"Christian" leader: Gays & non-parents have driven families from San Fran

[Bluebear]

(AgapePress) - A pro-family leader says families have been driven out of San Francisco, California, because of the high cost of living and the increasingly family-unfriendly culture itself. According to an Associated Press report, San Francisco's 18-and-under population is just 14.5 percent -- the lowest percentage of children for any major city in the United States.

Robert Knight, director of the Culture and Family Institute, believes a major reason for this statistic is that San Francisco's dominant subculture is prompting families to flee the city. That subculture, Knight contends, is largely made up of childless adult singles and couples -- many of them homosexuals -- who live well and who live mainly for themselves. "The homosexuals have enormous influence," he says. "It's a very artsy city, and everything's very expensive. That's one reason families can't afford to live there anymore. It's all geared toward either the single life or the two-income adult life without kids."

Robert Knight


Today in San Francisco, Knight points out, there is a proliferation of what used to be called "dinks," or "dual income, no kids" households. Many of these are homosexual couples, and in a city where homosexuals represent 20 percent of the population, the pro-family leader says it is no surprise that there are so few children. "The homosexual lifestyle is about pleasing oneself," the CFI spokesman asserts, "not planning for the future, not setting aside money for kids, not trying to create a situation where the generations come together. It's about having fun. It's about indulging in whatever desire you want at any given time." :eyes:

http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/6/22005a.asp

[asthmaticeog]

1. Gee, 'cuz there's only what, a million other cities

that one could move one's family to if one dislikes San Francisco. :eyes:

Add Robert Knight to the jackass list...

[ET Awful]

2. Well, San Francisco has NEVER been a family town.

It started out more as a gold rush city than anything else and always had a rough crowd then, later it became a port city with all the associated sailor types (including military, etc.), still later it became the haven for all bohemian types from the beats on through to the hippies on through to the street culture that still thrives today.

San Francisco has ALWAYS been a haven for those that don't fit in elsewhere, and it always will be.

Knight doesn't appear to know a damned thing about the history of the city.

As to it being more expensive because homosexuals live there, BULLSHIT, it's more expensive because (a) it's a small city with limited living space, kind of like Boston; (b) greedy property owners charge too much for rent on the limited rental spaces that are available; and (c) property insurance is through the roof because of insane premiums for earthquake insurance.

[BlueIris]

6. Oh, I know! I read this thinking, "since when is The City pro-kids,

pro-family-anything or even pro-marriage?" Even the married people I've known there haven't seemed--let's just say that wasn't the most important thing in their lives.

[Inland]

17. I think "small" is the operative fact.

Most cities aren't "kid friendly" in the way fundies want it, namely, no minorities, franchise restaurants, low taxes, and no sin. But SF is constrained in size: its as if the trendy, expensive (and gay-er) North lake shore wards of Chicago were separated by a lake from the affordable areas, or Manhattan separated from the other boroughs. If you include the entire Bay area with the urban DINK areas, you get a more realistic picture.

But realistic pictures aren't part of it, it's painting gays as expelling hets from Eden.

[FreedomAngel82]

36. Try finding any city that's without sin and

you will be looking forever. :eyes: It's apart of life. What one person thinks is "sin" another person might not. Like, for example, he thinks homosexuality is a sin, and I personally could really give a damn. It's none of my business so why is it his? Oy. My town is a medium sized town in the south and it does have a lot of stuff families, and just anybody, can do. But like other towns there are bars, clubs and the local community school I go to has a LGBT support group. :shrug: So what. Get with the program dude.

[Inland]

18. dupe

[no_hypocrisy]

3. Remedy: Legalize gay marriage and let them adopt. Voila! Families!

Wish he wouldn't point the finger at women who don't use their uterae for reproductive purposes. Some of us like being childless.

[Bluebear]

4. But, but, procreation is your purpose according to the American Taliban

:eyes:

[BlueIris]

8. Yay for BEING CHILD-FREE.

I LOVE IT. Money, health, health, health, free time, health, and did I mention health. I like my body the way it is, thank you. I also like sleeping and eating sometimes. And my glorious adult, intellectual life and friends.

Also, so THAT's the plural of uterus. I was just wondering about that the other day (I've let my Latin slide quite a bit in recent years). I thought I'd have to look it up. Yet, no, someone else was on top of that.

[Kipling]

10. Tut tut...

In a couple of years time when they bring McCarthy back from the dead, you'll be very sorry you said that. Straight off to the Centre for the Friendly Christian Re-education of Fascist Marxist Hedonist Lesbian Extremist Subversives for you.

[XemaSab]

30. Sounds like a good place

to meet chicks...

[no_hypocrisy]

19. Thanks

"Uteri.

Should do not do Latin before first cup of coffee.

("uterae" would be plural for "utera")

[BlueIris]

21. Oh. Okay.

Huh? So the plural is uteri?

[izzie]

5. I guess he went to Rush L. Univ. Such great reasoning

Disassembling?

[tenshi816]

7. Isn't it funny that

the same kinds of people who spout nonsense about gays "not planning for the future, not setting aside money for kids, not trying to create a situation where the generations come together" are the exact same people who do their damndest to keep gays from marrying or adopting children in the first place?

Assholes like Robert Knight don't want gays to have families, but they still want to be able to blame them for it. Crazy.

[FreedomAngel82]

37. I believe that's what the rightwingers

would call a "flipflop." Ha! Go figure.

[NoPasaran]

9. Wow! Sounds like Paradise to me!

Wish I could afford it.

[noamnety]

11. How DARE people not push themselves into poverty?!!

Families can't afford to live there, and the people who do live there have a moral obligation to have families - that by his logic they can't afford.

Did I get that right?

[BlueManDude]

12. Who proclaimed this fascist a "A pro-family leader "?

Man our country is really on the verge of a major crackup.

[gollygee]

29. Yeah I noticed that too

who elected him to that position?

[Ian David]

13. You mean the childless dinks that pay taxes to support public schools?

Oh, yeah.

They really hurt the neighborhood, don't they?

Fucking assholes.

For Robert Knight:

[Ian David]

14. Robert Knight looks very gay. VERY gay.

[Bluebear]

15. Ecccch. He does not!

He looks like some holy-moly-looks-indecently-at-his-niece type to me!

[BlueIris]

22. These days, so many of them do look SO GAY IT HURTS.

Ralph Reed? I'm staring at you.

[LeftCoast]

26. Just wondering what 'gay' is supposed to look like?

:eyes:

[Inland]

16. And on the hetero "planning for the future and for kids" front:

Iraq, deficits, ruining SS, the Medicare funding problem, lack of health care, crumbling infrastructure, environmental degradation, miniscule savings rates, and number one on the list: schools that are crappier than the worst public school you could find in hedonistic gay SF.

Do these people ever look in the mirror?

[CreekDog]

20. No, we moved because of the lack of affordable housing

We lived in the Excelsior district in San Francisco until 1984 when I was in jr. high. This it the neighborhood that Dan White lived in and represented on the board of supervisors, at least until he assassinated the mayor, George Moscone and Dan's colleague, Harvey Milk --but I digress.

We never had a problem with gays, but the cost of and lack of housing basically forced us southward about 10 miles and out of the city.

I should add that SF was a great place to grow up as a kid. There are tons of parks, public transit can take you everywhere, there's great places to ride your bike, were lots of public swimming pools, 7 miles of beaches and Pier 39. As a kid, thanks to Muni and SF, I was never stuck at home bored.

[HockeyMom]

23. I grew up in Manhattan

I am an only child. Growing up back in the 50s and 60s, I didn't even know any families (not every apartment had a "family" even then), who had more than 2 kids. Yes, Fundies, even Catholic families. Why? Where are you going to PUT them in a 1 or 2 bedroom apartment? Poor planning for families? lol Then didn't plan for them a hundred years ago either - no room, no room. These buildings back then were that old. That is how slum tenements developed where the families who had more kids lived. They slept 3, 4 to a bed, on the floors, etc. My Grandma told me what that was like. These people are advocating THAT? As people moved up financially in the world, they had fewer kids, so they could have a better standard of living. And then development spread to the outskirts of the city (boroughs) and the suburbs. It has nothing to do with gays. Geesh.

[FreedomAngel82]

39. That's kinda like with my dad's family

He has two brother's and two sisters and they lived in a three bedroom house in Maryville, Tennessee (about an hour and a half or so away from Knoxville south). Their rooms were pretty small size compared to now days in some houses and they had to have bunkbeds and had one bathroom to share. Can you imagine having to share a single bathroom with six people in the house? Oy! My grandpa was a truck driver and my grandma used to clean houses. Now my grandma has a really nice house for herself and has tons of space (the house is old but she fixed it up). So people all over the place have trouble. :eyes: Not because of gays.

[Suziq]

24. There Is an Area . . .

in Plainfield, New Jersey where practically all the people who live there are gay couples or childless straight couples.

Plainfield is a town that has lost most of its industry over the years, therefore, the taxes which would go to schools is just not there. The area is pretty, with nice, old homes. People choose to live there because they have no school age children. Mr. Suziq and I are planning to move there. We have no kids.

They could always come live in Westfield where I live now. Taxes are sky high, but the school system is great! The people who move here know this and are willing to pay the higher taxes to guarantee they have good public schools.



:hippie:

[BlueIris]

25. Oooh, thanks for the tip. Sounds divine.

No school age children around? Excellent.

[TWiley]

27. Well, the credibility of "christians"

has just gone down another notch in my book. If they want to believe in the tooth fairy and all the bullshit that goes along with it ..... then fine.

We should draw the line at responsible adult discussions. We do not need a bunch of emoting children dancing in front of the TV and distracting the conversation.

More often than not, this their only contribution to any worthwhile discussion.

[Chovexani]

28. Bob Knight is in the fucking closet

I've been monitoring the Religious Reich for years (keep your friends close, and your enemies closer), and I have to say out of all the hate mongerers Bob Knight has about the biggest hate-on for GLBT people I have ever seen. The only person that comes close to him is that so-called "ex-gay" person he works with (probably his boyfriend), whose name I'm brainfarting on but they are both involved with Concerned Women for America aka Ladies Against Women. The man is fucking obsessed with GLBT people. He's like, 24/7, OMG TEH GAY AGENDA.

I've believed for years that he is deeply, deeply closeted. Go to http://www.cwfa.org and look at some of his stuff and tell me he's not. (He's also on their radio show all the time going on and on about GLBT issues.)

[FreedomAngel82]

41. So that's all he talks about??

I've never understud the rightwingers obsession with sex. It's a part of life. Geez. :eyes: People do have hormones and if adults want to get involved in conceptual sex so be it. Who am I to get in the way. Why other adults do like that is beyond me. And people say I need to grow up?

[lolly]

44. It's Simple

You obsess over something you feel guilty about, or something you can't get out of your system.

If you're openly gay, you have a lover and a life, and you get on with it.

If you can't have a lover, you think, and think, and think, and think about it (to paraphrase "Miniver Cheevey."

You think about what all those other men are doing with other men, and because you can't do it yourself, you get mad at them, which makes you think about them more, and more . . .

It's like being told you can't have chocolate ice cream.

The minute you're told that, you know you REALLY WANT chocolate ice cream. You're going to start thinking all the time about chocolate ice cream. And you're going to hate those people who CAN have chocolate ice cream.

So, excuse me, I'm going to see if I have any Rocky Road in the freezer . . .

[Hell Hath No Fury]

31. I am laughing my ASS off here in SF....

The single thing keeping most families from San Francisco is a combination of the high cost of housing and the the lack of single family homes. The vast majority of new housing in the City in the past five years has been high density condos/lofts that are in no way family friendly. New single family housing is almost nonexistent because San Francisco is a land-poor pennisula. So low stock combined with high prices is what does in too many families.

I cannot begin to tell you the IRONY that Mr. Knight is unaware of when talking about gays keeping families out of SF -- he clearly doesn't know that there has been a virtual baby boom in the gay community here in the City! Lots of families in Noe Valley and The Castro, these days. :)

[Stirk]

32. It's called the Bush Economy, Ayatollah.

San Francisco has always been an expensive area to live in. It doesn't surprise me at all that it's become even less accessible to single-income households in recent years, considering what the Republicans have done to our economy and to the middle class.

[Duncan Grant]

33. KICK and nominated

How ignorant do you have to be to believe this:

"The homosexuals have enormous influence," he says. "It's a very artsy city, and everything's very expensive. That's one reason families can't afford to live there anymore."

How brainwashed do you have to be to believe this bullshit? Simplistic, anecdotal crap - every last word of it.

I wish these "Christians" would focus a critical eye on poor families where parents work 2 part-time jobs with no benefits! (But I'm sure that either San Francisco or GLBT people have something to do with that, too. :eyes: )

"Artsy"?! Give me a fucking break.
:kick:

[Bluebear]

34. Artsy AND expensive!

I take it by extrapolation that the heterosexuals are poor and unaesthetic?

[EFerrari]

38. Does that mean we have to move?

:rofl:

[Bluebear]

40. Yes. Please get out as soon as is feasible.

It's the agenda, you know! :hi:

[Duncan Grant]

42. Heteros would live here if it weren't for the godless homos.

From the article:
"If Gavin Newsom wants to have more families moving into his city instead of fleeing it, Knight asserts, then the San Francisco mayor is going to have to stop being a servant of homosexual marriage activists and the city's own selfishly oriented homosexual subculture."

Good God. Make it stop! Make it stop!

I wish we could criminalize RW stupidity and chronic opportunism. Isn't this a hell of a way to subvert a religion for your own personal wealth and social gain? It's a "sinful" exploitation of other human beings on both sides of this issue, imho. :hi:

[FreedomAngel82]

35. Oh good grief

Because I'm a single white straight female does that mean I can't do those things? I can't have fun or indulge myself in things I enjoy? Oh please. What an ignorant jackass. He needs to live some it looks like.

[LeftyMom]

43. That's because there's no fucking room!

If you've got kids, you live in one of the burbs so they can play in a yard and have other kids on the street to play with. It's not a new phenomenon, my Dad grew up in Milbrae because my gparents decided the burbs were better to raise a family when they bought a place 60ish years ago.

Also, the city proper is f'n expensive, hard to do when you need room enough for kids with money left over to feed them.