Box Turtle Bulletin
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyOctober 7th, 2009
The Family “Research” Council has waved the white flag of creationism, now that it’s convenient to use real archaeological science against gay people. Peter Sprigg has penned a piece which claims that new archaeological evidence shows that marriage “as a union of a man and a woman” has been around for 4.4 million years. That’s quite a switch from the old Darwinism-leads-to-eugenics argument. But when gays are in the crosshairs, any piece of manipulable data is fair game, right?
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Richard Rush
October 7th, 2009
Seems like they are trying to slap a thin scientific veneer on their argument. It’s funny how they reject science until it suits their purposes.
At the end of the day it’s just the old “we can’t change it because that’s the way it’s always been” argument. If that’s their best shot, the debate really is over, isn’t it?
Burr
October 7th, 2009
And women have been treated as property and slaves with no rights for most of those 4.4 million years. How dare we change that tradition?
Priya Lynn
October 7th, 2009
Apart from the fact that FRC has always maintained that evolution is false, their argument that this early hominid skeleten proves marriage has been the union of a man and woman for 4.4 million years fails for a variety of reasons. For starters the scientist who claims the Ardipithicus skeleton proves pair bonding has been criticized by other scientists who say that can’t be proven from the remains. Secondly assuming for the sake of argument that pair bonding did occur in early human ancestors that does not prove that it did not also take place in same sex couples. As gayness has been found to exist in hundreds, if not thousands of animal species it wouldn’t be unlikely for it to have occurred in this early relative. Further, pair bonding is not marriage. It is likely that formal marriage ceremonies didn’t take place until the “great leap forward” aproximately 35,000 years ago when anthropological remains suggest there was a sudden appearence of cultural artifacts and the suggestion of the first developments of civilization. Lastly, wheneever marriage did develop there is no proof that it did not also include the occaisional same sex couples and there is evidence that same sex marriages did occur in the past.
Patrick
October 7th, 2009
As Priya Lynn indicates, pair bonding is not marriage. If pair bonding is to be considered marriage, then we’ve always had gay marriage because we find same-sex pair bonding throughout known history, including in the animal world.
In other words, the FRC has not only signaled an acceptance of evolution, but they’ve also signaled a recognition that pair bonding is marriage, and therefore recognize same-sex marriages every time they admit gays form pair bonds.
Kevin Kaatz
October 7th, 2009
Wait. I thought the earth was created 6,000 years ago…
Lynn David
October 8th, 2009
Pop science idiocy on the part of the FRC. Or as I wrote on their blog….
If pair-bonding can be proven in A. ramidus, which I am not at all sure Lovejoy can prove and indeed he has been criticized for saying so, then how does that preclude pair-bonding between two homosexually oriented persons? Indeed if pair-bonding is genetic (and there has been a gene associated with males bonding with females in many animals such as ferrets which has an analogous gene in man) then what is to say a homosexual pair-bond has any less efficacy for two humans to find fulfillment and companionship in this life?
Christopher Waldrop
October 8th, 2009
[T]hen what is to say a homosexual pair-bond has any less efficacy for two humans to find fulfillment and companionship in this life?
Exactly. If FRC is going to base their argument on the value of “pair-bonding”, then presumably they’re giving up the argument that the purpose of marriage is to produce children. After all, that would mean that plenty of heterosexual couples who, for whatever reason, don’t have children would be denied the right to marry.
TJMcFisty
October 8th, 2009
Dobson leaves the building and look what happens. Man, cannot WAIT to see how they reconcile their messaging after painting themselves into this corner.
I bet Sprigg had a big ol’ smirk on his face when he posted that entry…”got them queers now! Science is our friend after all! HA HA HA ha ha h…oh…no.”
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