Obama: Court must end California gay marriage ban

[CaptainHaplo]

Originally Posted by Takeda Shingen

However, since you quoted that particular line of mine, I am curious as to how you agree with Skybird's design of society.

Skybird was lamenting how, for example, the EU dictates to the member nations what the laws must be.

80% of laws in Europe/Germany, are demands by the EU central committee. EU law demands such proposals to be turned into national law, the parliaments have no right to veto them or not to wave them through.

You talked about regulation from either a national or community level. My agreement is with you both - a government should be as close to the governed as possible.

Maybe we can get all the government out of marriage and avoid said discrimination.

That would be ideal. That way you wouldn't have the issue of marital discrimination as some huge national issue - whether its 2 guys, 2 gals, or 12 people that want to be one huge family. What business of the government is that in the first place, after all.

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by CaptainHaplo

Skybird was lamenting how, for example, the EU dictates to the member nations what the laws must be.



You talked about regulation from either a national or community level. My agreement is with you both - a government should be as close to the governed as possible.

I figured that you didn't actually read what he wrote. Here's to what I was referring.

Originally Posted by Skybird

Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There was never a democracy that did not commit suicide. - John Adams.

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.- Benjamin Franklin

And since above I was not sure whether the quote was by Franklin or Adams, it was Franklin for sure: When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic

Regarding a draft for how to replace democracy, not only the aspect of size of community and a mixture of local autarky and supra-regional feudalism is important, but also not to always repeat the same mistakes from the past - but to learn the lessons, finally. I forgot to refer to Jared Diamond again, whose observations on why societies rationally and sometimes even democratically decide to vote for their own collapse. These lessons must finally be learned, to avoid making these mistakes again. I once had a thread launched where I tried to summarise Diamonds conclusions on some things, Link: How to fail in survival for very rational reasons. . Again, the aspect of community sizes show up there. Democratic voteing prinmciples can only play a positive role in the smallest of community sizes: communites that are only so big that every member can oversee what all others are doiujng and how it affects him, and how his own deeds will and does affect all the others. That sets limits to population sizes in a self-governing community. It also demands that their is strict population control, a dynamically fluctuating but all in all stable balance between young and old and a maximum limit that is not allowed to get overstepped. Control of popultion size is not only wantred from an ecological perspective - politically, it also is a must. The chinese understood that correctly - they just concluded wrong consequences from it. I admit I currently have no idea on how to improve their apporoach (which they now give up). When you control population sizes, you need to find a workaround for the aging problem. Or you need to get rid of the exceeding population when the upper community limit has been reached. In thre past, wars and epidemics worked as a natural counterbalance. But these are options that forbid themselves to become accepted tools of population control, obviously.

If somebody has ideas, make it known.Chances are you get one peace Nobel price per year for the rest of your life.

I'll be very impressed if you can defend that.


[/QUOTE]That would be ideal. That way you wouldn't have the issue of marital discrimination as some huge national issue - whether its 2 guys, 2 gals, or 12 people that want to be one huge family. What business of the government is that in the first place, after all.[/QUOTE]

Well then we are in agreement.

[MH]

Hell, I cannot believe that nowadays I must even explain this, is the modern world already so much beyond hope?

Don't try to because you seem to have no clue about the issues and some. other stuff you overdramatise .
I give you that you have good writing skill though and it can make wrong impression to some readers.
I admit I agree with you on some issues but that is because you have lot of them.

I find it funny that you chose gays as some sort of symbol of decay in family values.

[Skybird]

Now we have lines that answer to answers to answers to original statements. In other words, we now have reached the stage where it really becomes complicated to have a reasonable discussion in writing were spoken word would serve a better purpose. Since I frankly admit that I start to lose oversight now, I just choose some things to reply to.

And I said many times that you chose to condemn rather than discuss. What exactly was it that you saw me actually doing? I still contend that you saw only what you wanted to see, and judged everything after by that light.

The problem I have with you there is that you refuse to decide nevertheless even when not being in the full and total knowledge of all possible future's outcome. You want total, absolute certainty nailed down in the granite of time'S record before you – maybe – can push yourself to get it decided for you whether you now consider that the intolerant indeed will no longer be tolerated by you. You want absolute certainty. You therefore allow a demand of total freedom deadlocking you in place, paralysing you in your decision making on your attitude towards the intolerant. But the principle, general truth in the logic of Popper'S reasoning remains what it is: a general truth that you just try ty avoid to get confronted by. That you do so in the name of freedom as you see it, is what gives your understanding of freedom the face of an absolute, no matter that you claim it to not be that.

We never have total certainty on anything, or almost never. But our whole life, every day, we nevertheless must make decisions, and make them on the basis of incomplete information about futures possible. We rarely now the consequences in full. Still, we must decide things, and we do that either empirically: we base on past experiences, or we make logical conclusions about the probabilities of a future. But in this specific case you refuse to do both. And that is the problem I have weith you, this indifferentiation of yours, this undecided attitude that you excuse with that "you do not know", and you think that you make it sound more complimentary when saying "you know that you do not know". I would recommend to keep one of the key issues of ontologic philosphy and pragmatic reality we live in, a bit more separate. Becasue the tea in my cup still tates like tea, even when I know that I cannot know for sure that what I label as tea indeed is tea. Infact I know it is just a dance of electrons in my brain, still I enjoy my tea tremendously, and still call it "tea". I know that about myself, too, I "know that I do not know", but still I understand that there comes a time when nevertheless a decision becomes inevitable. I follow the simple logic in Poppers paradoxon, because it it convincing to me, fully. You just sit and wait, and will conclude that you should have stopped tolerating the intolerant after they have overthrown you – becasue when they are already working on it, you shy away from a reaction of yours by saying: let's see first that they really succeed, let'S first see that they really mean it serious, let'S wait first that they really bring to an end what they claim the want to achieve. To me that is sounding extremely indifferentiated. In case of Quran, because that was the original discussion back then, I think, I can only recommend to you: take it by its own word, and take it by its own proven history.

So, society run by your personal moral rules.

Society run by what has been running and proven its value since a very very very long time, and in most parts of ther world. And since I also base on psychology and medicine, that show since long time that mother-child-bonding is extremely important and that the availability of a father and a mother as gender role models is important and that the psychological development of children is influenced by that, too (we know from socalled patchwork families for exmaple that the stress indicators in children statistically are significantly increased, which could be linked to psychosomatic issues, neurotic issues, and general negative developments in psyche and intellect), since all this influences my opinion forming, I say it is plain common sense by which I want it to be run. Moral rules have little to do with it. Children need fathers and mothers. That simple. That is the idea. Of course children can still survive and grow up without the one or the other, or without both. But that comes at a cost. A cost that all you guys ignore or claim to be non-existent or irrelevant becasue some tv programs told you so, politically most correct. In some time you will even buy what the genderists try to sell you, scientifically totally unfounded and already proven to be wrong: that there is no psychological and other differences between boys and girls, and that being male and female is only a condensate of the social environment. Well, that is coming from the ultra feminist camp of the very first hours, this poor band of hopelessly misled human carricatures. But the agenda already has been turned into valid policy in the EU, fixed in ink on paper. And it is haunting America increasingly, too. - Well, denying the human nature of female women and male men, I tell you how I call that: a crime against the very basis of humanity itself. And an intellectual declaration of bankruptcy it is anyway.

Those are not new problems. Yes, they need to be addressed, but we don't even know that your answers are the correct ones.

The link offers itself, and gets confirmed by so many experiences from for exampe school teachers, but also by clinical statistiscs showing suspicious correlations between certain social constellations in families, and growing psychological instabilities and anti-social behaviour in teeneagers. It'S like statistcially analysing links between alcoholism, social class and city districts and its crime and violence rates.

You can't force families to be functional,

I never claimed I can. I claim to differ ebtween a fucntional and a dysfunctional family. Common terminology in sociological and psychological literature.

want to condemn certain people based on your own moral judgement

Condemn...? Man, take some fresh air and come back to your senses. You overshoot into a dead end. My moral judgement? You really need to start trying to understand what I say. The religious gang goes against gays with moral judgements. I don't, as long as I do not get confronted by public nudity on a CSD, which I find indeed highly offensive and take as an aggression. But CSD is not what is being talked about here, so lets leave that out. We are talking about family, and marriage.

I have told you or in some thread before that once there was a girl in my life, half my life ago, and that she had to go due to a car accident. We planned for a shared life for sure, we knew on our first meeting, within the first 60 seconds, that we had met each other's soul mate. We even felt as if we had shared time before, it is hard to explain, what I mean is this: we were extremely close from first sight on. We also did not rule out children, but agree that for that we would move away from Europe first, and would need to secure the economic basis. But we also ruled out that we would ever formally marry. We did not want to have the state or any organisation having any word on our relation. If we would have had children, fine, that would have been a benefit for the community, still, we did not want that to be an excuse to become an issue of public interest ourselves. And no, we did not feel as if we were „condemning ourselves“ because we refused public appreciation of our private stuff.

When I nevertheless defend the community's principle interest in couples having babies, this is for me an academic argument. Babies mean future tax income, thus funding the future of the community when today'S parents have turned old and grey. Babies mean vulnerable little humans that need to be safeguarded more than adults who can take care of themselves. Where parents fail, it is a moral obligation and the vital selfinterest of the community to intervene on behalf of child'S interest.

Whether I meet with friends on Sunday, is of no interest for the community. Whether two women live together is of no interest for the community. The party gang contributes nothing to the communities vital interest. A lesbian couple contributes nothing to communities interest by just being lesbian. There is no merit that needs to be appreciated by the community in having a private life. Being homosexual does not ennoble you in some way. Having red hair also does not. What is of interest for the community, and where it intervenes in certain cases and signals its appreciation (at least it should...), is hetero couples raising children of their own. That is work. That is a financial investment. That contributions to the community, and its future. It is something mopther and father can be proud of, if they get it right and give their children a good home, at least do their best in trying to make it as close to that as possible in their social reality.

I fail to see why homosexual couples should be met with the same appreciation. They homosexual relation means nothing to anybody expect themselves. In other wordS: it is private stuff. I demand of them the same that a long time ago I and my girl voluntarily decided for ourselves, too.

And I still wait for somebody answering my demand to justify why gays and lesbians in relations should be given tax reliefs and special rights that singles are excluded from. It is discrimination of singles. What merits do you gain by being homosexual that deserve you a privileged treatment, compared to ordinary singles, homo or hetero alike?

And you have a group of people, some of them with their own set of problems but many who are perfectly fine people, except for that one thing that makes them less equal than everybody else, and you want to make them suffer for society's ills.

The drama queen on stage. I will shed a tear when I have some free time later this day.

I know nothing of "genderists", nor do I care about their theories, founded or not. I look at the people around me and I see a segment of society excluded for a variety of excuses but no real reason. Honestly, it looks to me like you and yours are the ones guilty of social engineering.

Very interesting. And totally unconnected to the discussions theme: family and gay marriage.

'll repeat it for what I hope is the last time: Freedom is an absolute only in theory. In practice there has to be give and take. My attitude is to use absolute freedom as a starting point, working toward the consensus. You seem to take the opposite starting point, that freedom is something to be toyed with as you please and absolute control is the way to go.

The one carelessly trying it away, is you. I explained above how you do it. By allowing to stay passive and indifferentiated when decisions are overdue, because of your demand for total and absolute certainty, else any acting would kill freedom. Which makes your freedom you defend a truly absolute freedom, whether you see that or not.

Criticize you for that? Where?

You just had did it again.

You're trying to use my words against me, but you're not actually saying anything real. Most importantly, you're not showing anything in that last sentence.

Then read again. It is important, that „last sentence“ is the very key to it all.

This thing, „knowing not to know“, that is all fine and well, and as a basic truth of ontology I am with you on it. But it is like I say: you crucify yourself over it, resulting in a state of inactivity, passivity, a denial to make decisions as long as the penultimate truth has not found you. That truth that you claim to know of that you cannot have it. And there you get yourself into a deadlock. I see that since this old ugly debate began. And I was not the only one. Steve, you are not so much wrong. You got yourself stuck.

Thinking about it? No. Writing about it seemingly forever? Sure.

Their private life? No. And any relation is their private issue, and nobody should be needed to take note of that, it is PRIVATE LIFE. Its just that it is not good enough. Activists want the world to take note of it. And they want the money. I do not give a dan about all this where they keep their private life private and families remain untouched, and their is no privileging of homosexuals over singles. But where this happens, my interests and communal interests get touched upon, and then it is not just private stuff anymore. Like with that neighbour playing his radio loud. If all neighbourhood must listen to his tune, then it is not his private issue anymore.

And I say do away with income taxes altogether. Since that's not likely to happen either, your argument isn't too bad. But since neither one is very likely, telling gays they can't get the inheritance tax benefit is indeed discrimination.

I miss your view on singles again. Tax privileges for gays, but not for singles – that is no discrim ination?

Next, close friendships. I mean really good buddies from work. iosters the social climate in a society. I think that is contribution enough to justify some sort or privileged taxing. Or a yearly bonus payment. Something like that.

But you want to make it illegal for gay couples to adopt. Should it also be illegal for them to use artificial insemination? What about natural insemination? Surrogate fathers have been used by lesbian couples more than once.

I am against making it an accepted norm to pout children into social contexts like those being discussed here that strip them of their natural right to have one father and one mother, the man and women that created them. Of course lesbians can get artificial insemination. But then damn hell should the women live with the father, so that the child actually grows up with a father.

BTW, as far as I know there is neither any legal nor biological right for adults to raise children or to be given a baby. Not having children is not only possible, but even legal.


But has it ever come to your mind that children may have a right to have one mother and one father – because that is the way mother nature has arranged it to bring babies into the world and protect them in their first years? I hear a lot about special interests and rights for this lobby and rights for that lobby. But I hear nothing mentioning the rights and interests of children. They just get rolled over. That they pay the price as I have repeatedly explained now, simply gets ignored. But homo couples want it , and adoption „ I want“, and more „I want“.

Somebody, a gay btw, told me this long time ago: "Some homosexuals act like Michael Jackson." He explained and what he meant was that Jackson was trying to hide his african look and lightening his skin tan and operating his african looking nose, to appear more like a White or Hispanic at least. But he remained to be what he was by his nature and origin. A black with a african looking wider nose. It would have been less hilarious if he would have simply stayed that way, then there would have been much less mocking about him. His fans had no problem with it. The only one having a problem with him, was himself.

There is far too much „I want“ in this world already. And too little „I should“. „I should act with modesty“. „I should not put my egoism above other's interest.“ „I should not only insist on my right, but also understand my obligations to serve and the rights of the other.“ „I should step back a bit and leave room for the other“.

Tell that a lobby group activist. He turns red immediately, yelling „I want!“ again.

Or tell that a hedge fond manager.

Well, when greed and envy are seen as virtues to drive a capitalistic order, and selfishness are a consumer's primary duty – what else do we expect then than to get the world we live in. Everybody creates his own hell.

But a missing parent is worse than no parents at all? These people want to provide a loving home for children but must be prevented because they're not the "right sort" of people? Again, it sounds like blatant discrimination to me.

Setting it as an equal norm, I oppose it, yes. It'S better to broker an orphant into a real family than into a half family, a family in critical social conditions, a poor family that is economic despair, or to a single. A mother, a father, a safe home. This should be a norm that serves as orientation. There might be exceptions. If one homosexual partner has a child from an earlier hetero relationship, for example. But I do not want exceptions being understood as a new and equal norm.

It also seems to escape you that it is not your job to say what individuals may not do. You again wish to impose your moral judgment on all. This is part of the reason that I shout "freedom" at you. Despite your protests when the chips are down you seem to want to control everything and everybody. Maybe you don't really feel that way, but that's how it comes out.

You could as well tell me it is not my job to say that robbing somebody is a crime, or that you shall not kill. Steve, that quote you gave as a reply to me saying „Divorce has negative consequences for the development of children and teenagers, no doubt. Why that should be an argument to allow adoption into such settings (homo couples or singles) from all beginning on, escapes me.“ Take a minute or two to contemplate on why I just shook my head when reading you. If you still cannot get it then, then indeed any further talking is totally useless.

So should they not be allowed to marry either? Not be allowed to adopt? Not be allowed to live?

That was your reply to me:; „Some people have pigment disorders. They too are humans, and exceptions. Pigment disorders of theirs are not the main line of human design.“ - All I indicated is that there is no need to make a big deal of a pigment disorder, it is of little or no interest, and that it is not the main line of human genetic design – it is an aberration. You can now make a big issue of it by giving albinos special rights and privileges, but surprise surprise – I would oppose you on that. Or you let them simply live their lives like everybody else, without and privileges for them, in normality. That'S what I am for.

And jo, albinos should not be privileged in rights for adoption too. Since an albino is something different than a homosexual, and does not interfere by his sexual identity and gender role modelling with the psychological factors affecting the child'S development, I see no reason why a hetero couple where one is an albino should not be allowed to adopt, if the relation is stable, the socia context is safe, the economic situation is solid. I am confident that a pigment disorder makes no difference.


It's moving in circles now, I think. I have nothing else to say and nothing new to add, and if you have not anything new either, I propose we leave it here.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Skybird

The problem I have with you there is that you refuse to decide nevertheless even when not being in the full and total knowledge of all possible future's outcome. You want total, absolute certainty nailed down in the granite of time'S record before you – maybe – can push yourself to get it decided for you whether you now consider that the intolerant indeed will no longer be tolerated by you.

That's not even remotely true. You can claim to know my thoughts better than I do, but know nothing about me at all. I don't want total, absolute certainty. I also don't want to follow you off a cliff because you claim to have the answers.

You want absolute certainty. You therefore allow a demand of total freedom deadlocking you in place, paralysing you in your decision making on your attitude towards the intolerant. But the principle, general truth in the logic of Popper'S reasoning remains what it is: a general truth that you just try ty avoid to get confronted by. That you do so in the name of freedom as you see it, is what gives your understanding of freedom the face of an absolute, no matter that you claim it to not be that.

Putting words in my mouth again. All I did was point out the fact that Popper's statement works both ways. Are you so convinced of the rightness of your arguments that you can't even discuss them rationally? Can you not concieve of the concept that you might be wrong? All I did was challenge those arguments. This forces you into attack mode. If I dare to disagree, it's not because I see a fallacy there, but because I'm locked into my version of things. Do you deny that you do the same?

In case of Quran, because that was the original discussion back then, I think, I can only recommend to you: take it by its own word, and take it by its own proven history.

No, the original discussion was about whether a Muslim group should be allowed to build a mosque near Ground Zero. Nothing else. Once again you try to turn this around to what you want, and try to hide what really is.

Society run by what has been running and proven its value since a very very very long time, and in most parts of ther world.

And you miss my point entirely, which is that it's not proven. Society was not better when all this was swept under the rug.

And since I also base on psychology and medicine

Another failed debate tactic. Subtly mention that you have experience, therefore know more than the other person.

A cost that all you guys ignore or claim to be non-existent or irrelevant becasue some tv programs told you so, politically most correct.[/quote]
And again, try to dismiss an argument by saying it comes from a false source. If you read any of my posts you would know that I don't even own a television. My arguments are based on my own observations, and those of others I talk to. And yes, I can actually read.

In some time you will even buy what the genderists try to sell you, scientifically totally unfounded and already proven to be wrong: that there is no psychological and other differences between boys and girls, and that being male and female is only a condensate of the social environment.

And again you never read what I say. First, nobody has sold me anything. I've said many times that I agree with this. It's obvious to anybody who takes the time to look that there are vast differences between the way the sexes are wired up. But you won't believe me when I say that, because it doesn't suit your image of me. My sole claim here is that you haven't made your case. You've danced all over the boards with a variety of claims, but none of them have successfully shown why gays should not be allowed to marry.

I never claimed I can. I claim to differ ebtween a fucntional and a dysfunctional family. Common terminology in sociological and psychological literature.

You never claimed you can. And yet you want to control people's lives based on that.

Condemn...?

Yes. Condemn them to accepting second-class status.

Man, take some fresh air and come back to your senses.

Yep, fall back into the insults.

You overshoot into a dead end. My moral judgement? You really need to start trying to understand what I say. The religious gang goes against gays with moral judgements. I don't, as long as I do not get confronted by public nudity on a CSD, which I find indeed highly offensive and take as an aggression. But CSD is not what is being talked about here, so lets leave that out. We are talking about family, and marriage.

And yet the way you go about it looks very much like the same moral judgement you claim to condemn. You try to couch it in fancy terms, but the bottom line is that you don't want gays to have the same social benefits as "normal" people. You may not mean it that way, and unlike you I don't claim to know what you're really thinking, but that's the way you come across, at least to me.

When I nevertheless defend the community's principle interest in couples having babies, this is for me an academic argument. Babies mean future tax income, thus funding the future of the community when today'S parents have turned old and grey. Babies mean vulnerable little humans that need to be safeguarded more than adults who can take care of themselves. Where parents fail, it is a moral obligation and the vital selfinterest of the community to intervene on behalf of child'S interest.

But people with love in their heart should not be allowed to adopt because their orientation doesn't fit the social "norm"? You still haven't proven that, at least to the point where I'm willing to follow you blindly.

Whether I meet with friends on Sunday, is of no interest for the community. Whether two women live together is of no interest for the community. The party gang contributes nothing to the communities vital interest. A lesbian couple contributes nothing to communities interest by just being lesbian. There is no merit that needs to be appreciated by the community in having a private life. Being homosexual does not ennoble you in some way. Having red hair also does not.

All that is true. It also isn't a reason to single them out for denial of certain benefits reserved for people who aren't "different". Again, it really looks like the only reason for this is bias on your part, disguised as "reason".

What is of interest for the community, and where it intervenes in certain cases and signals its appreciation (at least it should...), is hetero couples raising children of their own. That is work. That is a financial investment. That contributions to the community, and its future. It is something mopther and father can be proud of, if they get it right and give their children a good home, at least do their best in trying to make it as close to that as possible in their social reality.

And yet again some children won't get that, because the people who could give them a loving home don't fit the proper description. There is more than one form of "correctness", this one being social rather than political.

I fail to see why homosexual couples should be met with the same appreciation. They homosexual relation means nothing to anybody expect themselves. In other wordS: it is private stuff. I demand of them the same that a long time ago I and my girl voluntarily decided for ourselves, too.

If it means nothing then why the desire to deny them the benefits everyone else gets? That's all they're asking.

And I still wait for somebody answering my demand to justify why gays and lesbians in relations should be given tax reliefs and special rights that singles are excluded from. It is discrimination of singles. What merits do you gain by being homosexual that deserve you a privileged treatment, compared to ordinary singles, homo or hetero alike?

I did answer it, but you had your fingers in your ears. So again: Single gays and lesbians are single. They're not asking for those rights. "Civil Union" couples don't qualify for inheritance tax benifits. Personally I don't think there should be an inheritance tax, or an income tax. But there are. I understand the argument that income tax breaks are there to help struggling families, meaning families with children. I understand that you see "gay marriage" as an attempt to get extra benefits that they don't deserve. I think what you fail to see is that most people don't think that way. They aren't that devious. In the vast majority of these case you have two people who love each other and want to show it in the way others do, by getting married. Because some people are bothered by that they aren't allowed to do that. It's pretty simple, really; at least to them.

The drama queen on stage. I will shed a tear when I have some free time later this day.

Same old thing. When all else fails, turn to insults.

Very interesting. And totally unconnected to the discussions theme: family and gay marriage.

So it's okay for you bring up that side subject and spend several paragraphs talking about it, but if I answer you I'm straying off-topic? Why the double standard?

The one carelessly trying it away, is you. I explained above how you do it. By allowing to stay passive and indifferentiated when decisions are overdue, because of your demand for total and absolute certainty, else any acting would kill freedom. Which makes your freedom you defend a truly absolute freedom, whether you see that or not.

I'm so glad you know me so much better than I know myself. You can't actually address what I say, so I must be either blind to my own nature or just lying about it. If what I say doesn't fit your perceptions, then I must be hiding something. Yet again you can't believe what I say, so you have to address what you want me to be saying rather than what I'm really saying. I'm grateful to have someone like you to tell me who I really am.

You just had did it again.

What? Asking you to show where I've criticized you is criticizing you? That makes no sense.

Then read again. It is important, that „last sentence“ is the very key to it all.

No. It shows what you believe. You saying it does not make it so. It says something, but it shows nothing other than what you believe.

You got yourself stuck.

Again, saying it doesn't make it so. You only see me as "stuck" because you base your arguments not on what I say but on what you read into it. If I try to explain myself you just say I don't know myself and then tell my why I'm wrong about my own feelings. It's impossible for me to explain myself if you refuse to take me at my word, and it's impossible for you to understand my point of view when you try to judge it on your opinion of me and not what I say.

Their private life? No. And any relation is their private issue, and nobody should be needed to take note of that, it is PRIVATE LIFE.

I thought we were talking about marriage. If marriage is PRIVATE LIFE then maybe we should outlaw marriage altogether. You accuse me of changing the subject, but here you are talking about two different things.

I miss your view on singles again. Tax privileges for gays, but not for singles – that is no discrim ination?

Not for singles, for couples. Couples who love each other and want the same options as other couples. That is the discrimination.

Next, close friendships. I mean really good buddies from work. iosters the social climate in a society. I think that is contribution enough to justify some sort or privileged taxing. Or a yearly bonus payment. Something like that.

You're trying to divert the point with and unrelated "what if", concerning something that may or may not happen. That can be discussed in its own time and place.

I am against making it an accepted norm to pout children into social contexts like those being discussed here that strip them of their natural right to have one father and one mother, the man and women that created them.

So it's better for them to have no mother or father at all than to have an "unnatural" one? I accused you of your own brand of social engineering earlier, and this only reenforces that opinion.

Of course lesbians can get artificial insemination. But then damn hell should the women live with the father, so that the child actually grows up with a father.

So it is a moral issue. At least that statement looks like moralistic judgement based on your opinion.

BTW, as far as I know there is neither any legal nor biological right for adults to raise children or to be given a baby. Not having children is not only possible, but even legal.

So the state should decide whether couples can even get pregnant naturally? Now I know I don't want you in charge of things.

But has it ever come to your mind that children may have a right to have one mother and one father – because that is the way mother nature has arranged it to bring babies into the world and protect them in their first years?

Of course it has come to my mind. But what do you want to do with all the children who don't have that? Deny them any family at all because there will never be enough of those "perfect" families to go around? If a loving couple wants to raise a child who will otherwise have no parents at all, who are you to say they can't?

I hear a lot about special interests and rights for this lobby and rights for that lobby. But I hear nothing mentioning the rights and interests of children. They just get rolled over. That they pay the price as I have repeatedly explained now, simply gets ignored. But homo couples want it , and adoption „ I want“, and more „I want“.

Again this sounds like moral indignation, and not the logic you boast about. What about the rights of children who will otherwise never have a family at all? And again, who are you to make that judgement?

Somebody, a gay btw etc

Nice story, but a diversion. Wasting time and space with cute stories subtracts from honest discussion of the subject.

There is far too much „I want“ in this world already. And too little „I should“. „I should act with modesty“. „I should not put my egoism above other's interest.“ „I should not only insist on my right, but also understand my obligations to serve and the rights of the other.“ „I should step back a bit and leave room for the other“.

Again, moral posturing. That diatribe is nothing but you ranting about your feelings.

Tell that a lobby group activist. He turns red immediately, yelling „I want!“ again.

Or tell that a hedge fond manager.

Well, when greed and envy are seen as virtues to drive a capitalistic order, and selfishness are a consumer's primary duty – what else do we expect then than to get the world we live in. Everybody creates his own hell.

And you earlier accused me of straying from the topic. All of that has exactly nothing to do with the question of gay marriage.

Setting it as an equal norm, I oppose it, yes. It'S better to broker an orphant into a real family than into a half family, a family in critical social conditions, a poor family that is economic despair, or to a single. A mother, a father, a safe home. This should be a norm that serves as orientation. There might be exceptions. If one homosexual partner has a child from an earlier hetero relationship, for example. But I do not want exceptions being understood as a new and equal norm.

Okay, I get it. It's better that children should slip through the cracks and have no home at all, if the only other option is to be put into a home you find "unacceptable".

You could as well tell me it is not my job to say that robbing somebody is a crime, or that you shall not kill.

You once again try to change the subject by bringing up unrelated "what ifs". It can be easily shown why robbery and murder are bad things. This subject is much more vague, and subject to opinion. The very existence of threads like this one show that. You want to make it an absolute, and base law on your own opinions. In this case, I am the same. I also want law to be based on my own opinion. I don't deny that. The difference as I see it is that I don't see any harm in this. You do. I disagree because while you have brought up a lot of arguments to support your position, I don't see any of them as strong enough to keep a segment of society in second-class status.

Take a minute or two to contemplate on why I just shook my head when reading you.

Because I don't kowtow to your perfect knowledge and admit that you are right about everything. Simple, isn't it?

If you still cannot get it then, then indeed any further talking is totally useless.

Meaning that if I don't cave in and admit that you are absolutely right, then you can't handle it anymore.

And jo, albinos should not be privileged in rights for adoption too.

Since an albino is something different than a homosexual, and does not interfere by his sexual identity and gender role modelling with the psychological factors affecting the child'S development, I see no reason why a hetero couple where one is an albino should not be allowed to adopt, if the relation is stable, the socia context is safe, the economic situation is solid. I am confident that a pigment disorder makes no difference.

Nobody has said that albinos can't marry. Therefore the comparison is invalid. Albinos can marry. That's the difference.

It's moving in circles now, I think. I have nothing else to say and nothing new to add, and if you have not anything new either, I propose we leave it here.

Fine. An impasse is sometimes what debate is all about.

Just don't come back here a year from now boasting about how you handed me my head and showed to everybody just how wrong I was.

[Skybird]

How comes that I get accused over "walls of texts" when I post such postings, but Steve never? Maybe I print the above listing and make a wallpaper of it, it has so nice a graphical symmetry of some kind.

Just don't come back here a year from now boasting about how you handed me my head and showed to everybody just how wrong I was.

I honestly do not care whether your carry your head in your left or right hand. That you cannot understand your self-contradiction on that certain issue I already have understood a long time ago.

Okay, to come to an ending here, a unique one time offer for last word fetishists: copy and paste this into your post:

My last word is >> INSERT HERE <<

O I mean my last word to be personally aggressive

Do not forget to tick the circled option as desired. Later corrections of already entered forms unfortunately cannot be processed.

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by Skybird

How comes that I get accused over "walls of texts" when I post such postings, but Steve never?

Because Steve is forced to reply in that fashion, as you chastise people for not responding to your message in it's entirety.

Maybe I print the above listing and make a wallpaper of it, it has so nice a graphical symmetry of some kind.

Oh good, take some cheap shots on your way out the door to show your contempt.

Okay, to come to an ending here, a one time offer for last word fetishists: copy and paste this in your post:



Do not forget to tick the circled option as desired. Later corrections of already entered forms unfortunately cannot be processed.

And then there's that. Again with the exit kick to the shins. And all of this because Steve has the audacity to question your views. Shame on him.

[CaptainHaplo]

Originally Posted by Takeda Shingen

Here's to what I was referring.
I'll be very impressed if you can defend that.

I won't even try, but then again I don't think it needs defending. He admits that population control is not an option, and that without it no system will work indefinitely without it.

I suspect he was not being a proponent of such actions, but rather taking a theoretical view. It would help if that was made clear, because often it comes across wrong when Sky tries to take that kind of overview.