Chick-Fil-A CEO posting more anti-gay comments.

[Lorizael]

Well, that's the question. I don't think that a psychologist is going to come back and say that children should be raised in a factory. Perhaps I'm wrong about that and a psychologist can correct me here. I see your point here, but I hope you also see mine.

And I don't think anything I've stated here is a religious argument per se.

Any competent psychologist is going to tell you that if you want to raise a child in a factory, you're crazy. But there's no particular reason why we won't be able to develop good baby-making factories in the future. You can make arguments like, "But a child needs the touch of a mother," and other things like that, but you'd be wrong. A child needs a certain set of stimuli that, at present, are best delivered via human agents evolved to deliver those stimuli. But there's no reason why we can't improve upon that with study. You can make arguments like, "But how could we improve on evolution?" and other things like that, but then I'd just go *cough* hearing aids *cough* and we'd be done with that line of conversation.

And all of that ignores the fact that, to date, the data show that two female parents are just as good as one male and one female, as long as you look at all the data in aggregate and you're controlling for compounding factors--that is, as long as you're doing real science.

[snoopy369]

So what's your argument here? Are you saying that it's better to dump the mother or the father and that the child will be happier not knowing his mother and father?

I think he's saying you need to show that gay couple raising a child is worse somehow than straight couple raising their biological child. IIRC it's been shown the reverse - gay couple child is usually better off - though likely that's an artifact of several factors (gay couples don't have unwanted children, have fewer so have an easier time caring for them, are better off on average, etc.) that are hard to control for all of at once. It's likely that they're equally valid; there's not a lot of reason a person being raised by a randomly chosen happy couple will be happier than being raised by his/her specific biological parents, except the pressure society might place on that person. The bonding/etc. in the child [not the mother] is pretty much entirely external - the mother has some internal stuff, but certainly if a lesbian couple had a child where one member of the couple bore the child of [random sperm donor], that would be identical. There are little to no biological father links; having [random father figure] is identical to [biological father], so long as you control for other factors.

I would be curious if there are some difficulties in a lesbian couple raising a boy, or a gay male couple raising a girl, as the boy/girl wouldn't have a same-gender role model to look up to; I suspect it's a small issue in the scheme of things (things like "happy stable couple" are way way more important), but something to consider as a couple adopting or having a child.

[Elok]

What precisely is it about my argument is incoherent?

The part where your argument begins and ends with "two dudes/chicks can't produce a kid." Yes, and...?

Children do best with their mom and dad. Sure, there are some exceptions, but this is the ideal.

If the child is available to be raised by two men or two women at all, it's pretty safe to say that a life with his/her biological mom & dad is simply not in the cards anyway. So, irrelevant.

[Ben Kenobi]

The occasional person does come up with this argument - that children should be raised communally. Some societies have done this (basically the kids are raised by a group of people, usually women, but not directly one-to-one with their actual mother), and some have found it successful.

Are the societies that practice this more or less successful than the societies where children are primarily raised by their mother and father?

He's basing his opinions on religious opinions

I'm not sure where I've cited religion anywhere here in the thread, snoopy. I'm trying to show that you can come up with a coherent argument and that there are secular interests involved.

What's unreasonable is basing US laws on religious opinion; but we already know Ben disagrees with this.

Where have I ever stated that I believe the US should base their laws on religious conviction? I don't. This is why I asked earlier on in the thread. Do you believe that the state has an interest in procreation?

[Ben Kenobi]

the data show that two female parents are just as good as one male and one female

How do the studies you are citing define 'good'?

[snoopy369]

Ben, your opinions are certainly based in your religion. You aren't basing them in science or statistics, so it's based in your (religiously-based) opinion that marriage is a man and a woman, that the familial arrangement of dad-mom-child is good, etc. There's nothing wrong with that; it's just how it is. But unless you've got yourself some real, meaningful statistics and scientific understanding that you definitely don't have, you need to own up to that.

[Ben Kenobi]

The part where your argument begins and ends with "two dudes/chicks can't produce a kid." Yes, and...?

You missed the first two prepositions.

1, that things of the same nature ought to have the same outcome.
2, that words should express an idea of sameness.

Since there are fundamental differences between the union of a man and a woman in marriage, and the union of a man and a man or a woman and a woman, that it makes no sense to use the same word to describe both.

If the child is available to be raised by two men or two women at all, it's pretty safe to say that a life with his/her biological mom & dad is simply not in the cards anyway.

This is not so. There are cases where the mother and father have gotten back together.

[Elok]

Why are you all arguing with him, anyway. He's basing his opinions on religious opinions, which is not unreasonable. What's unreasonable is basing US laws on religious opinion; but we already know Ben disagrees with this. This argument should've been over long ago...

Threadjack. But we all knew it was going to end up here, and the argument I was involved in wasn't going anywhere so what the hell. I'm also vaguely curious to see if he can come up with a secular-sounding argument I haven't heard before. I've heard a lot of them, since I read some right-wing blogs, and the ones that aren't incomprehensible are obviously flawed--as you'd expect, since they're all tiny fig leaves for a religious opinion.

[snoopy369]

Since there are fundamental differences between the union of a man and a woman in marriage, and the union of a man and a man or a woman and a woman, that it makes no sense to use the same word to describe both.

There are fundamental differences between "brick red" and "candy apple red", but they're both called red...

[Lorizael]

How do the studies you are citing define 'good'?

I don't know; how do you define "successful" society? You suggested earlier that a psychologist would probably frown at the notion of factory-raised children, and you're right. That's because psychologists do have criteria for evaluating how well children are raised. You can't have it both ways, BK.

[Ben Kenobi]

your opinions are certainly based in your religion.

You aren't basing them in science or statistics

How is the argument that children do best with their mother and father a religious argument? How is the argument I've presented here arguing that there are fundamental differences in the union of a man and a woman and between a man and a man and a woman and a woman, a religious argument? You can get there from Plato.

[Lorizael]

Plato's philosophy is not a secular philosophy.

[Ben Kenobi]

There are fundamental differences between "brick red" and "candy apple red", but they're both called red...

Are you arguing that sexual preference is fluid and changeable? Because, arguing that the difference is like one of color would seem to presuppose that one would find it easy to shift between one and the other.

[Elok]

You missed the first two prepositions.

1, that things of the same nature ought to have the same outcome.
2, that words should express an idea of sameness.

Since there are fundamental differences between the union of a man and a woman in marriage, and the union of a man and a man or a woman and a woman, that it makes no sense to use the same word to describe both.

The etymological argument. I guess that is a new one for me. It's absurd, but it is a new one. The label we apply to a thing is a matter of linguistic convenience; provided we all understand what's going on (and I think we all do), it doesn't much matter which word we choose to apply. The underlying facts remain the same. Your argument would outlaw homonyms.

This is not so. There are cases where the mother and father have gotten back together.

I'm not entirely sure what scenario you're referring to here, but if it involves a man and a woman raising a child while desperately trying to pretend Mommy isn't a lesbian, I think even the foster home is arguably less likely to mess the kid up.

[Ben Kenobi]

Plato's philosophy is not a secular philosophy.

Well then, you're going to have to define what counts as 'secular'. Secular != Empirical. If you mean empirical than you need to say empirical.