Mormon forum lights up over California gay change

[_Trevor]

Is that Kerry Shirts?

It's a pic from the set of his latest apologetic youtube video!

[_Bond...James Bond]

Is that Kerry Shirts?

It's a pic from the set of his latest apologetic youtube video!

I hope Danny Peterson appears as Cardinal Richlieu.

[_Chap]

These speculations about what sexually active couples of varying preference may or may not say to their children about what they and others get up to in bed are no doubt very interesting to some.

I have to say that in my experience of family life, the proportion of time spent talking about such matters with pre-adolescent children is insignificantly small. And such time as there is spent on such matters is taken up with purely biological discussions of procreation, pregnancy and childbirth with little attention to the erotic dimensions of sexual activity. They are just not very interested in asking about that.

By the time my children were capable of considering themselves as potential erotic agents (whether solitary or with others), they knew enough to need no further factual or precautionary information from their parents. And the erotic dimensions they rightly regarded as their own private affair. What they thought about my erotic life I have never learned. If my attitude to my own parents is replicated in them, I would guess that they would rather not think about it very much.

Readers will have gathered that I do not think that parents' private erotic activity is a very important matter for children. So I do not think that parent's sexual preferences should be a very important factor in deciding whether or not a given couple (or a given single person) should be allowed to adopt a child who is in need of adoption. Far more important, in my view, is the fact that by being adopted the child will become entitled to the care, attention and love of one or more adults who want him or her to be their child. Remember that the alternative is usually to be left in an institution, and never to know what a home or parents are like.

[_beastie]

Well said, chap. Well said.

My experience as a parent mirrors your own.

[_truth dancer]

OK, I'm getting confused. :-)

Kevin, what exactly is it that bothers you about gay or lesbian parents?

The teasing children may receive from having two moms or dads?

The ewwww factor in explaining homosexual sex to children?

Having children exposed to a gay couple?

Something else?

~dancer~

[_Chap]

OK, I'm getting confused. :-)

Kevin, what exactly is it that bothers you about gay or lesbian parents?

The teasing children may receive from having two moms or dads?

The ewwww factor in explaining homosexual sex to children?

Having children exposed to a gay couple?

Something else?

~dancer~

I wish you hadn't asked that ...

[_dartagnan]

My primary reaction to your comments is that you probably aren’t exposed to children on a regular basis, except for your own (who are probably too young for you to have first hand experience with sex ed as a parent).

Well, you're way off. As I said, I have taught kids at the elementary-high school level.

There’s several reasons why this is my primary reaction to your statements. One is that you think that when kids learn basic sex ed, either from their parents or teachers, they are going to ask all sorts of probing questions about who is doing what to whom.

Eventually yes. And sooner than later in the cases of homosexual parents. This is natural, and I don't know why it is so hard to envision or accept.

They are not interested in the sexual activities of adults, and are particularly not interested in the sexual activities of their parents.

It depends on what ages group you are referring to. In any event you're just speculating and using this speculation to make false conclusions about my level of exposure to children.

It would be expected for a child of gay parents to ask how they were conceived. Adopted children, period, will have special needs in this regard. Abman is right in that regard – all that is necessary is for them to be told that the gay parents could not have a child of their own, so adopted out of love. Just like hetero adoptive parents would do. You are complicating this beyond what would naturally or normally occur.

No, I am being realistic while you are just trying to dodge the obvious.

Besides that, if anal sex isn’t disgusting, then why are kids going to be “damaged” in some fundamental way if that discussion should ensue?

Because it will have to become an issue with children adopted by gay men because children are curious creatures. You seem to be operating on the premise that children are by and large idiots who couldn't care less how things in life happen. WIth heterosexual parents a child will hear about the process and some might say "EWWW." True. But with gay parents I am simply putting myself in the kid's shoes here. With gay parents the purpose for sex takes on a different meaning and the diagram kids learn in school changes dramatically. You're being naïve if you say kids generally won't care, or they won't ask these kinds of questions.

You’re the one who kept associating it with excrement

Yes, and kids know where excrement comes from, so they will obviously make that connection too. That is why I mentioned it. To put yourselves into their shoes, trying to understand why a man would stick his penis in another man's anus when they have learned the only biological purpose for the anus is for excretion, not sexual pleasure. The latter is something most kids will eventually learn on their own, but it is something the younger kids will have to learn if they are adopted by two men. You seem to think a kid can absorb this kind of information without any impact. I disagree.

while pretending that the semen coming out of the same place as urine is obviously going to be SOOOO different that kids will recognize it and won’t be “damaged”

Stop trying to insult our intelligence beastie. If you want to sit there and think there isn't the slightest difference between 1) teaching a child that a penis enters a woman's vagina, planting a seed with an egg for the biological purposes of procreation, thus explaining where they came from, and 2) two men sticking their own penis' in their anus, where the child already knows from education and experience, that this is where our crap comes exits our body, then you are completely out of touch with your own childhood, to say nothing of the childhood of other inquiring children.

This is why I suspect you haven’t really dealt with children on this issue.

But I have, and so has my wife. She does it for a living in fact.

Sometimes younger children actually think that the man is peeing inside the woman.

Fine, and that can be remedied with education. How can you remedy the image of a a man getting excrement smeared all over his penis? You can't. All you can do is open up another Q&A session and explain how the man cleans out his anus with a water hose beforehand. But that doesn't guarantee things won't still get messy.

Then why do you continually bring up the excrement

I have already explained this. You ignore it by pretending this image has no effect on children whatsoever. You present this as a fact with nothing to back it up. It is just your opinion against mine. You also pretend natural sex is just as "disgusting" as homosexual sex. I never said anything was disgusting, you did. But the imagery is hard for some adults to stomach, let alone adopted children.

why do you think children will be damaged in some way if, by some odd chance, this was explained to them

By some chance! Do you really think any kid age 12 or above, who was adopted by gay men, doesn't understand this process in all its details? What kid of damage it does I have no idea. But it can't be positive. At worst it could cause gender confusion within the child.

What’s my point???? My point was responding to your continual association of anal sex with excrement and the damage children would experience if they heard about it.

You mean by saying kids learn the penis goes in where the woman pees from, that's some kind of point? I never heard that actually, because in fact the penis doesn't enter where the pee comes from. It is in the general vicinity, but it isn't exact nor is it necessary to say it like that to a child. But most humans are naturally heterosexual. This is a fact. So chances are an adopted kid would be heterosexual. I think a male heterosexual child being raised by two gay men would definitely create psychological issues that would otherwise not exist. A child's development is dependant on much more than two humans being able to show love and provide food on the table. You don't even want to entertain the possibility that having a father and a mother is important and in some ways essential to a child's proper psychological development.

You can easily see how a child wasn’t “born that way” might engage in anal sex anyway?? Exactly what are you saying, here?

Has it completely escaped you, the fact that parents serve as role models for children? If it isn't broken, don't fix it. If a child is raised by gay men he would be more inclined to experiment with homosexuality. Which is fine for you I'm sure, because you can just say oh he was born that way. But I know for a fact that kids look up to their parents. They mimick them in many ways. When they see their daddy's loving one another, they might try experimenting with kissing boys at a young age, even though they weren't "born that way."

Are you saying that you think children of gay parents might be inclined to experiment with homosexuality due to their parents? Is this your real issue?

That, and the fact that I think homosexual relationships are less stable. Unfortunately, divorce rates in the USA don't identify gay divorces, but they do in Sweden. And in Sweden,

"Gay male couples were 50% more likely to divorce within an eight-year period than were heterosexuals; and lesbian couples were 167% more likely to divorce than heterosexual couples."
http://www.narth.com/docs/sweden.html

Of course this just goes along with what I suspected from my own experience with homosexuals. This isn't to say divorce rates among heterosexuals are impressive, because they're not.

You keep insinuating that children are going to suffer some serious psychological damage because their parents don’t have sex in the “normal” way (your words, not mine).

I suspect that they might, unlike you, I never said it was a definite fact.

You specifically said that the “psychological torture” would be the result of adapting to a romantic relationships they’ve never seen in their home.

No, I presented this as a question, whereas you are misrepresenting me by saying I said it was a definite "would." This is what I asked: "What kind of psychological torture would he or she be going through trying to adapt to a romantic relationship they have never seen in their home?"

First, they would have seen a “romantic relationship” in their home. What they’ve never seen in their own home is a romantic heterosexual relationship.

That is what I said!

So the things that have to do with negotiating a relationship outside of sex have been demonstrate for them in their home.

It isn't just sex beastie. Heterosexuals are naturally turned off by homosexual activity in general. It makes me squirm when I see too bearded guys french kissing. This is natural because I am not attracted to men. So let us suppose the adopted kid is heterosexual (most likely). Can you imagine what is going through his head and what kind of feelings he is having during this crucial period of his psychological development, when he sees two men showing that kind of affection in the home on a regular basis?

In fact, they’ve seen more about adapting to a romantic relationship than the children of divorced or single parents, or parents with severe sexual hang-ups.

You're derailing. We're not comparing childhood among gays with childhood among divorced heterosexual parents. Let's compare apples and apples here.

Your post was very long and I have to run. Be back late tonight...

[_Brackite]

Hello all here,

Well, I can understand how our fellow Mormon friends within the LDS Church can believe that homosexuality is a sin. However, I still definitely cannot understand how some fellow Mormons within the LDS Church can view masturbation a sin. I do Not believe that masturbation is a sin.
Where in the New Testament or the Book of Mormon does it condemn the practice of masturbation? I know that there are several places in the Book of Mormon where it condemns the practice of Polygamy. However, I am Not aware of anywhere in the Book of Mormon or the New Testament where it condemns the practice of masturbation. Therefore, masturbation is Not a sin.

[_harmony]

It isn't just sex beastie. Heterosexuals are naturally turned off by homosexual activity in general. It makes me squirm when I see too bearded guys french kissing. This is natural because I am not attracted to men. So let us suppose the adopted kid is heterosexual (most likely). Can you imagine what is going through his head and what kind of feelings he is having during this crucial period of his psychological development, when he sees two men showing that kind of affection in the home on a regular basis?

Now see? There you go again, refusing to allow women into the picture. Most men, when confronted with the idea of two women kissing, don't see anything wrong with it, and actually fantasize about it regularly.

Homosexuality is not the province of men alone!

[_moksha]

I hope Danny Peterson appears as Cardinal Richlieu.

Wouldn't Juliann be better suited to that role? Dr. Peterson can be the King.