[Yorick]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: A dividing line exists between homosexuality and bestiality/paedophilia, Yorick -- it's called CONSENT.

Consent exists in some forms of incest. How are we to know whether consent doesn't exist in bestial circumstances? I've seen rabbits try to hump consenting ducks. I've seen roosters try and hump nonconsenting ducks. (and nonconsenting hens mind you).

I'm waiting to hear Illuminas reasons in any case. I did not regard your arguments as hypocritical, jsut his, as he was so eager to condemn a process of judgement, despite having the same process, just a different dividing line.

Now, I argued against your point about a heterosexual couple being able to produce their own child long ago, and feel I won that little bout. In fact, when I pointed out that if only couples that could procreate should raise children, then we should deny adoptions to infertile couples. When you retorted with "well, they could procreate, if it weren't for the infertility" than I knew I'd won that one fair and square -- because it's equally true that a homosexual male couple could procreate so long as one had a working uterus. [img]graemlins/biglaugh.gif[/img] So, needless to say, I'm not going down that road again with you.

Not at all. You certainly did not. I retorted that if you were going to be hard arsed about it, then you could easily only grant adoption rights to fertile procreating couples - so the child has siblings born from the two parents, and slots into a working family. It's quite an easy line of division. Why are the couple infertile? Age? Is it right to grant adoption rights to parents who will not be able to live to an age where they can raise their kids?

I move the adoption rights to couples, that, were they in normal health, could have children by natural means - ie. a child cannot adopt, nor can a post menopausal woman, nor a same sex couple, nor a human-animal couple. Really really simple, and uses the line of division nature already uses.

What I do want to address are the glaring factual mistakes you've made above. quote: In America, abortion is legal, so unwanted children are killed, meaning there are not nearly enough children to satiate the demand for adoption meaning, yes, people go to China, or your aforementioned Indonesia to adopt.

Well, we are one world community, so as long as unwanted children are getting homes, who cares where the homes are located?
[/QUOTE]It is quite distressing that levels of poverty should be so rampant that parents in the third world should feel a need to hand their children to western tourists to raise. I for one care about where those children come from, and the circumstances they are put up for adoption.

More importantly, there are a lot of children in America to adopt -- not all unwanted children get aborted. I presume you realize that, but your post doesn't read that way. People will skip over unwanted children here and adopt elsewhere for several reasons, including (1) want to get a very young child, (2) don't want a crack baby, and (3) would prefer to circumvent annoying U.S. red tape in the adoption process. This does not, however, mean there are no children here to adopt.

Regardless, there are millions of babies being killed, and a decided lack of available children to adopt.

Now, if your point is really that whitebread Americans are a dying breed, just like whitebread Euros, and they should procreate more to keep their kind from being bred out of existence, well you may have a point. I'll get my sheet, and we can continue the discussion. I did hear a funny comedian the other night say that he and all like-minded black men had a vested interest in making sure white men didn't die out, because they need us: no more white men, no more white women.

I don't understand what you're saying. "I'll get my sheet?"

]Here's your other factual fallacy. You've ignored quite a large polygamistic society that exists in the Middle East, and has been quite successful. Just how many wives does one of Osama's 50 brothers have, I wonder? I'll send them and the Saudi royalty a note that this guy in NYC said they weren't a strong society.

Shall we compare western society to Islamic societies then? On what levels. Average income? Age expectancy? Social programs like health care? Average health of the citizenship? Literacy levels? Career options? Certainly it is a source of embarresment and shame to numbers of proud middle easterners, that the level of civilisation leadership attained in the middle ages, could have slipped to the level it did, so that the "decadent western civilisation" was so easily able to run all over the strongest military of the area. Twice.

Polygamy does not make a strong and functional society. In Islamic society, just as in preRoman middle eastern society, it is evidence of a lack of career options for women, rather than pure romantic choices. In Tibet, apparently it is again, economically driven. Two men for a woman.

In any case, in America, why is it illegal? If homosexuals can marry, why not three or more CONSENTING adults? Seeing as consent was your issue with paedophilia.