The user known as Danielle used dishonest tactics in her same-sex parenting debate.

I think that the rounds will be considerably more organized from now. The first one consisted of simply quoting everything I could find that I believe to be dishonest. Number 1. "Pro is using a blatant strawman. In his copy and pasting of our dialog, Pro completely left out my Round 3 rebuttal in which I explained why his argument did not address mine. What I said in response to his accusation that I was exploiting the word "can" in R3 is that he needed to provide the specific qualities of good parenting that explicitly pertain to heterosexuals. After all, my argument was that there weren't any good parenting qualities that heterosexuals posess that gay people do not (on balance) possess -- NOT that gay people can have good parenting qualities. Those are 2 totally different positions, and Pro only responded to the latter which is irrelevant." For all of my opponent's excuses, this is still obviously an exploitation. My case never was that heterosexuals had specific characteristics that homosexuals could NOT possess. By saying that you are essentially saying that some homosexuals have those traits. You were pushing the burden onto me to prove that gays could not have those characteristics. In other words, you could prove that some homosexuals did have those characteristics (and would thus be capable of raising children effectively) and claim that they proved me wrong. If this is not an accurate description of your intentions, then I'd like to ask: What exactly did you hope to gain through this argument other than proving that homosexuals COULD have the characteristics to raise children properly? Number 2. "Next, Pro says that I used an irrelevant study that talked about the differences between two-parent households vs. single-parent households. I never denied this. My explanation as for why this was pertinent to my side is that having two parents is simply better than having one (Pro agreed) as the study indicated. That was never in dispute. I never used this study to confirm that two gay parents were better than having a single parent as Pro is accusing." Let's look at what you said: "A UC Berkeley study finds that data indicates there is a visible benefit to having a two-parent family, regardless of whether the couple is married, heterosexual, or same-sex." Obviously there will be benefits to being raised by two parents, for obvious reasons (which I pointed out). Con was simply trying to use other gay marriage arguments ("think of the kids they'll adopt!") into the debate which had nothing to do with the resolution. However, whether or not same-sex couples are better than a single parent means absolutely nothing. "Instead, my point in highlighting the study on two parents vs. one was that every single benefit included in that study as for why two parents were better than one could be emulated or achieved by gay couples just as well as straight couples. In order to combat this, Pro would have had to pick something out of that study that proved only a male/female dynamic could achieve the benefits mentioned in the article (dual income, more support, etc.) - or that a male/female dynamic would be more likely to emulate certain characteristics compared to gay couples. Of course, Pro could not pick a single thing from the study that explained why the second parent had to be opposite-sex in order for the benefits of two parents to apply or even be more likely." Dual income and more support are advantages over single-parent families. These things are obviously beneficial, but they don't prove anything else. What Con is trying to insinuate here is that these benefits are the only good things that parents can have, which would of course be shown by the study to apply to both traditional and same-sex couples. This is ridiculous for obvious reasons. As I have said, the study was not designed nor capable of finding discrepancies between how effectively same-sex couples parented in comparison to regular ones, or find (as Con said) certain characteristics that would more likely be emulated by traditional couples. In addition, I'd like the readers to note that she seems to have forgotten all about her previous point in which she demanded that I prove that homosexuals could NEVER have certain characteristics and claims that traditional couples "being more likely to emulate" them was enough. This is enough to prove that it was deliberate rather than a simple misunderstanding. Hilariously, she also used this in the comments after the debate in order to convince people to vote for her: "He was arguing (but never proved) that there are parenting traits that ONLY a man or ONLY a woman can inherently possess, which of course is absurd." Absurd indeed. Number 3. "Ladies and gentlemen, Pro cannot simply assert that a smoke and mirror tactic was used. That is completely false, hence why he provided exactly zero explanation as for how this tactic is allegedly in place. My rebuttal was completely legitimate and Pro failed to address it. I stand by it 100 percent. He said that kids with gay parents CAN turn out fine, and I pointed out that likewise, kids with straight parents CAN turn out fine. The point is that we are arguing based on generalities. Instead of responding to the actual argument - that kids with gay parents such as the one I referenced typically acknowledge that they aren't missing out on anything - Pro decided to once again attack the word "can." First, let's look at what was said: Con: "There are innumerable people raised by gay parents who turn out perfectly well adjusted, and note that they didn't miss out on any father/ mother figures in their life." Then she said: "The real purpose of this point was to combat the notion that children needed two opposite-sex parental figures in order to gain certain benefits." Again, she shoved the burden to prove that children NEEDED opposite-sex parents to have proper care. In other words, I now had to prove that they had characteristics that gay couples could never have. But let's continue: "The exact same comment can be applied to kids with heterosexual parents. They CAN turn out fine, but there are no guarantees. I included a plethora of evidence indicating that the vast majority of kids with gay parents turn out just fine." You realize, after looking at this, was that she never addressed my rebuttal whatsoever. She NEVER justified her reasoning behind her previous comments (which I rightly pointed out were semantics). Instead, she turned around and made an accusation which had nothing to do with what we were talking about to distract voters. "As you can see, Pro was completely desperate to make it seem as if I was exploiting the resolution instead of trying to make a good rebuttal to my contentions. To combat the notion that kids with gay parents were missing out, Pro should have provided specific (including anecdotal) or even theoretical examples of things that kids with gay parents GENERALLY miss out on. Instead, he focused on the fact that kids with gay parents CAN be raised just as well, instead of arguing that they are generally NOT raised just as well." No, you focused on the fact that "kids with gay parents CAN be raised just as well." I did give theoretical examples of things that kids with gay parents generall miss out on, but before I quote them, let me just point out this this rebuttal had absolutely nothing to do with my accusation of it being an avoidance tactic. Here's what I said: "Mothers tend to speak soothingly and softly in repetitive rhythms to their infants and snugly hold them. Fathers tend to provide more verbal and physical stimulation than mothers.As babies grow older, many come to prefer playing with their fathers who provide unpredictable, stimulating, and exciting interaction." Recent evidence also shows that fathers differentially impact brain development. Without the father's spontaneous and energetic playing, the child's left hemisphere develops improperly." I also provided sources to back these up. Nevertheless, these are not characteristics that ONLY straight couples can ever have, contrary to her dishonest claims. Her ridiculous "rebuttal" was this: "Nowhere did he establish that biological ties to parents were significantly important. He presented a study that demonstrated the quality of care infants receive affecting their development. This source never said that the care had to come from biological parents. The same thing applies to Con"s other sources-- the study indicating the benefits of rough and tumble play never mentioned the importance of the father figure"s DNA. Instead it noted the benefits of the interaction, but did not discount the same benefits from similar interaction experienced by kids with two moms or two dads." 1. My claims had absolutely nothing to do and were not dependent on having the children be biologically related to the parents or sharing their DNA. A blatant lie to disguise the fact that she couldn't even remotely refute my claims. 2. Of course it did not discount the same benefits from similar interaction experienced by kids with two moms or two dads. This is another instance of resolution exploitation as she is saying that gay parents technically could give the same benefits. What she should have done was show that homosexual couples often did give the same benefits, which she obviously did not do. The above seems to be a separate point from the rest, so I'd like Con to address it as number thirteen to keep things organized. Number 4. "First of all, my explanation makes perfect sense. Earlier in the debate, Pro said that some kids with gay parents suffered from depression. I pointed out that it was possible but not the norm. In response to this contention, Pro acknowledges that unplanned pregnanices and the subsequent lack of attention or care was also possible but not the norm. My response was that we must focus on the norms only, and not only what is possible. Hence, I agreed to drop the argument all-together, but pointed out why this response from Pro also negated his argument about anecdotal depression." I don't recall you saying that "we must focus on the norms only and not only what is possible," but whatever. This argument is wrong because it has absolutely nothing to do with each couples' parenting capabilities, and because unplanned pregnancies are not inevitable aspects of heterosexual relationships. Furthermore, she has completely ignored my accusation of smoke-and-mirroring. She did not address my original rebuttal whatsoever but simply went and used it to attack me on the depression argument. "Clearly, his response had absolutely nothing to do with what I said in the previous round: that if Pro intended to use anecdotal instances of depression of kids with gay parents, that I could use anecdotal evidence to prove that unplanned pregnancies (which account for half of heterosexual pregnancies) tend to result in subpar parenting compared with planned pregnancies, as almost all gay pregnancies are. In the end, we both agreed to drop anecdotal arguments, so Pro is completely wasting our time with this bogus accusation. This too has been negated." This is another lie, because I NEVER used anecdotal evidence to establish that homosexuals were depressed. Rather, I claimed that homosexual relationships themselves were unhealthy and led to depression and other emotional or mental problems (I conceded this for unrelated reasons, not because of what Con falsely claims). This means that they were inherently tied with homosexual relationships, in contrast to unplanned pregnancies which are entirely avoidable. Number 5. "Honestly, I am truly baffled by some of the arguments Pro is suggesting were dishonest. He next talks about how I explained that what a parent does in the bedroom has little to no bearing on their ability to parent effectively; instead what's important is the attention and care that a child receives. By his own admission, Pro completely failed to make a rebuttal to this point. When I pointed that out, he said he didn't have to because it was irrelevant and unnecessary to his argument. On the contrary, Pro had a responsibility to respond because it was a contention for MY case. If Pro didn't negate it (and he didn't), then it counts as a point in my favor. My point - as I repeated - was that since what a parent does in the bedroom has no relevance to parenting capabilities, that who one chooses to have sex with (the only differentiation between gay and straight people!) has no relevance to parenting capabilities. This was one of the most important arguments of my case, and Pro never negated this in our entire debate." Con has decided to completely ignore my entire accusation and instead repeat herself. Let me put it in a simpler form. 1. Con claimed that sex lives had nothing to do with parenting skills. 2. I claimed that: a) kids needed a mother and a father b) homosexual relationships (not sex lives) were unhealthy 3. Con repeated herself and said that she had won the point. 4. I pointed out that she had won nothing because: a) I never claimed that sex lives affected parenting skills b) the fact that sex live don't affect parenting skills had no bearing on my case 5. Con repeated herself again and claimed that she had won the point. What she was doing here was pretending that she had won something when she simply rehashed an illelvant point over and over again. I said that this was a strawman. As for now, I have nothing to refute until my opponent actually addresses my accusation. Number 6. "It's completely untrue that my intention was to distract Pro and the audience. It's also ludacris to suggest that Pro not have to back up a broad psychological assertion without any evidence. Sorry, but asking for sources is not lawyering. Even if Pro's assertions were accurate (and paternal instincts definitely exist), I needed to see the specific points mentioned in a given study to explain that while a father might have certain biological compulsion for care giving, that kids with gay parents would not necessarily miss out. Biological ties alone do not signify good parenting traits, as evidenced by the millions of children with absent fathers. Pro has to explain that biological ties were significant determining factors in one's ability to parent." I do not have to explain that biological ties affect parenting skills. That was entirely in response to her assertion that moderate interaction with other males could provide the same benefits as close interaction with a father. Had she been arguing that other males could not RAISE children as effectively as a biological father this would make sense. It does not. I am not arguing against adoption. Con is simply attempting to muddle the issue and confuse voters. "As you can see, this was entirely relevant to my case as it effectively argued against one of my opponent's contentions of the importance of a biological mother and father (or rather, inability for a non-biological parent to replicate similar benefits). Pro was absolutely responsible for providing evidence to back up his assertions of biological necessity or even staggering relevance, as my role in the debate was to specifically argue against that notion. Moreover, saying biological ties were crucial to Pro's argument means that a mother-father dynamic of non-biological parents (such as adoptive parents) would not be any better than gay couples raising a child, or gay couples where one parent is biologically related to the child." Obviously. Allow me to repeat myself- I was not arguing that a natural father was needed to parent effectively. I was arguing aginst opponent's contention that a lesbian's male friend taking her son out to the ball game somehow replaced a father. This is a strawman. Number 7. "He was basically saying that a lack of both a mother and a father negatively affected children, irregardless of the parent's sexuality. I was not dishonest in suggesting that A) this rebuttal was problematic for Pro's case, and B) that he failed to address the environment aspect of raising a child. The latter is obvious, and the problematic relevance of his rebuttal is that saying sexuality is irrelevant supports other aspects of my case. In particular, it highlights that Pro failed to prove specific traits or qualities that kids with same-sex parents miss out on based on stereotypical gender roles. This is important because general or presumed gender roles of heterosexuals are not the same as the gender stereotypes we apply to gay couples. For instance, if Pro had argued that women provide a certain element of femininty, I would have proven that gay men, on balance, also typically exude a certain element of femininty. As such, Pro couldn't argue "Having a father is important because they tend to provide rough and tumble play." If the father was gay, chances are he wouldn't provide rough and tumble play because he might be more feminine, meaning his sex alone (having a male father) would be irrlevant and undermine Pro's contention. On that same token, many lesbians are more masculine than typical females and therefore would be likely to provide rough-and-tumble play just as a father might." Nowhere in the debate did she make this claim. Con's original explanation for this argument was: "A parent only has so much influence in their child's life. "Evidence indicates that parents have little or no long term effect on their children's personality, intelligence, or mental health. The environment definitely has an effect on how children turn out, but it's not the home environment. It's not the nurture they do or don't get from their parents." Now, while no one can deny the impact parenting has on a child's emotional and behavioral development, the amount of attention and care a child receives is most important." She were basically saying that it didn't matter what traits parents had, it was environment that affected them the most. But as anyone can see, I provided examples of mental and emotional development from mothers and fathers which she then proceeded to strawman with her DNA argument. Furthermore, even if she was right about this, she would have had the burden to prove that masculinity and feminism directly affected the traits I used as examples. Clearly she did not, and this entire point is irrelevant. Number 8. "In the first round, my point #6 was that kids with gay parents being teased was not a good argument against same-sex parenting and I explained why (I had assumed Pro would make that contention). In the next round, Pro responded, "Are you serious? Please give me a little more credit than that." However, he failed to adhere to the structuring that I used for clarity by failing to specifically indicate which of my contentions he was responding to numerically, so I may have glossed over this while writing my rebuttal." Ah. Now she "accidentally" glossed over it, while conveniently shifting the blame to me for not using a proper format. However, this was done in R2, when the debate had not yet become convoluted. I find it difficult to believe that Con simply missed my response when it was right there in front of her. I encourage the readers to go look for themselves: [http://debate.org...] "Regardless, my point stands. I wrote in R3 that "Potentially teasing the kids is a terrible and irrelevant contention [against gay parenting]... Con dropped this, so he must agree." This is not dishonest; Con did drop it as I expected him to either respond in agreement that it was irrelevant, OR argue that it was relevant. Con insists that he was "strawmanned." Apparently he doesn't know what a strawman is. Using a strawman is when you misrepresent your opponent's argument. On the contrary, I never said that this was my opponent's argument. I said that it was MY argument, so clearly I didn't strawman. Pro is basically name dropping fallacies to find excuses for his loss. While at best you can argue that I made an honest (not dishonest) mistake in suggesting Pro didn't respond to my argument, it's A) untrue that I strawmanned him in any way, and B) an irrelevant point because Pro did in fact seem to agree with my argument in the first place (hence him saying he didn't intend to argue that teasing was relevant)." I said "strawman," but a better term for it would have been "red herring." She did not miss it, she merely thinks that this point is minor so she decided to play dumb. However, this is more important than it looks because it was not the only irrelevant point that was repeated over and over and because it shows that she deliberately tried to waste my characters and make my response harder. As I said, this was part of her "Gish Gallop" tactic that forced me to go over the limit. Number 9. "Once again, MouthWash is bringing up an irrelevant argument that was conceded, and attempting to use it as a "dishonest" point against me when in fact it has been rendered entirely irrelevant for all intents and purposes of judging the first debate. This is another blatant waste of time and should be dropped from this debate, IMO. Here he references the beginning of the debate, where he started out by attempting to prove that homosexuality was not biological. Me: "While I do think that biology plays a part in sexual orientation, I definitely agree that nature AND nurture play a role. The study Con presented (Exotic Becomes Erotic) explains the same thing, with the author noting that children's temperment is influenced by biological variables such as genetic factors that contribute to their childhood gender identity. Regardless, this is entirely irrelevant to the debate. What causes homosexuality is not up for question; whether or not gay people can be good parents is. As such, I don't need to respond to any of this unless Con explains why it's relevant." What I meant by "biological ties" was that homosexuality was entirely biological and hereditary. Biological ties, as the EBE study used them, had a completely different meaning. As Wnope pointed out: "Schizophrenia is also "natural" and it can be used as a reason to stop someone from adopting children." I can understand some confusion on this part, because I was arguing that while certain biological factors played a role in the child's sexual development, they did not determine his sexuality in the sense that he or she couldn't have come out completely heterosexual. Futhermore, this was not part of my case that it was unhealthy. Rather, I simply anticipated that my opponent would argue that sexual orientation was an inborn trait and unchangable. "Further, he completely strawmanned me which I find quite ironic. I never once argued that homosexuality was not a disorder. I argued that there were biological causes. You'll notice that I never once even remotely mentioned homosexuality being or not being a disorder. MouthWash is blatantly lying about what I said, and the proof is in the pudding." Yes, the proof is in the pudding. Go look at the first sentence of your first argument: "Being gay is not a mental disorder." "As you can see, I never strawmanned MW's point by saying he argued that a conscious choice was being made (he didn't)." Yes, but since I had already claimed support for the EBE theory, it should have been obvious that I did not believe this already. "Instead, the second part of my response DOES negate Pro's point that biology was not a significant factor, as I pointed that his very own source explained that it was." I dropped the depression argument because I was unable to find many sources. And when did I say biology was not a significant factor? You are simply redefining "biological" to suit your needs. Throughout the debate you were never able to pick one definition of the word and stick with it. Number 10. "As you can see, I specifically included 4 very big reasons why he should lose points for Sources (since that is a factor that is weighted pretty heavily in the judging process). MouthWash is being completely dishonest in suggesting that I only provided one reason by intentionally excluding everything else that I said. Moreover, the reason I mentioned him referencing the same source 3x wasn't to suggest that this particular mistake ought to be enough to penalize him." Here's what you said: "Some of Con's sources were irrelevant. Others helped establish my case. He cited the same source 3x in the last round, and failed to provide the correct sources for his claims which inhibited my ability to respond." However, these conclusions were the result of strawmen, red herrings, and lies, which I pointed out. I didn't intend to give the impression that she was trying to deduct sources solely because I cited the same source three times, I was simply pointing out how incredibly ridiculous it was. Number 11. "Pro notes that I acknowledged his "unnecessary comments like 'I'm throughly disappointed in the quality of [Pro's] response' as rude and borderline ad hominem." This is not remotely dishonest. Pro is again completely wasting our time with bogus accusations, and this should be dropped immediately. This isn't even an accusation." Taking irrelevant things and assigning them importance fits my definition of dishonesty, especially when it is taken to the point of absurdness. Number 12. "Pro thinks it was dishonest of me to say that he didn't present any studies indicating the harms of same-sex parenting. Let's take a look at what Pro posted: http://www.debate.org...... As you can see, it's a convoluted wall o'text that is far too difficult to make sense of. It looks like a bunch of random numbers. It includes zero explanation of specific harms of same-sex parenting (as in why the sexuality of one's parents leads to certain outcomes). It also doesn't give any background information on the actual study, and it is not my job nor the audience's job to go on a scavenger hunt to find information within Pro's sources. It was his duty to highlight a specific point within our debate, and then source it - not simply post a link to a source and say "I urge you to read this." This is standard debating conduct and expectations on DDO." If you'll click the link, you'll see three studies, each numbered four, five and six. Number four gave a list of the APA's studies on homosexuality. Sarantakos's results showed that there were negative effects on children raised by same-sex parents. The first graph documents how the studies were done. I used it to show that Sarantakos's methods were superior compared to other studies. The second graph shows the results of the Sarantakos study. The third graph shows another study with the same conclusions (at the bottom of the page, I gave the source). So how was she supposed to know all of this? Because I explained it all in my argument! "Let's take a look at the studies in the American Psychological Association "Summary of Research Findings on Lesbian and Gay Parenting:" [4.http://www.debate.org......] I urge my opponent to take note of the Sarantakos (1996) study. It compares 58 children of heterosexual married parents, 58 children of heterosexual cohabiting couples, and 58 children living with homosexual couples that were all "matched according to socially significant criteria (e.g., age, number of children, education, occupation, and socio-economic status)." The combined sample size 174, which is the seventh-largest sample size in the research findings above. What's interesting is that all of the larger studies were all adult self-report studies, which means that the Sarantakos is the largest study that investigated the development of children. The results: [5.http://www.debate.org......] Here are some other results from a 2012 study that demonstrate that children of homosexual couples are significantly disadvantaged and why other studies fail to show it: [6.http://www.debate.org......]" I posted a link to the same page for each graph I wanted to point out. The number on the links correlated to the numbers on the graphs. I explained everything and made it simple. Con: "Also, keep in mind that he made the mistake of posting this same link multiple times. To me, it seemed intentionally dishonest. Maybe it wasn't. Likewise, perhaps my suggestion that he didn't post any useful scientific studies wasn't intentionally dishonest. If it wasn't intentional, it wasn't dishonest (it would instead be an honest mistake)." Con is now attempting to abandon this claim without losing too much credibility. The fact that they were so obvious is evidence of her dishonesty, but nothing more so than the fact that I EXPLAINED it in the final round: "I posted three links to my three graphs, which happened to be on the same page and could be confused with each other. I posted the along with the corresponding numbers for each graph (4, 5, 6) so that readers would know what I wanted to cite. What's really sad is why anyone would consider that grounds for a point loss. It seems YOU got confused, because you apparently didn't bother to scroll down and see the different studies." I am done for now. This is shaping up to be the most entertaining debate I've done in a long time. It is Con's turn.