The Loneliest Tree in the World

An ancient tree species is down to its last specimen ... a male.

In 1997, the London cycad was moved out of Palm House (it isn't a palm) and planted in a bed along with other South African plants at Kew Gardens. Seven years later, in 2004, for the first time ever, it produced a bright orange/yellow male cone. It can still do what it has to do.
But it can't do it alone.

At Opine, we encourage and promote that children are raised, when, possible considering the situation, by the two people who created them in a low conflict home of love, support, and tolerance.

Single parents are the first to tell you their situation is not ideal. But that doesn't mean they don't deserve our support and admiration for all the work they do. We should all look to help single parents wherever we can, in our neighborhoods and communities.

And singles, those not married, deserve admiration and support too. Many people imagine a life of freedom when they think of singles. But for most of the singles I know, that is a poor consolation prize for the ability to have someone to build a family with. There are a great many things that can only be accomplished with such resources of time and money, and they are needed. And hopefully any that want to join with someone to cultivate our natural abilities to create families will be able to find that path.

Nope, No Slippery Slope Here

The people who want to rape or molest your minor children without legal or social consequences are at it again. They have supported every effort to confuse and sexualize your children. They have supported every erosion of sexual morality and have deliberately worked to remove boundaries in law, public policy, and media standards so as to make sexual perversion socially acceptable and to silence those who would dare proclaim the importance and benefits of sexual morality, or even a mere difference between adult, heterosexual, monogamous marital sex and any other behaviors.

Tracy Clark-Flory reported at Salon on the latest effort to take one of the end-game steps of making pedophiles a legally protected group with rights as a minority, which would no doubt lead to power through identity politics and a right to rape your children. The pedophiles are following in the footsteps of those who came before them. Will those earlier pioneers welcome them to the destination with open arms (or perhaps something else open)? Notice the euphemism "minor-attracted".

Understandably, the idea of pedophiles helping to define their own mental illness has some unnerved. Earlier this week, the Daily Caller wrote about the event in a piece headlined, "Conference aims to normalize pedophilia." It's true that many in the community believe that attraction to pubescent or pre-pubescent children isn't a mental illness at all, but the symposium itself has the stated aim of raising awareness about fundamental problems with the proposed revision to the DSM's entry on pedophilia.

All it takes is a vote to make any change. And then the judges and politicians and news reporters and activist groups will say "Scientists say this isn't a problem. You're not an anti-science bigot who is against equality, are you?"

Such claims seem rather dubious when visiting a message board like Boy Chat, where it's easy to find men discussing how society just doesn't understand that many "young friends" enjoy having a friendship with a "boy lover." There are no mentions of sexual activity with children, as such posts are forbidden, and posters are effusive about how they would never think of "hurting" a child -- but one gets the sense that they're operating under a different understanding of "hurt."

There are psychiatrists (medical doctors) and psychologists who are child molesters. There have been criminal convictions demonstrating this. Personally, I have every reason, short of a criminal case, to believe that a child psychiatrist I knew as a child was molesting children. He probably still is. He never got to me, thankfully. If I had a way to stop him, I would.

Will activists who have so loudly scoffed at slippery slope suggestions be just as loud now in denouncing any attempt to make pedophilia and child molestation more acceptable? If not, we'll have good reason to conclude that their scoffing and professed disgust was an insincere political tactic.

Perhaps it is time to start a movement to decriminalize parents shooting child molesters? We can call it "Lead Donation Therapy".

There's nothing wrong with a Bandage

A recent flurry in our comment section has brought back a classic phrase from discussions gone by.

To me, marriage describes a union which creates a natural family. Because it explicitly includes the reproductive relationship, it can (and should continue) to do so in order to promote marriage equality -- the equal recognition of the rights of the man, woman and child they potentially have together. They form a unit, a unit of governance and mutual dependency that deserves government recognition in order to promote those individual rights that relate to how we are created.

But ... there is another form. That is the kind that is formed by banding together, also forming mutual trusting relationships. Because of its unique nature to repair after an intact family has been broken apart, and its nature to band together, I've sometimes referred to it as "bandage" -- from way back in 2005.

Sexist people less likely to seek Marriage Equality

Now, remember folks, I stand by marriage equality as the equal recognition of the rights and responsibilities of the man, woman, and child they potentially have together. To me, marriage equality is focused on the rights of how children are created, and how those rights are linked beyond creation into their care and nurturing for society. As well as the rights and responsibilities of both of those parents in deference to their kinship and co-creator status of the child.

I know that the term "marriage equality" more commonly means equalizing sex-segregated couples to be indistinguishable from sex-integrated couples. For the record, and for obvious reasons, I expect that sexists love that kind of marriage equality.

So it strikes me as burying the headline when I read a report titled, "Sexist Men and Women -- Made for Each Other", that ultimately sexist people were less interested in life long, mutually supportive relationships.

The results showed that men who were keen on 'one-night stands' were more likely to use aggressive strategies when flirting with women, and women who were also open to casual sex were more likely to respond to this type of aggressive courtship.

If marriage were a person, ready to take to the airwaves in defense of its image crisis, I'm sure it would point to this study and say, "This! This is the kind of attitude and relationship I'm trying to discourage in those that could ultimately have children between them". It is out to change relationships by changing the way we view what a that relationship is for, and what we should expect to get out of it. It is based on the practicality of what one particular kind of relationship can result in -- independent of whether the two want that result or not. It is based on making your ideals the most supportive of taking responsibility of a likely reality.

Marriage is about putting aside sexist selfishness, to support the person and child you potentially have together. Marriage isn't about loving whomever you want to love, it is about loving and supporting the people who are most entitled to it from you.

Dr J uses the term "Same Sex Marriage" No More

You may have noticed that I do not use the term “same sex marriage” very often.  In fact, I am making a conscious decision not to use the term at all any more.  I think the term gives away too much ground to our opponents. Continually using the term makes it possible to believe that such a thing as a marriage between people of the same sex is possible.

Thus speaks Dr J at Ruth Institute.

At Opine-Editorials we’ve noticed that problem … and more.
But so has Evan Wolfson. He says the term “same-sex marriage” indicates something separate and solely homosexual like Civil Unions has been in practice. I think that is the proper use of same-sex marriage — to denote two people of the same sex who are living with many of the behaviors we expect in marriage.
But then there needs to be a term to denote what happened in Massachusetts. What term can describe the change that happened there, especially to a group of people who claim no change happened at all?
We use the term “neutered marriage”, because that describes, as best we can find, the change in marriage between having the gendered reference to both “man and woman” to having it removed.
Additionally, when removed, neutered marriage no longer looks after the rights and responsibilities of how children are procreated. Its recognition of that is neutered.
I’m glad to see Dr J speaking on the understanding of what is conceded by saying same-sex marriage, even in quotes. Nothing short of saying the specific change to marriage will convey the message to the people who want to understand this issue.
I’ve often said I’m for same-sex marriages being recognized with civil unions. But I’m 100% against neutered marriage.

Parasite Uses the Power of Sexual Attraction to Trick Rats Into Becoming Cat Food

Marriage is an institution, but if it were a person ready to set the record straight on its own image, one of the first things Marriage might say is that it is for responsible procreation, and that means it is directly against many kinds of heterosexual activity. And that is probably more importantly than any opinion that can be construed about homosexuality.

Of the many sexual attractions that can harm children the most are heterosexual in nature. It is with both genders that children are born, creating a literal embodiment of their relationship no matter how casual or even abusive that relationship was. And because of that, marriage is our way of encouraging those relationships to be neither casual nor abusive.

So this recent study, "Parasite Uses the Power of Sexual Attraction to Trick Rats Into Becoming Cat Food" is ripe for analogy and metaphor. Marriage isn't about loving whomever you wish (that is courtship before marriage, but could be adultery after marriage). Marriage is about channeling the effort and sacrifice that grows love between two people towards the people that are entitled to it the most, your children and the person you created them with.

"Are they paranoid? Or are they just dishonest?"

Radicals' ire is misplaced, children need fathers Miranda Devine

On ABC-TV's Q&A on Monday night came an extraordinary question from an audience member who said: "The criticism of Senator Wong is based on the homophobic idea that a child is entitled to having both a father and a mother."

So there you have it. It is homophobic to say a child is entitled to a mother and a father.

Yet not one person on the panel could find the courage to knock the assertion on the head.

On Facebook someone published a list of my Facebook friends on a page called: "Stopping psychotic extremists who want to kill minorities". Inviting people to bully and harass my Facebook friends is this person's way of trying to silence an opinion he (or she) doesn't like.

A cursory glance at these rage-flecked responses offers an insight into the illiberal mindset of those who pretend to demand tolerance. Or rather ram it down our throats. This is not tolerance but jackboot totalitarianism, the tyranny of the minority.

Yes, there we have it.

The Miracles

I want to share a link to a wonderful site that documents a daily struggle of a lady who was nearly burned to death in a plane crash. The recent post, "Three years of miracles and counting" gives due time to the joy and exuberance, though that is only one side of the coin of daily struggle this family has gone through.

This is a perfect example of the kind of sacrifice, love, tolerance, and devotion that marriage should teach everyone. There is no denying those traits are needed outside of marriage also, but isn't it wonderful that the lesson for these children is happening right in their own home. There is no denying lessons like this are available in every home, and should be sought for by the two people in the marriage. And, finally, there is no denying that the most ready path to take to find these lessons is by understanding the responsibility you and your spouse share with the children you created together. Nothing points you to the need to learn the lessons of love, devotion, and tolerance more than the weight of the responsibility you have with them primarily.

These are the benefits of marriage which government cannot provide, but they can point us to by recognizing that primary rights and responsibilities of how families are naturally created, and nurtured. Everything else, our understanding of many other relationship types to the most important impact we can have on the future, flows from that fountain of life.

Learning Your Sister Is 'Someone Else's Twin'

Learning Your Sister Is 'Someone Else's Twin' via NPR Author Interviw

Siblings belong together. What makes a sibling a sibling? They share parents. Right? Or should we debate that the idea, siblings share a maternal and paternal parent, is merely a personal belief and to assume that siblings are family is a factual error?

The shell game of the marriage debate

In the same manner of my post on Friday, an engaging discussion has led to the following rebuke of my advocacy:

Your logical error is so close to a frequently heard fallacious argument that I’m treating it as the same thing. It’s formulation goes, “Gays and lesbians can get married anytime they want to, as long as it’s to someone of the opposite sex.” Well, typically, the person making that argument doesn’t realize that they’ve done a bait and switch. The motivating question is whether gays and lesbians can marry a person of the same sexual orientation, it’s not whether they can marry someone of the opposite sex–everyone knows they can and this isn’t at issue. It’s an obvious truism, and no sophistries can skate around it, that same sex couples can’t legally marry in many areas. Claiming that they can, but only if it’s to someone of the opposite sex, is not entirely honest and a little bit slippery.

First I want to acknowledge and thank the author for what the author got right. It is obvious that gays and lesbians can get married even when the government expects a marriage to comprise a man and a woman. And, I'll add that the author is correct that when someone's been sold on same-sex marriage being a license that comes with the word "marriage" on it for them as well as couples with both genders, then using the term to describe only aspects of marriage is a bait and switch on them.

I'm not conceding that I'm baiting and switching. However, I am acknowledging that from that point of view, anything less than the license and the word for a same sex couple is cheating them out of something they feel they deserve. That is completely understandable, I think we would all feel the same way in the same situation.

I think the author misses a few points in rephrasing the argument. There's more than one way that we can say that gays can get married even when we expect both genders when issuing marriage licenses. I count three ways that it can be said, and only one requires them to marry someone of the other gender.

Each way represents a way to repackage the arguments and definitions. Each can shell misused by both sides to obfuscate the communication in the debate with a bait and switch. I'll call them the three shells, as in the three shells to hide the facts in a more grand shell game of the marriage debate. A quick shift of a single shell and the perspective changes greatly.

Dennis Rodman on being a man.

Amazing. Beautiful.

When you are paid to abandon your child...

This has made the rounds recently on a few websites, but I want to open it up further. In San Diego, a surrogacy lawyer pleads guilty to baby selling. The details are in the report (this one was forwarded to me from NOM's blog, which I have to say has gotten pretty good, I suggest people read it weekly or even daily).

Some food for thought. Why should we be upset when a loving family awaits a child that they will likely do a great job of caring for? One could come up with a number of great things to praise about this. However, none of those negate the one bad thing, someone ... somewhere ... was paid off to abandon their child. And that primarily violates a deep understanding we have that is intrinsic to our humanity, and that is the rights the child and each parent have to each other's care and support (we'll call that love). When people exchange money for those rights, that chance for love, such is an injustice felt everywhere.

"Believing that marriage is a heterosexual institution": Factual Error?

Recently, an engaging discussion at the Minnesota Independent has brought up a very stern rebuke from one of its readers.

Your factual error is in believing that marriage is a heterosexual institution. You may believe this as a private moral view, but same sex marriage is a matter of fact in a number of countries as well as states in the US. Same sex marriage exists right now for many same sex couples whether you like it or not.

I believe the argument is that I use the term "marriage" to describe an institution between a man and a woman based solely on my own personal belief. There exists national and state governments which use the term to discuss same-sex couples, and these nations and states have much more cultural weight to throw around than little ol' me. My use of the term as only between a man and a woman, therefore, is contradicted by the fact that it is used to describe same-sex couples also.

First let me acknowledge what is true in that. That marriage is between a man and a woman is a part of my private morality. And it is true that my view is limited in political power to my advocacy and my own ballot in our democratic nation, in other words it seems to matter only to me. And it is true that my isolated view conflicts with a public view.

Its enough to make someone want to cower in deference. As lined up, the authors points lead to the inevitable conclusion that I was in error.

However, the author's facts are at times incomplete, and other times wrong.

What to do about Same-Sex Immigration?

Michael Crawford over at Freedom to Marry notes that a gay couple is being forced to separate because of DOMA. Not just is their relationship at stake, but the care and livelihood of one of them. As Crawford reports, "Makk [an Australian immigrant] is the primary care giver for Wells who has AIDS." They were given a marriage license in Massachusetts. Crawford sites that "an estimated 40,000 bi-national same-sex couples in the U.S. many of whom are facing forced separation or deportation by the federal government".

Ultimately, I see the question behind the story as "what to do about same-sex immigration", not "why same-sex couples need to neuter marriage".

DOMA is specifically cited as the reason because, as the San Fransisco Chronical (who Crawford is reporting from) notes

APA Dabba Doo

The American Psychological Association, or at least a group within it, has come out in support of neutering marriage. Here's Alden Mahler Levine's piece at CNN.com.

The scientific and professional organization's guiding body voted unanimously at its annual meeting this week in Washington to declare its support for "full marriage equality for same-sex couples."

Of course, brideless or groomless pairings are inherently unequal to marriage, regardless of law or pronouncements from political groups in power within professional organizations.

Dr. Clinton Anderson, APA associate executive director, said that the timing of the resolution is an indirect result of several states' legalization of marriage.

"We knew that marriage benefits heterosexual people in very significant ways, but we didn't know if that would be true for same-sex couples," said Anderson, who is also director of the APA's Office on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Concerns.

Now that six U.S. states permit same-sex marriage, researchers have been able to conduct studies with those couples.

The research, Anderson said, indicates that marriage "does confer the same sense of security, support, and validation" to same-sex couples as to heterosexual ones.

Surely Anderson has heard of placebos? Security is an illusion in any place with no-fault and/or easy access to divorce and no law against adultery; or, it is dependent entirely on the voluntary actions of the individuals, which they can do with or without a marriage license. Support and validation from whom? Marriage licenses are issued on behalf of the people of a state. If the people of a state do not support issuing marriage licenses to brideless or groomless couples, the "support and validation" is not there. It's like pointing a gun at someone and saying, "Tell me love you me," and taking their profession of love seriously. Isn't delusion something psychology deals with?

If these are the reasons the APA supports this move, then it should also support giving state marriage licenses to anyone who asks – singles, three people, four people, anybody. Anyone who feels insecure or in need of support or validation should be handed a state marriage license. And I would feel better if I got an award from the APA and a designation as a psychologist. So now, they have to give me those things.

"The birds and the bees..."

Thought provoking statement from Fannie, over at Family Scholars

Girgis and company would actualy do better to stick to social science research than rely on their bizarre metaphysical argument that marriage is a thing that exists in nature like a flower or a tree. It’s interesting that he accuses the pro-SSM side of shutting down the debate with the bigot charge, because his argument rests on the (circular) premise that two people of the same-sex cannot be married because two people of the same-sex cannot be married.

Two people of the same sex, can not 'have sex', i.e. copulate hence can never consider the potential of creating human life between the two of them. You know how bees pollinate male and female flowers. It's a behavior that requires a penis and a vagina for human beings. Gay couples have strong friendships, but their love can never procreate, that's why marriage matter distinctly from other relationship as a matter of public policy. Nothing personal, it's just the realities of it all. That's biology, not a bizarre metaphysical argument. It's rationally based, check your DNA.

Now for years I've been a target by Fannie, and her friends with personal attacks. Cruel, the equivalent of bullying, even harassment. It's completely unwarranted and yes I admit painfully hurtful. Feel better, that yes, emotionally those taunts do get to me. I try to avoid them, but yeah Fannie knows what she is doing. Words, unlike stones, always hit their target.

Renee Aste, Lowell Massachusetts

The Implications of New York “Marriage"

So, New York has effectively eliminated marriage. Same-sex “marriage” has now created a breach in the institutional wall, a vulnerability than can be exploited to allow other domestic relationships to acquire the status of “marriage” as well. The implication of this is that, in principle, any domestic relationship among adults must have the same, equal entitlement to “marriage” as any other domestic relationship. New York style “marriage” must no longer be limited even by parentage or association. Why? Because marriage has been based historically and legally only on the one particular relationship in nature that directly implicates biology and sexual reproduction. This is the sexual relationship that is possible only between a man and a woman. 

New York and other “same-sex marriage” states, by offering legal status within the existing institution to relationships that are not based on or related to biology and sexual reproduction (i.e., non-sexual relationships), have chosen to ignore this basis. But, then, because of constitutional constraints, they are now in the position of having effectively excluded themselves from the option of ever assuming that the nature of the conjugal relationship may, indeed, be sexually reproductive. Why? Because, within the context of the statutory scheme that is marriage, it cannot be legally assumed without contravening US constitutional law, that, under the same circumstances, the conjugal relationship is based both on the relationship that directly implicates biology and sexual reproduction and, also, that it does not. It will have to be either one or the other. The basis of these state’s “marriage” statutes cannot be both without running afoul of federal constitutional protections.

The reason for this is because discrimination on the basis of gender is illegal in the US, and to even assume that the nature of the relationship where it concerns some couples is sexually reproductive (for example, where it concerns opposite-sex couples), but it is not where it concerns some other couples (e.g., same-sex couples), can only be achieved by impermissible classifications. It would require observing and taking into account the gender composition of couples, and in “same-sex marriage” states, the state must be blind to gender. Thus, to uphold the principle of equality and the rule of law, the sexual genders of domestic partners must not be taken into account, and neither must any assumptions about the nature of their relationship be permitted. “Same-sex marriage” states may only assume that the relationship between persons wanting to marry is a consensual, domestic one, but they may not be permitted to assume that it is one related to biology and reproduction. All adults in a domestic situation, then, who desire the legal status of “marriage” must have that entitlement as these states would have no conceivably important or legitimate governmental interest to exclude any of them.

Furthermore, to continue limiting “marriage” only to domestic relationships when these constitute an association of two persons, and to exclude those domestic relationships that are an association of more than two persons, impermissibly discriminates on the basis of association for no discernibly good reason, and infringes on that right.

There is no longer any reason, then, why New York and other states that have offered a legal status to non-sexual relationships should continue to deny the same legal status to persons of close parentage or to associations of more than two persons, since there can be no legitimate assumptions about the nature of these relationships that would hinder them from establishing a domestic relationship that would entitle them to the same legal status.

Put simply, there is nothing wrong or illegal about two or more people living together, whether these be friends, family members or lovers. If a legal status is offered to some people living together, then the principle of equal treatment under the 14th amendment requires that this same legal status must be offered to all people living together.

Same-sex marriage states have effectively instituted legal partnerships for domestic relationships and have eliminated marriage as it is related to sexual relationships.

These are some of the implications of same-sex marriage.

"A Tale of Two Fathers" from Pew Research

Overview The role of fathers in the modern American family is changing in important and countervailing ways. Fathers who live with their children have become more intensely involved in their lives, spending more time with them and taking part in a greater variety of activities. However, the share of fathers who are residing with their children has fallen significantly in the past half century.

Nothing personal, just noting the obvious, which seems to be ignored by our policy makers who sold themselves out.

How to comment and succeed at Opine Editorials (part 2: What doesn't work, and how to make it work anyway -- possibly))

So you want to post on Opine? You read my message yesterday and feel confident that you can make a difference. Good! Let me tell you what doesn't work, just to save us both some time.

So let me tell you what doesn't work...

How to comment and succeed at Opine Editorials in changing our minds

In my vision of the olden days, colored by a number of entertaining (though perhaps not historically accurate) shows have left me with the mental image of a world where you didn't need a business card. You could swing open the parlor doors of the local gathering place and announce, "I am Leif, Erik's son from the North", or "I'm fast-draw McGraw". Word got around.

Sometimes, you didn't even need to announce yourself. If you had a reputation for trouble that preceded you, you'd know because when you walk down the street and people would shutter their windows, you'd walk into the gathering place and everything would go silent except for whisperings barely out of earshot to help inform people who are not yet familiar with the reputation.

I've gone from "Hello, I disagree with X and Y on your article, and I'm from Opine", to entering a web site community to see it go immediately go silent except for the gossipy whisperings to each other about Opine's reputation. Unfortunately, however, like all gossip it is mostly untrue and undeserved. We are not masters of mental gymnastics that can seemingly defy the gravity of being well grounded in our facts and reasoning. We are not (as opposite this may sound to the above) immovable deaf stones who are never impacted by any sort of reasoning we see.