This can't be good...

[Ghoulish Delight]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7574640/

Yeah, I'm sure this fine example of heterosexuality (http://www.loungeoftomorrow.com/LoT/showthread.php?t=1088) is a much better choice for foster care. :rolleyes:

[Not Afraid]

“It is our responsibility to make sure that we protect our most vulnerable children, and I don’t think we are doing that if we allow a foster parent that is homosexual or bisexual,” said Republican Rep. Robert Talton, who introduced the amendment.

Sure. I think being in a state or county-run facility is MUCH better than having some stability with foster parents. The State of Texas - We raise Children Right!

[Gn2Dlnd]

You know I adore you, GD, but let's not diminish the hatefulness of Robert Talton and his pending legislation.
Moral "values," nazi pope, Texas legislators run amok, I'm feeling like the calendar is being turned back. Just a couple of nights ago, a friend of mine, in the lobby of Glendale Memorial Hospital, was told by the security guard, "You can't do that," when he kissed his friend goodnight. The head of security became involved when my friend stood his ground, and then, hospital administration. Legal action is being taken.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Is stuff like this related to what Prudence was talking about....."Grandma, why didn't you do anything?"

[Scrooge McSam]

I love you guys!!! :)

[BarTopDancer]

One person can make a difference. It's time for positive changes to come. It's time for this country to realize that being gay is not a crime, that being gay is not a choice, that being gay is not contagious. That people who are gay are people first just like people who are straight are people first.

This discrimination and hatred in the name of morality has to stop. Please won't someone think of the children!

[Prudence]

Someone at another newsgroup I sometimes read says something about not letting the best be the enemy of the good. We use it as applied to medieval recreation -- as in, don't let your quest to replicate the perfect 1547 Flemish gown paralyze you and leave you doing nothing. Rather, make a good recreation and enjoy that and learn from it and you will at least have something.

I think of this everytime this sort of legislation crops up. You know what? I agree that the ideal environment for kids is where they have a parent of each gender who stay married, don't beat each other, don't get fired from their jobs and lay around on the couch in their underwear for 6 years while the kids eat out of dumpsters, don't send their kids out to play in traffic while they pretend they're still kid/carefree, and can model appropriate intergender and interpersonal relationships, while instilling in the child both a sense of self-worth AND a sense of responsibility.

But requiring all parents to be perfect leaves a lot of kids without homes, or parental love, or any positive role-modeling. My parents don't completely fit that mold above, and I probably won't either. Lots of parents are divorced. Do we take away their kids? What about widowed parents? Are the kids who've had a parent die any less vulnerable? Don't they also deserve the perfect man/woman parenting pair?

But the best becomes the enemy of the good. Because another parenting arrangement *might* be best, they want to throw out the good of giving each kid a bed to sleep in that's theirs, a home where they're a person and not a tick mark on a list. Instead they do nothing.

Don't let the best become the enemy of the good.

[mistyisjafo]

Being that I work in the field of foster children, it's appalling to me that things like limiting the field of potential foster parents because of their race, sexual orientation, or gender occurs. In Orange County, CA we have a great need for foster parents! In fact over the last few years, the number of foster parents (especially qualified people) has diminished. For kids that are teens it is even harder to place them since they are "damaged goods". One former foster youth said to me that living in a group home was just one step up from living on the street or a homeless shelter. So to hear such statements that because of someone's sexual preference makes them ineligible to foster a child when so many NEED a home sickens me.

Statistics: The Orangewood Children's Home, located in Orange CA, admits 2700 children a year. That is just one emergency shelter in one city that serves all of Orange County.

[sleepyjeff]

Don't let the best become the enemy of the good.

That is an awesome philosophy.

[wendybeth]

It's just asinine. I agree with Gn2, the clock is going backwards and won't stop until we reach that exalted mythical land of 1955, when shows like 'Leave it to Beaver' and 'Ozzie and Harriet' ruled the airwaves. The only problem is that real life was never that simple, real problems and horrific crimes existed (remember 'In Cold Blood"?) and society was every bit as sick as it is now. We can't go back- there was never anything to go back to- and we won't go forward.

I have three people listed in my will to take care of our daughter if anything should happen to us. Second place on the list is occupied by a gay couple who would be in first, except they live so far away.

[Gn2Dlnd]

... the ideal environment for kids is where they have a parent of each gender who stay married, don't beat each other, don't get fired from their jobs and lay around on the couch in their underwear for 6 years while the kids eat out of dumpsters, don't send their kids out to play in traffic while they pretend they're still kid/carefree, and can model appropriate intergender and interpersonal relationships, while instilling in the child both a sense of self-worth AND a sense of responsibility.

I agree with everything you say, except the part about a parent of each gender. My growing up Gay wasn't at all helped by my (eventually divorced and constantly screaming at each other) intergender parents. I don't think gender should enter, at all, in a child's education regarding interpersonal relationships. However, all things being equal, I was fed and clothed, driven to school and rehearsals, given swimming lessons, inocculated, taken on camping trips and to Disneyland, and generally raised as well as anyone else was raising kids in the 60's and 70's. Best? No. Good? Usually. Could it have been better? You bet. I love my parents, but I wouldn't want to live with them.

[SacTown Chronic]

I fvcking hate Texas. I wouldn't piss on Texas if it were on fire. I'll always blame Texas for spewing Dubya vomit on America's shoes.

That said, I do love the Dallas Cowboys though.

[Prudence]

I agree with everything you say, except the part about a parent of each gender. My growing up Gay wasn't at all helped by my (eventually divorced and constantly screaming at each other) intergender parents. I don't think gender should enter, at all, in a child's education regarding interpersonal relationships. However, all things being equal, I was fed and clothed, driven to school and rehearsals, given swimming lessons, inocculated, taken on camping trips and to Disneyland, and generally raised as well as anyone else was raising kids in the 60's and 70's. Best? No. Good? Usually. Could it have been better? You bet. I love my parents, but I wouldn't want to live with them.

I do think that kids are served better by regular and consistent exposure to adults of both genders interacting in a sane and positive way. The most convenient way to do this is to have one sane and functional parent of each gender interacting in a thoroughly nurturing and positive environment. [This is based in large part on my belief that men and women ARE different and pretending otherwise is a bunch of hoohaw. But that's another discussion.]

The reality is that we're all human and Utopia Happy-Family Land doesn't exist. Plenty of hetero parents scream at each other night and day. And plenty of gay and/or single parents do an exemplary job of filling in the gender "gap" with assistance from family and friends. Might not be best/perfection, but it's pretty damn good.

[Kevy Baby]

I agree with everything you say, except the part about a parent of each gender. My growing up Gay wasn't at all helped by my (eventually divorced and constantly screaming at each other) intergender parents. I don't think gender should enter, at all, in a child's education regarding interpersonal relationships. However, all things being equal, I was fed and clothed, driven to school and rehearsals, given swimming lessons, inocculated, taken on camping trips and to Disneyland, and generally raised as well as anyone else was raising kids in the 60's and 70's. Best? No. Good? Usually. Could it have been better? You bet. I love my parents, but I wouldn't want to live with them.The point that Prudence was trying to make was that in her opinion (and many other non-radicals) that the whole list of traits, which included but was not exclusive to a mother and a father, was the ideal situation. All other aspects being true (the parents love each other, love the child (children), provide a healthy, stable, nurturing environment, etc.) would be considered ideal. But that situation rarely exists. I too grew up in an environment where my parents fought continuously. I would have been much happier and healthier growing up with gay parents who got along.

A child, regardless of gender, needs to learn both masculine and feminine traits to be emotionally healthy. That can, in my opinion, be best learned from a father who is in touch with both his masculine and feminine sides and a mother who is in touch with both her feminine and masculine sides, where the mother and father are committed to, and love unconditionally, one another. Can a gay couple that fits all these factors except for gender still provide that for a child? Absolutely! But having two fathers or two mothers presents an additional challenge for a child in an otherwise difficult part of their life.

Do I support the Texas legislation? Absolutely not - it is completely assinine and backwards. Do I want to go back to the 50's and hold it as the symbol of ideal family life? Nope: the only difference back then was that people did not have the freedom to express how they felt so many couples pretended to be happy when they really weren't. It was a time of great hypocracy in the American way of life.

I believe that our society is in the middle of a tremendous change. New ideas and ideals are evolving, shattering old belief systems. Many people are fighting to hold on to those old beliefs because they are afraid of change (which is what you see in this proposed Texas legislation). While they may occassionally be successful in the short term, in the long run the change is inevitable and unstoppable.