marriage is fundamental to every family, to the entire society.

now can you compare that to the prohibition of intoxicants? eh, not so much.

the issues of social justice related to gay marriage are clearly important in a civics perspective and entirely appropriate for discussion amongst first graders.

i wouldnt normally think it the destination of a class field trip, but... if parents from a private school want to let their kids go to their teacher's wedding... well, so what?



[Edited on October 27, 2008 at 7:42 PM. Reason : ]

10/27/2008 7:40:41 PM

Hell no I wouldn't waant that homosexual crap pushed on my kids in the form of a "wedding" b/c thats exactly what this woman was doing, pushing it. And yes it'd be creepy if a straight couple invited kids to their wedding as well.

10/27/2008 11:02:40 PM

Quote :

"marriage is fundamental to every family, to the entire society. now can you compare that to the prohibition of intoxicants? eh, not so much."

64% of Americans over 18 drink on a regular basis.
[link]http://http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/08/01/health/webmd/main1857447.shtml[/link]

43% of Americans 15 and older are unmarried and single Of those, 63% have never been married. If I'm doing my math right (and I may well not be), that means that 77% of Americans over 15 have been married. That's all of of 13% more than drink on a regular basis at this moment.
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/facts_for_features_special_editions/002265.html

So, more people have been married than currently drink. However, more people have drank than are currently married.

It seems like this one specific intoxicant is just about as prevalent in our society as getting hitched is.

You call them "red herrings" all you like, but let's look at the comparison between booze and gay marriage:

1) They are both things that have, in the past, been illegal. Hell, in my county, it is STILL illegal to buy a drink (or gay marry, not that you couldn't guess).

2) They are both things that we generally agree shouldn't be permitted to minors, but are fine among consenting adults.

3) They were both emotional issues around the time they were being legalized.

4) During that time, they both were/are characterized as moral issues.

5) Marriage, like drinking, is a longstanding fixture in human civilization. As far back as you can find any sort of marriage, you can find beer, wine, and spirits.

So why are they so different? Because marriage is an essential unit in building a family? Maybe not, since 48% of households nationwide are maintained by unmarried couples, as per the above link. 43% of those include children.

Is it because marriage is somehow a more fundamental right? Why would that be the case?

Quote :

"the issues of social justice related to gay marriage are clearly important in a civics perspective and entirely appropriate for discussion amongst first graders."

I don't know what grasp of civics you think the average first grader has, but this subject is several levels above it. First graders don't really get a lot of talk about slavery, civil rights, or genocide. Why is this subject somehow different? Because it's more touchy-feely? And does that actually make them more able to understand its ramifications?

Quote :

"if parents from a private school want to let their kids go to their teacher's wedding... well, so what?"

If the effects really only apply to the kids going, then I could care less. They all wanna be weird, that's their business. The reality of it is that if most of your kid's class is going on a field trip that you decline to send them on, that kid sits around and does busywork -- at best. And if I'm paying for my kid's schooling, either through taxes or tuition, I'm not pleased at the idea that my money is getting wasted on bullshit just because everyone else wanted their kid to go see their teacher make a political statement.

joe_schmoe, I don't know what happened in the past few days that has you riding my ass like this, but especially in this instance I really, truly don't think you have a leg to stand on.


[Edited on October 27, 2008 at 11:25 PM. Reason : weird formatting]

10/27/2008 11:24:37 PM

your statistics are meaningless. marriage (however defined) is essential to the fabric of society. any society. all over the planet. intoxicants are not. its a red herring to compare the two. I'm done discussing this comparison. it's moot.

now here are the real questions:

-- do you agree with attempts to mainstream homosexual lifestyle choices?
-- do you agree with giving gays full rights to marriage?
-- should parents/teachers expose first graders to these issues in an age-appropriate manner?
-- all things being equal, do you prefer public or private schools?
-- what is the purpose of sending kids on field trips?

this school in question -- teachers, staff, parents -- has certain values and priorities. they make different decisions than schools with different priorities.

my kid's school, i think, is a school that could do something like that given the right conditions. And i think i'd be okay with it.

our school strives to maintain diversity in social, racial, economic, and family structure. we have gay parents. we have single mothers on public assistance. we have microsoft executives and law professors. we strive to teach everything in the context of developing critical thinking and social justice

but you know, there are plenty of good schools out there who wouldnt do that. and there are plenty of parents who would say "i dont think this is appropriate for first graders" ... and that's their choice. and i dont think they're necessarily wrong, either.

there's not so many cut-and-dry pat answers in education. especially at that age. in many instances there is no clear black-and-white choices. the important thing, i think, is consistency in message, but flexibility in execution.

if a kid can develop critical thinking skills by middle school, s/he will be able to handle most anything that comes at them. IMO the early years is not so much important to teach kids concrete things, but more to teach them how to learn and how to evaluate, and we've made a decision to try and do this in a certain environment.

but, again, that's what i've determined is right for me and my family.

you may have made different and equally valid decision for yours.

10/28/2008 1:27:17 AM

Quote :

"marriage (however defined) is essential to the fabric of society. any society. all over the planet. intoxicants are not."

You may be done discussing the issue, but I'm not. And while I admit I'm not willing to search for links at the moment (I'm already frustrated with other things -- I will try to tomorrow) I recall reading a National Geographic article a few months back which presented an interesting and apparently somewhat accepted hypothesis. The short version is that stationary settlements and cities -- essentially, the geographic bedrocks of civilization -- started at least in large part, if not primarily because of alcohol. It's hard for a nomadic society to operate breweries. It seems that our discovery of intoxicants may have led directly to the establishment of civilization as we know it.

Virtually every society has had them as a crucial part of their operation, particularly with regards to religion (which is the instrument by which marriage was first really created). Native Americans had tobacco and peyote. The majority of Christians consider wine to be an integral part of worship. Muslims, despite taboos against alcohol, perfected distillation, enjoy widespread use of tobacco, and have had important sects regard marijuana and similar plants quite highly.

And then, of course, there's the question of exactly how "essential to the fabric of society" marriage really is. I have already demonstrated how large parts of America get by without it just fine. Though the threads are all long dead now, I can recall a number of incidents in my early, more moralistic TWW years when proponents of gay marriage argued against exactly the argument you are now making.

Moreover, you've hamstrung the whole line of thinking with your parenthetical "however defined." How the fuck are we supposed to take that? In the past couple of days, you've talked about a certain kind of marriage -- specifically, one in which a man has supreme control -- as being extremely detrimental to the fabric of society.

Lastly, if you don't think intoxicants are essential to the fabric of society, think for a moment about what happened the last time we tried to get rid of them.

---

Now, the answers to your questions, in order:

1) I don't care. I don't necessarily think it's a good thing, but I think that any effort to prevent or slow it down would almost certainly be worse. And I don't feel particularly strongly about either of those parts. Honestly, gay marriage would rank very near the bottom of my concerns, which is to say that I no longer concern myself with it at all.
2) Yes. I have extremely minor hangups regarding whether or not the arrangement is called "marriage," but I do mean extremely minor. As in, as minor as the annoyance I get from people with hyphenated last names. It kind of bugs me, but I'm not going to shun people who have them or try to legislate against them.
3) I don't think there is an age-appropriate manner in which to expose first graders to these issues. I doubt the majority of first graders could tell you the capitol of the United States, let alone describe very relevant aspects of this debate like:
a) Federalism
b) The involvement of courts
c) The separation of church and state
d) Choice vs. not-choice (in terms of sexual preference)
etc, etc
4) I have been and remain opposed to the existence of private schools before college and possibly high school. They serve primarily as a means of segregating the population (not necessarily in a racial sense, though often that, too), disrupting consistency of education, promoting classism, undermining the national interest, and reinforcing highly specific ideologies. And before you start, this opposition initially began as a response to private religious schools, although I am increasingly seeing that secular and liberal ones are no different.
5) You send kids on field trips to expose them to meaningful or possibly rewarding things that they could not realistically come to grasp in a classroom but could come to grasp elsewhere, especially given their opportunity to interact with people specifically educated in the field (for example, if you send kids to a museum they're probably going to be able to ask questions of their tour guide). I couldn't tell from any of the articles, but I'm willing to bet that during the wedding kids weren't encouraged to raise their hands and ask questions like, "But if you guys are both girls, which one is the husband?"

Quote :

"this school in question -- teachers, staff, parents -- has certain values and priorities. they make different decisions than schools with different priorities. "

I don't *think* I've implied anywhere here that I oppose this school for doing what it's done. It's a private school, these parents paid for it, they suggested the whole damnfool thing, let them have at it. I have said I wouldn't be pleased if my kid was there, though I assume it's obvious that my kid wouldn't be anywhere near the place. The only time I'm going to actively oppose what other people teach their kids is when their lessons present an active, dangerous threat not only to society, but to the Constitution and to the peace. Which is why I'll gladly help hang the instructors of those Prussian Blue whores if I'm given the chance.

Quote :

"we have gay parents. we have single mothers on public assistance. we have microsoft executives and law professors. we strive to teach everything in the context of developing critical thinking and social justice "

Sounds exactly like my high school, and yet I turned out like me. I can't wait for your kid or whatever to turn into something similar.

Quote :

"there's not so many cut-and-dry pat answers in education. especially at that age. in many instances there is no clear black-and-white choices. the important thing, i think, is consistency in message, but flexibility in execution."

Again, I don't recall saying that a lot in education was cut-and-dry. Although I think it probably is. I'm quite certain there's a system that maximizes educational potential, at least in theory. The problem is that most teachers, for all the weeping we do over their plight, are pretty fucking stupid. Sure, there's a lot of great ones, but not a majority. Hell, probably not even a very large minority. I've had to walk into enough schools and see vapid teachers giving bad instruction to glazed-eyed students to get that figured out pretty goddamn fast. Not that I'd need to. Economics should explain it for us pretty clearly. People become the underpaid, overworked martyrs we make teachers out to be only because they're not fucking good enough to expect to do anything else. Altruism isn't a common feature of the species. I'd point you to the overwhelming experimental evidence to that effect, but you'd probably wave it away with an "I won't discuss that, it's moot" or a "our school has gay, poor, and rich people."

So the only reason things aren't cut and dry is that even if we had it figured out our teachers wouldn't be capable of carrying it out. There would always be religious dingbats talking about the Bible in biology. There would always be liberal dingbats trying to invite their kids to a gay wedding. And there would always be those middle of the road people who don't have an agenda but are just too stupid to actually explain the material.

Quote :

"if a kid can develop critical thinking skills by middle school, s/he will be able to handle most anything that comes at them."

Oh yes, the preponderance of evidence regarding middle school suggests that either of these assertions are true.

10/28/2008 2:32:24 AM

good lord. you saw my novel and raised me an epic.

it's midnight, and i get up at 5 am.

i fold






[Edited on October 28, 2008 at 2:47 AM. Reason : ]

10/28/2008 2:45:56 AM

Funny, I remember being in second grade and hearing all about the Challenger accident. My mom remembers when FDR died and the historical significance of it (she was 7).

Of course what do second graders care about space shuttles blowing up or presidents dying? They'll learn about that stuff eventually in books. Put the blinders on and teach them arithmetic, damn it!

In all seriousness, for very many children I would think being privy, first-hand, to a seminal and fundamental forward shift in civil rights in this country is rather beneficial and will stick with many of them forever. Some posters here are just too cynical (or worse).

10/30/2008 2:27:43 AM

Ignoring, for the moment, that you brought about two examples of second graders rather than first graders (which some people would call a pretty significant goddamn difference, given the disparity in memory retention between the two age groups), we'll go on:

I never said kids wouldn't remember the event. I said they wouldn't understand it. And of course, you weren't anywhere near where the Challenger blew up. You certainly didn't see it firsthand. Your mom, I assume, wasn't in the same room or even the same town (or even, probably, the same state) as where FDR died. And while I'm sure she remembers the historical significance of the event, I doubt it was largely imparted to her that day, or even that year.

Talk about fucking red herrings. Here's two anecdotes about people in completely different situations: they weren't there, there's no evidence that they understood what they heard, and, to use joe_schmoe's logic, the things they weren't there for and don't understand weren't nearly as important to the average American as marriage laws (or, for that matter, prohibition).

I get that you've got an axe to grind with gay marriage and all, but a presidential death and a space shuttle crash aren't really on the same level. The Colombia blew up on my goddamn birthday and I couldn't give two shits. I'm sure everyone with any memory at all remembers when FDR died; ditto Elvis. Is Elvis dying on the same plane as gay marriage being legalized?

[Edited on October 30, 2008 at 2:39 AM. Reason : ]

10/30/2008 2:37:51 AM

^

I wasn't arguing with you. So why are you responding to me? I said some posters here are just too cynical, and I expressed a general opinion about the matter. I'm also not interested in your opinion on early childhood education and memory retention. If I wanted to know about that, I'd ask a real expert in the subject. Like my mother who taught K-3 for thirty years and has a master's degree.

Do get some sleep.

10/30/2008 4:05:19 AM

who cares?

10/30/2008 10:16:03 AM

i care about grumpy's lack of sleep.

it's not healthy.

10/30/2008 11:37:00 AM

Quote :

"I wasn't arguing with you."

A) How was I supposed to tell? The last several responses with any content were made by joe_schmoe and myself, and I'm pretty damn sure you weren't arguing with joe.

B) So what? You made comments that I disagreed with and used examples I thought were inappropriate. It's a forum. The whole point is for me to respond to things like that.

Quote :

"I'm also not interested in your opinion on early childhood education and memory retention."

That's good, since I didn't really offer an opinion on the subject. I made an effort to demonstrate how irrelevant your examples were to this discussion. To what little extent I made reference to education and memory retention, I'm fairly confident I offered facts, these being limited to:

1) People can recall more shit from when they were older kids than when they were younger kids.
2) Children generally lack the capacity to understand the social and political ramifications of legal changes, nor the processes by which those changes are brought about, the actors involved in bringing them about, etc, etc.

---

And I generally get a sold nine hours of contiguous sleep every day, thank you.

10/30/2008 3:43:30 PM

now why would you use "contiguous", which generally refers to physical proximity, rather than "continuous" which refers to time sequences?

10/30/2008 4:13:04 PM

con·tig·u·ous (kn-tgy-s)
adj.
1. Sharing an edge or boundary; touching.
2. Neighboring; adjacent.
3. a. Connecting without a break: the 48 contiguous states.
b. Connected in time; uninterrupted: served two contiguous terms in office.

That's what I found as my first search result, but whatever.

10/30/2008 10:32:32 PM

Quote :

"How was I supposed to tell?"

Hint: look at the name of this forum. The Soap Box.

Quote :

"A soapbox is a raised platform on which one stands to make an impromptu speech, often about a political subject. It is also used to express concerns or to release frustration."

(wikipedia)

10/31/2008 3:54:08 PM

^^ yeah, see, you have to get to definition 3b, before its applicable. so the word is generally used for physical location.

look up continuous, and you'll find your intended use as definition 1a.

10/31/2008 5:47:23 PM

^^You seem willing to take the name pretty literally, but I'm guessing that you'll agree with me that this forum is not a raised platform. Jesus Christ, I don't know if you and schmoe are coordinating your efforts to be intentionally dense or if that's just happy coincidence.

10/31/2008 7:45:30 PM

Quote :

"BTW, rank the 3 from hottest to least."

In response the most politically important question posed by this issue:

Despite whatever might be inside of Megyn Kelly's head, the outside of it rocks. She gets top billing, the other two ordered as you describe.

11/1/2008 11:58:53 AM