You would think a college town would be oh-so-moderate in this part of the country, but guess again! There's a quiet culture of racism, sexism and homophobia that permeates throughout.
I was actually the one that sent this to Dan. This is my home town. The nickname for College Station is "Closet Station". Texas A&M University is not moderate by any stretch of the imagination. It used to be a military school, and now it specializes in engineering and agricultural science. (Poultry Science major, anyone?)
This is a comparatively small town compared to Seattle though. Fortunately, I'm starting to save up to head out you guy's way. I can't stand it anymore. These people are nut jobs!
Also, on a side note, CS is in Central Texas. People in East Texas are even crazier. Trust me.
Oh, and even though the college as a whole is very conservative, last week was LGBT week, and they had Dan Choi speaking. I wasn't able to attend though.
@12: No, you can't give College Station back to Central Texas. You're East Texas. Ever since the big cultural shift in CenTex, the line between East Texas and Central Texas has really started on the border of Brazos County.
Yeah, people in East Texas just go about chewing baby heads. Meanwhile the normalcy for people in the hill, hollywood or san francisco is just to kill them in the womb, it's just their favorite pastime called abortion.
@14 The only redeeming quality of this town is that it's only 2 hours from Houston, 2 hours from Austin, and 3 hours from Dallas.
Besides, isn't it in the Texas constitution that there has to be an equal distribution of crazy? Central Texas gets Austin, so it has to balance it out with College Station too. :P
Both this story and the even sadder one about the smothered baby in Spokane emphasize to me the need humans have to live in extended social groups. Two parents, particularly two very young parents, are often not enough. A grandparent or aunt or cousin around to help with a crying baby would be a lifesaver for kids.
Babies are presented as sweet little bundles of love and joy too often; they are these things of course, but they are also very frustrating little bundles of crying, fussing, and what the hell is wrong now?! I remember a study about how home visits from nurses expert in baby care significantly reduced the levels of child abuse among teen mothers (fathers get left out too often, unfortunately). One of the best things they did was to tell the mothers that crying babies didn't mean they were bad or unloved by the baby, that it was simply how the baby communicated.
@6, no, a mental patient is being used as an example of why a mother and a father are not always good for a kid. Being straight does not make ANYONE a better parent than a gay person, nor does it make them worse. Parenting should have nothing to do with your genitals.
Oh LC, how do you not get this! Dan isn't saying when he links these articles that a mother and a father is the 'wrong way' to raise a child, but that it isn't implicitly the 'right way' to raise a child.
You talk all the time about the need for a male/female balance in raising children, well here we have an example of your male/female balance in action. It doesn't implicitly work. I think you're right to question the sanity of the father, but that doesn't undermine the point at all. Sure there are crazy gay people that shouldn't be raising kids. But here we have an example of crazy straight people that shouldn't be raising kids, but are. If a couple is going to adopt a child, it should be predicated on whether or not they are capable of raising a child well or not, not on their sexual orientation. Just as straight does not equate to crazy, gay does not equate to crazy.
27
Exactly.
The fact that each and every man-woman pair are not adequate parents PROVES that homosexuals should be allowed to marry and adopt kids.
It also PROVES that the moon is made of blue cheese.
Really, people- what more proof are you looking for:?
Alleged @28,
No, it proves that a man-woman pair is not implicitly ideal. Where is your proof that a gay couple cannot do as good a job as any straight couple at raising children? And please, arguments and points free of religion and tautology.
@28: The burden of proof is upon you guys, actually, as you are the ones who want to ban gays from adopting. These stories don't prove that gays are good parents, it just illustrates that the "traditional" heterosexual family isn't the perfect union you twerps seem to think it is. If you want to ban gay marriage because heterosexual families are better for raising kids, you had better be prepared to prove that it's so. And we have no reason to think that it is necessarily so.
Also, you're wrong about the moon. It's actually made out of pale yellow cheese; I have photos. http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_K4ncs0BvIRA/SX…
Could have been a pit bull.
You would think a college town would be oh-so-moderate in this part of the country, but guess again! There's a quiet culture of racism, sexism and homophobia that permeates throughout.
So naturally, folks in East Texas are cray cray.
http://www.krem.com/news/local/Shaken-ba…
This is a comparatively small town compared to Seattle though. Fortunately, I'm starting to save up to head out you guy's way. I can't stand it anymore. These people are nut jobs!
Also, on a side note, CS is in Central Texas. People in East Texas are even crazier. Trust me.
Oh, and even though the college as a whole is very conservative, last week was LGBT week, and they had Dan Choi speaking. I wasn't able to attend though.
Run, run fast.
Besides, isn't it in the Texas constitution that there has to be an equal distribution of crazy? Central Texas gets Austin, so it has to balance it out with College Station too. :P
Babies are presented as sweet little bundles of love and joy too often; they are these things of course, but they are also very frustrating little bundles of crying, fussing, and what the hell is wrong now?! I remember a study about how home visits from nurses expert in baby care significantly reduced the levels of child abuse among teen mothers (fathers get left out too often, unfortunately). One of the best things they did was to tell the mothers that crying babies didn't mean they were bad or unloved by the baby, that it was simply how the baby communicated.
And if you do, San Antonio is going right back to being in democrat-voting South Texas.
You talk all the time about the need for a male/female balance in raising children, well here we have an example of your male/female balance in action. It doesn't implicitly work. I think you're right to question the sanity of the father, but that doesn't undermine the point at all. Sure there are crazy gay people that shouldn't be raising kids. But here we have an example of crazy straight people that shouldn't be raising kids, but are. If a couple is going to adopt a child, it should be predicated on whether or not they are capable of raising a child well or not, not on their sexual orientation. Just as straight does not equate to crazy, gay does not equate to crazy.
Exactly.
The fact that each and every man-woman pair are not adequate parents PROVES that homosexuals should be allowed to marry and adopt kids.
It also PROVES that the moon is made of blue cheese.
Really, people- what more proof are you looking for:?
No, it proves that a man-woman pair is not implicitly ideal. Where is your proof that a gay couple cannot do as good a job as any straight couple at raising children? And please, arguments and points free of religion and tautology.
Also, you're wrong about the moon. It's actually made out of pale yellow cheese; I have photos. http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_K4ncs0BvIRA/SX…
I mean, seriously. http://blacktable.com/ference040318.htm. (I hate that fucking dog...)