Ireland recovering from Theocracy.

[Sam]

Pap did a great job of ripping your arguments apart and exposing their biasness that lies beneath, so I'll just sit back and watch the fun.

Um, no.

Still too busy with other matters to dive into the studies (though I again maintain that it is on the detractors to refute the consensus) but let's all get on the same page here:

Paprika's argument, as I understand it, is that it's wrong to make the statement: "The consensus of studies demonstrates that children of same-sex partners show no developmental disparity to children of opposite-sex partners in the general population." Paprika disputes the clause "in the general population," arguing that too many studies relying on sample sets that have potential selection problems (i.e., NLLFS) to make this claim.

Yours and others' argument, as I understand it, is that there is an inherent detriment to same-sex partners raising children, that the best environment features opposite-sex partners. Here, Paprika's criticism doesn't apply, as the statement would be "The consensus of studies demonstrates no developmental disparity between children of same-sex partners and a similar sampling of opposite-sex partners." Here, studies using data sets like NLLFS, so long as they compare families grouped by similar criteria, are unequivocally valid.

So if you're arguing that there's an inherent "penalty" to same-sex parenting, Paprika's arguments here won't do you any good. The consensus of studies does indeed show that no such penalty exists; Paprika's argument, as I understand it, goes only so far as to say "The claim of a broad consensus showing parity between children of same-sex partners and children of opposite-sex partners in the general population is inherently weak at best and dishonest at worst."

[Bill the Cat]

Another pointless and failed attempt at a funny brought to you by Bill The Cat.

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[Sea of red]

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Another pointless and failed attempt at a funny brought to you by Bill The Cat.

[Bill the Cat]

. Why is everything always some sort of "one size fits all" solution when it comes to conservative religion?

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[Sea of red]

That works, but I don't trust a word Glaad says. I have noticed they have a tendency to lie about their opponents and/or make up what their opponents say when they don't like the narrative they are selling. Lopez calls himself a bisexual, so why he'd hate the LGBT community is rather odd, but I guess when somebody disagrees with the narrative; smear them with mud.

I don't trust a word the Focus on the Family types have to say either. Those kind of people tend to just throw a lot of intellectual pollution out there that nobody in academia takes seriously, and for good reason.

[Sea of red]

Why is that?

When applying stats to people researchers tend to input variables that give them a desired outcome.

If X action leads to Y action, we should try to see why.

Sure.

If we discover a trend (such as those who are children of divorced parents seem to show a trend of being more likely to divorce themselves) we need to see why. Just because something isn't math, physics, chemistry, or biology doesn't mean it is useless. We seem to find something pretty hard to ignore though; how we are raised will affect us in many areas for our entire life seems to the the logically conclusion. This means we need to know a very good question; what is the best environment for children to be raised in? A very important and I'd even say among the most important questions, that we need to find an answer for.

I answered this before. You've gotten my opinion, now go look for it in previous reply to you.

But they are less likely to do as well as those who did grow up in more ideal conditions. We need to include everything, including who they were raised with and how this affects them into adulthood. More than a few children, of gay couples, have come forward to say they felt their life was missing something (either a father or a mother) and they believed they missed out on something important. Do we ignore this claim they are making and hope it goes away or do we look at their claims and see if there is more merit there?

So what? Are these kids in prison or mentally unstable? Lots of people in single parent households state this stuff too, so are you going to rally against single parenting, an advocate it be illegal? People see how families are television are depicted, and often feel that's the bar they were entitled to, not realizing the parent may have had a good reason for raising them away from the other parent. You have to make the best of what you're given in life, and try not to wish for things you don't have.

Remember, they are making a claim about emotional well being; not something as capable of being pursued by scientific research as other claims might be. Are they right? Were they denied something or not? Since we seem to have strong data that your childhood has a huge impact on the rest of your life, why ignore their charges?

Why bring it up at all we can do is speculate as to who is right? Like I said, we don't know the whole dynamic of their situation or how it came to be. This is why statistics should not be trusted on matters like these, as the variables are much more numerous than often accounted for.

Oh and don't use words like "data" or "research" if you don't want science or mathematics to get involved.

You've got quite close to that. You are responsible for your own actions, that is true, but we can't just ignore the trends we see before us either.

You were rockin' and rollin' on that first part and then you had to go and talk about "tends". Are people responsible for themselves or not? When you talk about how it's all down to the family, you enable people to not be responsible for their actions.

I don't recall saying dysfunctional can't be part of any family either, but it is obvious that we have ideal situations and less ideal situations. True or false? Is a same sex couple the most ideal situation or not? That is the question we need answered. What is the best and most ideal place for a child to be raised in and why?

There is no "ideal" situation as I've already stated. I know people that gay parents and love them, and they turned out to be good citizens. I know people raised by adoptive parents, or single parents and they love each other, and also turned out just fine. Are you saying their love isn't legitimate? Are you saying it was mistake or that it can't happen in other households?

All good things, but another factor we need to include is how to interact in a romantic relationship. As I pointed out before, the trend for children of divorced families to be more likely to end up divorced themselves does tell us that the relationship between your parents, among themselves, is quite important for the development of the children involved. Remember, our parents are the first people we develop a relationship with, they are the first we learn from, and they appear to be a model for our romantic relationships latter on in life. As I have discovered, being a parent does not ever end nor does it ever go away. The relationship might end up changing, but it will always be there and it will affect us long after we are grown and gone. Knowing this, does it sound that is very important that we get this right? Children are not something we should experiment with and use as political pawns in our schemes. The question is... is the same sex parent the best possible place for children to be raised in? That is all that should matter and I don't care who it offends either.

Believe me, I agree children shouldn't be used as shields to justify religious creeds -- we're on the same page.

Like I have already said, there is no ideal situation. What works for some may not work for others. Why is everything always some sort of "one size fits all" solution when it comes to conservative religion?

Now imagine being responsible for somebodies well being, all the time. Taking care of kids or a group does help, but I will assure you that nothing can quite compare you for the real thing (when you are babysitting, they go home, but they don't when they are yours).

I pretty much raised my younger brother, so I actually do know a bit about caring for something.

[lilpixieofterror]

The whole thing about Glaad and Lopez is doomed to become a pissing match so I'll just concede my points on that post. Most of the content is redundant to our discussion that is thus far, been civil for us.

That works, but I don't trust a word Glaad says. I have noticed they have a tendency to lie about their opponents and/or make up what their opponents say when they don't like the narrative they are selling. Lopez calls himself a bisexual, so why he'd hate the LGBT community is rather odd, but I guess when somebody disagrees with the narrative; smear them with mud.

[lilpixieofterror]

I'm not talking about stats, I couldn't care less about them. Stats outside of the natural sciences and mathematics are not something I'm typically impressed by, even when it agrees with me.

Why is that? If X action leads to Y action, we should try to see why. If we discover a trend (such as those who are children of divorced parents seem to show a trend of being more likely to divorce themselves) we need to see why. Just because something isn't math, physics, chemistry, or biology doesn't mean it is useless. We seem to find something pretty hard to ignore though; how we are raised will affect us in many areas for our entire life seems to the the logically conclusion. This means we need to know a very good question; what is the best environment for children to be raised in? A very important and I'd even say among the most important questions, that we need to find an answer for.

Sure it does, but it's not your whole life. Like I said before, people that grow-up in these 'less the ideal conditions' often tend to do very well for themselves. A good family is not about "one mommy and one daddy" but a loving household. The dynamics of which can vary greatly and still produce good results. The problems you speak of are much deeper than simply the family you come from. People can come from great families and turn out to be scumbags, like I've seen in my life. Whatever happened to the bad apple, did they just go away?

But they are less likely to do as well as those who did grow up in more ideal conditions. We need to include everything, including who they were raised with and how this affects them into adulthood. More than a few children, of gay couples, have come forward to say they felt their life was missing something (either a father or a mother) and they believed they missed out on something important. Do we ignore this claim they are making and hope it goes away or do we look at their claims and see if there is more merit there? Remember, they are making a claim about emotional well being; not something as capable of being pursued by scientific research as other claims might be. Are they right? Were they denied something or not? Since we seem to have strong data that your childhood has a huge impact on the rest of your life, why ignore their charges?

Can you quote me where I accused you of that? You haven't said that but you've opened the door for that.

You've got quite close to that. You are responsible for your own actions, that is true, but we can't just ignore the trends we see before us either.

Look at the bold and think about that for a second. Dysfunctional can be ANY family (I know from mine) including this alleged ideal one you speak of. Children that become scumbags tend to chose the lifestyle I'm afraid, while for some the apple didn't fall far from the tree. None of these things are exactly arguments against same-sex couples adopting.

I don't recall saying dysfunctional can't be part of any family either, but it is obvious that we have ideal situations and less ideal situations. True or false? Is a same sex couple the most ideal situation or not? That is the question we need answered. What is the best and most ideal place for a child to be raised in and why?

Those are deep questions as I said before and trying connect it all back to 'the family' is not doing those issues any justice. A lot of that is due to poverty, education, community, friendship, mental-health, and an overall sense of wanting to do good in the world. The best environment is any one which promotes honesty, loving people, not harming the world, and being as conscience of how your actions effect others. Anything that promotes that should be what we get behind, not 'just because' something is seen as traditional.

All good things, but another factor we need to include is how to interact in a romantic relationship. As I pointed out before, the trend for children of divorced families to be more likely to end up divorced themselves does tell us that the relationship between your parents, among themselves, is quite important for the development of the children involved. Remember, our parents are the first people we develop a relationship with, they are the first we learn from, and they appear to be a model for our romantic relationships latter on in life. As I have discovered, being a parent does not ever end nor does it ever go away. The relationship might end up changing, but it will always be there and it will affect us long after we are grown and gone. Knowing this, does it sound that is very important that we get this right? Children are not something we should experiment with and use as political pawns in our schemes. The question is... is the same sex parent the best possible place for children to be raised in? That is all that should matter and I don't care who it offends either.

Yes to the latter.

Now imagine being responsible for somebodies well being, all the time. Taking care of kids or a group does help, but I will assure you that nothing can quite compare you for the real thing (when you are babysitting, they go home, but they don't when they are yours).

And I thought you didn't like me. *sniff*

I have never disliked you. I hope the best for everybody.

[Sea of red]

The whole thing about Glaad and Lopez is doomed to become a pissing match so I'll just concede my points on that post. Most of the content is redundant to our discussion that is thus far, been civil for us.

[Sea of red]

And people grow up in great homes and comment violence too, but we're talking about stats and not individuals (being a horrible person knows no bounds).

I'm not talking about stats, I couldn't care less about them. Stats outside of the natural sciences and mathematics are not something I'm typically impressed by, even when it agrees with me.

Here is the problem you are running into; is it a well known fact that your childhood has a huge effect on the rest of your life? Of course it does and while we can debate if this gives people an excuse to do things (like riot) all we want, but we can't ignore the facts in front of us. Children, who are in a good family, perform better than children that are not. Does this give excuses to be violent criminals? Nope.

Sure it does, but it's not your whole life. Like I said before, people that grow-up in these 'less the ideal conditions' often tend to do very well for themselves. A good family is not about "one mommy and one daddy" but a loving household. The dynamics of which can vary greatly and still produce good results. The problems you speak of are much deeper than simply the family you come from. People can come from great families and turn out to be scumbags, like I've seen in my life. Whatever happened to the bad apple, did they just go away?

Can you quote me where I said you should blame your actions on somebody else?

Can you quote me where I accused you of that? You haven't said that but you've opened the door for that.

I sure haven't and I tend to be a huge advocate of personal responsibility, but it is quite interesting to see that children that get themselves in more trouble, tend to come from broken and/or dysfunctional families while the children that don't do have a tendency to get into less trouble.

Look at the bold and think about that for a second. Dysfunctional can be ANY family (I know from mine) including this alleged ideal one you speak of. Children that become scumbags tend to chose the lifestyle I'm afraid, while for some the apple didn't fall far from the tree. None of these things are exactly arguments against same-sex couples adopting.

We can't just ignore this tendency and we need to explore it further. Why is how children are raised, have this impact upon them long after they are out of that environment? Likewise, what is the best environment for children to be raised in and why? Very good questions that seem quite relevant, when we are dealing with the problems our nation is running into today with less and less children within a traditional family.

Those are deep questions as I said before and trying connect it all back to 'the family' is not doing those issues any justice. A lot of that is due to poverty, education, community, friendship, mental-health, and an overall sense of wanting to do good in the world. The best environment is any one which promotes honesty, loving people, not harming the world, and being as conscience of how your actions effect others. Anything that promotes that should be what we get behind, not 'just because' something is seen as traditional.

Sure, but have you ever been a parent or been responsible for a child or a group of children?

Yes to the latter.

Perspectives upon these things, change upon having the responsibility thrown upon your shoulders. What happens, within our childhood, has huge consequences for us for the rest of our lives. Children of divorced parents are more likely to end up divorced themselves. This isn't something that was made up, but it a pretty well known fact. Children who have two good parents, who take care of them, are more likely to perform better in school, less likely to end up divorced, etc. So yeah, you are correct that it does matter how kids are raised, the question is... what is the best environment for children to be raised in and why?

Already answered this.

Glad to hear.

And I thought you didn't like me. *sniff*

[lilpixieofterror]

Uggh. For the life of me, I can't understand why otherwise intelligent folk like yourself get suckered into type indicator tests like these. Its the modern day equivalent of a horoscope.

MBIT and the others I put in the 'interesting' category. While I do find some stuff for the INFJ's as accurate to some of my behaviors, others I cringe it (IE the psychic babble that some claim INFJ's have).

[lilpixieofterror]

Google, Facebook, Youtube, even Amazon are pretty bad at figuring out what sorts of things to recommend to me.

Data points can describe a person, but they cannot capture a person. You can't reduce a person to a set of data points. Maybe this is semantics... or maybe I'm just a very special snowflake.

Amazon and Google is terrible for me because just because I'm looking up something on Amazon or even buying something doesn't mean I'm interested in it. I often use it for gift buying or looking up a product that I could care less about. Likewise, just because I Googled something doesn't mean I have an interest in it. Sometimes I use Google to look up something for somebody else. Sam attempting to divide people into data point collections, isn't very accurate because you need to assume things. Just because I brought something doesn't mean it is for myself. I tend to buy far more things for others vs for myself.

[lilpixieofterror]

My ability to interact with others became so much better after discovering MBTI. Night and day.

Hummm, I find my MBTI as interesting, but sometimes being totally inaccurate. I tend to closely identify as being and INFJ, yet I find the whole psychic stuff (that it claims INFJ's can have) as being utter nonsense. MBTI is useful, but not 100% complete or totally accurate.

[lilpixieofterror]

One of the first things I learned in college was to do the reading or risk looking silly (I found a clever way around this, though: enroll in philosophy courses). You certainly can't "poke holes" in numerous sociological studies by assuming that they didn't look at such basic measures as family stability. As I discussed extensively last time on this board that I actually tried to handle this discussion citing the studies, family stability was found to be a primary factor in the development of children, whether of same-sex couples or opposite-sex couples, and children of same-sex couples were found to be no more or less developmentally susceptible to disruptions in family stability.

So your problem isn't that you've found a gaping hole in the studies. It's that you have invented a reason not to even bother looking at the studies in the first place (because obviously they probably didn't account for family stability) and subsequently imagined that you were making a great point when even looking at a few relevant abstracts could have steered you away from this shipwreck of a post:

Source: Child Well-Being in Same-Sex Parent Families: Review of Research Prepared for American Sociological Association Amicus Brief. Wendy D. Manning, Marshal Neal Fettro, Esther Lamidi. Population Research and Policy Review. August 2014, Volume 33, Issue 4, pp 485-502

This article includes our assessment of the literature, focusing on those studies, reviews and books published within the past decade. We conclude that there is a clear consensus in the social science literature indicating that American children living within same-sex parent households fare just, as well as those children residing within different-sex parent households over a wide array of well-being measures: academic performance, cognitive development, social development, psychological health, early sexual activity, and substance abuse. Our assessment of the literature is based on credible and methodologically sound studies that compare well-being outcomes of children residing within same-sex and different-sex parent families. Differences that exist in child well-being are largely due to socioeconomic circumstances and family stability. We discuss challenges and opportunities for new research on the well-being of children in same-sex parent families.

© Copyright Original Source

Emphasis added.

At least I should be thankful that this compelled me to find a new meta-review that hadn't existed the last time I went looking for 'em.

Pap did a great job of ripping your arguments apart and exposing their biasness that lies beneath, so I'll just sit back and watch the fun.

[lilpixieofterror]

That's true for the most part. Sometimes though, the best product is not available, and you have to go with the next best option. Plenty of people I know were raised by just mom or just dad, and have done pretty good for themselves. I know people that were raised by adoptive parents or even living on the streets; they have good lives for themselves. That's why when I hear blaming "the lack of fatherhood" for Baltimore thugs I cringe. People grow-up in far worse and don't commit such violence.

And people grow up in great homes and comment violence too, but we're talking about stats and not individuals (being a horrible person knows no bounds). Here is the problem you are running into; is it a well known fact that your childhood has a huge effect on the rest of your life? Of course it does and while we can debate if this gives people an excuse to do things (like riot) all we want, but we can't ignore the facts in front of us. Children, who are in a good family, perform better than children that are not. Does this give excuses to be violent criminals? Nope.

I know it's not scientific to say, but psychologists have a bad practice of blaming things people do on the parents. Why did Johnny shoot his classmates? Why is Sally pregnant? Why is Mark depressed and using drugs? Lets blame the parents! I've done bad things in my life and it was my own fault but so many of these psychologists will try to pin on something in my childhood.

Can you quote me where I said you should blame your actions on somebody else? I sure haven't and I tend to be a huge advocate of personal responsibility, but it is quite interesting to see that children that get themselves in more trouble, tend to come from broken and/or dysfunctional families while the children that don't do have a tendency to get into less trouble. We can't just ignore this tendency and we need to explore it further. Why is how children are raised, have this impact upon them long after they are out of that environment? Likewise, what is the best environment for children to be raised in and why? Very good questions that seem quite relevant, when we are dealing with the problems our nation is running into today with less and less children within a traditional family.

So when I hear people/kids complaining how they missed out not having the other parent in their life instead of praising the one that raised them, excuse me for not caring too much.

It's not where a kid is raised, Crystal. It's HOW a kid is raised.

Sure, but have you ever been a parent or been responsible for a child or a group of children? Perspectives upon these things, change upon having the responsibility thrown upon your shoulders. What happens, within our childhood, has huge consequences for us for the rest of our lives. Children of divorced parents are more likely to end up divorced themselves. This isn't something that was made up, but it a pretty well known fact. Children who have two good parents, who take care of them, are more likely to perform better in school, less likely to end up divorced, etc. So yeah, you are correct that it does matter how kids are raised, the question is... what is the best environment for children to be raised in and why?

PS: nice to be sparring with you again. This place is boring without you.

Glad to hear.