Prager schools Perez Hilton. He uses rationality and logic and carefully destroys the argument that opposite sex marriage = same race marriage and the misdirection about civil v religious marriage.
Not that it will matter to people like Perez, because as he revealed in his misogynist rant against Miss California, Carrie Prejean, “This isn’t about gay marriage …”
He’s right. It’s about Thought control
Miss California says she stands by her anti-gay-marriage comments, even if they may have cost her the Miss USA crown.
In an alleged “news” article, her comments are considered “anti-gay”. Nope, no editorializing there.
When Hilton first heard her answer, he says he was “shocked.”“Because, I thought, having been from California, a state that recently passed Proposition 8, outlawing same-sex marriage, she should have been better prepared to answer that question,” he said.
Hilton stresses that she shouldn’t have lied at all, but that she should have used a different approach that wasn’t insensitive.
Perez, at minimum, want’s people like Carrie to pass. This is even clearer from the Shanna Moakler, the director of the Miss California USA pageant
But Moakler and her business partner, Keith Lewis, a strong activist against Proposition 8, were so infuriated over Prejean’s answer to Perez Hilton’s gay marriage question during Sunday’s crowning, they refused to make contact with the San Diego native after the show [...]Moakler, who sources say was very close friends with Prejean (who was first runner-up in the Miss California USA pageant in 2008 before winning in 2009), also issued an apology to her state pageant sponsors on Monday, saying that “Prejean’s opinions do not stand for those of the Miss California family.
It is very clear, the Miss USA pageant is closed to the majority of people who believe marriage should not be redefined. You don’t have the proper politically correct thoughts? Non-leftists need not apply.
The majority of Americans, like Prager, believe that gays who wish to have a contractual relationship that parallels marriage should have that, but that marriage should not be redefined. However, that view is now dismissed by Our Cultural Superiors as “hated-filled, discriminatory, anti-gay” and makes the holder a “bad person”.
And this kind of Thought Crime(tm) is being perpetuated even as SSM is voted down in every state that has had it on the ballot.
Consider what would happen to people IF SSM became legal.
Comment by Joe on 4/23 @ 8:24 am #
Perez Hilton asks about gay marriage. If there is only one acceptable answer, why not ask Ms. America contestents what they think of racism, or raising third world little children for meat?
Or perhaps, what their position is on choice? Warning girls, there is only ONE acceptable answer.
Do you think Perez Hilton did a little digging on Ms. California’s bio and said, a-ha a Christian, she is getting my gay marriage question! Then he calls her a bitch and the “c” word for answering it? Perez Hilton should be careful bandying around the “c” word because it only applies to one person at Ms. America, and it is not any of the contestants.
Comment by Joe on 4/23 @ 8:31 am #
I would vote for gay marriage. I think it does makes sense at a policy issue. But to vilify people who disagree is wrong and frankly biased. Not everyone agrees on this issue.
But Perez Hilton is all about Perez Hilton. He is doing this for self promotion. That Ms. America played into this by picking him as a judge is really pretty stupid. I know the pagent is in trouble (although it should have stayed in Atlantic City) and that the gay community is big into beauty pagents–but get someone credible. Even John Waters would be better. If he challenged the contestants with gay friendly questions, at least he would have been funny about it. Perez Hilton? The pagent did not win in this.
Comment by BJT-FREE! on 4/23 @ 8:34 am #
What would be far more entertaining is if a black pageant contestant from California was asked the same question and answered the same way. Then we would have the comedy gold of someone like Perez checking to see if the cojones are big enough to survive the feedback of TEH RACISM!
Just a bit more difficult than picking on the Caucasian, blond, white girl.
I’d make popcorn for that, I would.
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 8:34 am #
No sooner than we stop institutionalizing the Perez Hiltons of the world for their crazy and they turn around and inflict the crazy upon the “norms.” Hilton doesn’t just hate her, he wants to be her, see? He’s a focus driver who wonders what fun it would be to be behind the wheels of that Ferrari – she gets attention for what she is, he can only get attention by being flamboyant, bullying, and annoying.
Comment by Darleen on 4/23 @ 8:41 am #
I would vote for gay marriage. I think it does makes sense at a policy issue. But to vilify people who disagree is wrong and frankly biased. Not everyone agrees on this issue.
Joe, don’t you see what would happen if SSM is legalized? ANYONE that expresses the opinion that gay couples are different from straight couples would be vilified, marginalized, fired from jobs, etc, because they would be as “discriminatory” as a person who expressed racist opinions.
Any religious institution that didn’t positively support SSM would have lawsuits against them to strip them of their tax exempt status. Pity the poor child in school saying “marriage is mommy and daddy”.
Just as there are women’s sports and men’s sports, so should be the separate of civil unions and marriage.
Comment by Pablo on 4/23 @ 8:44 am #
And for photoshopping jizz onto the faces of celebrities. Why should I, or anyone else, give a rats ass what this professional cocksucker has to say?
Well, I suppose Carrie Prejean should care. Because this petulant dwarf just put her on the map.
Comment by Ginger on 4/23 @ 8:50 am #
Pageants are creepy. This pageant is a Donald Trump affair – whose hair, at least, is creepy. Trump and Perez are buddies. Trump’s loser pageant is headline news. Perez gets to normalize his view of the world. Conservatives are further caricatured in their freaky phobias.
I’m afraid of storms.
Comment by BJT-FREE! on 4/23 @ 8:53 am #
Unfortunately Perez Hilton has no sense of propriety or moral judgment. his business is pretty much about paying money and finding ways to skewer public figures for profit, the nastier the better. He either lacks or doesn’t care about any reflective insight which might point to the fact that Prejean is beautiful and poised while he looks and sounds like a low grade, abusive diner chef. He’ll continue to pimp the moment for the vilest of his lemmings that drive his traffic while, hopefully, the rest of the country opens a window to alleviate the stench.
In other words, he won’t do Gay Marriage one damn bit of good.
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 8:54 am #
“Joe, don’t you see what would happen if SSM is legalized?”
1) We lost a lot of ground by using the semantically engineered terms “gay marriage” and “same sex marriage,” which is, itself, an oxymoron – a nullity. “Gay marriage” is like “light-dark red-green” or “due South-North.”
2) The point isn’t rights or love or anything like that. It is to gain sanction at law for the notion that “gender” is “socially constructed” and to make American society say “how high” when the cultural Maxist puppeteers in popular media say “jump.” Think “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” If you accept “gay marriage” you are accepting that there is no basis in law and culture for the proposition that men and women are different in essence – despite the weight of experience, culture, and science to the contrary. You’ve ceded that the Left can coerce you say that the sky is green and the grass is blue when you know damned well that it is not. “Perez Hilton” is more equal, no?
Comment by SarahW on 4/23 @ 8:54 am #
“The majority of Americans, like Prager, believe that gays who wish to have a contractual relationship that parallels marriage should have that, but that marriage should not be redefined. ”
I’m not among them. Under the 14th amendment, such a “contractual relationship” would necessarily be open to heterosexual couples, undermining the already weakened incentives for heterosexuals to take take on the duties of the marriage state.
I’ve made my arguments about that before, no need to belabor them now.
Marriage is open to homosexuals, as they are not prohibited by law to marry someone of the opposite sex. This relationship is not closed to them. Many homosexuals have married, loved their wives and husbands and children that might have resulted. So the availability of such a relationship is not “meaningless”, as some have argued. It is required that carnal desires be suppressed. Not that there is anything wrong with that.
Comment by Dan Collins on 4/23 @ 8:58 am #
I’d posted on this earlier, but it was pulled. I heard Prager earlier this week playing the question at the pageant, and then Perez Hilton’s vlog regarding the question and Carrie Prejean’s answer, wherein he called her a bitch. It’s clear from Hilton’s mincing snottiness that in his view, he was the belle of the ball. If he couldn’t be on stage, he was going to make it about himself by hook or by crook.
I’m fine with Hilton getting married; I’m sure he’ll make a beautiful bride, and the best-cunting-looking corpse at any funeral he attends.
Comment by Darleen on 4/23 @ 9:05 am #
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 8:54 am
Alec, I see the value in a civil union statute as not just applying to same-sex couples, but to any couple that is seeking to protect property and delegate medical rights. IE, two elderly spinster sisters or an elderly straight couple who will lose benefits if they marry.
Comment by McGehee on 4/23 @ 9:06 am #
Anybody whose notoriety comes from leeching off Paris Hilton’s notoriety is worth even less of my attention that Paris is. And she’s worth none…
Comment by The Monster on 4/23 @ 9:08 am #
The best comment on “gay marriage” I’ve seen goes like this:
“We could also declare cattle to be vegetables so that vegetarians can eat hamburgers.”
Comment by Matt on 4/23 @ 9:08 am #
The most flamboyent of the gay marriage advocates regularly shoot themselves in the head by screeching about the latest case of “discrimination” against gays. I am against Federal sanctioned gay marriage and I’ve been called a gay hater on numerous occasions. Christians get the same deal- I’ve certainly seen some Christians condemn the lifestyle but you rarely, if ever, see them attacking individual gays, in stark contrast to constant public gay attacks against christians and conservatives who don’t agree with gay marriage.
My position is and always has been, leave it up to the states. I hear all kinds of ludicrous excuses about why gay marriage “must” be nationalized- ie “OMFG what if we want to move to a state where gay marriage is not legal -we’ll be killed!”. My suggestion : “Dont’ fucking move there.” If I don’t want to live in a place where it r ains constantly, I won’t move to the Pacific Northwest. I don’t demand somebody change the weather to accomodate.
I find most of the most prominent gay activists to be essentially irrational. I have a gay friends who agrees- “Perez Hilton sets gay rights back another 5 years. Sigh.” Gays, you’re not going to be able to force same sex marriage down our throats- pun intended.
Comment by Darleen on 4/23 @ 9:10 am #
Dan
I certainly don’t want to give Perez more publicity, but this has sort of morphed beyond him. Moakler’s appalling behavior towards Prejean and the headlines on “news” reports that what Prejean said was “controversial” or “anti-gay” gave me enough pause to want to point out that this is just more of the same marginalizing and demonizing of non-leftists, no matter how non-confrontationally we express our opinions.
Comment by Pablo on 4/23 @ 9:10 am #
If, as Hilton says, men and women are the same, why does he only sleep with men?
Comment by bigbooner on 4/23 @ 9:11 am #
So how did this little smarmy punk even get to be a judge? Was there some sort of quota that had to be filled? Did he take a test? I was going to ask if he sucked someone’s cock but I think I already know the answer to that. What talent does this guy possess?
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 9:12 am #
“Alec, I see the value in a civil union statute”
It is and was the camel’s nose under the tent. My colleagues can draft documents that do 99.9% of what marriage does for two people without exposing them to equitable distribution and alimony when one gets tired of the arrangement. Most of the 0.1% is specific to the ancient laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania shared by few other states.
Comment by Dan Collins on 4/23 @ 9:14 am #
Oh, no, Darleen, I’m not disagreeing with you, I’m just saying that for Hilton to play the Principles Card is beyond absurd. He can suck my dick, but only figuratively.
Comment by Joe on 4/23 @ 9:21 am #
Darleen, you make a good point. Hence the reason that any gay marriage creation is done legislatively and democratically. Most legislation would engage in the sausage making (not packing) process of government where carve outs for religious instutitions, etc. could be made.
I know that many gays want gay marriage more for the government “endorsement” of being gay than actual marriage. But some really do want to be married. Since I believe most people who are gay are born that way (and I do not consider those who are gay morally inferior for being gay), I would vote for extending the institution to same sex couples. Will that end the controversy, hell no. While I do not consider homosexuality a moral defect in itself, I know there are lots of morally depraved people out there who are homosexual, like Perez Hilton. I would also vote that it is okay to believe gay marriage is wrong and not be punished for that.
Comment by Joe on 4/23 @ 9:21 am #
Dan, I was wondering about that. I saw your post and then it was gone.
Comment by happyfeet on 4/23 @ 9:23 am #
Someone might could marry Mr. Perez but only if he’s been saving his monies I think otherwise it seems unlikely. Not a strong value proposition. But the best way to discredit this sort of thing is to legalize it like ok here are your civil rights ok we’re waiting bring on the monogamy. Hah just kidding. Fucking dorks.
Comment by Carin on 4/23 @ 9:24 am #
My position is and always has been, leave it up to the states. I hear all kinds of ludicrous excuses about why gay marriage “must†be nationalized- ie “OMFG what if we want to move to a state where gay marriage is not legal -we’ll be killed!â€. My suggestion : “Dont’ fucking move there.†If I don’t want to live in a place where it r ains constantly, I won’t move to the Pacific Northwest. I don’t demand somebody change the weather to accomodat
But, leaving marriage up to the states doesn’t really work in this instance, now does it? “Opposite Marriages” are recognized reciprocally in all states, and I doubt gays would accept anything less.
I’d just like to take a trip in the wayback machine, when gays like Parez were insisting they didn’t want any part of the hetero lifestyle.
Comment by happyfeet on 4/23 @ 9:24 am #
fascist dorks
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 9:26 am #
“I’d just like to take a trip in the wayback machine, when gays like Parez were insisting they didn’t want any part of the hetero lifestyle.”
It sort of went from “Oh my God stop beating us up in the streets Matthew Shepherd we just want to be left alone!!!!” to “declare your support and endorsement under coercion or be branded” in a fucking nanosecond.
Comment by Dan Collins on 4/23 @ 9:27 am #
Bourgeois bitch is the new avant garde.
Comment by Ginger on 4/23 @ 9:27 am #
#18. Perez and Donald Trump are buddies. Perez was a judge on Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice this season as well. Perez has built himself a lubcrative gossip empire – and anyone who is that successful in any business garner’s Trump’s admiration. That’s capitalism. However, we are also witnessing the power of popular culture to shape the dialogue; which is why it is entirely appropriate to issue a response.
Comment by BJT-FREE! on 4/23 @ 9:28 am #
Alec: Exactly.
I have a particularly difficult situation with my daughter’s boyfriend, whom I love and trust. His aunt just went through a horrible situation (in PA BTW,)with her lesbian partner in that the partner left her, took their adopted child and denied her access. He (boyfriend) is now passionate about Gay Marriage because of this very personal, tragic situation, rejecting any arguments that either legal documentation or civil union status would have alleviated the trouble (or, at least, provided a clearer legal means for rights.)
It’s about defining love, don’cha know. I’ve given up the argument.
I am a Christian and I fully support civil unions or whatever to provide same sex couples legal rights and protections. I take very seriously the concept of “equal protection” as well as the directive to “render unto Caesar.” I’m against the idea that marriage needs to be redefined from its traditional definition to accommodate a gender status or civil rights argument. As long as all of the legal protections are equivalent and in place, we can still celebrate the diversity.
And the separate but equal straw man is crap.
Oh and my sister in law has been with her partner for over ten years and neither of them is interested in getting married and being like “breeders.”
Comment by alppuccino on 4/23 @ 9:29 am #
The Lost Dog had it right. He always said he wasn’t a racist. He said he was a dickist.
This Hilton is a dick.
Comment by Carin on 4/23 @ 9:32 am #
Sorta related, but HA linked a piece the other day advocating that bisexuality for men was OK with women. Even quoted a lady saying it turned her on.
I don’t claim to represent anyone but myself, but as for myself – OH MY GOD NO. NO NO NO. There is no bigger turn-off than a guy who looks at another guy and thinks … “Well, maybe. …”
I can’t help but think that the slow creep of the gay agenda is to blame. When everything is OK, even encouraged because it’s not just PC, but it makes you kinda edgy and cool … I fear, honestly, for young men now-a-days. First they get turned into Pussy- Alan Alda types, then metrosexuals, and now this?
Lordy.
Comment by Carin on 4/23 @ 9:35 am #
Perez was a judge on Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice this season as well. Perez has built himself a lubcrative gossip empire – and anyone who is that successful in any business garner’s Trump’s admiration.
Perez’s speciality is drawing disgusting things onto female celebrity’s photos. Really vile. He’s a real talent, that one.
If he were a straight man … drawing drawing what he does, he certainly wouldn’t be judging a beauty contest, or featured on Larry King Live.
Comment by Pablo on 4/23 @ 9:36 am #
Marriage has exactly nothing to do with that. Unmarried and married straight couples have the same issues. If both are parents, legally speaking, then you go to court and get a custody order. And then you hope it will be enforced. Having been married or not is irrelevant.
Comment by Carin on 4/23 @ 9:36 am #
Darleen, honestly, someone needs to do to Perez Hilton’s face up there what he’s done to others.
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 9:38 am #
“Perez’s speciality is drawing disgusting things onto female celebrity’s photos. Really vile. He’s a real talent, that one.
If he were a straight man … drawing drawing what he does, he certainly wouldn’t be judging a beauty contest, or featured on Larry King Live.”
I think the schtick is “haha, I’m wearing glasses and you can’t hit me but I can say and do anything to you” except his glasses are teh ghey.
Comment by Sdferr on 4/23 @ 9:40 am #
I saw this article, Not Whether but How: Gay Marriage and the Revival of Burkean Conservatism by Jonathan Rauch noted Peter Wehner at Contentions a couple of days ago. Wehner praised it for its even-handedness with the opposing view going so far as to say “Indeed, what is most impressive to me is that Rauch presents something close to a model of what public discourse should be.”
So with that in mind, I thought perhaps it deserves a read. I must confess right now that I haven’t done so yet myself but only offer it up as perhaps a better ground for serious discussion than the empty-headed likes of Perez Hilton.
Comment by JD on 4/23 @ 9:42 am #
Peretz Hilton is a cum-guzzling gutter slut.
Comment by Ginger on 4/23 @ 9:44 am #
Carin, you are right. He is disgusting. But he’s risen to the top of the money/fame game which is some people’s definition of talent.
If Perez was a conservative man who publicly used the “b” and especially the “c” word against a woman opponent, certain special interest groups would work overtime to make sure he was a ruined man.
Comment by Jeff G. on 4/23 @ 9:45 am #
When? By whom? Not me, that’s for sure.
Comment by Carin on 4/23 @ 9:46 am #
I just get a kick out of anyone who is choosing Perez’s side in THIS instance, ’cause it’s funny. HE posed the question, and great amounts of hay were made out of her response.
Comment by JD on 4/23 @ 9:47 am #
Ginger – were a straight white male to have said the exact same things, that person would be vilified beyond belief. There would have been breathless accounts on all of the networks about teh Patriarchy, misogyny, sexism, etc … It would have been a bloodbath. But since Perez is edgy and teh ghey, it is given a pass.
Comment by Abe Froman on 4/23 @ 9:48 am #
I think there is a much better conservative argument to be made for gay marriage than anything I ever hear from the left. But it’s too bad whatever empathy I have is sucked out by these hysterical pinko thought Nazis. Don’t they know that Teleprompter Jesus is against gay marriage?
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 9:48 am #
“I’d posted on this earlier, but it was pulled.
When? By whom? Not me, that’s for sure.”
I saw it too. When you clicked on the orange comments thingie, it produced an error “no comment exists” or something message. Then, went back and refreshed, and it was gone.
Comment by Jeff G. on 4/23 @ 9:48 am #
I just got up fifteen minutes ago. I see two Dan posts “unpublished” in WP. But I didn’t touch them.
Comment by Darleen on 4/23 @ 9:48 am #
Sdferr
I’m about six paragraphs in and I want to shake Rauch by the neck … so far he characterizes people who oppose SSM as people who “don’t know gays exist” and he says traditional marriage as already been erroded by shacking up and divorce (it’s the Het’s fault) so why NOT ssm?
Nothing but f*cking straw.
Maybe it will get better, but this is not a good beginning.
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 9:50 am #
“Teleprompter Jesus is against gay marriage?”
He’s also officially a “Patriot,” but, you know, yeah.
Comment by The Sanity Inspector on 4/23 @ 9:50 am #
The best comment on “gay marriage†I’ve seen goes like this:
“We could also declare cattle to be vegetables so that vegetarians can eat hamburgers.â€
That is indeed a good one!
Comment by JD on 4/23 @ 9:51 am #
This lovely girl should have just said “Just like our dirty little socialist Prezzydent, I am against gay marraige, as my religion informs my politics”. Then she should have whipped out a strap-on and tossed it to that little bitch and told him to suck it.
Comment by Jeff G. on 4/23 @ 9:52 am #
Would be a hoot to see what the feminist bloggers were doing with this…
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 9:52 am #
“says traditional marriage as already been erroded by shacking up and divorce (it’s the Het’s fault)”
This is doubly disingenuous because it was the Second Flush Feminists who were on about destroying the Patriarchal institution and setting womyn free from the “golden cage” what made No-fault Divorce the fashion.
Comment by Sdferr on 4/23 @ 9:54 am #
You’re six para’s ahead of me still Darleen (I haven’t finished my first cup-a-joe even), though I wonder, what became of Pete Wehner’s critical faculties then?
Comment by Jeff G. on 4/23 @ 9:54 am #
Can someone point me to where Hilton uses the “cunt” and “bitch” words in context?
I think it may be time for me to try a little social experiment.
Comment by Jeff G. on 4/23 @ 9:55 am #
Never mind. The link is already in the post.
Comment by Dan Collins on 4/23 @ 9:56 am #
Maybe it has to do with this one bar internet connection I’ve got here.
Comment by leigh on 4/23 @ 9:59 am #
Perez is jealous of Miss Prejean. He’ll never be as pretty as her.
Comment by Carin on 4/23 @ 10:00 am #
I got chastised for calling him a queen on my blog. Despite the fact that his subheader declares him “The Queen of ‘net gossip” or something like that.
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 10:02 am #
“He’ll never be as pretty as her.”
I think he’s jealous of her seemingly infinite choices of the penis from which to pick, though she’ll be exceedingly discriminating, whereas he’d have ‘em all if he could.
Comment by leigh on 4/23 @ 10:03 am #
Call him Nelly or Mary. That’ll teach him.
Comment by Darleen on 4/23 @ 10:14 am #
JeffG
Pam Spaulding at Pandagon castigates Prejean and not one mention of Perez’s misogynist rant.
Nothing on feministe or feministing
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 10:18 am #
“Nothing on feministe or feministing”
Because Prejean is a phony womyn, like Coulter – so he wasn’t really insulting womyn. Make sense now?
Comment by Jeff G. on 4/23 @ 10:20 am #
Oh. Well then Pam is a cunt and a bitch.
Which, it’s okay: I know some gay people, so I can say that.
Comment by Abe Froman on 4/23 @ 10:21 am #
Pam Spaulding at Pandagon castigates Prejean and not one mention of Perez’s misogynist rant.
Nothing on feministe or feministing
Well, we know Sarah Palin wasn’t really a woman in spite of being a prolific breeder on account of they said so. Evidently Prejean isn’t either even though there aren’t many red blooded American men who would pass on being the meat in their girl-girl sammich.
Comment by Mr. Pink on 4/23 @ 10:24 am #
So does this mean I can call Perez a faggot?
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 10:25 am #
“Well then Pam is a cunt and a bitch.”
Pam benefits from being so pitiable that people let her have a blogging career out of misplaced guilt. You look at her and think “she has it tough enough as it is – let’s pretend she’s good at shit, like this here blogging.” A lot like what Kinison said about Whoopi Goldgberg’s career way back when.
Comment by Sdferr on 4/23 @ 10:25 am #
What Pink, you’ve stooped to insulting bundles of sticks?
Comment by Mr. Pink on 4/23 @ 10:28 am #
So by this standard maybe it would be ok for a woman to call Perez a faggot. Or would they have to be a lesbian? This raises so many questions.
Comment by not Carin sockepuppeting on 4/23 @ 10:38 am #
Pandagon is a cesspool.
Comment by Matt on 4/23 @ 10:39 am #
Apparently, Miss North Carolina is in favor of gay marriage. If we really want to see how the converse works, we need Prager or another religious conservative to call her a bitch and c@#$ and see how the left reacts. We’ll never see that b/c conservatives don’t do that. Many gays are very very angry.
And don’t get me wrong- I don’t think she’s either for expressing her opinion – if you’re asked your opinion and you want to give it, then give it.
Comment by happyfeet on 4/23 @ 10:42 am #
I do not get to see the misogynist rant but gay marriage is dorky and turning away from civil unions is a lot turning your back on a very for real social evolution I think. But mostly it’s the drama drama drama that makes me wish gay marriage on these dorks and let them get on with their dorky lives I think, the marrying ones. It’s just so very uncool for these flits to wrap gay relationships up in a heterosexual bow. Lame. But it’s their lame what they can own.
Comment by Sdferr on 4/23 @ 10:43 am #
I’ve just finished reading that paragraph and find your characterization of it incorrect Darleen, particularly this bit “…people who oppose SSM as people who…etc” He does not. He merely says that there are “millions of Americans” who believe that Homosexuality is a choice and not an unalterable condition, and that his argument begins with the opposite assumption. He attributes no other stance to the “homo as choice” belivers, either in opposition or in favor to SSM. That opposition-identification is your leap and carries no necessary weight so far as I can see.
Comment by not Carin sockepuppeting on 4/23 @ 10:45 am #
Comments:
he said what she believes and she deserves the flak she’s getting. If you’re going to stand up for your beliefs, than be ready for the criticism you’re liable to get.
Oh good. Well, then Perez Hilton is a skeezy fag. Look, he stood up for his beliefs! I’m sure he’s ready for that criticism he’s liable to get.
What I think this particular pretty, pretty princess doesn’t get is that this isn’t a matter of being politically correct. In some way, Miss USA represents America. Yes, I know, it’s sickening to think about but it’s true. And America is not just pretty, pretty princesses. There are gay people and lots of other non-white, non-Christian people who identify with the discrimination that gay people face and are sick and tired of it. The wprds of someone who alleges to represent America should actually take into account the diversity of America and not just what her parents told her.
So, speaking your opinion is a great thing, unless your opinion is hurtful to non-white, non-christian gay folks who are sick and tired of your damn opinion. So, when speaking your opinion, take into account the diversity of America and shut your piehole, you cunt.
Comment by happyfeet on 4/23 @ 10:46 am #
Perez Hilton put on a tie and went on Larry King to fight for his civil rights and then afterwards he left the studio and
Comment by Carin on 4/23 @ 10:46 am #
who believe that Homosexuality is a choice and not an unalterable condition
Is this a settled science dealo?
Comment by happyfeet on 4/23 @ 10:49 am #
You know who’s a pretty girl is that Miss California though. I mean for real she’s very striking.
Comment by Darleen on 4/23 @ 10:49 am #
#70 Sdferr
Rauch: “..just ignore them, pretend they don’t exist. This remains a fairly popular answer on the American right, …”
Strawman
Comment by Darleen on 4/23 @ 10:51 am #
Carin
Some homosexuality is, indeed, choice. Which is the irony of the whole “I can’t change my orientation” from people in the LBGT community where at least two of those letters are all about CHOICE.
Comment by Sdferr on 4/23 @ 10:53 am #
Carin, in a polemical dispute, does it have to be a “settled science dealio”? Can’t it be a forthright initial assumption (not to mention, for Rauch, a life experince) stated plainly and up front and thus taken as a common basis on which to proceed, holding the “science” — whatever that may turn out to be (still unsettled, so far as I know) — to the side to be dealt with finally when some clear and generally agreeable account is in?
Comment by Chuck on 4/23 @ 10:53 am #
Matt, I think they asked her after the blowup. Being that she won of course she is in favor of it.
Comment by Carin on 4/23 @ 10:54 am #
Well, that’s what I believe, Darleen. I skimmed the article, and it appeared that the author was arguing that people who believe it was a choice are beginning their rationale with a false premise.
Comment by Brock on 4/23 @ 10:55 am #
Prager doesn’t “school” anyone. Refusing to recognize that gay people deserve families too is obtuse given that we allow single parents. Would the supporters of F/M-only marriage legally require that every child have a registered father?
Gay marriage may not be a perfect institution, but requiring perfection is hardly a legally defensible standard. Freedom to form families is important to. I can think of no logical objection to the non-recognition of gay marriages.
Comment by Ric Locke on 4/23 @ 10:55 am #
Just a grumpy complaint: the bit about cows and vegetarians was originally mine, although I see it’s been rephrased (made better, IMO).
No tipjar here, but I’d like the attribution.
Regards,
Ric
Comment by Carin on 4/23 @ 10:56 am #
Sure, but if I take issue with one of the primary assumptions, how do I follow the rest of his argument?
Comment by Sdferr on 4/23 @ 10:57 am #
Darleen, try to keep an even keel here for a while, please. I’ve seen the bit you just quoted and wonder, what are you getting at with it? It has nothing to do with the first paragraph of this section, but rather with the question he asks just prior to your quoted bit….“And that is the question society faces: in the present situation, what do we do about same-sex couples and their kids?”
Comment by Carin on 4/23 @ 10:58 am #
I don’t believe Prager believes gay people don’t deserves families. I could be wrong, since I don’t really listen to him very much, but I’ve heard some of his arguments against gay marriage, and I don’t believe I’ve ever heard him say that.
In debate, I think it helps if you don’t make statements that are patently false.
Comment by Darleen on 4/23 @ 11:02 am #
Brock
Refusing to recognize that gay people deserve families
Where does Prager do that? Quote please.
Comment by Carin on 4/23 @ 11:03 am #
Sdferr – while I think the author may firmly believe that it wasn’t a choice (for him?), I really don’t see how that can possibly be knowable. And, regardless, what is true for him doesn’t transfer as true for everyone.
In addition, what we are talking about is sex. Sex, sadly, isn’t the same as marriage. There are men that can’t, for the life of them, can’t remain faithful to their wives. That urge for … whatever, is just too strong.
So, why do we attempt to change these men? Advise them to be faithful? They are just following their natural sexual urges. They can’t help how they feel.
Comment by Darleen on 4/23 @ 11:07 am #
Sdferr
I have no problem with discussing the question, but why then back to the IMHO idiotic statement “and conservatives either don’t think gays exist or they want to pretend they don’t exist”.
I’ve finished the article and, sorry, I’m not impressed. He observes some truths — SSM advocates want it NOW and their push gets an equal reaction in the form of DOMA — then discusses all the posturing by all sides ending up with… “Never mind, we’ll get to Gay Marriage with incrementalism sooner or later and isn’t that just swell!”
Comment by JD on 4/23 @ 11:08 am #
Carin – 3 points …
1) Why are you a bisexualphobe?
2) Perez Hilton only draws pictures of what he wants done to himself.
3) They lie because it is easier to argue against an imaginary argument.
Comment by JD on 4/23 @ 11:10 am #
Oh, and to trollboy above – just because you cannot think of a valid argument does not mean one does not exist. It is a failure of good-faith thought on your part, or you are a lying mendoucheous twatwaffle.
Comment by Carin on 4/23 @ 11:10 am #
) Why are you a bisexualphobe?
2) Perez Hilton only draws pictures of what he wants done to himself.
3) They lie because it is easier to argue against an imaginary argument.
1) Aren’t I criticizing the “bad” bisexuality? This one time, in band camp …
2) Uh. Yuck. See #1.
3) Yes, of course. Where’s Brock with that link?
Comment by Sdferr on 4/23 @ 11:11 am #
Guys, I’m going to withdraw from our discussion for awhile, in order to take the time to read the whole article, see what I make of it, and then to return to our discussion. I’m just finding it too hard to be bouncing back and forth, herky-jerky like, trying on the one hand to understand Rauch on his terms and on the other your cogent criticisms of him on yours. I’ll be back after a bit. (These are the wages of my tiny brain. Apologies.)
Comment by Darleen on 4/23 @ 11:12 am #
Brock
If you’re not a driveby troll, answer this please:
What is wrong with society promoting an ideal; ie one man, one woman marriage — NOT banning other relationships, just holding up an ideal of an institution most beneficial to society because it is the most beneficial to children.
Don’t you think, ideally, children deserve a mother and a father married to each other?
Comment by Carin on 4/23 @ 11:14 am #
on’t you think, ideally, children deserve a mother and a father married to each other?
Dang, Darleen, if we ever achieved that sort of ideal, what would we do with all those prisons we’ve built?
Comment by JD on 4/23 @ 11:25 am #
I always loved Andrew Dice Clau on bisexuality – What do you do? Wake up in the morning and flip a coin? Heads I want hairpie. Tails, balls across the nose.
Comment by Mr. Pink on 4/23 @ 11:26 am #
By prison do you mean Democrat voter/Acorn training facility?
Comment by Pablo on 4/23 @ 11:26 am #
Do single parents deserve children? Is that how they get them?
Comment by Pablo on 4/23 @ 11:29 am #
Gay couples deserve children. So, biology is wrong. Procreation is a homophobic institution.
Comment by Carin on 4/23 @ 11:30 am #
Interesting, too, is the use of the word “allow.”
Comment by Darleen on 4/23 @ 11:36 am #
Pablo
Don’t you remember? If we are to change into an egalitarian society, reproduction has got to go.
Comment by BJT-FREE! on 4/23 @ 11:37 am #
Then you are reading impaired, Brock, as several commentators, including me, made logical, rational and non-threatening arguments as to the reasons why marriage should continue to in its traditional form. Jeff G. has made similar arguments many times.
Of course it’s possible that you don’t really care about logic and rationality, preferring instead to tar everyone who doesn’t agree with your position as illogical.
That doesn’t seem very rational.
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 11:47 am #
“I can think of no logical objection to the non-recognition of gay marriages.”
One of my pet annoyances is misuse of the word “logic” by people who seem to think that logic means “sounds right to me.”
Ugh.
Comment by BJT-FREE! on 4/23 @ 11:52 am #
Alec: Dead on!
Smart = Makes me feel good about myself!
Rational = Maximally caring, no matter what the cost.
Hope = No one experiences any misery evah!
Change = What I think works for everyone, regardless of what you think or do.
Comment by Joe on 4/23 @ 11:58 am #
Ms. California is really hot. She is a cutie.
Leave the issue of gay marriage to the states. Legislatively. State supreme court justices looking for attention should find some other issue to dither over.
Perez Hilton is not a mendoucheous asshole because he is gay, he is a mendoucheous asshole for being Perez Hilton.
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 11:59 am #
Just that they seem to have no idea that something can be entirely logical and entirely wrong. Logic is the tool – the “organon.” I thought that was College Philosophy 101? Bunch of old white men and therefore not relevant, I suppose. Then we get fools like Brock misusing the word “logic” until it gets stuck like that and the kids think logic means something that it doesn’t.
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 12:00 pm #
“Perez Hilton is not a mendoucheous asshole because he is gay, he is a mendoucheous asshole for being Perez Hilton.”
Perhaps, but teh ghey seems to give him a tremendous license.
Comment by McGehee on 4/23 @ 12:24 pm #
I applied logic to SSM and could not see any logical way to stop there. If marriage doesn’t involve only one of each sex, what logical reason is there to limit any marriage to just two partners?
Now, if one considers polygamy desirable, one should come right out and say so. But there’s a much stronger argument against SSM in the world we live in now, than there is for monogamy in a world where SSM exists.
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 12:52 pm #
“Now, if one considers polygamy desirable, one should come right out and say so. But there’s a much stronger argument against SSM in the world we live in now, than there is for monogamy in a world where SSM exists.”
They’re against polygamy, unless you just don’t even make a pretense to marry your Baby Mommas.
Comment by Clouseau on 4/23 @ 12:53 pm #
Now, if one considers polygamy desirable, one should come right out and say so.
Equally, if one’s real reasons for opposing gay marriage and abortion are that they conflict with one’s religious beliefs–so that one would oppose those “un-Christian” practices regardless of the logic involved–”one should come right out and say so” then, too.
Right?
Comment by ushie on 4/23 @ 1:02 pm #
In the latest ish of W, the letter from the editor seethes with anger that same sex marriage is not the law of the land, and uses, for her example, Christopher Buckley’s interview about his book about the marriage of his parents–mom drank! Dad was not always supportive!–as her reason. After all, if two people, a man and a woman, were not perfect and still insisted on marrying, then obviously gay people should also be able to marry.
My personal view is that gays should have the right to suffer as much as any other people, but this twat’s excuse for an argument may be the stupidest thing I’ve read all month, and that includes the instructions for getting the maximum out of one’s bailout “rebate.”
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 1:03 pm #
“Equally, if one’s real reasons for opposing gay marriage and abortion are that they conflict with one’s religious beliefs”
Real reasons? There are several – some religious (as in, pretty much all religions, including the cool Eastern ones), some cultural, and the rest sufficient by reason alone.
Pretty much all you and Mizz Hilton have is slipping the rabbit in the hat – that is, using sameness and equality interchangeably. You’re really not all that clever, and you don’t know it.
Comment by BJT-FREE! on 4/23 @ 1:04 pm #
I’ve got no problem with this, although the courts of a few states seem to think they are legislatures. I’ve never been comfortable with the idea of a Marriage Amendment to ther Constitution despite my opposition to redefining marriage.
Brock will be along to challenge my “logic.”
Comment by Darleen on 4/23 @ 1:07 pm #
Comment by Clouseau on 4/23 @ 12:53 pm
can you point us to the closet Xtian?
Comment by BJT-FREE! on 4/23 @ 1:08 pm #
Because one couldn’t possibly have a combination of reasons, religious, personal moral and political, for reaching such a conclusion in an analytical manner involving critical thinking and wrestling with issues …
Oh, wait, that was a cartoon right winger you were talking about! My bad!
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 1:11 pm #
One of my reasons, and one that sticks the best, particularly in light of Mizz Hilton, is that I think that it is a cruel thing indeed for the State to solemnize the expression of a psychological pathology.
I think that is quite logical, to boot.
Comment by Sdferr on 4/23 @ 1:15 pm #
Once again, lemme begin with an apology for my withdrawal back there when you guys had your arguments in hand. So, to return:
A perfectly reasonable question I think, and it is answered here:
And followed by:
Hmmm, this question is a puzzler, and one that might, if you choose, take us on a very long and divergent path, which is not to say that path wouldn’t be of benefit to us, it could well be the most worthy path we might take, at least potentially so, but rather that it is fairly far from the much narrower, more circumscribed questions the article itself raises and the answers, such as they are, which it proposes. Rather than start us off on that road myself, let me pause here to note the presence and the possibility, and then move on.
Regardless whether it is possible to know a thing? If we were to say (truly?) that it is not possible to know a thing, not possible to know it under any conceivable set of circumstances, what can we possibly say about that thing at all? That is, what can we say that might be true for everyone, and not merely contingently true for this one and not-true for that one, a condition in which, it seems to me, we’ve lost any ability to identify the thing we are presumed to be pointing to altogether? Yikes. That way confusion lies. I’m going to wait to address the rest of your argument in #86 Carin, if I may, till once we dig into the meat of Rauch’s own take on the questions, that is, if we get around to that stage.
Let me here turn to Darleen’s #87:
Darleen, I don’t get that this italicized bit is a statement in Rauch’s article, nor even a colorable implication of it, without considerable qualification and stretching to be done first. I mean, I ran a search on the article and can find anything taking that form at all. I do see this in answer to the question I quoted him posing above:
But again, the italicized bit limits the application of “pretend they don’t exist” to only a portion of the “American Right”, and at that, a portion we can take to be of whatever size and strength we choose, since it isn’t further specified by Rauch. What I take to be certain is this, that it isn’t all of the Right, and it doesn’t refer to you nor to me. Further, as a general matter, I think he’s probably correct, there are plenty of people who just don’t give the question the time of day, don’t think about it at all, and thus can be said to ignore it. But so what? Does such a fact eliminate the importance of the questions Rauch wants to (or is asked to, as it seems as though he is writing at the request of a law journal) deal with here? I for one don’t think so. And given your evident interest in the questions raised by the issues in constellation around same-sex marriage, I can’t see that it would for you either.
Is it worth the trouble to go any further than this Darleen, given that you are not impressed and further don’t find his conclusions, tentative though they may be, as particularly salutary? I’m just as happy to drop it if you are, since I’m not someone with a sprinting dog in this hunt, or, on the other hand, if you see fit to carry on taking the article apart to squeeze whatever we can from it, I can follow you thataway too.
Comment by SarahW on 4/23 @ 1:26 pm #
Brock at 80, homosexuality doesn’t block you from having a family. It blocks you from marrying someone of the same sex.
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 1:27 pm #
“Please indulge me by beginning with a stipulation: gay people exist. ”
I think this is where he goes horribly wrong, which is the insidious analogy of gay to race or culture. Gays don’t all originate from Gaysylvania or something. People have been trained and coerced to believe that a man who leaves his wife and children for another man is and was always gay, but the reverse is impossible. You can’t get tired of being black in midlife, correct?
Gay is not an identity, or rather, if you accept that gay is an identity, you’re uncritically accepting a particular line of thought originating from the Frankfort School and Foucault and such who had some insidious motives that are finally bearing fruit. (pardon the pun) There is simply no reason to cede the narrative that we’re in some kind of inevitable rights struggle.
Comment by SarahW on 4/23 @ 1:29 pm #
Actually everyone is blocked from marrying someone of the same sex. Homosexuals aren’t denied the right to marry by law anywhere.
Comment by Sdferr on 4/23 @ 1:31 pm #
can find anything taking, should read, can’t find etc.
Comment by Darleen on 4/23 @ 1:36 pm #
Sdferr
IMO Rauch’s two earlier statements that millions of Americans thinks gays “don’t exist” and it is “fairly popular” on the American right (not extreme Right, not a portion of the Right) want to pretend gays don’t exist is biased and colors his argument more than his “I’m for gay marriage” because he never posits any corresponding opinions about the American Left. He never even USES that phrase.
Don’t you find that problematic even before reading the rest of the article?
I don’t discount his sincerity in advocating SSM as a “conservative” value in that he feels that the institution will be inclusive of gays and I do see the value which is why I support civil unions or contracts spelling out the legal obligations of said couplings, but in his presenting his case for SSM he never acknowledges the profound changes it will necessarily make in society at large by formalizing the lie that same-sex couples are indistinguishable from opposite-sex couples.
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 1:40 pm #
“the lie that same-sex couples are indistinguishable from opposite-sex couples.”
The primary lie is that men and women are interchangeable, thus there is no basis for distinguishing between the relationships between a man and woman, two women, or two men.
Whereas – I’m for diversity in marriage.
Comment by happyfeet on 4/23 @ 1:43 pm #
Same sex marriage is inevitable so there’s that. I know this cause of teh kids. Those ones what all have tattoos to express their individuality. Supporting gay marriage is an easy easy badge of… whatever – it’s a good badge is all they know, except for the black kids and the white kids don’t give a shit what them ones think.
Comment by Makewi on 4/23 @ 1:44 pm #
Equally, if one’s real reasons for opposing gay marriage and abortion are that they conflict with one’s religious beliefs–so that one would oppose those “un-Christian†practices regardless of the logic involved–â€one should come right out and say so†then, too.
Right?
So if I pinky swear that my reasons have nothing to do with religion then it becomes instantly reasonable?
Comment by SarahW on 4/23 @ 1:44 pm #
Why does the law take an interest in sexual relationships anyway? Beuller? CHILDREN. Men and women can make new people. What happens when men and women run amok? Why should society regulate, privilege, OS relationships? Societal order depends upon it. The consequences of children without marriage with multiple partners are severe upon society.
Comment by Sdferr on 4/23 @ 1:44 pm #
I just don’t see that we can logically conflate the two, for reasons that I think I’ve already explained. On the other hand, what ought we to say? Ought we to say, for instance, “No, Mr. Rauch, there are not millions of Americans ( of whatever indeterminate political stripe) who take the position that gay doesn’t exist as a category of the human condition”? And that in the face of Alec’s position just above, not to mention the questions about the assertion that I take it you and Carin share?
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 1:45 pm #
“Same sex marriage is inevitable so there’s that. I know this cause of teh kids.”
If so, we’re pretty well fucked, because they’re all quite certain that the world is going to meet a calamitous end any minute now.
Comment by SarahW on 4/23 @ 1:45 pm #
122 I know it’s true. It’s as inevitable as it is unfortunate and mistaken.
Comment by Sdferr on 4/23 @ 1:49 pm #
Eggs are dear. Sperm is cheap. uh-oh. I see trouble brewing here.
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 1:50 pm #
“And that in the face of Alec’s position just above”
Mine is the historically accurate and philosophically honest position, unless you think that an awful lot of modern Greeks are all suppressing their inborn taste for sodomy. With whom you have sex is culturally determined.
No one ever deigns to give an answer or make an account of how we got here, other than to point at Bruce Villanch and say “there, see.”
Why not give an account, Sdferr?
Comment by BJT-FREE! on 4/23 @ 1:52 pm #
As always, left unsaid, is Rauch’s, Brock’s or Closeau’s thoughts on why a wide margin of African Americans oppose gay marriage. It seems as though the whole “civil rights” meme has been lost on the one identity group that can lay real ownership to “civil rights.
I woinder why that it?
Let our “logical” critics, instead, poke at the Right wing Religious boogeypeople as the symbol of intolerance and “illogic” whilst not even taking the field against the 70% of blacks who voted for Prop 8 while voting 90% for Obama.
We haven’t even touched on our president’s views, have we?
I’m still waiting for those stalwart gay activists to begin picketing black churches in California and calling up employers of Black Christians to let them know that an intolerant bigot works for his company.
Any day now…
Comment by BJT-FREE! on 4/23 @ 1:55 pm #
Yup, that’s right, I WOINDER! WHOOOO!
Comment by Darleen on 4/23 @ 1:56 pm #
Well, Sdferr, there is the problem that Rauch asserts “millions of American believe ‘X’” and never offers any evidence to support his assertion or even why that assertion invalidates the “do no redefine marriage” argument.
It is akin to Lizard-King-CJ’s argument that “millions of Americans are young earthers… therefore any questioning of Darwin is invalid.”
Comment by happyfeet on 4/23 @ 1:56 pm #
I just think it’s important to remember that gay marriage doesn’t have anything at all to do with gays… it’s 100% focused on making Rs look intolerant. It’s a lot more driven by the AP propagandists and NPRs and the various Viacom/CBS properties than it is by actual for real I love you so bad baby I want to spend the rest of my life with you homosexuals.
Comment by BJT-FREE! on 4/23 @ 1:57 pm #
Cuz everybody knows you can pick on the Mormons and the Catholics and they won’t come out and, you know, jack you up and shit.
Comment by kelly on 4/23 @ 1:57 pm #
Particularly if you’re an Olympic weightlifter from one of the old Eastern bloc nations.
Comment by happyfeet on 4/23 @ 1:57 pm #
A lot more driven as in immeasurably disproportionate.
Comment by Carin on 4/23 @ 2:05 pm #
Carin at #82: Sure, but if I take issue with one of the primary assumptions, how do I follow the rest of his argument?
A perfectly reasonable question I think, and it is answered here:
Rauch: Please indulge me by beginning with a stipulation: gay people exist. [...] If you believe, as millions of Americans still do, that everybody is innately heterosexual and that homosexuality is a mere lifestyle decision perversely chosen by persons acting on a self-destructive temptation, then little of what I am about to say will make sense.
It’s not that it doesn’t make “sense” – I simply disagree. Or think the issue simply isn’t so cut and dry. People are – possibly – not gay or straight, but instead a sliding scale between the two. Very gay to very straight, with all sorts of people kinda fuzzy on the whole thing in the middle. Now, if you take that idea, then there are a whole lot of people who do have some “choice” in the matter.
Then, you get into the thought – gee, would it be better to chose to be in a heterosexual relationship to have my kids, or a homosexual one? Right now, society is able to impose a preference, and I think that is a good thing. Certainly gay folks can have kids, and get “married” but it certainly is EASIER to do it the old fashioned way. No interviews with adoption agencies or turkey basters required.
Regardless whether it is possible to know a thing? If we were to say (truly?) that it is not possible to know a thing, not possible to know it under any conceivable set of circumstances, what can we possibly say about that thing at all? That is, what can we say that might be true for everyone, and not merely contingently true for this one and not-true for that one, a condition in which, it seems to me, we’ve lost any ability to identify the thing we are presumed to be pointing to altogether?
Simply because the author really feels that he was gay from conception, doesn’t make it so.
You know, I’m awfully attracted to red heads. I think I was born that way.
Comment by kelly on 4/23 @ 2:06 pm #
Parlor game:
Blacks don’t like gays.
Whites don’t like gays.
Which one isn’t true?
Comment by maggie katzen on 4/23 @ 2:07 pm #
oh gee, yeah, let’s get into my love for “nerdy looking guys with dark hair and glasses”
Comment by Christopher Taylor on 4/23 @ 2:08 pm #
Standard “choice of words” bias the media is pretty infamous for. They do the same thing with abortion.
Comment by Carin on 4/23 @ 2:08 pm #
just think it’s important to remember that gay marriage doesn’t have anything at all to do with gays… it’s 100% focused on making Rs look intolerant. It’s a lot more driven by the AP propagandists and NPRs and the various Viacom/CBS properties than it is by actual for real I love you so bad baby I want to spend the rest of my life with you homosexuals.
I so agree here. To be honest, I have a really hard time caring about this issue. Cause, they can pretend they’re married, but I’m still going to teach my kids that marriage is between a man and a woman, and what they have is a pretend marriage because they have acceptance issues and want everyone to love them.
What I object to are the bad arguments. I just can’t pass on by w/o commenting. It’s a flaw.
Comment by Carin on 4/23 @ 2:10 pm #
You know, Maggie. But they have to be really flaming red heads. None of that strawberry blond shit.
Comment by kelly on 4/23 @ 2:10 pm #
I’m awfully attracted to Miss CA.
Anybody but me think the screen shot of Peretz “Bitch” Hilton looks a lot like a younger, angrier Jeb Bush? Just imagine the horror to Ms. Hilton.
Comment by Carin on 4/23 @ 2:13 pm #
kelly, it must be because you are attracted to bigoted cunts.
Comment by Sdferr on 4/23 @ 2:15 pm #
Umm, I think he does acknowledge the possibility, though his own opinion differs, he is capable of saying he doesn’t know how things will in fact turn out, indeed he says that over and again. In point of fact, it is due to an acknowledged inability to predict the outcome of the changes we see taking place before us that Rauch claims to turn to what he describes as Burkean incrementalism in the first place.
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 2:18 pm #
“the lie that same-sex couples are indistinguishable from opposite-sex couples.â€
Hey, look – the next frontier is making you pretend that a fellow – with a penis – is a woman:
http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2009/04/20/trans-panic-defense-underway-in-trial-for-angie-zapatas-murder/
Of course, “Angie” always knew she was a she, so how dare you question it? A penis is no refutation for gender sincerity. You’re an intolerant hater, you see, if you don’t let them bully you into believing up is down and North is South.
Comment by BJT-FREE! on 4/23 @ 2:19 pm #
Carin: None of which takes into account the relatively silent percentage of gays who don’t want “marriage” as a designation of their commitment. They are the ones who actually celebrate their “difference” from straights and don’t need the imprimatur of societal norm to feel fulfilled in their relationships. As long as they have the legal protections they are way cool with civil unions.
Kelly: Is there a prize?
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 2:23 pm #
“Umm, I think he does acknowledge the possibility, though his own opinion differs, he is capable of saying he doesn’t know how things will in fact turn out, indeed he says that over and again.”
Ooh, ooh, I know – call on me. It will most likely do a lot of what its proponents wanted, to wit:
“It [gay marriage] is also a chance to wholly transform the definition of the family in American culture. It is the final tool with which to dismantle all sodomy statutes, get education about about homosexuality and AIDS into public schools, and, in short, usher in a sea of change in how society views and treats us.” — – Michelangelo Signorile, “I do, I do, I do, I do, I do,” OUT Magazine, May 1996, p.30″
Interestingly, they want to destroy the natural family as in institution in order to enlarge the power and influence of the State – marriage crumbles, single mothers abound, State replaces the father, and so forth. Wasn’t Marx a little stinker?
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 2:24 pm #
“[E]nlarging the concept to embrace same-sex couples would necessarily transform it into something new….Extending the right to marry to gay people — that is, abolishing the traditional gender requirements of marriage — can be one of the means, perhaps the principal one, through which the institution divests itself of the sexist trappings of the past.” — Tom Stoddard, quoted in Roberta Achtenberg, et al, “Approaching 2000: Meeting the Challenges to San Francisco’s Families,” The Final Report of the Mayor’s Task Force on Family Policy, City and County of San Francisco, June 13, 1990, p.1.
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 2:26 pm #
“A middle ground might be to fight for same sex marriage and its benefits, and then, once granted, redefine the institution completely, to demand the right to marry not as a way of adhering to society’s moral codes but rather to debunk a myth and radically alter an archaic institution.” — – Michelangelo Signorile, “Bridal Wave,” OUT Magazine, December/January 1994, p.161
Comment by Carin on 4/23 @ 2:26 pm #
Misgendering. Learn a new term every day.
Comment by happyfeet on 4/23 @ 2:29 pm #
Alec for real I think another way of saying what the Signorile one and the Stoddard one are saying is that gay marriage will mark an acceptance that gays are wholly unremarkable and politically of no particular use anymores to anyone cause all that stuff Signorile said in 1996 has done already happened.
Comment by kelly on 4/23 @ 2:31 pm #
Outed!
Comment by happyfeet on 4/23 @ 2:31 pm #
Also it’s awkward I think when conservatives quote dirty socialist homosexuals what are trying to provoke conservatives into quoting them.
Comment by Darleen on 4/23 @ 2:40 pm #
Alec
I always expect attorney’s to use whatever they have in their rhetorical playbook in a trial. I actually think the jury got it right to convict the guy … an ex-con that beat the victim to death with a fire extinquisher.
But I find this insulting:
Yeah, who would have thought Homo Phobias Redneckus* would recognize murder when they see it?
*SO stolen from The Monster
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 2:42 pm #
“Also it’s awkward I think when conservatives quote dirty socialist homosexuals what are trying to provoke conservatives into quoting them.”
Awkward, perhaps, but evidence that the whole love business is The Big Lie.
They’re just demanding that you watch as they mock Ward and June and the Beav.
Comment by SarahW on 4/23 @ 2:43 pm #
Legal protections….of what? You see, a “psuedo-marriage” has dan gers for regular marriage, as it must necessarily be open to OS couples.
Why shouldn’t OS couples, on whom contraining sexual behaviour of, civilization depends, be privileged with tenants by the entirety provisions, tax benefits upon death of spouse, social security benefits? Why should these benefits designed to make marriage attractive to OS couples the unit that makes the new people, be extended to SS couples? There is no rationality to that, especially when they are legally entitled to get married like anyone else, to a person of the opposite sex.
Comment by SarahW on 4/23 @ 2:46 pm #
There’s no point to SS marriage except to privilege that relationship as OS couples are. And OS couples should be special, and society should not create a “sub marriage” to draw people away from regular marriage.
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 2:47 pm #
“I actually think the jury got it right to convict the guy”
Well, yes. But I think he ought to be able to refer to the fellow with a penis who was born and still legally named “Justin” as a “he.” Justin was not a woman, no matter how many times they demand that you capitulate, or how they bully you.
Comment by kelly on 4/23 @ 2:49 pm #
BJT:Alas, there are no prizes in the game of life. Because everyone is a winner. And remember, you’re is unique just like everyone else.
Comment by JD on 4/23 @ 2:53 pm #
Misgendered? Is that when people all organically want to go all Bobbitt on themselves? This is a funny word. Like looks-ist.
Comment by Buffy on 4/23 @ 2:56 pm #
Look at it this way. She *possibly* got second place in a silly beauty contest because she openly stated, for the whole world to hear, that she thinks one class of citizen deserves fewer rights than another.
Every day in this nation gay people are subjected to indignities like “ex-gay” camps, assaults, being completely cut off from their friends and families, loss of jobs and housing, etc–all for the “crime” of admitting they are gay. And sometimes they don’t even have to admit it. If they are merely suspected of being gay they’ll be treated as such.
So really who are the “thought police” here? Who are the ones willing to to go to any length to impose conformity?
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 2:56 pm #
“want to go all Bobbitt on themselves”
If that no longer qualifies, a priori, as crazy, I’m not sure what does.
Comment by louchette on 4/23 @ 2:56 pm #
the government doesn’t belong in the sacred business AT ALL, period. let government be in the business of civil union contracts, for taxes and insurance and who can make medical decisions and child support and all the rest of the legal logistical stuff. and if people want to get for real married married then they can find a church or religious authority to sanctify that union before g-d. and if they can’t find a church to do it, then tough nooggies for them.
i actually don’t care so much about this issue. but it does bother me tremendously that government is in what i consider the scared business at all. which to me is really what this is about. and, extrapolating from the penumbras of their writing i think the founders probably would have agreed.
Comment by SarahW on 4/23 @ 2:56 pm #
I don’t think it’s ok to create “household partnership” agreements for spinster aunt, odd uncles, or college students or best pals. Legal protections in power of attorney, wills, contracts are available to motivated persons. Same sex-couples who want some permanence or protections can avail themselves on those minor issues of hospital visiting, funeral arrangements, money arrangements, insurance beneficiaries. But you are on your own with health insurance policies, tax benefits, entitlements. These exist to protect the family unit that makes all the new people.
Comment by SarahW on 4/23 @ 2:59 pm #
Louchette, marriage is secular NOW. And needs to exist for the stability of society.
Comment by SarahW on 4/23 @ 3:01 pm #
BUffy that’s not right. She didn’t say that at all. Homosexuals are not a “class of persons who deserve fewer rights” Rather, homosexuals can avail themselves or not of rights they already have, but marriage between men and women is necessary to society.
Comment by happyfeet on 4/23 @ 3:01 pm #
Sort of I think on the health insurance policies, SarahW. A lot they are structured to make working for the people what offer those plans an attractiver proposition and it’s merit-driven who it is these plans are tailored for. This seems ok to me. Or is that naive?
Comment by SarahW on 4/23 @ 3:02 pm #
No one can make you go to ex-gay camp. I presume you wish to decide for others what camps they want to attend.
Comment by ushie on 4/23 @ 3:03 pm #
Yo, Buffy, who’s doing all this to gay people? The police? The government? The judiciary?
Oh, you mean private citizens? Is that what you mean?
Comment by SarahW on 4/23 @ 3:03 pm #
I share your understanding on health insurance policies as an employer benefit.
Comment by SarahW on 4/23 @ 3:03 pm #
171 to happyfeet
Comment by Darleen on 4/23 @ 3:08 pm #
SarahW
it must necessarily be open to OS couples
Why? If SSM cannot marry then OS couples can’t have a civil union. Men don’t use women’s locker rooms and vice versa.
Comment by Darleen on 4/23 @ 3:10 pm #
Buffy
Every day in this nation gay people are subjected to indignities like “ex-gay†camps
Interesting. Do you have a newsletter that describes the helicopters and vans that round up gays and ships them to these camps?
Comment by kelly on 4/23 @ 3:12 pm #
Ridiculous or not?
Comment by Jeff G. on 4/23 @ 3:12 pm #
Ridiculous. She doesn’t believe that two people of the same sex can be married because marriage is, by definition, between a man and a woman.
Homosexual couples can live together and share their love monogamously. What they can’t do is call it “marriage.” And even that they can do. They just can’t force everyone else to recognize it as such.
You can call Spam a steak and shape it like a t-bone, but it’s still Spam.
Comment by kelly on 4/23 @ 3:14 pm #
But of course.
Comment by Darleen on 4/23 @ 3:16 pm #
louchette
please go to 3:10 on the Youtube vid.
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 3:17 pm #
“You can call Spam a steak and shape it like a t-bone, but it’s still Spam.”
Well, it gets scary when they can coerce you to call it a t-bone, when both the pro-Spam folks and you know it isn’t. ‘Tis what happened to Miss California.
Comment by kelly on 4/23 @ 3:18 pm #
Gays, obviously. At least that bitch, Ms Hilton.
Comment by louchette on 4/23 @ 3:19 pm #
well, a few things… first i physically can’t ‘make new people.’ does that mean i shouldn’t be married? should my husband go elsewhere, so that he can have a ‘real’ marriage and make some new people? what about two old widowed people, who can’t make new people? they’re perfectly welcome to marry under the current system, as long as their genders are correct.
and honestly, i come from what looked on the surface like a ‘perfect family.’ and my parents stayed married till my mother died, ‘for the sake of the children.’ and they were accorded much respect for it, for their morality and fortitude. and if you had met them you probably would have thought they were awesome, to sacrifice so much ‘for us.’ but in fact they only stayed married to retain the maximum ability to use their children, as pawns in their sick games as they snuck around and cheated on each other and screwed each other over in every possible way they could think up. from the kids POV, two nice fags in with a nice bourgeois home, with barbecues and soft ball games and homework help and bedtime stories and just some minimal acknowledgment that we kids were actual human beings would have provided a lot healthier environment than the one provided by the two narcissistic, selfish freaks who raised me. people like my parents do a lot more damage to ‘the institution of marriage’ than any stable, loving gay couple ever could.
and i didn’t say secular marriage didn’t exist. just that it bugs the hell out of my that my government is in the marriage business at all. when religion and politics aren’t separated it is always religion (and religious institutions) which are cheapened and debased in that relationship. like ‘marriage’ has been, through its secularization. (imo fwiw.)
Comment by ushie on 4/23 @ 3:19 pm #
Seriously, Buffy, if you’re still here, I’m completely blase about gay marriage, polygamy/polyandry, etc., because I figure if people want to bind themselves in like that, fine. Whatever.
But when you posit that the denial of SSM is a violation of civil rights and then support your contention by suggesting that assaults, shunning, and “ex-gay” camp are in the same arena as civil rights, well, that’s just stupid. And by Federal Law, gay persons cannot be discriminated in matters of housing or employment, so you lose your argument again.
Yes, in a better world, people would be mannerly and ignore everyone’s sexuality as much as possible (thus rendering judgment of any kind completely unnecessary). But in that better world, Perez Hilton would not call a person a bitch or a cunt, and would not decorate photos of people with cum, and would not be able to claim some sort of specious higher moral ground for behaving as the doltish lout that he is.
You want a gay person’s–any random gay person’s–family to accept his or her sexuality with love and understanding–well, that’s very nice. But that happens only family by family, and you cannot make a law saying that every family MUST accept every person’s sexuality (or religion, or political inclination). You don’t want people assaulted–well, assault is illegal. It’s on the books. No one wants our fellow citizens assaulted. You don’t want “ex-gay” camps to exist? Boycott them. But I doubt you can ban them by law, and I would not want you to be able to. (Why? Well, I disagree with the banning of any Boy Scout Camps since the BSA chooses not to accept gay scoutmasters, either. Sometimes you just have to put up that with which you do not personally agree.)
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 3:24 pm #
“and honestly, i come from what looked on the surface like a ‘perfect family.’ and my parents stayed married till my mother died, ‘for the sake of the children.’ and they were accorded much respect for it, for their morality and fortitude. and if you had met them you probably would have thought they were awesome, to sacrifice so much ‘for us.’ but in fact they only stayed married to retain the maximum ability to use their children, as pawns in their sick games as they snuck around and cheated on each other and screwed each other over in every possible way they could think up. from the kids POV, two nice fags in with a nice bourgeois home, with barbecues and soft ball games and homework help and bedtime stories and just some minimal acknowledgment that we kids were actual human beings would have provided a lot healthier environment than the one provided by the two narcissistic, selfish freaks who raised me. people like my parents do a lot more damage to ‘the institution of marriage’ than any stable, loving gay couple ever could.”
And, of course, judging by what the media tells me, teh gays are, without exception, smart and funny and genuinely kind.
Comment by Buffy on 4/23 @ 3:25 pm #
Darleen,
http://www.southernvoice.com/2005/6-17/news/national/index.cfm
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-7721.html
In at least 20 states we can be fired (or not hired at all) just for being gay.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_LGBT_civil_rights_August_2008.png
In just as many states we have no hate-crimes protections
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_LGBT-related_hate_crime_law_in_the_United_States.svg
People need to stop pretending we’re elitists sipping on lattes and controlling everything. It’s very grim where we’re at. If you disagree try pretending you’re one of us, maybe in the “Bible Belt” for a week or so. You’ll learn fast your perceptions are way off base.
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 3:27 pm #
“People need to stop pretending we’re elitists sipping on lattes and controlling everything. It’s very grim where we’re at. If you disagree try pretending you’re one of us, maybe in the “Bible Belt†for a week or so. You’ll learn fast your perceptions are way off base.”
But how do people know that you’re gay in the first place?
Comment by Darleen on 4/23 @ 3:27 pm #
louchette
Marriage is an institution that society has deemed important to its members, just like the military institution. I can point to any number of individuals that have failed at the institution of the military (which is restricted, just as marriage is), that doesn’t invalidate the military as a beneficial institution.
Divorce is not the measure of failure of marriage, it is the measure of failure of one or both people who had entered into the institution of marriage.
Comment by Darleen on 4/23 @ 3:33 pm #
Buffy
Teens are “forced” to go to all sorts of things they don’t like. Their parents are in charge. Or do you think we should just ban parents altogether and have kids raised by the government?
Labor laws are up to states. If someone is fired for “being gay” (excuse my cynicism, but odds are, IMO, that is just a handy excuse for effin’ up the job) that’s tragic, but why should that be any more illegal than being fired for being fat? or too short? or just pissing off the boss that day?
I hate “Hate Crime” statutes because murder is murder and the victim is just as dead.
Comment by Buffy on 4/23 @ 3:34 pm #
Ushie,
And by Federal Law, gay persons cannot be discriminated in matters of housing or employment, so you lose your argument again.
That’s in Federal employment. On a state by state basis the laws vary greatly. In CA or MA we have good protections for housing and employment. In AL or MI forget it.
Check out this scorecard from eQuality giving.
http://www.equalitygiving.org/States-of-Equality-and-Gay-Rights-Scorecard
States have a score ranging from 0.5 to 6.0. Plenty of states have scores in the 0.5-1.5 range, which means we have few, if any legal protections. We can be denied jobs and housing, we can’t marry or even get domestic partnerships/civil unions, we can’t adopt, we don’t have hate-crimes protections etc. We don’t rate as anything under the law. The better states have higher numbers which means our protections and rights approach those of our heterosexual counterparts. For a few brief shining months CA had a rating of 6.0, but thanks to Proposition 8 they’ve dropped back down to a 5.5.
We don’t want “special rights”. We just want the same rights everybody else takes for granted. Nothing more.
Comment by Buffy on 4/23 @ 3:35 pm #
But how do people know that you’re gay in the first place?
How do people know you’re straight in the first place?
Comment by Darleen on 4/23 @ 3:38 pm #
It’s very grim where we’re at
You know, I don’t remember the kernal of the rant, but when #3 daughter was about 15 she was yelling at me about something or other and I interrupted her and said, “Sweety, you’re saying this as if you think I was never 15 y/o.”
“But mom! That was so long ago, you don’t KNOW what we go through today! Life people my age is SO MUCH TOUGHER than it was for you! YOU never faced what we face!”
It took everything to keep from laughing because I think I said about the same thing to my mom when I was 15.
But I grew up.
Grow up, Buffy.
Comment by Makewi on 4/23 @ 3:38 pm #
We just want the same rights everybody else takes for granted.
An interesting comment coming from someone who thinks that “hate crimes” should be considered more egregious. Also, if you simply wanted the rights inherent in the institution of marriage, why do you push for the redefinition of the word?
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 3:38 pm #
“We don’t want “special rightsâ€. We just want the same rights everybody else takes for granted. Nothing more.”
You want rights as a homosexual, which means you want Grannie Fuckenmutch, the Lutheran Church organist, to have to hire you at her family bakery and have to listen to you yap about your life and times. That’s not a right, properly understood, but a positive right to impose yourself on the Fuckenmutches.
Comment by Buffy on 4/23 @ 3:39 pm #
Homosexual couples can live together and share their love monogamously. What they can’t do is call it “marriage.†And even that they can do. They just can’t force everyone else to recognize it as such.
I really don’t give a toot if people like yourself don’t “recognize” my marriage so long as the important parties do (the governments, my employer, insurers, etc.). It’s about the rights and obligations that come with it, not anybody else’s “acceptance”.
Maybe if people would stop trying to force their churches into our civil marriages there would be fewer problems, eh?
Comment by Darleen on 4/23 @ 3:40 pm #
We just want the same rights everybody else takes for granted
You have the same right to marry I do. You just need a partner of the opposite sex. No marriage statute requires you declare either your sexual orientation nor does it require “love.”
Any more Talking Point canards you’d like to trot out?
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 3:40 pm #
“How do people know you’re straight in the first place?”
They don’t, necessarily, because I don’t really talk about myself gratuitously.
Comment by JD on 4/23 @ 3:41 pm #
Buffy likes to be a victim. It is a badge. And she is dishonest, given her above arguments, or lack thereof.
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 3:42 pm #
“Maybe if people would stop trying to force their churches into our civil marriages there would be fewer problems, eh?”
Plenty of norms get married before Magistrates or Sea Captains, no?
Comment by louchette on 4/23 @ 3:42 pm #
marriage may be an institution that ’society’ has deemed important to its members. but a lot of current members of society don’t seem to agree, or even care.
and for me it will always come down to the fundamental question of does government have the right to decide these questions or interfere in peoples’ lives in this manner? and in almost every case (and the military is an exception) i would say, with the founders, an emphatic no.
but i’m going to politely back off, and pleasantly agree to disagree with you. there are a lot of bigger, uglier, scarier fish for us to fry right now. what with emperor urkel and the filthy socialist cabal a (slight) majority of our society has elected to rule us.
Comment by Darleen on 4/23 @ 3:42 pm #
Jaysus on a Pony, Buffy,
Maybe if people would stop trying to force their churches into our civil marriages there would be fewer problems, eh?
MARRIAGE has always been heterosexual. There has NEVER ever been, anywhere, religious OR SECULAR same-sex marriage.
STOP forcing your radical change on the rest of us.
Damn, you MUST be 18 y/o…the hubris and arrogance is astounding.
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 3:43 pm #
“I really don’t give a toot if people like yourself don’t “recognize†my marriage so long as the important parties do . . . my employer . . .”
I suppose she hasn’t given any thought to what might happen if her “employer” was a “people.”
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 3:45 pm #
“i would say, with the founders, an emphatic no.”
Which founders made their objections to State recognition of marriage known?
Comment by Darleen on 4/23 @ 3:46 pm #
but a lot of current members of society don’t seem to agree, or even care.
To our long term detriment, louchette. Without a strong commitment to intact families, we will become lotus eaters and then wither away.
Look at Europe
Comment by Darleen on 4/23 @ 3:48 pm #
BTW, louchette?
Don’t you understand the undermining of intact families plays into the socialist/fascist hands? Don’t marry and be independent, have Government as your partner who will take care of all your needs.
Comment by ushie on 4/23 @ 3:49 pm #
Ok, Buffy, I looked at the scorecard. First, I don’t agree with the “hate crimes” category in the first place. Child molesters aren’t charged under it. Rapists aren’t charged under it. Most murderers aren’t charged under it. And what is more hateful–which is the more “hateable” murder? What the hell criteria is there? Arthur Shawcross, who killed 2 children, then raped their corpses, and then ate their genitals, wasn’t charged with a hate crime. He also wasn’t charged with hate crimes when he beat, mutilated, murdered, raped, and ate the genitalia of his adult victims. I happen to believe he kinda hated them all. So why are his crimes less hateful than Matt Shephard’s killers’ crime?
Second, explain to me what the hell the “youth” category is.
Third, again, you seem to expect the perfect rather than the bearable. Go find some poor white scraping by in the hell that is Appalachia, the butt of everybody’s allowable jokes, and live that way for a while. Then come back and talk to us about that life.
Fourth, in the world of manners to which I hope we can all attain membership some day, no one would know to whom one directs one’s affection at any other time than to ask if there’s another name to be added to the invitation to dinner. I have my foolish dreams, too.
Comment by louchette on 4/23 @ 3:49 pm #
alec, i wasn’t being specific about the case of marriage, but looking to core principles and foundational assumptions. i know i won’t get to see it, not in my lifetime, anyway. but i would prefer to see government constrained in their coercive power over citizens in nearly every way possible is all.
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 3:50 pm #
“[Buffy's] Comments Policy/House Rules
1. The IP addresses of all site visitors are recorded automatically by our server and by Haloscan.
2. Threats of any kind will be reported to the appropriate authorities, your ISP and/or all other pertinent individuals.
3. Don’t bother leaving comments with Bible verses, admonishments to read the Bible, etc. The same goes for other “holy booksâ€. Such books are of no validity to me and your comments will go into the memory hole. Ditto for proclamations of what god, allah, xenu, uranus and other sky-fairies think about anything I do or say.
4. This is my blog, not your church or your bully-pulpit. You do not have any “right†to speak here, merely a privilege I grant or withhold. If you want to spew anti-gay, anti-atheist, RRRW rhetoric do it on your own blog or on a RRRW site. Disagreement and dialogue are welcome. The kind of garbage I could get by hanging out at a RRRW church or watching Fox News are not.
5. If you leave a nasty comment and I do approve it–which is my prerogative–don’t get your panties in a wad when I (or others) respond to you in a like manner. Ye reap as ye sow.
6. These rules may be changed/updated as needed.”
It takes an enormous degree of stupid to prescribe quoting scripture, and then proceed to quote St. Paul as a “House Rule.”
Comment by kelly on 4/23 @ 3:51 pm #
I hear Tehran is lovely this time of year, you whiny simp.
Comment by JD on 4/23 @ 3:51 pm #
The irony of Muffy claiming to want the same “rights” as everyone else while demanding all sorts of special protections under the law is rich. HOMOPHOBES !!!!
Her caricature of middle America was rather amusing too.
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 3:52 pm #
prescribe should be proscribe. Carry on.
Comment by louchette on 4/23 @ 3:52 pm #
on your last two comments (@ 202 and 203) we are in perfect agreement, darleen. but that doesn’t change the realities of the world in which we actually live. if wishes were horses, etc….
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 3:53 pm #
Shorter Buffy: “Don’t quote scripture, or as St. Paul sez, you’ll reap what ye sow.”
Comment by ushie on 4/23 @ 3:54 pm #
I am all for declaring whomever-the-hell as the beneficiary of insurance, wills, trusts, yaddayadda.
I think the sexuality of a parent should OBVIOUSLY never particularly enter the mind of the child, so child custody in that case is fine (children should just generally never have to know anything about sex/parents. Ick.). Ick.
and what people do at home should never, never become an issue or topic of conversation at work. Ick.
But maybe that’s just me.
Comment by blowhard on 4/23 @ 3:56 pm #
I take almost exactly the opposite approach.
These “rights” you speak of are paid for by single people. Single people say, yes, I’m willing to pay more and get less because I want to help married people. Or, more precisely, help their children. Or, more precisely, keep their children as a net societal positive.
So, I’m willing to give spousal insurance coverage, legally recognize them as joined, defray some medical and dental through the company plan. To encourage and help long term pair bonding. And, why do humans encourage long term pair bonding? Because we create wildly advanced new organisms every generation that require years of training and socialization. Children.
On the other hand, personally? If a friend or relative invited me to a commitment ceremony or something? I’m showing up, bringing a gift and dancing the funky chicken with you.
Comment by kelly on 4/23 @ 3:56 pm #
Oh, lookie here. Buffy evidently decided to troll what must be to her a RRRW blog to whine.
Comment by JD on 4/23 @ 3:58 pm #
What is a RRRW ?
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 3:58 pm #
“Oh, lookie here. Buffy evidently decided to troll what must be to her a RRRW blog to whine.”
What’s funny is, she could troll here indefinitely, or meaningfully engage in dialogue, neither of which are allowed on her own site. Methinks she is afraid of the latter.
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 3:58 pm #
“What is a RRRW ?”
My guess is that one of the “Rs” stands for “Reich.”
Comment by JD on 4/23 @ 4:08 pm #
Of that there was no doubt, Alec. I suspect it is some combination of rectal reich and Republican. Why is Muffy a hater?
Comment by meya on 4/23 @ 4:21 pm #
“In an alleged “news†article, her comments are considered “anti-gay—
It said ‘anti-gay-marriage’ But in todays world of the ‘politics of meaning’ i guess you can read it any way you like it.
“Joe, don’t you see what would happen if SSM is legalized? ANYONE that expresses the opinion that gay couples are different from straight couples would be vilified, marginalized, fired from jobs, etc, because they would be as “discriminatory†as a person who expressed racist opinions.”
I think we are heading down the road to a world where discrimination against homosexuals is held to the same social and moral opprobrium as discrimination on the basis of race or gender. I don’t think there’s stopping this. There may be ways to speed us up or slow us down on this road, but we’re not going to turn around. As for the place that SSM has in this? I think the argument is whether it is a mere milepost on that road or actually speeds us up along it. I waver between the two. But a causal link like you say? That I don’t think it is. The cause is much bigger.
Comment by ushie on 4/23 @ 4:21 pm #
However, we have forgotten what is most important: Mocking, reviling, and deriding the insult to all of humanity that is the mendoucheous and pukesome Perez Hilton.
Buffy, thoughts?
Comment by meya on 4/23 @ 4:23 pm #
“And, why do humans encourage long term pair bonding? Because we create wildly advanced new organisms every generation that require years of training and socialization. Children.”
Gay couples have children. Sometimes their own. Sometimes adopted. Like lots of straight couples.
Comment by Jeff G. on 4/23 @ 4:23 pm #
You should be working on fixing this problem; I suspect you’d get a lot of support from the people here who don’t want to see the definition of marriage fundamentally changed.
You should. Because it’s people like me who are listening and deciding. I have no religious convictions that keep me from supporting same sex marriages.
See, you really need to understand your audience better. I mean, I’m supposed to care about your desires, and yet you can’t be bothered to understand the audience to whom your speaking?
Sorry. That doesn’t win you points with me.
Comment by meya on 4/23 @ 4:30 pm #
“You should. Because it’s people like me who are listening and deciding. ”
That’s the sort of thing that makes this issue so sticky. It’s the majority deciding on what to grant the minority. A classic American tale.
Comment by LTC John on 4/23 @ 4:30 pm #
“Gay couples have children. Sometimes their own.”
Oh really? Do explain the biology of that. And no slippery “oh, they had them with a member of the opposite sex and took ‘em into the new relationship” now…
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 4:31 pm #
“It’s the majority deciding on what to grant the minority.”
Better than the reverse, which is how you would have it – and too often do.
Comment by Darleen on 4/23 @ 4:31 pm #
a world where discrimination against homosexuals is held to the same social and moral opprobrium as discrimination on the basis of race or gender.
But that is a false premise. A lie. The sexes are not the same.
As Prager says in the vid above “There is no difference between a black human and a white human, but there are profound differences between a male human and a female human.”
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 4:33 pm #
” . . . but there are profound differences between a male human and a female human.â€
That is, unless and until they make us pretend that that fellow with the penis canonized at Feministe is a woman becauseisayso.
Comment by Sdferr on 4/23 @ 4:34 pm #
And themselves, come what may, to be honest about it.
Comment by louchette on 4/23 @ 4:36 pm #
alecs @183 teh gays are just like any other human people. and i grew up around a lot of them, and have plenty of gay friends, some maintained since toddlerhood (and i am old!) some are wild, some are timid, some are liberal, some are conservative, some are smart, some are way stupid, some are pretty, some are ugly, some are kind, some are cruel, some are everything and anything that humans beings are capable of possibly being. and some would have certainly been far worse than my parents. and some would have been as bad. but most would have been better. just as most OS couples would have been. but as a kid it wouldn’t have mattered to me who it was, what gender they were. and not having to know about their sex lives (whatever they were) would have come as a great relief.
as long as someone was teaching me well and with some enthusiasm, nurturing my good tendencies, teaching me to understand control my ungood tendencies, showing me genuine kindness and warmth and empathy and patience, and setting reasonable limits on my behavior.
i’m not saying gay parents would have been awesome by definition, just that they could have been better. that who the people are isn’t always as important as what they do to shape the new person.
Comment by Jeff G. on 4/23 @ 4:36 pm #
Have a coup and install a benevolent king, then.
Oh, wait —
In all seriousness though, you don’t need to convince me to get my vote; you need to convince me to get my advocacy.
And as Alec noted, why is forcing the views of the minority onto the majority any more “fair,” in your mind? Or is this just another example of “leveling the playing field” by “breaking down bourgeois values.”
I’m not even convinced most homosexuals care about gay marriage. And I’ve read plenty that’s led me to believe that it is an issue being used to prepare the ground for a fundamental re-imagining of the social unit that has served society so well for quite some time now as a means for propagating the species.
Comment by ushie on 4/23 @ 4:36 pm #
Buffy, yes, equal protection under the law. Yes, equal protection so far as economic and civil matters. Yes.
But seriously, look at that picture of Perez Hilton up here. Look at the expression on his puffy lardy puss. It’s like he stinks and can’t stand the stench of his own douchitude. While I generally abhor violence, Perez Hilton I would headbutt if ever I got the chance–just to make him cry like the whiny little girl I know he is under all that gossipy mavenmoronity that comprises his entire reason for being. What a Tool Supreme. I would love to introduce him to Amadinnerjacket–hilarity would ensue. At least for me.
How can you bear to have this swollen grotesquery as your spokesmodel, Buffy? How can you possibly think you can bring regular whitebread (of all colors) people to your way of thinking with this putrescent sac of fetid piggery calling a woman a cunt and a bitch for answering a question in a manner not to His High Rancidness’ liking?
Comment by meya on 4/23 @ 4:38 pm #
“Oh really? Do explain the biology of that. ”
Imagine if octomom had a lesbian girlfriend. Sort of like that.
“Better than the reverse, which is how you would have it – and too often do.”
You mean gay people would get to decide whether straight people got married? Like “Honey, it’s people like me who are listening and deciding.”
“But that is a false premise. A lie. The sexes are not the same.”
Sure but you don’t need them to be ‘the same’ for there to be discrimination that is morally and socially unacceptable. The sexes are not the same, but anyone that says that women can’t be CEOs or that a man can’t be a primary caregiver is a moron.
Comment by meya on 4/23 @ 4:41 pm #
“Have a coup and install a benevolent king, then.”
Or treat it like we treat other ways of preventing majority from treating minorities unfairly.
“And as Alec noted, why is forcing the views of the minority onto the majority any more “fair,†in your mind?”
Because the majority is not being told who they can marry.
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 4:42 pm #
“for a fundamental re-imagining of the social unit that has served society so well for quite some time now”
This, I think. They’ve been pushing the single mothehood (needs daycare, healthcare, WIC, sundry subsidies) for a while. Eventually we’ll get to the point that they’ll come to pick up your infant at the hospital to be raised kibbutz-style by “expert” parents, and you’ll be allowed to visit if you’re good.
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 4:46 pm #
The dumb goes like this:
Rights are, by nature, anti-majoritarian, ergo, rights are whatsoever the minority declares them to be. That, in a nutshell, is the last 4- or so years of Supreme Court rights jurisprudence.
Comment by Makewi on 4/23 @ 4:47 pm #
Because the majority is not being told who they can marry.
Yes they are.
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 4:48 pm #
“Because the majority is not being told who they can marry.”
Sure they are – you have to pick from the few billion or so people who are of the opposite sex, not your relatives, and old enough to consent. Plus, they have to agree.
Same set for teh gays.
Say it with me: every marriage needs diversity.
Comment by happyfeet on 4/23 @ 4:49 pm #
The essential problem is it’s dorky for a man to marry another man and it’s not dorky for a guy to marry a woman. I don’t know how we resolve that, but the more people what encounter these dorky awkward cringe-inducing ceremonies the more better they will understand I think.
Comment by meya on 4/23 @ 4:49 pm #
“Yes they are.”
That’s a clever ambiguity you’ve hit on. My fault. The majority is not being told who they can enter into marriages with.
Comment by SarahW on 4/23 @ 4:50 pm #
Buffy, are you seriously arguing that homosexuality should be a protected class of person? In my state at-will employment is the rule and default. You can be fired for any or no reason at all. No one is assumed to have a right to any particular job.
Comment by Jeff G. on 4/23 @ 4:50 pm #
Neither are the minority, in the sense you mean it.
They are being told what marriage is and what it isn’t. They can marry whomever they want within those parameters.
But so long as we’re on the subject, from your standpoint, are there any couplings for purposes of marriage between consenting adults you are against? And if so, how do you justify the opposition?
Comment by meya on 4/23 @ 4:51 pm #
“Sure they are – you have to pick from the few billion or so people who are of the opposite sex, not your relatives, and old enough to consent. Plus, they have to agree.”
And another ambiguity. They’re not being told that by a minority.
Comment by Jeff G. on 4/23 @ 4:52 pm #
So?
Comment by Jeff G. on 4/23 @ 4:53 pm #
You mean by protecting civil rights? Okay, done!
Next!
Comment by Jeff G. on 4/23 @ 4:54 pm #
I’ll pick this up later. There are draft shows I need to be watching just now. Do pay attention to 242 though, meya, Buffy, et al.
Comment by kelly on 4/23 @ 4:55 pm #
Me, neither. And to further establish my RRRW bona fides, I would repeat what I wrote on this blog some years ago: gay “rights” is primarily a middle to upper class, white issue. Minorites overwhelminnlg disapprove of gay marriage and blacks, in particular, take umbrage at gays appropriating their civil rights movement.
Prove me I’m wrong, Buffy.
Comment by Makewi on 4/23 @ 4:55 pm #
The majority is not being told who they can enter into marriages with.
Once again, yes they are. The one man one woman traditional definition is further refined in our society to include limitations on age and blood relation.
Comment by happyfeet on 4/23 @ 4:55 pm #
But the thing also is that having this discussion as if gay marriage wasn’t legal is not helpful. It’s legal. You can get gay married in a growing list of places. That’s like exponentially more gay married than you could get just a few years ago.
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 4:55 pm #
“And another ambiguity. They’re not being told that by a minority.”
I wonder when meya will come around to a point?
Comment by SarahW on 4/23 @ 4:58 pm #
181 – you don’t get it. The state (as in the government) has no interest in whether any individual marital couple procreates , only that the sexual behaviour that produces new people is contrained by, and takes place within, marriage. Marriage exists because the sexual union of men and women produces children.
Comment by meya on 4/23 @ 4:58 pm #
“They are being told what marriage is and what it isn’t. They can marry whomever they want within those parameters.”
This is one of my favorite arguments.
“But so long as we’re on the subject, from your standpoint, are there any couplings for purposes of marriage between consenting adults you are against? And if so, how do you justify the opposition?”
This one is also among my favorites.
I don’t think we should legally recognize couplings of more than two people, or between close family members, or between those who are not adults. For all the reasons people usually use. Because I want to encourage couplings and create stable families. And because the system is built for 2, not more than two.
But in general, I don’t feel the need to have any justification or opposition. I can just stay silent and say “Honey, Its people like me who are listening and deciding.”
I also find people who have a lot of marriages icky, but I reserve that as just moral opprobrium and chalk it up to me having a different view of the “sanctity of marriage” than they do.
Comment by meya on 4/23 @ 5:00 pm #
” They’re not being told that by a minority.
So?”
I made that point in response to the idea that I wanted the reverse of the majority ruling upon minority — the minority imposing upon the majority. If the majority is making rules for the majority then the majority can go fix it.
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 5:01 pm #
“I want to encourage couplings and create stable families.”
This is a lie. You want to pretend this now, after decades of destroying the institution as Patriarchal and bourgeois and contributing to suburban sprawl and in the way of bloody “progress.”
Comment by happyfeet on 4/23 @ 5:03 pm #
What might be illustrative is if the non-promoted firefighters gay married each other and then failed to get promoted. Then the black ones what failed the test would have to get gay married or lose out. I’m not sure what this would be illustrative of but it would be very thought-provoking and very likely Of Great Importance and NPR would have to do a series of stories.
Comment by blowhard on 4/23 @ 5:03 pm #
“Gay couples have children. Sometimes their own. Sometimes adopted. Like lots of straight couples.”
Yes, true, meya. As do plenty of single people. As do plenty of long term but unmarried non-single people. As do widows and widowers. As do some legal guardians. And, frankly, this concerns me, as the children might not be getting the investment they require. But, marriage, being a human institution isn’t perfect, it’s good enough.
If you want to talk about how to make sure that kids are assured a resource adequate, stable upbringing outside of traditional marriage, fine. I think it’s worth talking about, especially as there are so many single parents nowadays.
Comment by Makewi on 4/23 @ 5:03 pm #
The reason the civil rights comparisons fall short is that the definitions for liberty and freedom don’t contain an aside stating “except for them darkies”, and so slavery and Jim Crow were always at odds with the definitions. The traditional definition for marriage does contain gender specific terms.
That said, I support the idea of civil unions that provide all the legal protections of marriages for same sex couples.
Comment by meya on 4/23 @ 5:04 pm #
Sprawl does suck. I do feel sorry for those people.
Comment by Sdferr on 4/23 @ 5:05 pm #
Hobbes, de Cive, Chap.1, VII:
That is just the account of the first right (well, sure, the only crucially important right in Hobbes scheme, but hey…) By all means, check out where that gets us — the war of all against all! How cheery! But that won’t do. So we come to contract. But we see, that contract bit is something we do, we make, it isn’t clear that Hobbes views it as a “natural” thing in the same way that “dogs barking” or “female humans menstruating” is viewed as a natural thing.
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 5:08 pm #
“Sprawl does suck. I do feel sorry for those people.”
Not really. That’s why you try and cramp them in those tiny dorkmobile Priuseses.
Comment by happyfeet on 4/23 @ 5:09 pm #
I was waiting at Ralph’s for the elevator when a personage of Gay Affluence got out and in his shopping cart he had these two little little black twin boys what were dressed in matching camo pants and he was talking to them and referring to himself as “Papa” and who goes with “Papa” these days instead of “Dad” I thought but whatever they sure were cute but when I got in the store I looked and looked and he must have gotten the last two.
Comment by SBP on 4/23 @ 5:09 pm #
Imagine if octomom had a lesbian girlfriend. Sort of like that.
The lesbian girlfriend would not be the parent, barring formal adoption proceedings. Neither would a boyfriend, unless he happened to be the sperm donor.
But do keep spinning, SFAG.
Comment by louchette on 4/23 @ 5:13 pm #
i’m not sure i understand the question, sarahW. and that’s not snarky, it’s genuine confusion. while i do think in some ways it is a good policy to encourage the formation of families and reproduction (human and cultural as well) i still find it coercive. and i think it’s not the state’s business. the culture is another matter. i’m not averse to peer pressure in maintaining healthy norms. and i apologize if those views seem paradoxical.
Comment by SBP on 4/23 @ 5:13 pm #
Sprawl does suck. I do feel sorry for those people.
You mean the people who have families, and thus enjoy having yards? Not to mention other open spaces for the kids to play — ones that aren’t littered with discarded hypodermic needles and crack vials.
Oh, if only everyone could be a bitter, lonely “progressive” living in some rathole city apartment.
I suspect they’d be amused by your pity, SFAG. Perhaps one day you’ll grow up enough to understand why, but I doubt it.
Comment by Darleen on 4/23 @ 5:21 pm #
i still find it coercive
Who is coercing you into marriage? The state is strictly neutral on relationships outside of marriage. The institution of marriage is just there and it is your choice to either pony up the bona fides to participate or just live on any way you like.
Kind of like the institution of the military. It’s a volunteer organization with narrow parameters to partake of it, and benefits accruing from it unavailable to non-military members.
I don’t find its existance “coercive”.
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 5:25 pm #
“I don’t find its existance “coerciveâ€.”
You would if you were a narcissist and believed that a society exists to affirm your delicate predilections and uniqueness.
Comment by meya on 4/23 @ 5:27 pm #
“You mean the people who have families, and thus enjoy having yards?”
People with long commutes that have to drive everywhere. And their teenage kids. Sexting and listening to screamo hardcore crap in their suburban heavens.
Comment by Sdferr on 4/23 @ 5:28 pm #
Really? I don’t think survivor benefits from Social Security to a spouse can be considered strictly neutral when a single person’s contributions into the system get swallowed up when that single dies pre-retirement age.
Comment by peter jackson on 4/23 @ 5:40 pm #
“We could also declare cattle to be vegetables so that vegetarians can eat hamburgers.â€
1919 version:
We could also declare women to be voters so they can…vote.
Comment by Darleen on 4/23 @ 5:43 pm #
Sdferr
Then one’s argument is with SocSec. The rules can and should be changed so any earner can designate a beneficiary. What if the earner were a single woman who dies and has been taking care of her mother who never worked? Why shouldn’t the daughter designate her mom beneficiary?
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 5:48 pm #
“We could also declare women to be voters so they can…vote.’
Wow, teh clever!
Comment by Sdferr on 4/23 @ 5:48 pm #
I don’t disagree as to changing (or my preference, eliminating) Social Security Dar, not a bit. The only reason I brought it up is that as current structured it does stand as a thumb on the scale in (slight) favor of marriage against “other”.
There may well be many other such slight favoritisms, which no doubt the SSM advocates can list for us, sprinkled judiciously throughout the US Code. But so much for strict neutrality.
Comment by SBP on 4/23 @ 5:51 pm #
People with long commutes that have to drive everywhere.
They do that by choice, SFAG.
I mean, they could cram everybody into a crappy little city apartment, 19th Century style. Nothing’s stopping them, right?
But they don’t.
Why do you suppose that might be, SFAG?
Hint: Because living in an urban environment with small children sucks ass. Because they can afford cars and gas (at least until your fascist Presentdent destroys the oil industry).
You really need to take off your blinders and look outside your fascist “EVERYONE MUST BE LIKE ME” worldview, SFAG. For that matter, do some research into the actual lives of lower-middle and lower-class people during the heydey of the “urban” lifestyle you romanticize. It wasn’t very pretty.
I was going to suggest that you wait until you have children, but that won’t work, for two reasons:
1) You’re so narcissistic that you’d have no problem making your children suffer so you could maintain your pretentious urban hipsterhood.
2) Your soul is so ugly that it’s hard to imagine anyone ever choosing to breed with you.
Comment by louchette on 4/23 @ 5:51 pm #
the institution of marriage isn’t coercive. the state involvement in it is. sorry if that was unclear on my part. and again, i don’t have a problem with the potential coercive or encouraging powers of the culture. i only have issues when it is the government, the state. the military is well covered in our founding documents. marriage and family arrangements not so much.
one reason i said earlier that i would politely agree to disagree with darleen is i know she, both of you, are farmore socially conservative than i am, and less libertarian. and it’s okay. i totally respect those positions. and our differences a mere quibble compared to the differences i have with the other dirty collectivist side. and i don’t want to argue with people with whom i have more in common than i don’t have.
i just don’t think it’s the state’s business, is all. to encourage any type of relationship. tho i do think it is the culture’s business. (and our culture is made of FAIL in oh so many ways.) on that point we disagree i guess, and that’s okay and fine even. with respect…
Comment by peter jackson on 4/23 @ 5:52 pm #
“Wow, teh clever!”
Also known as teh logic.
Comment by Darleen on 4/23 @ 5:57 pm #
Sdferr
I don’t think of SocSec as a marriage benefit but an issue of property and anyone should have control of their property.
Do you think denying the GI bill to people who never served is “fair”? And not everyone will or can choose to serve in the military.
Comment by meya on 4/23 @ 6:00 pm #
“I mean, they could cram everybody into a crappy little city apartment, 19th Century style. Nothing’s stopping them, right?”
Or they can live in unsprawled suburbs or even, gasp, city houses. If that is their choice. As for their teens, I’m sure they didn’t even ask to be born.
“You really need to take off your blinders and look outside your fascist “EVERYONE MUST BE LIKE ME†worldview, SFAG.”
Where do you get the idea that I think they must be like me? I just think it sucks. Opinions are still allowed in america, right?
As my own kids, I’m partial to the people promoting the view of “free range kids.” Google that if you don’t know what it is. Buncha fascists.
Comment by Darleen on 4/23 @ 6:02 pm #
louchette, yes I’m conservative, but I’ve got a lot of little “l” libertarian values.
The government can never be fully outside of marriage because one of government’s legit functions beside the military is the judiciary and ANY dispute coming from couples is going to end up in court.
If you know a majority of your citizens are going to engage in a particular contractual it makes sense to develope a set of laws/statutes that lay out a uniform set of obligations and parameters.
Can government go “too far”? Yes, but that doesn’t negate the common sense of having a default statute.
Comment by louchette on 4/23 @ 6:17 pm #
i actually… i don’t disagree… but… maybe we need new definitions of what those contractual agreements entail. and weird as this may sound, coming from moi, i think simultaneously we need a resacrilization of the institution of marriage. if it’s just about the contracts and the courts and the letter of the law then at the end of the day the genders are less than minimally significant. contracts is contracts, tort is tort. the gummint is supposed to treat all citizens equally. but religious law is involuable. doesn’t even matter which variation you favor. it is apart. that’s what holy means. sacred. separate from mundane reality. and that’s a good chunk of what’s been lost in the secularization of marriage, imo. and i think that it’s not just sad, but that it makes marriage less appealing, the loss of this sacred aspect. but it’s part and parcel of its secularization.
Comment by Jeff G. on 4/23 @ 6:18 pm #
Pretty much what I expected: no real answers, only a complaint and a few haughty sniffs.
I’ve argued this at length in other threads and other posts. I don’t feel the need to rehash it here. As far as I’m concerned, it is up to those who approve of same sex marriages to convince me that the institution of marriage needs to be widened to support same sex coupling (and what that decision is based on); and determine how sanctioning same sex marriage isn’t a slippery slope to being forced to sanction other types of voluntary union.
Why is age a restriction and sex cannot be? Why is number of involved parties a restriction and sex cannot be? Why is blood ties a restriction and sex cannot be if those involved agree not to procreate with each other (which is the de facto position of same sex marriage partners)?
These are legitimate questions. Dismissing them with a wave of the hand and then crying that no one will listen to your arguments is disingenuous.
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 6:33 pm #
“Also known as teh logic.”
Fucking dirty socialist hippies did it again! Fuck, man, learn what logic is.
Comment by meya on 4/23 @ 6:34 pm #
“Why is age a restriction and sex cannot be? ”
Its not so much that ‘cannot’ but more ’should not.’ But does someone arguing against any of these restrictions need to come up with arguements as well for all the other ones? I don’t think so. I take a very similar position to yours. If people feel like convincing me that cousin marriage should be allowed, its up to them to do it.
Comment by Sdferr on 4/23 @ 6:37 pm #
this stuff does have a way of getting freakishly boring after awhile, don’it?
Comment by Darleen on 4/23 @ 6:38 pm #
meya
you are the one asserting a radical change to marriage, it is up to you to argue your case and convince others
you go first
Comment by blowhard on 4/23 @ 6:45 pm #
“Oh I’m not gonna convince anyone on here.”
That’s a bit insulting, meya.
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/23 @ 6:46 pm #
“If people feel like convincing me that cousin marriage should be allowed, its up to them to do it.”
1) All you need is Love, buh-bah-bah-buh-buhhhh;
2) People who want to marry their cousins are in the minority, and thus magical and beloved of the Rights Fairies;
3) They might want one another’s health insurance benefits;
4) Their mongoloid chillun’ will need stable families; (also known as “for the children”)
5) The only objection is your prejudice agin’ people with the same last name makin’ love;
6) Are you going to visit Jim Bob in the hospital after another Shotgun accident?;
7) How you gonna keep Gramma’s Civil War relics amongst kin?
Comment by happyfeet on 4/23 @ 6:52 pm #
I think we are heading down the road to a world where discrimination against homosexuals is held to the same social and moral opprobrium as discrimination on the basis of race or gender. I don’t think there’s stopping this.
If homosexuals aren’t discriminated against at least a little they’ll have no reason to vote for the dirty socialists at all I don’t think. I have no fear that there will be very much discrimination of any kind at all banished in my lifetime.
Comment by Makewi on 4/23 @ 7:42 pm #
We could also declare women to be voters so they can…vote.
The definition of who a voter is has changed over time. Non land owners can vote along with the womenfolk, but non citizens still can’t.
Comment by Makewi on 4/23 @ 7:53 pm #
Time will do the convincing. As I said in #219, I think we’re on that road, and it’s a question of how fast or how slow, and what role SSM plays in that.That’s whats interesting to me.
I’m not so sure. There have been some victories, sure, but even those aren’t set in stone. More interesting to me are the losses in some of the deep blue locations such as California, Washington & Hawaii and the pass that left leaning politicians get on proclaiming advocacy for it.
Comment by JHoward on 4/23 @ 8:05 pm #
This next thing’s probably not your point, meya, but if you’d follow that thread of logic you nearly started there — that “cannot” is a legal barrier and “should not” is a private barrier — you’d probably end up in classical liberal territory. This is one area I may agree with you, although not by way of approving, personally, of same sex marriage. I just happen to abhor the State involving itself in private contract to the extreme (i.e., shy of outright fraud and theft it should take a hike).
Same sex marriage is an obvious scam. It’s a legal fleecing waiting to happen for precisely the same reason “cannot” (in the legal sense) is largely also a mistake: When the State becomes involved in establishing cans and cannots, all hell breaks loose. Having the State in marriage — as evidenced by how the State destroys everything it touches in the case of simply huge numbers of divorces — is an issue that would if corrected, ironically, both allow same sex marriage and remove the incentive to make it a damnable national issue simply because it’d make such a nice little socialist-style program. Both sides win and do so for reasonable, fundamental grounds.
If the State was out of the business or marriage entirely — which I’d promote as one of the core values of what should be classical liberalism, notwithstanding the flack that that opinion will take from conservatives — then immense good would accrue to society, much risk would accrue to society, and same sex marriage as an issue would disappear for both sides of the debate. It’s a heck of a good trade.
I like to think that the measure of any public policy’s relative standing in the essential currency of personal liberty lies in the degree it establishes conundrums: If a government program’s effects are the reverse of the claims some legislature made in order to pass it, then that piece of legislation is a failure and should be deemed functionally unconstitutional. (See the Welfare State, virtually all domestic fiscal spending, etc.)
Thereby perhaps nothing is more damning of the very laws supporting it than what happens when the State involves itself in the family via the institution of “legal” marriage (and especially its dissolution).
One has to be really dim to think gay marriage will be any different.
Comment by McGehee on 4/23 @ 8:10 pm #
I believe in honesty. The truth begs nobody’s pardon.
If you want to try to dismiss someone’s stand on an issue because he or she includes religious values in the mix, you’ll almost certainly find your POV welcomed in certain small segments of the body politic. You may also find that you’re not comfortable with the mainstream of society in America or anywhere else.
Which can be a real bitch if you’re trying to win a political debate at the ballot box.
Comment by SBP on 4/23 @ 8:12 pm #
Or they can live in unsprawled suburbs or even, gasp, city houses. If that is their choice.
Which it is, and they overwhelmingly choose to live in those suburbs at which you sneer, SFAG.
Where do you get the idea that I think they must be like me?
From your long, long history of supporting fascist ideas, SFAG.
Go figure.
Comment by SBP on 4/23 @ 8:15 pm #
But does someone arguing against any of these restrictions need to come up with arguements as well for all the other ones? I don’t think so.
I do think so.
I think polygamous cohabitation contracts between consenting adulds should be legal, just as I think gay cohabitation contracts between consenting adults should be legal. I don’t think that either one is any of the state’s business, except perhaps to provide a court system to enforce the contracts.
So, perhaps you might want to, you know, actually provide some kind of justification for allowing one but not the other.
Otherwise I’m going to suspect that you’re simply operating based on your own personal prejudices.
Which, of course, you are.
Comment by SBP on 4/23 @ 8:19 pm #
There are in fact objective scientific reasons for disallowing sibling marriage (marriage between first cousins is allowed in more states than not, as I recall — and contrary to popular prejudice, it’s legal in more northern states than southern ones), so I am opposed to such unions as a matter of public policy. Unless, of course, the partners agree to be sterilized, in which case I don’t see it as any of my business.
Comment by SBP on 4/23 @ 8:23 pm #
Marriage between first cousins is legal in 19 states and the District of Columbia without restriction, and legal in six others under certain conditions. Among the states allowing these marriages are such backward hick states as California and New York. Among the states banning them are such hotbeds of urban sophistication as Arkansas, Kentucky, and Louisiana.
All states recognize first-cousin marriages which have been contracted in another state.
So, there’s that.
Comment by JHoward on 4/23 @ 8:24 pm #
Exactly. But when the *&^%$ government is remodeled into a social equalizer, property leveler, race broker, poverty manager, service provider, nanny, and a host of other decidedly un-originalist aberrations of reason, you get this rubbish where every odd faction makes opportunistic demands of the rest of us.
Comment by SBP on 4/23 @ 8:27 pm #
polygamous cohabitation contracts
Note that I’m not calling it “marriage”.
I think state recognition of the religious institution of “marriage” is a clear violation of the First Amendment (and similar provisions in most state constitutions).
Civil unions for everybody, say I. If you want to call it a “marriage”, that’s up to you, your soul, and your church, if any.
The “sacredness” of our current marriage laws is a little hard for me to swallow, given that a valid marriage can be contracted in Vegas between a drunk Shriner and a stripper, officiated by a drag queen Elvis impersonator.
In any case, this is a matter for the state legislatures and/or the people. It’s no business of the courts.
Comment by SBP on 4/23 @ 8:30 pm #
#296: I hear you, my friend.
Comment by meya on 4/23 @ 9:00 pm #
“This next thing’s probably not your point, meya, but if you’d follow that thread of logic you nearly started there — that “cannot†is a legal barrier and “should not†is a private barrier — you’d probably end up in classical liberal territory.”
I did post about Schmidt’s view of SSM on the classical liberal thread the other day. I thought his points were interesting. Then again his career is over.
“From your long, long history of supporting fascist ideas, SFAG.”
Like free range kids, some opinions are too fascist to be had.
Comment by SBP on 4/23 @ 9:02 pm #
Like free range kids
Translation: you want to be free to abrogate your parental responsibilities, if convenient.
Narcissism. Just as I said.
Comment by Darleen on 4/23 @ 9:03 pm #
SBP
I think state recognition of the religious institution of “marriage†is a clear violation of the First Amendment
Please go to the video and listen for a bit starting at 3:10 hint: there is no “state recognition of the religious marriage”
Comment by SBP on 4/23 @ 9:06 pm #
Right.
No religious connotations whatsoever.
Sorry, Darleen, that’s a load of crap, and you know it as well as I do.
If that’s the case, what’s wrong with just giving civil unions to everybody? What makes “marriage” such a hot button word?
Comment by Darleen on 4/23 @ 9:13 pm #
SBP
A church today can and does conduct same sex marriages, but the state doesn’t recognize them. A straight couple can have their friend marry them and the state will recognize it.
How did that happen? Because state recognized marriage has nothing to do with the location of the ceremony and who performs it.
go to 3:10
Comment by JHoward on 4/23 @ 9:41 pm #
Wouldn’t surprise me. What there is is the State recognizing “profit” (read: cash flow at great net loss) and with it, its proclivity at creating SNAFU out of thin air. If you have to ask why, you’ve already missed the point.
Comment by Nomad on 4/23 @ 9:49 pm #
Perez Hilton made an awfully quick transition from respectable pageant judge to vindictive media beast
Comment by Darleen on 4/23 @ 9:55 pm #
JHoward
I understand your opposition to the legal institutions that have grown up out of marriage statutes. However, courts ARE still going to be mediating disputes with or without those statutes because people are still going to combine their lives, make babies and occassionally decide to divide their lives.
In ancient Rome, marriage was “private” but people would still seek out local authorities to rule on things like inheritance, legitimacy of children, custody, etc.
Civil marriage is (or should be) as straight forward, clearly written, as any other standard contractual relationship (business partnerships, landlord/tenant, etc).
Comment by JHoward on 4/23 @ 10:19 pm #
Given that the opposite is abundantly true, and is so by the design of the special interests that prey on, among other things, foolish notions of statist fairness and equality and other such bullshit, the alternative isn’t to drag gays into that same quagmire.
Which is to say that family law reformers wish gays would hurry up and be dragged into that quagmire so they can help everybody else reform the state’s assault on family.
Strange bedfellows and like that.
Which brings us back to #296.
Comment by Darleen on 4/23 @ 10:35 pm #
Which is to say that family law reformers wish gays would hurry up and be dragged into that quagmire so they can help everybody else reform the state’s assault on family.
Sorry, JH, it won’t happen that way. “Marriage” is not really what a lot of those SSM advocates are after, so reforming marriage is the last thing they are interested in.
Comment by ccoffer on 4/23 @ 11:44 pm #
Why in hell is a flaming ass-pirate judging beauty contests?
Comment by Carin on 4/24 @ 4:44 am #
Perez Hilton made an awfully quick transition from respectable pageant judge to vindictive media beast
Well, he was never respectable. A (gay) guy that drops the “C” word because a woman stated a view shared by the POTUS* (which Perez prolly voted for) was never respectable.
*and his teleprompter
Comment by Carin on 4/24 @ 5:18 am #
Also it’s awkward I think when conservatives quote dirty socialist homosexuals what are trying to provoke conservatives into quoting them.
Yes, I suppose. I was going for the contrast thing, though. If it failed, well… I’ll always have the memory of that day Ace quoted me and put it in a post, right?
Past glories.
Comment by Carin on 4/24 @ 5:22 am #
Ok, I had to look up this “free range kids” thing. Can someone point out to me how this relates to this thread?
I think it’s best to raise your kids in a manner that can’t be easily labelled by some parenting expert trying to hawk a new book.
Comment by Carin on 4/24 @ 5:27 am #
Like free range kids, some opinions are too fascist to be had.
Heh, ok, I found it. That’s a hoot. Funny that you think parenting styles (like “Helicopter parents”) have a political persuasion.
Comment by JHoward on 4/24 @ 6:13 am #
I didn’t make a prediction but an observation. Indeed, it’s not about marriage, per se: It’s about the State as legal partner, a shameful state of affairs for the married. Bring the gays foolish enough to see themselves as government’s beneficiaries into its fold and they’ll be subject to the same crap the rest of us.
Comment by SBP on 4/24 @ 7:28 am #
Because state recognized marriage has nothing to do with the location of the ceremony and who performs it.
It does, however, have to do with whether or not the contract in question conforms to the generally accepted definition of marriage, which is based on a particular strain of religious thought.
I don’t the state should have the power to legitimize my interpersonal relationships, and I say that as a straight man who’s been with the same woman for nearly twenty years.
Comment by SBP on 4/24 @ 7:28 am #
But if you’ll read more about “free range kids,†you’ll find out its not quite about “abrogating parental responsibilities.â€
If you learn more about the real world, you’ll find that theory and practice are miles apart, SFAG.
Comment by Darleen on 4/24 @ 7:45 am #
It does, however, have to do with whether or not the contract in question conforms to the generally accepted definition of marriage, which is based on a particular strain of religious thought.It does have to do with whether the law in question conforms to the generally accepted definition of [theft/murder/rape], which is based on a particular strain of religious thought.
See what I did there? Just because an institution or law evolves from underlying principals of a religious nature doesn’t make it a religious institution. The only state recognized marriages in America are those that conform to a set of statutory obligations, then obtaining a license and having a state recognized officiate perform a ceremony with witnesses signing off on the marriage.
Churches can do ceremonies all day long but no license and no officiate, it ain’t a civil marriage. Two people can get a license and walk down the hall and be married by a judge and that is a recognized marriage.
But I tell you, IF SSM is rolled into marriage statutes instead of being a separate section of the code and for the first time in recorded history the law sanctions the lie that SS couples are the same as OS couples, then you will see lawsuits filed against any religious denomination that refuses to perform a SSM and asks that their tax exempt status is yanked. Look what they do in Canada to any pastor who dares to call homosexual behavior a “sin” from the pulpit.
Thought control, indeed.
Comment by Rob Crawford on 4/24 @ 8:02 am #
Jeff, to Buffy:
Same here. Hell, I argued for something like civil unions when I was in college, way back in the early ’90s.
What nets my opposition to the current “gay marriage” movement is their insistence on using the courts (rather than persuading their fellow citizens and winning through the ballot box) and their insistence that the rest of the world redefine itself to accommodate them. The word “marriage” has a meaning; the rest of us are not going to abandon it to make you feel more accepted.
Comment by Rob Crawford on 4/24 @ 8:13 am #
Not true. Non-citizens vote all the time, and there exists a political party in the country that fights hard to ensure they can.
Comment by SBP on 4/24 @ 8:37 am #
See what I did there?
Sure. You tried to sidestep the issue by using an analogy that does not apply. :-)
Hint: murder does not involve consent. Neither do theft or rape.
Comment by SBP on 4/24 @ 8:45 am #
then you will see lawsuits filed against any religious denomination that refuses to perform a SSM and asks that their tax exempt status is yanked
And rightly so, if we concede that marriage is a state function. If religious institutions want to act as agents of the state, and have their ceremonies given recogninezed legal status by the state, they can (and should) be required to carry out those functions in non-discriminatory manner.
I don’t think the state should giving any legal status to religious rituals in the first place.
(This varies from state to state, of course — if I remember right, in the state where I got married, the actual marriage took place when my wife and I signed the legal document — the ceremony was just window dressing, in terms of its legal effect)
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/24 @ 8:47 am #
“Hint: murder does not involve consent. Neither do theft or rape.”
SBP, you’re getting a bit silly now. Darleen was merely stating that just because something is defined by statute, which tracks religious belief, that thing is not in se a religious usurpation of government.
The Catholic Catechism contains cannons which condemn murder, theft, rape, and bestiality. Only a fool would hold that it does. If the Church declares that the sky is blue, must the state deny this fact? Does this invalidate criminal statutes proscribing the foregoing crimes?
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/24 @ 8:49 am #
Whoops – the above should read:
The Catholic Catechism contains cannons which condemn murder, theft, rape, and bestiality. If the Church declares that the sky is blue, must the state deny this fact? Does this (Church condemnation) invalidate criminal statutes proscribing the foregoing crimes? Only a fool would hold that it does.
Comment by SBP on 4/24 @ 8:52 am #
SBP, you’re getting a bit silly now.
Your opinion. There’s a logically consistent argument against murder, theft, and (by definition) rape which has no basis in religious teachings, namely that the victims do not consent to the action in question.
No such argument applies to SSM. Quite the contrary.
If the Church declares that the sky is blue, must the state deny this fact?
The state shouldn’t accept or deny anything based on Church teachings.
That’s why we have the First Amendment, or so I thought.
Comment by SBP on 4/24 @ 8:52 am #
BTW, Alec, don’t give yourself a hernia setting up those straw men.
Comment by JHoward on 4/24 @ 9:13 am #
Which ties to what I tried to say in #290: The measure of any public policy’s relative standing in the essential currency of personal liberty lies in the degree it establishes conundrums: If a government program’s effects are the reverse of the claims some legislature made in order to pass it, then that piece of legislation is a failure and should be deemed functionally unconstitutional.
In marriage this is no less true than in any other domestic setting. Darleen alludes to this with:
SBP’s rebuttal is correct: If it involves government, government holds power over it. There is only one solution. Actually, in liberty terms, there is only one choice as well.
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/24 @ 9:21 am #
“BTW, Alec, don’t give yourself a hernia setting up those straw men.”
You misconstrued Darleen’s post, and you still seem to think that consent is relevant, which it is not. Nevertheless, one cannot consent to be killed – even with consent, unlawful killing would still be murder – so your argument, to the extent that it was cogent, fails on its face.
“There’s a logically consistent argument against murder, theft, and (by definition) rape which has no basis in religious teachings”
Actually, this is not entirely accurate. Your emphasis upon consent didn’t fall out of the sky – it developed by being informed by religious traditions in the West. Again, you’re being silly to think that prohibitions against rape, murder, and theft grew up independently of the Mosaic Law (recall, the 10 Commandments) which were quite revolutionary when first received. There were, of course, other societies which didn’t really have much problem with the killing of unimportant people for no good reason – much written into law – nor the raping of slave women, etc. Your natural law theories about consent and the exercise of right reason have dirty icky Medieval Saints all over them, who could also cook up a nifty natural law argument for why marriage is between one man and one woman – i.e. the natural family.
Comment by meya on 4/24 @ 9:32 am #
“If you learn more about the real world, you’ll find that theory and practice are miles apart, SFAG.”
The people practicing that seem to live in the real world. One even in *gasp* new york city. Did you read the sorts of things they’re talking about? About the kid who had the cops called on him as he walked to soccer practice in a small town?
“Heh, ok, I found it. That’s a hoot. Funny that you think parenting styles (like “Helicopter parentsâ€) have a political persuasion.”
No no, see, SBP thinks its fascist. Not me.
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/24 @ 9:38 am #
“Which ties to what I tried to say in #290:”
The State isn’t really in the “marriage business.” Really, all you do is let the State know that you’re getting hitched, pay a modest fee, and they make certain that, for example, you aren’t already married to someone else. It’s really not that involved – not like, say, being a licensed contractor or CDL holder. In my State (the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania) one intermediate appellate Court repealed Common Law Marriage, and the other refused to recognize the repeal, so it is still arguably possible to enter a Common Law Marriage in the jurisdiction. Essentially, you can be married without even telling the Commonwealth about it, and it only becomes an issue when the couple splits up or one dies and so forth.
All of which sort of begs the question – the State is really in the Divorce business, which is a misnomer, because the family law system actually grew up out of bastardy proceedings and disputes between unmarried persons and regarding their children. All of this is to say that you could abolish marriage as an institution solemnized by the State, and the State involvement in people’s lives would continue apace through the Law Courts, which you really can’t abolish.
Comment by Sdferr on 4/24 @ 9:47 am #
Ah, so the natural is the conventional now? Hilarious.
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/24 @ 9:50 am #
“Ah, so the natural is the conventional now? Hilarious.”
Was this directed to my attention?
Comment by JHoward on 4/24 @ 9:52 am #
That’s a valid point at #330, Alex, the only problem with which goes to degrees, and degrees it will surely go to if government is there. As just an example of the issues with statist meddling in the family — as an institution it licensed and the church (may have) authorized and both vaguely contracted — consider that the State in fact makes no functional distinction between children of marriage and out-of-wedlock births.
In other words, what you can argue is a peripheral, post-marital issue becomes a fundamental feature of a government’s engine’s sole discretion when it and its hanger’s on divide divorce spoils amongst themselves and parties of their choosing, as well as making decisions about the rearing of private citizens free from any recourse by one or both of the parents.
How this could be seen as a affirmation of state-approved marriages is a mystery, and surely any official policy has no sound purpose should be long dead in this constitutional republic. If a state-licensed contractor constructs stairs on my property I then break my leg on, the sole benefits fall to the State insofar that it collected license fees, which is a mild case relative to the broken marriage contract as viewed by government. Whether stairs or families, everybody else is on their own and the State has no liability for whatever it wants to do.
So my point stands: Get government out of the private business of joining people in marriage. Further, get government the hell out of cost-to-society determinations: If kids are born to bad parents — and they will be until the end of time — even (and especially) that should remain a private-sector concern.
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/24 @ 10:12 am #
“So my point stands: Get government out of the private business of joining people in marriage.”
I think you’re missing my point, and your resolution is too simple to apply to any actual relation between humans. Marriage between men and women is an intermediate institution wholly necessary to reduce government’s influence and meddling. For example, Marriage grants women some degree of assurance that, after investing themselves in making a home and raising children, they won’t be summarily discarded and left in poverty by a man with a change of mind. Without such assurances, women would be discouraged from forming a household and self-sufficient economic unit with a man.
The alternative, as we have seen, is single motherhood, with all of its associated claims for positive rights and economic support (from food subsidies to state daycare) extracted from your pocket.
Comment by happyfeet on 4/24 @ 10:32 am #
oh… Carin at 312… I was more talking about Alec there really –
you know who is fags is our government especially the CIA and also NPR I think… but you just watch – NPR and CIA will be gay married before Baracky’s first term is over and you can take that to the government-owned bank of your choice
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/24 @ 10:33 am #
I think what underlies the debate is the inherent economic inequality between men and women – as a rule, and whether by choice or predilection or what have you, women have less earning capacity than men. I think we’ve been trained not to state that this is probably simply part of the human condition, or that the remedies are far, far worse than the problem. If we accept this as an underlying presumption, it makes a great deal of sense to pair women and men and pool their economic resources in a discrete, recognized unit, and doubly so if they will have children.
And I suppose this is part of the Leftist charge to destroy marriage – it mitigates the political momentum to engage in the above remedies to perceived economic inequality between the sexes, among other things above noted.
Comment by happyfeet on 4/24 @ 10:43 am #
You are totally being way too mature in your thinkings Alec. What underlies the debate is our dirty socialist skeezey diseased whore media labeling Rs “intolerant.” End of story. Gay marriage reached its sine qua non status after civil union legislation looked to be propagating like weeds and what does that tell you?
Comment by happyfeet on 4/24 @ 10:44 am #
What I mean is your arguments actually abet their framing.
Comment by JD on 4/24 @ 11:19 am #
Inherent economic inequality? Really?
Comment by happyfeet on 4/24 @ 11:20 am #
cause they have to take time off to make babies I guess
Comment by Carin on 4/24 @ 11:22 am #
Honest, making the baby doesn’t need much time off. A long lunch hour, I’m thinking.
Comment by Carin on 4/24 @ 11:23 am #
I could have work up until I went into labor, but they didn’t want to have to worry about covering shifts.
Comment by Carin on 4/24 @ 11:24 am #
I was promised nice weather today, and it looks like it’s about to storm. Bitch. Whine.
Comment by happyfeet on 4/24 @ 11:24 am #
then I don’t get the inherent inequality thing either
Comment by JD on 4/24 @ 11:28 am #
I won’t belabor that point, because Carin made me laugh, and Alec is a good fellow. I will just note that the assumption of inherent economic inequality is not one I accept.
Comment by Makewi on 4/24 @ 11:46 am #
SBP is missing the societal aspect of the marriage contract as it applies to consent. The consent aspect comes from the rest of us treating a married couple as a single legal entity in all applicable situations. Since it is ridiculous for any married couple to get that permission from everyone who might be affected by it, the state acts as our agent.
Comment by JHoward on 4/24 @ 11:53 am #
That’s nonsensical, especially in light of the rest of your comment, Alec. We all know self-governance comes at a cost and we know too that comfort comes at a much higher cost. Given that the modern era arguably created as many problems as it ostensibly sought to solve, and given that these replacement problems have traceable motives in money, power, and social restructuring, whether the ideal can fit reality is, I’d assert, a bigger problem for the new socialists than it was for the old classicals.
Allow me: My resolution is too simple to apply to any actual relation between humans who do not absolutely value self-control, accountability, and liberty.
Good start, poor finish. State marriage, via the courts, today grants women enormous assurance that, after investing themselves in making a home and raising children, they may summarily discard and leave in poverty a man by way of a simple change of mind. So to my point: Would you accept as constitutional and thereby authentic and free your former construct or my latter reality, it bundling in a multibillion-dollar industry who’s express intent is to refashion society, values, and norms? And with them, create as many new paradigms as say, the welfare state vis a vis the black community or the war on poverty concerning the impoverished, once the costs had trickled down and the attitudes became the new socialist opportunities?
That conventional wisdom is equally indefensible: Indeed, without such assurances and with the intent to retain liberty and rights, which are paramount, women should be discouraged from forming a household and self-sufficient economic unit with a man without the structure of the prior respects and obligations private marriage once held. Again I’d ask you to compare sins of these two alternatives and then to compare the relative impacts each had and has on rights and liberties.
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/24 @ 12:07 pm #
“I will just note that the assumption of inherent economic inequality is not one I accept.”
What I mean to say is that even if it is a function of valuing what the feminists would call gendered-male work more than gendered-female work, there is a disparity in lifetime earning ability between the sexes in practice. The feminists’ remedy is to have government value work such that a male truck driver would earn what a female dental assistant earns, and so forth, and then prescribe salaries. Others might argue that young women must devote inordinate time and energy to their physical appearance for cultural reasons and diverting energy from career development or economic pursuits. Others still will argue that for men, access to friendly female companionship is culturally conditioned upon economic viability, whereas the reverse is not true for women. Some observe that whole trades and industries are not really open to women because they require a minimum of physical strength and stamina.
Whatever the causes, and they may be entrenched cultural causes, the dollars and cents are clear. Like I stated above, the remedies, if any, are worse than the disease.
Comment by Sdferr on 4/24 @ 12:14 pm #
Disease Alec (please don’t take the question as aimed at you personally, since that usage long predates this instance)? How came that particular metaphor into the picture, eggs expensive, sperm cheap?
Comment by JHoward on 4/24 @ 12:17 pm #
Not enough to upset an entire culture of traditional family, as it turns out. Accounting for desired time off, which isn’t done by the socialist data-cookers, the per-hour wage difference between genders is so slight as to be insignificant. Nonetheless, with the Obama Administration’s rapid moves to disadvantage men, even what disparity exists today is soon going to disappear.
In its place will exist a society that has devalued the family to the point the country cannot stand under its former principles and with them, liberties. As I’ve been saying, it’s not a very good trade, wouldn’t you agree?
But we’re not finished: Did you know that there is a disparity amounting to tens of billions of dollars in wealth-holding ability between the sexes that favors women? Or that there’s another that favors them in lifespan and yet another that favors them in early mortality?
So where’s the legislation, Alec? Government exists to equalize, does it not?
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/24 @ 12:33 pm #
“Allow me: My resolution is too simple to apply to any actual relation between humans who do not absolutely value self-control, accountability, and liberty.”
Our problem is that we don’t make moral and virtuous men anymore, if men were ever made that moral. The institution is for the King, but also the pauper – and you seem not to recognize the power of the pauper taking upon him the duty to support his family and not ceding it to the State.
“Good start, poor finish. State marriage, via the courts, today grants women enormous assurance that, after investing themselves in making a home and raising children, they may summarily discard and leave in poverty a man by way of a simple change of mind.”
You must understand – the people who brought you this system did it in order to destroy the institution. The aim is to churn out more single mothers, which is what divorce accomplishes. At the end of the day, your objections are abuses and perversions of a necessary system of Law Courts of which the founders were quite fond.
It would be wonderful if all men were moral and handshakes were all you needed, but from the time of Hastings forward we’ve always had the Law Courts to resolve disputes.
“Would you accept as constitutional and thereby authentic and free your former construct or my latter reality, it bundling in a multibillion-dollar industry who’s express intent is to refashion society, values, and norms?”
I do, indeed, accept that State solemnization of marriage between a man and woman is perfectly Constitutional. I’m not quite sure what the objection to the existence of marriage would be on Constitutional grounds.
“That conventional wisdom is equally indefensible: Indeed, without such assurances and with the intent to retain liberty and rights, which are paramount, women should be discouraged from forming a household and self-sufficient economic unit with a man without the structure of the prior respects and obligations private marriage once held.”
Retain rights? I’m not understanding this. You get married, and you undertake obligations, knowingly and willingly. The obligations may impair your rights – for example, if you’re married, you can’t give your Porsche to your girlfriend, because it isn’t wholly yours to give – but this isn’t really a great loss of liberty of rights, if any. The marriage is needed when one spouse or the other becomes a scoundrel – to enforce the duties willingly undertaken. You do this all the time with civil contracts.
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/24 @ 12:38 pm #
“Government exists to equalize, does it not?”
I don’t think that there was ever a day in my life that I believed this, and I certainly haven’t said it or written it anywhere. One legitimate function of government, however, is to enforce legal an/ord equitable duties willingly undertaken, whether by contract or participation in the institution of marriage.
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/24 @ 12:52 pm #
JHoward, I suppose I might also ask – why now? In other words, why throw your lot in against State solemnization of marriage at exactly the same time that the proponents of a Gramscian project seem to have the wind at their backs? You know what their object is – why not pick your battles?
Additionally, have you ever played Jenga? Can you conceive, then, that this wee institution is like a Jenga block way at the bottom of the tower, and your insistence upon yanking it out right this very moment will cause a cascade of other events that are contrary to everything else you hope to accomplish in reducing the state?
Comment by JHoward on 4/24 @ 12:58 pm #
What was the adage about virtuous men and freedom? The point is not then that we should find a way to deal with a nation of cheats and liars, but that we should call it what it will necessarily be, which is tyranny. There are no sovereign men in prison either; let’s call things what they are and while we’re at it, establish that we have no alternative to honor and honorable principle if we’re going to retain liberty.
Indeed.
Of course. And the bedrock of the law in this constitutional republic is? I can tell you that it is not the system you describe, where profiteers and the power-hungry gorge themselves.
I proposed a telltale of constitutionality a few posts back: If it foments what it says it cures, it’s unconstitutional because in doing so, it destroys the individual. When the State causes enormous, systemic harm through a clearly domestic-leaning agency, than I propose that agency should be abolished.
Further, Alec, the family court is itself virtually wholly unconstitutional — it is not a right and decent court of law because it is a cabal that’s been infiltrated by those same collectivists, activists, and profiteers. For proofs, see all of the primary Rights concerning the individual and his sovereignty as a law-abider voided in family court. Speech, due process, presumption of innocence, property, and the various supreme court’s 100-precedent right to parent.
See family court. More broadly, see various State’s policies vs the family. I’d say rights enter into it.
Comment by JHoward on 4/24 @ 1:01 pm #
And so goes the entire top-heavy structure of improper government policy, Alec. You assume I see a solution. I see problems; not least of which being that there’s no way out without a collapse. Which is kinda historical…
Comment by happyfeet on 4/24 @ 1:13 pm #
The Jenga thing is pretty compelling.
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/24 @ 2:03 pm #
“it’s unconstitutional because in doing so, it destroys the individual.”
Its sort of a pet peave of mine when people misuse the term “unconstitutional.” There’s no prohibition against “destroys the individual.”
I would think some would join in this fight for the glee at refusing a bunch of arrested adolescents with their fingers in their ears stomping their feet and demanding “rights!”
Comment by JHoward on 4/24 @ 2:24 pm #
Then let me build it out more. No, there’s no insurance against being a ruined American, Alec, but when a State policy causes clear harm to person, property, or liberty — which is my context throughout this exchange — then how could it be constitutional? As in, policy that by intent, will, and design, compromises those benchmarks. Those are the benchmarks.
I’m not sure how anyone can argue that as the result of a constitutional measure, its own stated rights and liberties would be compromised. Yet that’s much of domestic policy and virtually all of, as you know, family law and its cabal, which brings us back to the State and marriage.
Comment by SBP on 4/24 @ 2:25 pm #
. Nevertheless, one cannot consent to be killed – even with consent, unlawful killing would still be murder – so your argument, to the extent that it was cogent, fails on its face.
Someone is “misconstruing” things here, to be sure.
Since that was exactly my point, I’m pretty sure that it’s not me.
Comment by SBP on 4/24 @ 2:26 pm #
The consent aspect comes from the rest of us treating a married couple as a single legal entity in all applicable situations.
We treat corporations as single legal entities in all applicable situations, too, even though they may have many thousands of stockholders.
So?
Comment by SBP on 4/24 @ 2:28 pm #
The people practicing that seem to live in the real world.
I’ve seen lots of “progressive” parenting fads come and go. SFAG.
Generally either the parent either gives up and resorts to old-fashioned discipline, or the kid winds up in jail/addicted to drugs/a serial loser.
But hey, you’re all SMART people. You’re going to make it work THIS TIME. It’s like communism that way.
Comment by SBP on 4/24 @ 2:29 pm #
Your emphasis upon consent didn’t fall out of the sky – it developed by being informed by religious traditions in the West.
Evidence?
Comment by SBP on 4/24 @ 2:36 pm #
There’s no prohibition against “destroys the individual.†….arrested adolescents with their fingers in their ears stomping their feet and demanding “rights!â€
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
That seems pretty clear to me. As with the rest of the Bill of Rights, you have to be a lawyer to misunderstand it.
Comment by SBP on 4/24 @ 2:44 pm #
Let me modify slightly. Since Alec is trying to drag a red herring across the trail by pointing out that you can’t consent to murder, let’s use battery instead.
If I punch someone in the face, I’m likely to wind up in legal trouble — unless the other person has consented by putting on gloves and getting in the boxing ring with me.
If I cut out somebody’s liver, I’m going to get in severe legal trouble — unless I’m a surgeon performing a procedure with patient consent.
Of course, my other two examples, theft and rape, (which Alec conveniently ignored) still work in any case. If I take someone’s car without permission, it’s a crime. If he gives me the keys, it’s not. If I force intercourse on a woman, it’s a crime. If she consents, it’s not.
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/24 @ 2:48 pm #
“If I punch someone in the face, I’m likely to wind up in legal trouble — unless the other person has consented by putting on gloves and getting in the boxing ring with me.”
Not true. You can get arrested and charged for challenging a fellow outside a bar and engaging in mutual combat. Next.
SBP, you do know that the Plaintiff in criminal matters is “the Crown,” “Regina,” “The Commonwealth,” “State,” or “The United States,” no?
Comment by SBP on 4/24 @ 2:51 pm #
You can get arrested and charged for challenging a fellow outside a bar and engaging in mutual combat. Next.
Too bad that’s not what my example was. Next.
SBP, you do know that the Plaintiff in criminal matters is “the Crown,†“Regina,†“The Commonwealth,†“State,†or “The United States,†no?
Which has what to do with the examples, exactly? I said “legal trouble”, which could be either criminal (state action) or civil (private action). It’s likely to be both, actually.
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/24 @ 3:00 pm #
“Too bad that’s not what my example was. Next.”
Same principle. Boxing isn’t assault because it is a recognized sport, subject to State regulation, actually, and your example works only due to the narrow legal doctrine of “implied consent,” none of which applies outside the sporting context.
“Which has what to do with the examples, exactly? I said “legal troubleâ€, which could be either criminal (state action) or civil (private action). It’s likely to be both, actually.”
The point is that even if someone consents to your shooting him in the head, it is the Sovereign that is offended, and it is the Sovereign which prosecutes you. Consent of the victim be damned. It so happens that lack of consent is an element of the crime of Rape, but not an element in all crimes (see, murder and assault cum barroom brawling). Consent is not some ephemeral animating doctrine of all laws and culture or something which you haven’t really explained all that well in the context of “gay” marriage.
Comment by Alec Leamas on 4/24 @ 3:07 pm #
Lest we keep going round on Battery – what, if anything, does “consent” and rape and murder have to do with “gay” marriage?
I don’t think you’ve really explained that at all.
Comment by SBP on 4/24 @ 4:00 pm #
what, if anything, does “consent†and rape and murder have to do with “gay†marriage?
Darleen used rape and murder as examples of religiously-based prohibitions. I guess you’d have to ask her what she had in mind there. I simply pointed out that there are reasons to make those illegal without appealing to religion. To wit, the lack of consent implied by those actions.
I don’t think you’ve really explained that at all.
I do. However, it’s become clear that this is an issue on which you’re primarily driven by emotion, so I’m done with you.
Comment by JHoward on 4/24 @ 4:47 pm #
Alec, why does the State have the right to criminalize, for example, mutual combat?
I.e., where is the proper separation between State and private activity (in the classical American constitutional context)? I ask because I see you verging on justifying something because it’s recent legal tradition versus whether it’s originalist principle. We know how that ends.
With recent history as a guide, I can think of no reason to State-sanction marriage and every reason not to.
Comment by Swen Swenson on 4/24 @ 10:30 pm #
Finally! 309 comments it took for someone to ask the obvious. From years of observing such spectacles I’d also thought that it was inappropriate to ask any question that can’t be answered “Puppies!” Which, come to think of it, would have been a curiously appropriate response to Hilton’s question.
Comment by happyfeet on 4/25 @ 3:19 pm #
I don’t really get the idea that gay people shouldn’t judge stupid beauty contests. It just doesn’t amount to an issue I don’t think. They should just try more harder to get cool gay people. Like? All I can think of is Graham Norton. I used to see his show on the BBC America … I think it was around 2001 or so. He knows Andrew Lloyd Webber personally and lots of other people too so we could probably just ask Graham to suggest people and I bet no way would he suggest Perez or anybody that stupid or white trashy. Who else might know some cool gay people is that Ann Althouse.
Pingback by Steynian 349 « Free Canuckistan! on 4/25 @ 3:43 pm #
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