From: shallit@graceland.uwaterloo.ca (Jeffrey Shallit)
Subject: Re: Gay marriage
Keywords: same sex couples
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1993 00:55:12 GMT

In article <1221@bug.UUCP> stevef@bug.UUCP (Steven R Fordyce) writes:
>>Visitation rights in hospitals, spousal rights for survivorship and
>>inheritance, family leave at work (if it exists), legal adoption of
>>spouse's children, options for tax filing, "next of kin" status, etc.
>
>These are justifications* for you wanting to marry, not justifications
>for the marriage laws in general, nor for expanding legal "marriage" to
>include same-sex couples.

On the contrary, these are *precisely* reasons for expanding legal
marriage to same-sex couples.

>I've been through this many times before
>(although someone just recently expanded the cross-posting of this
>thread alt.politics.homosexuality, a group I didn't know existed and
>this site doesn't get).  The answer is still the same:

What do you mean, "*The* answer"?

I intensely dislike this rhetorical style, in which one person attempts
to play God.  Did you learn it from watching the McLaughlin Group on TV?

What you mean is, *your* answer is still the same.  Others' answers may
differ.  Or don't you concede that?

>*I said that homosexuals have the same rights we all have.  Others said,
>*what about marriage?  Well, as has been pointed out, homosexuals can marry,
>*so they are treated in this regard just like everyone else.

I can't help but regard this as sophistry in the extreme.  When
I read this sentence out loud to my wife, we both shook our heads
in dismay.

Here Steve knows *perfectly well* what is meant, but he insists on
construing the sentence as narrowly as possible, to suit his own
ends.  This is childish at best, dishonest at worst.

>*However, this
>*isn't what those who object mean.  They want legal marriage redefinited to
>*include same sex couples.  But why stop there?  Why not arbitrary groups?
>*Why not a man and his favorite sheep, etc.?

I'm appalled.  Here Steve is comparing homosexual partners to
animals.  What's next, treating them like animals, too?

>*What is the purpose of legal marriage?  That is the question you have to
>*answer first before you can deal with any of the above.  There is only one
>*justification for the legal institution of marriage: children.  History and
>*recent experience shows that on average the best way to raise children, to
>*socialize them and pass our culture on to them, is in intact families with
>*the mother and father present.  This is not to run down single parents or
>*other arrangements, it is just a fact.

Once again, Steve states as a *fact* something he doesn't *know* to be
true, simply because it helps his argument.  In fact, I have recently
read of a study which shows that children raised by same-sex parents
are just as well-adjusted as children raised by different-sex parents.
I'm sorry that I cannot cite the study, but perhaps someone else will.

In fact, history shows us just the opposite of what Steve claims.  Many
different living arrangements have existed throughout history, from
clans to extended families to the "nuclear family".  Many of the
alternate arrangements were very successful.  I refer you to any
decent anthropology book.

Just because it has not been *common practice* in the US in the 20th
century for children to be raised by two parents of the same sex,
does not mean that it is not acceptable, or even desirable.
Does Steve have any *personal* experience with such an arrangement?
I doubt it.

But I do.  My sister-in-law is raising a child in partnership with
her lover, another woman.  And that child is happy, healthy, bright,
and well-adjusted.  I'd take those parents over 90% of the different-sex
parents in the world.

> Therefore society has a profound
>*interest in promoting marriage and keeping them together.  In fact, I don't
>*think we are doing nearly enough.* Society simply has no like interest in
>*keeping homosexual couples together.

"Society" or *Steve* has no interest?  I think the answer is clear.

How dare you imply that there is no societal interest in keeping the
family of my sister-in-law intact!  Who are you to judge the societal
interest?  *They* feel it has such an interest.  Who are you to pass
judgment on them?

>*Homosexuals are free to make whatever vows to each other they like.  They
>*can enter contracts with each other, and put each other in their wills.  As
>*for the tax benefits (which aren't that large and don't always exist -- my
>*wife and I paid a large tax penalty to get married), society simply has no
>*interest either way in homosexuals' continued union.

How about if they have children, Steve?

And of course, Steve does not address the other problems that gay
couples have which his contract/will/tax scenario doesn't handle.

For one, visitation rights in hospitals.  For another, the right
to adopt children, or (for women) to be artificially inseminated.
(Many hospitals will refuse to inseminate for lesbian couples.)

>orstcs!opac!bug!stevef          I am the NRA              Steven R. Fordyce
>uunet!sequent!ether!stevef         . . .  	        Deer are for Dinner

Frankly, I'm appalled at the small-mindedness of this post.  Steve
obviously doesn't know many gay people, or their problems, or he
wouldn't dismiss their concerns so cavalierly.

Jeff Shallit
Xref: sparky alt.politics.homosexuality:10074 talk.religion.misc:27280 alt.rush-limbaugh:14876