This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Your links are comparing natal parents to step-parents, not adoptive parents; a single mother remarrying is completely a different environment compared to two infertile parents deciding to adopt and raise a child from infancy. Adoptive children seem to have poorer physical health but greater parental support than biological children, interestingly enough.
Also if a gay couple adopts a child, it’s not as if the child is being deprived of a mother and a father; the alternative to the gay couple is the child being raised in an orphanage and then going from foster home to foster home.
And in case you suggest it, I’m not sure a closeted gay biological parent in a sham straight marriage is preferable long-term to a stable gay marriage either.
In a modern, Western society...especially with gayness being heritable...I agree with you, here. You had a lot more support for the gay, closeted man or woman and a lot more pressure to be closeted fifty years ago, let alone a hundred years ago.
More options
Context Copy link
That would be true if there was any shortage of prospective adoptive parents, but IIRC there’s not- any baby up for adoption has someone to adopt them, who’s probably been on a waiting list for a while.
My understanding is that while there is not a shortage of prospective adoptive parents for babies, there is one for children.
My understanding is that while that is partially true, it leaves out that many of these children are not particularly adoptable for one reason or another(severe trauma, disability, what have you, even leaving out that many children in foster care aren’t even theoretically available for adoption because CPS hopes to eventually reunite them with bio parents) and that gay prospective parents are not lining up to adopt them any more than infertile heterosexuals are anyways.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I just want to know what caused the OP to know for a fact that children raised by homosexual couples fair better than children raised by heterosexual couples. My latter links explain my priors, not the base argument itself in an apple to apples comparison of homosexual vs heterosexual child rearing. My first link is a literature review of the research comparing heterosexual and homosexual parenting, ultimately finding it insufficiently powered as a whole to answer the question.
But some additional topics:
I knew that adoptive children have greater parental support but worse outcomes. It seems more of a useful datapoint for HBD and the nature vs nurture debate.
It doesn't usually go "gay couple adopts a child," the more common arrangement is gay parent brings biological kid from prior relationship into new gay marriage.
It's not so much about the inevitable "some kids end up in less ideal situations, and we make do" but rather what we take as an ideal. Our ideals will influence the decisions we make and the societal outcomes for kids overall. If the ideal is Gay Space Communism, where every child is birthed in an artificial womb and assigned to a polycule or raised in a state facility, would that child have a better outcome than a kid raised in a traditional extended family unit of biologically related people? Which should we encourage more of with our cultural storytelling and social practices?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link