems totally wrong to me, at least as framed in the paper above.

The real questions in the debate should be what does marriage mean? Is it different from a civil union? What rights should the state give to people in what circumstances (tax, visitation, etc.) I think what we most of us really want is a just society. An honest discussion of what that means would be welcome and fruitful ("Some say that I'm a dreamer...")

For starters, what I don't like about American exceptionalism is hearing an American justify it. It's kind of like giving yourself a compliment. "I am beautiful. We are exceptional." In my book, it's okay to diss yourself -- "We're about the only 'civilized' country which justifies torture.'" But to proclaim your specialness (pronounced the way the Church Lady pronounces that), is, well, gross.

And certainly we're exceptional in our dogged inconsistency. What in our law or our belief about ourselves gives one group a series of civil rights -- that is, rights to benefits under law -- and not everyone else? How can you possibly, in a modern society, reserve marriage for this heterosexual couple and not that couple or for god's sake that single person -- just "because it's always been that way" ? All kinds of things have always been that way that we firmly reject because they are patently unfair.

I'd vote for removing all state-endowed benefits to all married people and families until and unless we can extend them equally. Sorry lady... you can't sit at his bedside as he dies just because you're his wife. No, there's no tax break. Nope, no claims for dependents. That should change things right quick!

And no zig, no zag from principles of fairness and decency, no matter how superior conservatives like to fancy themselves! Funny how those conservatives always seem to work for changes in society which bring them increased material comfort while managing to maintain an aggrieved posture and a conviction of moral superiority.

You didn't provide any documentation for the claim that homosexuals are promiscous. You provided some quotes from gay authors of books that, from their titles, sound like anti-gay tracts. I bet it would not be hard to find three or four African-Americans who say that blacks are irresponsible and less intelligent. That doesn't prove that they are.

This is a false argument. Race is not a behavior, and as such individuals who are grouped by race are not monolithic. This is quite the opposite for homsexuals who are grouped together based on sexual behavior. Ergo, statements by individuals who engage in the behavior can be very much attributed to the group as they are discussing homosexual behavior. This is similiar to a drunk describing alcoholic behavior, or a drug addict describing drug cravings. Information on specific behaviors by individuals who engage in a behavior is highly relevant and considerably far more accurate than that of individuals who do not engage in that behavior.

While there may be exceptions to the behavior, based on individual preferences, by and large the sexual behavior of homosexuals with regard to promiscuity is well documented. I simply did not want to make that assertion and be accused of being homophobic. I chose instead to cite orther homosexuals remarks, in terms of credibility. The homosexuals cited are considered quite knowledgable within the homosexual community itself. Akin to Colin Powell, speaking about racial issues.

Nevertheless, I have provided scientific statements as well, if you prefer those, in the prior response to Howard. Should that prove to be insufficient for you here is more data:

Gay activists often point to high divorce rates and claim that married couples fare little better than homosexuals with regard to the duration of their relationships. The research, however, indicates that male homosexual relationships last only a fraction of the length of most marriages.

· A 2001 National Center for Health Statistics study on marriage and divorce statistics reported that 66 percent of first marriages last ten years or longer, with fifty percent lasting twenty years or longer.

Source: National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2001)

· A 2002 U.S. Census Bureau study reported similar results, with 70.7 percent of women married between 1970 and 1974 reaching their tenth anniversary and 57.7 percent staying married for twenty years or longer.

Source: Current Population Reports: U.S. Census Bureau (2002)

The 2003-2004 Gay/Lesbian Consumer Online Census surveyed the lifestyles of 7,862 homosexuals. Of those involved in a "current relationship," only 15 percent describe their current relationship as having lasted twelve years or longer, with five percent lasting more than twenty years.[4] While this "snapshot in time" is not an absolute predictor of the length of homosexual relationships, it does indicate that few homosexual relationships achieve the longevity common in marriages.

Source: 2003-2004 Gay/Lesbian Consumer Online Census

· In The Sexual Organization of the City, University of Chicago sociologist Edward Laumann argues that "typical gay city inhabitants spend most of their adult lives in 'transactional' relationships, or short-term commitments of less than six months."

· A study of homosexual men in the Netherlands published in the journal AIDS found that the "duration of steady partnerships" was 1.5 years.

· In his study of male homosexuality in Western Sexuality: Practice and Precept in Past and Present Times, Pollak found that "few homosexual relationships last longer than two years, with many men reporting hundreds of lifetime partners."

· In Male and Female Homosexuality, Saghir and Robins found that the average male homosexual live-in relationship lasts between two and three years.

Lest anyone suffer the illusion that any equivalency between the sexual practices of homosexual relationships and traditional marriage exists, the statistics regarding sexual fidelity within marriage are revealing:

Married couples

· A nationally representative survey of 884 men and 1,288 women published in the Journal of Sex Research found that 77 percent of married men and 88 percent of married women had remained faithful to their marriage vows.[9]

· A 1997 national survey appearing in The Social Organization of Sexuality: Sexual Practices in the United States found that 75 percent of husbands and 85 percent of wives never had sexual relations outside of marriage.[10]

· A telephone survey conducted for Parade magazine of 1,049 adults selected to represent the demographic characteristics of the United States found that 81 percent of married men and 85 percent of married women reported that they had never violated their marriage vows.[11]

Research indicates that the average male homosexual has hundreds of sex partners in his lifetime:

· The Dutch study of partnered homosexuals, which was published in the journal AIDS, found that men with a steady partner had an average of eight sexual partners per year.[12]

· In their study of the sexual profiles of 2,583 older homosexuals published in the Journal of Sex Research, Paul Van de Ven et al. found that "the modal range for number of sexual partners ever [of homosexuals] was 101-500." In addition, 10.2 percent to 15.7 percent had between 501 and 1,000 partners. A further 10.2 percent to 15.7 percent reported having had more than one thousand lifetime sexual partners.[14]

· A survey conducted by the homosexual magazine Genre found that 24 percent of the respondents said they had had more than one hundred sexual partners in their lifetime. The magazine noted that several respondents suggested including a category of those who had more than one thousand sexual partners.[15]

Even in those homosexual relationships in which the partners consider themselves to be in a committed relationship, the meaning of "committed" or "monogamous" typically means something radically different than in heterosexual marriage.

· A Canadian study of homosexual men who had been in committed relationships lasting longer than one year found that only 25 percent of those interviewed reported being monogamous." According to study author Barry Adam, "Gay culture allows men to explore different...forms of relationships besides the monogamy coveted by heterosexuals."[16]

· The Handbook of Family Diversity reported a study in which "many self-described 'monogamous' couples reported an average of three to five partners in the past year. Blasband and Peplau (1985) observed a similar pattern."[17]

· In The Male Couple, authors David P. McWhirter and Andrew M. Mattison reported that, in a study of 156 males in homosexual relationships lasting from one to thirty-seven years: Only seven couples have a totally exclusive sexual relationship, and these men all have been together for less than five years. Stated another way, all couples with a relationship lasting more than five years have incorporated some provision for outside sexual activity in their relationships.[18]

Even so, promiscuity is different than adultery. Presumably people who wants lots of partners aren't going to promise to have only one from here on out, unless they are liars.

Lieing and promiscuity generally go hand in hand.

Your argument boils down to saying that some gay people have said other gay people are promiscuous, and so non-promiscuous homosexuals shouldn't be allowed to get married.

No my argument does not boil down to that at all. I made no such argument. I simply was rebutting the original poster in terms of his questioning the relative monogamy and promiscuousness of heterosexuals vs. homosexuals.  I have made no argument for or against gay marriage.

My contention was that same gender marriages were not in the best interests of the child. My initial post asserts that homosexual unions and foster care are both poor options for child rearing.

.

so just to be a good sport, i googled "fatherlessness," and i didn't find "an avalanche of data demonstrating the negative impact of single gender parenting." I found a number of links to studies purporting to link the absence of a father in the home to various social ills, and i found a number of links to studies purporting to debunk said links.

Perhaps, you should have read the links, so that you could engage in a discussion on the merits of how being raised without a father has a negative impact that transcends race and economics. As far as the links you purport that debunk the trend, you need to cite them, for credibility. I beleive you have missed the point entirely, otherwise.

 I didn't find (at least on the first page, and how much further do you think i'm going to take this?)any studies whatsoever "unequivocally" demonstrating anything, much less the superiority of a father and mother.

Well in order to comprehend how unequivocal the outcomes data is you would need to read the studies, which you are not willing to do. Instead you prefer to rebut assertions which without regard to facts. Also known as your perogative to hold an unsubstantiated opinion.

my broader point, which appears to have escaped you, is that we don't get to check the alternates: we don't get to place the same child in a single father household, a single mother household, a husband-and-wife household, a birth parent's household, an adoptive parent's household, a polygamous household, a gay couple's household, a lesbian couple's household, etc., and see which one turns out to be "the best." there can never be entirely dispositive data on this matter

Yes, the real world just is not that ideally manageable is it?  What we do get to do however, is to observe OUTCOME data from each of those groups and look at the impact in terms of juveni8le delinquency, peer communication, homelessness, high graduation rates, drug addiction, incarceration rates etc. And for each of these indices when it comes to children those raised with two parents, both a father and a mother, have far better outcomes than any of those other scenarios you have listed.

now, as for promiscuity, since you claim to agree that heterosexuals can be promiscuous too, exactly what is your point?

The point was clearly stated as a rebuttal to the incredulity of the original poster that  as homosexuals being LESS monogamous than heterosexuals.

why exactly does it show that monogamous gays are worse parents than promiscuous straights?

I made no such contention. There were two separate assertions made in response to the original posters' comment. You are misconstruing and linking them together, which I did not do. 

more broadly, who the fuck are you to judge how someone's married life should be conducted? especially if (as is true in a modest but nonetheless real number of marriages), if there are no children?

Your profanity neither improves your communication nor credibility. I did not judge anything or anyone, I cited the data which is available..you were the one who evaluated it in a judgemental fashion. I provided  opposing data with stats and facts to support it. 

I already acknowledged that marriages can be childless.

If you have issues with the data,  either discuss it intelligently or take it up with the researchers and their analysis, but do not take out your disagreement on me with profanity laced tirades. geez

The author of this comment e-mailed me asking for a response. Here's what I sent him:

First, I don't know that it's my business, or anyone else's, to declare a moratorium on gay people seeking the right to marry. For one thing, it's not going to have an effect. If a gay couple in a state like Massachusetts believes their STATE's constitution implicitly permits two people to form a family, and they want to take that claim to the state supreme court, then who am I to deny them the right to make that claim? It would be like declaring that there should be a moratorium on medical malpractice claims because it's hurting us politically. And if the supreme court of the state grants that claim, as Massachusetts did, then presumably it's within reason within that state's law. And then the Massachusetts legislature had the opportunity to amend its constitution to say we never meant that -- that amendment failed. There is now both political and legal consent to gay marriage in Massachusetts, and basically political consent in Connecticut. That's the way the political/constitutional process is supposed to work.

On the other hand, no one's making the claim that the Alabama constitution permits gay marriage, and it probably doesn't.

But the fight about gay marriage has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with Massachusetts or people actually seeking the right to marry. It's a political tactic, targetted at states where gay marriage is actually NOT being actively pursued in the courts or the political arena. The Republicans are putting it out there as a boogey-man, a distraction, a wedge issue, telling people in those states that if they don't act, gay people are going to be treated as normal.

The point is that the right's ability to invoke this boogey-man has absolutely nothing to do with whether gays actually pursue marriage rights in states like Massachusetts or not. The right will hang its campaign on the thinnest thread. Every single gay person in America could take a vow tomorrow not to get married or seek marriage rights, and the right will still pursue its nasty campaign. It is very important to recognize that fact.

I'm pretty sure that within ten years, we will accept gay marriage in most states outside of the deep South. The Right knows this, and they are trying to push this campaign as hard as they can, and gain as much as they can from it, before the window of intolerance closes. It might have closed yesterday. And the best way to close it quickly is, I believe, actually to encourage people to marry and let people see what life in Massachusetts actually looks like. It takes a pretty cold heart to see a couple that's been together for half a century finally permitted to affirm their partnership in the way that all the rest of us can do without controversy.

And so, for that reason, I don't think your view is "more mature" or independent. I think it's defensive, impractical, and cruel.

One can't accept that we are evolved without also accepting that sexual behavior is mostly genetic. Any species that leaves reproduction to circumstance and learning is asking for the Big Sleep.

This is why resistance to gay rights correlates with resistance to teaching evolution.

Now the last section of the Princeton Principles is entitled, "American Exceptionalism and the Way Forward." What does that have to do with gay marriage?

Maybe the last section should have been called "American Fundamentalist Christian Exceptionalism and the Way Forward to a Theocracy".

 Dear Howard, feel free to google all the citations.

There is no fact that has been established by social science literature more convincingly than the following: all variables considered, children are best served when reared in a home with a married mother and father. David Popenoe (1996) summarized the research nicely:

 "social science research is almost never conclusive, yet in three decades of work as a social scientist, I know of few other bodies of data in which the weight of evidence is so decisively on one side of the issue: on the whole, for children, two-parent families are preferable to single-parent and step-families" (p. 176).

Children navigate developmental stages more easily, are more solid in their gender identity, perform better; in academic tasks at school, have fewer emotional disorders and become better functioning adults when they are reared by dual-gender parents.

This conclusion, supported further by a plethora of research spanning decades, clearly demonstrates gender-linked differences in child-rearing that are protective for children. That is, men and women contribute differently to the healthy development of children.

Children of parents who are sex-typed are more competent (Baumrind, 1982). Research has repeatedly supported the conclusion that most effective parenting is highly expressive and highly demanding (Baumrind, 1991). Highly expressive, instrumental parenting provides children with a kind of communion characterized by inclusiveness and connectedness, as well as the drive for independence and individuality.

These essential contributions to the optimum development of children are virtually impossible for a man or woman alone to combine effectively (Greenberger, 1984).

Children learn about male-female relationships through the modeling of their parents. Parental relationships provide children with a model of marriage--the most meaningful relationship that the vast majority of individuals will have during their lifetimes.

This is similar to the condition with blacks, especially before the civil rights movement. People were afraid to touch blacks in case it "rubbed off".

Hardly. This is an exceptionally poor analogy. There was no scientific  data which supported that nonsense.

I won't speculate on what has produced their mental state, but we really need to understand these types of people if we are going to get anywhere.

I agree that more needs to be done to understand individuals who provide scientific and rational arguments which do not agree with the emotional views provided on this and many other threads which adovcate the gay political agenda.

One can't use logic to defeat an argument based upon irrationality.

What is especially true is that one cannot dismiss facts and data by constantly yammering about 'visceral dislike'. A rational and intellectual argument would involve facts and data to refute the assertions.

The problem is that there is no scientific or factual data to support the gay political agenda. It is all about emotion and feelings which is why the most often heard response is to accuse those who do not support the gay agenda as being 'full of hate' or of being 'hateful'

These emotional rants accomplish nothing in terms of understand.  The hard core truth is that when individuals are seeking tolerance they need to bring it to the discussion.

One would hope that intelligent cogent dialogue would not be supplanted  with the emotional rants and clamouring for rights based on behavior which is clearly deviant from societal norms.

Re: He noted that the follow-up study found that children of lesbian parents were significantly more likely to have both considered and actually engaged in homosexual relationships.

And this is a problem why? Seems to me the unspoken assumption here is that homosexuality is apathology

Re: This finding did not seem particularly interesting to the researchers.

Perhaps because it is not an example of a negative outcome. If they had found that children rerared by gays were more likely to be left-handed that might be a curious fact, but it would not equate to a negative outcome of gay parenting.

Good point. Genetic expression has many switches that get thrown during embryonic development and later.

As I pointed out, if you accept evolution you have to accept that sexual reproduction is safe from being learned wrong, or that species would be long gone.

Homosexuality is either a tolerable variance or positively selected, or it would be completely absent. My guess is positive selection due to corollary advantages.

No. The corollary would be that you would advocate for parents to die so children could be reared by widows and widowers and for children to be placed in foster care from under any circumstances, as you would not see the need for children to be reared in the most optimum setting for their personal and emotional growth.

Say what? That would only make sense as a metaphor if we were abducting children from heterosexual couples and giving them to homosexual couples. In reality, we'd be taking children from foster care and giving them to homosexual couples.

The only options you're allowed to compare are the possible alternatives. The kids are already in foster care. Unless you are Jesus, you can't bring their parents back to life (or change the past so that they had never abused their children.) The "optimum" arrangement you desire is simply off the table--it is not possible in all circumstances. Therefore, to argue against gay couples adopting kids, you have to argue that it's worse than foster care.

That is so unbelievably cut and dry and simple, that if you can't post again and agree to it I certainly won't waste my time on the rest of your post. If you won't accept that 2+2=4, I'm not going to talk about calculus. If you try to lecture me about logic, I'll laugh straight in your face.

Re: My guess is positive selection due to corollary advantages.

I see homosexuality as the extreme end of a bell curve of same-sex bonding responses without which human society would be an impossibility: if we could not bond with other unrelated humans of the same sex our social arrangements might resemble those of lion prides (one male with many females and young) or even housecats (essentially solitary individualist animals capable of of only casual cooperative bonding).
Gays simply have this bonding mechanism at its full strength. And in our early evolution there may well have been circumstances which made this valuable

To me "exceptionalism" is a code word for "superiority". The Nazi's thought German's were superior. I guess to come right out and say "superior" is not politically correct after having demonized the Germans for making such claims, so we use the term "exceptional". Here is why exceptionalism falls short: we might be exceptional in innumerable ways from the rest of humanity, but that's uninterestig. Every nation is exceptional in that sense, and innumerably so. So it has to be a code word for SUPERIOR. But superior in what way? Morally superior? I doubt that sincerely. Militarily superior? Sure, but that kind of exceptionalism does not carry any moral weight. It can't be race-based superiority as the Germans claimed because we are not a race. So It is perfectly intelligent professors at Princeton and Harvard getting once again mired in the briar because they want so much to make Grand Statements in their fields which simply does not allow for it. If Bush is guilty of Global Overreach, These good academics are guilty of Intellectual Overreach.

Your exception for the durability of our system of governance can only be seen as an example of American superiority IF you also maintain the thesis that the longevity of a political system is directly proportional to its "superiority" in some sense of superior that is intrinsically desirable. I deny that implied hypothesis.

My personal view is that our system of governance, plus the fact we have oceans on both sides, etc...has been good for our citizens. Has it been better than say, China, Russia, even Germany? I think so, all in all. But I'm reluctant to attribute our good fortune principally to "our system of governance". However, if Realists are right and the only "moral" responsibility of a state is to make its people prosper, then we are superior as an empirical fact. Trying to calculate how much our people have had to suffer as opposed other nations is a hard thing. But assuming for the sake of argument (using some utilitarian calculus) that our people do come out on top--from a realist point of view--we are superior. My problem with this whole way of defining our exceptionalism is that I cannot embrace it morally.

Dear Howard, feel free to google all the citations.

This is why I gave you a downvote. That you've left finding citations to the reader's own effort reduces the chances that people will do so. At best, it shows you're intellectually lazy. At worst, it suggests both that you have crap citations and that you know they're crap.

The genetic case for homosexuality is not conclusively proven, though favorable evidence exists.

That the evidence is favorable is solely a subjective assessment on your part. Until the  genetic case is proven, the evidence is merely suggestive and much of what is  suggested lacks scientific validity  which means it is basically conjecture and speculation. Additionally, the evidence you call 'favorable" has been discredited, misconstrued and debunked as well.

However the case that homosexuality is an inborn trait is about as well proven as anything in human psychology and cannot be seriously doubted on scientific grounds.

Please cite a reference for this 'proven' fact.  What is  indubitable  here is that science has not able to demonstrate a 'inborn' genetic trait for any human behavior, let alone sexual behavior. The inability to scientifcally demonstrate a genetic basis for behaviors is the basis of the endless nature vs. nurture debate and  makes your assertion scientifically groundless.

The fallacy here is that not all inborn traits are genetic.See: handedness as an example.

Traits which are not 'inborn' genetically are a matter of  practice and choice preference.i.e. the brain can be trained to change the behavior or switch the dominant hand. See: NBA All Stars as an example.

Touched a nerve, did I?

Re: Additionally, the evidence you call 'favorable" has been discredited, misconstrued and debunked as well.

Only if you are persuaded by the same sorts of frauluent arguments that the same suspects advance against the theory of evolution or global warming. Sorry, but your assertions are yet one more example of how the right (especially the Religious Right) wars against science.

Re: Please cite a reference for this 'proven' fact.

Of course: almost every single homosexual. This is one of those subjective realities that is known through introspection, like a claim about being in love with someone or believing in certain religious tenets or enjoying a certain type of food. To be sure the possibility exists in all such instances that the interlocutor is lying, but when the same experience is reported by large numbers of people and when the behavior matches the claim, the case for skepticism evaporates.

Re: The inability to scientifcally demonstrate a genetic basis for behaviors

Bait and switch. As I pointed out, inborn behaviors (see: handedness) do not have to be genetic

Re: Traits which are not 'inborn' genetically are a matter of practice and choice preference.i.e. the brain can be trained to change the behavior or switch the dominant hand.

Incorrect. A person can certainly be trained to use his opposite hand, and a person can be trained to perform sexually with the other gender, but in neither case has the underlying trait of handedness or sexual orientation been changed. The preferrence remains in the background, and the acquired behavior is never as capable and competent as the natural one. Moreover the stresses involved in forcing behavior to violate the underlying nature can be damaging to health.
Which brings up a really big question: why do you even care? In no way are you affected by people who are left-handed or by people who sleep with their own sex. Why not limit your concerns to matters which so involve you and stop interfering univited in other people's private lives?

Well, let's start with the uncredited source of your quote, Gender Complementarity and Child-rearing: Where Tradition and Science Agree, by A. Dean Byrd. It comes from the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality. Let's look at their position statements, both current and previous, to get a sense of where they're coming from:

Their current position statement says:

But none of these factors mean that homosexuality is normal and a part of human design, or that it is inevitable in such people, or that it is unchangeable.

A previous statement quoted here puts it a bit differently:

NARTH updated their Statement of Policy on 1999-FEB. Their new policy stresses that homosexual behavior is not normal. It is viewed as a "failure to function according to design."

In other words, the position of NARTH, once stated explicitly but still stated implicitly, is that human sexual identity is designed. That's a religious view, just as intelligent design is just creationism under another name.

For that reason, I reject the idea that the summary you posted is known to be reliable as scholarship. For the same reason, I reject the idea that the use to which they put the works you referenced is proven to be appropriate.

That you didn't acknowledge the source of your quote suggests you knew this would be a reasonable person's judgement.

I intended to use the word analogy. Applying your logic of eliminating gay adoptions because they are sub-ideal would also mean eliminating foster care because it is sub-ideal. No mention of what happens to the children of dead parents.

Death is always a feasible possibility and 'optimum is never of the table given that the vast majority of people are heterosexual couples.

But bringing people back to life is NOT a feasibile possibility. What are you going to do with the all the orphans who already have dead parents? Which is better choice FOR THEM--not for the ones who still have parents--for the ones who's parents are irretrievably dead.

Thus, for many children, it's either foster care or gay adoption. Refusing to permit gay adoption will increase the number of children stuck in foster care.

The rest of your logic is also broken. But there's no point in me trying to fix that if you won't even admit that foster care and gay adoption are the things you are supposed to compare.

whiterosebuddy, I argue with all sorts of people from all over the spectrum on every issue. I argue with people who are even further to the right on this than you are. Who make better points on this than you do. Who make worse points on this than you do. But I'm not going to argue with you on this topic anymore, because for some weird reason you just completely shut off the logic sector of your brain when it comes to this, lone issue.

You may not even particularly care about the issue itself. It isn't the emotion of the issue itself that constrains you, perhaps, but the emotional attachment to being right, being more logical and smarter than everyone else, that ironically makes you exactly the opposite. On this issue. That's my best guess, anyway.

On this issue, you're just not worth anyone's time. Good luck with your future endeavors.

Re: place children intentionally in homes where the adults engage in deviant behavior from societal norms is inhumane

So you would also suggest that children should not be placed in the homes of Jewish parents, atheists or any other member of a minority religious group, since they too deviate from the norm in America? And what about race? Blacks and Asians are not the norm either. Only white people may adopt?

For that reason, I reject the idea that the summary you posted is known to be reliable as scholarship. For the same reason, I reject the idea that the use to which they put the works you referenced is proven to be appropriate.

NARTH did not exist when the researchers who did the work was published and it is scholarly. It is a lot of data and to discredit the scholars simply because NARTH has chosen to cite their work is inappropriate.

That you didn't acknowledge the source of your quote suggests you knew this would be a reasonable person's judgement.

I did acknowledge the source, those are all the citations you refused to check. Each reserchers name is listed, when their work is cited.

What you are attempting to do is discredit the research because you disagree with NARTH.  Bryd provided the compliation but did no research so why should he be credited?  If you would like him to be:

Dr. Byrd is President of the Thrasher Research Fund and Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of Utah School of Medicine with appointments in the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine and in the Department of Psychiatry. In addition, Dr. Byrd has an adjunct appointment in the Department of Family Studies

Using your reasoning would mean we should reject data from the  CDC and Census Bureau as well as from gays and lesbians themselves..simply because they were cited on the NARTH site?.

No reasonable person would make such a judgement.

Had the study been done or funded by NARTH I could see your point.

that is simply inane reasoning that does little to explain why there are significant differences in cultural norms for our sexual behavior.

dlw

A blog-activist dedicated to the reduction of the faith-based political acrimony in the United States of America so as to make our political system more democratic and just and to improve our witness to the rest of the world.

I intended to use the word analogy. Applying your logic of eliminating gay adoptions because they are sub-ideal would also mean eliminating foster care because it is sub-ideal. No mention of what happens to the children of dead parents.

OK. I think I see what you are driving at. You are making your analogy to sub-ideal, which I am making mine to 'optimum ideal; we are at opposite ends of the spectrum. You appear to me to be making a worse case scenario and I am saying we need to look for the best case scenario, not the least bad.

But bringing people back to life is NOT a feasible possibility

Again, we are approaching this from two different points. Death is feasible since, parents DO die, but it is not an intentional possibility. Such that we as a society do not sanction or advocate for a parent to die..as you are advocating for same gender parenting.

Thus, for many children, it's either foster care or gay adoption. Refusing to permit gay adoption will increase the number of children stuck in foster care.

I find this to be equivalent to saying. Thus, for many children, it's either foster care, or drug dealer/alcoholic/ adoption, Refusing to permit alcoholics and drug dealers to adopt kids will increase the number of children stuck in foster care. Nothing about that argument is persuasive, since all of them amount to intentionally placing a child in a home where adults engage in modeling behaviors deviant from societal norms. It is flat out wrong.

It is like planting flowers in the shade that need sunlight to thrive, knowing they will not bloom and that the lack of sunlight will forever stunt their growth. To me that is unconscionable.

 But there's no point in me trying to fix that if you won't even admit that foster care and gay adoption are the things you are supposed to compare.

A person would only think we should compare  the worse case scenarios to advocate for a poor choice if they believed in good conscious that the bad choice was somehow acceptable. I don't,  I could not do that to a child.

That child when they grow up and find that society did that to them they would have every right to act out rebelliously against society as a whole. I personally, do not understand how any one could in good faith place a child in a home knowing they are more likely to become a homosexual by virtue of the environment in their home. That is just a terrible thing to do to a child. Sex is not some inherent genetic trait, it is a behavior. Individuals choose what they do sexually, which is why they can be celibate, promiscuous, monogamous, and have sexual proclivities all across the spectrum. They try and like it and keep right on doing it.

Every single person who is a parent or has raised children knows that kids emulate the behaviors they see modeled for them in their home. No words or lectures are match in terms of the impact to shape human development than the behaviors they see in their own home. That is just indisputable. Heck, it only takes the Army, 6--8 weeks to turn a person into a trained killer aka a Marine. And that is after they are 18 years of age. Behaviors are shaped by the environments humans are immersed in.

That's my best guess, anyway.

I do not think I am smarter or more logical..the problem for me is that people who advocate for gay adoption always do so on an emotional basis. I find that to be arbitrary and capricious. I need hard core data to demonstrate my view is incorrect and so far the data is showing that my thinking is on target. That yes, children reared by homosexuals are more likely to be homosexuals...which is to be expected since it works that way for all other deviant behaviors as well.

To me it is no different from Bush saying, trust me.  And even the right says ..trust but verify.

It is a lot of data and to discredit the scholars simply because NARTH has chosen to cite their work is inappropriate.

We haven't yet seen what conclusions those papers' authors drew from their research, nor the papers themselves. The first paragraph of your quote is Byrd, and the remainder is Byrd quoting Popenoe. Byrd's article was written for the NARTH website, I think--I didn't notice any sign it'd been published elsewhere or gone through peer review. Popenoe's book from which the quote is taken is a popular work, not a scholarly one. For this reason, I'm questioning not the studies themselves but the use to which Byrd and Popenoe put them.

Byrd provided the compliation but did no research so why should he be credited?

Because he wrote that paragraph you quoted.

Again, I'm neither rejecting nor accepting the primary sources underlying the summaries you quoted. I'm saying the conclusions Byrd and Popenoe (more Popenoe, really) are drawing from them are not necessarily reliable.

I'm guessing you're a father yourself--am I right? This is my daughter Quincy's third birthday. You'll understand if I'm not going to take as much time on saying these things as I'd like, and I'll acknowledge up front that I may say this poorly:

1. What's good for children is very important, but it's not the only important thing. If it were, we'd do more to support families of all sorts, but we don't--and we should! Policies to do that across the board are at least as important than the discussion we're having now.
2. My personal experience says both traditional and non-traditional families can be good enough at raising children. It also says that traditional families can be absolute disasters for children in some cases--I've got a couple of tragic examples on my mind today.
3. We won't know exactly how non-traditional families compare at raising children until they've been put onto an even keel with traditional families. That's an experiment which is going on now. We'll see how it turns out.

Re: Religious beliefs are not deviant behaviors. Non-religious beliefs are not deviant behaviors. Race is not a behavior.

Anything that "deviates from the norm" is, by definition, "Deviant".
Your whole argument here about gays is that since gays deviate from the norm they shouldn't be allowed to adopt. Well if "deviation from the norm" is your criterion for what you do and do not approve of, then why not go all the way to full-srvice bigiotry and oppose all peoples who are not "normal". Or else have the very worthwhile epiphany that "Different > Evil"

You appear to me to be making a worse case scenario and I am saying we need to look for the best case scenario, not the least bad.

I am saying we need to look for the best POSSIBLE case. If the best possible case and the least bad case are in many cases exactly the same.

Thus, for many children, it's either foster care, or drug dealer/alcoholic/ adoption, Refusing to permit alcoholics and drug dealers to adopt kids will increase the number of children stuck in foster care.

Drug dealers and alcoholics are probably worse environments for children than foster care. You have to make the comparison to foster care. You won't even admit that it's the appropriate comparison. That tells me that you are incapable of coherent thought. I'm sad that I even bothered wasting time to see what you said in response, I probably won't do so again.

Everything you said in your post was either factually or logically wrong. I'm only focusing on this one narrow aspect of it, because it's just so hilarious that you won't admit that the logical child welfare comparison to make for a child who's only options are foster care and gay adoption is actually between foster care and gay adoption.

Don't worry, I'm sure the karma I'm collecting now making fun of you will force me to be similarly logically incoherent in my next life...

Obviously we can go too far in ensuring optimum childraising. Make it illegal to drink alcohol while pregnant, make it illegal to shift to bottle feeding too early, make it illegal to use a TV as a babysitter, etc.

We leave families the choice of whether to be careful or careless, resisting intevention until a situation is dire. The alternative is an oppressive Big Brother watching your family.

We allow families to indoctrinate children with dogma. We allow families to grow unreasonably large. We allow families to not be families (birth control). We allow families to feed children terrible food.

Where do you want to draw the line? Since it is already legal for a woman to give birth out of wedlock, and to then live with another woman, the best you can do is to withhold the status of legal marriage. The logical argument is that when the action is legal there is no grounds for the lack of formal sanction.

Hard to call something deviant when it has been around since before history began. A minority, yes, but so is musical talent. Guess I'm deviant for liking jazz.

Anything that "deviates from the norm" is, by definition, "Deviant".

True.

Your whole argument here about gays is that since gays deviate from the norm they shouldn't be allowed to adopt.

False. My entire argument is about deviant behaviors. Behaviors, which are modeled and  which shape and impact child rearing.

Individuals who engage in homosexual acts, are not deviant people, they are people who engage in deviant  sexual behavior. i.e. there is way more to the individual than their sex life. Just as drug addicts and alcoholics and whores engage in deviant addictive behaviors and sexual behavior, respectively.. It is their behavior which is different and it is that behavior which will have a powerful impact on shaping the child.  All parents  and people who work with children know this.  Kids do what they see their parents do, not what their parents say.

That is why parents do not want their kids fraternizing with kids who 'act out' act 'unruly' or who generally engage in disruptive behaviors. Kids engage in virtually all behaviors that are modelled for them, whether they are deemed  socially acceptable/normative or not.

This is also why there are successive generations of welfare dependency in families. The children never see their parents go to work and model the behavior conducive to be a hard working individual who gets up and goes to work each day. We also see  dysfunctional behavior  when it comes to adult relationships in children from divorced homes. Those children grow up with an inability to resolve conflict between adults as they have not seen adults work together and resolve conflicts in such a way as to maintain healthy adult relationships.  Behaviors modelled in childhood have life long consequences.

Well if "deviation from the norm" is your criterion for what you do and do not approve us

I do not approve or disaprove of people. I approve or disaprove of the way individuals behave, just like the rest of society. People disaprove of public nudity,   drunkeness, stealing, disorderly conduct, whoring, prostitution..etc. why would homosexuality be any different, in that regard, if the individuals choose to make it a public issue vs. a privatcy right?

People can get drunk all they want in the privacy of their homes but they can't go to work drunk and expect the behavior to be tolerated. Nor can they expect for society to sanction drunk driving. Once a behavior enters the public domain or seeks to be sanctioned by society, the public and society have consistently had the right to discriminate against it, in the interest of social order and civility.

There are many times I do not agree with that, (jaywalking, kissing, playing loud music) but that is the way life is. You simply can't do in public what you have the right to do in your own home.

Our system of government is older than Great Britain's?  I don't think so!

The point was the unbroken series of constitutional elections. GB had a succession issue in the interim, I think.

Re: My entire argument is about deviant behaviors.

I can conede the point in regards to race and related physical traits. But not in regards to behavioral deviation. Religion is a behavior. So is handedness. So is language. So are innumerable other talents and habits which (I very much suspect) you'd never dream of criticizing. Frankly, it's time to admit that you've met a reductio ad absurdum which sinks your argument out of sight Simply because one deviates from the norm (even behaviorally) is no reason to pass prejudicial laws against that person. The behavior istelf must be analyzed independently for its ethical content amd its rarity or commonness is irrelevant.

Then Britain takes the prize. Glad to be informed, thanks.

According to Angus Maddison in The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective, the Netherlands has had the longest lasting and most economically successful form of government, although the United States has also been very successful (moving to economic predominance in the twentieth century). The reasons for success, according to him are: investment in human capital (education) and social solidarity (helping one another):
According to Andrew Sharpe:
findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1093/is_4_45/ai_89871066/print

"Maddison provides a number of insights into the drivers of economic growth that are relevant today. For example, he notes that even in 1776 the United States had nine universities for its 2.5 million people, compared to two universities in all of Latin America (the two were in Mexico, and there was no university in Brazil; both countries had larger populations than the United States at the time). This historical advantage in human capital development, linked to the importance accorded education by early European settlers in British North America, particularly in the northern colonies like New England, has served and continues to serve the United States well. In contrast, Latin America's relatively underdeveloped education s