That severed head in the beginning gave me the strongest attack of uncanny valley I've ever had.

Good conversation points Yogi.

Hurting people isn't a freedom of speech issue. He stalked her and tormented her. If he'd done it by distributing flyers it would still be criminal, not protected speech.

I don't think that vigilantism is justice, but when someone does something bad to someone else, IMO they give up the expectation that others won't do that same thing to them. In other words, while I wouldn't be the one who maliciously distributes his info, he has to accept that it's fair by virtue of his own actions.

Thanks for being honest and open about your feelings relating to judgement of her suicide. You've made most of my argument for me already, but I'll add a couple things. First, you say, "... I don't think words is a good enough reason." You say it like words are just painless electric signals produced in our brains from oscillations of our eardrums, and so shouldn't cause anxiety. I can't disagree more. I was bullied as a kid for two years, and looking back, I'm really thankful that it was almost all physical and exclusion. It hurt, and I felt powerless, but the people bullying me didn't spend a lot of effort attacking my character aside from calling me fag. They also didn't begin to ruin my social life by turning entire schools against me, even after moving. And even if it weren't that severe, to a teenager, any words that contain some ring of truth will stick. And teens are extremely self-conscious, so anything negative they will accept as probably accurate.

Second, you say, "...without good reason". The word "good" is itself a judgement. That guy told Amanda since she was 12 that she was never going to have any friends, and he had made sure of it. She had never known any other social reality, and it seemed like the torment was literally going to last forever. To a bullied 15-year-old, the time when things will be better is probably four years away. To me that's nothing, probably you neither. I'm going to be 40 in four years, and it feels like it's next door. Yet for me at 15, 19 was an imaginary concept. Having no friends at 15, in our primitive brains, equals certain death. It wasn't a logical decision any more than hooking up with some guy with a girlfriend who said he liked her.

Finally, and this isn't my strongest point here, you say that you went through hard times and never thought suicide was the answer. For you. You're not the yardstick the rest of the world is measured by. I could equally ask you why you didn't kill yourself when clearly Amanda thought it was the answer. People are just different.

Less to argue with you, and more to move along your internal debate.

As for me, I'm not exactly settled in my full opinion, but I can say I respect the decision to commit suicide. This article by Michael Landsberg about his friend, hockey player Wade Belak's suicide was formative for me. In it he says, "People kill themselves when the fear of living another moment outweighs the fear of dying at that moment." People with loving young families and without any "obvious" problems find reason to kill themselves. I have to acknowledge that reality in any personal opinion of suicide.>> ^Yogi:

This is a very sticky subject especially if you don't understand all the nuance. I mean it's about freedom or speech which Americans cherish rightly but it's also about not acting like a complete dick, which it seems most Americans still cherish. Now tormenting or abuse I think is much different than me coming on here and telling @Sagemind to go kill himself because he smells.
I'm not sure if I agree with Anon releasing this persons info either. Maybe it makes you feel good in the revenge center but is that really how we want justice to work?
Personally I also have an issue with someone who committed suicide. I'm still exploring it because I don't think it's right for me to tell someone how they should react to things, especially when given differences in upbringing or simple brain chemistry. I guess I'll just say that I think suicide is quitting, I don't like it and I don't really respect people that do it without good reason, and I don't think words is a good enough reason. This is my experience from my life of horror and feeling like utter shit a lot of the time. I never thought that ending it would be an answer and I don't necessarily understand those that do. Sorry I didn't want to cede the intellectual ground but I felt I had to be honest and maybe that'll start a conversation about how other people feel about people who commit suicide.

>> ^Yogi:

Is this for real? I've been hearing that it blows.

Its not the revolution this review seems to make it but its not bad. The strongest aspect of the game is how fucking gorgeous everything looks. The areas are pretty draw dropping, you'll want to level just so you can explore further. The combat is also fairly fun, at least for MMO standards.


The questing differences are really only superficial. While WoW might have you collecting hides from random critters GW2 has you doing much the same thing. The dynamic events are painfully formulaic. They pretty much all call for you to kill a boss that spawns, defend a small settlement, escort supplies etc and frankly it becomes quite monotonous.

The principle criticism of GW2 was that it wasn't really a persistent MMO. They've tried to address this in GW2, but in doing so they have introduced a lot of the flaws of the MMO genre. ANET have been very keen to talk about how different GW2 is from the rest of the genre, but really its less of a departure than GW1 for better and for worse. Its a pretty good effort, but its not all BIG ASS party.

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I have to chuckle when the guy talks about how he's doing more business now because of his views. The same was said about Chik-Fil-A.

Yeah, they're doing more business *now* because it's been publicized. The strong supporters on the right are going to come in droves to support, and the strong supporters on the left are going to...not shop there...ever again and all that money that he could be raking in had he been indifferent is forever lost to him. Not exactly the smartest business decision. In addition...they're supporting him today...but yeah, even the strongest anti-gay is not going to keep buying weddings cakes or keep buying from chik-fil-a as time goes on. It's not sustainable. America's collective ADD is going to kick in and they'll move on to the next outrage. Except now these businesses have shot themselves in the foot because the people who are denied service will continue to not shop there. Do the Anti-Gay supporters plan on buying a wedding cake and eating at Chik-Fil-A every day? Once a week? once a month? Not going to happen. Besides..sounds like too much of a handout to me. Funny how supposedly the supporters of a free-market suddenly don't think free-market principles shouldn't apply to them.

It also galls me from a strictly statistical and historical point of view. Regardless of what side of the aisle you're on, you have to be deaf, blind, and dumb not to realize which way the winds are shifting...and that they aren't going to be shifting back. Support for gay marriage is over 50 percent now. In 5 years, do you honestly think it will be any less? In 10?? In 20??

The CEO of Chik-Fil-A is not long for this earth, and the wedding cake store owner isn't exactly young. Old ideas get replaced by new ones all the time. The sad thing is that we have to wait for enough people to die for change to really occur because they're too stubborn to see reality.

@bmacs27

No doubt, the best deals get done. The two I have in mind as examples are either under construction or fully built. When you have firm tenant commitments with specific requirements there is money out there that will back the project. In one case an institutional investor partnered with the developer to fund the project. In the other the developers got cash from just about everywhere and anywhere they could to meet the equity requirement.

What happened in my market is a "flight to quality" or "flight to safety". Basically tenants and developers stopped looking at the green belt (developing outer edges) and started looking at the strongest parts of the local market. That means the CBD and established communities. These deals are harder, but they are safer. Thus the "easy" deals in the developing (speculative) communities ended.

The idea that there are a bunch of empty shopping malls isn't really true. Vacancy rates spiked several years ago yes, but since then the amount of new space to market (supply) has dropped.


When I recently surveyed four communities in Central, IL (Bloomington/Normal, Springfield, Decatur, & Champaign/Urbana) I found that there is very little available retail space. Same goes for the Chicago Loop.

I agree we need infrastructure investment but we also need let the market dictate where new construction is going to take place because each market is different. Location location location. If the fundamentals make sense we need to build.

Similarly, we can instantiate in enough physical rules to get the "chance" universe you describe going, and its rules could get it to the current state either determinalistically or with some element of randomness. I guess I understand how you're using "chance" here... but I don't know that it's terribly useful. Why should "what humans can predict" be of any relevance philosophically? And if we're using it that way, couldn't we similarly describe God's actions as chance? I mean, surely humans (or angels) can't predict everything he's going to do. Chance seems like a pejorative when applied to God.. and to me it seems like a pejorative when applied to the operations of the universe (except where, again, that operation is actually random).

However, again, I don't think this difference is terribly important. I think I understand what you're getting at, I just see things very differently.

The difference between chance and design is the most important distinction there is. If you don't like the word chance, I will use the word "unplanned", or "mindless". An unplanned Universe has no actual purpose; it is just happenstance. Meaning, your life is just a product of mindless processes, and concepts like morality, justice, and truth have no essential meaning. It means you are just some blip on a grid and there is no rhyme or reason to anything. It also means you will never find out what happened or why it happened because no one knows what is going on or ever will. This will *always* lead you to nihilism.

A designed Universe, on the other hand, does have a purpose. A purposeful Universe means that life was created for a reason. It means that there is a truth, a truth that only the Creator knows. Which means that all lines of inquiry will lead to the Creators doorstep, and that trying to understand the Universe without the Creator is completely futile. It is like looking at a painting with three marks on it..you could endlessly speculate on what the painter was thinking when he painted it. However, no matter how clever you were, you don't have enough information to be sure about anything. To refuse to seek the Creator would be to stare at that painting your whole life trying to figure it out when you have the painters business card with his phone number on it in your pocket.

I don't think you're phrasing this in a terribly fair way. Yes, many people assume there's a natural explanation for abiogenesis. This is partly because having another explanation introduces arbitrariness into the system. Say I'm a geologist and I discover Devil's Tower. It's really weird, but my inclination from the very start is that it was formed by similar processes to ones that have explained weird things in the past. Even if I can't postulate even a guess as to why it has those weird columns, I'm not crazy to guess that eventually we'll figure out an explanation that doesn't involve, say, new physical laws or aliens. (And it's certainly not helpful to say "maybe it was made in the flood").

The whole thing is arbitrary to begin with. Naturalistic explanations are assumed apriori, and then the evidence is interpreted through the conclusion. That isn't how science works. You come to the conclusion because of the evidence, not the other way around. I would also note that you would never accept this kind of reasoning from a creationist. Neither does a mountain of circumstantial evidence prove anything.

Abiogenesis is a bigger problem and it's also one that's "lost to time" a bit. It almost certainly requires a mechanism we have yet to identify (or a mechanism someone has guessed at, but hasn't provided good details or evidence for). But, like Devil's Tower, there's no reason to expect that mechanism won't be identified - or that it will require significant changes to our understanding of the rest of science. Again, there's plausible ideas already floating around, and I think we'll probably recreate the process (though likely not with the same actual process) within the next 30 years or so.

Anything sounds plausible, apparently, when you have billions of years to play with. As the earlier quote said, time itself performs the miracles for you. How do you know that the mechanism hasn't already been identified but you have rejected it?

http://creation.com/devils-tower-explained

No... that, I think, is probably our strongest point of disagreement. I'm very much OK with "I don't know", and literally everything I believe has a bit of "I don't know" attached (kind of similar to how everything you believe in has a bit of God attached).

I'm not worshipping ignorance or something - knowing IS better than not knowing. But I'm also not scared of not knowing things - and I'm certainly not just going to pick something and believe in it because I don't like having some of my answer pages blank.

For you, is Scientology better than "I don't know"?

The point I'm trying to make is, I don't know isn't a theory. What most atheists mean when they say "I don't know" is "I know it isn't the Christian God, but otherwise I don't know". The next thing they say is, you believe in God because you're afraid. That I "chose" God because I am scared of death, or because the Universe is too big and scary for my mind to handle the uncertainty of not knowing.

I have to say that this idea of a bunch of hokey. The Christians I know believe in God because they have a personal relationship with Him. It has nothing to do with making a choice..God chose us. He would chose you too, if you were open to Him.

Neither was I afraid of death when I was an agnostic, and I wasn't afraid of saying I don't know (that's why I was an agnostic, because I didn't know). I believe in God because He revealed Himself to me, and that is the only reason. If He hadn't, I would still be an agnostic.

It is credible to believe that the Universe was designed and created by God. We can see that whomever made the Universe is unimaginably powerful, intelligent, exists outside of space and time, etc. Scientology isn't credible and explains nothing. God can explain everything.

Also, thanks for using the big boy version of the Bible. I quite like the Bible artistically, but I can't stand some of the new translations (despite whatever benefits some parts may have in terms of clarity).

Most of the new translations butcher the scriptures. They remove entire verses, words, water down meanings, or just flat out mislead. I can't stand them either. The KJV is the best word for word translation that we have, and although the language is archaic, it is comprehensible with a little research.

>> ^jmzero

If we can boil all of the possibilities down to design and chance, how could you tell which Universe you were in?


I kind of abandoned this part because I don't think our differences on this matter are terribly interesting. But I'll come back to it for a second to clarify. To me, there is no important difference between these two things you're talking about.

I don't see myself as terribly different than a falling rock. While it's useful in many situations to think of myself as designing something, in absolute terms me building a house is no different than water eroding through a rock - they're just things that happen following from the state and rules of the universe. What you're calling "design" and "chance" are both, to me, just parts of "the rules for moving from one state to another" and I don't see a big philosophical difference between them (I also don't think there's any important philosophical reality to "free will", if that helps you understand my position).

If we have a start state with a certain kind of benevolent God, the rest of the stuff flows from that through state change rules of some sort - and I don't find it terribly interesting what sorts of rules and processes are involved to get from that start state to the current one (or, at least, only to the extent that those rules and processes may imply more or less arbitrariness in the start state).

Similarly, we can instantiate in enough physical rules to get the "chance" universe you describe going, and its rules could get it to the current state either determinalistically or with some element of randomness. I guess I understand how you're using "chance" here... but I don't know that it's terribly useful. Why should "what humans can predict" be of any relevance philosophically? And if we're using it that way, couldn't we similarly describe God's actions as chance? I mean, surely humans (or angels) can't predict everything he's going to do. Chance seems like a pejorative when applied to God.. and to me it seems like a pejorative when applied to the operations of the universe (except where, again, that operation is actually random).

However, again, I don't think this difference is terribly important. I think I understand what you're getting at, I just see things very differently.

Yet, it is assumed to be true because "there must be a naturalistic origin to life".


I don't think you're phrasing this in a terribly fair way. Yes, many people assume there's a natural explanation for abiogenesis. This is partly because having another explanation introduces arbitrariness into the system. Say I'm a geologist and I discover Devil's Tower. It's really weird, but my inclination from the very start is that it was formed by similar processes to ones that have explained weird things in the past. Even if I can't postulate even a guess as to why it has those weird columns, I'm not crazy to guess that eventually we'll figure out an explanation that doesn't involve, say, new physical laws or aliens. (And it's certainly not helpful to say "maybe it was made in the flood").

Abiogenesis is a bigger problem and it's also one that's "lost to time" a bit. It almost certainly requires a mechanism we have yet to identify (or a mechanism someone has guessed at, but hasn't provided good details or evidence for). But, like Devil's Tower, there's no reason to expect that mechanism won't be identified - or that it will require significant changes to our understanding of the rest of science. Again, there's plausible ideas already floating around, and I think we'll probably recreate the process (though likely not with the same actual process) within the next 30 years or so.

I think you'll have to admit that God is a much better theory than "I don't know".


No... that, I think, is probably our strongest point of disagreement. I'm very much OK with "I don't know", and literally everything I believe has a bit of "I don't know" attached (kind of similar to how everything you believe in has a bit of God attached).

I'm not worshipping ignorance or something - knowing IS better than not knowing. But I'm also not scared of not knowing things - and I'm certainly not just going to pick something and believe in it because I don't like having some of my answer pages blank.

For you, is Scientology better than "I don't know"?

Edit:
But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.


Also, thanks for using the big boy version of the Bible. I quite like the Bible artistically, but I can't stand some of the new translations (despite whatever benefits some parts may have in terms of clarity).

Obviously the hipster/feminist argument was a bit of a stretch, a figure of speech, and needs to be taken that way.
And back to the question "What should the Army do?" How about don't mix genders, and stop self inflicted wounds.
What would the army actually gain from conscripting female soldiers anyway? The sheer fact that they don't have the physical strength to defend themselves would be a deal breaker for anyone that needs muscles for the job, isn't it?
And please refrain yourselves from calling me names or vote me down as this won't achieve anything constructive. I'am very aware that this is a sensible subject, but please keep hotheaded reactions out of it.
Thanks.




Well, obviously you said something stupid, this is why people jumped down your throat.

Also, by the terms you used - "feminist, hipster and PC" - and the context in which you used them, readers on VS were able to figure out YOUR probable biases, which are part of the problem, in this case. If you really think VS comments are a step above the norm on the internet, it would behoove you to consider what is being said more seriously. At least, in your first comment, you said you could be wrong. Let me assure you, you are.

I think others have already said what should be done by the army in terms of reacting to these rapes. And, it would make a difference, at least to the women who are being raped, if a would-be repeat offender is locked up after being convicted of his first...or even second, rape.

There is a larger problem of how we deal with these sorts of problems in the military. And, while I think your take on what SHOULD be done is asinine, realistically, I think military leadership needs to be on the forefront of these changes. We may still be a few generations away from having military leadership with the balls and intelligence to help implement these kind of institutional changes, but if we want to continue having a military and be a free nation, it is vital.

As we continue in an attempt to treat all people equally, it would be a backwards step to segregate the military by gender...or for that matter, by sexuality or religion or any other potentially contentious trait. I remember making very similar arguments as you are making now in a debate class when I was in 8th grade. I assumed because I was stronger than any girl I knew, and most guys were, that it made sense that only men should be soldiers.

But, for as much as we glorify the military in America, it isn't made up by only the strongest citizens. In fact, the promise of our military is that it will remake that person into an honorable soldier. Now, maybe this is wishful thinking, but it is realistic at least in that it doesn't assume only the "best" (physically)folks will be volunteering. Also, we aren't using swords and battle axes. It doesn't necessarily matter as much now if you are the strongest. Indeed, with new technology (assuming we can continue to afford it) we'll need soldiers with the ability to learn and retain technical knowledge. So, yes there is a baseline physical level we want our soldiers to maintain, but no, the biological differences between men and women should not automatically exclude half of our population.

If you don't want people to call you names, don't be a misogynist. Rape in the military is a problem that should blamed on the rapist and the institution that allows it or covers it up. A woman who has been raped isn't the problem. Assuming she shouldn't be in that position if she can't defend herself from a fellow soldier is quite literary blaming the victim. Getting rid of women in the military won't solve the problem, it will only cover it up further as serial rapists can continue to rape women from other nations or, as is mentioned in the video, right here in America after they return home.

Finally, I'm sick of the terms "Hipster, Feminist and PC" all have been distorted beyond being valuable to anyone save when we are preaching to our respective choirs.

Feel free to call me names or downvote. I'll survive.

Did you watch the video? His strongest point was, "There is only one issue in America: getting money out of politics." He never said Dems don't spend money. He never blamed Republicans. Corporations happen to overwhelmingly support Republicans over Dems, especially now after Citizens United, so Dems are never going to win again. That's what he's saying.>> ^bobknight33:

Democrats gets lots of money also.. Quit blaming the other side both are terrible. Eliminate the money.

this is his strongest material?

I've heard this same set in last three performances of his.


He's funny. But I'd like to hear what else he has to say.

@spoco2:

This guy: http://videosift.com/video/How-Does-Vortex-Shedding-Occur-Also-what-is-those-things

Not the strongest accent, but certainly helps.

>> ^messenger:
So could you please watch the whole thing and then comment? You've spent more time doing research and replying to comments than it would have taken to just watch the thing through. And please do so with an open heart. In a nutshell, Matthew makes the argument that scripture actually does not forbid gay Christians to have gay sex. After watching it, you'll see that your comments about homosexual activity being a sin might not be scriptural, which is why nobody in this thread thinks you've actually watched it through. To claim scripture says it's a sin after watching this means you haven't watched it. That's why I invited you.

Well, I've finished watching and I have a really hard time believing that he has spent "thousands of hours" researching this, because you could copy and paste everything he has said from gay apologist websites, almost verbatim. So, there is nothing new here; just the usual twisting of scripture and dishonesty that is to be expected from people trying to justify what the bible clearly condemns as sinful. I'll give you an example of the dishonesty.

One of his arguments was to say that the destruction of Sodom and Gemmorah actually had nothing to do with homosexuality. He says that the attempted gang rape of the angels was actually just a condemnation against rape and not "committed, loving consensual homosexual relationships". He then points out that out of all the mentions of Sodom, sexual sin is only mentioned a couple of times. Which is true, but what he fails to mention is that most of the mentions aren't talking about Sodoms sins at all, but rather are spoken in a prophetic context. He then cites Ezekiel 16:49 which says

Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.

Matthew then says that this proves that the sin of sodom was not homosexuality but arrogance and not helping the poor. It might prove that, except that this idea is contradicted by the very next verse:

Ezekiel 16:50

And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good.

As we know from Leviticus 20:13, God considers homosexuality to be an abomination, which then cements the connection to Sodom. To leave verse 50 out in his exegesis shows his total dishonesty and MO.

The crux of his argument is in trying to overcome Romans 1:26-27, which is the strongest NT passage in condemning homosexual relations. He first tries to weaken it by putting it in the broader context of idolatry, which is actually a correct interpretation. Paul did intend to contrast it to idolatry. With idolatry, man exchanges the natural worship of God to the unnatural worship of false idols. In the same way, man exchanges the natural relations with women to unnatural relationships with men. Yet, what Matthew tries to interject here, is that this only applies to heterosexual men who abandoned their natural predispositions. He then asserts that, based on his opinion and nothing more, that because homosexuals naturally desire other men, it doesn't apply to them. Not only is this position not based in scripture, but it directly contradicts Pauls intended meaning. When Paul is speaking of natural, he doesn't mean someones psychological predispositions. He means what God intended when He created men and women. This is further evidenced by his usage of the words arsen and thelys for male and female, words that are relatively unusual in scripture but are used in Genesis 1:27, which is suggesting that same-sex relationships are a violation of the created order. We also have the fact of biology itself. It is unnatural by definition.

I could go on, but the main point is, every reference in scripture to homosexuality is negative. There is nothing there to affirm any kind of homosexual relationship, but plenty to condemn it. Matthews presupposition that homosexuality is a natural and unalterable orientation for some is clearly refuted by scripture. He acknowledges that God at least once considered it to be abomination which alone refutes this idea.

I am open to solid biblical interpretation, and if someone could present an argument that doesn't have to twist scripture into a pretzel to make it even remotely plausible, I would embrace it. That was not to be found in this presentation. Secular people of course will embrace any interpretation that agrees with their liberal ideals. As a Christian who takes the word of God seriously, I cannot.

>> ^messengerPaul states it is better to be single.Better to be single than what? Can you give me the scriptural reference?

That it's better to be single than be married, because you have more of your life to devote to the Lord.

1 Corinthians 7:27-28

Are you married? Do not seek a divorce. Are you unmarried? Do not look for a wife

But if you do marry, you have not sinned; and if a virgin marries, she has not sinned. But those who marry will face many troubles in this life, and I want to spare you this


>> ^messenger:
True they have higher disease rates, but I'll jump the gun and say all the other things are most likely the result of discrimination.

The Netherlands legally accepts homosexuality, but not because it's socially popular. The Netherlands is historically a conservative Christian nation at heart, but in terms of governance, they're extremely libertarian. So no matter how vile, sinful or immoral the population at large thinks something is, the higher cause is that government not interfere in people's personal choices as much as possible. Homosexuality is in fact not socially accepted in the Netherlands. It's more like the famous quote, "I may hate what you're saying, but I'll fight with my life for your right to say it," but applied to sexual freedom rather than freedom of speech.

You should have looked before you leaped:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_Netherlands

The Netherlands was historically characterized by multitude of religions. Since the mid of the Middle Ages, the Netherlands was a predominantly Christian country until late into the 20th century. Although religious diversity remains to the present day, there is a major decline of religious adherence. Nowadays, the Netherlands is one of the most secular countries in Western Europe, with only 39% being religiously affiliated (31% for those aged under 35), and fewer than 20% visiting church regularly

If homosexuality were going to be accepted anywhere, it would be the most secular country in Europe. You cannot simply write off these statistics as discrimination.


>> ^messenger:
Why is it a "breakdown?" Why not just "discarding"? What families are breaking down because of men having sex? Remember that (at least by my understanding) a man's being attracted to other men isn't a sin on its own. So, what effect can gay sex have on the country? This is the part of the common argument that I have zero understanding of other than the disease angle, which alone isn't enough to label it "a behaviour harmful to society".

It's not just the disease angle, it is also the issue of domestic violence (many times more than normal), drug use, mental health, etc. This is a major drain on society, as well as a danger to children raised in homosexual households. When I say breakdown, I mean of traditional values. To redefine marriage in a society built upon the traditional (and biblical) values of marriage and family is to fundamentally transform it. The same goes with allowing gays to adopt children. This effects our entire concept of human relations and institutions. It erodes monogamy in that gays don't traditionally have monogamous relationships..in the Netherlands for instance, research shows that even in stable relationships, men have an average of 8 partners per year outside the marriage.

It also erodes the boundaries of marriage, and it's a slippery slope to polygamy. Many legal experts have predicted that laws establishing same-sex marriage will open the flood gates to polygamous relationships:

David Chambers wrote in a Michigan Law review piece that he expects gay marriage will lead government to be "more receptive to [marital] units of three or more" (1996 Michigan Law Review).

I think this article does a good job articulating this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/16/AR2006031601312.html

I agree with Krauthammer, that the homosexuality angle is only tertiary to the real problem with marriage, which I see as the abandonment of biblical morality back in the early 60s.

It's bad for children in that the family structure of two biological parents in a low conflict marriage is the ideal for raising children, and the farther you get away from that, the more problems you encounter. Consider these statistics from a federal study "Family Structure and Children’s Health in the United States"

Children in nuclear families were generally less likely than children in nonnuclear families
• to be in good, fair, or poor health [Note: these three categories are considered “less than optimal”];
• to have a basic action disability;
• to have learning disabilities or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder;
• to lack health insurance coverage;
• to have had two or more emergency room visits in the past 12 months;
• to have receipt of needed prescription medication delayed during the past 12 months due to lack of affordability;
• to have gone without needed dental care due to cost in the past 12 months;
• to be poorly behaved;
• and to have definite or severe emotional or behavioral difficulties during the past 6 months.

Children living in single-parent families had higher prevalence rates than children in nuclear families for the various health conditions and indicators examined in this report. However, when compared with children living in other nonnuclear families, children in single-parent families generally exhibited similar rates with respect to child health, access to care, and emotional or behavioral difficulties.


http://www.christianpost.com/news/federal-report-confirms-nuclear-family-best-for-childrens-hea lth-48997/
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_10/sr10_246.pdf

>> ^messenger: