View Full Version : One Judge vs 7 million votes
SteamWake
08-05-10, 11:38 AM
Judge overturns the voted on and rejected prposition 8 in california.
Personally I dont mind gay marrage but this is tyranny.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/08/04/MNQS1EOR3D.DTL&tsp=1
ETR3(SS)
08-05-10, 11:54 AM
The whole topic is really moot. On the one hand it went to a public vote, and the public voted to enact Prop 8. I'm not sure where a Judge gets the legal authority to overrule voters. But on the other hand this shouldn't even be an issue at all because no level or branch of government should define what marriage is or isn't. What threat is gay marriage to them? If you treat gays and lesbians like any other citizen there won't be a problem at all.
frau kaleun
08-05-10, 12:44 PM
You can't vote something into law that violates the Constitutional rights of other people, no matter how big a majority you have. Those rights are guaranteed to every citizen and neither the state nor a majority vote of its residents can take them away.
The judge ruled that Prop 8 was unconstitutional and, if it is, then no amount of voter support for it can justify it being on the books. That's not tyranny, that's how things are supposed to work.
Oh, hey, I know, let's get 7 million people to vote in favor of bringing slavery back and repealing womens' suffrage. It's okay because that many people couldn't possibly be wrong and it's perfectly fine to let an already privileged majority decide which rights they'll allow everybody else to have.
:nope:
Judicial review != tyranny
mookiemookie
08-05-10, 01:01 PM
Personally I dont mind gay marrage but this is tyranny.
It's the exact opposite. It's overturning tyranny of the majority. You can't vote to nullify someone's constitutional rights just because you have a majority.
UnderseaLcpl
08-05-10, 01:02 PM
It's okay because that many people couldn't possibly be wrong and it's perfectly fine to let an already privileged majority decide which rights they'll allow everybody else to have.
That's the basic idea.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paQnokH3Px4&feature=related
:DL
SteamWake
08-05-10, 01:13 PM
The tyranny of the majority .. thats a good one ;)
UnderseaLcpl
08-05-10, 01:16 PM
The tyranny of the majority .. thats a good one ;)
Please tell me that's a joke.
AVGWarhawk
08-05-10, 01:19 PM
You can't vote something into law that violates the Constitutional rights of other people, no matter how big a majority you have. Those rights are guaranteed to every citizen and neither the state nor a majority vote of its residents can take them away.
The judge ruled that Prop 8 was unconstitutional and, if it is, then no amount of voter support for it can justify it being on the books. That's not tyranny, that's how things are supposed to work.
:nope:
Is marriage a right? Also, if this is a civil right and no amount of voter support should apply then why did they hold a vote at all? :hmmm:
frau kaleun
08-05-10, 01:24 PM
The tyranny of the majority .. thats a good one ;)
The "majority" gets to decide a great many things by voting on them.
However they do not get to decide whether or not someone not included in their "majority" is entitled to the same constitutional rights and protections that everybody else is... even if that "minority" is 1 person and the "majority" is everybody else.
I guess if I could round up a majority of voters and we put forth the proposition that you, personally, be denied certain rights and privileges that we didn't think you deserved, and then voted on it and won, you'd be okay with that. Want to get a driver's license? Buy some property? Ride on our "No Steamwake" buses and eat at our "No Steamwake" restaurants? Vote on overturning our new "No Steamwake" law? Sorry, we took a vote on that and you're not allowed. Majority rules FTW!
frau kaleun
08-05-10, 01:25 PM
Is marriage a right? Also, if this is a civil right and no amount of voter support should apply then why did they hold a vote at all? :hmmm:
IIRC California passed some law that requires a public referendum on just about everything.
mookiemookie
08-05-10, 01:27 PM
Is marriage a right? According to Loving vs. Virginia in 1967, it is. And if you want a preview of how the Supreme Court's gonna rule this one, substitute "sexual orientation" for "racial classification" in their decision on that case back in 1967:
Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival. To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.
krashkart
08-05-10, 01:28 PM
"Those that want to uphold traditional family values are going to be outraged," said Napier, of the Alliance Defense Fund of Scottsdale, Ariz.Family values in the context of Prop 8 (and similar propositions across the nation) needs a firm swat to the behind for being rude and selfish. :shifty:
"The whole nation is watching,Most of the nation went to work today. :rolleyes:
and the whole nation should be quaking to think that a single judge sitting in California can reverse the will of 7 million voters."All that's quaking right now are the Jell-O shots. :woot:
The judge did the right thing. Prop 8 represents a movement to deny unalienable rights to American citizens, based on a notion that same-sex marriage runs counter to what is considered by some to be appropriate. The right of 7 million voters, in this case, was the right to fair representation in the court, and they got that much -- and more if you count the fact that they already had a legal right to marry. They can cry all over their pancakes all they like, but justice was served.
So what did they lose? Nothing. But their feelings are hurt and they will complain about it until they get their way. Family values indeed. :03:
frau kaleun
08-05-10, 01:39 PM
So what did they lose? Nothing.
Well, not quite. They lost a tiny bit of their government's willingness to cooperate in their ongoing delusion that they are inherently superior to people who aren't exactly like them and are therefore entitled above and beyond those people on account of it.
For folks whose entire sense of self-worth is founded on the notion that their "us" must, must, MUST be better then anybody else's "them," and on the world constantly validating this notion so as not to hurt their pwecious fee-fees, that's a whole heck of a lot.
UnderseaLcpl
08-05-10, 01:40 PM
Is marriage a right? Also, if this is a civil right and no amount of voter support should apply then why did they hold a vote at all? :hmmm:
Marriage is a neutral and negative right by virtue of the fact that it's a private contract and often part of a religious institution. Granted, the latter is not specifically spelled out anywhere, but it is implied in many court decisions, and it should be spelled out. In addition, it's a key principle in the philosophy of Locke, whose ideas were integral in developing the Constitution.
Like many neutral and negative rights, however, it has a tendency to come under attack by people who want to dictate the nature of others' beliefs and decisions for some reason, often accomplished by supplying an imaginary or unquantifiable threat. Just look at all the contention over First-Amendment rights. Even when something is considered to be a sacrosanct, God-given natural right, whose regulation is strictly forbidden by the supreme law of the land, it gets questioned and even taken away on occassion. Seeing a vote on such an issue is not all surprising.
AVGWarhawk
08-05-10, 01:48 PM
IIRC California passed some law that requires a public referendum on just about everything.
Sounds like CA to me! :har: Lets vote on it and see how you feel about it. Then we will ignore what general concensus shows. :up: No wonder the state is broke.....:doh:
TLAM Strike
08-05-10, 02:05 PM
Sounds like CA to me! :har: Lets vote on it and see how you feel about it. Then we will ignore what general concensus shows. :up:
Well yea, if they went by consensus half the state would be part of Mexico. :O:
If that is unconstitutional, and it very well may be, then i'd think the laws against polygamy should be unconstitutional as well right?
AVGWarhawk
08-05-10, 02:20 PM
Well yea, if they went by consensus half the state would be part of Mexico. :O:
The illegals are getting past the voting booth checkers again? :har:
AVGWarhawk
08-05-10, 02:21 PM
If that is unconstitutional, and it very well may be, then i'd think the laws against polygamy should be unconstitutional as well right?
Good question sir!
mookiemookie
08-05-10, 02:25 PM
If that is unconstitutional, and it very well may be, then i'd think the laws against polygamy should be unconstitutional as well right?
I don't see how the two are at all similar. Marriage to multiple partners is fundamentally different than marriage to the partner (singular) of your choice.
AVGWarhawk
08-05-10, 02:26 PM
I don't see how the two are at all similar. Marriage to multiple partners is fundamentally different than marriage to the partner (singular) of your choice.
Huh? You need to clarify that one bub! :hmmm:
mookiemookie
08-05-10, 02:28 PM
Huh? You need to clarify that one bub! :hmmm:
Marriage to one person is completely different than marrying a bunch of people?
AVGWarhawk
08-05-10, 02:30 PM
Marriage to one person is completely different than marrying a bunch of people?
How is that? Please explain the two some difference than three some in the sack. :hmmm:
TLAM Strike
08-05-10, 02:30 PM
The illegals are getting past the voting booth checkers again? :har:
Where I live they never check for ID or anything. I just gave my name, my name was on the list and I walked in the booth. :hmmm:
frau kaleun
08-05-10, 02:42 PM
If that is unconstitutional, and it very well may be, then i'd think the laws against polygamy should be unconstitutional as well right?
I don't know the exact wording of those laws, but if they specify that marriage can only exist between two individuals, and no more than that number, then they are addressing the number of spouses one person can have and not which two people can marry each other where only two people are involved to begin with.
If they bring sex into the issue by stating that a man cannot be married to more than one woman at a time, well, nothing's changed there. A man still can't be married to more than one woman at a time. (He can't be married to more than one man at a time either.) As long as the law doesn't specify that marrying a woman is his only option for wedded bliss, it shouldn't be affected by this judge's ruling.
Sailor Steve
08-05-10, 02:42 PM
Well, it looks like James, The Frau, Mookie and Krashkart said it all, so there's not much for me to add. It's not about "One judge versus seven million voters", it's about rights, and what rights are guaranteed and what rights are not. The judge's ruling was based on the evidence given and on the Constitutionality of the laws passed.
I'm not even arguing if the judge is right or wrong at this point. It will be heard by an Appelate Court, and if need be the Supreme Court. At this point it's not about Gay Rights, the voters or anything else. It's about the law. Did the voters pass a law that goes against the Constitution? That has yet to be finally determined.
If that is unconstitutional, and it very well may be, then i'd think the laws against polygamy should be unconstitutional as well right?
I'll let you know when it happens.
AVGWarhawk
08-05-10, 02:57 PM
I don't know the exact wording of those laws, but if they specify that marriage can only exist between two individuals, and no more than that number, then they are addressing the number of spouses one person can have and not which two people can marry each other where only two people are involved to begin with.
If they bring sex into the issue by stating that a man cannot be married to more than one woman at a time, well, nothing's changed there. A man still can't be married to more than one woman at a time. (He can't be married to more than one man at a time either.) As long as the law doesn't specify that marrying a woman is his only option for wedded bliss, it shouldn't be affected by this judge's ruling.
I think that is against my civil rights. I should be able to have more then one wife. I think that law is unconstitutional. It should be overturned. I don't care who voted for it. :03:
I don't see how the two are at all similar. Marriage to multiple partners is fundamentally different than marriage to the partner (singular) of your choice.
But what is so fundamentally different about it? They're still consenting adults, correct? Being married to one person does not legally prevent someone from sleeping with another person. In fact a group of three or more consenting adults can live like they are in a polygamous marriage and it's only the formalization of this arraignment that the government can prohibit.
Zachstar
08-05-10, 03:05 PM
When a survey was made about integration of African Americans into a single non-segregated system in the late 40s. The VAST VAST VAST Majority of GIs polled said it was wrong.
If the Civil Rights laws depended on a vote we might have still been segregated today.
The rights of people can't come up for a vote.
mookiemookie
08-05-10, 03:09 PM
But what is so fundamentally different about it? They're still consenting adults, correct? Being married to one person does not legally prevent someone from sleeping with another person. In fact a group of three or more consenting adults can live like they are in a polygamous marriage and it's only the formalization of this arraignment that the government can prohibit.
Frau nailed it - you can't marry multiple partners, no matter the gender. That goes for if you're gay, straight or other. That's a completely different issue than saying "you can marry one person if you're straight but you can't marry anyone at all if you're gay."
AVGWarhawk
08-05-10, 03:15 PM
Frau nailed it - you can't marry multiple partners, no matter the gender. That goes for if you're gay, straight or other. That's a completely different issue than saying "you can marry one person if you're straight but you can't marry anyone at all if you're gay."
How so? Because the law says I can not have two wives? This is unconstitutional as far as I can tell. I think the judge should overturn this law no matter what the voters say.
AVGWarhawk
08-05-10, 03:16 PM
When a survey was made about integration of African Americans into a single non-segregated system in the late 40s. The VAST VAST VAST Majority of GIs polled said it was wrong.
If the Civil Rights laws depended on a vote we might have still been segregated today.
The rights of people can't come up for a vote.
Who then determines what are the rights of the people?
Zachstar
08-05-10, 03:20 PM
Sadly the courts have had to be depended on time and time again to establish the rights of people. From Roe vs Wade to Brown vs Board etc...
What I worry about tho is if the Supreme Court will refuse to hear the case because it is such a hot topic. Idiot prop 8 supporters think the Supreme court will hand them an easy victory. But what they don't seem to get is that if they rule a right... It is VERY hard to get them to revisit that ruling... That is why abortion hasnt been touched much in the past few decades.
frau kaleun
08-05-10, 03:20 PM
I think that is against my civil rights. I should be able to have more then one wife. I think that law is unconstitutional. It should be overturned. I don't care who voted for it. :03:
Actually I have no problems with a legal mechanism being put into place to allow for some type of recognized "union" between more than two consenting adults who have chosen to live in that fashion, provided it applies equally to everyone regardless of the sex or sexual orientation of the individuals involved.
Obviously considering any such arrangement a "marriage" would involve a complete redefinition of the concept above and beyond what is necessary to include same-sex couples.
And needless to say I would not support anything that restricted such a union to one (male) husband taking multiple (female)wives. I doubt that any of the religious groups that still condone and practice polygamy, or that might consider doing so again, would be willing to accept the possibility of equal opportunity and protection for women in this matter in order to make it once again legal for their menfolk. The institution of polygamy as a cultural "norm" is so inextricably intertwined with the exploitation and oppression of women that removing those elements and giving equal status, rights and protection to any females involved would make it unappealing to anyone who still clings to it as a vestige of male prestige and power.
Sailor Steve
08-05-10, 03:23 PM
Who then determines what are the rights of the people?
You have the inherent right to do anything you want, except deny that same right to others. Anything else is legislating morality.
AVGWarhawk
08-05-10, 03:37 PM
Actually I have no problems with a legal mechanism being put into place to allow for some type of recognized "union" between more than two consenting adults who have chosen to live in that fashion, provided it applies equally to everyone regardless of the sex or sexual orientation of the individuals involved.
Obviously considering any such arrangement a "marriage" would involve a complete redefinition of the concept above and beyond what is necessary to include same-sex couples.
And needless to say I would not support anything that restricted such a union to one (male) husband taking multiple (female)wives. I doubt that any of the religious groups that still condone and practice polygamy, or that might consider doing so again, would be willing to accept the possibility of equal opportunity and protection for women in this matter in order to make it once again legal for their menfolk. The institution of polygamy as a cultural "norm" is so inextricably intertwined with the exploitation and oppression of women that removing those elements and giving equal status, rights and protection to any females involved would make it unappealing to anyone who still clings to it as a vestige of male prestige and power.
Cultural 'norm'....there in lies the problem. Gay marriage is not seen as a cultural norm and probably will not be seen as the norm for quite sometime. Are you saying then that women in polygamous marriages are exploited and oppressed? Please explain.
Zachstar
08-05-10, 03:58 PM
That is why it is not up to us but up to the highest courts. Remember Interracial marriage for instance.
krashkart
08-05-10, 04:00 PM
Certain groups practice polygamy in a manner that does not faithfully represent a mutual love and respect between partners. In such cases it is centric to the male, and the females are submissive counterparts. I believe that is what frau kaleun is referring to.
Takeda Shingen
08-05-10, 04:03 PM
If mutual love and respect becomes a prequisite for marital union, then I imagine that at least half of the current marriages in the country will have to be immediately dissolved.
However, I applaud the court's decision. It is high time that homosexual couples were made to suffer just as their hertosexual counterparts.
Platapus
08-05-10, 04:03 PM
That is why it is not up to us but up to the highest courts. Remember Interracial marriage for instance.
Excellent point. I bet the majority would have voted against that at one time also.
Bubblehead1980
08-05-10, 04:10 PM
I have no religious views so this issue is different for me.I am opposed to gay marriage because it's just another thing the gay lobby wants to bitch and cry about when courts should be dealing with much more important issues.The voters of California voted NO to gay marriage, that should be respected but nooo the gay lobby has to go to Federal Court when this is supposed to be a state issue anyway with a judge who is gay(how could he be fair?) and get a sham ruling.Hopefully SCOTUS will settle this once and for all.
Aramike
08-05-10, 04:12 PM
I'm sorry, but how were gays discriminated against again?
I thought homosexuals were people - not a race unto themselves. Under Prop 8 marriage was defined as a union between a man and a woman.
Are gay men not men? Are gay women not women?
In fact, I submit that they are men and women!
Meaning, they had the SAME rights. What they wanted were SPECIAL rights. (Which is alarming because, in CA, gays are already allowed civil unions which, on paper, is the same thing. Ultimately this is nothing more than an attempt to usurp the term marriage from its traditional meaning, which shows to the shallowness of these activists.)
frau kaleun
08-05-10, 04:15 PM
Cultural 'norm'....there in lies the problem. Gay marriage is not seen as a cultural norm and probably will not be seen as the norm for quite sometime. Are you saying then that women in polygamous marriages are exploited and oppressed? Please explain.
Integration of the races was not seen as a cultural "norm" until it was. It took the passage of new laws and the striking down of some old ones to make that happen.
Anyway, what I meant by cultural "norm" was a little more specific - there have been and no doubt still are cultures where polygamy was/is practiced and is not considered beyond the pale by the society in which it happens. Even if it is not what everybody does (or has the power or financial means to do), it is not considered abnormal when someone else does it.
Within the small fringe religious groups that still practice it here in the US, it is indeed considered the cultural norm by those people.
It would have been clearer to have said that, in cultures where it is permissible and not considered abnormal, or among subcultures where it is considered the normal thing to do and accept, you will almost without fail find that is tied to practices that involve the abuse, exploitation, and oppression of females.
And yes, absolutely, in any culture that allows men the right to marry multiple spouses but prohibits women from doing the same, it is by definition a discriminatory practice and a tool of sexual oppression.
SteamWake
08-05-10, 04:19 PM
I'm sorry, but how were gays discriminated against again?
In a nutshell tax laws.
Sailor Steve
08-05-10, 04:24 PM
Under Prop 8 marriage was defined as a union between a man and a woman.
But do voters have the right to make that distinction for others? Is that a natural distinction or an artificial one. If the purpose of marriage is itself, as the ancient Greeks believed, to force a man and a woman into an "unnatural" alliance in order to produce and then protect the children, then marriage is a legal contract that must be between one man and one woman. If it's between two people who want to legally commit to each other, then why is it up to you, or seven million others, to say they may not.
The very act of defining marriage as being between one man and one woman is discrimination against anyone who feels otherwise and is thereby excluded. Enforcing that definition is indeed denying equality.
Platapus
08-05-10, 04:33 PM
I am a little concerned with why did not the judicial branch in California, evaluate the constitutionality of Prop 8 before the election.
There can only be one of two outcomes of the Prop 8 vote.
It passes
It fails
With only two possible outcomes was it not possible to evaluate the constitutionality of the outcomes?
Or was Prop 8 proposed with the assumption that it would fail? If so, that is a very bad assumption and reflects poor judgment on who ever sponsored it.
If an outcome of a public vote can be unconstitutional, it probably would be a good idea to fix it before the election.
As it stands now, I can understand why people are pissed. Don't ask me my opinion, if my opinion doesn't matter.
frau kaleun
08-05-10, 04:36 PM
Certain groups practice polygamy in a manner that does not faithfully represent a mutual love and respect between partners. In such cases it is centric to the male, and the females are submissive counterparts. I believe that is what frau kaleun is referring to.
As I indicated in my previous post, when any group allows multiple spouses to men but prohibits them for women, it is by definition "male-centric" and discriminatory and probably only one item in a long list of instances where men in that group are privileged and empowered in ways that their female counterparts are not.
In fact if anyone can find one instance of a culture that permits and encourages men but not women to take multiple spouses and in which there is no tendency towards the abuse and oppression of women overall, I will be very much surprised.
And let's be honest here: the notion that mutual love, respect and commitment have anything to do with marriage as a contract to be formalized, recognized, and sanctioned by the church and/or state is a fairly modern one. IMO anything that takes the idea of "marriage" even one more step away from its origins as a way of one person buying another (with or without the consent of the person being purchased) for the purposes of cheap domestic labor, sex on demand, and the production of a "legitimate" heir to one's property, can only be a good thing.
Personally I suspect that the reason so many fundamentalist religious types have such a problem with same-sex marriage is that when they see two men or two women together they can't figure out which one owns the other and the possibility that neither one of them owns anybody is just too much for them to contemplate without their heads esploding. :O:
frau kaleun
08-05-10, 04:46 PM
I have no religious views so this issue is different for me.I am opposed to gay marriage because it's just another thing the gay lobby wants to bitch and cry about when courts should be dealing with much more important issues.The voters of California voted NO to gay marriage, that should be respected but nooo the gay lobby has to go to Federal Court when this is supposed to be a state issue anyway with a judge who is gay(how could he be fair?) and get a sham ruling.Hopefully SCOTUS will settle this once and for all.
By your reasoning it would also be impossible for a hetero judge to be fair in this instance, since you seem to believe that it's solely a "gays vs. straights" issue. We would need to find a judge who has been deemed suitably asexual in order to render a really fair decision.
Unless of course you're implying that hetero people are by default completely devoid of any biases and prejudices that might come into play.
Which is an assumption that the very existence of Proposition 8 makes laughable to begin with.
frau kaleun
08-05-10, 04:49 PM
Ultimately this is nothing more than an attempt to usurp the term marriage from its traditional meaning
In the modern secular world, the word "marriage" has already been moved far beyond its traditional meaning, which had everything to do with the legally recognized transfer of property (the bride) from one man to another and very little (as far as the regulating authorities were concerned) with love, respect and commitment, or even consent if you were unlucky enough to be the property.
frau kaleun
08-05-10, 04:56 PM
In a nutshell tax laws.
Unless you're willing to concede that the primary reason straight people want to get married is for the tax breaks, this argument won't stand.
Ultimately the reasons why two people choose to marry are their own business and nobody else's. That has nothing to do with whether or not they have the right to marry, regardless of the reasons for their desire to do so.
Even if it is just for the tax breaks, that still no reason why only straight people should have the option to take advantage of them.
frau kaleun
08-05-10, 05:00 PM
If the purpose of marriage is itself, as the ancient Greeks believed, to force a man and a woman into an "unnatural" alliance in order to produce and then protect the children
The procreation angle does come up occasionally with the same-sex marriage question. There's always someone who says "but marriage is about raising a family, gay couples can't make babies, therefore they don't need (shouldn't be allowed) to get married!"
Funny how they never seem to extend that notion to its logical conclusion, which would be to restrict marriage to only those people who are both able and willing to procreate. We don't require straight people to prove that they are fertile and desirous of offspring in order to get a marriage license, we don't nullify their marriages if they fail to reproduce or find out that they can't or decide they don't want to. So obviously the "procreation argument" is utter nonsense from a legal perspective.
Sailor Steve
08-05-10, 05:01 PM
I am a little concerned with why did not the judicial branch in California, evaluate the constitutionality of Prop 8 before the election.
For the simple reason that, contrary to the belief of some, judges cannot arbitrarily 'legislate from the bench', though some certainly use any means they can to get around that. A case has to actually be brought before them before they can rule on it. It may be an injunction to prevent the passage of a law, or even an election, or it may be an after-the-fact attempt to overturn a law, as this was.
I'm not saying the judge ruled fairly, or properly, nor am I saying that he ruled from his own biased viewpoint. Either could be the case; I don't know. But the judge cannot initiate action - he has to wait until the action is brought to his bench.
krashkart
08-05-10, 05:12 PM
If mutual love and respect becomes a prequisite for marital union, then I imagine that at least half of the current marriages in the country will have to be immediately dissolved.
Good points. I wasn't going after prerequisites, but I would certainly have to agree that a percentage of marriages would be considered illegal in such a case.
mookiemookie
08-05-10, 05:20 PM
The voters of California voted NO to gay marriage, that should be respected Mob rule doesn't allow you to vote the minority's rights away.
but nooo the gay lobby has to go to Federal Court How dare they exercise their rights to judicial review!
when this is supposed to be a state issue anyway The 14th Amendment: "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States."
Hopefully SCOTUS will settle this once and for all.They should just copy the text of Loving vs. Virginia word for word, and replace every mention of "race" with "sexual orientation." That would be a fine pimpslap to the anti-gay marriage crowd.
Aramike
08-05-10, 05:25 PM
In a nutshell tax laws.Again, how is that discriminatory? Men and women, REGARDLESS of sexual orientation, have the same exact rights. What they want are different rights.
Aramike
08-05-10, 05:30 PM
They should just copy the text of Loving vs. Virginia word for word, and replace every mention of "race" with "sexual orientation." That would be a fine pimpslap to the anti-gay marriage crowd. Too bad that doesn't work.
Loving V Virginia was about bestowing the same rights on all men and women under the premise that all men and women are created equal.
The issue of gay marriage, namely Prop 8, is specifically based upon the opposite concept, that not all men and women are created equal and therefore not placated by the same laws. A law that marriage is between a man and a woman applies EXACTLY THE SAME to ALL men, and ALL women, despite their sexual orientation. What gays are asking for is something quite different, and although you've cited this ruling repeatedly, it makes no sense in this context.
Aramike
08-05-10, 05:32 PM
The procreation angle does come up occasionally with the same-sex marriage question. There's always someone who says "but marriage is about raising a family, gay couples can't make babies, therefore they don't need (shouldn't be allowed) to get married!"
Funny how they never seem to extend that notion to its logical conclusion, which would be to restrict marriage to only those people who are both able and willing to procreate. We don't require straight people to prove that they are fertile and desirous of offspring in order to get a marriage license, we don't nullify their marriages if they fail to reproduce or find out that they can't or decide they don't want to. So obviously the "procreation argument" is utter nonsense from a legal perspective.How is it "utter nonsense"? What about adoption regulations?
frau kaleun
08-05-10, 05:33 PM
Originally Posted by Takeda Shingen http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/images_acpb/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?p=1460770#post1460770)
If mutual love and respect becomes a prequisite for marital union, then I imagine that at least half of the current marriages in the country will have to be immediately dissolved.
Good points. I wasn't going after prerequisites, but I would certainly have to agree that a percentage of marriages would be considered illegal in such a case.
Good point, and it helps bring into focus the difference between a reason to get married and the right to get married.
I don't care why people marry each other as long as they do it by mutual consent (which implies mutual respect), with each person free to make an informed decision about it and for reasons that they themselves have agreed make marriage a desirable option.
Whether or not they have a right to get married has nothing to do with their reasons for wanting to do so, and IMO no list of presumed "acceptable reasons" put forward by anyone else should have any bearing on their right to do so.
That's a completely different issue than saying "you can marry one person if you're straight but you can't marry anyone at all if you're gay."
But that's not the case either, now is it. Homosexuals are free to marry a person of the opposite sex just like everyone else.
mookiemookie
08-05-10, 05:36 PM
A law that marriage is between a man and a woman applies EXACTLY THE SAME to ALL men, and ALL women, despite their sexual orientation.
Really? Telling a gay man "You're free to marry anyone you want, so long as they're not another guy" sounds an awful lot like telling a black man "You're free to marry anyone you want, so long as they're not white."
You're denying people rights based on an innate characteristic of who they are. That's the very definition of discrimination.
Takeda Shingen
08-05-10, 05:36 PM
I agree with you, Frau. My comments were just intended to be silly.
Sailor Steve
08-05-10, 05:39 PM
Again, how is that discriminatory? Men and women, REGARDLESS of sexual orientation, have the same exact rights. What they want are different rights.
You fail to make the distinction between natural rights and legal rights. You argue that it does not discriminate, but the truth is that it actually guarantees the "right" to marry only whom you say they can marry.
What is certainly being denied is the "right" to marry whom they want to marry.
Deny it all you like, it is without question discriminatory.
mookiemookie
08-05-10, 05:40 PM
But that's not the case either, now is it. Homosexuals are free to marry a person of the opposite sex just like everyone else.
Then they wouldn't be homosexuals then, would they? That's a silly argument. Almost like the famous Ford quote about being able to have a Model T in any color you like so long as it's black.
Platapus
08-05-10, 05:40 PM
For the simple reason that, contrary to the belief of some, judges cannot arbitrarily 'legislate from the bench',
you are quite correct, and I apologize for poorly wording my comment. What I meant was that the people proposing Prop 8 should have gotten some guidance from constitutional lawyers on the constitutionality of the proposal before putting it to a public vote.
If the constitutional advisers has said "hmm this is in a gray area constitutionally" then the proposers could have had a chance to modify it, or formally requested a pre-legislative judicial ruling.
Sailor Steve
08-05-10, 05:41 PM
you are quite correct, and I apologize for poorly wording my comment. What I meant was that the people proposing Prop 8 should have gotten some guidance from constitutional lawyers on the constitutionality of the proposal before putting it to a public vote.
If the constitutional advisers has said "hmm this is in a gray area constitutionally" then the proposers could have had a chance to modify it, or formally requested a pre-legislative judicial ruling.
:yep: Good point.
Sailor Steve
08-05-10, 05:42 PM
Then they wouldn't be homosexuals then, would they? That's a silly argument. Almost like the famous Ford quote about being able to have a Model T in any color you like so long as it's black.
I could be wrong, but I suspect August's comment was meant to be just a little tongue-in-cheek.
frau kaleun
08-05-10, 05:43 PM
Again, how is that discriminatory? Men and women, REGARDLESS of sexual orientation, have the same exact rights. What they want are different rights.
If a straight person has the right to marry the person of his/her choice, and a gay person doesn't, they do not have the same rights, period. One person has a right to do something, and the other person has been denied the same opportunity. Wanting the right to do the same thing that someone else can do is not wanting a "different right." It's wanting the same right. How is that not obvious?
That's like arguing that suffragettes were demanding "different rights" because they wanted to be able to vote just like their menfolk did. Winning the right to vote didn't give them "special rights" on account of them being female. It gave them the SAME RIGHTS that non-females already had, and rights that they had to qualify for in the exact same way that non-females did.
Saying that giving another citizen a right or opportunity they are denied but which you already have just by virtue of being a citizen same as them, is giving them a "special" right - it's basically admitting that their citizenship is already of the second-class variety and that a special exception msut be made to allow them the privileges that "real" citizens get just by being alive.
frau kaleun
08-05-10, 05:43 PM
I agree with you, Frau. My comments were just intended to be silly.
Duly noted. :up:
mookiemookie
08-05-10, 05:44 PM
I could be wrong, but I suspect August's comment was meant to be just a little tongue-in-cheek.
I've seen so many wacky points of view argued here in GT that it becomes kind of hard to tell anymore. :rotfl2:
Mob rule doesn't allow you to vote the minority's rights away.
It's a pretty big stretch to call a ballot measure formally voted and enacted in accordance with the law and "mob rule".
mookiemookie
08-05-10, 05:49 PM
It's a pretty big stretch to call a ballot measure formally voted and enacted in accordance with the law and "mob rule".
I used "tyranny of the majority" earlier in the thread and SteamWake laughed at me. :cry: Tryin to switch it up for variety's sake. :DL How's "majoritarianism?" "Ochlocracy?"
Sailor Steve
08-05-10, 05:51 PM
It's a pretty big stretch to call a ballot measure formally voted and enacted in accordance with the law and "mob rule".
On the other hand if the majority actually takes away the rights of the minority, what do you call it?
frau kaleun
08-05-10, 05:52 PM
How is it "utter nonsense"? What about adoption regulations?
What about them? It's a whole different issue.
If someone wants to argue that "marriage is about procreation" (which means making babies, not raising children other people made) and therefore same-sex couples should not marry because they cannot bring forth offspring without the help of a third opposite-sex individual, then logically marriage should only be allowed to couples who are able to do just that.
If the purpose of marriage is to procreate, and the state is supposed to uphold that, then no one who is unable or unwilling to procreate should be allowed to marry regardless of their sexual orientation.
When the people who argue that marriage is about procreation start calling for the nullification of childless-by-choice marriages, or for the denial of marriage licenses to couples who can't prove they're at least able to produce offspring, then I'll be willing to believe they actually believe it and aren't just using any excuse they can find to oppose same-sex marriages.
Aramike
08-05-10, 05:57 PM
On the other hand if the majority actually takes away the rights of the minority, what do you call it?Where is it written that gays have said rights to GAY MARRIAGE to be taken away to begin with?
Aramike
08-05-10, 05:59 PM
If a straight person has the right to marry the person of his/her choice, and a gay person doesn't, they do not have the same rights, period.Wrong. You mis-stated it. A straight person has the right to marry a person of the opposite sex of their choice. The same as a gay person. Whether or not you "like" reality doesn't make the principle unreal.
Frankly, I really don't give a damn one way or the other on the issue. That being said, this judge was out-of-line. I guess that most people have an inability to reconcile what they WANT to be true with what reality dictates is true.
If it were up to me, gays would have the same rights to unions as heterosexual couples, but it would be termed differently, and I think it is small and trite of gay activists to repudiate such a gesture repeatedly simply because they want a term traditionally applied to straights.
How does it harm anyone if gays are allowed to marry?
Sailor Steve
08-05-10, 06:03 PM
Where is it written that gays have said rights to GAY MARRIAGE to be taken away to begin with?
Ninth Amendment to the Constitution. James Madison didn't want a Bill Of Rights at all, because he firmly believed that ALL rights belong to the people and none to the government, and that if he left anything out somewhere down the line someone would say "They didn't mention that one, therefore they didn't want it there!" The Ninth Amendment was Madison hedging his bets against that very argument.
"It is to secure these rights that governments are instituted among men." I'm sure I read that somewhere.
As I've said before, and will continue to say, I have the right to do anything I want, as long as it doesn't infringe anyone else's right to do the same. We create govenments to protect our rights, and we make laws to protect ourselves from each other. Anything more is an attempt to legislate morality.
krashkart
08-05-10, 06:04 PM
How does it harm anyone if gays are allowed to marry?
I myself would like to know the answer to that, but nobody has presented one yet. :hmmm:
EDIT: What I've been able to surmise so far is that it scares the bejeezus out of those who oppose it. That leads to another question of: Why?
Aramike
08-05-10, 06:08 PM
How does it harm anyone if gays are allowed to marry?How does it harm anyone is gays are allowed the same exact rights as marriage but it is termed something else out of respect?
mookiemookie
08-05-10, 06:08 PM
How does it harm anyone is gays are allowed the same exact rights as marriage but it is termed something else out of respect?
Because separate but equal is inherently unequal.
Then they wouldn't be homosexuals then, would they? That's a silly argument. Almost like the famous Ford quote about being able to have a Model T in any color you like so long as it's black.
But it's not. Any restrictions from marrying a person of the opposite sex are self imposed. It's more like demanding that Ford produce Buicks because that's the car they prefer.
Aramike
08-05-10, 06:11 PM
Ninth Amendment to the Constitution. James Madison didn't want a Bill Of Rights at all, because he firmly believed that ALL rights belong to the people and none to the government, and that if he left anything out somewhere down the line someone would say "They didn't mention that one, therefore they didn't want it there!" The Ninth Amendment was Madison hedging his bets against that very argument.
"It is to secure these rights that governments are instituted among men." I'm sure I read that somewhere.
As I've said before, and will continue to say, I have the right to do anything I want, as long as it doesn't infringe anyone else's right to do the same. We create govenments to protect our rights, and we make laws to protect ourselves from each other. Anything more is an attempt to legislate morality.That implies that gay marriage is a right retained by the people. I submit that it was never a right to begin with, and therefore the 9th does not apply. Furthermore, the 9th Amendment has generally been applied to limiting the expansion of government RESTRICTIONS - defining marriage doesn't expand any restriction that hasn't already been in place. Rather, it merely better defines it.
Aramike
08-05-10, 06:13 PM
Because separate but equal is inherently unequal.Umm, no, because it IS separate by nature - please don't make me get into how all the "parts" work here...
Because separate but equal is inherently unequal.
Then i'm sure you are in favor of unisex public toilets. :DL
Takeda Shingen
08-05-10, 06:14 PM
Umm, no, because it IS separate by nature - please don't make me get into how all the "parts" work here...
Homosexuality does occur in nature.
Homosexuality does occur in nature.
But not marriages. :salute:
How does it harm anyone is gays are allowed the same exact rights as marriage but it is termed something else out of respect?
It is what it is.
Personally, if you want to call it something other than marriage, that's fine. Just so long as it is open to all. If you want to call everything that happens in a religious setting "marriage", then that's fine. After the couple finishes their "marriage" at the church, they can go to the courthouse and have their civil union ceremony. Of course, until they have the civil ceremony, they won't have the benefits that are currently reserved for married people.
That way, everyone is happy. Churches don't have to deal with gay marriage, and people who are not religious will be able to have a civil union without the church. People who are against the government having anything to do with it can have their marriage, and the government won't get involved.
By the way, what was the answer? Who does it harm if gays get married?
Sailor Steve
08-05-10, 06:20 PM
Wrong. You mis-stated it. A straight person has the right to marry a person of the opposite sex of their choice. The same as a gay person. Whether or not you "like" reality doesn't make the principle unreal.
Wrong. You mis-represented it. Rights are inherent. Laws are not made to create or allow rights, they are made to restrict them. Usually this is done for protection. You want to do it for moral reasons, and this is wrong.
Frankly, I really don't give a damn one way or the other on the issue.
Then why the hostility, and the insistence? It looks like you care about it a great deal.
That being said, this judge was out-of-line. I guess that most people have an inability to reconcile what they WANT to be true with what reality dictates is true.
How was he out of line? A case was brought before his bench and he ruled on it, and created a very detailed explanation of why he ruled what he did.
You now need to explain why, if you don't care about the issue, you feel the need to attempt to dismiss it with an intentional insult to everybody who disagrees with you. How exactly does reality dictate that what you believe is true? It may be true on the face of it, but so were laws that advocated racial discrimination.
Because it's true does that necessarily mean it's right? If a law is wrong should it not be resisted because it exists? And does not your statement also apply to yourself? Are you not also unable to reconcile yourself with what is versus what you want to be true?
If it were up to me, gays would have the same rights to unions as heterosexual couples, but it would be termed differently, and I think it is small and trite of gay activists to repudiate such a gesture repeatedly simply because they want a term traditionally applied to straights.
Tradition is not always right either. Is there a possibility that you are so upset over this because you find homosexuality offensive and hate to see any concession in that direction.
Well guess what? I find the act itself not only offensive but revolting, and I hate seeing men holding hands (and fondling each other) in public. But I also realize that my morality and sensibilities might just be skewed by what I've been taught over the years.
To badly paraphrase Thomas Jefferson: "The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to love another man. It neither picks my pocket, nor breaks my leg."
Bad paraphrasing, I admit, but also true.
Aramike
08-05-10, 06:21 PM
Homosexuality does occur in nature.So? That's not my point at all.
Even in nature, homosexuality is different that heterosexuality ... please, please don't make me explain how the parts work.
UnderseaLcpl
08-05-10, 06:22 PM
This discussion is getting ridiculous now. Gay rights have very little to do with heterosexual polygamy other than at a philosophical level. Not that I'm against polygamy, or the female equivalent. I consider relationships of any kind to be the business of the involved parties, and nobody else.
However, at the risk of pissing off the frau, I'm going to break this down like Bobby Brown.:yeah:
There are societies where women are dominant, but there are no societies in which women are polyamorous. The reason for that is simple biology. Every biological organsim on earth today exists because the genes that built it were successfuly passed on. This means that only organisms who raise young that achieve sexual maturity survive.
So, how does one create an organism that survives to sexual maturity? It's not by having a female choose from and breed with a large group of males. A female can only ever produce one offspring, maybe multiples in rare circumstances. It's from having one male breed with a large group of females. That makes more sense in evolutionary terms. Males that breed with many females will produce more offspring, which is exactly what males are designed to do. It's why we have hundreds of millions of gametes for every egg and why we're such competitive jerks. Females that are more choosy about which males they breed with will produce more successful offsrping. This is why females are such impossible bitches and why they have such a long list of requirements for a lifelong mate. It's the result of natural evolution.
So... this is why societies of polyamorous females don't exist. They die out because they are not efficient in a reproductive sense. Well, that's not entirely true. Unlike any other species, women actually have a built-in mechanism for concealing ovulation so they can mess with the village pool-boy while being married to the village elder. It's a by-product of these marvelous brains we were endowed with. It's also why young couples face the "is she pregnant!?" anxiety. In that way, women can be polyamorous, though they are still limited in their production of offspring.
What were we talking about, again? Oh, yeah, gay marriage and it's relation to polyamory. Female polyamory is fine with me, and I'd allow it, assuming anyone could ever make it work outside of the porn industy. It'll never beat male polymory, though, because of sheer human biological nature.
Sailor Steve
08-05-10, 06:23 PM
How does it harm anyone is gays are allowed the same exact rights as marriage but it is termed something else out of respect?
How does it harm anyone to call it marriage?
Sailor Steve
08-05-10, 06:28 PM
I submit that it was never a right to begin with, and therefore the 9th does not apply.
How do you define a "Right", then? I define it as something that is inherent, buy nature. By that logic I could claim that marriage itself isn't a "Right".
Furthermore, the 9th Amendment has generally been applied to limiting the expansion of government RESTRICTIONS - defining marriage doesn't expand any restriction that hasn't already been in place. Rather, it merely better defines it.
But it defines it with the express purpose of denying a segment of the population freedom of choice. That is by definition discrimination. There is nothing benign about this - this is an attempt to restrict the rights of certain people based solely on percieved morality.
frau kaleun
08-05-10, 06:31 PM
Wrong. You mis-stated it. A straight person has the right to marry a person of the opposite sex of their choice. The same as a gay person. Whether or not you "like" reality doesn't make the principle unreal.
Okay, let's say I have the right to eat all the Spam I want. You also have the right to eat all the Spam you want. But neither of us have the right to eat anything else.
The thing is, you don't like Spam. And eating Spam makes you miserable and ill. In fact, you were born with a body that gets no nourishment whatsoever from Spam.
I, on the other hand, love Spam. I was born with a body that runs perfectly fine on nothing but!
Hungry? Here, have some Spam. You can have all you want, just like me! Wait, you don't like it? You can't be happy and healthy on a diet of nothing but Spam, and would like the opportunity to eat something else? Not gonna happen. Those of us who are satisfied with Spam have defined the act of "eating" as "eating Spam," so, uh, that's all there is. When we said that bit about "the pursuit of happiness" we were only talking about people who were happy eating nothing but Spam. Sorry! But since you have the same right to eat something that nourishes me and gives you nothing but empty calories, you really don't have anything to complain about.
/falling on deaf ears
Takeda Shingen
08-05-10, 06:32 PM
So? That's not my point at all.
Even in nature, homosexuality is different that heterosexuality ... please, please don't make me explain how the parts work.
And there's that 'parts' comment again; clearly an insinuation that homosexuality is apart from nature. So, really, if that wasn't your point, why say it? Please don't make me explain how basic logical argument proceeds.
Takeda Shingen
08-05-10, 06:33 PM
But not marriages. :salute:
True. So, to be in line with nature, I suppose we must ban all marriage.
Aramike
08-05-10, 06:35 PM
Wrong. You mis-represented it. Rights are inherent. Laws are not made to create or allow rights, they are made to restrict them. Usually this is done for protection. You want to do it for moral reasons, and this is wrong.Wrong. You're responding to a point you clearly didn't get.Then why the hostility, and the insistence? It looks like you care about it a great deal.Hostile? WHAT?
I'm sorry, I'm being pointed - not hostile. I'll try to include the proper amount of emoticons and smilies if it will soothe your conscious. :up:
Again, I really don't give a damn, and I have presented what I believe would be a proper compromise (a term the minority never seems to understand).How was he out of line? A case was brought before his bench and he ruled on it, and created a very detailed explanation of why he ruled what he did.Did you read the explanation?You now need to explain why, if you don't care about the issue, you feel the need to attempt to dismiss it with an intentional insult to everybody who disagrees with you. It wasn't meant as an insult to everybody who disagrees with me, as you say. It was meant as an observation of EVERYONE IN GENERAL.
People tend to find a way to spin things into meaning what they want them to mean, rather than taking them at face value. Your response was an excellent case-in-point. I suspect you wanted to find every line I wrote to be wrong, and therefore you argued as though I said something I didn't.
Thanks for proving my point.Tradition is not always right either.Nor, in this case, is it wrong.Is there a possibility that you are so upset over this because you find homosexuality offensive and hate to see any concession in that direction.Nope.Well guess what? I find the act itself not only offensive but revolting, and I hate seeing men holding hands (and fondling each other) in public. But I also realize that my morality and sensibilities might just be skewed by what I've been taught over the years.That sounds like something you should work on.
While I don't particularly want to see two men making out, I don't find it any more offensive than seeing a straight couple doing the same.
What I find offensive is when the minority insists upon infringing upon the established traditions of the majority when THEY CAN REAP THE SAME BENEFITS WITHOUT DOING SO!
It has gone from a question of doing what is right to a question of one side being able to stick it to the other.
But considering that you've so convieniently lumped me into the anti-gay crowd, you've gone far to make my point that compromise, and as such, the middle ground is beyond the grasp of your side's capability.
mookiemookie
08-05-10, 06:42 PM
True. So, to be in line with nature, I suppose we must ban all marriage.
You may run into some opposition on that one from my girlfriend. I, however, fully support the measure. :yeah:
frau kaleun
08-05-10, 06:43 PM
I myself would like to know the answer to that, but nobody has presented one yet. :hmmm:
From a report (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/27/us/27bar.html?_r=1&ref=david_boies) on a pre-trial hearing last fall:
In a San Francisco courtroom two weeks ago, a prominent lawyer opposed to same-sex marriage made a concession that could mark a turning point in the legal wars over the purpose and meaning of marriage.
The lawyer, Charles J. Cooper, has studied the matter deeply, and his erudite briefs are steeped in history. He cannot have been blindsided by the question Judge Vaughn R. Walker asked him: What would be the harm of permitting gay men and lesbians to marry?
“Your honor, my answer is: I don’t know,” Mr. Cooper said. “I don’t know.”
Apparently they were never able to come up with anything better than that.
Oh wait, I 'member now. Gay marriage will destroy and de-sanctify all straight marriages! For those already-married heteros out there, this ruling has nullified your unions in the eyes of God and the state. Also, the Keepers of the Gay Agenda will be sending you the contact info for the same-sex partner you will now be required to marry instead. (Some of you unlucky ones will have to be paired up with animals and the occasional inanimate object, but you know how it goes... slippery slope and all that.)
Only, you know, NOT. :O:
Aramike
08-05-10, 06:43 PM
Okay, let's say I have the right to eat all the Spam I want. You also have the right to eat all the Spam you want. But neither of us have the right to eat anything else.
The thing is, you don't like Spam. And eating Spam makes you miserable and ill. In fact, you were born with a body that gets no nourishment whatsoever from Spam.
I, on the other hand, love Spam. I was born with a body that runs perfectly fine on nothing but!
Hungry? Here, have some Spam. You can have all you want, just like me! Wait, you don't like it? You can't be happy and healthy on a diet of nothing but Spam, and would like the opportunity to eat something else? Not gonna happen. Those of us who are satisfied with Spam have defined the act of "eating" as "eating Spam," so, uh, that's all there is. When we said that bit about "the pursuit of happiness" we were only talking about people who were happy eating nothing but Spam. Sorry! But since you have the same right to eat something that nourishes me and gives you nothing but empty calories, you really don't have anything to complain about.
/falling on deaf earsI assume my rebuttal will fall on deaf ears because you either are clearly ignoring my position or you're just not reading it.
My point is ... go ahead, don't eat Spam. But, don't call what you do decide to eat Spam.
Simple compromise, huh?
TLAM Strike
08-05-10, 06:48 PM
(Some of you unlucky ones will have to be paired up with animals and the occasional inanimate object...) So for people in New Zealand, Wales and who use the Internet nothing much will have changed right? :hmmm:
Sailor Steve
08-05-10, 06:58 PM
Wrong. You're responding to a point you clearly didn't get.
Then please explain further.
Hostile? WHAT?
I'm sorry, I'm being pointed - not hostile. I'll try to include the proper amount of emoticons and smilies if it will soothe your conscious. :up:
Then I apologise. It looked hostile to me, but perhaps I was getting excited myself.
Again, I really don't give a damn, and I have presented what I believe would be a proper compromise (a term the minority never seems to understand).Did you read the explanation?It wasn't meant as an insult to everybody who disagrees with me, as you say. It was meant as an observation of EVERYONE IN GENERAL.
Then you include yourself in that statement? Again I apologise. It seemed dismissive to me.
People tend to find a way to spin things into meaning what they want them to mean, rather than taking them at face value. Your response was an excellent case-in-point. I suspect you wanted to find every line I wrote to be wrong, and therefore you argued as though I said something I didn't.
Perhaps. I don't know myself well enough to judge that.
Thanks for proving my point.
If you mean the one about misinterpreting or over-reacting, then you're welcome. If you meant something within the "Gay Marriage" argument itself, you'll need to explain.
Nor, in this case, is it wrong.
That's your opinion, nothing more. It might very well be wrong.
Nope...
And yet you are so adamant about it. You claim to have no dog in this hunt, yet you argue as if it's your very life's passion. Me, I don't care about it either, but I do care very much about people's rights.
That sounds like something you should work on.
I've already worked on it. That's why I admit that my reactions may be wrong, and support the rights of those I disagree with.
What I find offensive is when the minority insists upon infringing upon the established traditions of the majority when THEY CAN REAP THE SAME BENEFITS WITHOUT DOING SO!
So why deny them the right to just do so?
But considering that you've so convieniently lumped me into the anti-gay crowd, you've gone far to make my point that compromise, and as such, the middle ground is beyond the grasp of your side's capability.
But you don't advocate a middle ground. You advocate the restriction of a percieved benefit from a portion of the population, and your basis for doing so seems to be solely morality. What you advocate is not compromise at all.
And "your side"? What exactly is "my side". I've said I find homosexuality distasteful, so it can't be that. The side of advocating equal rights for all?
Aramike
08-05-10, 07:05 PM
But you don't advocate a middle ground. You advocate the restriction of a percieved benefit from a portion of the population, and your basis for doing so seems to be solely morality. What you advocate is not compromise at all.So why deny them the right to just do so?
*Sigh*
What benefit am I restricting? I am in favor of 100% equal rights.
If the term marriage itself is a benefit, than I'm no more restricting a "perceived benefit" than you would be. Heterosexuals perhaps "perceive" that term to mean a man and woman's union as a benefit...
So, either you're saying that the heterosexual's "percieved" benefit isn't actually a benefit and therefore it shouldn't matter to them, or you're saying that it IS a benefit but one that only matters to gays as you are in favor of removing that "benefit" from straights...
Platapus
08-05-10, 07:06 PM
The Frau was telling me how they handle marriage in Germany, and I think their system would work well here in the US.
Everyone gets married in a non-religious civil ceremony before a government official. This establishes the legal state of marriage. Then, the couple can go to their church for the religious ceremony of marriage. This establishes the religious/spiritual state of marriage.
Churches are free to establish their own rules and exclude anyone they wish. Also, no one is forced to have a religious ceremony.
The problem we have in the US is that for too long there has been an intermixing the process of legal state of marriage and the religious/spiritual state of marriage.
Let's separate them. Hey separation of church and state. I like how that sounds. :yeah:
The government gets to make the rules concerning the legal state of marriage and the churches get to make the rules concerning the religious/spiritual state of marriage. A win-win situation.
If a church disagrees with the legal state of marriage, they don't have recognize it in their religious state of marriage.
mookiemookie
08-05-10, 07:07 PM
So for people in New Zealand, Wales and who use the Internet nothing much will have changed right? :hmmm:
:har::haha::rotfl2:
Comment of the year material there!
frau kaleun
08-05-10, 07:14 PM
So... this is why societies of polyamorous females don't exist. They die out because they are not efficient in a reproductive sense. Well, that's not entirely true. Unlike any other species, women actually have a built-in mechanism for concealing ovulation so they can mess with the village pool-boy while being married to the village elder. It's a by-product of these marvelous brains we were endowed with. It's also why young couples face the "is she pregnant!?" anxiety. In that way, women can be polyamorous, though they are still limited in their production of offspring.
And I would argue that there have been, and perhaps still are, societies where commitment to sexual relations and production of children with one partner only is neither required nor expected of either sex. People have sex with whoever they have choose to have sex with, whether one partner or many, and a woman may have the children of one man or many different men and nobody really cares.
Saying that there is a biological reason why one system may be "preferable" to another when it comes to the survival of the species is one thing.
To turn a person into a second-class citizen and deny them the rights and opportunities that another person gets just by virtue of having a penis because of some supposed "biological imperative" that is not an imperative in any meaningful sense to the person being denied those rights, is quite another.
The notion of limiting a woman to one sexual partner has as much to do with the patriarchal imperative of guaranteed paternity as it does anything else. It wasn't about having children, it was about making sure that any child that came along was the legitimate progeny of the husband/owner of the woman who bore it. At a time when it was impossible to prove conclusively who a child's father was by any scientific means, the only way to ensure that the child you passed your property and position on to was actually yours was to control the sexual behavior of the mother.
In a patriarchal society where almost everything of value is passed down through the male line, guarantee of paternity is all-important. When a child comes out of a woman's body no one can deny who the mother is - but paternity is up for grabs unless that woman's body and sexuality and ability to reproduce at all are completely controlled by someone else. Combine this with the reality that women were the de facto property of their husbands (if not actually by law) and therefore not to be used for the pleasure or procreative needs of anyone else (even with their consent) and it's easy to see that the social imperatives behind the enforcement of female monogamy need no biological motivation to reinforce them.
In matrilineal societies, or matrifocal societies (not to be confused with a matriarchal society, where the positions and privileges of the sexes are the true reverse of what they are in a patriarchy*), woman typically have far more freedom to choose one partner or many... not because they're "in charge" but because guarantee of paternity is not a vital issue for that society.
*And AFAIK, no one has ever been able to prove that such a society ever existed, which is why the use of the word "matriarchy" has fallen out of favor with anthropologists and historians... it implies something for which they have as yet found no conclusive evidence.
My point is ... go ahead, don't eat Spam. But, don't call what you do decide to eat Spam.
So, your opposition to gay marriage is the use of the word "marriage"?
The fact that language is an ever evolving thing kind of makes that a less than strong argument. The meanings of words one hundred, two hundred or five hundred years ago are not the meanings we use now. Words from 20 years ago don't always mean the same thing they did then. Words 20 years from now will mean different things.
If the result of civil unions is the same as marriage, why not just call it marriage?
Aramike
08-05-10, 07:16 PM
The Frau was telling me how they handle marriage in Germany, and I think their system would work well here in the US.
Everyone gets married in a non-religious civil ceremony before a government official. This establishes the legal state of marriage. Then, the couple can go to their church for the religious ceremony of marriage. This establishes the religious/spiritual state of marriage.
Churches are free to establish their own rules and exclude anyone they wish. Also, no one is forced to have a religious ceremony.
The problem we have in the US is that for too long there has been an intermixing the process of legal state of marriage and the religious/spiritual state of marriage.
Let's separate them. Hey separation of church and state. I like how that sounds. :yeah:
The government gets to make the rules concerning the legal state of marriage and the churches get to make the rules concerning the religious/spiritual state of marriage. A win-win situation.
If a church disagrees with the legal state of marriage, they don't have recognize it in their religious state of marriage.Dude, we have marriage licenses. Than you can pretty much do it however you want. I'm good with that.
...and do union licenses for gays and let them get hitched how they choose.
krashkart
08-05-10, 07:22 PM
From a report (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/27/us/27bar.html?_r=1&ref=david_boies) on a pre-trial hearing last fall:
That is an interesting read. It confirmed what I had already suspected, which is that same-sex marriage is wrong on a level that cannot really be described. Without a rhyme or reason to it, it is simply wrong to some. I can understand that to an extent. But society is always changing and it's time to adapt and let go of the phobias (or whatever it is).
This could be ongoing for some years yet, I suppose. Thanks for the link. Still reading through the half I haven't read yet. :DL
Aramike
08-05-10, 07:23 PM
So, your opposition to gay marriage is the use of the word "marriage"?
The fact that language is an ever evolving thing kind of makes that a less than strong argument. The meanings of words one hundred, two hundred or five hundred years ago are not the meanings we use now. Words from 20 years ago don't always mean the same thing they did then. Words 20 years from now will mean different things.
If the result of civil unions is the same as marriage, why not just call it marriage?*More Sighing*
No, my opposition is to the fact that gays can't do without the term "marriage". I frankly don't give a damn. But, some people do.
I'll turn your argument right back on you - if language is so irrelevent, than why not just use a different term?
You know what's ridiculous about this: most places in the US would probably allow Civil Unions. Use your own logic to extend the natural evolution of things: Now gays have a foot in the door. Maybe we'll all evolve to just call it marriage. Maybe we won't.
In either case, you're getting the legal rights, which is the most important part of it. And probably in a generation or two, you'd get the term as well. Who knows?
But instead, we have the minority attempting to IMPOSE upon the majority. All or nothing is their stance. It seems that the majority is in favor of nothing.
Compromise leads to progress. All or nothing leads to people entrenching themselves into their beliefs even further.
...and when you're the minority who wants something, it's idiotic to turn down the compromise that gives it to you because you can't stand the conditions, which you argue is meaningless, but the fact that you can't stand that condition shows it's not.
So maybe the term does mean something afterall, which renders your argument moot.
In any case, people have to start somewhere.
frau kaleun
08-05-10, 07:31 PM
I assume my rebuttal will fall on deaf ears because you either are clearly ignoring my position or you're just not reading it.
No, I got your position, as my analogy pretty clearly shows.
You and I have the right to eat Spam, but not anything else.
Gay men and women also have the right to eat Spam, but not anything else.
Therefore we all have the same right to eat Spam, but not anything else. Equal rights FTW!
The fact that you and I can be perfectly healthy and happy eating nothing but Spam, whereas for the gay man and woman it has the exact opposite effect, is completely irrelevant as far as you're concerned, because people only have the right to be happy and healthy if they can be that way eating nothing but Spam, just like us. The fact that we won't let them eat broccoli, which would contribute to their health and happiness, is beside the point since we would never want to eat broccoli ourselves - yuck! - and have forbidden it to everyone else regardless of whether they want it or not.
It's the same old same old... you can have whatever you want, as long it's what I think you should want, my opinion of which is based solely on what I want for myself. If that's not what you want, you can either make do by pretending to enjoy it anyway or do without.
And OMG if we let them eat broccoli we'll have to admit that it exists and that some people actually survive on it, and don't need Spam at all! This would completely invalidate our preference for Spam! And then they'll probably start demanding that we eat broccoli and pretend to like it or else go hungry! That would be wrong, except of course when we do the exact same thing to them.
So, yeah, I think I pretty much got it. :up:
Sailor Steve
08-05-10, 07:32 PM
*Sigh*
What benefit am I restricting? I am in favor of 100% equal rights.
But the "right" to marriage is only for people who believe the 'Correct' way?
If the term marriage itself is a benefit, than I'm no more restricting a "perceived benefit" than you would be. Heterosexuals perhaps "perceive" that term to mean a man and woman's union as a benefit...
You say they can marry someone else, but not whom they love. How is that not deying the same benefit.
So, either you're saying that the heterosexual's "percieved" benefit isn't actually a benefit and therefore it shouldn't matter to them, or you're saying that it IS a benefit but one that only matters to gays as you are in favor of removing that "benefit" from straights...
I used the word "benefit" because in our society marriage is portrayed as a benefit to those who partake in it. If it's not then why deny it to someone based on their orientation?
But the real question here is the law as voted on and the judge's action. Is marriage an innate right? Insomuch as the freedom to do what we want is an innate right, then yes.
If it's not an innate right, then what is it? A social contract? Then to what end?
Is it an official acknowledgement of a love relationship?
What is the purpose of stating that it is only between a man and a woman, except the express reason of saying to homosexuals "See, you aren't allowed to do this"?
To that end the law is a nose-thumb to a segment of society, base solely on morality. In that it's wrong.
frau kaleun
08-05-10, 07:32 PM
So for people in New Zealand, Wales and who use the Internet nothing much will have changed right? :hmmm:
:haha:
You are baaaaaad.
I know because the sheep pressed charges. :O:
TLAM Strike
08-05-10, 07:42 PM
:haha:
You are baaaaaad.
I know because the sheep pressed charges. :O:
I wasn't rape I tell yea! The sheep was asking for it!
I have witnesses who will flock to my defense...
:03:
frau kaleun
08-05-10, 07:48 PM
I wasn't rape I tell yea! The sheep was asking for it!
I have witnesses who will flock to my defense...
:03:
Justice is already blind... no need to pull the wool over her eyes.
Anyway, the DA has already rammed home his case with the jury and is shepherding them towards your inevitable conviction.
In other words, ewe haven't got a chance.
mookiemookie
08-05-10, 08:00 PM
But instead, we have the minority attempting to IMPOSE upon the majority. I feel like we're going in cricles here. What imposition is it upon heterosexual married couples to let gays marry their chosen partner? As Steve said, it neither picks our pocket nor breaks our leg.
...and when you're the minority who wants something, it's idiotic to turn down the compromise that gives it to you because you can't stand the conditions, which you argue is meaningless, but the fact that you can't stand that condition shows it's not. I'd say imposing conditions or differentiations (namely calling them "civil unions" instead of "marriages") upon a class of citizen based solely upon some trait or characteristic (in this case homosexuality) is insulting and discriminatory and implies inferiority. There's no compromise to be had - they just want the right to marry someone they're romantically attached to and have it be called a marriage - the same as any heterosexual couple.
TLAM Strike
08-05-10, 08:10 PM
Justice is already blind... no need to pull the wool over her eyes.
Anyway, the DA has already rammed home his case with the jury and is shepherding them towards your inevitable conviction.
In other words, ewe haven't got a chance.
I guess I'm going to have to go on the lamb... :O:
I'll turn your argument right back on you - if language is so irrelevent, than why not just use a different term?
It is what it is. What's the harm in calling it what it is?
See my post (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showpost.php?p=1460943&postcount=88). Call it whatever you want. But you seem to be hanging onto the word "marriage" for some reason. I'm just wondering why. It's not like the meaning or concept has been constant throughout history. Why cling to the word?
frau kaleun
08-05-10, 08:14 PM
I feel like we're going in cricles here. What imposition is it upon heterosexual married couples to let gays marry their chosen partner? As Steve said, it neither picks our pocket nor breaks our leg.
No, it just puts a big sharp pin in the balloon of imagined superiority over those people by treating them the same as us even though they're not "normal," i.e., different from us in ways that might make us uncomfortable and threaten all our longstanding and beloved stereotypes about sex, gender, love, and human interaction.
In other words, they'll be allowed to eat broccoli, which will make our preference for Spam seem like the random result of factors which nobody really understands instead of clear and inarguable evidence of our higher moral natures.
In other words, they'll be allowed to eat broccoli...
But do we have to let them call it "eating" broccoli? Can't we make them call it "ingesting" or "consuming" instead? "Eating" is our word.
Aramike
08-05-10, 08:32 PM
The fact that we won't let them eat broccoli, which would contribute to their health and happiness, is beside the point since we would never want to eat broccoli ourselves - yuck! - and have forbidden it to everyone else regardless of whether they want it or not.You must be intentionally avoiding the point.
Fine - let them eat broccoli. Just call it broccoli.No, it just puts a big sharp pin in the balloon of imagined superiority over those people by treating them the same as us even though they're not "normal," i.e., different from us in ways that might make us uncomfortable and threaten all our longstanding and beloved stereotypes about sex, gender, love, and human interaction.
In other words, they'll be allowed to eat broccoli, which will make our preference for Spam seem like the random result of factors which nobody really understands instead of clear and inarguable evidence of our higher moral natures. That's a very self-superior, grandoise view of your opinion being the enlightened one, while dismissing the concerns of others merely antiquated discomforts.
Aramike
08-05-10, 08:34 PM
It is what it is. What's the harm in calling it what it is?
See my post (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showpost.php?p=1460943&postcount=88). Call it whatever you want. But you seem to be hanging onto the word "marriage" for some reason. I'm just wondering why. It's not like the meaning or concept has been constant throughout history. Why cling to the word?Because it MEANS a union between a man and a woman to a great deal many people. Ultimately that's what defines any word.
And so long as it means SOMETHING to those people, we should respect that rather than casually dismiss them as Frau does.
However, at the same time we can allow the same rights to be shared by all without prejudice.
You prove that it is not those for Prop 8 who are unreasonable and unwilling to compromise - it is yourself. You try to proclaim a word as practically meaningless, but you cannot do without that word. That makes no sense, and only serves to prove that the word DOES have a meaning, just not one you agree with.
By the way, there is no "harm" in calling it marriage. Neither is there a harm is NOT calling it marriage. Your argument defaults itself, and adds up to nothing more than "why not?"
Well, some people have a "why not". Fine - you don't agree with them. But if you want them to respect something THEY don't agree with, perhaps you can extend them the same courtesy (although, judging by your uncompromising approach, I suspect courtesy doesn't come easy to you).
frau kaleun
08-05-10, 08:43 PM
But do we have to let them call it "eating" broccoli? Can't we make them call it "ingesting" or "consuming" instead? "Eating" is our word.
I don't think we should make a big deal of trying to preserve any one traditional definition of the word, you know? Especially considering the fact that our notions of what "eating" consists of have already undergone so many permutations throughout the history of human gastric preferences.
Aramike
08-05-10, 08:49 PM
I feel like we're going in cricles here. What imposition is it upon heterosexual married couples to let gays marry their chosen partner? As Steve said, it neither picks our pocket nor breaks our leg.
I'd say imposing conditions or differentiations (namely calling them "civil unions" instead of "marriages") upon a class of citizen based solely upon some trait or characteristic (in this case homosexuality) is insulting and discriminatory and implies inferiority. There's no compromise to be had - they just want the right to marry someone they're romantically attached to and have it be called a marriage - the same as any heterosexual couple.In discussion, it's already referred to as "gay marriage", not just marriage. We don't use the terms "bride" and "groom", but partner.
Different labels are already being applied. We may as well use ones that are not an affront to those who wish their traditional labels to remain meaningful of their customs.
That's like saying we should make, say, Ramadan a national holiday. During that time we should all eat, drink, and be merry. We should just call it Ramadan but defile its meaning in every way, shape, and form ... hey, it's just a word we're using for a period of time, right?
I know that's a stretch of an analogy, but I'm sure you can understand how those who hold Ramadan sacred would find that as an affront to their sensibilities. Well, I can understand why the majority of Californians (some of the most liberal people in the US) find the term marriage referring to a gay couple as an affront to their sensibilities.
So why not compromise?
Torvald Von Mansee
08-05-10, 09:04 PM
Judge overturns the voted on and rejected prposition 8 in california.
Personally I dont mind gay marrage but this is tyranny.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/08/04/MNQS1EOR3D.DTL&tsp=1
I take it, than, you raged and raged against Gore v Bush (or was it Bush v Gore)?
I take it, than, you raged and raged against Gore v Bush (or was it Bush v Gore)?
Don't be such a bitter Nancy. Your boy lost. You're just going to have to live with it...
frau kaleun
08-05-10, 09:28 PM
You must be intentionally avoiding the point.
Fine - let them eat broccoli. Just call it broccoli.
I did call it broccoli.
Broccoli = same-sex spouse.
Spam = opposite-sex spouse.
You seem to think that the right to marry a person of the opposite sex should be considered something of equal value to everyone, and therefore as long as everyone has that right, it's all good.
But it's not something of equal value to everyone.
Something of equal value would be the freedom to marry the person of your choice, period. If the freedom to marry the person of your choice is a "special" right, then it's a special right that everyone would have, not just gays and lesbians. It's not giving "different" marriage rights to anyone, it's not taking away "marriage" rights from anyone. It's just expanding the existing right to include the people who are currently excluded from it.
Honestly I can't understand why anyone has a problem doing that when it takes nothing away from them. If it does, I'd like a clear and concise explanation of exactly what straight people are losing by it, other than the "right" to feel like they're somehow entitled above and beyond their fellow citizens.
krashkart
08-05-10, 09:31 PM
Why not just agree that gays and lesbians have a right to be legally married? It's really that simple. What complicates the matter is when people get upset over the fact that gays and lesbians want to be legally, legitimately married. There is nothing wrong with them wanting a legal marriage. If we deny them that right, we should also deny ourselves that right in order to maintain equilibrium. Fair is fair.
Moeceefus
08-05-10, 09:44 PM
Interracial marriage used to be illegal. Used to be. Not too long from now I'm sure this issue will used to be as well.
Aramike
08-05-10, 09:47 PM
Well, my point's been adequately made. I have several of you who, in principle agree with me on everything but the word used. You unrelentingly come back again and again as to first how the word is not important to be concerned with but yet is somehow pivotal.
And just like most of the rest of the nation who's on the fence, I'm going to tune you out, screw compromise, and vote "no" when the term marriage appears on the ballot, thusly depriving others of certain "rights" because they refuse to respect the traditions of those who's assent they seek.
:|\\
Because it MEANS a union between a man and a woman to a great deal many people. Ultimately that's what defines any word.
And so long as it means SOMETHING to those people, we should respect that rather than casually dismiss them as Frau does.
And the fact that it means something else to other people means nothing?
However, at the same time we can allow the same rights to be shared by all without prejudice.
Except the prejudice that comes with using a different word for the same situation, based only on some quality of the people involved.
You prove that it is not those for Prop 8 who are unreasonable and unwilling to compromise - it is yourself. You try to proclaim a word as practically meaningless, but you cannot do without that word. That makes no sense, and only serves to prove that the word DOES have a meaning, just not one you agree with.
I cannot do without that word, because it is the word used to describe a particular situation. That of two consenting adults joined into one life together.
By the way, there is no "harm" in calling it marriage. Neither is there a harm is NOT calling it marriage. Your argument defaults itself, and adds up to nothing more than "why not?"
"Marriage" comes out of the mouth quicker than "civil union". "Wife" is easier than "civil union partner". "Wedding" is a easier to say than "civil union ceremony". These words already exist in our language, and are quite sufficient to carry the meaning.
Well, some people have a "why not". Fine - you don't agree with them. But if you want them to respect something THEY don't agree with, perhaps you can extend them the same courtesy (although, judging by your uncompromising approach, I suspect courtesy doesn't come easy to you).
I don't care if they respect it or not. I just want them to extend the same rights to others. A lot of things happen or exist in the world that I don't respect, but that doesn't mean I get to rename them or deny their right to existence.
mookiemookie
08-05-10, 10:07 PM
those who's assent they seek.
:|\\
And we've come full circle. It's not your permission to give. Their rights don't exist because you allow it or asset to it. And that's why this garbage law got thrown out on its ear, and why it will receive the same treatment from SCOTUS.
Randomizer
08-05-10, 10:37 PM
Having consumed buckets of Internet popcorn reading every post on this thread, had to add $0.02. Living in a jurisdiction where marriage is legal between any two human beings past the legal minimums and without sharing too much of the same DNA it might surprise some to know that the world never came to a screeching halt when same sex marriages became the law of the land. The sun still appears to rise in the east and set in the west, families come together and bust apart as has been the norm for generations.
There is no "gay marriage" and "straight marriage", only one version for all, a legal marriage. The ball and the chain are now gender neutral.
Ministers of a church who object are not required to perform same sex marriages any more than a Catholic priest has a legal obligation to perform (for example) Jewish marriage rites. That should keep any existing gods happy even if it enrages some of their followers.
All are equal under the law and yet civil society has not imploded. Besides, now we're seeing some neat divorce cases with custody battles, property fights and hurt feelings to rival anything men and women have ever cooked up.
Aramike
08-05-10, 10:53 PM
And we've come full circle. It's not your permission to give. Their rights don't exist because you allow it or asset to it. And that's why this garbage law got thrown out on its ear, and why it will receive the same treatment from SCOTUS.First off, I think you're being extraordinarily presumptive regarding how SCOTUS will rule.
Secondly, marriage is not a Constitutional right - that is why states are attempting to Constitutionally define it, whether you agree with it or not.
And finally, "why this garbage law got thrown it" has more to do with the interpretation of a single judge than it does any absolute, fundamantal moral answer to a question. The assert otherwise is absurd.
Zachstar
08-06-10, 12:23 AM
How does it harm anyone is gays are allowed the same exact rights as marriage but it is termed something else out of respect?
Because often that is not the case. Many civil unions do not enjoy the same benefits and even worse the courts may side with the family AGAINST the other when one dies meaning a angry family can put someone out on the street quickly.
Aramike
08-06-10, 01:21 AM
Because often that is not the case. Many civil unions do not enjoy the same benefits and even worse the courts may side with the family AGAINST the other when one dies meaning a angry family can put someone out on the street quickly.You're changing the terms of the argument. I said exact same rights, different name. You can't imply that I'm wrong by changing what I said to mean not exactly the same rights, different name...
Zachstar
08-06-10, 02:13 AM
Because again there is no protection against that changing and civil union is a hodgepodge of laws that change from state to state.
I once agreed that civil unions were by far the best way. However the fact is it is being abused to deny homo couples their rights.
Now I am willing to say that IF Civil Unions under a supreme court full recent ruling were giving the exact same status and rights it would be fine and I think the issue would end there. But I doubt that would happen.
Aramike
08-06-10, 03:11 AM
Because again there is no protection against that changing and civil union is a hodgepodge of laws that change from state to state.
I once agreed that civil unions were by far the best way. However the fact is it is being abused to deny homo couples their rights.
Now I am willing to say that IF Civil Unions under a supreme court full recent ruling were giving the exact same status and rights it would be fine and I think the issue would end there. But I doubt that would happen.There is no similar protection to the term "gay marriage".
The point is, life's not fair. But we have to start somewhere...
frau kaleun
08-06-10, 07:02 AM
I guess I'm going to have to go on the lamb... :O:
You're not allowed within 500 ft of the lamb. She got a restraining order.
Because again there is no protection against that changing and civil union is a hodgepodge of laws that change from state to state
But marriage is a hodgepodge of laws that change from state to state too.
UnderseaLcpl
08-06-10, 08:23 AM
And I would argue that there have been, and perhaps still are, societies where commitment to sexual relations and production of children with one partner only is neither required nor expected of either sex. People have sex with whoever they have choose to have sex with, whether one partner or many, and a woman may have the children of one man or many different men and nobody really cares.
No need to argue, I think we're mostly in agreement. Yep, there are societies like that, and some even exist today on remote islands in Polynesia. However, those societies are rare because they generally don't exist where there is any kind of competition.
Saying that there is a biological reason why one system may be "preferable" to another when it comes to the survival of the species is one thing.
To turn a person into a second-class citizen and deny them the rights and opportunities that another person gets just by virtue of having a penis because of some supposed "biological imperative" that is not an imperative in any meaningful sense to the person being denied those rights, is quite another.
And I completely agree. My only point is that we tend to end up with male-dominated societies because those were the ones that survived and their biolgical nature simply carried over into the society they developed.
This tendency is observable in many species of primate. Where competition is fierce, groups of primates raid other groups, kill the males, kill the infants, and then rape the females before taking them into captivity. People are no exception, as demonstrated by the conduct of armies for most of our recorded history. Those victorious armies went on to reproduce and build societies in their own image. In short, we're the descendants of the biggest jerks the human race managed to spawn.
The notion of limiting a woman to one sexual partner has as much to do with the patriarchal imperative of guaranteed paternity as it does anything else. It wasn't about having children, it was about making sure that any child that came along was the legitimate progeny of the husband/owner of the woman who bore it. At a time when it was impossible to prove conclusively who a child's father was by any scientific means, the only way to ensure that the child you passed your property and position on to was actually yours was to control the sexual behavior of the mother.
Again, I agree, but you're putting the cart before the horse in a couple of respects. For one thing, it was about having children, even when they weren't legitimate progeny. Men have had mistresses, frequented brothels, avoided commitment, and done other unseemly stuff of that nature for like, our entire history. They still do it today, even in this society, because they are the descendants of men who did such things. Men who behaved in that way had more children, and those children went on to create social structures that reflected their own natures. This is how societies get to be patriarchal. It's biology and evolution that make societies and cultures they way they are.
That said, you're completely right about the controlling the mother bit. Like I said, we're the descendants of jerks, and boys, jerks or not, have the testosterone and the accompanying tendency to just drag women along with them, through force if need be.
In a patriarchal society.......
Excellent observations, and yet again, I agree.
In matrilineal societies, or matrifocal societies (not to be confused with a matriarchal society, where the positions and privileges of the sexes are the true reverse of what they are in a patriarchy*), woman typically have far more freedom to choose one partner or many... not because they're "in charge" but because guarantee of paternity is not a vital issue for that society.
Um...yes and no. I'd say it's more about competition for resources than guarantee of paternity, but both ultimately amount to the same thing as the former necessitates the latter, so no argument from me.
CaptainHaplo
08-06-10, 08:57 AM
The first problem is that "Marriage" isn't a federal issue. Its a civil issue between the people involved. It doesn't concern you or me or joe and jane smith down the street unless we are the ones getting married, and it only concerns federal entities because they want to have as much ability as they can to weasel their way into your wallet or pocketbook.
Personally - I think "gay marriage" is a crock - both on a moral level and as a legal issue. However, the reality of the fact is that its not my right or responsibility to impose my morals on anyone. What two (adult, consenting) people choose to do in the privacy of their own home is the business of no one else.
Yet the reality is that there is nothing stopping a gay couple from drawing up a civil contract that equates (in rights and responsibilities) to marriage. Yet they CHOOSE not to do this. Why? Because they want to change society - make society conform to their views. Which is just as bad as the majority seeking to require them to conform to the majority view.
This is not about "equal rights" and never has been. Its about changing the moral and societal structure of civilization.
Marriage is a religious term. Its origin are in religion. No "traditional", mainstream religion supports homosexuality. Thus, to try to state that something is a marriage when the foundations of the word say it cannot be - is nothing mroe than an attempt to seperate the action with its root. In essence - cutting down the tree that has been one of the pillars of society for eons.
There is no "good" answer on this question - but the best one out there is to leave it as a states rights issue - but that would require a change in the Full Faith and Credit laws as well.
mookiemookie
08-06-10, 09:50 AM
The first problem is that "Marriage" isn't a federal issue. Its a civil issue between the people involved. It doesn't concern you or me or joe and jane smith down the street unless we are the ones getting married, Correct.
and it only concerns federal entities because they want to have as much ability as they can to weasel their way into your wallet or pocketbook. and also because it's a legal standing that's recognized under law.
Personally - I think "gay marriage" is a crock - both on a moral level and as a legal issue. However, the reality of the fact is that its not my right or responsibility to impose my morals on anyone. What two (adult, consenting) people choose to do in the privacy of their own home is the business of no one else. You are absolutely correct.
Yet the reality is that there is nothing stopping a gay couple from drawing up a civil contract that equates (in rights and responsibilities) to marriage. Except for the fact that many states will not recognize the validity of that contract
Yet they CHOOSE not to do this. Why? Because they want to change society - make society conform to their views. When a citizen's rights are being abridged then yes society should change. Which is just as bad as the majority seeking to require them to conform to the majority view. The minority is taking no rights away from the majority if gay marriage is recognized, so this is irrelevant.
This is not about "equal rights" and never has been. Yes it is. Its about changing the moral and societal structure of civilization. To give a group of citizens the same right to marry whom they're romantically attached to as everyone else enjoys. Yes, society should change. Also, your morals are irrelevant. We've been over this.
Marriage is a religious term. Its origin are in religion. No "traditional", mainstream religion supports homosexuality. Completely irrelevant as government is secular. Thus, to try to state that something is a marriage when the foundations of the word say it cannot be - is nothing mroe than an attempt to seperate the action with its root. In essence - cutting down the tree that has been one of the pillars of society for eons. So annul the marriage of every atheist or agnostic because they don't buy into your "marriage is a religious thing" argument. Unless you're grasping at straws to find an argument against gay marriage.
There is no "good" answer on this question - but the best one out there is to leave it as a states rights issue - but that would require a change in the Full Faith and Credit laws as well. 14th Amendment very clearly says it's not a state's right issue: "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States"
Sailor Steve
08-06-10, 10:17 AM
Secondly, marriage is not a Constitutional right - that is why states are attempting to Constitutionally define it, whether you agree with it or not.
Please define "Constitutional right".
Sailor Steve
08-06-10, 10:21 AM
Marriage is a religious term. Its origin are in religion.
On that I have to disagree. There is ample evidence that people were getting married long before any church got involved, and that marriage wasn't originally considered sacred but necessary.
mookiemookie
08-06-10, 10:24 AM
Secondly, marriage is not a Constitutional right
SCOTUS disagrees:
The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men. Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival.
Meaning that it's innate and doesn't need to be granted to us by the Constitution. What the states are trying to do is restrict and deprive humans of their innate rights - and why those laws will ultimately be struck down.
Sailor Steve
08-06-10, 10:25 AM
SCOTUS disagrees:
But they have a long history of perverting what the Constitution really means. :D
Tribesman
08-06-10, 11:28 AM
On that I have to disagree. There is ample evidence that people were getting married long before any church got involved, and that marriage wasn't originally considered sacred but necessary.
Yep Marriage was basicly a business contract.
krashkart
08-06-10, 11:39 AM
Yep Marriage was basicly a business contract.
With benefits. :yep::rotfl2:
For awhile at least. :nope:
HundertzehnGustav
08-06-10, 03:11 PM
so. now you rat :haha:rse barfstages mad me read this entire thread.
my moment to say sumpting.:timeout:
good on yall folks with an open mind on the subject. I am with ya. let them "marry" on a legal level:up:
good on ya folks with a more classic mindset on the subject. i am with ya. gays and lesbians --> maried??? give me hair standing up in my neck. it just seems weird to me. :down:
entertaining discussion, reading this :doh: me, but taught me a few new popints of View:|\\
Thank you, all involved.
:rock:
AVGWarhawk
08-06-10, 03:21 PM
Yep Marriage was basicly a business contract.
That would be funny if it was not true! :har:
Aramike
08-06-10, 05:11 PM
SCOTUS disagrees:
Meaning that it's innate and doesn't need to be granted to us by the Constitution. What the states are trying to do is restrict and deprive humans of their innate rights - and why those laws will ultimately be struck down.Different case, way out of context, considering that the question isn't about marriage (I should have been more clear) but about the definition of marriage, which is not Constitutionally defined.
FIREWALL
08-06-10, 05:25 PM
Just tell me what a vote is good for if it can be overturned by one person.
frau kaleun
08-06-10, 05:47 PM
Just tell me what a vote is good for if it can be overturned by one person.
If a law is deemed unconstitutional by a duly appointed or elected member of the judiciary who has the legal authority to render such a decision, and to whom the matter has been brought for review, the number of votes cast in favor of it is irrelevant. It violates the already established law of the land, or denies some protection or right that the Constitution is understood to guarantee, and therefore cannot stand.
Any vote cast in favor of a law that is unconstitutional is worth precisely nothing in the long run. Checks and balances, doncha know.
But I think we already covered that, oh, about a million times. :D
Sailor Steve
08-06-10, 06:55 PM
Different case, way out of context, considering that the question isn't about marriage (I should have been more clear) but about the definition of marriage, which is not Constitutionally defined.
Nor should it be. Nor should it be defined by law, unless that law fully and completely specifies the nature of the contract. What is protected by the Constitution is our right to live our lives the way we see fit, as long as it doesn't harm anyone else. The sole purpose of the "definition" in this case is to prevent one segment of the population from partaking in what the population as a whole considers to be an important part of life. It is indeed tyrrany of the masses.
Speaking of definitions, you haven't answered my question.
Aramike
08-06-10, 09:09 PM
Nor should it be. Nor should it be defined by law, unless that law fully and completely specifies the nature of the contract. What is protected by the Constitution is our right to live our lives the way we see fit, as long as it doesn't harm anyone else. The sole purpose of the "definition" in this case is to prevent one segment of the population from partaking in what the population as a whole considers to be an important part of life. It is indeed tyrrany of the masses.But I agree they should be allowed to partake if they so choose. (Actually, I really don't care one way or the other, but I do see a distinct injustice in things such as denied visitation rights.)
Speaking of definitions, you haven't answered my question.I apologize, I must have missed it. Are you referring to my definition of a Constitutional right?
If so, it's very simple: a right defined Constitutionally. Does that preclude other rights? Of course not. But I believe that even the rights explicitly granted within the Constitution must be realistically interpretted.
For instance, does the 2nd Amendment mean we all have the right to build nuclear arms? Naturally, no.
The 9th Amendment is tricky. It's definition seems to vary from one political ideology to the next. At its core it defends the rights not explicitly defined in the Constitution, but clearly implied (presumption of innocence, privacy, travel, choice of food and drink, judicial review, jury of peers, etc). Both sides regularly like to twist it to mean what they want it to mean.
For instance, the social liberals that want gay marriage to be applicable regularly ignore that one should have a right to own a resturaunt that uses sodium liberally.
The 9th Amendment has been used to create judicial precedence, which I find to be the most dangerous threat our republic faces. Regularly judges apply the 9th to a plethora of cases which somehow gives justification to further, similar cases regardless of whether or not the precedence is based upon a correct interpretation of the law.
Quite frankly, I believe the 9th Amendment has been used as a tool to legislate from the bench.
Going back to an earlier point, I refer to my analogy about Ramadan. Considering that even an explicit right (that one which allows us to bear arms) can be regulated in the name of common sense, why then can we not regulate the use of a term in order to advance a cause while preserving the meaning of a term which many hold dear? Hell, even most eveyone here believes in some restriction on marriages.
Ultimately, because the issue is unclear the authority should exist with the states to define marriage. However, the RIGHTS pertaining to the word would fall under the 9th Amendment - not the word itself.
Hopefully this better states my position. Sorry about the "wall of text".
Aramike
08-06-10, 09:13 PM
By the way, despite Mookie's assurances to the contrary, I predict the Supreme Court will overturn this decision. Likely it will take the typical party line divide, but I suspect that even a more liberal justice will vote this one down.
Sailor Steve
08-07-10, 12:31 AM
But I agree they should be allowed to partake if they so choose. (Actually, I really don't care one way or the other, but I do see a distinct injustice in things such as denied visitation rights.)
I apologize, I must have missed it. Are you referring to my definition of a Constitutional right?
If so, it's very simple: a right defined Constitutionally. Does that preclude other rights? Of course not. But I believe that even the rights explicitly granted within the Constitution must be realistically interpretted.
Okay, you got me there. Once again I was expecting more of what I usually see, which is the belief that the Constitution grants us our rights, so the ones not mentioned don't count (resulting in my constant references to Madison).
For instance, the social liberals that want gay marriage to be applicable regularly ignore that one should have a right to own a resturaunt that uses sodium liberally.
I believe in the right to both. In the case of the restaurant the owners should probably be required to advertise the use of sodium, in the interest of public safety, but there it is. I guess I just believe in too much freedom.
Quite frankly, I believe the 9th Amendment has been used as a tool to legislate from the bench.
I haven't studied modern social and legal conditions to form a fair assessment of that. I do see a great many accusations of 'Legislating from the bench' that I question, if not actually disagree with. Again, with my head planted firmly in the past, I see the first case of that in American law being John Marshall's famous decision in Marbury vs Madison. Marshall established the Supreme Court's status as the prime interpreter of the Constitution by ruling against himself. Agree with it or not, it was brilliant.
Going back to an earlier point, I refer to my analogy about Ramadan. Considering that even an explicit right (that one which allows us to bear arms) can be regulated in the name of common sense, why then can we not regulate the use of a term in order to advance a cause while preserving the meaning of a term which many hold dear? Hell, even most eveyone here believes in some restriction on marriages.
The common sense you speak of in the right to bear arms involves public safety. I think the question here is not one of common sense, but prejudice. Most of the people who "hold the meaning dear" don't seem to have done so until their morality was offended.
Ultimately, because the issue is unclear the authority should exist with the states to define marriage. However, the RIGHTS pertaining to the word would fall under the 9th Amendment - not the word itself.
You could end up being right on that. The challenge issued is one of interpretation, but the sole ground the judge can make this decision is Constitutionality, otherwise the voters do have the legal right to make that decision. If the Appeals Court and the Supreme court uphold the decision, then that is that. If either court overturns it in favor of the vote, then that is also that (at least until the next challenge).
This debate has become heated, but has remained at least semi-civil. I always fall on the side of freedom - at least as I percieve it - but we're not really going to decide anything here except perhaps to influence one another in some small way.
And my friend who told me about the ancient Greeks? He is firmly opposed to gay marriage, but his grounds are that if marriage requires a license then it is the state's priveledge to create the rules for the issuance of that license, just as with any other license.
Skybird
08-07-10, 03:24 AM
If the social core-institution of "family=1 woman, 1 man, children" is given special status and protection by the socieity and state, we must no be bothered by forms and models of partnerships of people not forming such family. Me must not bother for how Lesbians live together, gay men, or how singles like I live.
Unfortunately, this isnot only about basic human rights, but also money, tax reliefs, financial support for families, etc. And it must be feared by european example that by giving homo relations the same legal status like mixed couples, the special status that is to be demanded for families gets softened up by decreasing or even nullifying the relative difference in financial benefit and legal proptection between homsexuals living together, and heterosexual relation forming families.
This is bad, because the future of a society lies in families producing children. No children, no future - it's as simple as that. And this is why families are so very much more improtant than gay rights or lesbian marriages, or singles like I am. Singles like me should not enjoy the same level of protection by the state, like families. And homosexuals and lesbians also should not be given the same status and benefits like families shoild be given. I do nothing to the biological securing of my societies future. Gays and lesboians also do nothing to secure the billogical future of the society threy live in. In this regard I am as unimportnt, as they are.
It is absurd to claim same rights for gay marriages like for mixed couples forming families, and it is a vital damage to our socieiy'S selfunderstanding and recognising that if it wants to survive it must prioritize certain aspects of interhuman life. Homosexual marriages leading to same tax benefits and relativising the spoecial status and vital importance of the institution of family, are not such a priority.
And now i want recognition of my sxpecial status as single, please, and could I also please have official recignitiuon of my friendship relations to freinds or colleagues also desrving the same rights and recognitions like married hetereosexual couples raising children. Else I feel discriminated over my being-single, and I feel offended by the lacking respect for the social relations I maintain. I really think that my social relations deserve to be recognised by the state by giving them tax reliefs. It is a basic human right to maintain social relations and friendships and to live single. Why should I accept financial and legal disadvantages to gay marriages and families when singles like me essential are of the same normality and biological nature like gays, lesbians and heteros?
I really think that marchers at CST are not representative for gays and lesbian, and are just narcissistic inhibitionist freaks using the opportunity to raise provokation to the society they live in, and I also think that gay/lesbian marriage-activists are not even half as important to mankind than they assume they are. The fact that they are gay or lesbian, does nothing for mankind, nor must be their choice of form for living together with somebody be of any concern for mankind. It does not effect mankind. What effects mankind, are couples creating children and raising them.
Beyond this basic aspect, I do not care whether or not somebody is gay or not, and lives in a partnership or not. Why should I feel bothered? I only be bothered by the future of our society - and for that, neither singles living alone, like me, nor gay marriages make a positive difference. Families do, and they must be our priority. Not singles or gay marriages.
antikristuseke
08-07-10, 04:10 AM
Skybird, if you haven't noticed, there are 7 billion people on this planet, giving homosexual marriage the same protections and benefits under law as heterosexual marriage has will not push us to extinction. Hell, it probably wont ever affect birth rates.
Another part of your argument seems to rest on the assumption that heterosexuals will automatically have and raise children, but this is simply false. Many are unable or choose not to. Also while on the subject, why couldn't a homosexual couple raise an adopted child?
If there must be more benefits for a couple raising a child in your mind, why not then have a separate clause in the law making it so that marriages, regardless of the sex of those involved, get benefits and protections a, while those married couples who also raise a child get a+1?
That way you keep the boon for procreation, while not denying anyone any rights.
Now that the important stuff is out of the way I would like to say that as far as the state is concerned marriage is nothing but a binding contract between two willing parties, how in the name of **** should the sex of those involved even be relevant?
Skybird
08-07-10, 04:53 AM
First, I am not talking baout the planet's population, but I talked of "our society". As you may have taken from pulbications and the media, Wetsern society take incr4easing stress from over-aging, and native mothers having less than 2.1 children, significantly less.
Second, only with regard to "our society", my remarks on how families make a positive difference for the society's future make sense.
Third, this implies of course that it is not only the social low class creating children, what is the case with he majoirty of immigrants, because the statistics that certain such groups and the social low class create offsprings that have little chances to ever attribute to the nation's net income, but in fact will cause more costs than incomes for the nation, cannot be denied anymore, I described that in a whole thread some weeks ago by translating an essay by scientist Gunnar Heihnsohn. At the same time we have the dramatic trend that the higher the sopcial class is in our soceities, the smaller the avergae children per couple. We need no more low class offsprings - we need academic families having more children. Only this will, amongst others, create the tax income we will need in the future.
I am aware of not every hetero cople having children - but hetero couples are the only couple constellations that could have children, and still: many have at least one child. On e the one hand I want to outline the basic logic only and thus did not go into details like "has a couple children indeed or not?", on the other hand one could argue that within the group of hetero couples now opening this can of worms of endlessly defining subcategories and excemptions rom rules, only increases the number of rules we have, and bureaucracy, and threatens to overshadow what it really is about: to recignise that the family is the most vital social core cell of a community, that it is a thosuand tikes more important than gay marriages or signles like I am, and that a society depends on creatong a social climate hwere this fact is not endlessly relatives and thus: endangered, damaging our own future survival perspective as a nation and a national community. We do not need gay couples in this national community. we also need not more and more social low class improtant from other ****ries that are kicking the bills of our social insurance systems upwards. We need more children from educated, even academic families.
The planet has more than 6 billion people. That is 4-5 times as much as I estaimate the planet can bear over longer times. Global population is not our problem. Our problem is that there are too many people in poor countries, giving too many births to children that will remain poor, and that there are decreasing, over-aging populations in the high developed countries, producing less and lesser offsprings from middle and upper class families with education perpsectives and academic background.
Gay marriages do nothing to even adress these crushing problems. They only help to relative the status and reputation of families even more, increaisng our troubles that way instead of at least having a nheutral effect, not to mention: improving the situation.
This is no discrimination what I say. It is simply sovber thinking on facts from reality that cannot be denied. the problemI outline is much more pressing than the what singles like me or homo relations want in public attention or legal recognition. Singles like me and homosexual relations simply do not contribute anything to the formula on birth rates. That is all, but for itself that also is a pressing problem - much more pressing than gay rights, or singles' desires.
On the question of adoptation by gays, I am strictly against it, not only because it does nothing to adress the problem of birth rates, but also for psychological reasons and cultural reasons. While exceptions already exist were homosexual coiuples raise children one of the partner had from earlier marriage, it should remain to be an exception, last but not least in the interest of a child. As a spychologist (es) I objct to some study things being done that politivally correct found what they were intended toi find; that there is no difference for children'S future wheh they have hetero or homo parents. Earlier studies from the 70s and 80s showed something different: a statistically higher probabitly for them becoming depressive, and staying isolationistic. That has probably something to do with the social constellation at home (after all two women or two men are somethign different than one women and one man, becaseu the first two lack the social rolemodeol of a mother/a dad, and it would be nive,mif not incompertent to assume that this does not alter the social reality the child lives in, and effects it), but also with the fact that children of gay parents at school and in their social envrionment mjst be expected to be treated differently by the other children: that is how children are, they can behave cruel and not even knowing it.
Hetero parenting is absolutely to be preferred. Not single mothers. Not homo couples. No singles. this is also to let the child raise in an envrionment where it takes it as normal that a mother and a father form the normal constellation of family, not single parents, or homosexual couples. and this is needed to help to anchor in a society's awareness that it is thr status of family life that should be given special protection and status. why that is to be preferred, I have explained earlier.
we need not only to have laws recognising the priority of family life. we also need a social and cultural climate in which family lkife is specailly protected, and given more status and prestige again. I do not like at all that young people so easily create children nowadays, and then easymindedly sepaarte again, and by this the number of sikngle mothers raising children has been explsively risien over the past years. The statistics show us clearly that thesechildren have best chances to fall thorugh the social roster later on, and will not gain jobs and education and chances that enable them to contribute to the tax income level of the state, but will suck off bucks fromt he social safety net. There is a significant linking between single paretns raisj gn a kid, and later social/financial handicaps of that kid. Also, there is a strong link between number of parents present, and poverty risk for that family. Single mothers are an extreme risk group.
On history, "marriage" indeed often was just somethignlike an economy and cooperation contract - between a man and a woman. the term also has a cultural-relgious relevenace and trdition, basing on the christian-judaic understanding, which again is that marriage includes one man and one woman with the prospect of having babies later on. It is not just any term that can be taken out of any hostoric and cultural context, in fact it is a term that is heavily embedded in a cultural and historic conetext. Without that context it makes little sense to call a marriage a marriage. and I personally can accept this and not another understanding quite well, it has proven it's worth, and started to raise troubles not before it'S worth was put into question and got relativised in recent decades. As a society needing to not forget itS vital interests for ensuring it's communal survival in the future, we have won nothing from signle mothers and gay rights so far. Even more, they have risen additional problems for us, as I outlined .
It is dangerous when political correctness even gets pushed when it is obviously in intended ignorration of reality's needs. Because needs are needs - they are not negotiable.
Tribesman
08-07-10, 05:23 AM
We need no more low class offsprings
Yay ban people of a certain religion and stop low class people breeding.
Did Sky by any chance get his superior gymnasium sureness at the same establishments as Herman Aubin or Max Heim.
Everyday in every way sky puts up some more Mein Kampf....:down:
So I wonder what his solution is to low class offspring, forced sterilisation or just mass murder?
antikristuseke
08-07-10, 05:26 AM
If wester society can not sustain itself, then it deserves to die out, simple as that. Gay marriage has nothing to do with that, all it actually has to do with is equality under the law. Refusing that is discrimination, it maybe practical, even necessary, but it is discrimination none the less. I would dislike you less if you were honest about these things, but right now you come off as trying to justify your own bigotry.
There is such a thing a necessary evil, I don't think it applies in this case, but the concept is out there.
Platapus
08-07-10, 07:31 AM
This is bad, because the future of a society lies in families producing children. No children, no future - it's as simple as that. And this is why families are so very much more improtant than gay rights or lesbian marriages, or singles like I am. Singles like me should not enjoy the same level of protection by the state, like families. And homosexuals and lesbians also should not be given the same status and benefits like families shoild be given. I do nothing to the biological securing of my societies future. Gays and lesboians also do nothing to secure the billogical future of the society threy live in. In this regard I am as unimportnt, as they are.
Do you also believe that women who are barren or men who are sterile should not be permitted to marry? They also don't add anything to the "biological securing your society". How about couples who choose not to have kids? Should they also be forbidden to marry as they don't add anything either?
Skybird
08-07-10, 08:35 AM
Do you also believe that women who are barren or men who are sterile should not be permitted to marry? They also don't add anything to the "biological securing your society". How about couples who choose not to have kids? Should they also be forbidden to marry as they don't add anything either?
See:
I am aware of not every hetero cople having children - but hetero couples are the only couple constellations that could have children, and still: many have at least one child. On e the one hand I want to outline the basic logic only and thus did not go into details like "has a couple children indeed or not?", on the other hand one could argue that within the group of hetero couples now opening this can of worms of endlessly defining subcategories and excemptions rom rules, only increases the number of rules we have, and bureaucracy, and threatens to overshadow what it really is about: to recignise that the family is the most vital social core cell of a community, that it is a thosuand tikes more important than gay marriages or signles like I am, and that a society depends on creatong a social climate hwere this fact is not endlessly relatives and thus: endangered, damaging our own future survival perspective as a nation and a national community.
Skybird
08-07-10, 08:51 AM
If wester society can not sustain itself, then it deserves to die out, simple as that. Gay marriage has nothing to do with that, all it actually has to do with is equality under the law. Refusing that is discrimination, it maybe practical, even necessary, but it is discrimination none the less.
It is not more or less discriminatory than I am discriminated for not giving the same tax releifs because I am single.
There is no discrimination in what I point at. There is only a privilege that I accept being given to families, due to their higher importance for the community. as a matter of fact, families make a difference for the community. Gay couples do not - not at all. so they are to be treated like all other non-hetero-married people. Gays deserve no special status and no special rights just because they are gays. They also deserve not to be discriminated. And what I say - is no discrimination. I also do not feel discriminated myself because I, as a single, am not given the tax reliefs and special aids that a family may be given. But I feel discriminated by gays getting the same status and benefits like families, while I do not. ;) Since I accept and understand why I am not getting the same status like families, I demand the same things being denied to gays and lesbians too. Because in the outlined regards they contribute the same ammount to the community like I do - none at all.
Anyhow, my argument is clear and known now, and nobody of you two was able to counter it. I have the statistics of demography on my side, and I claim that I also have common sense on my side. I can also claimthat quite some gays see it also like I do, this I know becaseu I knew gays at university, and as I have said in earlier threads: they were pissed by things like CST which they themselves called a parade of idiotic freaks giving gays a bad name, and they were pissed about the the idea of gay marriages given the same status like families, too.
The whole debate is not about reason and necessity, it is about ideological dogmatism, and of course our old two friends, these two damn rotten things called "endlessly good intention" and "political correctness". Must I explain in detail were people can shove these two?
Let'S leave gays and lesbian peacefully to themselves, and do not give them any disadvantages but also: no advantages in social life and jobs because they are what they are. but do not do more damage to the institution of families, and accept that it deserves and needs our special protection and recognition of its vital rolet that makes it outstanding amongst all forms of human interrelations. It already is fighting for its existence, and this fight already has done vital damage to our societies. There is a reason why there are so many dysfunctional families, so many single mothers, and academical mums having none or just one child were at least 2.1 would be needed to maintain a society's healthy mixture of ages, and future population level.
Since this is not the first such debate and I do not want to endlessly talk in circles again, I leave it here.
Tribesman
08-07-10, 09:07 AM
I have the statistics of demography on my side
:har::har::har::har::har::har::har::har:
So when there are lies, damn lies and statistics we know where to find Sky.
Since this is not the first such debate and I do not want to endlessly talk in circles again, I leave it here.
Its my football and no-one can play anymore because I don't want to:yeah:
Still footballs a rubbish game now anyway because muslims and blacks ruined it for real civilised europeans......by their views they show themselves don't they, so sure of their intellect that they cannot even see what they are saying.
TLAM Strike
08-07-10, 09:15 AM
This is bad, because the future of a society lies in families producing children. No children, no future - it's as simple as that. And this is why families are so very much more improtant than gay rights or lesbian marriages, or singles like I am. Singles like me should not enjoy the same level of protection by the state, like families. And homosexuals and lesbians also should not be given the same status and benefits like families shoild be given. I do nothing to the biological securing of my societies future. Gays and lesboians also do nothing to secure the billogical future of the society threy live in. In this regard I am as unimportnt, as they are. I have to disagree with you. I work for a lesbian couple and they just had their first child (a boy) last November thanks to IVI and are planing their second.
Why should they not receive the same protections as a Man+Woman+child group?
Skybird
08-07-10, 10:26 AM
I have to disagree with you. I work for a lesbian couple and they just had their first child (a boy) last November thanks to IVI and are planing their second.
Why should they not receive the same protections as a Man+Woman+child group?
See what I said on adoptation, I am against it...
... also for psychological reasons and cultural reasons. While exceptions already exist were homosexual couples raise children one of the partner had from earlier marriage, it should remain to be an exception, last but not least in the interest of a child. As a psychologist (ex) I object to some study things being done that politically correct found what they were intended to find; that there is no difference for children'S future when they have hetero or homo parents. Earlier studies from the 70s and 80s showed something different: a statistically higher probabitly for them becoming depressive, and staying isolationistic. That has probably something to do with the social constellation at home (after all two women or two men are somethign different than one women and one man, becaseu the first two lack the social rolemodeol of a mother/a dad, and it would be nive,mif not incompertent to assume that this does not alter the social reality the child lives in, and effects it), but also with the fact that children of gay parents at school and in their social envrionment mjst be expected to be treated differently by the other children: that is how children are, they can behave cruel and not even knowing it.
If nature wanted two men or two women raising children, it would have given them the biological traits to produces children by themselves. Instead, nature has choosen to make us and mammals in general a species of two different sexes that differ physically as well as emotionally and psychologically; while making homosexuality (not rare amongst mamals) an exotic exception from the rule, but not the rule itself. In this statistical regard, homosexuality is not "normal" and not as of equal "quality" like heterosexuality. Let's bet who knows it better what is good for humans: political activists driven by ideology, or dear mother nature running a program of "best design survives longest, all others not as long". I put my money on the latter. ;)
TLAM Strike
08-07-10, 10:32 AM
See what I said on adoptation, I am against it...
Wait you object because older studies say one thing and the more recent studies show another? And you prefer the older results. How do you know that the results of the older studies were not "politically motivated"?
Is it my imagination, or did Skybird's argument boil down to "Gay marriage bad because we need to out-breed the third world"?
Moeceefus
08-07-10, 11:14 AM
See what I said on adoptation, I am against it...
If nature wanted two men or two women raising children, it would have given them the biological traits to produces children by themselves. Instead, nature has choosen to make us and mammals in general a species of two different sexes that differ physically as well as emotionally and psychologically; while making homosexuality (not rare amongst mamals) an exotic exception from the rule, but not the rule itself. In this statistical regard, homosexuality is not "normal" and not as of equal "quality" like heterosexuality. Let's bet who knows it better what is good for humans: political activists driven by ideology, or dear mother nature running a program of "best design survives longest, all others not as long". I put my money on the latter. ;)
There is a huge difference between producing a child, and actually raising a child. If you truly believe we go strictly by natures laws, men would just go out and just impregnate as many females as possible and not be part of any family unit. Some of them do just that. Deadbeats.
Skybird
08-07-10, 11:20 AM
Wait you object because older studies say one thing and the more recent studies show another? And you prefer the older results. How do you know that the results of the older studies were not "politically motivated"?
Prove the opposite. I needed to do quite a bit on child psychology (mandatory courses that were), and I reserve the bright to use healthy rason and common sense as well. I also know how wonderfully statistics can manipulate data according nto the desired result, and that opschology takes place in a setting that is dominated by political and economic intentions to "prove" this or that image we have on the nature of man. tjhat way it gets porven today that kids living by their mothers do not suffer from their ,pthers giving them out of hand at more and more younger age, becaseu it is a poltically wanted program that mothers must go to work - to prove the dogma of euqlaity between sexes in job and office. I mean, it is so much maniopulation in that.
but I tell you another finding, also an older one, but that's how it is. That is the statistical finding that - like kids from homosexual parents - kids who lost one parent due top death or divorce and get raised by just one mum or one daddy, also develope a higher risk of developing depressions from their thirties on, and becoming isolationistic in their socila interactions, and partly dysfunctional in the9ir sexual behavior, one of the results of the latter can be the inability to maintain sexual relations to the other sex, or developing sexual perversions and extreme fetishes. Interesting, isn't it. Kids who have two same-sex parents tend to develope the same way - statistically, that means: by trend - like kids beinf raised by just one parent.
Next time you visit your nparents, tell me if you think that you have learned and was influenced exatly the same way by both. I know it better already. I can assure you that your father has given you other traits and experiences and feelings for your way through life, than you mother has. and both also communicated to you (verbally, emotionally, by attitude) in different ways. A gay man is not like a female mother, and a lesbian woman is not a male father. If you really beleive that there is nothing that gets lost and that makes a difference if you have no male father and no female mother, than I cannot help you.
And this now also ends my participation in discussing homosexual IVI. If anyone has doubts that I also would be against men breeding embryos under their left shoulder, like it was suggested some years ago - yes I am against this too. Against this and any other such follies. Sometimes I think all mankind will just end like Brian W.Aldiss described it in his Helliconia trilogy: an anarchistic band of mutated giant genitals chasing each other aboard a space station.
Skybird
08-07-10, 11:21 AM
There is a huge difference between producing a child, and actually raising a child.Obviously, and many young single mothers obviously were not aware of that whiole there still was time. I tell you a secret, though: there also is a huge difference between two men and two women and a mixed couple. ;)
Skybird
08-07-10, 11:23 AM
Is it my imagination, or did Skybird's argument boil down to "Gay marriage bad because we need to out-breed the third world"?
When one does not have any argument and nothing to say, a brief offence spit out en passant still is a form of communication. :yeah: But it says more about the sender than the receiver.
Don't look for me, so that I must not find you. In other words: leave me alone, nice guy.
Aramike
08-07-10, 12:10 PM
Is it my imagination, or did Skybird's argument boil down to "Gay marriage bad because we need to out-breed the third world"?No, I thought his argument was "gay marriage is bad because its pointless to societal constructs."
It's a very intriguing point.
No, I thought his argument was "gay marriage is bad because its pointless to societal constructs."
It's a very intriguing point.
Okay, then perhaps I misread it. But the following passages are some that jumped out at me on my first read, and that's what they said to me.
First, I am not talking baout the planet's population, but I talked of "our society". As you may have taken from pulbications and the media, Wetsern society take incr4easing stress from over-aging, and native mothers having less than 2.1 children, significantly less.
...
Global population is not our problem. Our problem is that there are too many people in poor countries, giving too many births to children that will remain poor, and that there are decreasing, over-aging populations in the high developed countries, producing less and lesser offsprings from middle and upper class families with education perpsectives and academic background.
Gay marriages do nothing to even adress these crushing problems.
I'll have to give it another read in more detail.
Edit:
My reading of his comments was probably colored by recent discussions with some folks about the Quiverfull movement. Some of those passages seemed a bit close to what I've seen from that movement.
Sailor Steve
08-07-10, 12:42 PM
I agree. A lot of Skybird's points in this newest argument do indeed make sense from a societal point of view. I'm not sure I agree with the conclusions, but they are worthy of honest discussion and not derision.
Here in Utah large families are encouraged. The result is that, because of the obvious tax breaks for each child, people who opt to have no children, or who opt not to marry, or simply have not had children yet, are forced to pay for the schooling of all the children they don't have. From a stictly societal point of view this is a good thing, but it breeds a lot of resentment, especially from those who believe they are helping society by not having children.
It's just like welfare. On one hand you have the 'obvioius' position that as a society we need to take care of those who can't do it themselves, but on the other we have the negative that this requires that people be forced to provide that aid, whether they want to or not.
But here's something new: Prop 8 "defines" marriage as being between one man and one woman, but is that really a definition or is it a stricture? How would people feel if a law was suggested that gave 'Marriage' a true definition - A Legally Binding Contract Between Two People For The Production And Protection Of Children? That's what it really is, but I'll bet that 99% of the 'good people' who voted for Prop 8 would cringe at that definition.
Platapus
08-07-10, 01:12 PM
If nature wanted....
First point: Nature does not want anything. Nature is not a sapient being nor does nature have a consciousness. Nature just is.
Second point: Please read about the "Appeal to nature" logic fallacy. Just because something does not does not occur in nature does not mean that it is respectively good or bad.
TLAM Strike
08-07-10, 02:40 PM
If nature wanted... Nature wants us to die... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_nqySMvkcw)
...two men or two women raising children, it would have given them the biological traits to produces children by themselves. For females it does. All that is needed is an Egg and Genetic material. All that is different is the genetic material delivery system. That is all that lump of flesh between your legs is after all, a launcher for self guiding genetic material and waste disposal system.
For men its a little different, we need the egg as we don't generate them on our own but we can certainly gestate a fetus in our abdomens (its been done).
Plus some male and female couples can't produced children despite having the "equipment". So "nature" wants some to have children and other not?
Tribesman
08-07-10, 05:42 PM
Is it my imagination, or did Skybird's argument boil down to "Gay marriage bad because we need to out-breed the third world"?
No you got it wrong, apparently we need to outbreed the third world while at the same time stopping poor western people having children or maybe stop the third world breeding and stop poor westerers tooor maybe its just that certain people must be permitted to breed.
A lot of Skybird's points in this newest argument do indeed make sense from a societal point of view. I'm not sure I agree with the conclusions, but they are worthy of honest discussion and not derision.
The problem is that his logic is straight from a ratherdistasteful 1930s european school of social engineering, which is why he gets stuck when pushed on the how to do any of his "civilisation" saving ideas.
His "intellectual" views sound so like Alfred Ploetz that its rather sickening
frau kaleun
08-07-10, 08:12 PM
If there must be more benefits for a couple raising a child in your mind, why not then have a separate clause in the law making it so that marriages, regardless of the sex of those involved, get benefits and protections a, while those married couples who also raise a child get a+1?
I admit I'm ignorant of how the $ works out on this issue, but doesn't the fact that you can claim children as dependents for tax purposes already mean we give extra consideration to someone who is raising a child vs. someone who isn't?
I always thought being able to claim a dependent or dependents translated into some kind of tax break that someone without dependents didn't get (all other considerations being equal).
Sailor Steve
08-08-10, 12:18 AM
Yay ban people of a certain religion and stop low class people breeding.
Did Sky by any chance get his superior gymnasium sureness at the same establishments as Herman Aubin or Max Heim.
Everyday in every way sky puts up some more Mein Kampf....:down:
So I wonder what his solution is to low class offspring, forced sterilisation or just mass murder?
No you got it wrong, apparently we need to outbreed the third world while at the same time stopping poor western people having children or maybe stop the third world breeding and stop poor westerers tooor maybe its just that certain people must be permitted to breed.
The problem is that his logic is straight from a ratherdistasteful 1930s european school of social engineering, which is why he gets stuck when pushed on the how to do any of his "civilisation" saving ideas.
His "intellectual" views sound so like Alfred Ploetz that its rather sickening
Sometimes Skybird drives me crazy with his walls of text. Sometimes he drives me crazy with his seeming arrogance. Sometimes he drives me crazy with his single-mindedness.
But in four posts on this thread you have managed to make one statement, an agreement with my observation that marriage started as a social contract, and for that agreement you provided no evidence, just a flat statement.
Your other three posts have all been excruciatingly insulting tirades against Skybird. You don't seem to realize that you seem to be even more single-minded than he is.
Do you have anything to offer to this debate at all?
Tribesman
08-08-10, 03:30 AM
But in four posts on this thread you have managed to make one statement, an agreement with my observation that marriage started as a social contract, and for that agreement you provided no evidence, just a flat statement.
Thats easy marriage in the western sense is the act of wedding to people together, the act of matrimony refers to the state of wedlock which is also where that word wedding comes from.
So where does that word wedlock come from and what is the meaning of its constituent parts in its earlier form?
Your other three posts have all been excruciatingly insulting tirades against Skybird.
Thats because I find his views identical to those of the racial hygenists and their utopian vision for the preservation of european civilisation which came to reality in the 30s and 40s.
You don't seem to realize that you seem to be even more single-minded than he is.
Thats because there is nothing I find more distasteful than deep seated hatred dressed up as being intellectual.
Torvald Von Mansee
08-13-10, 07:07 PM
This seems like an appropriate place to put this:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/How-Private-Prison-Corpora-by-Kevin-Gosztola-100813-585.html
krashkart
08-13-10, 08:42 PM
This seems like an appropriate place to put this:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/How-Private-Prison-Corpora-by-Kevin-Gosztola-100813-585.html
Interesting article so far, but this thread is about the recent overturning of Prop 8 in California. :)
Sailor Steve
08-14-10, 12:33 AM
Interesting article so far, but this thread is about the recent overturning of Prop 8 in California. :)
Arizona, California. Immigrants, gays. They all look the same to some me. :D
Sometimes Skybird drives me crazy with his walls of text. Sometimes he drives me crazy with his seeming arrogance. Sometimes he drives me crazy with his single-mindedness.
You make it sound like these attributes are a mere coincidence or nuisance. But instead they are pretty much necessary ingredients you need when - or that come with - proposing reckless, inhumane and discriminatory ideas that would throw us back into a status some time before the age of enlightenment.
]Thats because there is nothing I find more distasteful than deep seated hatred dressed up as being intellectual.
I can only agree. His obsession with Muslims and Islam, while he demands sole authority over deciding who is and is not a "real Muslim", I find pretty offensive. I do have a few Muslim colleagues in the company I work for and they are fine people I have zero problems with. Now, in Skybird's view, these guys wouldn't be "real Muslims" because they don't run around beheading every non-believer on sight. So, in fact he holds the same view as OBL and his ilk. I ask then: What the hell are you bozos doing, fiddling around in other people's lives, calling them authentic or not?
You know, while Sky would have no problems with my colleagues because all the "real Muslims" are suicidal maniacs, he would still like to oust the Islam religion and burn the Koran. Well, guess what? My colleagues wouldn't like THAT. What? You'd like to keep that illegal book? You must be a "real Muslim" after all. Fall dead! Freedom of religion? Naaaah!
Imagine a world where there are no Osama Bin Ladens and Skybirds. Wow, people could just get along fine and wouldn't give a about other people's business.
I'm not denying we have a problem with radical Islam in the world today. And indeed, when you look around in Europe, integration - especially of those who hold the religion of Islam - has failed badly in too many places. But radicals like Skybird and OBL are not the solution, they are part of the problem. Heck, they are MAKING the problem in the first place.
We have the rule of law here in this country, and we will UPHOLD it, all the time, and we will deal with problems ACCORDING to it. No book burnings, no Verbot of any religion, no mass expulsions or worse. If we fail to live up to that, we are no better than what we try to defend against. Our defense against the monster has failed if we become it.
Sorry for Semi-Off Topic. But I had to support Tribesman here because he's right. And really, Sky's ideas of sociological engineering in this thread are directly related to and motivated by his obsession with fighting of the Islamic Invasion in his head and indeed remind me of other theorists in the past that should better not have seen their ideas realized.
Platapus
08-14-10, 07:24 AM
Sorry for Semi-Off Topic.
Nicely written. :up:
Sailor Steve
08-14-10, 01:27 PM
Sorry for Semi-Off Topic. But I had to support Tribesman here because he's right. And really, Sky's ideas of sociological engineering in this thread are directly related to and motivated by his obsession with fighting of the Islamic Invasion in his head and indeed remind me of other theorists in the past that should better not have seen their ideas realized.
And I don't say that you, or Tribesman, are wrong. I just sometimes feel that Tribesman is as obsessed with Skybird as Sky is with Islam. Nothing wrong with objecting to someone's posts, or even with his manner. I just get my back up when the only contibution to a particular thread is "There he goes again" and "He's always like that."
But again it's just my opinion, and that's what forums are for. :sunny:
gimpy117
08-14-10, 08:49 PM
it was unconstitutional. Its amazing it wasn't overturned sooner.
CaptainHaplo
08-14-10, 09:32 PM
Imagine a world where there are no Osama Bin Ladens and Skybirds. Wow, people could just get along fine and wouldn't give a about other people's business.
Ya know - nowhere has Skybird suggested holy war and wholesale murder against those that don't agree perfectly with him. The comparison is flawed and insulting.
"If all the people that were meanies were gone - we could all sit around the campfire and sing and roast marshmellows and have fun!" Not only is that namby pamby fairytale land never gonna happen, the statement - using your own rhetorical arguement - makes you just as bad as anyone else because it tacitly approves of the removal of anyone (aka - the meanies like OBL and Skybird) that doesn't "want to get along the way YOU think they should".... So does that mean your advocating mass murder in the cause of "peace"?
Instead of trying to just complain about someone else (since you can now see how easy it is to have that turned around on you) - why not argue the merits or flaws of the person's stance on the issue?
You didn't get it.
The point here was not that I was wishing Skybird away because "Momy, Momy, he's the bad guy!".
I'll try to break it down for you:
Bin Laden / Al Quaida are going around killing people, because in their view, a "real Muslim" must behave in a certain way (like hating the infidels), and if he doesn't, he's a traitor / infidel.
Skybird very obviously shares this opinion with Bin Laden. Like him, Skybird is so far out there that he thinks he has any authority to decide who's a real Muslim and who isn't. He has to do that to allow him his tirades against Muslims in the first place. So, anytime someone has the nerve to interrupt him in his visions of a purified Europe, pointing out that there are plenty of Muslims that are pretty normal people, he'll go "Oh, yeah yeah, but these are no real Muslims, you see." Uhm, OK. The problem is that these guys would still think of themselves as Muslims because maybe they didn't get the memo from neither Bin Laden nor Skybird.
->Which was actually a good thing.<- And that is my point when I say imagine a world without: How about NOT simplifying the issue and having the arrogance to decide who is real and who isn't so that we can dwell in hatred against a whole world religion? Skybird's "Yeah, but those are no real Muslims" is nothing but "Don't let the facts get in your way". Maybe we SHOULDN'T insult and exclude all the normal people by deciding that they are no real Muslims? Maybe this is like - totally counter-productive?? What people like Bin Laden fear the most is the erosion of their power from within their religious group, because their sole justification for power is pointing to the Koran. This is why they come down so hard on their own people and blow up market places in Baghdad or slaughter Afghan villagers. And people like Skybird support that by claiming this is the true Islam! God dammit. Oh, and btw, what do you think Skybirds proposals like "banning" the Koran in Europe or other such bull would lead to if NOT massive violence and slaughter? Needless to say, all the normal people in the Muslim community would be up in arms about that, too, and rightfully so.
Btw, the irony of accusing me of insulting a guy who himself is nothing but insulting to a good part of the globe in almost all of his posts since he's discovered his new past time of hating Muslims - is not lost on me.
Tribesman
08-15-10, 05:51 AM
Ya know - nowhere has Skybird suggested holy war and wholesale murder against those that don't agree perfectly with him. The comparison is flawed and insulting.
He has suggested ideological war and wholesale murder against those who don't fit into his view of society.
why not argue the merits or flaws of the person's stance on the issue?
You mean like pointing out that their views are straight from the textbooks of racial hygiene written by learned scientists and philosophers of Nazi Germany or that their interpretation of Islam is identical to the small modern group of fundamentalist nuts or that they themselves are the very thing that their latest favourite philosopher was warning against?
oh of course Haplo is with Skybird in the land of ignorance so he doesn't even know the flaws that have been raised:rotfl2:
Aramike
08-15-10, 10:17 AM
This is rich ... it's now some sort of "Nazi intolerence" to point out that Muslims follow a religion who's primary text is the epitome of intolerent? Really? :nope:
All religions aren't created equal and if you can't understand the difference between one which calls for its followers to turn the other cheek and one which calls for its followers to destroy the infidel, that says more about you than it makes Skybird some sort of Nazi supplicant.
Tchocky
08-15-10, 11:57 AM
All religions aren't created equal and if you can't understand the difference between one which calls for its followers to turn the other cheek and one which calls for its followers to destroy the infidel, that says more about you than it makes Skybird some sort of Nazi supplicant.
Turn the other cheek? Don't see much of that. Neither do we see much destruction of infidels.
Tribesman
08-15-10, 01:43 PM
This is rich ...
Another one from the list of ignorance....how telling.:yeah:
it's now some sort of "Nazi intolerence"
its the racial hygiene that makes the nazi link, if Aramike can take skybirds ideas and match then to any ideology apart from the fruitcake nazis or fundys he is free to try.
but Skys civilisation saving ideas have only one path...which is why he is always backing away from the "how?" as he knows the answer was given before and was sicker than a plague ridden hovel.
BTW Aramike in case you can read it now....have you learnt the meaning of the word context yet?:rotfl2:
Safe-Keeper
08-15-10, 07:01 PM
See what I said on adoptation, I am against it...
If nature wanted two men or two women raising children, it would have given them the biological traits to produces children by themselves. Instead, nature has choosen to make us and mammals in general a species of two different sexes that differ physically as well as emotionally and psychologically; while making homosexuality (not rare amongst mamals) an exotic exception from the rule, but not the rule itself. In this statistical regard, homosexuality is not "normal" and not as of equal "quality" like heterosexuality. Let's bet who knows it better what is good for humans: political activists driven by ideology, or dear mother nature running a program of "best design survives longest, all others not as long". I put my money on the latter. ;)Okay, now you're just obviously trolling. Come on, did you mean a word of that? Are you going to make a "got'cha" post further down the road telling us how stupid we were for buying into this, kind like what I did with my "OMG Norwegian school forces non-Muslim girls to wear hijabs!11" thread:06:?
Geez, come on, Skybird, you're smarter than this:nope:. Dare I read the rest of the thread? Page 1 is your usual "teh ghey is coming!" drivel (with all the stock arguments present and debunked), and Page 5 was all about an unrelated subject altogether. I think I'll pass.
Aramike
08-16-10, 01:57 AM
Turn the other cheek? Don't see much of that. Neither do we see much destruction of infidels.Then you clearly have little understanding of either religion's texts and therefore should exit the debate gracefully rather than continuiing to make a fool of yourself with blanket statements referencing absolutetly nothing other than an ignorant belief that what you WANT to believe is true.
Tribesman
08-16-10, 03:21 AM
Then you clearly have little understanding of either religion's texts and therefore should exit the debate gracefully rather than continuiing to make a fool of yourself with blanket statements referencing absolutetly nothing other than an ignorant belief that what you WANT to believe is true.
:haha::haha::haha::haha::haha::haha::haha:
So a simple reference to prove his first point would be the number of crazy wars christian nations have had over silly issues about real or imagined slights and to prove the second point a reference to the amazing number of infidels in the world.
The biggest laugh I've got out of the entire issue is that the religious groups were pushing for Prop. 8 on the basis of "promoting responsible procreation."
Ummm... If a gay couple is incapable of conceiving a child via natural means, doesn't that mean they -are- procreating responsibly? I mean, they're not conceiving a child they may or may not have the means to care for, nor are they exacerbating our human-to-resources ratio problems.
Aramike
08-17-10, 11:00 AM
The biggest laugh I've got out of the entire issue is that the religious groups were pushing for Prop. 8 on the basis of "promoting responsible procreation."
Ummm... If a gay couple is incapable of conceiving a child via natural means, doesn't that mean they -are- procreating responsibly? I mean, they're not conceiving a child they may or may not have the means to care for, nor are they exacerbating our human-to-resources ratio problems.Okay, I'll bite - if they have no benefit to society via raising strong families for the future, why should society extend them any benefits whatsoever?
They are not going to procreate either way, right?
mookiemookie
08-17-10, 11:52 AM
Okay, I'll bite - if they have no benefit to society via raising strong families for the future, why should society extend them any benefits whatsoever?
They are not going to procreate either way, right?
Then go ahead and take the first step. Start telling people who are unable to have kids for one reason or another that their marriage has been declared null and void.
Tribesman
08-17-10, 12:08 PM
Okay, I'll bite - if they have no benefit to society via raising strong families for the future, why should society extend them any benefits whatsoever?
So that means they wouldn't have to pay any taxes whatsoever, say goodbye to the pink dollar or is that the dink dollar
frau kaleun
08-17-10, 12:12 PM
Okay, I'll bite - if they have no benefit to society via raising strong families for the future, why should society extend them any benefits whatsoever?
I dunno, maybe for the same reason we extend the benefits of legal marriage to heterosexual couples who lack either the ability or the desire and intention to procreate?
The inability and/or unwillingness to procreate and raise a family can't be cited as a legally valid reason to deny two individuals the right to be legally married, unless the ability and willingness to do so is a legal requirement for marriage in the first place. It isn't.
Webster
08-17-10, 01:42 PM
the only sollution to this is to outlaw ALL marriage.
we will now only have legal unions which is and has been legal all along but "some" want the special notation of the word marriage as though it is any more legitimate or powerfull.
if equality were the real goal then the arguement would be that legal unions would have all the benefits and protections as marriage (but AFAIK they already do) and this would be very easy to get accross the board support for.
marriage was a religeous thing started in church, supposedly blessed by god, and conducted by preists so isnt goverment supposed to be seperate from religeon?
so i say marriage should no longer exist in law and all we have is legal unions, then anyone can "call" themselves married but it has no legal merit.
that would solve the whole problem but then there would be no drama and where would be the fun in that?
frau kaleun
08-17-10, 01:56 PM
the only sollution to this is to outlaw ALL marriage.
we will now only have legal unions which is and has been legal all along but "some" want the special notation of the word marriage as though it is any more legitimate or powerfull.
if equality were the real goal then the arguement would be that legal unions would have all the benefits and protections as marriage (but AFAIK they already do) and this would be very easy to get accross the board support for.
marriage was a religeous thing started in church, supposedly blessed by god, and conducted by preists so isnt goverment supposed to be seperate from religeon?
so i say marriage should no longer exist in law and all we have is legal unions, then anyone can "call" themselves married but it has no legal merit.
that would solve the whole problem but then there would be no drama and where would be the fun in that?
I have no problem with this, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that the religious groups who have made a point of opposing same-sex marriage (and/or any kind of legally recognized "unions") will not agree to it. They want legal recognition of "marriage" as condoned and accepted within their own belief system, and no legal recognition for anything else.
Webster
08-17-10, 02:06 PM
I have no problem with this, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that the religious groups who have made a point of opposing same-sex marriage (and/or any kind of legally recognized "unions") will not agree to it. They want legal recognition of "marriage" as condoned and accepted within their own belief system, and no legal recognition for anything else.
im sure that some do but i think the vast majority are just opposed to the idea of a symbol of their reigion "the blessing of a marital union" be in some way cheapened by turning it into something like getting a driving license.
most of the people that i know who oppose it are just opposed to the use of the word marriage and not the act itself.
frau kaleun
08-17-10, 02:29 PM
im sure that some do but i think the vast majority are just opposed to the idea of a symbol of their reigion "the blessing of a marital union" be in some way cheapened by turning it into something like getting a driving license.
most of the people that i know who oppose it are just opposed to the use of the word marriage and not the act itself.
If this were really true I would expect them to be just as upset by the possibility of a heterosexual couple going to city hall, getting a license, hauling in a couple of strangers from nearby offices as witnesses, and having the appropriate gubmint official do what's needed to sign the paperwork that makes them married in the eyes of the law.
And I would expect to see them refuse to acknowledge the marriages of straight couples who fulfilled all the legal requirements but did not seek the approval of the clergy when doing so, and opted out of a church wedding.
But I don't see that.
It is perfectly possible for a straight couple to be married in the eyes of the law, without the benefit or endorsement of any clergy whatsoever, without the "blessing" of anything or anyone other than the law, and I have yet to see any anti-gay marriage group complain that this "cheapens" the idea of marriage. I have yet to see them lobby and spend wads of money trying to pass laws so that such things aren't allowed to happen. It seems obvious that it has less to do with who performs the wedding, who signs the paperwork, and who deems the couple "married" than it does with which two people got hitched and what mix of private parts are involved.
It's the same thing as with the "marriage is about procreation" argument. If one examines the argument and then carries it to its logical conclusion, one finds that it doesn't hold up. The thing that is supposed to be so "offensive" or "necessary" when it comes to marriage is only seen to be that way if the marriage involves a same-sex couple. The exact same thing, in the case of a straight couple, is either perfectly acceptable or (apparently) not worth making a fuss about.
Webster
08-17-10, 02:45 PM
well IMO if they were called same sex "unions" instead of marriages then IMO 60% of those who protest would stay home since they wouldnt find that term to be offensive.
yes there is a "gayism" or whatever "ism" fits to it but sometimes a word can mean more then you think and the way to get to the finish line is in stages. gay unions IMO are much more likely to gain wide acceptance, then once established in all 50 states it can be debated if the name actually matters which by that time i doubt it will
Bilge_Rat
08-17-10, 02:49 PM
I am amazed that you still have people arguing that discrimination against gays is acceptable in a western liberal society.
If 7 million voters had voted to outlaw marriages between african-americans and persons of other races or adopted a law to prevent african-americans from moving into white neighborhoods, how many here would be defending the people's choice?
A bill of right exists to protect the rights of the minority from oppression by a majority.
Canada has had same-sex marriages since 2005 and it is a total non-issue here.
Sometimes I wonder if the USA is in the same century as the rest of the western world. :hmmm:
I am amazed that you still have people arguing that discrimination against gays is acceptable in a western liberal society.
Nobody is discriminating against gays. They have the same freedom to marry a person of the opposite sex as anyone else.
Sometimes I wonder if the USA is in the same century as the rest of the western world. :hmmm:
We're not at all the same as you and you should be very, very afraid of us. :yep:
The Third Man
08-17-10, 10:55 PM
A bill of right exists to protect the rights of the minority from oppression by a majority.
. :hmmm:
Then you would approve the drilling of oil in ANWAR, The rejection of Obama care, The reduction of tax on tobacco products, The rejection of abortion as law. All those things are minority in support.
Perhaps you should rethink your argument.
Moeceefus
08-18-10, 12:08 AM
At any rate, over time religion is slowly being phased out of our government. Soon enough we wont have to squabble over such petty issues and we will become better at minding our own business I hope. Then maybe we can start to focus on the real problems facing this nation.
Tribesman
08-18-10, 04:22 AM
All those things are minority in support.
Oh the oppression
:har::har::har::har::har::har::har:
Bilge_Rat
08-18-10, 08:05 AM
Perhaps you should rethink your argument.
Its not an argument, it's Constitutional Law 101. The basic premise of a Bill of Rights is that a majority will always be able, through the power of the crowd or the ballot, to protect its interest. The Bill of Rights exists to garantee all citizens equal rights and protection, whether they are african-americans, native americans, visible minorities, women, jews and even gays.
In 1982, Canada adopted a constitutional Charter of Rights which was closely modeled on the U.S. Bill of Rights. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, you had a series of court challenges against the existing marriage laws as being discriminatory against gays under the charter of rights. They all succeeded. In 2005, the federal Parliament conceded and modified all laws including the marriage laws so it would apply equally to heterosexual and same-sex couples.
Unless the US Supreme Court takes an extremely narrow interpretation or the US Constitution is amended, you should eventually have the exact same result in the USA.
When the Conservative government was elected here in 2006, they toyed with the idea of adopting a law that would give same-sex couples the same rights and obligations, but call it a "civil union" instead of "marriage". They finally dropped the idea since it made no sense to revive the debate for a purely cosmetic change.
Conservatives up here realize that the real battleground is not social, but economic, i.e: lower taxes, less/smarter governement regulations, more favourable business climate, etc.
I live in Montreal which has a reputation as an ultra-liberal city. I live a mainstream life, live in the suburbs, commute to work. We don't know any gay couple or gay family, none live in our neighborhood or have children in our son's school, as far as I can tell. In the past 5 years, I have only met 2 gay couples, both time because I had to review their wills. If it was'nt for the news media covering events in the gay neighborhoods or the odd time I see a gay couple holding hands downtown, I would not even know Montreal has a large gay community.
Legalization of same-sex marriages has had zero impact on canadian society.
Trying to tell responsible adults how they should live their personal lives is a losing and a loser issue.
Aramike
08-18-10, 11:44 AM
Then go ahead and take the first step. Start telling people who are unable to have kids for one reason or another that their marriage has been declared null and void....or just leave it as it is, and understand that male/female relationships contain a potential that homosexual relations don't, and understand that the current tradition respects that potential benefit to society - one of which gay marriage could NEVER provide.
As I said before, I not necessarily against civil unions. I really don't give a damn. I just don't like the disingenous method of the debate, and the all-or-nothing approach.
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