LGBTQ+ Rights and Religion

This. In a pluralist society where everybody is supposed to be your neighbour, there are forms of Christianity I consider very harmful to society at large.

Still wouldn't blanket-stop people adopting kids, though.

"That depends on what basis you have for believing the environment harmful."

Ok, there was the NFSS. It's a pretty solid paper, whatever you may think of the conclusions.

I may believe that being raised with strictly conservative Christian parents is harmful for a child in the long term, but I wouldn't be able to refuse them adoption." ... "This. In a pluralist society where everybody is supposed to be your neighbour, there are forms of Christianity I consider very harmful to society at large."

Same here. There are Christians who I personally know who I would not let adopt. Let's not act as if we disagree if there are bad Christians out there.

"Still wouldn't blanket-stop people adopting kids, though." I think there is a significant difference between blanket stopping Christians from adopting and homosexuals (or thieves. For me, the issue is the same)

This despite the overwhelming empirical evidence that homosexuality does not make parents, by default, abusive? To compare homosexuals to thieves in such a way strikes me as baseless bullshit unless you have some kind of support other than your personal dislike of the former.

My name is Addy. Please call me that instead of my username.

According to the bible, stealing and having homosexual sex are both sins.

Why do you go on about thieves? A lot of the people doing the embezzling I'm talking about are rich, apparently successful, stand tall in the community... etc., etc. And, not banged up behind bars for "thievery", so don't get tarred with that brush. <_< Nor do they see themselves as stealing anything (even though, that is, in effect, what they are doing even if they and those around them are living in denial).

Although their "sin" is there, it's not exactly in the child abuse category. <_< Any more than any homosexual couple's "sin" will be. Or any frothing bigot you care to find. Well, as long as they don't go in for "spare the rod and spoil the child" philosophies taken to dumbass extremes. -_-

I may not agree with tax evasion or avoidance. Any more than I agree with teaching your kids that Christian Science is true. So why is "homosexuality" suddenly up there with knocking over corner-shops for drug money as "bad for kids"? Everybody sins: but some sins directly impact the kids more than others. And, I don't see how homosexuality is much of a concern when you kind of get born with your sexual preferences, anyway. <_< If you don't have it in you, you won't get interested. And, if you do... you may's well watch a stable relationship as you grow up.

And, if you don't happen to be adopting kids to bring up Christian, I don't see why it even matters to a Christian charity that's just supposed to be looking after kids without parents. Surely housing the actual kids should come first? <confused>

edited 3rd Feb '14 6:01:15 AM by Euodiachloris

You do realise your argument here is basically "No samesies. Bad Juju."

I mean, why is it a sin? Do you know? Does anyone know?

"Everybody sins: but some sins directly impact the kids more than others."

You are correct. Considering how deep of an impact parents have on your life. I fail to see how having homosexual parents vs intact family is NOT going to impact your life in a significantly different manner. Lets look at the data for one moment. "Were ever forced to have sex against their will." 8% Intact Family, 25% homosexual family. "Have thought recently about suicide" 5% Intact Family, 12% homosexual family. "Average level of education" (Higher is better) 3.19 Intact Family, 2.64 homosexual family. If you look at the site I'm quoting you see I'm actually understating my case here because I'm using the better of the two numbers from the MLR and FGR conditions.

"I mean, why is it a sin? Do you know? Does anyone know?"

Marriage was instituted by God for one man and one woman under God, for life.

I would question how much those stats are due to the effects of societal prejudices against homosexuality than the parents themselves.

As for the whole "one man one woman" thing I don't see how that's relevant. For one thing that was actually "one man one opposite-sex rib clone of that man". I don't even have an opposite sex rib clone, so who am I supposed to marry?

edited 3rd Feb '14 6:33:31 AM by Elfive

I'd be willing to let someone adopt if they had been convicted of stealing, but had paid their debt to society and had shown themselves to be morally upstanding citizens ever since. Especially if I had reason to believe the original conviction was a wrongful one more based on prejudice than any actual evidence.

The problem is, some people say non-heterosexuality is immoral and others say it isn't. Why should the first group have more say in legal matters like adoption?

Contrasting "intact family" with "homosexual family"—i.e. implying that families with gay parents are automatically not "intact"—is itself a form of discrimination. It's trying to define families with gay parents as "broken" by default.

Not even as an advocate of LGBT rights, as someone who comes from an actual broken family, that comparison is stupid and offensive. People with gay parents who are together at least have two parents there raising them there.

The same precentage for families that divorced later (24%). Are you argumenting against divorce too, now?

"The problem is, some people say non-heterosexuality is immoral and others say it isn't. Why should the first group have more say in legal matters like adoption?"

Given that "people say non-heterosexuality is immoral" is something of the default, a better question is why should the second have more say?

Karalora & Sixthhokage1

First, I'm using the words of the study in describing their results. Second, there was only one participant who had a intact homosexual parents for their whole childhood. I'm willing to admit that the results may be entirely due to the instability of partner changing (see the divorce stats). However, that is a direction for future research, given the very small number of stable homosexual households that raise children throughout their childhood.

I do think Divorce is wrong as well, but that's not the subject of this thread.

Now that I've actually had time to look at it (had to leave for school earlier), I see what the problem is. Regnerus' study is comparing apples to oranges. It is comparing parents in stable relationships to parents who aren't.

At least in Europe 70-90% of people accept homosexuality. [1] And 60% in the USA. Only Russia, Africa and the Muslim countries have huge precentages of homophobic people.

Given that the stats for single parents are roughly the same regardless of sexual orientation and that there are no stats for stable same-sex marriage, there seems to be no indicator that homosexuality has any influence.

edited 3rd Feb '14 7:17:42 AM by Antiteilchen

Outright bigotry (such as defining gay families as broken) and discrimination take their toll on all relationships, even those that would otherwise be stable.

The problem is instability of relationships, and same-sex relationships aren't inherently more or less stable than opposite-sex relationships. Societal norms and laws, however, do their best to break them up.

They weren't defining same-sex relationships as broken. They were only looking at broken same-sex relationships and compared them to stable heterosexual relationships. Insidious and disingenuous.

They were looking at the relationships that a kids parents had and found almost all of the homosexual ones were broken.

Well maybe if they could get married...

Marriage was actually not what determined if a relationship was broken or not. A relationship where there are two partners who are together for the entire childhood is intact even if they are not married. If at some point one partner leaves (through death, divorce, or other) then the relationship is broken.

edited 3rd Feb '14 7:32:57 AM by Soban

What was the criteria for being considered homosexual? There was another study you brought up (might be the same one actually) where the criteria was essentially being bicurious. One same sex sexual encounter does not make someone homosexual.

Wait, and if one person dies, then that's counted as a broken marriage? I mean, I get it, but that's not exactly something that can really be planned for, and maybe having one of the parents die would have a much larger effect than just having one parent?

edited 3rd Feb '14 7:35:55 AM by Zendervai

Not Three Laws compliant.

MLR

child lived with mother (biological or adoptive) who had a same-sex romantic relationship for some period of time

91% of these children lived with their mother while she was in a same-sex relationship; 57% lived with their mother and her partner for at least 4 months; and 23% lived with their mother and her partner for at least 3 years

FGR

child lived with father (biological or adoptive) who had a same-sex romantic relationship for some period of time

42% of these children lived with their father while he was in a same-sex relationship; 24% lived with their father and his partner for at least 4 months; and less than 2% lived with their father and his partner for at least 3 years

I tried to answer the damned question by pointing out the flaw in the logic. I was not bashing being religious, as I am myself a Christian. I could have made myself clearer, but there was an attempt at answering.