It’s about more than marriage

With the idea of same-sex marriage upon us, I give us something to think about. That little ole’ saying “Be careful of what you ask for, you just might get it,” comes to mind. I believe people are so caught up in the moment that they don’t look down the road.

So for argument sake, let’s say, gay marriage is allowed in the future. Yes, there are benefits to being married. Living with the one you love, raising a family and also the benefit of insurance/taxes with a spouse. One question I raise to all. What do you get when you get married? I hate to give the answer but it is divorced. Yes, even gays will get divorced.

So, what’s wrong with that, you ask. Hold tight, I’m getting there. Married gays sooner or later would want children. If they are a couple, then they would want to adopt children. When a gay couple gets divorced, a judge would have to decide who would be the custodial parent. I do not know the exact percent but over 95 percent of the time, the woman is the custodial parent in a straight marriage divorce. In a gay marriage, who would get the child? I would assume, a judge would look at all things possible, use a formula or criteria that would be set by the state that would be regulated.

When they did however decide that a child was best suited to live with one of the same-sex parent over the other, all hell is going to break loose. You see, at that moment they will have made a precedent that gay divorce/custody cases use different criteria than straight divorce/custody cases. They will in the future have to use the same criteria for all custody cases. The age of the woman “always” gets the kid will be long past. For there will be a formula or criteria used just like in a gay divorce.  

The first time a case goes to court and they give the child to the woman and don’t use the same ways used in a gay case, are you not being prejudice to the straight guy? If this new formula or criteria is to be used in new cases, what’s to stop it to be used in old ones? If it’s legal and “moral,” we shouldn’t grandfather old cases. For many years I heard people say “don’t waste your money,” “or “you will never win” and my favorite “the woman always gets the kid.” Well step up guys, the gays are about to make it a level playing field.

Get your children!

Jim Rader,

Peru

Don’t chain teachers to material

I applaud Senate Education Committee chairman Dennis Kruse’s efforts to allow teachers and students to look at all sides of hot-button issues such as evolution and creation. If we are teaching our students to think, to reason, to look at sets of facts and make decisions, Kruse’s ideas make sense. If we simply want them to get with the program and learn a set way of thinking, then they don’t.

We tend to think that scientific information, as presented to us in school, is gospel truth and that we are not allowed to question it. In high school, for example, I was taught the Theory of Recapitulation. This is the theory that the human fetus goes through stages of evolution in the womb. Thus, we have a fish stage, a bird stage, etc. It was in my science book. There were line drawings to prove it. The teacher said it was so. Ernest Haeckel developed the theory in 1866 but was discredited as early as 1874 when Wilhelm His proved Haeckel had doctored the drawings to make them fit his theory. Thoroughly debunked by all modern scientists, the theory was still taught as fact 100 years later in my science book.

Educators should not be chained to scientific material that cannot be proved or that has more than one interpretation, and neither should students. Students should be allowed to ask questions like, “When the first human appeared, what are the odds that another human of the opposite sex and of mating age would also appear at the same place and in the same time period, allowing them to mate? If evolution is all about change, why do some plants and animals, like the ginkgo biloba, appear the same now as they are in the fossil record?

Children are more than fact receptacles; they can be taught to reason.

Sharon Watson,

Sharpsville



Let’s get out of the United Nations

Current events being what they are, an old question, which continues to surface, has done so once again.

What conditions would need to be met and protocols followed to permit the United States to completely withdraw from the United Nations?

It would appear, from what I see in the news, that membership in the U.N. is more trouble than it is worth.

Kenneth Crockett,

Kokomo