As a gloss on Darleen’s piece below, I’d like to highlight the competing viewpoints among the Hollywood crowd with respect to “what should be done” to those who supported Proposition 8 — drawing your particular attention to the way the issue is being framed.
First, here’s director Greg Araki, on whether Richard Raddon, the Mormon director of the L.A. Film Festival, should step down or be fired for his advocacy of the same-sex marriage ban:
Araki says Raddon should step down. “I don’t think he should be forcibly removed. The bottom line is if he contributed money to a hateful campaign against black people, or against Jewish people, or any other minority group, there would be much less excusing of him. The terrible irony is that he runs a film festival that is intended to promote tolerance and equality.”
Similarly, here’s Chad Griffin, “a political advisor to Hollywood executives”:
“A dollar to the yes campaign is a dollar in support of bigotry, homophobia and discrimination. There are going to be consequences. Any individual who has held homophobic views and who has gone public by writing a check, you can expect to be publicly judged. Many can expect to pay a price for a long time to come.”
Alternately, here’s director Christine Vachon:
“I can’t quite stomach the notion that you fire somebody because of what they believe. It doesn’t feel right to me.”
Too:
Dawn Hudson, executive director of Film Independent, says, “Are we happy with his donation? No. But he has a right to his religious and personal beliefs.
“The very cornerstone of our organization is diversity, and diversity includes sexual orientation. Rich’s actions have always been in accordance with those principles,” she said.
Condon, the gay writer-director of “Dreamgirls” and a Film Independent board member, offered this retort to what he calls the “off-with-his-head” crowd: “If you’re asking, ‘Do we take discrimination against gays as seriously as bigotry against African Americans and Jews?’ . . . the answer is, ‘Of course we do.’ But we also believe that some people, including Rich, saw Prop. 8 not as a civil rights issue but a religious one. That is their right. And it is not, in and of itself, proof of bigotry.“
Condon seems to be acutely aware that as a Mormon in the LA film scene Raddon is himself the Other, and therefore persecution would redound to the gay community calling for his head. He is excused partially for his speech, but mostly out of a (laudable) respect for his religious beliefs.
Where Condon perhaps misses the point — and where Vachon seems to grasp it more firmly — is that the issue here is whether or not one should be fired or forced out or shunned for holding a belief that others find troubling or unpopular.
Normally, such a question answers itself: people disagree all the time, and we don’t go around firing people for their divergent beliefs in a country that prides itself on free speech.
So in order to make such a lynch mob palatable, the framing has to be manipulated to turn a disagreement over beliefs and public policy into something far more sinister — namely, “hate” or an abuse of civil rights.
But of course, the question of gay marriage is only a civil rights issue to most of those who support it; to most of those who support a ban on gay marriage, the issue is not one of civil rights or hatred at all, but rather one of public policy, a fidelity to the sanctity of the traditional definition of marriage, and (in some cases) a check against what they believe to be a legalized slippery slope. To others, the issue is, in fact, a religious one, insofar as it goes against the teachings of their church — but religion should only matter to marriages sanctified by a church. Which is why in a perfect world, marriages performed by the state should all be labeled civil unions — a move that would, in theory, take the starch out of the pro-gay marriage movement and allow religious organizations to decide what is and is not a marriage.
In practice, however, new “churches” would arise and expand to allow for same sex marriages — and the definition of “marriage” as it has been traditionally understood will perforce be changed. Hence the resistance on many levels, other than the religious one, to the shoehorning in to the institution of “marriage” an arrangement that has never been considered marriage.
And until the pro-same sex marriage movement is able to convince the electorate otherwise, marriage remains a specific type of union sanctified by the church and the state — and not, by virtue of resistance to changing that union in a way that can potentially completely undermine the traditional family, legally speaking, a sign of “hatred” or “bigotry” in all or even most cases.
It is only by recrafting such positions, then — based as they are on a number of issues that don’t circle back to civil rights — as a position of hatred and intolerance (the new ironic buzzwords thrown around unironically by progressives who remain painfully tone deaf to Orwellian language) that same-sex marriage proponents who call for the shunning of those whose beliefs differ can lay claim to a patina of righteousness.
That is, they need for disagreement to be “hatred” or “bigotry” in order to justify the kinds of punishments they wish to level against those they find “intolerant”.
— Which is why I’ve long pointed out that real “tolerance” is accepting the rights of those who disagree with you to hold their views without fearing reprisals — and why it is therefore necessary for progressives to redefine tolerance as its opposite.
It’s not personal, it’s business?
marriage remains a specific type of union sanctified by the church and the state
That’s not true in several states now.
Two is not several, alphie. And in both cases, judicial activism is the cause, not legislation nor referendum nor church sanction.
Happy, gay smiley faced fascism.
I am a conservative Christian, so I oppose gay marriage for religious reasons and for cultural ones. (Quick, name any country or civilization in history past which had civil unions as a separate institution than marriage. Answer: None! It’s the same thing, a formal recognition of a family unit. That’s why there’s not a true distinction between a “church” marriage and a “civil” ceremony, and why bogus church plural marriages are, well, bogus. I worry about changing something as intrinsic to our cultural, moral, and self identity as marriage on a very recent whim. Whims change and leave a lot of flotsam in their path. So I’m standing athwart that history and yelling stop.)
I’ll be the first to say it. I’m an OUTLAW.
I am wondering, though, when Jim Carrey is going to star in the sequel to the blacklisting fave “The Majestic” with the pro-prop 8 beleaguered “The Fabulous.”
That’s just a working title.
When a parent disapproves (even vehemently and loudly) of a child’s behavior, does that mean the parent HATES the child?
It does according to the gays.
I’m sick and tired of being accused of “hate” for having beliefs that are NOT hateful. The meaning of the word “hate” has been watered-down to mean “any disagreement”.
According to 1 John, real hate is tantamount to murder. That’s because hate is the motivation behind it. I don’t wish physical harm, much less death, on any gay person for any reason.
I wonder what these peoples reaction would be if the Mormons went around blacklisting and picketing businesses that were supportive of gay marriage and firing gay workers? Oh that’s right they would be doing the same thing they are doing now cept they would be sueing. Ok got it.
Seems to me this bigotry is just a one way street.
I am shocked, Shocked!, that a group that takes pride in it’s Tolerance! and Diversity! could be so intolerant of a diversity of ideas…
It’s just another hypocritical day on the left, by and large, with a few exceptions…
I agree with Jeff G’s point about all publicly performed joinings being referred to as civil unions. That would make the resolution of this a whole lot easier. For one thing, to call them marriage takes you down a slippery slope to a point where a church could be threatened if they didn’t assent to violate their own principles and perform same sex ceremonies…
But I would like to point out that in classical societies like Greece, or Rome prior to 330 ad, while having marriage like institutions for heterosexual relationships, there were no equivalent ones for same sex unions…
Homosexuality was tolerated in ancient Greece, and, while largely frowned upon, was also to a varying degree in Rome, but the unions were never institutionalized into society. I don’t need to point out to the thoughtful PW crowd that these societies were in no way radically Judeo-Christian; indeed they were gods-botherers, but didn’t have the Mormon value system-that’s for sure…
As a classically liberal minded fellow, I’d like to let these folks live and let live within the confines of the law. But I will never agree to their unions being called marriage for the slippery slope reason I outlined above…
I guess that’s one thing I’ll never tolerate…
I denounce myself…
An interesting aspect of leftist thinking is, ironically, something for which they mock Chimpy McHitlerBurton: “You’re either with us or against us”. When Dubya says it, it’s tres simplisme. But they truly want us to believe that opposing “gay marriage” is exactly the same as dragging a gay man to death, or even hanging homosexuals by the neck until they’re dead. They won’t make that last comparison explicitly, however, lest the cognitive dissonance become too uncomfortable.
They have to make any disagreement with any part of their agenda (yes, I said “agenda”) a rejection of everything they advocate. And since they advocate some reasonable positions, this argumentam ad stramentum device handily dispenses with all disagreement as “homophobic”.
The word “tolerance” should be thrown in the trashcan right beside the word “diversity” and then set on fire.
As the retarded bumpersticker says, “Hate is not a family value”
So gay activists should stop engaging in hate.
Is parsnip alphie/sniffles/actus/monkeyboy?
They’ve had to pretzel themselves like this because for the past four decades or so they have been champions of “tolerance” as a way to tell the godbotherers to SHUT UP AND DON’T JUDGE ME for the promiscuity, drug use, draft-dodging, and whatever else they were doing to Stick It To
My ParentsThe Man.Hoist by one’s own petard. (One of those phrases that brings to mind something that it isn’t; for the longest time I imagined someone impaled by his own lance.)
Three words, Jeff.
Loving vs Virginia.
Not applicable, nishi.
“Homosexuality was tolerated in ancient Greece, and, while largely frowned upon, was also to a varying degree in Rome, but the unions were never institutionalized into society…”
Oh, no, no. You obviously haven’t been reading the updated, simplified, corrected version of history. Homosexuality was happily celebrated as a perfectly natural thing–everywhere in the world! even in Islam!–until Christianity came along and ruined everything. And then Christianity spent thousands of years persecuting, torturing, and humiliating gays to the point that they are now perfectly justified in seeking violent revenge.
And yet we all know that there are those whom we are not tolerant of. I am “tolerant” of people who like chocolate ice cream because this has no effect on me. I am not tolerant of Commies, Nazis or Jihadists because they want to kill me, people I care for, and my way of life generally. Tolerance is only a reasonable course of action in the presence of the Golden Rule. When the other side believes they have the right (or merely the desire) to harm you, to infringe on your rights, then tolerance becomes foolish.
False. It is necessary for them to define new harms. Once they can show that a belief causes harm they can justify non-tolerance. Prop 8 is defined as harming gays, and therefore they free themselves of the need for tolerance.
No, of course not. You merely wish to prevent them from sharing their lives with their soul-mates on the same terms you enjoy. You wish to prevent them from gaining legal recognition of the families they have made (or desire to make). You want to prevent their love from having the same recognition as your love.
So regardless whether you hate them, they hate you. Your motives are irrelevant. Only your actions matter. And your actions are hateful in the sense that your actions cause hate to bloom in the hearts of others. Similar to how I do not “hate” the deer I hunt, I would not blame them for hating me.
If anyone tried to stop me from marrying my wife, I would hate them. Unconditionally. Their motives would be meaningless, and I would not stop fighting by any means necessary to get my way. I do not blame Hollywood in this respect. There are good things in this world worth fighting for, and love is one of them.
Richard Raddon, the Mormon director of the L.A. Film Festival
I hear he’s doing Seven Brides for Steven’s Brother this summer.
I’M KIDDING!!
I wrote in Romney. Some of my best friends are Mormon.
There are good things in this world worth fighting for, and love is one of them.
The last Swiss Cake Roll is another.
When I was in college school back in the 80’s, the buzz phrase of professionals was-“Single-parent families can be just as effective as traditional ones.†At that time, you could have expended a lot of energy focusing on the word “familyâ€Â, if this didn’t fit your definition of a family. Ultimately, your efforts wouldn’t have mattered a bit-a new word entered the language, at least among professionals and caseworkers-“singleparentfamilyâ€Â. Much like “babydaddyâ€Â, it started rolling off the tongue so often among professionals that it became one word. They never just said “family†when discussing a single parent, for the sake of clarity. Unless, of course, that single parent was in earshot.
In the mantra “Single-parent families can be just as effective as traditional onesâ€Â, focus should’ve been on the word “canâ€Â. Sure, they CAN be effective.
I later had the chance to interview every kid held in a mid-sized facility, for one year. 98% of those removed from society were either from a single-parent family, or there was a man in the household that wasn’t the father. Less than 2% of these kids were from families where the parents married and stayed together, though demographically over 70% should have been. (Naturally, I’d have ZERO chance of ever publishing that fact. Don’t even ask.) It is now common knowledge that the development of a sociopath invariably includes an absent or distant father. Since then the left gave up on their mantra, and even Obama gave lip service to father involvement.
What does the “progressive†future hold? Will two lesbian women raise a child as effectively, or are we merely hoping they’d be an improvement on a lesbian single mom? Are two gay men better parents than a group home, for a slow-to-adopt child? I’m hopeful for actual PROGRESS, and not such poor forced choices. I firmly believe father’s rights will be the cornerstone of salvaging traditional culture. Marriage is about raising children, and the father’s role must not merely be that of a donor.
The last Swiss Cake Roll is another.
and KITTIES!!!!
Brock —
You seem not to understand what tolerance is with respect to speech. I tolerate Nazi speech so long as it doesn’t move into action or incite violence. That’s tolerance.
It is not “false” that tolerance, to progressives, is redefined as its opposite — that is, that tolerance has been redefined as not giving offense. In fact, there is ample evidence that this is precisely the case (site search: “intolerant of intolerance”).
The fact that you deem other people’s actions hateful for not comporting with those you’d like to see renders “hate” a term whose meaning is so watered down as to be worthless.
No one is stopping anyone from having a loving monogamous relationship with (in many cases) full civil partnership benefits. What they are doing is preventing that relationship from being called marriage, which is the kind of relationship that you and your wife have.
The idea that one needs to brand their relationship “marriage” to act as proof of “love” flies in the face of years of teachings by progressives that marriage is but a bourgeois institution that has nothing whatever to do with “love,” necessarily.
Pick a strategy and stick with it.
Here’s another good example of progressive tolerance.
“And your actions are hateful in the sense that your actions cause hate to bloom in the hearts of others.”
So, if the actions of radical gay activists–threats, blacklisting, physical harm, attempts to take away people’s livelihoods, desecration of churches–if those actions create a backlash and cause hatred to bloom in the hearts of others, will those others be justified in freeing themselves of the need for tolerance of gays?
So whatever happened to the 60’s radical-chic idea of “I ain’t gettin’ married to my old lady! We don’t need a piece of paper from The Man to be one, dude!”
Brock is a nice, eloquent twatwaffle. In the end, you are all racists and homophobes for disagreeing with Brock. I was able to condense his whole comment down by about 2746 words. Brevity is a virtue.
Brock I hope you and your post-op “wife” are very happy together. Please do not hate me.
No shit.
So JD would a gay person actually be a “racist” if they allowed hate to foster in their hearts toward the AA community that voted 70% for outlawing gay marriage? Or would that be the AA communities fault and they would be the bigot homophobes? I am gettin confused here.
That is disingenuous and completely misrepresents the views most hold on this blog, specifically marcus. As I have written else wear, I am a conservative Christian and I fully support full legal protections of committed gay couples as a matter of law. What I don’t support is calling it marriage, thereby making any distinction between Hetero and Homo relationships moot. That is not a civil rights issue but one of securing “diversity” and “tolerance” for our desire to retain the traditional definition of marriage (as Jeff pointed out above) while acknowledging that the Constitution provided equal protection under the law and gay couples should and must have legal protections.
The push back the gay marriage activists are getting is because they have chosen to make it a civil rights issue rather than an issue of equal and equivalent legal protections, thus equating the ignoring of the differences (the recognition of which many gays prefer as oppose to covet (see log cabin republican)) as equivalent to separate drinking fountains or segregated schools. (Consider the 70% of African Americans who voted fro Prop 8 and now ponder whether they are buying the issue as a civil rights dust up.) It is a reach and it is unnecessary. Some people of religious faith may oppose civil unions but I suspect that the vast majority of American citizens, if presented with a non confrontational equal protection argument, would vote on a state by state level to make civil unions the law of the land.
All of which has nothing to do with the sort of fascistic bully boy tactics of the mainstream gay activist members of the Prop 8 thugs. Let’s please not get involved in a “the ends justify the means” sort of validation.
I agreed with the folks standing on street corners here in Santa Barbara with their standard-issue yellow PROP 8=RELIGIOUS FREEDOM placards. This is an issue of religious freedom. If a church wishes to allow gays and lesbians to participate in its sacrament of marriage, why is it proper for competing religious organizations to enshrine their particular doctrines in law via the mechanism of popular vote? Why is it proper for individuals with secular motivation to dictate the ways in which a particular church may observe its sacraments?
I suspect those weren’t the questions the placard-wielders were asking.
That said: the subsequent reactions of many of the Prop 8 advocates is ridiculous and oppressive, not to mention counter-productive. But I don’t expect much from a movement organized by by people who formulated their strategy with the assumption that the African-American vote wouldn’t matter.
JD: Where will your bile come from now that the surgeon has denied you a ready source?
Hater! Clinger! Bitterer!
“Let’s please not get involved in a “the ends justify the means†sort of validation.”
I think we lost that argument. Look at what happened to Palin, Joe the Plumber, Acorn, and probably will happen in Minn. IMHO
Crap. “Are ridiculous.”
Subject/verb agreement FTW!
Well said BJ.
Except for:
As I have written else wear
I always make sure to have clean else-wear on in case I get into an auto-accident or something. It’s all in the upbringing.
You have the funniest fucking typos. Don’t hide it under a bushel Beej.
Disclaimer: I don’t live in California and therefore didn’t vote for or against Prop 8.
From what I read about it though, it was totally wrong and overreaching. The state should not have the power to force churches to sanction gay marriage if it goes against the church’s doctrine. That’s ridiculous and out of line. Church and state should be separate.
My two cents, your mileage may vary.
“I have written else wear”. The grammarians call that a performative, alp.
There are good things in this world worth fighting for, and love is one of them.
Heh. No, really, that’s funny. Hows about you explain exactly why “marriage” differes in reality from “civil union.” That little word difference keeps gays from fully loving each other?
The last Swiss Cake Roll is another.
Hush your mouth. I’m dieting.
Good Allah, I am on a roll lately with the surreal typos, am I not?
GRAMMERIST!
Nothing against Kelsey, Beej.
The grammarians call that a performative, alp.
Sadly all of my grammarians have passed on. Gramma Esther was the last.
Nothing against Kelsey, Beej.
Now that’s just piling on
Hush your mouth. I’m dieting.
Well, you’ve picked the best time of year for it. It not being a real food-centric season and all.
baxtrice, that’s not what Proposition 8 proposed. In its entirety, it reads:
It didn’t force churches to sanction anything, quite the opposite. What it did was recognize the existence of a right, and then proposed amending the state Constitution to eliminate that right via majority vote. This has the effect of preventing some churches from free observance of their own sacraments.
I’m not particularly comfortable with the notion of anyone’s rights being subject to majority vote. Nor am I comfortable with specific religious doctrine becoming part of a constitution. The whole thing’s a mess, frankly, from the poor wording of the Proposition itself to the oppressive reaction of its hard-core supporters. Hardly anyone on either side is thinking properly.
Don’t mind me, I’ll be in the corner curled up in the fetal position obsessively thumbing a copy of Roget’s.
You all have the SAME right, re: matrimony
You can marry ONE (1) person of the opposite gender. Or rather, more than one, but not concurrently.
Hush your mouth. I’m dieting.
Well, you’ve picked the best time of year for it. It not being a real food-centric season and all.
Timing was never my forte.
But, I’m working out 6 days a week, and dangit, I should be in perfect shape. I’m sprinting to the finish-10 lbs and I’ll be happy. Basically I’m just tweaking what I eat. Yes, I’ll eat pie on Thursday. But, I’ll eat white meat and skip the stuffing.
Blasphemy! HERETIC! LALALALALALALALA!!!
Marriage cannot be a right, in that a right must exist without the requirement that anyone else be involved in its expression.
Carin: skip the stuffing? I cannot endorse that kind of thinking.
Well, stuffing is really fattening. If I eat it, I’m gonna have to do extra time on the elliptical.
mojo So, in your view, love and choice have nothing to do with marriage whatsoever.
cranky-d Kind of my point, in a bass-ackwards sort of way. If marriage is not a right, then why did the Prop 8 authors term it such? Sloppy.
Let’s do a survey throughout history:
Nope. Not much.
so?
gay marriage is stupid. It messes up your kitchen and all you get out of it is cakey blobs what aren’t gonna make anybody’s holidays a damn bit more festive. You can try again especially since you bought enough gay marriage stuff for like a lifetime, but it doesn’t add up to a productive day at all I don’t think.
Well, CRAP Maggie, I already do 45 minutes on the dang thing. Let’s see …10min=100 calories. I’m thinking stuffing has got to be over 400 calories. I’m gonna already have to make up for the pies. MIL always makes multiple pies. I’m making one with a layer of cheese cake, then chocolate, THEN pumkin on top.
History moves, mojo. You can recognize the value of the past without being shackled to it.
I’m just happy someone still prefers teh white meat.
Not my fault you’re talentless in the kitchen, happy. When I bake gay marriage I get amazing cakey goodness that you can dance to.
The main point of all this is being missed. Why should anyone know who contributed to what campaign or cause? If this is associated with campaign law, it needs to be changed. Now.
heh. I was up to an hour on the bike about six days a week, but then stuff happened and I’ve not been doing anything. tried a half hour the other day and was whining about it all weekend.
just fast the rest of the week. ;D
Dan: I’d denounce you as a racist but I’d probably just screw it up so, carry on!
Carin: There will be a Fatwa issued for deathly breach of Thanksgiving Sacred law. However canned corn may be substituted.
BECAUSE OF THE CARBS!
I think it’s funny that you think I don’t understand tolerance with respect to speech. I understand it just fine, and in this situation I think I see things more clearly than you. Prop 8 supporters did more than “talkâ€Â, didn’t they? They voted. They gave money. Those are actions which passed a law; a law that has the police power of enforcement. That law has real consequences for gay people.
That’s the difference. There can be tolerance of speech without tolerance of actual consequences. Sort of how like we can tolerate Nazi marches as long as they don’t try to round up Jews (or pass a law requiring the wearing of gold stars).
Pardon? It sort of matters how far over the line those actions are, doesn’t it? I might disapprove of littering but I don’t hate anyone for it; that’s too strong a reaction. But at some point hate becomes a reasonable response. Rape could also be considered an action “not comporting with what I’d like to seeâ€Â, and I think hating some who committed rape is a reasonable response, no?
It’s a question of line drawing, which is subjective. And if you look at Prop 8 from the point of view of inequality and discrimination it’s easier to understand why the line has been drawn where it was.
Yup, and it’s all legal under the law. But the law is supposed to be blind to our differences and treat us as all created equal. I think the gay community (of which I am not a member) would be fine either way with everyone being “married†or everyone being “civilly partneredâ€Â, but the discrimination of “separate but equal†treatment is not to their taste at all. I don’t blame them.
Getting a single individual to behave consistently is difficult. Expecting a heterogeneous group of individuals to behave so is unreasonable.
My post didn’t speak to marcus’ (or your) views at all. I spoke to how those with marcus’ point of view are viewed by others. Your motives and beliefs are moot, because from their point of view you “do hateful things.†They don’t care why you do them or what you believe. They care solely for how your actions effect them personally. And your actions inform their opinions of you.
No one cares what you believe. They care what you do.
To you.
I didn’t. Before you opened your mouth. Trying saying that to my face some time, your coward. You may be feeling pretty brave right now with the distance and anonymity between us that the internet provides, but I have seen what men like you become when words and consequences become inextricably linked. And it’s pathetic.
You also make Protein Wisdom look bad. Thanks for lowering the expectations around here. It’s just ammo to the Kos Krowd.
heh. I was up to an hour on the bike about six days a week, but then stuff happened and I’ve not been doing anything. tried a half hour the other day and was whining about it all weekend.
Well, I try to do 45 minutes, then I do weights. The P90X stuff.
just fast the rest of the week. ;D
If I had that kind of willpower, I would need to lose 10 pounds.
Yup, and it’s all legal under the law. But the law is supposed to be blind to our differences and treat us as all created equal. I think the gay community (of which I am not a member) would be fine either way with everyone being “married†or everyone being “civilly partneredâ€Â, but the discrimination of “separate but equal†treatment is not to their taste at all. I don’t blame them.
Oh please. This stuff really drives me nuts. I’m gonna go bang my head against the wall.
I give up. If anyone else wants to give the gay marriage a go fine with me. Get fat is what will happen anyway plus it’s a lot messier in real life than on the tv. Only thing is even failed gay marriage makes the apartment smell nice, so there’s that.
You can recognize the value of the past without being shackled to it.
Deep, man.
You can stick Mr. Willy wherever you like, as far as I’m concerned. Just don’t ask me to pay for it.
IWood: I agree the proposition was poorly written. We wouldn’t be having this argument if they had included the idea of marriage defined and some sop to civil unions.
That having been said this is not a debate about love or choice but about recognizing a real difference as opposed to framing the discussion as a separate but equal to do. the push back response is to being forced to re frame the definition of marriage to suit a minority’s manufactured civil rights test. The AA community has voted overwhelmingly that the civil rights argument doesn’t work for them. I’m inclined to agree. Equal protection under the law is way more important than the need to define for everyone what the new definition of marriage is. Gay couples can still be “married” in liberal churches and no one is going to arrest them for using the term if they so choose. The legal protections will come from the civil union aspect of the state’s role in assuring legal protections.
If gays in civil unions have all of the legal protections of Heteros in marriage what is the real problem, anyway, other than a desire to re frame the definition to achieve a homogeneity of institution?
You may be feeling pretty brave right now with the distance and anonymity between us that the internet provides, but I have seen what men like you become when words and consequences become inextricably linked. And it’s pathetic.
You know what else I dislike about most liberals? Totally humorless. Where’s Lisa?
Brock, this is why many of us think that governments and their agencies ought to regard all domestic partnerships as “domestic partnerships,” and let churches and other institutions regard as “marriage” whatever they will, with the same rights, privileges and obligations.
I’m sorry, but I don’t see the problem with that. Can you explain?
okay, I’ll be the parrot here. THEY CAN MARRY ANYONE OF THE OPPOSITE SEX THEY WANT. so they’re “equal under the law”
oh, maybe not anyone…. um, within age limits and um, only one at a time.
You can recognize the value of the past without being shackled to it.
Oh, “shackled”, eh? Gee, that does sound bad. Don’t want be “shackled” to the past, I might go down with it in the Seas of History, or something.
So you tell me how someone “values” the traditional definition of marriage while seeking to undo it. I’m really curious how that works out.
Your motives and beliefs are moot, because from their point of view you “do hateful things.†They don’t care why you do them or what you believe. They care solely for how your actions effect them personally. And your actions inform their opinions of you.
So “hate” no longer means “hate” it means “do something of which another disapproves.”
I believe you supported this with an analogy to the effect that a principled vote against accepting gay marriage, to the consternation of gay people, is the same as killing, skinning, and eating an animal. Do you have a comparison less obviously ridiculous, or would that be insufficiently dramatic for you?
BJTexas, I should amend the second line of my above response to read
“What you believe is solely between you and God. Between you and your fellow men is a matter of what you do. The golden rule is to “Do unto others”, not to believe unto them, because it’s what you do that matters.”
IWood,
Uh, no. In its entirety it reads:
What you quoted is Prop 8 as interpreted by CA’s Attorney General, one Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown. The text of the law that I quoted can be found here. See page 128.
And that’s really the thing here. They want something different and they want it to be called the same. They want to mandate an apple into an orange, and the only reason they can’t is that you’re a stupid fundie hater.
Thinking is doing.
That doesn’t bring your beliefs to heel. That doesn’t require you to embrace two nuts the very same way you would a nut and a bolt, ya homophobe.
It’s retarded. Let them have their stupid gay marriage I think and they will get tired of it really soon cause they think if they just get the trappings of marriage they will be just like Mad About You but actually what happens is we’re married now so why can’t we see other people and then the one’s dad starts getting sick and there’s an inheritance and oh fuck this sort of sucks and we didn’t have a prenup but I don’t think that would matter anyway maybe if I tell the judge we’ve been seeing other people all along? Crap crap crap crap crap this is the dumbest thing ever is what they will end up thinking mostly. Square pegs. Round hole.
“We cannot slake our thirst for justice by drinking from the cup of bitterness.”
Martin Luther King, “I Have a Dream” speech, 1964.
Feel free, Brock, to let those words wind through your head while you backhandedly gave cover to those trying to intimidate voters who supported Prop 8.
Or would you prefer “…by any means necessary!”
You can toss the word hate around and justify it in certain circumstances but it’s not applicable to a political debate, even when that debate attempts to redefine civil rights and an ongoing institution to accomplish a kind of politically correct mainstreaming. There is no discrimination here. There is none to “hate” even from the farthest fringe (except for those Phelps idiots.)
It is the actions of the Ca. gay activists that are, if not hateful, then borderline Fascistic.
Calling us all haters isn’t exactly the way to get us behind the whole gay marriage issue.
That appears to be their most fav argument.
And for the skatyeighth bazillionth time: Homophobe is a stupid word made up to intimidate those who may not agree with some gay activist’s political agenda. Until someone who is a trained psychologist can sit down with me and anybody else so labeled and, over a period of time, render a professional opinion about any “phobias” I or anyone else might have, then anyone attempting to introduce it into political discussions should just STFU with that useless, inappropriate word.
Happy, go back about ten years and all the gay articles were about how gay men didn’t want a hetero lifestyle. They were paving a new path. What happened with THAT?
I can truly honestly say, though, I do have a phobia about EVER seeing two men having sex. I might be wrecked for life.
I totally agree Carin. They’ve been made to feel all victimy in service of a more general rile up the Christians agenda I think. Everyone is getting manipulated and it’s like half of NPR’s programming but there’s very little there in actual real life in the sense that no what you will not see is a blossoming of monogamous picket fencey gay people what show up at the PTA meetings and that sort of thing except for the fat ugly gay people cause they have been rejected by their own kind. There might be something of a Los Angeles perspective to all that but I still think it’s pretty apt.
You know what was really terrible? The way Palin let herself be interviewed in front of turkey slaughterers.
You know what else is kinda funny? Every few days, you see articles about how men are avoiding marriage these day – I think Dan posted one of those in the Pub last week.
So straight guys are avoiding marriage, while gay men are beating up old ladies for the “right” to marry another man.
Strange days indeed. Most peculiar momma.
I have to stay at work for another 30 minutes or so, but I’m finished with everything, and no speakers on this computer, and it appears this thread is slowing down.
oh, I keep forgetting it’s Tuesday.
Hmm. I hope that’s some sort of humor I’m missing. Because one of the things I learned a long time ago was that no one changes their beliefs when I bang my head against the wall (I have tested this theory many times, with 0% success). You have to engage and try to explain your position as best you can, while also making best efforts to understand where the other guy is coming from. That’s why I really am doing my best to explain the position of those who opposed Prop 8 and to explain it in words that will hopefully be meaningful to those who support it. Sorry if it’s not good enough.
Lol. I’ve been accused of being humorless before, but “liberal†is a new one! As one of the few “open†Republicans at law school (and President of the local Federalist Society chapter) and in practice, my friends would find it pretty funny to think that “someone on the internet†thinks I’m a liberal.
The fact is that I just take equal treatment under the law very seriously. I also believe (as Jeff does) that words have meaning, so if some people are recognized as “married†and others as “partnersâ€Â, that will mean something under the law in some circumstances. I guarantee you that this difference (if it is allowed to continue) will eventually be exploited by some lawyer in some litigation, probably to the detriment of the gay “partnerâ€Â. But regardless of who wins or loses that case it’s the inequality that I dislike.
Neither do I. If that’s what Prop 8 had established (and were I a citizen of CA), I would have voted for that. But Prop 8 doesn’t do that, does it?
THEY CAN MARRY ANYONE OF THE SAME RACE AS THEY WANT. so they’re “equal under the lawâ€Â
You can take the word “principled†out of that sentence. Your beliefs don’t matter. Only your actions matter. Because no one else cares what you believe, only how your actions effect them. What we’re left with then is a “vote against accepting gay marriage.†And yeah, to someone who is gay (and feels love just as strongly as you do) and would like to get married, that’s pretty upsetting.
You are all racist homophobic haters !!!!!!1eleventy!!!one
Really, Brock. That is your argument, distilled down. Disagree with the verbose Brock, and you are a hater. Brevity, Brock. Brevity. Don’t judge me, haters !!!!!!!eleventy.
Now, I will return to my Dilaudid.
how is everything Mr. JD?
And yeah, to someone who is gay (and feels love just as strongly as you do) and would like to get married, that’s pretty upsetting but mostly just recently.
Brock, my point is that Prop 8 doesn’t mean diddly. Get rid of the marriage language in civil law, and let the extremists on both sides FOAD.
Dan (and by extension BJ) Bingo. Trouble is, a significant portion–I would go so far as to say a majority–of the drivers of anti-gay marriage initiatives don’t think that way at all. If they did, the initiatives would be worded as such.
Arkansas amendment 3 defines marriage as between a man and a women and specifically denies recognition that is “identical or substantially similar to marital status” for unmarried couples. Georgia’s law states that “No union between persons of the same sex shall be recognized by this state as entitled to the benefits of marriage.” Kentucky’s says that “A legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized.” Michigan: “…the union of one man and one woman in marriage shall be the only agreement recognized as a marriage or similar union for any purpose.” Mississippi doesn’t go that far, but specifies that same-sex marriages performed in other states are “void and unenforceable” in the state. Montana took a similar tack. North Dakota forbids any “substantially equivalent” same-sex arrangements. Oklahoma forbids same sex marriage, prohibits giving marriage benefits to those who are not married and, for good measure, makes the issuance of a marriage license to gay people a misdemeanor. Ohio bans same-sex marriages and prohibits arrangements that “approximate the design, qualities, significance or effect of marriage.” Utah does the same, and forbids “domestic unions” from having “the same or substantially equivalent legal effect” as marriage. Oregon simply states that only a marriage between one man and one is valid, which is about as good as that sort of thing gets.
So, as much as I would like to give maximum credit to gay marriage opponents and their earnest beliefs, there seems to be a demonstrable and sizable cohort whose interest is in preventing any recognition of same sex relationships whatsoever, and they rely on the general discomfort of less-dedicated voters to put those prohibitions on the books.
Do you really think that those folks are going to sit by and let their state-recognized marriages be re-termed “domestic partnerships,” even if they and their churches get to continue to call them marriages? What you’re proposing is that, instead of simply including same-sex couples in the existing state institution of marriage, you eliminate that institution altogether and replace it with something else. Whether that “something else” is substantively the same as marriage or not won’t matter…it is, in fact, exactly what the “threat to heterosexual marriage” rhetoric is based on.
On the other hand…we’re in agreement that getting the state out of the “marriage” business altogether is s good thing…I think there’s a lot to be said for just being up front about that. That’s not something the gay marriage advocates would be able to pull off, though. It would have to come from another quarter.
Damn, that was long. Sorry.
what about those what love the pre-pubescent girls? huh?
HATER!
happyfeet: I’m continually amazed at your transcendent ability to take a complex issue and get to the heart of it in one sentence.
[bows]
In Brock’s world, explaining one’s position consists of calling people unprincipled, homophobes, etc … Strange world.
I denounce and condemn all of you!
Brock, California already has domestic partnerships codified into law with all the attendant benefits and Prop 8 didn’t do a thing to change that.
With or without gay marriage in a few generations marriage will be only an echo of the what most of you guys conceive of it to be. Liberals are pissed and they’re more powerful than you are cause they own the media and the schools and can mess with your kids and they are a hive and you are but individuals.
Pablo, what I quoted was the Proposition as it appeared on the ballots. Although it’s interesting that the ballots are prepped by the Attorney General’s office. That certainly changes my view on the “sloppiness” of what was placed before the voters…seems like it was worded just so, then.
oh. Thank you, BJ. I have to go make the kitchen the way it was before.
Both of which are speech.
No, it isn’t. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt though and assume that’s the meds talking.
IWood, thanks. That’s my point too. The anti-gay marriage position is not that “gays can have civil unions.” It’s that “marriage, or anything that smells or visually resembles marriage, is for straights only.” It’s blatantly discriminatory. I’d be happy with the state being out of the marriage business, I know many people who would NOT be happy with that. It’s not enough for them to disallow gay marriage in their own church, they want to ban it in everyone else’s church too.
I have already weighed in on the subject. Someone else can dig the comment out of the archives.
The only thing I can add is that the mobys who are trying to force the debate into lines following religious doctrine can stop trying. It doesn’t work. What we are talking about here is a cultural practice that cuts across religions, and precedes, predates, and forms the basis of religious doctrine, and pretending to argue that the contrary is the case is a lie. The cultural practice came first; religious doctrine followed; it does not and cannot work the other way.
Regards,
Ric
The appeal to black Californians as the recognized authority on what qualifies as a civil rights issue is a really weird rhetorical tactic.
Also, I think we’re kind of getting hung up on the notion that marriage has anything to do with love or families. Marriage is a vehicle for property acquisition and diplomacy, and all you pinhead progressives who are trying to change that traditional definition need to read a friggin’ history book. Am I right, my fellow outlaws? We’ve got to save traditional marriage from all these “love and family” types who are trying to debase it and change its recognized meaning. Cultural decay, is what that is.
oh. last little post-cookiemortem… you have to pack the shortening. In your measuring cup thinger. I didn’t know so I didn’t get enough shortening in the mix is sort of the consensus. Cakey blobs and a heavy heart and a kitchenfull of fail but I am a wiser man.
You say that like it’s a bad thing.
They’re two different things, two men in a long-term committed relationship vs. a man and a woman in a long-term committed relationship. That our culture (along with all the other known cultures throughout history) wants to distinguish between them is not wrong, it just is.
You want the culture to change? Stop fighting it, accept the civil unions compromise, and get on with life. Pushing it, particularly against the popular will, just makes people more resistant to the idea. Forcing the change via the courts, well, that way lies tyranny — which is the motivation behind constitutional changes.
And if you can’t win in a popular vote, maybe it’s because you’re doing a piss-poor job of making your point. I submit that assaulting people, attacking an unpopular minority, and holding what for all the world look like self-denunciation sessions straight out of Red China will just obscure your point all the more.
The money perhaps, but not the vote. The law is not “speech”, it is force. Anyone who has run afoul of the law knows this, as does anyone who has seen the application of the law up close. If by voting you pass a law that acts with force upon a third party you are using force through an agent. Make no mistake of that. I support criminal laws because I support using force against criminals, but I have no illusions that voting for those laws is “merely” speech.
Likewise, consider what would happen in the absence of any laws at all on marriage. It would purely be a matter of contract between individuals, and gays would be free to enter into these contracts (because only the parties to a contract need consent to it). But by making marriage into a law, and actively preventing certain otherwise free individuals from entering into these arrangements, you are reducing liberty. You are preventing them from raising families and having relationships on the same terms as anyone else. It’s not the same as taking their property or rounding them up and sending them off to camps by any means, but it’s not harmless fun either.
Why, yes. Yes, it was. But doesn’t the ballot have the actual text of the Proposition?
Prop 8 doesn’t do that. Do try again.
um…
oh, are we counting beagles now?
When have you ever had the opportunity to do that?
Brock, remember that Prop 8 came about as a reaction to a California court ruling (backed by Gavin Newsom, who diplomatically said, “You don’t like it? Tough tittie”) stating that gays had a right to marriage.
Provided the gay community retaliates against its enemies using legal means such as economic boycotts and nasty portrayals in upcoming filmed entertainment, I don’t see anything to complain about here.
Prop 8 was a direct attack on them after all.
And of course I lied. (I’m an equal opportunity polemicist — everybody’s entitled to my opinion :-) )
Further to Rob’s point, IWood is absolutely correct. The recent initiatives have tended to at least attempt to preclude even the “civil unions” idea.
Payback’s a motherf*er, bitch.
I live in the land of horror stories, according to Brock and IWoods — a scarlet, if not carmine County in a red state, an hour’s drive from Texas Christian University, two hours from Baylor (or Crawford), and surrounded by little Pentecostal and Baptist churches isolated on country roads, their white board siding shaded by live oak trees, their cemeteries surrounded by half-derelict wrought-iron fences. From that perspective, I can tell you flatly: Prior to the present blowup, which began with the nonsense in San Francisco and Massachusetts, you could have had homosexual civil unions, if not on a plate with mushroom gravy, at least with insufficient grousing and grumping to block the legislation. Insistence on not just pressing that hot button, but pounding on it repeatedly with a three-pound sledge, is generating blowback that, from where I sit, looks likely to reverse all the gains vis-a-vis acceptance of homosexuals that have been made in the last few decades.
Regards,
Ric
People voted against gay marriage for all kinds of different reasons. It was very democratic. Brock thinks we should transcend democracy for teh fairness. If we just tweak this one time by fiat we will increase freedom. Yay! Soon we will all be free to think like Brock about everything. Everywhere! We can’t have fifty states deciding things for themselves willy nilly.
A lot of people thought, “Oh, yeah? Well we’ve got a remedy here called a referfuckingendum, and we’re going to use it.” Tough tittie.
Haters.
Gay marriage is a time wastey topic I think is what I hate. For real I think opposition to gay marriage only strengthens what will be a passing fad. Like gelly pens or Hannah Montana. Get married and shut your equal stupid whiny mouths I say. Oh. Well that works but it’s not what I meant.
Believing is doing.
Brock,
What kind of law are you in? Because this “equal under the law” argument doesn’t make sense to me. What about siblings, can they get married? Can someone marry a dog? Can there be 18 people who get married to each other (or just to the guy, whatever)? How about two small children, can their parents marry them off to each other? There are all kinds of relationships which are loving and committed and are not and never will be marriage. That’s because not every relationship is the same. Where’s the injustice with that? I’m single and I’m screwed for all of the tax benefits and hospital decision making that all the gay people complain about. So where’s my equality under the law with married people?
Modern, monogamous, heterosexual marriage is an evolutionary change. We have flirted with polygamy, divorce, and child marriage, but this is what we’ve come to. The man/woman partnering is the best fit emotionally and culturally.
As for the race angle, interracial marriage had only a very brief period in a few countries where it wasn’t accepted. (There’s a reason everyone here in Oklahoma has at least some Indian blood.) Othello was black, Desdemona was white, and no one cared. Pocahontas married a white man and lived the rest of her life in London (in real life). However, no culture, ever, has recognized homosexual unions. Why is this suddenly unfair and abhorrent and a sign of horrible hatred and injustice?
I don’t think the fix is civil unions (it’s just semantics). I am entirely open to changing or rescinding all of the tax and medical and other laws or policies which interfere with gay people now, because they equally and just as ridiculously interfere with single straight people. (If I want my best friend to have say over my medical decisions instead of my next of kin, why can’t I?)
I wanna get gay married at Trinity United. To another white dude.
You merely wish to prevent them from sharing their lives with their soul-mates on the same terms you enjoy. You wish to prevent them from gaining legal recognition of the families they have made (or desire to make). You want to prevent their love from having the same recognition as your love.
Wrong. I merely want to prevent them from changing the definition of marriage, which definition has been recognized from time immemorial.
Two men cannot become one flesh. Two women cannot become one flesh. A penis in the rectum or fingers in the vagina is not the same as becoming one flesh.
Becoming one emotionally is not enough, it must happen physically. If that physical union does not take place the marriage is not consummated and is incomplete. You can’t be “halfway-married” any more than you can be “halfway-pregnant”; either you are or you aren’t.
Rob, thanks for your post. Really. It was cogent.
And these posts are my attempt to argue the point better. What I’m trying to get is that the fact that many gays want equal treatment also simply is, and that attempts to prevent them from achieving their goals should be expected to be seen as discriminatory. My hope is that if enough people come to see the romantic love between gays as the same as their own romantic love, then the opposition to gay marriage will melt away. I believe that because I believe that most people are fundamentally good, and would wish the best for their neighbors once they understand them.
As for history, even if all historical societies allowed only man-woman relationships, so what? Most historical societies also allowed slavery, restricted property rights to certain classes of people, were undemocratic, or allowed noxious laws like the torture and burning of infidels. If a law is to stand it must stand on its own merits, not with arguments to historical precedent.
Brock – If my comments are addled as a result of my meds, please show me how that is not your position. Upthread you said that having a principled position is irrelevant, if it resulted in a vote that perpetuated hatred. I am not feeling the tolerance.
Oh, and refer back to Ric’s comment #283 in a prior thread.
I think gay people are different than straight people. I have links.
I know I will probably get savaged for my last post because of the Biblical angle, but that’s OK. I have stuff to do and can’t sit around hitting “refresh”, so I’ll catch y’all later.
I thought it was kind of flakey but not really savage-worthy.
Romantic love is crap. But hey, you’re welcome to it.
Romantic love is expensive crap.
Maybe that’s what you personally want, but see IWood’s post @ 3:20 pm. It’s pretty clear that what most anti-gay marriage advocates want is to prevent gays from forming families, period. If you really want to prevent them from defining marriage you should immediately champion to effort to create a gender-blind civil union statute and leave “marriage” to each church.
Are you referring to getting pregnant? Or the particulars of sticking a penis in a woman’s vagina? What about straight couples that can’t get pregnant or (for some reason) can’t have “normal” sex? Are they not allowed to get married? Let’s have some consistency here.
But really, your answer doesn’t matter. Most people (even the ones on your side of Prop 8) just won’t agree with you as to which particular kinds of sex are the ones that get you a marriage certificate, or whether it’s romantic love or physical love that’s more important. Gays love and make love, and they want to be married. You are stopping them. What else did you expect?
“Wrong. I merely want to prevent them from changing the definition of marriage, which definition has been recognized from time immemorial.”
Exactly. Marriage is about the orderly transfer of property rights and the peaceful settling of feuds, it always has been, from time immemorial, and that just doesn’t apply to homosexuals, as they are capable neither of owning property nor getting in arguments over minute doctrinal differences.
Also I don’t see a lot of evidence that gays want to be married. Mostly older ones. With monies. What are mostly pissed they can’t get the second car auto insurance discount.
Brock, I think then you have to admit that there are gays who also want to browbeat others into submission, legally, if necessary–or even possible. Because, as is the case with unhappy douchebags in every walk of life, in every social class, someone else must be made responsible for their own douchebaggy unhappiness.
Bullshit. Or, at least, that take on the issue isn’t believable, because, if that’s the goal, the tactics being used make absolutely zero sense.
Telling, in that respect: If every Mormon in the State of California had voted against Proposition 8, and nothing else had changed, the proposition would still have passed. If fewer than a quarter of the blacks in California who voted for Proposition had voted against it, the proposition would have failed regardless of whether Mormons voted for or against. Who’s getting the marches and boycotts and insults, direct and veiled?
You may very well be sincere, Brock, but it doesn’t look like it from where I sit.
Regards,
Ric
I would guess difference in who gets the marches and boycotts is based on the fact that Mormons are ideologically monolithic, and black people are not, on account of how one is a psychological identifier and the other is a physical one. But just try to tell that to Clear Channel radio.
that was the dumbest thing I read today so far I think
you’ve obviously never gotten hit on by a gay mormon dude
Basically I’m just tweaking what I eat.
I don’t know why, but I’ll be in Carin’s bunk.
Oh, but Gabriel, you’d still be able to attack black churches, right? I’m sure you could find a few that preach against homesexuality. Or Muslims? Or Latino Evangelicals? Then you’d have both a psychological and a physical identifier, so you’d be doubly sure that you were attacking the right people.
I was going to answer Brock’s rather poor refutation of my arguments, but I see Rob and Pablo have taken care of the specifics.
Marriage has a definition. We can either change the definition to expand it to a point where, legally-speaking, it will no longer have any meaning beyond the next set of restraints that are subtracted from it by yet another aggrieved party’s fight against “exclusion”; or we can come up with another word for what is, in fact, a different arrangement, given the long history and definition of marriage.
I’m fine with the latter, and resist the former. Those who reverse the advocacy have to explain why they feel they have a “right” to belong to something that by definition cannot include them.
They’ve tried — and the people have said sorry, no. The response? Let’s attack churches!
If gay marriage advocates aren’t careful, the pendulum will swing back fully, and even civil union privileges could be off the table. I’d disagree with that, but I can certainly see it happening.
Gabriel is right: fully 3% of Blacks went for someone other than Obama, I think.
The fact is that I just take equal treatment under the law very seriously.
…and if gay people get state-blessed marriages, there will still be unequal treatment under the law. Married people will still be a favored class with special legal privileges bestowed upon them–variations on the right to benefit financially from someone else’s labor, mostly–and an underclass of unmarried people.
Gay people throwing a conniption fit about “equality under the law” don’t care about every individual receiving equal treatment, they only want to join the privileged class. The vehement rejection of the Colorado Compromise–where legal relationships didn’t have to be based on the partners’ sexual relationship–further indicates gay people aren’t concerned with individual equality, they only want to force public celebration of sexual relationships.
And you know, that’s fine–the majority prefers to keep the two-tier system in place and rub my nose in it, and that’s how it works. The 48% who voted against Prop 8 need to recognize that’s how the system works. But please, spare us the lies about “equality under the law.”
Heather is my new hero today. That was very well-expressed.
Basically I’m just tweaking what I eat.
I don’t know why, but I’ll be in Carin’s bunk.
Heh
As for the rest of the debate, I’m letting Happy argue my POV.
Kelly, the skin color of people who make real-life decisions based on fantasy novels is irrelevant to me. It’s the thought that counts.
Jeff, are you arguing that black people voted for Obama because he’s black? Because I’m pretty sure that this is still a center-right nation, and most black people, like most Americans of any color, just couldn’t bring themselves to vote for a faux-conservative and his neophyte arm candy. There were only the two options there, at the end.
Maybe that’s what you personally want, but see IWood’s post @ 3:20 pm. It’s pretty clear that what most anti-gay marriage advocates want is
iwood speaks for iwood.
and they want to be married
No, they want to hijack the term. They could have civil unions will all of the bells and whistles attached to marriage. But that is not enough. They want the word too. And in order to take the word, one has to redefine to to mean something it has never meant.
You may very well be sincere, Brock, but it doesn’t look like it from where I sit.
It does not appear to be sincere because it is not sincere. Funny how that works.
See comment #283
Gabriel would have us believe that the black community that voted in excess of 90% for the last several Dem candidates, and voted close to 97% for Baracky, was actually just voting against Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin. I am glad these painkillers work, because that kind of thinking should hurt …
Most people also couldn’t bring themselves to vote for gay marriage. There were only two options there too. They said no I really don’t think there needs to be the gay marriagings. Except they forgot to throw a little misogyny in there when they said it.
Baracky is a neophyte I think though. A dirty socialist neophyte. He’s gonna rape our little country, even the homosexuals and the blacks are gonna say ouch that sucks how much you are raping our little country for the social justice purposes. Baracky is an opportunistic whore what commands an opportunistic whore media and two opportunistic whore houses of Congress and it worries me a lot more than gay marriage.
Jeff, Simply asserting that “this is the way it is” and suggesting a slippery slope towards man-dog polygamy doesn’t work when claiming the primacy of the current definition of marriage. The “long history and definition” of marriage has encompassed many things that are no longer part of the institution, and if the only constant has been the partnering of male and female, then there has to be more value to that than the mere fact if its constancy. Stating that This Is What Marriage Is isn’t sufficient, or correct, even if you stay entirely within the bounds of Judeo-Christian culture and history.
As this is a matter of state recognition, appeals to God and scripture are out (unless you’re a proponent of natural or deity-derived law). Social cohesion based on the production of children ignores childless or infertile heterosexual couples and adoptive arrangements. Is the rigid definition of gender roles absolutely essential to the well-being and continued functioning of our society? I don’t think so, but even if it is, how do homosexual marriages weaken those roles in a way that civil partnerships do not? Is it just a “line in the sand” issue? If so, why? Etc.
If the problem continues to be state recognition of and the granting of privileges based upon an arrangement between individuals that is, in fact, derived from religious rite, then the obvious solution is to get the state out of the marriage business altogether. By all means, let Catholics, Mormons, various flavors of Pentecostals, and whoever else define their sacraments as they see fit. But let the Unitarians, the United Church of Christ, and others do likewise. Let the state become doctrinally blind on the issue.
I have yet to be satisfied by any arguments which support the idea that the state’s recognition of marriages ought to be dependent on “long history and definition” or upon a particular theological view of human relationships. The latter has no place in law, and the former simply isn’t reason enough.
That said: gay marriage advocates and the current gay leadership are really fucking things up. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such an abundant crop of rotting fruit fall from the tree of progressive identity politics.
Ric, Dan: No arguments that certain pro-gay marriage advocates have gone too far, or done things that shouldn’t have been done. No question. But that doesn’t mean that I disagree with what they believe, merely with their actions. They have allowed their ends to justify their means, which is the wrong way about things. But to turn the argument around, I will still not agree with an anti-gay marriage position merely because it was civilly presented and legally enforced. It is also wrong to allow means to justify ends. Civil discourse should guarantee civil discourse in return, but that’s it. As long as we agree on that I think we’re all on the same page.
Jeff G: I’m fine with the latter too.
“Marriage has a definition.”
To any particular religious or cultural tradition, perhaps. But a universal definition? Nope. Never in history.
We’ll always have differences over the definition of “marriage” because of its religious roots. Each religion will define marriage for itself, and I do not expect Catholics, Mormons, Jews and Sikhs to all agree on all of the particulars. As this is a cultural thing which only has internal reference, there will always be points of difference. I’m fine with this because individuals are free to join the church of their choice, and therefore can choose the definition of marriage that suits them best. How they then define marriage within their church would rarely be a concern of mine. The only problem is when the State gets in the marriage business, since the State does not allow free association as easily as Churches do. That’s why my first choice (since I believe it is the choice that leads to civil harmony) would be to have civil unions for all pair-bonded adults.
Allowing “marriage” (the term) to apply to gays is only a second choice, but at least it is consistent with respect to the needs and biological predisposition of all citizens. Since I have no religious preferences to speak of (I have always recognized as a marriage as “Two people who love and have made a life together”) I am 100% fine with that, but I recognize that many people will not be fine with that and so prefer “civil unions” in the spirit of social peace.
I think where we really disagree is on whether definitions need to be static. I don’t think they do. The need for certain words can legitimately fall away and the word itself can be “recycled” to maintain relevance with the current era – as long as everyone is in agreement on its current meaning. After all, words are just randomly assigned noises which our morphology allows us to utter. It’s the agreed upon meaning at any point in time that’s important.
It’s the agreed upon meaning at any point in time that’s important.
Yea, like gay used to mean happy. I want it to go back to meaning happy. Who “agreed” upon changing its meaning?
Is the rigid definition of gender roles absolutely essential to the well-being and continued functioning of our society? I don’t think so, but even if it is, how do homosexual marriages weaken those roles in a way that civil partnerships do not? Is it just a “line in the sand†issue? If so, why? Etc.
And homosexuals are perfectly happy to risk it. As long as they get their wedding cake. If it weakens traditional marriage, who cares, right? It’s not as if they were invested in it.
Honestly, the marriage issue -that it has to be “Marriage”- is this honestly the most fucking important issue in the world? ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTE CIVIL UNION! BURN THOSE MORMON CHURCHES.
If I were to put it bluntly. I don’t TRUST the gay advocates. I don’t trust that this is their true agenda, and I think their behavior in CA does very little to sway me.
Carin, I think you can blame Gertrude Stein for that.
I don’t think gay marriage was a gay activist idea. I would look more at the ABA… or Pew. Major astroturfing anyway… you can tell NPR has for sure had meetings with whoever it is what is astroturfing the issue, and it ain’t gay activists.
And what does “weaken traditional marriage” even mean? Do gays have the mutant psychic ability to destroy heterosexual marriages by using the overwhelming power of their twisted affections? How does that work, exactly? Would the divorce rate go up? Or would heterosexuals simply decide to not get married since, you know, anyone can do it now?
I understand most of the arguments against gay marriage, but that one has always struck me as a bit odd.
And happy, that’s an innaresting tidbit of an idea. Any thoughts on the who and the why?
No idea … but it smells just like campaign finance reform and global warming. Civil unions were well on their way and someone with monies decided to hijack the dealio. It doesn’t make any sense otherwise. This is not organic.
You cannot do only one thing. Every action has consequences, some foreseeable and some not. I think a classical liberal position is against redefining marriage because we cannot foresee the consequences of the redefinition. No one can. Civil unions give the same legal results.
Also, it appears that the agenda is not getting marriage for all couples but to force everyone to accept that civil unions between two men or two women are equivalent to those between a man and a woman, and that all those civil unions should be called marriage. Otherwise, you’re a homophobe. Basically, they are trying to legislate “acceptance.” That doesn’t seem to work well.
Soros, maybe. If you’re right, that sounds like his style.
It does.
I think a classical liberal position is against redefining marriage because we cannot foresee the consequences of the redefinition.
That’s the precautionary principle, not classical liberalism.
Well, how about we can’t see the actual for real motivation of the redefinition. It’s not all registering at Nordstrom’s and destination weddings. Marriage used to connote family more than it connoted we gots us a love thing going on.
And what does “weaken traditional marriage†even mean? Do gays have the mutant psychic ability to destroy heterosexual marriages by using the overwhelming power of their twisted affections? How does that work, exactly?
If you set up a printing press in your basement and crank out $100 bills, then flood the market with them, it dilutes the value of the ones the Treasury issues.
Changing marriage to exclude one sex (one of the cosmic complementarities) IS the slippery slope, yo. It follows the social acceptance of extramartial sex, fatherlessness, cohabitation, easy divorce, celebration of romantic love and “fulfillment” over marital vows, out-of-wedlock births, the uncoupling of sex from reproduction, etc.
All toward our society’s undoing of itself by making it harder and harder to produce well-adjusted adults who can form healthy relationships of all kinds, great and small. Demographic decline must necessarily follow the devaluation of marriage as night follows day.
#153
Well. The one constant would be having children.Because unless there’s offspring involved, what’s the fucking point? Then Dan may as well be porking Bob instead of Sarah.
That’s why,in almost every culture, there is ritual and ceremony involved.And religion. Sos the man and woman getting married will take their job of actually raising their replicants seriously.
So to do otherwise is to dilute the whole purpose of the thing.And maybe the raising part becomes not so important.
And then the world ends.
So call it something else when it involves Bob and Dan or Brenda and Christine.
The end.
The reason I’m not answering all the objections from Gabriel, IWood, and Brock is that I’ve done so countless times. I have a search function. Look it up.
Quickly:
I hate such cartoons wherein it’s asserted that I am in any way suggesting a slippery slope toward interspecies marriage — or that I think homosexuals somehow lack basic human decency or needs. I’m talking about the legal ramifications of expanding the definition of marriage and its one constant — man and woman.
Meaning, simply asserting that’s the way it is and noting that the change will open up legal questions DOES work, and has worked, and shall continue to work in claiming the primacy of the current definition, which happens to contain the one constant.
And to Brock — there is no universal metaphysical definition of anything. Pointing that out is pedestrian. Fact is, marriage has meant what it’s meant, and if you grant that it has its roots in religion, why wouldn’t you grant that changing the definition to include things precluded by religion changes the very thing you say religion named?
This isn’t particularly complicated. We have a thing called marriage that has been long defined a certain way and favored by cultures and societies as an incentive toward procreation, etc. We can add to that and change the basic outline of what marriage is (which most people repeatedly say they don’t wish to do), or we could use a different term for a different arrangement.
Homosexual partnerships and heterosexual partnerships are differently coupled. Is it “unequal” of me to note that? To express that in words? Marriage is a description of a particular type of coupling that is sanctioned by states and religious institutions. Expanding the definition of marriage beyond the constant of one man and one woman is tantamount to redefining it altogether.
Republicans mostly are thrown down the slope well before gay marriage is ratified and a lot before it’s accepted. They are intolerant, you see. This isn’t a fun game. This is about framing the right as moral nazi people. The devaluation argument is what people used to counter civil unions with. It’s a distraction I think.
Brock,
When The Bride of Monster and I were wed, we were two of the four parties to that contract. The Monsterettes had yet to be conceived, much less reach the age at which they could give their consent to a contract. That means they needed to have a legal guardian represent their interests.
I know you mock the simple fact that sexual relations between a man and a woman can result in the latter becoming pregnant, and ultimately maybe even birthing an actual human, but that is the reason why, for all of recorded history, cultures have placed significance upon such activities.
Different societies have held different views on homosexuality, or upon acts that do not involve the insertion of the penis of a virile man into the vagina of a fertile woman (considering that precise knowledge of such things wasn’t even possible until the present generation or so, the lines on that are understandably fuzzy). But they’ve all agreed that a* man and a* woman who enter into a relationship, under which the man gets exclusive access to enter that vagina, in exchange for responsibility for what comes out of it, are “married”; other sleeping arrangments do not recieve that appellation. Some societies see this exclusivity as the proverbial double standard; others insist on reciprocal arrangements.
*I happen to be more liberal than most defenders of traditional marriage. Historically, polygamy and even polyandry are “traditional”; they are however rare and yet rarer, respectively. I would rather see children raised in families where mothers share a husband than that those mothers be unwed. But I realize that the majority disagrees with me, and minority views are historically not generally made into public policy in a republic.
My hope is that if enough people come to see the romantic love between gays as the same as their own romantic love, then the opposition to gay marriage will melt away.
My view is that our laws with regard to marriage should having little to do with romantic love, and everything to do with sustaining families. Very few gay couples want kids; they just want the “equality.” And more importantly, they cannot have kids “accidentally,” producing a new life that needs nurture, regardless of the parents’ romantic feelings.
Law and custom make men stay around (or used to) long after the romantic love has died and a more practical union is needed. The notion that law should be crafted to support “romantic unions” undermines that goal by telling men they are justified in leaving when the fires die, kids or no kids. Because, after all, according to the advocates of gay marriage, isn’t marriage about individual desires?
“Kelly, the skin color of people who make real-life decisions based on fantasy novels is irrelevant to me. It’s the thought that counts.”
What thought? That makes no sense. It’s a ridiculous dodge because you answer the question.
Your argument was: Mormons are Mormons by choice, so they’re fair game. But blacks and other minorities aren’t fair game because they didn’t choose to join their group. Except when they do join a group and follow that group’s precepts which are, in this context, identical to the Mormons’. Faced with that idea, you announce that it’s all irrelevant and you quite simply can’t be bothered to care.
Ridiculous.
“because you answer the question”
s/b “Because you can’t answer the question.”
Jeff, Mea culpa, my bad. :- I try to avoid that sort of thing, but obviously I don’t always.
What I meant was that the mere primacy of the current definition isn’t proof that it needs to stay that way…but upon reflection I don’t think you’re actually claiming that.
Expanding the definition isn’t tantamount to redefining it. It is redefining it. And you’ve said that you’d “be happy to abide any state legislation voted on by the electorate that sanctified same-sex couplings as ‘marriage.'” Which indicates that the definition itself isn’t the crux of the issue for you; it’s the way the advocates are going about it.
Am I right about that? If so, we’re pretty much in agreement.
Why not?
and…..unconstitutional.
via My Beloved Derbyshire.
My Favorite Old Dead White Slaveholder–
@Ella on 11/25 @ 4:06 pm
Can someone marry a dog?
Ella, that’s awesome. My family used to tease me that I was married to my computer, and I could definitely imagine a person wanting to marry a robot.
Imagine a human-level-AI or higher robot that was a gentle, caring, protective, “3 laws of robotics” robot, and designed to be awesomely handome/beautiful.
How could you avoid falling in love? It would be your closest, most-trusted, friend, guide and helper in the whole world.
Voyage of the SS SARAH PALIN LOVEBOAT
Episode 3
GOLDBERG: Dayum, Derbshire got away clean with the last lifeboat!
K-LO: And we never even got that chance to keelhaul him! Who is left on board?
GOLDBERG: Well, its just you, me, Lowry and Steyn….oh yes, McArthy. At least the pure are left to steer the ship even farther to the right.
K-LO: EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!! LOOK OUT! ICEBERG!!!!!!!!
to be continued……
The reality of gay marriage is very simple.
In law, in jurisdictions in Canada, there is no such thing as ‘father’ and ‘mother’. In other words, any child now born in Canada is given ‘parents’ by the state.
Sometimes 3 ‘parents’. This isn’t hypothetical.
As Jeff has said, marriage describes a reality, has for a long time. The state got involved because of property transfers, not to wives (who had no rights until recently) but to children.
Who your parents are also describes a reality. I sired a daughter, my wife gave birth to her. We are her parents. But since homosexuals and lesbians are equal before the law, and their marriage is equal in all ways to mine, they can have children. How? By the state assigning them as parents. So any child’s parents are who the state says they are.
And yes, adoptions happen. It is usually a best solution to a bad situation. But we can’t deny that the children are affected by it. Children have the right to a biological father and a biological mother.
That is how gay marriage is a threat to heterosexual marriages. A direct threat, a direct redefinition by the state of a natural relationship.
Derek
It’s not personal, it’s business?
It’s not business, it’s a side dish.
Phooey.
I live in Texas. Suppose I encounter an individual who claims he is desperate to get to Dallas, and wants $20 for gas money. I give him twenty bucks, and observe him going away at speed to the West.
From where I live, every millimeter made good to the West is a millimeter farther from Dallas. I conclude that I have been juked — that the individual had no intention of going to Dallas. Perhaps he wanted to be in Midland. Or perhaps he’s just stupid. or insane.
Actions speak louder than words. If an individual, or a group of individuals, announces an intent, a goal, then proceeds to act in ways guaranteed not to advance toward that goal and likely to move them away from it, I conclude — am forced to conclude — that either their stated goal is a lie and their real goal is the obvious result of their actions, or they’re too stupid, or insane, to be worthy of support in anything.
I, too, am sympathetic to the stated goals of homosexuals in this matter. (I believe they are impossible of accomplishment, but that’s another argument.) But what I observe is a set of actions guaranteed not to achieve those goals. Clearly they aren’t stupid; possibly they are insane; but my twenty stays in my wallet because I prefer not to support either liars or loons, especially since I cannot determine what it is that they might really want — and what I do see them accomplishing is directly opposite to anything I might want to see done.
Regards,
Ric
Jeff: “Gabriel is right: fully 3% of Blacks went for someone other than Obama, I think.”
5%, including yours truly of course. However, that’s only 6 percentage points more than Kerry received in 2004. I conclude that the reason that most blacks voted for O is because he is a Democrat more than because of his African heritage. Of course when the percentages are this close to 100, it’s difficult to tell the difference.
I would just jump overboard and swallow a little of that sea I think instead of starting a blog where I define myself by what I don’t believe. That’s just a lie when you devalue Christianity as a belief system or pathologize it which is my feel for what Derb wants to do. What the left does is it isolates small aspects and then bug on tweezers them and holds them as representative. Opposing gay marriage = intolerance and then The N builds theme programming around it. Gay people hate it when people do that to them and liberals generally are very no fair whiny about it. We had someone here maybe meya just recently still ouching about lattes being associated with liberals. Whatever. Derb thinks he’s discovered something profound but it sounds really kind of shallow to me. First principles transcend gay marriage specifically and the mores by which we respect religious beliefs are a lot a first principle that the left hates hates hates.
Hey everybody let’s go comment and post at the no Christians blog. That’ll put those dirty socialists in their place cause we reject their framing is why. Um. Just go with it. This is gonna be great.
The last Swiss Cake Roll …
They went up to 59 cents down here now, al, if that isn’t an indicator of ominous economic times I don’t know what is.
The chocodiles were looking at me today. I think maybe they got a package refresh. I don’t think they distribute them in Atlanta. A Hostess thinger I think.
We’ve got lots of words. Like, say, “voter.” Until 90 years ago, the definition of “voter” did not include women. Half the population. And ’twas always thus, all the way back to the Greeks. And 1920 wasn’t the only time the definition of that word was changed. In 1965 it was changed to include black Americans. In 1935 it was changed to include Native Americans. We have a lot of words, many very old, that have also been changed, words like “citizen” and “property.”
And what changed these definitions and and the institutions that were based on them?Classical liberalism did. Classical liberalism brought down the ancient institution of slavery altogether. Classical liberals really are rebels, and have been quite disruptive over the last few centuries.
The conservatives who say, “Let us not move so fast,” and the extremists who say, “Let us go out and whip the world,” would tell you that they are as far apart as the poles. But there is a striking parallel: They accomplish nothing; for they do not reach the people who have a crying need to be free.
~Martin Luther King, Jr., Why We Can’t Wait, 1963
Dicentra!
Changing marriage to exclude one sex (one of the cosmic complementarities) IS the slippery slope, yo. It follows the social acceptance of extramartial sex, fatherlessness, cohabitation, easy divorce, celebration of romantic love and “fulfillment†over marital vows, out-of-wedlock births, the uncoupling of sex from reproduction, etc.
Are you saying these things are caused by gay marriage or that gay marriage was caused by them? I don’t see how they would have anything to do with each other since all of the items in your list of woe exist while gay marriage does not exist.
yours/
peter.
Peter, I think Dicentra meant that is one more nail added to the coffin. All those things have lead to the undermining of marriage, and the breakdown of society.
I know some say – well, marriage is in such a sorry state, certainly gay marriage isn’t going to break it. Others, like myself, do not want to take that risk.
I think, though, the thing that sticks out to me from this thread most is that marriage isn’t about love. Romantic or otherwise. I love lots of people. I kinda lust others. But, I’m only married to one.
I was hoping that Brock had an answer for me. He did not, except to reiterate his position that principles do not matter. A strange position for a man who claims to “take equal protection before the law seriously” but hey, he did not.
So “hate” means “do something I dislike”
“Vote” means “force, at gunpoint.”
“Marriage” means “whatever the fuck we want it to mean, but don’t worry, polygamists won’t get to play, okay maybe they will, but not goatfuckers. We’re serious about the goatfuckers, and you’re ridiculous for bringing it up.”
Thanks for clearing that up for us, Samson.
Brock:
Votes are speech. That is — in some cases — speech that becomes law is immaterial. It’s still speech.
And, oddly, Prop 8 has resulted in the situation staying the same as it was before. California has civil unions; gays can either accept that and show they’re mature members of society, or they can continue their temper tantrum and convince everyone they don’t even deserve that much.
And, BTW, arguments over “separate but equal” aren’t very persuasive in this case. We’re not talking about physical structures such as schools, isolated for no better reason than flesh tones, and the unequal allocation of resources. We’re talking about a legal/cultural arrangement and, in particular, the applicability of a single word.
“Mormons are Mormons by choice, so they’re fair game. But blacks and other minorities aren’t fair game because they didn’t choose to join their group. Except when they do join a group and follow that group’s precepts”
Someone slept through the chapter on Venn diagrams in school. If being black is a necessary but not sufficient criterion for attendance at a black church, and being Mormon is a necessary and sufficient criterion for attending a Mormon church, and attendance at a black church is neither a necessary nor a sufficient predictor of support for Prop 8, and attendance at a Mormon church is a sufficent but not necessary predictor of support for Prop 8, and you can only protest in one place at one time, where would you figure your protesting is going to be most effective, if effectiveness is judged by exposure to a pure and unadulterated sample of Prop 8 supporters? A black church or a Mormon church?
Is that a sufficient explanation of my comment? Or is more detail necessary?
The protest is ineffective cause they look like bigoty tools what mostly want an excuse to check out some hawt Mormon bois I think.
“Peter, I think Dicentra meant that is one more nail added to the coffin. All those things have lead to the undermining of marriage, and the breakdown of society.”
Yes but she didn’t draw a connection between all those things and gay marriage. In fact, the acceptance of gay marriage and the acceptance of extramarital (or “extramartial,” to follow dicentra’s hilarious typo) sex would seem to be, if not entirely unrelated, actively in opposition to one another. Ditto with “fatherlessness.” The children of homosexual parents could quite plausibly have two fathers (potentially one biological and one spare, in case of emergency). So to pretend that these are all birds of a feather requires a pretty serious (il)logical leap. You can’t just lump everything together because you don’t like it, you need to provide some sort of rationale.
And the “money printing” analogy is a pretty great example of those who oppose gay marriage for indistinct reasons accidentally arguing against marriage of any kind in their zeal to discredit the gay variety. By that logic we should restrict all marriages, maybe through a system of yearly quotas, or an age requirement. Rarity = value for marriages, now? I thought the whole point of state-sanctioned marriages was tied to the state’s desire for the proliferation of the family unit. Now we want to regulate it like the money supply?
And the decoupling of sex from procreation is a problem now? Have you ever stopped to notice how many people are having sex? If it weren’t decoupled from procreation on a pretty regular basis, you wouldn’t have room to type! You would be elbow to elbow with Anna Nicole Smith’s children. Is that the alternative you offer? Thanks, but no thanks.
Couldn’t you actually make a sturdier argument that sex is never quite “de-coupled” from procreation, whatever decoupling might mean?
[…] STINKING MORMON FILTH– A tale of two tolerances; The new Hollywood Blacklist …. […]
Thing is…the LDS Church deliberately targetted a minority group. So don’t be whining about the fallout dicentra and darleen.
Here’s the 411.
And, I love Steve Young. Like Ta-nahesis says, this is bigger than football.
It’s all about teh hypocrisy, Whited Sepuchre Biyotches, w/e you do now, eventually you are going down.
Do you know the real reason you hate Obama, the reason you can’t speak?
Because he is the ultimate state in the heart of vampire xian fundamantalism.
He is a liberal Christian.
Deathpoison to fundies.
You may have won the Prop8 Battle, but it only hastens your eventual profound and humilitating in the War.
We will Rise.
DEFEAT!!!!!
hahahaha
And don’t try to stand apart as a token intellectual atheist, Jeff.
If you serve Tash, you are a servant of Tash.
Its that simple.
That would be a CS Lewis quote……from Narnia, The Last Battle.
STFU, nishit.
uh, most states already have that.
So “hate†means “do something I dislikeâ€Â
“Vote†means “force, at gunpoint.â€Â
“Marriage†means “whatever the fuck we want it to mean, but don’t worry, polygamists won’t get to play, okay maybe they will, but not goatfuckers. We’re serious about the goatfuckers, and you’re ridiculous for bringing it up.â€Â
This is good stuff, Andrew.
So, it is okay for blacks to be haters, but the Mormons must burn in hell for their homophobia. Does that about cover it?
lol, Jeff Goldstein, Official Apologist for teh Bigots.
How the mighty have fallen.
You’re ruining thanksgiving.
Greg Araki makes very cool films if kind of hard to watch. I can’t think of one I’d want to see again. He always puts surprising stuff in there what you would never ever want to see again.
oh. IMDB says he’s Gregg. That would make three Gs. That’s a lot of Gs for one syllable I think.
And I wish you a speedy recovery, and good health JD.
;)
Happy Thanksgiving, feets.
The defeat of bigotry and hatred in America is ineveitable. Youth will overcome.
Better catch my wave while you can feets.
geeez
STAKE in the heart of vamphyre xian fundamantalism.
lol
Happy Turkey Day!!!
hahahaha
Happy Thanksgiving, nishi. Youth will overcome but I don’t think for real it will have perfect noxema girl skin. That was kind of distracting but I liked the song. It doesn’t playlist well with Sonny exactly.
lol, Sonny is teh best.
Peerless among musicians just for his lyrics.
Plus he’s mostly about sex.
You do get that Mora is about oral sex, huh, feets?
listen, Katefuckwit, wrap your amoral, narrow bigoted mind around this … MARRIAGE IS NOT A RIGHT, IT IS A PUBLIC INSTITUTION.
If the sex of the participants is not relevant to the contract than NEITHER IS NUMBER NOR FAMILIAL RELATIONSHIP.
Is nishi on about the “youth” crap again? Isn’t she starting to push 30?