LGBTQ+ Rights Worldwide

While I've seen that video most of the people entering the thread won't have. Please add a small summary of the video in the OP.

You might also want to mention why NZ is awesome. (Yes, I know but this thread isn't just for me.)

Also also, there's an unsummarised link to the BBC in the OP. You might want to tell us what it is, in case someone can't open it from where they are.

How about now, Boff?

edited 19th Apr '13 3:44:39 PM by Midgetsnowman

I hope if it gets legalized in the US we get a speech as awesome as that!

Now how have the population of New Zealand reacted to this news?

edited 19th Apr '13 3:46:26 PM by Wildcard

Thanks for improving the OP.

I did do one change, though; I added a reference to the fact that the amendment did pass, as it wasn't entirely clear from the OP. (Or maybe I was reading it wrong.)

Have to say, this thread is a fair bit overdue! I think the NZ thing did come up briefly in the other thread, but wasn't really on-topic. That speech was amazing. Congratulations NZ on entering the 21st century!

Britain's still dragging it's feet...

The Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Bill 2013 is still winding its way through the report stage in Parliament. It needs to get through the Lords too - by no means certain. Even if the old bastards can muster the votes, it may be filibustered into oblivion. There again, filibustering it might just kill off that glorified old folk's home for good.

There are still seven nations - Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, United Arab Emirates, Sudan, Nigeria, and Mauritania - in which being gay or bisexual is a capital crime, because it offends an invisible man who lives in the sky.

Despite his more enlightened stand on ecumenism and poverty, according to LifeSiteNews (that unbiased source!) Pope Francis "will never approve homosexual civil unions". Still, they are probably right on this.

I thought theHouse of Lords had been relegated to irrelevance?

Nope, it's still the Upper House of parliament and has a say on all laws passed.

But I thought getting knighted was the Kiss of Death and that going to Lords meant being Kicked Upstairs and that they're useless and stuff? So instead it's like a sort of Senate?

France might soon be following New Zealand.

No, they just happen to be walking on the same direction.

Hopefully they get gay marriage there. I read the article, but were the protestors getting violent?

edited 19th Apr '13 5:14:26 PM by Wildcard

The Handle, the British politics thread is where to go if you'd like more info on the House of Lords. Suffice to say, they do need to approve our gay marriage bill, and they could refuse. Not sure that they would, though.

Handel, getting knighted is not the same thing as being made a lord. Check out the Knight Fever page. But the long and short of it is this, all bills do have to pass thought the Lords, but if the refuse it and the Commons just passes it again and again they can't refuse it a third time. Currently the UK bill is stuck between the Committee and Report stages. I can't find any estimates online for how long a bill normally stays like that, so things are rather in limbo at the moment.

Also yes being made a lord is normally a kiss of death, because you can't stop being a lord, and pretty much everything interesting happens in the Commons.

Well, some of them were. But they're all disavowed by the main group, which also claims not to be homophobic (which might not be *completely* false, I've theorized in the other thread that the "mother and father" argument may be sexist instead).

edited 19th Apr '13 11:51:14 PM by Medinoc

Meh. I think you are underplaying the role of actual biology difference between the sexes there buddy. I don't find the statement "a child needs a father and a mother" that outrageous myself.

Then explain to me how, after birth, a child needs to be raised by someone with a vagina and someone with a penis, and how other pairings are inadequate for raising a child.

If I am underplaying how crucial this difference is, please tell me what I got wrong.

edited 20th Apr '13 1:32:20 AM by Medinoc

This is a 2009 study about gay and lesbian adoptive parenting. It looks at behavioural problems in adopted children, and concludes that children raised by same-sex couples are no worse off than those raised by opposite-sex couples, and that same-sex and opposite-sex parents face similar challenges.

This is a 2005 study titled "A comparison of family functioning in gay/lesbian, heterosexual and special needs adoptions". (Link is a tinyurl to Web Of Knowledge.) It found no negative effects from same-sex parenting, and also concluded that some categories of adopted kids did better in same-sex headed households than opposite-sex headed ones.

This is the Child Welfare Information Gateway's 2000 take on the issue. (Note that this is a secondary source, not a primary one.) It discusses issues and concerns, finding that they are either unfounded or that the issue is not such that gay parents should be barred from adoption.

Because of these things, I think that the idea "a child needs a father and a mother" is unfounded.

Everyone knows hermaphrodites make the best parents.

Seriously there's tendency for man and women to 'naturally' take a different tact when rising children. Being female or male gives you a different perspective of life and a understanding of your sex that persons of the opposite gender do not. To say otherwise would be ignoring the lessons of gender privilege.

I'm of the opinion that this gender balance of role models is important to a child's social development. It is not to say that a child can't 'get by' with a single sex parents. Just that their natural development is going to be disadvantaged.

edited 20th Apr '13 8:01:57 AM by joeyjojo

Yup: a child just needs parents — more than one, by preference... just to spread the load a bit. But, that's ideal, and the world rarely is. <shrugs>

One can have role models that aren't parents, say uncle/aunts.

Yeah the actual biological sex of the parents matters very little.

Yes agreed. Honestly I think this would be a non concern if community child rearing was still the norm. It takes a village and what not.

As I've argued the biological sex of the parents does matter, However they don't necessarily have to be in a traditional mother/father role. A aunt or uncle can be a sufficient surrogate.

edited 20th Apr '13 8:20:47 AM by joeyjojo