From: aap@wam.umd.edu (Alberto Adolfo Pinkas)
Subject: Re: babies
Organization: Workstations at Maryland, University of Maryland, College Park
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1992 15:13:37 GMT


From: elf@polari.com
Subject: Re: babies

>   By saying 'Yes' you weaken those millions of voices by one.  If you
>encourage another to say 'Yes,' then together we have weakened it by
>two.  And so.  But you won't, Alberto... you maintain the pressure,
>thus continuing the pain.  Thus, by saying 'No,' you make the lives of
>children in gay/lesbian households difficult.


This is not a problem of counting how many people we have on each side. This is a problem of seeing how the development of a child will be affected by growing up in a homosexual household.

>   You keep harking at this 'right'ness.  Define 'rightness,' Alberto,
>and then we'll go from there. 

Society has a set of values and a set of rules, that will define what is right and wrong "in theory". That is the basis for our functioning as a socity. Those principles or values change with time.

>>Not so fast. The parents are part of the society, but they also
>>transmit the society into the child.

>   Didn't I just say that?  How do the parents transmit this society?
>Children most certainly learn by example far more readily than they
>learn by teaching.


No, you did not. This is not a problem of examples given by parents.
There are confrontations, in the child's mind, with the parent of the same gender, about possession of the parent of the other gender. That is the basis for the development of what is called in Spanish: Yo, Ello, and Superyo. I guess that in English they are Ego, etc,etc. Then, that is basic for the kid's functioning in society.
That is the basis (the superyo), where society will define the role played over the individual, and not only the society, but it's institutions, as it was shown in principle by Freud (in Civilization and it's discontents). Then, ther are other precesses to, that should be taken care about when we talk about raising a child.

>   For the sake of _my_ argument, a family unit will consist of a body
>of one or more adults who have taken on the burdern of raising a child
>and making him a functional member of society.  To provide for his
>material, emotional, educational and spiritual needs.

This might work for the sake of your argument, but not for the sake of reality. It is not so simple. You should see what is at sake in the "underground" of the relations among members of a society.
Most arguments presentad here are simple and pragmatic: I knew a kid raised by homosexuals and he was OK. Ergo: it is OK for all.
Well, society, its functioning, psychology (social and individual) are a little more complex than that. So, just by playing pragmatic, you are erasing a lot of variables that make the analysis and its conclusions useless.


>   The problem with our discussion, Alberto, is that you refuse to give
>up this 'father as provider, mother as nurturer' image of family that
>just does not exist.  You harken back to a 'good old days' myth-image
>of family that was so rare as to be a categorizable phenomenon.

You are again making generalizations about my ideas, and you are wron again.
I strongly oppose the idea of "gender" roles in a relationship. I do not believe that there are women and men roles. And, I do not follow them in my own relationship with my wife. But, it will not change basic facts as the Edipical confrontation in the child's development. 
Again, you are erasing most variables here.

>>You are throwing away most of the other things that form the mind
>>of a child. Think about peer acceptation. Think about what they will
>>understand as right/wrong in terms of society's standards, etc, etc.

>   Am I?  I think not.  Peer acceptance will come with societal
>acceptance.  When society learns to accept gays and lesbians as
>"acceptable" by social standards, just as it _had to_ learn that
>color and religious difference are "acceptable," then these children
>will not suffer.


Yes, you are. To begin with, that Something will come, is not the same that something is. So, the problem about peer acceptance is a problem "right now".
Also, you have to consider about the idea of legality-illegality, among other things in these kids.


>   Alberto, to gain civil rights in my country, black people died.
>White people blew up their churches, murdered their children, burned
>their farms and houses.
>
>   Maybe, just maybe, that's going to have to happen to the homosexual
>community as well.


You should learn, first from their experience, second from the difference. It is not the same the fight for civil rights of women and blacks, than for homosexuals.


>   I just heard a horrified roar go up around me.  "You're willing to
>sacrifice children in the name of your sexual preference?"
>
>   We_have_to_start_somewhere.  Now seems as good a time as any.  If a
>group of people were willing to die, and to let their children die...
>if that's what it took for them to convince the majority "We are not
>animals, we are not subhumans..." then damnit, maybe I have to do the
>same thing.  Gays and lesbians have already died for what they are.

Maybe you should, maybe you should not.
I would not say that Blacks let their children died. I would say that they had no choice, and that comparing Black' stuggle with homosexual's fights is mostly wrong. 
Again, for simplicity, you are erasing the historical background in all of this. Blacks were taken as slaves. And you have to analyze the economic and society structures to understand the strugge that Blacks are still fighting.
The history of the Homosexual struggle is completely different and in a completely different context.


>   [ And don't anybody DARE tell me that comparing the black civil
>rights battles and the gay/lesbians is impossible.  I know the
>argument... blacks are born of blacks, they didn't chose to be that
>way, while gays are born of straights, obviously they did.  Go read
>Levy, 1991. ]


Actually, I just did.
Go and read: Freud, Fucault, Althouser, Rozitchner, Pulitzer, and several hundred others.


>   If society learned to accept us, learned to accept our families and
>ourselves, we wouldn't have this problem.  But here you are, arguing
>vociferously and without documentation or case studies (I've offered
>one, Jeff's offered one) that that part of us, our families, is
>'wrong.'

First, I am offering an opinion.
Second, the examples that Jeff and you presented, when placed in context, will show to you how big the problem is. Of course, if we start to simplify things, and at the end we are left with the conclusion: I believe that it is OK, because my praxis tells me so, we will never go anywhere.
There are scientific studies developed since more that a century, you know?, to deal and interpreted society, it's functioning, etc, etc. And it goes beyond the idea, it works for me.
The same with psychoanalysis. You have to make a seriuos study to see how things affect individuals.
Then, you know a case where the kid's have to lie, they live in a relationship that is mostly confusing, at best, etc, etc.
Yeah, the kid's havve to lie because society is bad, bad, bad. But, society was there even before, so people have to act according to that.
I cannot believe that you need documentation when you just showed two cases. Is that documentation?
You want documentation?, well, I offer as a proof yourself. Take yourself as a case and then make a complete analysis. Then, come back and tell me that everything in your families is OK, and that my saying that a port is socielly wrong is wrong.

>>I am not saying that you should not do this. I am saying that you
>>cannot live up to the roles expected by society even if you want to.

>   Which role?  WHICH ROLE?  Name it, we can fill it.

You know what I meant.


>         Elf !!!


AAP
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