As I was sitting in Denny’s this morning, eating approximately one half of my American-sized breakfast, two adjacent leaders in The Oregonian caught my eye.
The first was against Bush’s decision not to fund stem cell research.
He opposes federally financed research on stem cells obtained from embroyos discarded by fertility clinics, insisting it’s the same as taking human lives. That may be Bush’s personal religious conviction, but it isn’t shared by most Americans. Polls show broad support for such research, including up to 70% of Republicans in some surveys.
Summary: public opinion is for this measure, so why doesn’t Bush listen?
The second, next to it, was against the Oregon Supreme Court’s decision not to permit gay marriage.
And polls suggest that Americans increasingly share that dream [of a “just society”]. There is growing support for civil unions, growing support for equal treatment of gays and lesbians, and growing support for even for same-sex marriage. It takes longer to convince people one by one, and to convince state legislatures as well.
Summary: public opinion is against this measure; but we’d like the state legislature to ignore that.
This follows nicely on your “propaganda” post. The sword cuts both ways….
Public opinion is not always right.
People are stupid. More people are more stupid.
…And glib mantras are often bollocks.
Bush’s decision on stem cell research is spectacularly stupid. When people die, it’s quite common for healthy organs to be harvested. If an embryo is being discarded (note: discarded effectively means wasted and also implies that the embryo is already dead or going to die), why can’t it be “harvested” as well?
As for civil unions, they create a distinction from marriage (keeping marriage “holy”) and grant equal legal rights to all those who can’t or don’t want to be married (in a religious sense or otherwise). Anyone opposed to them is simply selfish or so brainwashed by religion that they can’t see sense any more. Does it really matter if a gay guy has the same legal rights as a widow if their partner dies? The answer is no.
I see no disadvantages to either case. The bottom line is that Bush is a bad leader and American public opinion probably shouldn’t be listened to until America can elect someone better than Bush.
Actually, sadly it’s not all that common – and the reason is that you need the explicit permission of the person concerned. Which (whether you think the embroyo is a person or not) you clearly don’t have in this case.
The embroyo is not already dead – otherwise it would be useless to the researchers. And others might say “going to die” as “going to be killed”. Your premises already contain your conclusion, because you have started by assuming that the embroyo is not a person, and so can morally be “discarded”, as one might throw away a sandwich wrapper.
At least in the UK, that’s not true. Two people of different sexes cannot form a civil union, even if they don’t want to be married.
It depends what you think the purpose is of the relevant tax breaks or inheritance rules. If you see them as part of the state’s encouragement of the family, which many studies have shown to be important in social cohesion – something the government wishes to promote – then yes it does matter because it removes that particular piece of encouragement (and, if taken to the logical conclusion, all encouragement).
Given that your opposition to gay marriage is based on your beliefs on what constitutes a “marriage” as opposed to the basic concept of allowing life partners to receive security-based government benefits, would you support the concept of the civil union being extended to straight couples? (this is just nitpicking over syntax anyway of course; People have Jedi weddings in the UK right now, and the end result is still a “marriage” as opposed to a “civil union”.)
As you haven’t expressed any previous aversion to the concept of adoption, do you believe that the social benefits of the family unit are only achieved when the parents are of opposite sex? Are there studies to support this?
– Chris
Actually, all you need is permission from the next-of-kin, and all they really have to do is say “it’s what he/she would have wanted”. Source: http://www.uktransplant.org.uk
Er, no, I said it’s going to be discarded. If you want to debate the morality of how fertility clinics work, that’s another issue. Personally, I’d rather see the effective “waste product” of such a clinic be used for something important.
Gerv, I don’t understand your initial point.
The two editorials both say “listen to public opinion”, but you have categorized the second as “ignore public opinion”. Of course there may be more in the rest of the article than you gave in the snippet, but it seems to me that the summary of the second snippet should be “public opinion increasingly wants gay marriage, and the state legislature should acknowledge that”.
anon – “public opinion increasingly wants gay marriage” seems to me to actually say ‘public opinion doesn’t yet support but seems to be headed that way, so we’re sure eventually it will’. Another words, the editor(s) are not providing data, instead they’re ‘interpreting’ the data for us. But they’re not interpreting it consistently, and a close look reveals an obvious bias.
And if you read on: “It takes longer to convince people one by one, and to convince state legislatures as well.”
The will to convince them is contrary to “we’d like the state legislature to ignore that”.
One key factor in the “wasted” embroyo scenario not yet mentioned is what effect creating a supply for a market that hasn’t existed much will have. What if the supply of “wasted” embroyos declines? And this whole argument begs the question as to what real, tangible value has research on these embroyos produced and how different/beneficial is it from adult stem cell research?
Are there studies that prove homosexual families are as successful or more successful than the traditional family? Obviously, it’d be in the government’s interests to promote or discourage legislation that fosters healthy families since that would lead to fewer social problems which also translates into operational costs.
There’s definitely a flawed logic here.
1. The government creates incentives to entice couples to marry.
2. The government creates incentives for those who have children (e.g. tax deductions and credits)
3. The two sets of incentives are not directly connected. The government does not create incentives that promote both marriage AND children, above and beyond just adding incentive 1 to incentive 2 (e.g. a single person gets the same child incentive as does the married couple.)
4. The government provides no disincentives. (e.g. there are no deterents or penalties for divorce above and beyond losing incentive 1.)
By the arguments I’m hearing the incentives worth is based on how many people are taking advantage of it (i.e. if everyone can take advantage of that particular government encouragement then suddenly noone will want to because we’re all equal.)
The other flaws in the logic are centered around definition. The government provides incentives in theory to encourage families. What defines a family? If a couple marries and has no children are they a family? Is the definition of a family based on children? If so then the incentives provided by the government should be limited to those who fit that narrow definition. This means excluding the infertal, people who choose not to have children, and people who marry outside of child-bearing age.
Likewise if we so narrowly define what family is and thus who get’s the incentives do we also exclude single parent families. Since they would no longer fit the definition.
The truth is that families have existed in many forms throughout history without the need for direct government incentives. If the government truly wanted to promote family they would make divorce much harder and possibly for that matter marriage. Because you can’t get out of a bad marriage if you never get into one.