Ken Starr in all his wisdom wants same gender couples who were legally married now to be divorced. He would rather have families divorced due to their biology than allow them to exist in peace and at no harm to others.
Ken Starr and the Prop 8 Legal Defense Fund filed legal briefs defending the constitutionality of Prop 8 and seeking to nullify the 18,000 same-sex marriages conducted between May and November of 2008.
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in this case on March 5, 2009, with a decision expected within the next 90 days. We, the undersigned, ask that the Court invalidate Prop 8 and recognize the marriage rights of these 18,000 couples — and all loving, committed couples in California — under our state's constitution.
I am not denying the legal consistency here since technically after Proposition 8 the marriages do not "really" exist. However, the necessity of this move is simply to rub salt in very fresh wounds of a lot of people who feel once again de-legitimated based solely on biological preference of gender. Yet, if we look at policy regarding families and children, it is hard to understand how these relationships are not good for children under the law, and yet others seem to be. This is not based on social circumstance, but based on biology alone.
It is ok for a single woman who has six kids to intentionally have 8 more via IVF under the law. It is mathematically impossible for her to give the same rate of exchange of love, care and nurture to her kids as it is for any same gender couple to give to their one or two adopted kids. Yet the latter is not protected under the law and the former is. It is also why polygamy does not work quite as well as a same gender couple no matter how you cut it.
It has to do with the number of 2 person relationships that are possible in the social network. The more two person relationships you have in a social network, the more diffuse is the exchange rate of, for instance, nurture that each member can give to all others. If we take [n * (n - 1)] / 2], as we add members to the group, the number of possible relational pairs increases exponentially. All things being equal (age, class, etc.), for two people the rate of exchange is 1 which means that for everything I give to one person, they can give back fully in kind. For ten people that increases to 45 possible pairings, or the exchange between persons is cut to a possible low of 1/45. That means that if i give something to one person, it can go through 44 possible relationship pairings if it leaves my particular pairing with a person before I see a return. As more people are added to a network, that exchange rate decreases and less and less is possible to be given among every member of the group at an equal rate.
For child rearing this is even more diffuse. A parent can never expect to give and receive an equal exchange of anything to a child. If this were so, parents would be pointless and kids would be able to walk and think just like their parents straight out of the womb! Thus, as a family increases in size, the rate of exchange becomes far more taxing on each parent – especially when the children begin to outnumber the parents. This is not to disparage large families, but to say what all parents must know – the more kids you have the more work it is because the more you have to give as a parent. Part of the exhaustion comes from each child (again all things being equal) who expects an equal exchange with the parent which is never possible and more complex with each sibling. With a single parent who has diffuse commitments and relationship networks to manage, it is even more complicated.
Yet this is never a real consideration in the law for events such as the Suleman octuplets. It was perfectly legal for a single parent with six children (at a possible 17.5 pairings all things being equal which they are not) to have an additional 8. Even biologically each fertilized embryo reduces the rate of exchange of nutrients between the host mother and the fetus! Hence more embryos, more risk not just for the mother, but for each child. It is a risk, which she admitted. So she gambled with potential life including her own in order to satiate a clear neurosis from her "loneliness" as a single child! Her reward for a past loneliness is to have a more diffuse family with a reduce exchange of nurture among all of her children. The children are the ones who will get screwed out of the reward as they must.
The point is that the Suleman octuplets will never receive as much nurture as a single child living with two persons of the same gender. They will never garner the same attention from their parent. It is axiomatic. Had she adopted, it would be a much better bet. Even in a large family, the potential nurture for an adopted child is better than the rewards from social services since there bonding is something that cannot happen for each child. this is due to the impermanent nature of social services for children. The exchange rate improves due to the quality of the network rooted in its permanent nature (again all things being equal). Yet same gender couples cannot adopt either!
This sort of foolishness hurts kids. It is not supportive of a life-affirming culture. It supports a selfish culture where the rights of the individual to do what they want with their bodies supersedes the life of a child who starts from a disadvantaged point from the beginning. Granted, Suleman may not have been able to adopt at this point. So why is it legally OK for her to continue the risk of giving birth to more and more children at the same time we continue to seek inequality among nurturing same gender couples who can give kids what they actually need – a better possibility to exchange love with a parent who can give that love back at a healthy rate? It is patently irrational and another sign of social dysfunction. The victims are children who will now lose valuable nurture from parents who are not in a position to return it – all due to their gender and their biology. That is discrimination by any other term.
Thanks to Shuck and Jive.
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