Bill would limit Reproduction Procedures for Gays and Singles

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This doesn't seem quite right. Maybe we are defining terms differently. Of course, I didn't mention celibacy, but it seems like we need to define them both to be clear on what we mean. I went to the dictionary for this one:

So a married couple could only be considered chaste if we are going by the second definition of the word, unless the married couple aren't having sex, which I imagine is rather ... unusual. The difference between celibate and chaste seems very murky indeed, as celibate is used to define chaste in the third definition. Just for the heck of it though, I looked up celibate too:

It seems the first definition lines up pretty well with the definition of chaste. Different degrees, but all include not having sex. The second definition is interesting, although I admit that I have never heard of celibate being used this way. In the second definition, one could not possibly be both married and celibate. To be fair, I have also heard the word chaste used to mean purity, although that definition didn't appear in the dictionary. Maybe that's what you meant. Nakia, how would you define the two words?

 

@Aldeth: Marital intercourse is lawful, so it doesn't interfere with chastity. Chastity is abstinence from unlawful intercourse, while sometimes virginity vows are referred to as chastity vows. Guess there's some confusion in terms.

@Felinoid: First, don't necessarily associate pathology with people hitting each other on the head with empty bottles before raping their children. Pathology is a change of the natural state that leads to unnatural consequences. A change in the human body is referred to as pathological if it isn't natural but caused by some particular factors that don't normally take place, as well as causes an undesirable result. This is the case with homosexualism. Also, yes, it is a medical condition. Anyone who has too much faith in APA's verdict a couple of decades ago should do a bit more reading on the circumstances surrounding that verdict (violent demonstrations of pro-gay activists, threats etc).

As for the law, you again think that you know everything about the law just because you've heard about one hypothetical rule from the constitution. Firstly, that's obviously a delusion. Secondly, there's no such right as to adopt children in the American constitution. It's just activists who call everything they come up with a constitutional right.

I could revert what you say and point out that children have rights. This includes children still in the womb and even hypothetical children who will be citizens with the totality of civil and other rights when they are actually born. What with their rights? Rights of children are spelt out in countless bills and international treaties. Activists as any lobbists tend to remain oblivious to the rights of people on the other side of fence or even those collaterally affected by their claims and actions. A lawyer's job is to sort those things out and find some balance between contradicting interests for the sake of the parties involved and for the sake of justice. Law is basically about giving to each what's his own and the art of good and right. This demands to consider more than just the loud shouting and peculiar logic of politically backed civil rights movements.

Your logic is limping because it's you who want the existing adoption procedures designed to provide children with a substitute of the natural family in order that they can be supported and reared properly. If you want to enhance the group of people entitled to adopt, you need to provide reasons as it's you who demand action. One of the first things they should teach in a law school is probatio incumbit ei qui dicit non ei qui negat.

Your case is stronger with people who are single or even with homosexuals who have children through natural means. Still, you are in opposition to the natural order of things, believing that your political ideas are fit to amend what nature wasn't fit to provide, therefore it's up to you to conduct the proof for your claims, not for anyone else to conduct negative proof and back up the negation -- even if this is actually being done.

 

Sorry, Aldeth, I still think canonically about some things. Celibate is abstaining from sex. Chaste is purity in thought, word and deed. "As a man (woman) thinketh in his own heart so is he." To me they mean two different things. The dictionary definition is interesting because members of religious communities normally take a vow of Chastity. The act of celibacy follows from the fact that they are considered married to the church. Chev would know the actual rules better than I do.

As far as homosexuals being allowed to adopt children I believe that the jury is still out. I was raised by a single mother but was her birth child not adopted. Did I have problems because of it? Yes but would have had much worse problems had she stayed married to my father. Raising children is not a simple procedure and anyone thinking of adopting should consider it carefully.

 

Right. And I mentioned that in my post. It seems possible to be married and chaste going by the second definition of chaste, but not married and celibate.

Obviously, adoption is not a Constitutional right, but that doesn't mean it isn't a right that people possess - it only means it's not a federally mandated right. If you didn't have a right to adopt children, all adoptions would be illegal. The point I was making is that I think it's better to enact a law that says you have to be married to adopt than to have a law that says you cannot adopt if you are gay. All factors being equal, married couples tend to be more economically empowered than single people, and therefore provide a better environment for children. If you just ban gays, you are somehow claiming that a single gay person is a worse parent than a single straight parent, which requires some strange reasoning. Still, I'm not completely sold on the "married to adopt" concept either. What if a single person has the means to properly provide for a child? I think that adoption laws are so tricky because there is no single defining criteria we can set for what makes an acceptable parent.

 

Naaah. You are technically right, as you can't adopt children without having a right to. But the same way, whatever you do in whatever circumstance that isn't outlawed, you have a right to do. So you have a right to eat the kebab you've just paid for (but not before) or get N bucks off someone's account the moment your cheque from him is cashable and so on and so forth. You have a right to use procedure XYZ to get unfavourable administrative decision altered in your favour. Or paint your ceiling pink with white dots. Whatever. Of course, you have the right to adopt children just because it's legal for you. But you can't go like "I have a right to adopt children because it's legal for me. Because I have the right to adopt children, it should be legal for me." The chief concern here is supplying children with a house and when you meet the right conditions and they choose you, you have the right to adopt, as you have the right to reward in a contest you win or to a stipend you've met the criteria for.

I really claim that, you know. Not as a total absolute without exception but as a general rule. You can't learn sexual behaviour from a parent who has the patterns twisted. I'm against taking natural children away because of this, but surely against adoption by such potential adoptive parents.

 

Then so is heterosexualism. I'll look into fixing that as soon as I've got time.

Wrong again. I know enough about the law to see a major violation when I see one (specifically excluding one group for no reason) and question when I see something that might be. I do not claim to know everything about the law, but I wonder when a lawyer consistently does not point out whatever small law I may be missing and instead spouts things about a subject which he knows little about (medicine). I don't mind if you get technical (I've got a dictionary) and anything I learn from you about law can only help me in the future. So fire away.

No you are. (What did I say before about that carrying no weight?)

Proof is required for change. I need not provide proof to give them something they already have. You, on the other hand, would not be required to provide proof if there were already legislation preventing it. There is not.

Perhaps some qualifiers need to be added to make your point.

But you can't go like "I currently have a right to adopt children because it's currently legal for me, and because I currently have the right to adopt children, it should always be legal for me."

Laws change all the time, and thinking that you should have a particular right forever is naive. But a change must be proven necessary. Gay people already have the right to adopt by way of there not being any current legislation against it. So any attempt to change that should be supported by sufficient proof to warrant the change.

Now, the proposed law (which is what started this whole discussion, if you remember) is completely legal, and will probably even be passed once they get the religious stipulation out of there. And gay couples will be excluded from adopting simply because they cannot be married. A cheap way to get results, but effective nonetheless. It does some collateral damage to straight couples who want to adopt, but I doubt the drafters of the law care much about that; after all, the straight couples can just get married.

 

There's no place for "then" there. You are starting off from the mistake of putting heterosexualism and homosexualism on an equal level, which is not the case. The fact that homosexualism is a disorder doesn't prove that heterosexualism is one. Same way, you could say going after adults if you are one is a medical condition just because paedophilia is.

Yeah, yeah, all citizens know enough of the law by inuition to figure everything out. It's just we lawyers who complicate easy things.

There's no medical argument in favour of homosexualism being normal. The fact that some medical professionals claim it is, doesn't make their political, social or wishful thinking based arguments medical. I have yet to see a medical argument.

That is rich. I am opposing the natural order of gaydom, you mean?

Still the limping logic. Who says they have it? You?

There is already legislation spelling out who can adopt children under what circumstances. Screwing around with things and stretching definitions to include gay friendly options is the change you talk about, whether we talk about adoption, marriage or whatever else.

Erm... where does that drive at?

Pursuing change for its own sake is more than naive. It's foolish and largely suicidal. Well, but you do admit that the need for change needs to be proved.

Where? How? Children are meant to be adopted by married couples. Marriage is between a man and a woman. If there happens to be a leaking legislation somewhere, allowing lefty rogue lawyers to screw around with semantics doesn't mean the rest of the world has it like that.

That's rich. Perhaps gay people already have the right to marry people of the same gender and we're taking it away from them?

One good reason but there are others. First, I don't want children to end up given away to inherently unstable free unions or single people without much intention to found a proper family. Next, I don't want children to pick up any kind of gay-specific behaviour from adoptive parents. I don't even want those children to grow to believe homosexualism is normal, in fact.

And they should before thinking of children. Children deserve to be brought up in something else than a free union that can be broken at will.

 

Abuse of alcohol is a deviation from Social mores. By your logic, it can't be used to deny one who abuses alcohol the right to adopt.

The second part is not overtly stated, but the state in question doesn't grant Gay's the right to marry, therefore they can't adopt because the law explicitly states the first part.

Actually, if it is a decision, then some learning has to take place to enable that decision. To choose chastity, you need to learn to spot the dangers that threaten to interfere with that choice, and what all is included. The two are not mutually exclusive either. I also used Nakia's definition of Chastity there. Further, I categorically reject the biological deterministism of claims that homosexuality is genetic/pathological/natural/anything other than a choice. We are given the freedom to choose, and nothing in our own biology can rob us of that, only our own decisions will lead us to those paths. Further, I've heard that sex can be a dangerous addiction. If they experiment with homosexuality, and decide they like it, they can become hooked, thus perpetrating the feeling that they have no choice...

These are the people that bitch about the bible or prayer in school, then bitch when their children lie, cheat, steal, kill and hate everyone around them.

But what of a child who's parents die while they are yet children, or those born to unmarried women and the father abandons them, and the mother feels unable to provide for the child. Or those children born to incompetent/dangerous parents? It is those children that we are concerned with.

My hat is off to those defenders of traditional morality that have found a way to protect the children from such immorality and doing it such that no federal law or activist Judge can screw it up.

 

This may just be the problem right here. You believe it is a disorder, I believe it is not. There is no solid medical argument either way. But if it is a disorder, they should be admitted to mental hospitals for treatment. While they remain free, they should have all the rights that their other circumstances permit them.

I'm going to assume that's a comeback joke, so yeah, why not? (But in case you didn't get the sarcasm the first time, let me just say that if you want me to remain civil, you'll have to allow for at least one joke in each of my posts. If I don't keep it light, I tend to get a little teste. )

Not there, but later on. The passage you quoted was meant as a generic statement, but I guess it didn't come out that way. For example, I would not need to prove that a you or I should be allowed to adopt (or have a pet, or drink coffee). We have every right to do so, and unless someone proves that it will will be harmful in some way, we (and everyone else who has it) should keep that right. That's all I was saying.

As for the rest of it:
I don't know what the laws are in Poland, but we do not yet have any laws barring gay adoption or marriage here. (At least where I live; I don't know about other states.) Of course there are extremely few churches or adoption agencies that would grant their services to a gay couple, but there is no specific prohibition from gays acquiring the services of a church or agency that would allow it. So there ought to be proof that it's necessary to change that.

Just took a look at the article again and it actually has little to do with adoption. How did we get this far off-topic? Well, let me throw an on-topic curveball at you then. If gays should be denied "assisted reproduction" because they are biologically unable to conceive, then shouldn't assisted reproduction be out-lawed altogether? After all, it's meant to bypass such kicks out of the gene pool as lazy sperm, impotence, or the necessity of genital removal for survival. These are judgements by God that these people should never (or no longer) reproduce, so what right do we have to circumvent that?

@Gnarf:

No, it can't. Abusive behaviour must be proved first before a outright prohibition can be slapped on an individual. I'm sure alcoholics would be weeded out by the adoption agencies, though.

I've never met anyone that publicly hypocritical. There are people on each side, of course, but I've never heard of anyone who was stupid enough to contradict themselves in such a manner.

In the event of an absolute truth, it would be too f***ing bad for those kids. Thankfully it's not, and we DO have adoption.

I too am impressed at their ingenuity, and they deserve their win. I'd rather it was expanded to include ALL assisted reproduction in order to boost adoption, but you can't always get what you want. *shrug*

[ October 08, 2005, 06:48: Message edited by: Felinoid ]

 

But they can weed them out. We're just haggling over which criterion to allow.

You have a point. There are many children that deserve to be a part of a loving home that are denied that because people would rather have "their own" children. Adoption ought to be about extending the love of a family to a child...

 

I simply agree with Kazadman.

 

Yes, I am; so are they. IMO, there are already enough safeguards (and loopholes for 'bad feelings') at the agency level that putting an outright ban on any particular group is simply overkill. At least let them get their hopes up so you can dash them on the pointy rocks of prejudicial reality.

 

Do you really need anyone to refute that statement? There have been numerous studies performed that show alcoholics have many, many issues beyond abuse of alcohol. They tend to go through mood swings, be abusive, have less money (from spending it all on alcohol), etc., so that there are many secondary conditions from being an alcoholic that makes them unfit parents. Again, you can prove that these people would be unfit parents, and thus it would be completely just to deny them the right to adopt.

Correct. And once again, I stated that you can reasonably justify the law stating you have to be married to adopt. Two-parent households are typically more economically empowered than single-parent households, and therefore, are better able to provide for children. I would think that one of the pieces of material that you have to provide an adoption agency is your most recent tax return. Ii would expect that someone who is on welfare would not be in a position to adopt a child, and would be turned down, even if their motives behind adopting a child were good.

That having been said, I had a professor in college who was single and did adopt a child. She could show that, as a tenured professor, she could afford the child. AFAIK she wasn't gay, but she was single, and so for her, the main argument for preventing her to adopt (economic inferiority) was mitigated due to her profession.

That's why I was saying that generally speaking, the best choice for the child would be to give it to married parents, so the onus to prove to be a fit parent would be on singles attempting to adopt. Given that there are many more children who need to be adopted than there are willing parents to accept them, I think that excluding all singles is a poor decision. My college professor is an excellent example of a single who could properly care for a child. On the other hand, a waitress who works until late at night and doesn't make much money is a good example of a single who would not make a good parent.

I still feel that each case has to be considered on its own merits. As I already stated, there is no single criterion on what makes a good parent. There exists a confluence of many, many factors, some of which are necessary (like not being an alcoholic) while some are simply preferred (like being married). While it would be great if we could place every child needing to be adopted into a perfect scenario, statistics show us that there simply aren't enough perfect situations out there to meet the needs of all the children. As a result, it is preferable to place as many children into homes where the parent(s) meet all the necessary conditions, even if they only meet some, but not all, of the preferable conditions. Doesn't this make sense to you?

Then there is probably nothing I can do to change your mind. I feel that you are born that way. While I agree that every person makes decisions on their sex life, and that anyone who engages in homosexual activities made that choice, I do not think that individuals have control over who they are attracted to. That's like asking me why I found my wife attractive. The answer simply cannot be that she was an adult woman of child bearing age, because there are a great number number of people that fit that criteria who I do not find attractive. I can't explain why I find my wife attractive, but I can tell you that it was a feeling that I had, and not a calculated decision. What I'm saying is I couldn't decide to not find my wife attractive.

Yeah, I've heard this. In fact I think there is actually a medical term for it (nymphomania, maybe?). But I still don't think you can turn somebody gay. Even if you are hooked on sex, if you don't find the same sex attractive, I doubt that you'd try to get your fix by someone of the same sex. It would be easier to just get a prostitute. Regardless of whether or not that happens is irrelevent though, because your argument undermines itself in that someone who is gay and also addicted to sex would find that they would have more potential partners by switching to the opposite sex (as most people aren't gay). If someone really needed sex and it didn't matter with who, you'd have many more people going hetero than homo to maximize their chances.