Same-sex parent 6/30/16

                A friend asked me to comment on Camille Beredjick’s article, “Republican Lawmaker Claims ‘All of the Research’ Opposes Same-Sex Parents (And He’s Totally Wrong)”, Friendly Atheist, June 4, 2016.[i]  

I disagree with most of the premises in the article, and quote from it to make my points. My opinions spring from two years of collaboration for civic morality using both 1) the preamble to the constitution for the USA to coordinate civic issues for safety and security in the broadest terms, reserving private issues for privacy, and 2) physics-based reality to mediate the common ground. (However, the collaborators are not responsible for my opinions.) Physics is energy, mass and space-time from which everything on Earth emerges.[ii]

                Quoting the article, “. . . virtually no difference in the general wellbeing of kids with same-sex parents versus different-sex parents.” (I recall this argument from two years ago.[iii]) This is a statement from sociology, a pseudo-science by definition.[iv] (Not to discredit sociology, but to put it in its place as the study of opinion rather than physics-based facts.) So far, there is 1.8 million years of experience by humankind--some seven trillion person-years’ of civic observations, and the diversity of cultures is astounding. On the one hand, in the West, some people use the Bible to separate the good from the bad (recognizing bad ideas in the Bible) and live by moral civics as well as take responsibility for salvation of their soul, whatever that is: fact or fantasy. In other words, some civic people also have concern for their soul. Others use the Bible to oppress other people. In the East there are also civic people, but some people traditionally use negotiating practices that position themselves with the opportunity to unilaterally terminate the agreement, for example, keep the goods or services and not make the payment. The consequence is often violence or war: Their trade practices seem cool yet leave them isolated respecting civic morality.The range in cultures is amazing.

It has taken hundreds if not thousands of years of collaboration to make moral civics plain. For example, the physics of slavery—chains, whips, brutality, sexual abuse to slaves with burdens to masters—has been plain for over 4,000 years, yet the men who canonized the Bible, 1700 years ago, did not exclude passages that seem to condone slavery: Even the American Civil War, with the white-Christian South claiming less “erroneous religious belief”[v] waged war against the white-Christian North. The slavery war yet rages[vi] and still divides Christianity, for example, on black liberation theology.

Perhaps 99% of children, if left to well grounded, natural discovery of their sexuality would discover and comprehend that their personal preference is monogamous heterosexuality.[vii] The good or evil of same-sex partners involving children in same-sex conventions will take hundreds if not thousands of years to confirm through physics—the facts of reality. According to the morality of physics, children should not be influenced to deny monogamous heterosexuality. Both the alternative monogamy--same-sex monogamy--and promiscuity are unfavorable respecting civic collaboration and conformity to physics. In other words, same-sex partners must break monogamy in order to procreate, creating new paths for infidelity. Infidelity to physics begets infidelity to self, which begets infidelity to partner. For example, when a child is not genetic offspring of a partner, it makes perfect sense for child and partner to grow appreciation for each other, become intimate, and fall in love, leaving the partnership morally dissolved. The possibilities in human invention seem unlimited.

            Turning now to ideas in the article, “ . . . he chatted with the FRC’s Tony Perkins.” The first place to fish for opinion you can trash is in the trash bin of the far right,[viii] and that is exactly where this pseudo-news by Camille Beredjick began. That’s not surprising, because she is an LGBT advocate and therefore has an agendum. See http://www.camilleberedjick.com/ . I wondered, not to discredit her, but to learn. However, I have forty years exposure to Tony Perkins, a native of my home town, and his work is a discredit to civic morality. To say that such people do not read the news is an understatement. They have not even read the news about slavery. On the other hand, labeling the FRC a hate group is certification by bigots.[ix] It amazes me that Beredjick doesn’t realize that “hate” is in the perception of the accuser, and the accuser may be at best influenced by erroneous experiences and observations and at worst, hateful.

“In times past, there were two foundations[x] . . . people felt like this was a religious conviction.[xi] And then there were those who said . . . children belong in a permanent family where they have a mother and a father . . . because all of the research.” This is the standard approach taken by SSS lawyers, who use pseudo-science to attack the unsuspecting and over-confident religious right. Over confidence is born of 227 years of apparent success of Chapter XI Machiavellianism[xii] by political regimes in the USA. A civic people (ACP)[xiii] can effect reform to civic morality, using physics[xiv] rather than religion. Religion is a bemusing struggle toward comprehending physics. That is, religion engages in costly intellectual constructs to prove its imaginations before it can admit error and focus on the facts of reality.

             “Franks might be thinking of the infamous Mark Regnerus study.” The Regnerus study is an illustration of the power of sociology’ to confuse both advocate and opponent in a civic debate of pseudo-science. It is circular to the first comment I made, above. I will say no more about it and do not plan to read the study, unless I perceive an incentive. However, I will point out that “might be thinking” is a dead giveaway that Beredjick is using straw-man falsehood in her article. I do not want to address her straw-man.

              “ . . . doing a damn good job at it.” I try to avoid slang in speech and writing because I feel it lessens my message. Beredjick has her style.

              “Scholarship[xv] on LGB parenting began in the 1970s.” The author seems accurate enough in this statement for its 1970s purpose: to help SSS. However, fidelity in human relationships has been thought about rationally for as long as writing was available to humankind. For example, Plato wrote about it.[xvi] I am interested in scholarship that contributes to civic morality rather than considering literature that supports a personal practice. To put it another way, I have no desire to debate my RNH private life and likewise have no desire to debate another person’s RNH lifestyle. On the other hand, I want the mutual civic morality needed to secure safety in its broadest terms.  

             “But as the culture wars increasingly focused on gay people . . . contrary to claims by the religious right,” is a false premise. “Gay pride” created a culture war when there was none, and the religious right is vulnerable out of ignorance to physics-based morality. Civil marriage licensing, a state responsibility according to the constitution for the USA, is the actual object, and civil licensing has nothing to do with religion. Conservative lawyers who advised Congress on DOMA were amateurs respecting the constitution but professional on repressing opposing opinion. After their defeat, they did not advise Congress to take action on the basis of physics. As soon as Congress passes an act that defends procreation as by a man and a woman based on physics rather than religion, the Supreme Court decisions will be revised so as to preserve same-sex appreciative bonding but protect children from subjugation to the same-sex lifestyle. Children cannot emerge from the womb aware that their preference for life is monogamous heterosexuality, but that possibility should not be lessened by a civic people encouraging training in homosexuality.
             The religious-right ignorance is shared not only with Congress and its erroneous DOMA (1996), but with the US Supreme Court and its divine opinionator, Justice Kennedy; he holds self-appointed lordship respecting dignity and equality. Popular public opinion was formed not on fidelity, but on emotional response to the gay whine, “We’re in love and want to be married, too.” Civic morality—collaboration--might arrive at civil union for gay partners without subjugating the dignity and equality of children to have the heritage they own from an ovum and a spermatozoa and the fidelity due them from that androgynous pair, as directed by physics. People are free to rebuke physics, and when they do so, they must take responsibility for moving the envelope of civic morality—proving that their innovation conforms to civic morality.

             “Despite his unapologetically hateful claims . . . “ is a hateful introduction. It is difficult for me to understand how anyone can debate heartfelt opinion and accuse the other party of hate,  condescension, racism, or apply any emotional opprobrium without perceiving the judgment of their own word: hate knows hate. When people direct such accusations to me, I ask them to go look in the mirror and state, for example, “Phil Beaver is a bigot.” Bigot does not impress me, because I seek collaboration, listen, and help create a way to accommodate the other party. Another approach I take is to ask the accuser to explain the use of the word--bigot, giving them a chance to really think about the claim. I have no patience with Beredjick’s article, yet would be glad to collaborate: swap roles between speaker and listener with the objective of creating a possibility for a future with civic morality rather than competing for dominant opinion. However, I will argue neither theism nor atheism when trying to debate civic morality. I have no interest in another person's god, except in as much as their god helps their RNH life. I don't object to their god for their sake, because I have no desire to speculate. When the SSS places same-sex civic morality in the religious forum, they have misdirected the priest-politician partnership, which is easy prey, as the USA is experiencing.

Quoting Rep. Franks, “The so-called tolerant left are the most intolerant people that I know of.” Here again, look in the mirror, Ms. Beredjick, and make that claim against Rep. Franks, which you are tacitly doing. “Intolerance” is useful, but there is no place for tolerance. Even abuse should be replaced with appreciation rather than tolerance or respect. There is no excuse for anyone to claim that they are tolerant, because no RNH person has the higher personal opinion. Personal opinion is required only when the objective truth is not known, and in that case, physics-based theory has the upper hand. All persons must conform to physics (or kick sand into the wind if they prefer) by which humankind may discover the facts of reality. Furthermore, the currently popular claim to “respectful” debate is false. When someone "respectfully" expresses a falsehood, the listener is obliged to bluntly, explicitly refute the falsehood,[xvii] leaving respect to seek its own. Respecting physics, every person is in the same predicament: ACP needs to actually use discovered physics and also work together to utilize the theory of physics-based morality respecting the yet undiscovered facts. For example, an ancient sea-farer, observing the curvature of the horizon could imagine he or she was on a globe rather than a flat surface, and venture toward “the edge”-- cross the sea to discover new lands. Once he or she had observed the disappearance of the departed land, he or she could draw images of the real, solid experience and discover gravity, knowing neither the physics of gravity nor the word gravity.

Physics informs humankind that heterosexual monogamy is the most efficient appreciative bond when procreation is desired; appreciative bonding should precede making love. Religious tolerance for divorce is a privation regarding fidelity to personal progeny: children, grandchildren and beyond. Same-sex sex outside monogamy is a convenient route to whetting and satisfying sexual appetites without risking pregnancy, but it creates civic immorality through disease and broken expectations.[xviii] Promiscuity is not a route to fidelity. When procreation is not desired, the monogamous same-sex appreciative bond seems consistent with civic morality or fidelity to physics.

“Looks like Rep. Franks was wrong.” When viewed from civic morality based on physics, or the facts of reality, it seems Beredjick has made the case that she is wrong. I see no reason, at this point, to review my first reading of her article, but would be glad to reconsider. However, this is the second revision of my initial writing. Comments about present privations would be appreciated. That’s what collaboration is: a speech and listening, then any needed clarification, and perhaps swapping roles (parhaps iteratively) in order to create a better idea for the future.

 
Copyright©2016 by Phillip R. Beaver. All rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted for the publication of all or portions of this paper as long as this complete copyright notice is included. Revised June 30, 2016

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[i] Online at www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2016/06/04/republican-lawmaker-claims-all-of-the-research-opposes-same-sex-parents-and-hes-totally-wrong/

[ii] Obviously, this is not the same “physics” that was recommended by Zeno in 300 AD when he formed the Stoic School. His physics was a pantheism. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno_of_Citium#Physics . Study of the “physics” defined herein may never prove the god hypothesis. For more on the stoicism, see http://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_stoicism.html  and especially www.philosophyforlife.org/stoicism-and-christianity/ .

[iii] This is a statement from the same-sex supporters (SSS) and takes me back two years when I was constantly writing against gestational surrogacy and getting trashed personally by the SSS, who wanted a Trojan horse for genetic surrogacy. (Dreadfully, the governor of Louisiana signed the 2016 bill to legalize gestational surrogacy, leaving Louisiana’s statute against genetic surrogacy in conflict with Obergfell: www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-556_3204.pdf .)

[iv] Sociology does not use science to study physics--or the facts of reality. Sociology either examines macro statistics, such as demography on sex preference, obtained by surveys of people’s responses to questions or micro statistics, such as interviews with people responding to questions about their sex practices. Both method is subjective, and the study of physics is not subjective. Physics is the object of scientific study and anything else is pseudo-science.

[v] CSA declaration of secession, online at http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_scarsec.asp .

[vi] Online: http://www.freetheslaves.net/about-slavery/slavery-today/

[vii] H. A. Overstreet. The Mature Mind. 1949. (This great book needs to be updated.)

[viii] I have no patience with the far-right’s “better than the rest” or antinomian attitude, behind which they stonewall people with differing opinions rather than doing the work to collaborate for a civic morality.

[ix] Ratings other people’s RNH associations is an alienating practice. When a people decide to create a culture of collaboration, they communicate enough to comprehend each other’s experiences and observations, discover common objectives, such as PLwCM, and thereby, together, create a possible better future.

[x] “Traditional marriage” is a meaningless phrase that “progressives” skillfully use to distract issues of civic morality and make them religious. The right cooperates with the ruse. For example, Congress, in enacting DOMA in 1996, based it on Judeo-Christian tradition—clearly unconstitutional basis. But moreover, it was unconstitutional action. Respecting civic morality, the marriage license is a states responsibility, and therefore was acted on by the federal government, first Congress, then the administration with its Supreme Court, unconstitutionally. Civic morality in marriage addresses 1) mutual obligations between adult couples and partners and 2) obligations of couples to their progeny. A civic people encourage fidelity and design laws to discourage infidelity. As long as there is real-no-harm (RNH) to civic morality, citizens are free to practice infidelity. A person may practice RNH bonding with a bird in complete privacy; it’s only when that practice is made a public issue that there may be breech of civic morality.

[xi] “Religious conviction” is a meaningless phrase that can be used for eternal, opinionated debate. The person who adopts civic morals with religious beliefs divides the good from the bad in his or her religion and does not talk about the religion—it’s personal and private. Religion is personal and private because of humility. In the case of marriage, the Scripture is imperfect in parts, but in the whole, for the reader with civic morality, the Bible outlines the way of life that is advantageous to the individual, and each individual has only a brief moment in time—some eighty years for possible perfection of his or her person. For most persons who reach psychological maturity the life preferences are heterogeneous monogamy and fidelity. Fidelity extends to the generations made possible by the spouses. The Bible is not perfect. For example, the importance of fidelity is not well expressed and does not explicitly recommend fidelity to grandchildren and beyond. Also, the importance of humility in controlling gullibility seems repressed. Lastly, the canonized Bible contains some blatant conflict with physics-based morality or the facts of reality, such as subjugation of children an evil practice.

[xii] Machiavelli, The Prince, 1513, Chapter XI. See www.constitution.org/mac/prince11.htm . My most recent paraphrase: The priest-politician partnership picks the people’s pockets and parishioners support the priest as political regimes come and go. Only the portion of the people who are humble toward physics—the facts of reality--can bring about reform or civic justice.

[xiii] See promotethepreamble.blogspot.com, titled “A Civic People of the United States,” until June 12, 2016, when the author decided to appeal to the world, still advocating the use of the preamble to the constitution for the USA to coordinate civic issues and physics to mediate opinion toward a culture of people who collaborate for civic morality.

[xiv] Physics is energy, mass and space-time from which everything on Earth emerges: Physics helps humankind discover the facts of reality.

[xv] A scholar, according to Merriam-Webster online is “a person who knows a great deal about one or more subjects:  a learned person.” I accept the author’s claim of a beginning in the 1970s for the purpose she cites. However, what she calls “scholarship” is really rationalization or sophistry. Scholarship that appreciates civic morality is my interest.

[xvi] Plato’s Symposium speaks of civic fidelity. See www3.dbu.edu/naugle/pdf/platonic_love.pdf for an explanation of the masterpiece, misdirected as it may be in that it focuses on love rather than appreciation. Also, see http://www.qcc.cuny.edu/SocialSciences/ppecorino/INTRO_TEXT/Chapter%202%20GREEKS/Plato_Symposium.htm with URLs to the text. Of particular interest to this article is Aristophanes’ speech, for example, “let me treat of the nature of man and what has happened to it; for the original human nature was not like the present, but different. The sexes were not two as they are now, but originally three in number; there was man, woman, and the union of the two, having a name corresponding to this double nature, which had once a real existence, but is now lost, and the word "Androgynous" is only preserved as a term of reproach.” As I re-read this I have the notion that in the natural state, humankind procreates only by heterogeneous monogamy (ultimate fidelity), and only with sentient focus on sex without procreation does ingenious focus on both whetting and satisfying sexual appetites emerge. In other words, same-sex partners who form mutually appreciative bonding may enjoy monogamy with or without sex, but sexual promiscuity is a matter of satisfying appetite rather than appreciative bonding. Three-thousand years later there are polyamory societies with their version of fidelity: sex with someone outside the group is infidelity.

[xvii] Albert Einstein. “The Laws of Science and The Laws of Ethics.” 1941. Online at www.samharris.org/blog/item/my-friend-einstein .

[xviii] Each of us has imagination, and mine wonders if the Orlando massacre was the consequence of bitter disappointment in the life that had emerged from failure to comprehend the physics of human living—no coaching for fidelity to personal autonomy, collaborative authenticity, and a path toward a full life of some eighty years.