Kalley Yanta of the Minnesota Marriage Minute explains why marriage should not be redefined because some same-sex couples are raising children:
"Very few same-sex couples are raising children. According to the Williams Institute, only 22% of same-sex couples are raising children. Many if not most of those couples involve children from a previous heterosexual relationship. The census bureau shows only 0.55% of all U.S. households are households of same-sex couples. Only 0.12% of U.S. households are same-sex couples raising children."
31 Comments
Yeah, because we should abandon children and deprive them of legal protections as long as there are only a few of them. That's exactly what Jesus WOULD NOT PREACH. Further, if people like NOM really believed that children of gay and lesbian couples are at a disadvantage to those of heterosexuals, would they really want to harm them EVEN FURTHER by depriving them of the legal rights and protections of our laws? That really makes no sense whasoever. The fact is that these children do exist, and even if there were only a few, society should be trying to protect them and help them, not passing laws and amendments clearly designed to harm them.
Help me with this logic please. It appears that Kalley thinks its OK to enact a new law that would be harmful to children, as long as it only harms a small number of them. That kind of argument would support a "hunger games" amendment just as nicely.
I have a few questions that I would like to ask of those who support the National Organization for marriage. Mostly about that word "for" and maybe a little bit about that word "marriage".
The biggest question is this: what are you "for", exactly? It would be a great plus if you could explain without using the term "marriage". Please spell it out - perhaps something like "the lifelong union of man and woman..." - whatever that thing is to your mind, however you wish to express it.
Also, if you would, please mention why you are for it. It needn't be a moral or legal argumentation for anything, but if that's how you prefer to respond, that's fine. But whatever this thing is that you are for, that you support, what are the things - or even any single thing - that make you want to support it?
Thanks!
-Daniel
Okay, so how many gay people would need to have children before their claims could be taken seriously?
25%?
45%?
75%?
Or as I suspect, you wouldn't give a crap even if it was 100%?
Is my right to own a firearm dependent on how many others own them? Irrelevant.
I wish that patronizing, self-righteous boney-faced witch would mind her own business
MrRoivas,
Firstly; the noted percentages were very generous towards the marriage corruption side.
More importantly; it would probably take a solid 51% for society to consider redefining a foundational institution. I imagine you believe we should change our official language to Spanish because nearly ten percent of the population claims it as their native language.
Successful societies do not base their core institutions on the exception to the rule; that particular form of government is reserved for tyrants.
I would guess that well over 25% of polygamous families have children. We have not redefined marriage to accommodate those families.
True, numbers don't matter. It shouldn't matter how many gay couples have children, marriage should remain as it is, and the gay couples will have to tell their children that what they have is not a marriage, as a marriage takes a man and a woman. What they want to call it after that is up to them.
Great video. Why, indeed, should the 99.88% change to accommodate the .12%? Excellent!
"Or as I suspect, you wouldn't give a crap even if it was 100%?"
The sexual orientation, or even private sexual behavior of the parents is irrelevant to how marriage is defined, or to parental responsibilities. If a "gay" person creates a child, they always do so in partnership with a person of the opposite sex, and thus obligate themselves to that person to marry and raise their child together.
Children have the right to be raised by a married mother and father, regardless of whether or not one or both parents are "gay."
"Gay" is irrelevant.
@resist, the 99.88% DON'T change, whether or not the .12% have the contested legal rights. I testify as married man living in NY State. My marriage with my wife is just as legally valid as it was before. My paternity of our child is just as legally valid as it was before. I love her just as much as I did before SSM was legalized. Our relationship is just as conjugal as it was before. Straight couples are still getting married and having babies, just as they were before. It doesn't seem like anything has been redefined in NY.
As DoE so succinctly pointed out, no "gay" couple has ever produced a child. 100% of children in the possession of a same-sex couple was conceived from a man-woman union. These children have been separated from at least one of their rightful parents.
This is a fact the opposition would like us to gloss over. That's why I continue to repeat it
Another excellent video from MN for Marriage!
Equal treatment is equal treatement of everyone. It only takes one child in a same-sex household to demonstrate un-equal treatgement.
Scrounger -
I addressed your red-herring argument about the lack of short-term negative effects of so-called SS"M" on another thread. Bottom line is, whether it causes harm to society or not is a long-term proposition; but that's irrelevant anyway. What's relevant is that the gov't and society have no interest in the coupling of same-sex couples since they are unable to serve the purpose of marriage; that is the union of men and women and their offspring for the betterment, stability and perpetuation of society.
@Resist: and I addressed your contention that procreation is the ONLY purpose for marriage, which it isn't, even if it's a pretty important one. I addressed Barb's argument about difference between biological and legal parents, but the moderator blocked it. Why, I have no idea.
OvercameSSA - You make a good argument, goverment doesn't have in interest in same-sex couples procreating because they can't. However, the goverment does have an interest children being raised in stable loving homes, which same-sex couples can provide.
@Carlos, Same-sex friendships are not marriage, regardless if they deny a child their right to a mother and father.
The only same-sex friendship that ought to be treated anything like marriage are the ones that meet this standard:
So now should we change the official language of the United States to Spanish in order to accomodate the ten percent of the population that consider Spanish to be their native language?
The marriage corruption movement is based on devision; not unity.
Interesting that most of the comments regarding "why should [large percentage] accommodate [small percentage]" seem to be addressing [small percentage] as parents who are same-sex couples. Isn't the [small percentage] we should be worried about the kids being raised by same-sex parents? Kids have no choice about their circumstances so accommodating their "preferences" is not really the issue.
Carlos says, "However, the goverment does have an interest children being raised in stable loving homes, which same-sex couples can provide."
Ding-ding-ding! We have a point of revelation here:
IF, in fact the government has an interest in children being raised in stable loving homes by same-sex couples, MARRIAGE is NOT the institution for that purpose!!!!! Why? Because marriage is for uniting moms and dads with their OFFSPRING!
Now, if the government and society sees an interest in providing for kids of same-sex couples, it can do so through other legal means, such as adoption laws, foster care laws, etc.... But it doesn't and shouldn't do that through marriage because all kids adopted by same-sex couples have been deprived of at least one of their parents, the VERY THING that marriage is designed to prevent!
Just because kids are involved does not equate the male-female couple to the same-sex couple. They are distinctly different and marriage makes that important distinction, rightly treating them differently.
Randy E King writes:
Are you under the impression that the US has an official language? It doesn't.
Furthermore, you've inverted your analogy. Because the law in question is not an attempt by the minority to impose change. The contemplated law, if anything, is an attempt to use the tyranny of the masses to impose homogeny in a heterogeneous society. And as the wise man said, we should "stand together in opposition" to efforts that seek to "impose uniformity in thought and action throughout the entire society". (thanks, chairm!)
OvercameSSA writes:
I trust we can agree that society & government DO have an interest in seeing that kids are provided for. Perhaps we can even go a step further and agree that society & government reasonably prefer that the kids' parents step up to that responsibility, provided that they are able to. This interest is evident, even with unmarried parents, in the way the courts step in to garner child support from absentee dads.
And for kids whose biological parents are unable or unwilling, society sees fit to transfer that parental responsibility to others who ARE fit & willing. Thats the need that adoption laws address - the transfer of parental responsibility.
But what about the legal provisions that would empower the adoptive parents to best meet the parental obligations they've accepted? The provisions that provide the stability and security important to couples who are raising children? It is NOT the adoption laws that provide this, it is MARRIAGE law.
Check your logic, OvercameSSM. Because you are essentially saying that children who have already been deprived of one or both biological parents should ALSO be deprived of stability in the household that has accepted parental responsibility for them. Where kids are concerned, THAT is (as you put it):
Dan says: "The provisions that provide the stability and security important to couples who are raising children? It is NOT the adoption laws that provide this, it is MARRIAGE law."
Perhaps that's true. So, if adoptive parents want those provisions, they should be lobbying for changes to the adoption laws, not corrupt the marriage law and turn it into something it is not intended to be.
I'm not saying that children who have already been deprived of a parent should be deprived of a household; I'm saying that marriage is not the solution for it. Marriage has an entirely different purpose, dealing only with offspring and their biological parents. Leave marriage alone, and find other ways to get whatever you believe to be lacking in your life.
Daniel,
"Furthermore, you've inverted your analogy. Because the law in question is not an attempt by the minority to impose change."
Did you actully think about that statement before hand? Your whole movement is that of the minority attempting to change the traditional meaning of marriage.
Are you seriously incappable of discenrning the differences between same gendered and opposite gendered relations?
I will leave you with one truth most people hold to be self evident:
Procreation: to beget or bring forth (offspring)
Daniel is mistaken.
The marriage law does not do what adoption law does: reassign a child to the stability of a child-parent relationship.
Overall, the adult homosexual population is not a pool of reliable and stable adult relationships for whom society ought to carve out special privileges regarding adoption of children.
Adoption is for children in need, not for fulfilling the neediness of adults. Adoption ought not be turned into an affirmative action program for the adult homosexual population.
J. Wardley your comment at #1 is ridiculous because Jesus would NEVER say that a perverted relationship like homosexuality was a marriage! That is blasphemous...........
Please take your 22%, 0.55%, and 0.12% and be quiet. Your spin of the numbers and arrogance is plain and simple hateful and un-Christian.
Make no doubt about it: you are hurting children! Your rhetoric drives depression and suicide. You harm the children who are in loving (same sex) parented households, many of whom -- such as my two adopted, former foster care sons -- are enjoying the first love, stability, and success in their life. These children come from YOUR heterosexual relationships that YOUR people and YOUR "straight community" and YOUR churches do not know how to raise and protect.
As far as I'm concerned, the "straight community" has a lot of explaining and apologizing to do for how it ruins the institution of marriage (with a 50% divorce) rate and destroys the lives of its children through epidemic abuse and neglect. Shame on you. You should be using your money and energy to judge, educate, and help save your own community and the children you produce and whose lives your destroy. The children in foster care are not the children of gay and lesbian relationships! Look in the mirror and confront your own reality and harmful ways, and hypocrisy. Gay and lesbian parents (of former foster children) are due nothing but a loud and respectful AMEN and thank you, for helping to save the children that you and your *community* try to destroy. I fiercely protect my children and their right to a happy and safe living life ... and there is nothing more Christian, human, or American that that.
LEAVE US ALONE! We are tired of being hurt and judged by you, and you are not worthy to judge us and hurt our children and families.
The oldie but a Goodie
And while one can easily frame an argument that Person A has an equal protection right to marry because he is just like Person B who is allowed to marry, this equal protection argument does nothing to establish that all Persons A, B, C... possess the fundamental right to marry, or what the right to marry means. The due process and equal protection arguments for a fundamental right to marry are conclusions in need of justification themselves, not explanations.
Hear nothing but appeals to emotion from the LGBT.
As the European Council on Human Rights has ruled, same sex couples do not possess the Basic Human Right to Marriage
Chairm writes:
I never said it did. I quite specifically said that marriage law and adoption law do two different things. I said that adoption law reassigns parental responsibilities, and that marriage empowers the couple to better meet those responsibilities.
Chairm writes:
Thankfully, nobody is seeking any special privileges regarding adoption of children. Some seek EQUAL privileges to be fairly considered as potential adoptive parents. And any such couple, regardless of sexual orientation, ought to be subject to close scrutiny regarding their reliability and stability. They certainly ought not be given preferential treatment just because they are part of a pool of people. Goes EQUALLY for the heterosexual population, which has shown its own imperfections re: reliability, stability, and concern for childrens' best interests.
Chairm writes:
Ought not? More like, ISN'T. Adoption isn't being turned into an affirmative action program for anyone. It is for children in need,not for fulfilling the neediness in adults. And not for satisfying anyones need for a political hot button to pontificate about.