what's your stand on gay adoption?

As for your upbringing having an effect on your sexuality, I can see it logically having an effect on your apparent sexuality. If someone is told over and over again by their guardians and the society they live in that the only acceptable way to be is straight or gay, then they're much more likely to at least try to ascribe to that sexuality.

I don't think, however, that will be a problem with gay parents raising children as American society is inundated with images of heterosexual couples. No parent, no matter how closely they watch the behavior of their kids, will be able to take away all "straight couple" influences on a child in this country.

 

I had a female roommate in grad school who was a rape victim, and who developed or at least acted upon bisexual interests well into adulthood, and I believe the adverse experience had a lot to do with it. She became profoundly disgusted with men.

 

This thread morphed into a discussion on how people wind up gay or heterosexual, which was never the intent.
The intent was to discover whether people's attitudes toward same-sex marriage carried over into same-sex child-rearing.
As I stated originally, I have absolutely no reservations about gay marriage and I also recognize the benefits of a happy, healthy home on children, regardless of the parents' genders.
And I did not mean to offend when referring to "man-made loopholes." Consider it a poor articulation of my thoughts.
I guess what I meant was that I consider "nature" to be empirical and consider humans to not be above those laws.
I don't have links, but there have been studies that indicate other animals can have homosexual-type relationships.
However, the rearing of offspring, for obvious reasons, cannot be overcome in those cases.
What then, makes humans exempt from those obstacles?
Because we can? Perhaps.
But should we? I look at that view more from a survival of the species philosophy, Darwinism I suppose.
Dont' get me wrong. I do not oppose gay adoption, nor will I fight against it. With six billion people on the planet, species survival isn't a concern.
It was more a philosophical query.
If you look at the animal kingdom, the separation of duties is clearly dilineated along gender lines - a recent and popular illustration being March of the Penguins - not for social reasons, but for reasons of survival.
Keep the environment constant and the species continues infinitely.
I guess what made me ask the question was this poser:
Is there a difference between social engineering and evolution?

 

The problem with what you just wrote -- if I can articulate this --

is that "Darwinism" is the very thing that brought us to what you call "social engineering."

In other words, human beings evolved to a place where we could invent computers, cure diseases -- carry iPods -- create a human embryo in a lab and put it back inside a woman's body ... understand space and the world around us... and yes, think up and design "adoption" as a brilliant solution to a couple of different problems.

All that ingenuity didn't just "happen" or spring up as some "man-made" thing. We *evolved* to a point where our brains got big and we were able to make all this stuff happen.

So-- you get to a point where it's hard to draw a line between what was brought on by nature and what you'd call "man made." It's all sort of the same.

If Darwinism didn't apply to what is "man-made," then dogs would be carrying iPods.

 

You know, the one point that was made which I agree with is that I don't understand it when people say "I knew I was different when I was 5." Because I was not thinking in sexual terms when I was 5.

 

I always think it's sad to hear opponents of gay adoption question whether such a practice might (Oh my God!) result in gay children. The question that, unfortunately, is rarely asked is: So what?

So what if the kids turns out to be gay? So what if anyone is gay? Why is heterosexual "better" than homosexual. I'm a straight father of three kids, and I just want them to grow up happy. If they're gay, they're gay. I genuinely wouldn't be bothered. In fact, I'd be happy they were comfortable in their own skins.

But this whole fear that someone might be gay is ridiculous. Except for some skim milk biblical references, has anyone actually offered a concrete reason why gay is so friggin' awkful? Just let the people live their lives without all the weight of bigotry.

Whew. I'm stepping off the soapbox now.

 

Actually, Lugnuts was the person who first brought that issue up, and she is for gay adoption. So am I, actually, though with some very politically incorrect logic in the mix.

 

Well, I thought it best to just go ahead and get it out there -- because that's what folks are thinking, right?

Shotty -- I saw a great piece on Primetime about little boy twins (not identical) -- I think they were 6 years old.

Anyway, they've been raised just alike -- same environment and everything.

One likes trucks and military stuff and baseball.

The other one likes to paint his fingernails pink and play with Barbies.

They interviewed both, and the one with pink fingernails acknowledged-- as much as a 6-year-old can-- that he's different than the other kids at school.

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To those of you arguing that rape or sexual abuse can "turn" a person gay...

I actually think it can in some rare cases.

It's still not a choice, though, because those people didn't chose to be abused.

So any way you slice it-- Homosexuality: Not a choice.

 

I'll refrain from a thread hijack with this final remark:

Children's minds are something like 80 percent developed in the first 2-3 years of life..don't have the exact figures but that's what science has shown, thereabouts. So dressing them or conditioning them does lasting damage. Sorry to pour cold water on your amateur experiment intention, but for an adult, the end result of your attempt wouldn't amount to a hill of beans.

 

I don't think for myself, I ever said it was the norm. By your use of the word "rare" you admit that rape or sexual abuse can cause it. So what about what we read about the latest "fad" of batting from the other side among college students and other young adults? Experimentation maybe, thrill-seeking highly debatable. Capacity to choose? For some, maybe. Again, the existence of "possibility" exists.

 

So if you have liberal tendencies but watch a steady stream of Bill O'Hannity and listen to Rush Limbaugh, you could be brainwashed into being a conservative but it helps if you have the mind of a 2-year-old?

 

Winner, winner, chicken dinner...