Yeah, judging by the way the Church acts in Massachusetts and how Civil institutions behave in Catholic enclaves herein, you don’t go to heaven by following the rules. Rules are for suckers, and consequences are just too unfair to impose when rules are broken. No. You get in good by sucking up to the heirarchy above you, and attacking and being nasty at people who expect that civil servants actually, you know, should be qualified and competent and actually work for the public and not just exist to suck up to the next level. Then you attack those who point out that they are not following the stated rules on behalf of those patronage patriarchs, because questioning the competence of those “above you” is uppity and very very rude.

Amazing how badly the Catholic Church has damaged democracy in the Cradles of Liberty with its patronage bullshit!

“Queen, Please!”

Way to take offense at what is very much a mild quote of what has been the church’s position for quite some time

Well, good to know we shouldn’t get all het up about Ratzi advocating in totally in general that nowhere should give us equality, rather than focusing specifically on California.

I mean, because bigotry and hate being in general makes it all okay!

/sarcasm

It’s also the Church’s position that it’s immoral for divorced people to remarry but, funny, I don’t see them pouring money into getting California law to ban the re-marriage of divorced people. I guess only gay couples are so especially immoral that gay marriage has to be banned by secular law in addition to being banned by Church law.

That’s the problem, Alana. We have actual research on our side showing that gay parents and straight parents are pretty much the same and, despite all the fearmongering, the simple fact of having a gay parent (or a pair of gay parents) does not scar a child for life.

And yet you have people like James Dobson and, yes, the Pope, who speak as though having a gay parent is the worst possible thing that could happen to a child, and that any hetero parent is automatically superior to a gay one. Even an abusive hetero parent.

That, I think, is the point that Pam is trying to make: parenting skills are not tied to one’s sexual orientation, and being gay does not automatically make you an unfit parent.

You’d be hard-pressed to find a heterosexual custody battle where the judge demanded that the custodial parent’s non-abusive partner move out of the house before the child could live there, but it happened in Maryland.

The implication of right-wing arguments that hetero union is “the natural cradle of human life” isn’t that ALL opposite-sex couples are wonderful parents (in fact, these are generally the same fundies who say most parents are criminally permissive/ungodly/whatever), but that same-sex marriage is NOT “the cradle of human life.” A much more effective tactic, then, would be to juxtapose this kind of prating with anecdotes about nurturing and devoted same-sex parents.

I’m not trying to be the argument police here. I’m just pointing out that if this particular rhetorical tactic - which I’ve seen you use before - strikes me as smug and suggestive of fallacy, it’s probably not going to win many points with anyone who doesn’t already strongly agree with you. (Hmm… maybe that makes me a concern troll instead. Oh well.)