Talk:Same-sex marriage and procreation

Merger proposal
Merger is not a good Idea, this topic has legs of its own and deserves its own space. The articles should link where topics discussed are related. 99.136.87.53 (talk) 21:41, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

No Merge
As someone who has authored much of Same-sex marriage and procreation, my thoughts are for no merging at this time. First, the wikipages are already quite lengthy (13 and 16 pages each, with more additions to the procreation page in the future). Since there is little overlap, merging effectively means combining, so in time the combined page will be quite lengthy, for which I assume there is another Wiki rule. Second, there are other pages dealing with same-sex marriage that have not been merged in (probably for similar reasons): Status of same-sex marriage and Timeline of same-sex marriage. This page then is the equivalent of "Procreation aspects of same-sex marriage". Maybe the same-sex marriage page itself should be broken up, with the primary page being more of an index to all of the other pages and sub-pages.

Third, keeping the two pages separate - no merge - is consistent with the current handling of the procreation issue by many opponents and supporters of same-sex marriage. Visit such Web sites, and there is very little mention of procreation (see, for example, the same-sex marriage pages at the Web site of the National Center for Lesbian Rights), despite the issue being a strong undercurrent in the debates (and used by multiple courts to block same-sex marriage). For example, the word "procreation" does not appear in the Contents section (i.e., in any of the section headers) of the Same-sex marriage page, but rather the issue is included under the "Children" section, despite many legal aspects of the use of the procreation issue having little to do with the procreated children themselves. And there is even less mention of a growing scientific effort to achieve human same-sex procreation, for example, the creation of human female sperm. In general, the procreation issue has been somewhat orphaned by supporters and opponents. Having its own Wikipage seems consistent with that status. No merge. --Greg Aharonian (talk) 15:54, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree with Greg Aharonian. Greatings. Antaya (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 06:59, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Me too. This page deals with a specialised legal issue in considerable detail. To include this leevl of detail on the Same sex marriage page would unbalance that page. A summary of these issues should be added to the main page (a new Controversy subsection) with a link to this pageFilceolaire (talk) 20:57, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Definitely no merge. One is more political, one is more cultural. Afterall, marriage and procreation in general do not share a page! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.34.102.192 (talk) 10:58, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

No merge —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.23.21.93 (talk) 21:55, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Legality of SSP
Hello Greg, thanks for creating this entry and your efforts to publicize SSP. I'm the author of www.eggandsperm.org, created in 2004 after Kaguya's birth, in opposition to the development of same-sex procreation and other forms of reproduction that do not combine a man's sperm and a woman's egg. This is my first stab at wiki editing so bear with me please. I'm happy to see the arguments you are making in favor of same-sex procreation, but i'd like to make sure that the ethical objections (which are a cross of most of the arguments against SSM and genetic engineering) get their due here. I've added a link to my site, and a section on the legality. I might be wrong about Missouri being the only state with a man-woman critereon in their anti-cloning law, I guess I can research that further or maybe others can help verify that? John Howard (MA) (talk) 18:59, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Do not confuse the issue
While many opponents of same sex marriage may use prodreation as an argument against allowing the legal recognition of same sex marriage, the issue it self besides the point. Heterosexual couples who can not procreate are permitted to get married.

The real issue at stake is the recognition of marriage as a human right. In the United States couples who marry take advantage of a plethora of rights and priveledges when they marry, these include financial tax advantages, legal priveledges such as visitation rights, inherritance rights, etc. The issue of procreation is not of such great importance to this debate that it would merrit merging the two. I would suggest that the suggestion to merge the two pages is a biggoted ploy to derail the debate. Let us stay on topic and keep it in the level discussion tht wikipedia aspires to. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.44.70.92 (talk) 08:11, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

It's a start.
The recent changes by User:Adochka are a start in the right direction, but this article is still pretty bad. What's next? Spotfixer (talk) 16:50, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

NPOV tag
I'm sorry, I have tagged this article as a POV concern right now.

The intro was horribly written, stuffed in paragraph 2 with poorly disguised advocacy of one side's views. I've tried to clean it up but there's probably more elsewhere.


 * In this edit, the intro stated the argument "attempts to justify..." leaving an impression that it fails to do so. It may indeed fail, but creating that impression in the wording is non-neutral. It's reworded to avoid the impression, and the paragraph split.


 * In this edit, there was a horrible mess of POV statements - it dives straight into one sides view exclusively ("proponents do not say how X is justified"), goes on to slant with the statement "only that in all instances..." and concludes by implying or stating that the desired effect is removal of legal protection (which is clearly not the primary purpose of the argument).


 * The third paragraph, unedited as yet, contains two sentences, the second again presenting in an advocative style, the "anti" view exclusively on the law.

I've done some editing to improve both of these a bit, but there are probably other similar issues elsewhere in the article too. I don't tag articles often, but this one is a serious concern right now and needs careful checking for neutrality. FT2 (Talk 05:12, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Bad Article
This article is unbelievably bad. There is a huge amount of garbage in it; it is poorly referenced. It seems largely to be a straw man argument, setting people up as advocating things they don't.

The intro, and the title, seem to indicate that the primary purpose of the argument is about procreation - producing children. However the only reference to back this up is the Christianity Today article, which says nothing of the kind. It comes close only in saying that studies have shown that a child thrives best in a family unit with two biological parents.

Looking more closely, that article is the only citation of anyone who actually seems to be advocating the position addressed by the article. In fact, only the intro is even talking about the argument - the rest of the article is devoted to commenting on the legal position, and refuting the alleged argument. In short, there is no evidence that the argument it is refuting actually exists. What are we going to do with this guys? DJ Clayworth (talk) 21:23, 11 September 2009 (UTC)


 * The article needs work, yes. Are you going to help fix it? TechBear (talk) 17:19, 12 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Sure. In my mind the best thing would be to strip it back to only what its references support, but I don't know if there would be anything left. Does anyone know of a references showing that someone actually puts this argument forward in real life? Even the Catcholic church doesn't argue that procreation is a necessary requirement for a valid marriage. I'd like to see the text of House Report (H.R. 104-664 at 33, 104th Congress, 2nd Session, 1996), because I think it's the only thing that is alleged to make that argument. DJ Clayworth (talk) 18:40, 12 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Found the text of this report. . It's a dense piece of legal argument about states' rights. The procreational basis of marriage appears not to feature at all (unless someone can point out the relevant part). Now we seem to have nothing to indicate that this argument is made. DJ Clayworth (talk) 00:27, 14 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm very open to someone coming along and providing references showing that the things stated in this article are real. In the absence of this I'm going to propose making it a redirect to Same-sex marriage. DJ Clayworth (talk) 00:36, 14 September 2009 (UTC)