Earlier this year, a student in a human rights seminar I was teaching declared her conviction that gay parents damage their children by virtue of being gay. I explained as gently as I could why this is a discriminatory notion, incompatible with human rights standards, and moved on. My student sat as if stunned for two minutes, then gathered her books and left the class.
She later confronted me outside the classroom, and I was astonished to see just how fervently she insisted that her opinion was both based on science and respectful of rights. Neither is true. As New York State joins the ranks of countries and other jurisdictions recognizing same-sex marriage, it's worth reflecting on rights and respect.
The fact is that thousands of human beings are subjected to violence across they globe simply because they are suspected of being gay. In Brazil alone, over 2,500 men were murdered between 1997 and 2007, ostensibly for being gay. In the United States, the It Gets Better Project has highlighted the sustained violence and bullying young people suffer just because they aren't straight. This month, the United Nations Human Rights Council for the first time condemned violence and other human rights violations based on a person's sexual orientation or identity.
Of course, those who oppose same-sex marriage in New York State and elsewhere are not saying they support violence against LGBTQ people. Nevertheless, the same basic proposition lies at the root of both: the notion that you are somehow a different -- lesser -- type of human being if you are not, or are not seen to be, straight, and that society is justified in rejecting you.
For too many people it is only a short leap from seeing homosexuality as offensive to justifying physical harm. In this way, for example, the ban on inter-racial marriage in this country coexisted with societal acceptance of violence against people of color. Many times, inter-racial couples suffered violence precisely because they dared to break the ban.
But perhaps the deepest-held notion is the one that was expressed so vehemently by my student: that all children brought up by LGBTQ persons are psychologically damaged. Fortunately, it is increasingly recognized that it is not exposure to diversity but rather to bigotry and prejudice that is damaging to kids. In 2008, the European Court on Human Rights held that France was not allowed to deny the adoption application of a women just because she was a lesbian. And in February, the High Court in the United Kingdom barred a couple from becoming foster parents because their anti-gay views were held to be potentially harmful to the children who would be in their care.
In fact, research shows that children with gay parents are just as likely to be well-adjusted as children with straight parents, and that the key to childhood adjustment is good relationships between parents and children and between the parents themselves.
Marriage, of course, does not guarantee good relationships. But where family leave and other benefits depend on marital status, children are disadvantaged if their parents are not allowed to marry. The vote in Albany this week is significant because it is another step toward guaranteeing children and adults the rights and respect they are entitled to.
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100% spot on correct!
Luckily, public opinion is moving quickly in our favor and those that use gay hate to get votes will start to find less votes gotten from that strategy.
How about having human rights seminars that actually discuss human rights? Just a suggestion.
Basically you are saying that a household WITH a father and mother is superior to any other situation. There are far too many cases of abuse by two parent families to make such a declaration.
There are all kinds of families out there who provide love and guidance to children. To think that a heterosexual model is superior is denying evidence to the contrary.
See where I am going with this?
You will likely see them, but there will not be as many simply because gays and lesbians are a minority.
This is for all the remaining gay haters out there.
The Wall
Take down this wall
Stone by stone.
Unbuild the hatred
That scars you to the bone.
If you ain't got no love
I'll give you some on loan,
And together we'll make the world
A hate-free zone.
Markus Lastur wrote:
"Hate to break this to you bub, but AIDS around the world is primarily a heterosexuÂal disease.
The first thing that you need to realize is that HIV/AIDS is the result of a virus that really doiesn't discriminaÂte on the basis of sexual orientatioÂn, in fact the overwhelmiÂng majority of those who suffer from this condition around the world are as the result of sexual acts between heterosexuÂals."
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According the CDC although gays make-up less than 10% of the populationÂ, male-to-maÂle sex here in America accounts for more than 50% of AIDS cases. Add to this of the 400,000 deaths from AIDS, 300,000 were gay males. The conclusion we draw from these numbers is clear enough -- male homosexualÂity is morbidly unhealthy.
Both of my birth parents were straight as were my adoptive parents. I grew up in the 50s and 60s in a pretty rigidly heterosexual, staunchly Lutheran family. Guess what? I still turned out gay. I went through years of hoping some miracle would come along to make me straight...it took me until I was 54 to accept myself fully...and that is when the wonderful man I married came into my life.
We deserve respect equal to that given to heterosexuals and their families...we have families, too.
So your argument then ends up being that male homosexuality is morbidly unhealthy in America, while heterosexuality is morbidly unhealthy everywhere else in the world. So, it's better to be gay outside of the US, but to be straight inside the US from a risk perspective.
Also, you will note that you didn't quote the actual research, but rather an attorney's citation of some of the statistics.
Why not quote the entire conclusion? Doing this will put it all in perspective.
A more helpful source for the answer to this question is the opinion of the APA:
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Most scientists today agree that sexual orientatioÂn is most likely the result of a complex interactioÂn of environmenÂtal, cognitive and biological factors. In most people, sexual orientatioÂn is shaped at an early age.... For most people, sexual orientation emerges in early adolescence without any prior sexual experience. ...Sexual orientation exists along a continuum that ranges from exclusive heterosexuality to exclusive homosexuality and includes various forms of bisexuality.
http://www.apa.org/helpcenter/sexual-orientation.aspx
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"There is also considerable recent evidence to suggest that biology, including genetic or inborn hormonal factors, play a significant role in a person's sexuality."
"No, human beings cannot choose to be either gay or straight. For most people, sexual orientation emerges in early adolescence without any prior sexual experience. Although we can choose whether to act on our feelings, psychologists do not consider sexual orientation to be a conscious choice that can be voluntarily changed."
"The reality is that homosexuality is not an illness. It does not require treatment and is not changeable."
http://www.apa.org/helpcenter/sexual-orientation.aspx
Respect is earned, not mandated.
Research also shows that kids deprived of a father in their lives don't fare as well as kids that do. I'm sure that there is research that shows the same about kids without moms in their lives.
The research you refer to is very incomplete and inconclusive (by the authors' own admissions). Thousands of generations of human history trumps, by quite a long shot, your research.
By contrast, children of gay and lesbian couples do JUST as well as children of straight couples!
This is not supported by much evidence, and is only supported by a small amount of evidence.
Actually, no it doesn't. Your argument is the logical fallacy known as the appeal to tradition.
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-tradition.html
Just because something has been a certain way for a long amount of time doesn't imply that a different way cannot produce equivalent results. Therefore one actually needs the research that your deride in order to make such a determination.
Raising kids by those of same-sex orientation has no such demonstrable efficacy.
Bigotry and prejudice do not dissolve with the passing of a law, but having an acceptance for who we truly are has a relationship with the Love we have for ourselves and our ability to express and recognise the same in another.
Perhaps the energy of this Truth and Love can inspire those who condemn those who they see as "different", to look past their judgement as see the person for who that truly are.
Those who ignore the differences in the sexes and don't think kids need to learn how to get along with each exhibit ignorance.
Those who think of gays and lesbians as less than human or not deserving of basic civil rights exhibit bigotry. In no state is a gay or lesbian denied the right to apply for a marriage license.
Not in any dictionary I've ever read. You may want to argue that gay marriage is bad public policy or is bad for children (although you provide no evidence to support that), but you can't call it biogtry. Whereas, denying the civil rights of an entire group is biogtry, no question.
No, it is those who believe that those role models can ONLY be the married , opposite-sex couple raising the child who are bigoted. The two people raising a child ARE NOT the only adults of either gender that child will ever see or interact with.