I’m sure that there are dozens of links that I could track down, but the latest protest against California’s Prop 8 seems to involve “white powder” sent to two Mormon temples in California and Utah. They’ve already tested one of the samples as negative. Still, I believe that in the eyes of the law this is a terrorist act.
We’ve seen burnings of Books of Mormon and stomping on crosses, heard shouts of “nigger” and all the rest, and I’ll spare you another link to Zombie’s photo essays on the sacrament of public gay sex in San Francisco street fairs.
How do you feel about all of this? I mean, I personally don’t see why government needs to obtrude on what’s considered marriage. As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t regard Coors as beer, though evidently some people do. Gay rights activists would like us to believe this is a civil rights issue somehow comparable to the civil rights movements of the Sixties.
A gay friend of mine, whom I’ve known since we were four years old, and who has been with his partner for over 20 years, states it this way: “Why are they expending all of this effort on marriage? Why don’t they go out and get me something I want, instead?”
Captain Ed had a piece up about Catholic hospitals. Often they’ve served the inner cities, which has permitted the big HMOs to find the places where they can make the most money. But if legislation passes that would require them to permit staff to perform abortions, they are out of business. And they’ve made the ethical decision that they cannot sell the hospitals to organizations who don’t mind performing abortions, because they’d be complicit. So they’d simply be shuttered. I imagine that municipalities could then take them, pace Kelo, but that would be the price of keeping one’s hands clean.
Recently, an Oregon court discovered a right to nude bicycling under the First Amendment. The (dopey) defendant seemed as surprised as anyone to discover he had that right, and his extraordinary inarticulateness in explaining how this amounted to protected political speech says it all.
I could wrap this all up with a nice bow, but I’m more interested in what you think.
Pissing off the LDS is likely to prove a mistake. I’d say the “gay community” in general has shit for brains.
I think all Mormons are gay, anyway.
I’d like to take this opportunity to remind the gay community of what would happen should they protest another major world religion like this. Mayhaps things are so bad after all.
Often enough they look quite happy, actually. It’s creepy.
It seems to me that at least some “gay activists” are actually looking for a fight. The Mormons seem like a good target for their hatred.
The key word there is “seem”.
Why is it that in today’s “tolerant” society, it is so acceptable to be aggressively intolerant of Mormons, or for that matter, Christians in general?
I’m tolerant of Christianity, the missionary position and all variations thereof.
fuck off, thor.
When you’ve been wronged by 2 separate voting blocs, and you’re looking for some revenge, first determine if you’ve ever read the headline “6 Mormon teenagers beat a boy to death for wandering into the wrong Mormon neighborhood”. Then choose which one to go after.
What do I think of it? Simply put, the Left/liberals/progressives/democrats (take your pick) have become our equivalent of Nazi Brownshirts. Attack, threaten, intimidate, and harass those who disagree with you, thereby silencing them and others who dare oppose you. I wonder if these criminals would feel the same way if, oh, thousands of anti gay marriage protesters did the same thing? THEN it would be a civil rights violation, I assure you. We see a man being arrested for wearing a McCain t-shirt on election night in Philadelphia, rampant voter fraud (with no investigations), people being investigated for criticizing Obama (that’s considered a “smear” that somehow, in magical fashion, receives no protection under the 1st Amendment), and fascist tactics used to silence others. I think we are in the modern equivalent of Germany, circa 1933. By 1939, everything had gone to hell in a handbasket. It’s happening here, although under a different guise, and with better marketing. The end result will be the same.
I hear China needs missionaries. Are you volunteering?
I love it when identity politics greivance groups collide.
Christians are always fucking off.
And what’s up with those beads they’re always rubbing clean?
When you’ve been wronged by 2 separate voting blocs, and you’re looking for some revenge, first determine if you’ve ever read the headline “6 Mormon teenagers beat a boy to death for wandering into the wrong Mormon neighborhoodâ€Â. Then choose which one to go after.
HA. Alp wins thread.
To roam China as a White Christian God, to break down their walls, to watch their men surrender, to listen to their women lament.
Sure dude, put me in. I’m down for some young gook slice.
Marriages for straights, civil unions for gays. Done and done. They get the benefits, we get to keep marriage exclusive.
Then again, the gays claimed the rainbow without asking anyone else what they thought about it, so I’m not exactly caring how they feel about anything. Tit for tat and all that.
Gimme the rainbow back and we’ll talk.
“I think all Mormons are gay, anyway.”
Coming from a guy who wnats to suck another man’s cock in the worst way, this is kinds of funny.
I’m down for some young gook slice.
First Church of Conan, then?
The whole marriage thing is all about acceptence and validation.
“Hey,Mom and Dad,don’t be bummed out because you will never see any grandchildren from me.See this piece of paper say’s im legaly married to Bruce.
If the government says this is valid,it means im not weird,and my being gay is ok,and you should accept me”
just my opinion
you mileage may vary
tony
south haven
Outlaw!!!
We’ve seen burnings of Books of Mormon and stomping on crosses…
Which is even less than rhetorical in this case, because Mormons don’t use the cross as a symbol anyway. I guess Jesus Freaks must all look alike to these people.
According to the FBI, the guy behind the anthrax attacks committed suicide. Don’t we believe them? Then why are we still panicking when someone sends talcum powder through the mail?
Greetings:
My current take on the homosexual marriage issue goes like this. Millions of heterosexuals have asked the government for permission to enter into a legal and binding marriage contract. They are now told that that contract had a quadruple-secret expansion clause allowing the government (or a handful of judges) to redefine that contract to include homosexuals.
Back when I was taking my mandatory “Contract Law” class, I recall something about a “meeting of the minds” as an essential element of a contract. So, tell me, whose mind didn’t meet.
For me this is all about causing the maximum chaos and destruction of what we call civilized society. The Left figures they benefit from anything that lets loose chaos. They have generally been correct in that assessment so far.
Great take, 11B40. I’ve not seen that angle, quite, before. Could you write up something a little longer?
Bah.
The right of “gays” (or anyone else) to form contractual unions allowing things like survivor benefits, hospital visits, and the like is a civil liberties question and should be addressed as such.
The use of the word “marriage” to characterize such arrangements is an in-your-face attempt to override millennia of societal understanding by compelling a linguistic adjustment at gunpoint. It is not a civil liberties question, and Proposition 8 (among other phenomena) demonstrates that the American people aren’t buying it as one — and that continuing the attempt to run roughshod over longstanding custom will prevent resolution of the civil liberties question, or, more likely, cause it to be resolved in a way detrimental to the interests of those involved.
Regards,
Ric
I think those who oppose gay marriage need to remember gays have been adopting kids for 20 years or so. It’s a little late to take a stand. Are you suggesting those kids are better off without married parents? Barn door closers, meet missing horse.
I myself find it difficult to invision finding love in some guy’s hairy backside, but the more the peterpuffers pair off, the better my aging, outlawish demographic looks to women.
Which is what makes Prop. 8 such a farce — California already has civil unions.
No, Rob, in fact Proposition 8 is not a farce; it is a demonstration validating the point I made in my second paragraph — just as Dan Are’s post once again demonstrates that conservatives understand “liberals” (or, rather, the Proggs who have co-opted the term) very well, while the Proggs have no understanding whatever of conservatives’ take.
If there is anything whatever that is likely to break the Proggs’ control of public dialogue, this is the issue.
Regards,
Ric
Let me frame it another way: if there’s Separation of Church and State, then why does the State recognize Church marriages?
The “separation” actually appears to encompass two 1A rights, freedom FROM (State Determined) religion, and freedom TO (practice) religion. Marriage is more a 9A right, perhaps. Marriage existed before the constitution as a right-with all the restrictions and bonuses. It was part of common law, part of contracts and property succession, medical issues, etc. Obviously the State also recognises secular marriage. I think it isn’t misplaced that the courts looked at gay marriage, along with lawmakers.
In my ‘umble opinion.
I’ve written much on this. The Prop 8 backlash presages the new culture war we’ll be fighting in the years ahead. Behold the heightened totalitarianism of today’s far left-wing.
Links? Feel free to link dump.
I can’t help seeing this as all of the same piece: roiling the so-called “have-nots” against the “haves.”
Who better personifies the haves than the Mormons? White, generally prosperous, capitalists. (Those racial slurs, by the way, will be dealt with by the left — dissension among the ranks will not be tolerated!)
As the co-creator of “The O!” stated in his recent triumphal self-fellating essay:
Onward and downward!
In CA, the Association of Black Social Workers banned the adoption of black children by white couples on the grounds that a white family could not express nor participate in black culture to the extend needed by a black child for a healthy identity.
So unless gays and gay couples are limited to adopting gay children, then should not the same cultural litmus test apply to them as well?
I take it you mean it snidely Adriane. But do you not think that there may be people aboard who wouldn’t, instead suggesting, I’ll see your idiocy and raise you another?
aboard should read abroad, sorry……
Pissing off the LDS is likely to prove a mistake.
In what way? People have been urinating in our cornflakes since April 6, 1830 (day the Church was organized). Every so often we catch hell when society decides we are too far out of step with them (and marriage customs catches us the most hell).
But we just hunker down and wait until the fickle nature of societal outrage shifts elsewhere and we carry on. The dogs may bark, but the caravan moves on.
And yes, thor, my love, we are all gay. Gay as an Easter parade. It’s only by divine intervention that we have this high birth rate.
As for burning Books of Mormon, they can burn all they want: we’ll print more. We don’t fetishize slabs of paper and ink the way a certain other religion does.
Who better personifies the haves than the Mormons? White, generally prosperous, capitalists.
And yet we also have a highly developed and efficient welfare system. (In the U.S. at least. Try that in Latin America and soon everybody becomes a Mormon to get stuff.)
We are “capitalists” only in the sense that we are enterprising, hard-working, innovative, and therefore successful within the capitalist system.
But did you know that we started out as collectivists? We had something called the United Order that ensured that everyone was taken care of. It combined the best aspects of a free market, socialism, and communism, but because it requires exceptional virtue from all of the participants (good luck with that), the system unraveled and we had to revert to free market plus voluntary charity.
I’m missing something-if you believe you can tell gays they can’t marry, but if progressive courts say they can, that court’s decision is totalitarian? It seems, given what’s being balanced, to be defaulting to freedom. Two people are allowed in a mutually benifical state that would otherwise require a ton of contracts, legal work, lawyer and court time to accomplish.
You mostly seem to agree to civil unions-why the big battle over the noun?
We are “capitalists†only in the sense that we are enterprising, hard-working, innovative, and therefore successful within the capitalist system.
That’s the sense I meant to convey, dicentra. And for that egregious sin, you may yet find yourself being a member of “the new Jews.”
I’m missing something-if you believe you can tell gays they can’t marry, but if progressive courts say they can, that court’s decision is totalitarian?
Yes. They are not defaulting to freedom. They are abusing the language, and bastardizing the founding documents that they are supposed to uphold.
Rick Locke posted above about the importance of the language, and last week, in comment #293 in another thread, expounded on same idea at greater length. We have only discussed this issue about 97,583 times around here.
It’s a matter of who owns the language, Dan. Do the speakers, or the courts? Or Humpty Dumpty, of course.
Yes, Dan Are, you are definitely missing something.
Either out of ignorance (my bet) or intentional obfuscation, you are mixing together two completely different things. Those two things are not the same, are not equal to one another, and are completely different from one another. Until and unless you manage to separate the two, and understand that they are different and not equal to one another, you will continue to “miss something”, and more Proposition 8s are in your future.
Regards,
Ric
I’m new to the comments, though not the blog. I’ve enjoyed reading Jeff and agree that language is important. But as my dad used to say, the dictionary follows usage, not the other way around. If a gay couple enter into a civil union, people will generally call them married, and view them as such. Fight for all the laws about the word “marriage” that you like, but don’t try and tell me you aren’t wiping your arse with the first amendment. And I’ll still call the queens whatever I want.
The question is, Dan, will people be forced to view them as married if that is not their view of what marriage is? Will gays view their marriages as different from straight people’s? If not, then is not the language meant to elide a difference that all people recognize, or is it just breeders who have to worry about that?
Tell that to the Catholic Church.
The dictionary doesn’t change at gunpoint, Dan.
If (a hypothetical follows) “civil unions” were established and regularly accepted, and over time people began to refer to them as “marriage”, the meaning of the word would shift and you would get what you appear to want. You canNOT short-circuit the process. It doesn’t work that way, and trying to do so causes backlash that may very well undo all the progress to date.
Regards,
Ric
For everyone’s benefit … and in case I forgot, kudos to Senor Locke.
I hope you do not mind me re-posting #293. It is a tour de force in the face of the inanity thrown around contra your position.
Tell that to the Catholic Church.
Agreed, but they don’t recognize ANY marriage outside the Catholic church.
The dictionary doesn’t change at gunpoint, Dan.
I agree-but if you did too, you wouldn’t care what the law said. If the consideration of a gay couple as “married” is historically, culturally and spiritually flawed, why worry about the wording of a statute? Whereas calling it a “civil union” won’t undo the push of progressives or the gay lobby. I think culture will move in the direction of covering gay civil unions under the umbrella of marriage-I’m not saying that’s good or bad, though I doubt it will be the downfall of Western Civilization.
If I didn’t think that people who differed would be subject to legal sanctions, Dan, I’d agree with you, but I think that the legal gun will be held to the heads of those who don’t get with the program. The term’s significance, for many, derives from religion. It’s not a civil rights issue.
Next, they’ll be saying gay public sex is eucharistic. Then what?
Dan Are appears to be unwilling to read what has actually been said by others here. Ric’s comments above, and those re-posted specifically addressed his concerns.
What Dan Are and a lot of others miss is a basic principle that’s been smeared out of recognition: The policeman’s gun is not a fashion accessory. They take laws and judicial decisions as moral forces when they are not. When a Legislature acts or a judge rules, the result is that nothing happens until it is enforced — and the “force” in that word means the sword (or, lately, the gun) of the State.
Coercing people at gunpoint to modify their behavior is not a moral act, nor does it mean that the changed behavior becomes moral; in fact, it means that the people so compelled have had their ability to behave morally and/or ethically removed by force. And no, you cannot include laws against murder and the like under that head, and if you try it simply means you are ignorant of how Law came to be and works.
Regards,
Ric
My reading ability is pretty good, and Ric’s comments are clearly, and commendably written. (He does speak in some absolutes regarding history, and I suspect some sociologist could come up with obscure exceptions. They’re really good at that.) However, boiled down to simplest terms, if a civil union law were passed that included the word “marriage” to define that union, it and said union were between two men or two women, it would somehow 1) unsuccessfully rewrite human nature/God’s law/natural law and 2)have horrible consequences for something it was unsuccessful in accomplishing.
If the gay lobby were smart, and cared about the real impact of the law on their own children, you’d think they’d take civil unions as incremental progress. But if Ric had faith in his belief that homo “marriage” can’t compete, he’d be a bit less concerned.
you’d think they’d take civil unions as incremental progress.
But they will not. Because they want the name too. Why is it that it is bad for the defenders of the name to defend it, but you do not seem to have a problem with those on offense trying to take it?
Strawman alert!
It is, rather, a matter of terminology, of the use of language.
If you want “marriage” to apply to homosexual unions, present the society with stable homosexual unions and wait for the language to shift. If such unions do, in fact, represent the equivalent of marriage, the language will shift and you will get what you say you want; if they do not, it won’t happen.
Forcing people at gunpoint to change their language, customs, and usage is inevitably going to cause resentment — backlash — and by the evidence to date, will result in the opposite of what you say you want. Note that civil unions are presently the law in California, but if Proposition 8 is interpreted strictly it would forbid them — a loss in terms of moving in the direction you say you want to go.
Regards,
Ric
Ric – You are more kind than I. It seems like he is being intentionally obtuse.
But they will not. Because they want the name too. Why is it that it is bad for the defenders of the name to defend it, but you do not seem to have a problem with those on offense trying to take it?
————————
You’re both welcome to argue over the wording of the law. And once it’s written, I’ll happily defend a gay couple’s right to say they’re married even if the law says “civil union”. Likewise if the law says they’re married, I’ll defend Ric’s right to call them “laughable Godless sodomites” or “pillow biters” or anything else. I suppose the latter circumstance is where I part from the left, who are only fans of free speech while THEY’RE talking.
If you want “marriage†to apply to homosexual unions, present the society with stable homosexual unions and wait for the language to shift. If such unions do, in fact, represent the equivalent of marriage, the language will shift and you will get what you say you want; if they do not, it won’t happen.
I get to say what I want, period.
I’ll defend Ric’s right to call them “laughable Godless sodomites†or “pillow biters†or anything else.
So much for the pretense of actually having a conversation. I fucking cannot stand people like this. If you want to call people names for disagreeing with you, do it in your first comment and let us know that anyone that disagrees with you is a homophobe.
….I’ll defend Ric’s right to call them “civil unionites”.
Hell, I don’t know what he wants to call them.
Ric?
JD, I’m not entirely without the gay cooties fear myself. It’s been a long struggle and I’m 47. This arguement has been purely from a libertarian perspective, on this end. You never test a principle more than when it clashes with your feelings.
Add this one to the unserious prick bin …
That you think there is something like a gay cootie is all on you. You will find few, if any, round here, that feel that way. Keep your bigotry to yourself, asshat.
OK, JD, so what’s the Worse Case Scenario? Gay’s get legal language to describe them as MARRIED. Take this to it’s logical negative extreme.
It has been explained to you, ad nauseum, in this thread.
Yikes, while we argued, look what they went and did-def.4
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/marriage
Folks, if you ever wanted a good example of someone pretending to discuss something in good faith …
Dan Are: They don’t need a piece of paper to prove their love, right?
Oh wait, that was the 1970s. How gauche.
It’s not just linguistics. It’s not just terminology and semantics. Marriage is a real-life social structure that has served as the foundation of human society since time immemorial. You can point to all kinds of alternative practices, but you will also notice that those practices have all, without exception, been discontinued, whereas marriage has not.
If you say that same-sex pairings are the functional equivalent of opposite-sex pairings, then you’re setting in concrete the concept that males and females are interchangeable when it comes to the foundations of society.
But we’re not. Only progressives are stupid and gullible and blind and sophisticated enough to insist that we are.
No major religion of philosophical system has ever recognized same-sex couplings as the moral or functional equivalent of marriage. (Nor have they opposed interracial marriage, either: our anti-miscegenation laws were a historical aberration.)
The fact that we put men on the moon does not mean that we possess the wisdom to tinker with the foundation of society. We have been undermining the very concept and function of regular marriage for at least 50 years with our acceptance of promiscuity, out-of-wedlock births, single motherhood and father abandonment, the functional and conceptual uncoupling of sex from the creation of life, celebrity marriages that endure like mayflies, romantic love exalted over marital vows, masculinity and femininity as pure social construct…
The results have not been good. Our society is not healthy. We are not grounded. We are horribly narcissistic. We have lost the understanding of why marriage is a good thing anyway (just another life choice!), or why human sexuality should be treated as the sensitive and holy thing it is instead of a locker-room punchline.
Our society is the last society on the planet that should tinker with marriage. We don’t recognize that marriage is how you grow the hell up, because a good marriage requires you to intimately get along with someone who is your polar opposite, someone you can’t fathom, and someone you need to learn to fathom or risk alienation and betrayal.
Men understand other men much better than they understand women. Learning to live intimately with someone of your own sex cannot possibly provide the opportunities to mature that marriage can.
But we don’t even recognize the need to grow the hell up, let alone associate such a thing with marriage. And the fact that such a large component of our population cannot perceive that marriage absolutely cannot exclude one of the sexes speaks not to our progress but to the degeneration of our understanding.
It is a very painful fact that some people cannot sexually bond with members of the opposite sex, instead preferring their own. But they are not the only members of society who cannot participate in healthy marriage through no fault of their own. The developmentally disabled, the insane, the severely physically disabled are also excluded from the ranks of the “breeders,” and it’s a sad thing.
But that’s life. Not everybody gets what they desperately want. The blind aren’t allowed to drive, either, despite the fact that they are intelligent enough, possess the necessary motor skills, and need transportation just like the rest of us. Is it hateful to deny driver licenses to the blind? Or is it just the way it is.
Dan Are – If you brought that kind of bad faith to a court room, you would get hit with punitive damages.
Dan Are,
You may argue with the person on the inside of your corneas all you want. You can even name it “Ric”. But it isn’t me.
Regards,
Ric
Dicentra, I agree that a great deal is at stake, that society is progressing very rapidly. Much is driven by the industrial revolution’s ability to sustain a larger population. Technology certainly impacts. As much as anything, classical liberal philosophy has transformed the world, too. The concept of freedom is remarkably new.
I share your concerns of where we’re headed. Your opinions and beliefs of marriage don’t differ much from mine.
But, to summarize, the government has allowed gay adoption for years. There seems to be agreement on allowing gays “civil unionsâ€Â. At least two dictionaries already include gay couples in the definition of marriage. All this is difficult to undo, if anyone wanted to. The genie is out the bottle.
I don’t think government action is called for in this. I hardly think it’s called for in ANYTHING.
I doubt very much if gay marriage would ever inhibit human progress. It hasn’t EXISTED yet, or in any big way. I think of it purely in libertarian terms. It doesn’t intrude on my person or property, so it’s not a decision I would impose on anyone at gunpoint. Let them find happiness as they wish.
“If you want “marriage†to apply to homosexual unions, present the society with stable homosexual unions and wait for the language to shift. If such unions do, in fact, represent the equivalent of marriage, the language will shift and you will get what you say you want; if they do not, it won’t happen.”
…I totally misread that as “get to say what you want”, leading to the needlessly kneejerk free speach remark. And, in part, the chill.
Sorry, Ric. My asshatery.
But, to summarize, the government has allowed gay adoption for years.
Straw-argument. That has nothing to do with the hijacking of the language, and the bastardization of the documents that founded this country.
There seems to be agreement on allowing gays “civil unionsâ€Â.
There does not “seem” to be agreement, since the same sex marriage lobby will not accept that. You see, both sides have to agree before there can be an agreement.
At least two dictionaries already include gay couples in the definition of marriage.
Well, then. By all means. If a dictionary says so.
All this is difficult to undo, if anyone wanted to. The genie is out the bottle.
Another piece of shit straw-argument. Nobody is trying to undo that, at least not ’round here.
I doubt very much if gay marriage would ever inhibit human progress.
And I doubt that you are arguing in good faith. Gay marriage would be hell on procreation, no?
It doesn’t intrude on my person or property, so it’s not a decision I would impose on anyone at gunpoint.
Yet you are willing to force your views of this on everyone that does not agree with you, at gunpoint.
Let them find happiness as they wish.
Nobody is keeping them from being together.
Let me see if I can separate this out…
Adoption has nothing to do with language, but does with the procreation issue. Particularly for man-man “civil unionsâ€Â. As would hiring surrogates. Woman-woman “civil unions†could birth twice as fast, that’s not exactly hell on procreation. Who marries, or who “civil unionizesâ€Â, may or may not have a net effect on population growth.
Regarding language, that last paragraph sounded pretty awkward. I suspect it will evolve into something less clunky, by whatever consensus changes language.
Regarding the HIJACKING of language, by speech codes, fairness doctrine, “progressive†education indoctrinating kids at taxpayer expense, lopsided media-I don’t think that issue will be served by more restrictions (Don’t call gay couples married!) but by less restrictions.
Agreement on “civil unions’ in law? Ric just said it was law in CA, for now. I don’t recall it being a debate issue in the recent election.
I think the real strawman is thinking I’m advocating gay marriage as an institution. I don’t see it happening. My response is to give freedom a chance.
My response is to give freedom a chance.
Bullshit. Your position is to cram a new definition of a word, and a bastardization of the English language, down the throat of every homophobe that dares to disagree with you Enlightened ones.
My response is to give freedom a chance.
Bullshit. Your position is to cram a new definition of a word, and a bastardization of the English language, down the throat of every homophobe that dares to disagree with you Enlightened ones.
Sorry, Better Half commented on another thread, and I did not switch back.
Dan just isn’t paying attention to what people are actually saying, and as such is arguing in bad faith at a steady clip.
My response is to give freedom a chance.
Only for those that you designate, and forcing others to go along by way of the gun.
Concurred.
“Yet you are willing to force your views of this on everyone that does not agree with you, at gunpoint.”
“Your position is to cram a new definition of a word, and a bastardization of the English language, down the throat of every homophobe that dares to disagree with you Enlightened ones.”
Right.
Well, laugh in the face of my pointed gun, repel or cough up my crammed words, reassure the word “marriage” it has a father, and slap me with Sturgeon’s Law. You have my support. I’m ready for bed, so you can have the last word, I promise.
As I noted above, Dan Are has proven to be a textbook example of someone arguing in bad faith.
The fact that society has been permitting something for a long time does not mean that it’s a good thing to allow it to continue. In some Muslim societies, pre-pubescent boys are regularly sodomized by adult males. You could say, “hey, whatever they want to do is OK by me,” but the result of messing with these poor kids is the scary misogynistic, violent, shame-based society that threatens civilization continually.
I doubt very much if gay marriage would ever inhibit human progress.
If you define “human progress” as people doing as they please, then hey, why not.
But the real and inevitable result of the postponement, devaluation, and bastardization of marriage is an eternally adolescent culture that cannot muster the optimism to defend itself and that fails to reproduce at replacement rates. Steyn showed that amply.
Consenting to gay marriage will only take us farther down the twisted path we’re already on, the one that keeps us eternally immature and therefore ensures that we’ll be overwhelmed eventually by a more robust culture.
So that’s where the inhibition of “human progress” comes in: we die off and/or are conquered (which is pretty much inevitable in Europe at this point), and those who take our place don’t have the cultural chops to create the same society that we have.
The Mormons are a target because their religion is also a culture.
It works quite well, too; there is much of the American Dream in Joseph Smith’s revelation/message/church.
I’m not, nor is anyone in my immediate family, LDS. We’ve lived here since 1992.
The number one reason for political action aimed at gay marriage is as a tool to destroy organized Christianity. In the world of man, which is before anything else imperfect, the evolution of observance of Christianity as practiced by the West has included the tenet “give unto Caesar that which is due Caesar…” which when written was intended to mean earthly duns such as taxes or submission to decree.
But not even the Romans went out of their way to screw with local religions. One reason for this was their own polytheism, but the other was just hard nosed reality for the rulers of an empire: there’s no war like a holy war. Not in scope, not in cost, nor in the opportunity for unforeseen and unintended consequences. When Rome went to war, it was usually to chase bandits, economic competitors, or smugglers. And when Rome ruled a conquered province, they had the smarts to understand that religion served as a valuable tool used by societies to coexist with themselves.
The Left in this country is trying to kill an idea – that individual freedom is an individual responsibility – by making sure that there are NO rules that can be held up as “moral”. I’s pretty simple. When somebody scoffs at you and says “who are you to judge?” when you remark that men pissing on each other in the presence of minor children in the middle of a city street in a major city might just be less than great art, that person is automatically assuming the bench, the box, and the if they could, the rope, themselves. They have been indoctrinated that the only rule there is is that people who would embrace a higher law or merely acknowledge the existence of a moral ethic are flawed, rube, or irrational.
Irrational like “God botherer”, not to be confused with any living adult who can use the words “Marxism”, “Utopia”, and “compulsory public service is patriotism”.
Those folks are ruling now.
Governance may or may not return. I await 2010 with some minor glee, I must admit.
We pour our first pile caps on block 75 tomorrow. Right after I lay out the grid. woot!
Marriage is not a legal term. It is religious in origin. Now contract has legal all over it, and a contract between two consenting adults can say anything anyone at all wants it to say.
But gays aren’t looking for equal justice under the law. They (gays) are seeking approval from an institution that by doctrine and scripture cannot honestly extend it, at least on the level of their physical acts.
God loves all people, with reservation. But what people do, well, there are words written…
The gays want acceptance, the Left wants balkanization. It’s not that they are homosexual so much as they are another demographic that can be exploited with out expending much capital.
And the Left wants God dead not because he’s their enemy, but because people who embrace a loving God and at least try to live a good life tend to live in more civilized communities.
The kind that don’t require organizing fueled by taxpayer dollars.
It’s all about herding cats, this socialism thing is. Except for the fact that cats don’t normally turn on you and swallow you whole… after batting you around the kitchen for a few hours, at least.
The Left has carved 52% of the country into historically illiterate tribal narcissists who voted for the one man on the planet who had less chops for an executive job than does the kid who sold you your coffee this morning.
I still think the media will have an “OMG!WHWD???” epiphany. Too late, but it will be a real “Soylent Green is PEOPLE!” moment, make no mistake.
Where’s my rocket car?
God loves all people, withOUT reservation.
I’ll shut up now.
The gays want acceptance,
Quite a few of the gays, the hard-core activists (who will do what they want despite the wishes of the saner gay majority), have stated quite clearly that they want to undermine and destroy the whole institution of marriage outright. They originally wanted to try killing it from the outside by promoting “alternate lifestyles” and promiscuity, but now they figure that infiltration will work pretty well, too.
By creating same-sex marriages first, then declaring that fidelity has no place in marriage. (The males will do this, not the women, who are more monogamous by nature.)
Why? I don’t know for sure, but I figure it has to do with destroying something you can’t have, something that other people have and judge you as lesser for not having it. They see traditional morality and its association with marriage as the cause of their misery.
Kind of like the efforts to get rid of public Christmas celebrations and decorations. If we don’t like it or can’t have it, then nobody can.
So everybody, you’re saying, except those dudes living on the reservations? ‘Cause they’re the ones with ’em, right? ;-}
TmjUtah, a big cause of Roman downfall is that the Caesars tried to make themselves into gods; that made them a state religion, and made it impossible to separate what was Caesar’s from what was God’s. All of a sudden, every disagreement over religious practice became potential treason.
This has been a pretty good thread actually.
I think Dan Are may have been purposely adversarial for the sake of discussion, and if so well done. You have given the best defense of the gayness I have ever seen.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t fly. The burden of proof is on the plaintiff, the one wanting change from all recorded history. The arguments expose the plaintiffs true motive, that of wanting to cripple religion as they feel religion has crippled them. Revenge, not justice.
The verdict is, Christianity is still stronger than you thought, and you will need to chip away at it for a while longer. I see “in God we trust” on coinage and Nativity scenes as your best shots in the short term.
But cheer up. Last time Gay marriage was a proposition( 2004?), it was passed by a greater percentage of the population, so maybe next time.
But not if the fucktards keep demonstrating. I agree with Ric, they could come out of this current bullshit 20 years behind if they aren’t careful.
“Who would it hurt?” is the mantra you hear all the time. This essay in the Weekly Standard details who and it not who you’d think:
http://tinyurl.com/rk72m
Catholic mediated adoptions would stop if forced to adopt to same-sex parents. Some of these catholic adoption agencies specialize in the adoption of “hard to place” children like due to disabilities.
Also, think about your option now of sending your child, on your dime, to a religious private school. How many would close their doors once sued and forced to allow same-sex parents to place their children there.
Believe it or not, it’s not just about the gay couple and their desire to be called ‘married’.
Never fear ,Kelli, there are other adoption agencies to take up the slack.
On the other thing. There is more than one same sex couple that send their daughter to our local catholic girls school.
Boston is not the world.
Rusty,
The point of the article is that an entire group of legal thinkers came to the conclusion that ‘gay rights’ would always trump religious freedom.
I’m sure that many religious schools allow gay parents to send their children, but the broader point is that it would open the door for the legal mandate that all religious schools to allow it or be sued and therefore shut down.
It’s not about Boston or your school, but schools and parents having the option to participate or not without legal threat.
I think Dan Are may have been purposely adversarial for the sake of discussion, and if so well done. You have given the best defense of the gayness I have ever seen.
Thanks, Lucky Lee. I think.
For those who accused me of discussing this in bad faith, I can sincerely say my position never changed, though initially I may have exaggerated it for humorous effect. I’m so far to the right that social conservatives and neocons may think I’m shifting positions to piss them off. I honestly don’t, and I’m honestly not pro-the gayness.
If anyone still looks in on this thread, I devoted a fairly sleepless night Friday, wishing to offer up some useful ideas for the right to help strengthen the family, and marriage as an institution. Saving the noun “marriage” may or may not be a lost cause, but many libertarians would recognize the need to help family and marriage. I’m in your corner, I swear. I’ll offer as much useful discussion as I can in later threads.
Poor downtrodden bigots! What is next disrespect of the KKK? I’ll make is simple for hate-groups like the LDS. I’m not gay, I’ve never been in a protest for gay rights, a parade, anything. I’m pissed at LDS because they are 100% anti-american and anti-human. When I see low life trash like the LDS and other hate groups that hide behind a cross pushing for discrimination, It makes me all the more willing to bring up such a disgusting bunch of trash in public.
Considering their past of rape, pedophelia, racism, and organized crime, you would think honest and decent americans (not you anti-american rightwing trash, I mean good people) would be much less forgiving.