For years, I have argued that the state should remove itself from the business of sanctifying marriages. Contract law would cover the legalities of a relationship, and benefits would not accrue to citizens based upon whom they choose to offer monogamy.
And for years, I have argued with conservatives on air – trying to convince them that the limited government philosophy can support this position.
As you might imagine, my position has led to some pretty heated debates over the years, and I was quick to smack down fears that churches would be forced to perform same sex marriages, or that people would be punished for not being made to agree. I deemed these wildly hypothetical fantasies.
But I was wrong. […]
I find myself at odds now with a lot of proponents of same sex marriage who appear to be walking the charred battlefield of the cultural war and shooting the wounded.
I apologize for thinking this was about only equal treatment under the law. I apologize for dismissing conservatives’ fears that this slippery slope would lead to de facto banishment from various sectors of the public square.
I thought people just wanted to be left alone. I was wrong.
For many, they wanted forced conversions.
As such, it’s only fair we ask where it ends.
I empathize quite a bit with that block-quoted text.
Nice layering on the Rockwell, D.
I’ve never believed that the Left had anything to do with the actual ‘rights’ issue. It was always about the power to force an agenda that, again, had nothing to do with the ‘rights’ issue. I’ve never lost sight of that particular Leftist point. Doesn’t change my view however. Some parts of our vaunted society’s tolerance will have to be dismantled – no, I’ve never signed onto multiculturalism – but ‘civil rights’ has had a serious unintended consequence – making groups superior to individuals.
That some people, on the Left and Right have been honest in their positions and found out the Left Establishment has been anything but, have had an ah ha when it has been clear it is much more a duh moment.
this is a stupid post even for you
that guy’s smoking a cigar inside the restaurant???
no way i can’t even belieber it
Feel free to ban happyfeet. He’s nothing but a troll.
banning?
good gracious
i can’t even belieber you would encourage bannings
Shit like this:
is not wanted here.
Ask where it ends?
It ends where we who opposed SSM from the beginning have always said it would end — but too many took counsel from brainless yellow cartoon characters whose hatred of anything deserving even the pretense of respect can only be concealed behind a childish persona entirely too appropriate to the level of thought they put into their emotion-led political postures.
Where we are is where we have warned we would be, and we are still a long way from where they would lead us.
And I’m not above saying I Told You So.
this is a stupid post even for you
and I expected as much from you, griefer. You’ve done nothing but be proved wrong, time after time. Jeff, Di, me and others have said this is what will happen and when it has, rather than saying “I’m sorry, I was wrong” you burrow deeper into your bunker and whimper.
You have no character.
Told.You.So.
but what you posit in your post isn’t actually happening nobody is saying people can do prayers in public
churches are not being forced to do gay weddings
nobody is being forced to agree with anything
what’s happening sweet pickle is that prejudice against gays is becoming much less socially acceptable
it’s just like that cigar
oops i mean nobody is saying people *can’t* do prayers in public i accidentally said *can* but I meant *can’t*
“this is a stupid post even for you”. Argument by assertion, how novel. /S
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Sweet pickle?
“Sweet pickle?” Homo term of endearment and sly innuendo.
The fact of the matter remains, many of us knew this would happen. It is about the destruction of marriage as an institution. It is only a matter of time before the persecution extends to churches themselves. I have already heard a progressive acquaintance express the theory:
State law requires that marriage licences be solemnized and clerics are authorized by the state to do that. This makes clerics agents for the state in creating a “state sponsored status.” (N.B. Marriage is stripped of any religious significance whatsoever and the history of marriage as a religious institution before state involvement is ignored–ed.) Therefore, clerics as agents of the state cannot discriminate among those who request their services for state allowed marital unions.
It will happen. Remember, you read it here first.
h/t Althouse.
When the government forces people to act in ways counter to their beliefs, it does not put a stop to those beliefs, it merely drives them underground. Ask the Romans how well it worked against the Christians.
If you can find any Romans, that is.
“Swear allegiance to the flag
Whatever flag they offer
Never hint at what you really feel
Teach the children quietly
For someday sons and daughters
Will rise up and fight while we stood still” — Mike & The Mechanics – Silent Running
[…] Darleen Click: I thought people wanted to be left alone, I was wrong. […]
‘feets offering judgment on the stupidity of a post is like Harry Reid lecturing on honesty.
“Guilty as hell, free as a bird” Harry Reid 2015
happyfeet says April 7, 2015 at 7:56 am
this is a stupid post even for you
What you don’t get is the underlying Christian beliefs that inform the business owners decisions. Pay attention:
Homosexuality is a behavior, not an identity. That one lady baker had been serving the gay man for many years, so obviously she had no hate for him, regardless her feelings about his living in sin (remember THAT old saying?!). It was only when she was asked to participate in a ceremony sanctifying what she believes is sin when she declined his order.
This is what you are justifying.
Here is the (double) standard you are supporting.
By the way, you like to equate non-recognition of so called SSM with bigotry, because you see homosexuality as an identity. I understand, given the level of indoctrination the nation has been subject to since the big lie of Matthew Shepard, and your malleability when it comes to such propaganda, but it’s just not so. Again, pay attention. It’s OK if you gotta move your lips while reading:
Not supporting so called SSM is NOT anti-gay. It is simply refusing to acknowledge the naked emperor’s nonexistent clothes. Marriage is the union of male and female. Claiming two men are married is like claiming your dog is a chicken. You just look stupid and the dogs still won’t lay eggs, however long you leave him in the coop.
Oops. Double standard.
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nonononono
i do not support whacking people with sticks
i do not support making people bake stuff using laws and regulations and such
i do however support calling them names in comments on the internet
i do indeed think “non-recognition of so called SSM” is bigotry most foul
if people come to you and want a cake for a marriage you don’t believe is a for realsies marriage then just make them a tasty cake for them to enjoy after they have the wedding ceremony you think is bogus – have fun with it
cause whatever you think a gay marriage is, 99% of the time it’s a civil ceremony not a religious one and it’s very gracious to wish people well when they make an attempt to solemnify a relationship they’ve invested a lot into
and these people are part of our communities and one must be gracious
and if you’re going to behave like a rude goof-ass hyper-religious weirdo person then I’m not going to buy your cakes and i’ll tell everyone about the tasty cakes they can buy at a place where people are more nicer and I will tell everyone how awful the cakes are at the place run by the ungracious people
UNLESS the ungracious people can hook me up with sum dis, which I been dying to try, in which case I might can be flexible
The Love That Will Not Shut Up (formerly known as the Love That…oh, you know the rest) means never having to say you’re sorry.
Mostly on account of never admitting you’re wrong.
Because shut up.
That is a stupid comment, even for you, feets.
Gonna have to write a macro for that phrase.
no it’s not you’re just saying that to hurt my feelings
then just make them a tasty cake for them to enjoy
THEY DON’T WANT TO because it is an affirmation of a message they don’t want to be a part of.
Damn, griefer, what part of the Constitution is it that you don’t understand? Oh…wait …
‘Free’ speech for me but not for thee — the typical totalitarian rant.
you are imputing
That is a stupid comment, even for you, feets.
Let me explain using small words. You said to Darlene, “this is a stupid post even for you”
And now you’re crying like a sissy when you get the same treatment that you happily give to others. You are an ass. You are a liar. You are a troll. You are a fool.
You are not funny. You are not clever. You are not insightful.
Go away, Gollum.
rude goof-ass hyper-religious weirdo person
I assume that there are plenty of things people who support SSM would themselves refuse to put on a cake that would have nothing to do with religion*. Some people are applauded for standing by the convictions and other booed for being “inflexible”.
*Sarah Brady Rot in Hell might rightfully get objected too
Simpler Feets: Just participate in a religious celebration which is contrary to your beliefs. Be gracious! Your beliefs mean nothing because mine mean everything!
i do indeed think “non-recognition of so called SSM” is bigotry most foul
Because you think it’s all based on “ick” and Leviticus rather than the suspicion that upholding heteronormitivity might be essential for a society’s healthy functioning, while furthermore noticing that we’re not on a slippery slope, we’re being pushed hard by an agenda that will drive us straight uphill if need be.
Toward the abolition of the “gender binary,” as it happens, such that my public presentation as cis-female, sans complication, is taken as “bigotry most foul” and must be stamped out.
Because my sexual identity cannot be mine: it must belong to the mob and to the state. Freedom!
I take that back: You don’t think that — you desperately need it to be true. If all opposition to SSM is not bigotry, then SSM opponents cannot be designated Untermenschen, and if you’re not hating on Untermenschen, where then is the moral high ground?
Furthermore, I’m pretty sure that ‘feets dreams of nothing all the live-long day but obtaining a harem of child sex-slaves. That’s just who he is, folks. You heard it here first.
QUERY for feets:
Let’s say for the sake of argument that you’re 100% right and I’m 100% wrong. By every ethical measure, you occupy the moral high ground and I’m hip-deep in an ethical cesspool.
What does that entitle you to do to me? Ethically, I mean. What are the moral guidelines that inform the way you ought to treat me, the one who is so wrong it’s not even funny?
No doubt Tracy can give a cogent answer; why can’t you?
‘feets is on board with the logic behind the Jim Crow laws. If you owned a lunch counter back then, it was illegal to desegregate it under penalty of law. Keep your hippy-dippy ideas about racial equality TO YOURSELF as a courtesy to the white folks who — justifiably — don’t want to get negro cooties from the stools and utensils.
‘feets is also on board with Sally Kohn’s understanding of gubmint force: as long as they’re not duck-walking you to a cattle car, gun at your head, you’re free as a bird — you just have to suffer the consequences.
Also, why can’t the Christian baker send the gay couple to the Muslim bakery, they being ever-so-much more accommodating of that kind of thing? Because we all know how gays are drastically underrepresented in the wedding industry, they not being terribly adept at aesthetics and festivities, despite the old meaning of “gay.”
I’ll tell you why: because there is now a religious test for owning a business. If you don’t want your conscience violated, don’t have one.
See how easy that is?
but what you posit in your post isn’t actually happening nobody is saying people can’t do prayers in public
And back in the day, nobody was suing bakers, florists, and photogs for turning down an SSM gig. Internet mobs weren’t punishing pizzerias for saying that IF someone asked them to cater a gay wedding, they’d decline, but hey, gay folks have always been able to come right on in and buy all the pizza they want, right here right now.
You said it wasn’t headed toward fascism, that Teh Ghey only wanted sweet little wedding ceremonies and birdies and flowers and that they weren’t gunning for their political enemies (Christians) AT ALL. That pushing SSM and shrieking “homophobe” weren’t weapons to put down their enemies but was a simple request for accommodation without getting the stink-eye.
You’ll forgive me for disregarding your protests about where this is or is not headed. I asked if you’d stand up for us if we did suffer persecution for opting out and you said yes but with the caveat that It Would Never Happen Here because America.
churches are not being forced to do gay weddings
Yet. But even if no mandate materializes, the churches that do not sanction SSM will be put through a living hell until they either comply or accept the Yellow Cross of ostracism on their lapel.
You know, removal of tax-exempt status, withdrawal of accreditation from church-owned universities, expulsion of said university teams from the NCAA, firings and non-hirings if you have a degree from those universities. (I have two from BYU, and my company’s HQ is in Silicon Valley; I fully expect to see our office close for political reasons within five years, if current trends continue.)
Y’all should know that the more devout among us will go down rejoicing that we were counted worthy to be persecuted for Christ’s sake. We’ll take the lions’ den if it comes to that.
Are you going to prep the lions for the arena, figuring that we deserve it, and that if we didn’t want to be devoured by lions, we could avoid it if we didn’t insist on being such rude goof-ass hyper-religious weirdo persons?
Or are there limits to what Being Right entitles you to do to the biggits?
good gracious you’re also an imputer dicentra just like Darleen god bless america
yes yes yes i think churches and whatnot should pay property taxes
but that’s it from your whole litany of horribles
Years and years later, and the griefing troll’s ignorant, idiot babble *still* derails the conversation.
Nobody ever learns, ten thousand years from now people will be slaughtering each other over the same stupid shit, the outfits will just be different.
LBascom: “Claiming two men are married is like claiming your dog is a chicken.
Except the part where the men are the same species and the dog and chicken are not….so, there’s that.
BTW, just because the Justice system will not inquire into the nature of a person’s stated religious beliefs, doesn’t mean that I won’t. I wonder if those baker’s will make a cake for a Muslim wedding?
Shermlaw: I don’t participate in a wedding ceremony unless I am invited to do so, and unless there is an actual invitation, no matter how I might know about the ceremony, I’m not participating. Just like the Mailman is not participating in collection efforts on the behalf of Capital One.
dicentra: people can uphold heteronormitivity and the survival of society by getting married to opposite sex partners and having children, and staying married to those spouse as long as the children live. Society can continue to exist and flourish if 98.5% of it continues to behave in ways that support it. I don’t see anyone accusing Priests and Nuns of failing to support heteronormitivity and society. In a society of 320 million, you’d think that 250,000 marriages over the last 8 years would have less of an impact. I am not certain why people think gay marriage precludes straights from marrying, in numbers far greater than gays, even as a percentage of population, or that gay marriage will cause large scale migration of formerly straight people into bed with same sex partners.
BTW, if marriage is such a good thing, I still understand why gay marriage is a bad thing….as long as it doesn’t have anything to do with ick or Leviticus. Marriage creates stable relationships…this is bad amongst a community practically defined as equating ‘stable’ with durations lasting anything more than the 2nd date and anything less than one standard calendar month?
As to the CONCEPT that drives someone to have to claim cis-female or heteronormativity, women studies proponents are F*KING INSANE. I’d suggest that while I don’t lump everyone opposed to same sex marriage into the bigotry or hate boxes, that supporting same sex marriage doesn’t make everyone a gender-binary target. And I don’t lump everyone here in with Waco or Westboro.
Sally Kohn is an idiot, I didn’t actually call her that, but I did say to her: slavery was a choice too.
Such were the unintended consequences of making sure that Blacks had the same access as everyone else to any business with doors open to the general public. BTW, I do think that the photographer had a leg to stand on about ‘participation’ in a gay wedding…the caterer…less, the baker, not much.
As to ‘venues’ and gay marriage. Most of the Catholic Churches I know will not marry someone unless one or both are members of the Church (or at least the family is). Other venues that will marry anyone with a license….yea, I have a problem…same one that informs the ‘general public’ rule. I’ll contribute to a legal fund for any Church-member exclusive venue sued…
As for the suggestions about removal of tax-exempt status, accreditation and exclusion of ‘religious-institution degrees’, I think businesses need to get a spine.
Most everyone here has become so sick and tired of the label ‘racist’ that being called one is practically laughable – I HAVE laughed at someone that called me racist, which shut them up quickly – that I think people are going to have to treat the Leftists in this arena the same way….
BTW, if the lion’s dens come back – I’ll stand with you….after I take as many of the Leftist, gender-exclusion, non-heteronormative assholes down as I can….
And I thought the cartoon was funny.
you’re the most fatalistic person in the whole room
that was for Mr. M
opps:
“BTW, if marriage is such a good thing, I still understand why gay marriage is a bad thing…. ”
I DON’T understand….editing error. (or slip as others may suggest)
http://www.gofundme.com/mz6zm4: over $135K now. And a new poll suggests 80% of Americans don’t believe anyone should be forced by the state to perform labor for an event that violates his/her conscience.
When a band of fringe internet evangelicals went after a FL bakery for refusing to bake an anti-SSM cake, I wrote a letter to the owner offering my support. In the letter, I pointed out that what she was rejecting was merely speech — there was no formal / legal event attached to the cake — while what Memories Pizza was rejecting was participation in a hypothetical, and that the florist in WA was prosecuted by the state for her refusal to be an active participant in an event, despite having served the openly gay customer for 9 years in his every day purchases without any “bigotry”. The point being that the FL bakery was far less harmed, in terms of the consequence of conscience, and yet I believed it had a right, as a private business, to tell a customer to take it on the heel.
For nuanced people who believe so much in Art, it’s astounding that they are so, er, discriminating, in what comes to count as such. If you are a floral arranger and you don’t wish to take on certain clients, that’s no different than being a portrait painter who turns down same, in my estimation.
Here in Colorado, a civil rights commission found that you CAN INDEED turn down requests to bake a cake that isn’t supportive of SSM. But you CAN’T turn down those who wish you to bake them a cake FOR that same ceremony.
4 legs good, 2 legs hateful, bigoted, rude, goofy-ass hyper-religious weirdo persons. Because EQUALITY!
An analysis that I read elsewhere, not remembering where, talks about the ‘consultation’ factor that changes baking a cake and selling it to making a cake for a specific event revolves around ‘services’. Attorney’s can reject a client on the basis of a case because the process of ‘consulting’ is one of give and take. I would argue that the baker has a similar argument (though I think they’d lose). I….Colorado is a weird place. I was in Denver overnight once, passing through on my way to California. The alarm was set to radio and as it came on and I was lying there, I heard the radio jock inform me that Denver air that day was unbreathable. I wondered if he thought people could just hold their breath til things got better…
The Left is being the Left. Intolerant, belligerent, militant and illogical. Surprised that this topic isn’t any different? No me. I don’t agree with their tactics, their specific arguments or their beliefs. I do however continue to support gay marriage….in part because I worked for a family law attorney and witnessed first hand how divorce devastates people….and I think gays should get it just as good and hard as the rest….unintended consequences….
i love gay marriage so much it’s like we’re living in the future
The small percentage of the gay population and the subset that would actually get married is why I never worried much about the issue. I understood the traditional marriage arguments and agreed but, the impact I thought would be minimal. However, that was also assuming that SSM came into being by regular legislative procedure or state initiative. I am totally against twisting the constitution into a knot.
However, now seeing the victory dance turn in to one of those mob celebrations that follow your team winning the Superbowl has got me wondering why I ever had any sympathy.
btw, well written tracycoyle
In the future you can’t marry robots so the future sucks.
Only because the icky christers you hold in such contempt are fighting back.
We’ve run out of cheeks to turn, and now things are about to go El Cid.
Colorado is a weird place
colorado just received an official visit from America’s #1 most popular exemplar of hyper-entitled bushfilth – Jeb Bush himself!
He explained how the key to a healthy economy is to have TONS of government spending.
and now things are about to go El Cid
i don’t even know what that means so hah
Back in the day Mother Jones used to use clever arguments about how military spending did not help the economy much. Using the same analysis today against government spending in general is not pursued by MJ.
Defense spending is important but, Jeb is a dope.
Bakery refuses to provide an anti-SSM cake — I don’t care; I’ll still buy their stuff.
Bakery provides cakes only for SSM weddings — I don’t care; I’ll still buy their stuff.
Bakery refuses to do cakes for Mormon weddings — I don’t care, but I’ll prolly go elsewhere next time. Depending on what’s on offer. Because if the cream-cheese frosting is right, I’ll pursue it into the very maw of hell.
In none of these cases do I attempt to deprive the proprietors of their livelihoods, nor do I reckon that they ought to lose their businesses (whether by market or gubmint forces I’m looking at you Penn Jillette), nor do I punish people who patronize bakeries who diss me or mine, nor do I add punitive reviews to their site nor mete out any degree of vindictiveness.
Because I really don’t care. Really.
I love bakeries
dicentra, I want a t-shirt that says on the front: I DON’T CARE and on the back says: NO, REALLY, I DON’T
If a business doesn’t want my business, I’m happy to take it elsewhere. done, finished, over. I do hate the permanently aggrieved….goes with my hating stupid people.
here dicentra this will make your day
Over, Under, Sideways, Down – You Were Warned
Watching the events unfolding in Indiana and seeing business people being told by their government that they must violate their religious beliefs or else they will face fines and possible jail time, many of us cannot help thinking the same thoughts as…
“As such, it’s only fair we ask where it ends.”
It usually ends at Dachau or the killing fields of Cambodia.
Tracy, if the only thing at stake were the welfare of those few gay couples who wanted to marry, I’d shrug my shoulders and say, “Whatevs. Do what you want. Neither breaks my leg nor picks my pocket.”
But the social changes of the last 100 years — including the New Deal and the Great Society — were all sold as a means to relieve the burdens of an unfortunate few and then used to tear at the foundations of society — often by the same people who sold the original change or reform.
— Social Security? To keep poor old folks off the streets — yet the pyramid scheme has become every bit as insolvent as its critics predicted it would, and reforming the system is nearly impossible.
— War on Poverty? To give black folks a leg up — yet the obscene destruction of the black family has occurred exactly as Moynihan predicted, and not to mention its financial unsustainability that threatens to ruin the entire nation’s economy. Anyone who points out that the welfare-enabled destruction of the black family is responsible for the poverty — instead of White Privilege — can count on being ostracized as a bigot most foul.
— The Pill? So that women don’t have to keep giving birth until their uteri fall out — yet the promotion of promiscuity that the critics warned about was exactly what happened: not by accident but as part of the left-wing plan to destroy the family, the Statist’s primary rival. Who dares point that out? (Not to mention the feminizing of male fish in the nation’s waterways.)
— No-fault divorce? So that people can escape hellish marriages — yet divorce has also become so normalized that it’s fairly taboo to state unequivocally that children are always damaged by the adults’ bad decisions, whether they be the divorce or the original decision to marry. The feminists are still insisting on the fish and the bicycle thing, attacking mercilessly anyone who says that single motherhood is not as good as married parenthood.
— Abortion on demand? So that young girls impregnated by predatory males can be relieved of the burden without notifying their abusive parents and without the coat hanger — yet there are no reliable stats on how many abortions currently fall into that hard case category, because it’s taboo even to perform a headless study on the medical cases. (Not to mention Kermit Gosnell and the other undiscovered oubliettes.)
Every time, we’re enjoined to think of the hard cases and to support this or that change lest we be uncaring, uncharitable, unChristian hard-asses who just want to make everyone hurt all the time. And every time, the Larger Awful Consequences of the changes have played themselves out but it’s impossible to roll back the mistakes because You Heartless Bastard.
Next up is “singles’ rights,” from which I undoubtedly stand to benefit. I will still oppose it, because I know that it’s Yet Another Ploy to destroy the Statists’ primary enemy, and that whatever provision may redound to my benefit, the larger more socially destructive effects will play out because the activists will spend all their time and energy making sure they do.
So the Larger Awful Consequences of sanctioning SSM, those to be inflicted on us by the womyn’s studies tribe, will surely come to pass, because those consequences are the goal rather than the unintended effect. Were it possible to grant the inch without losing the mile, I’d grant the inch.
But I know my society and I know the left and I know that they will make sure all good intentions have evil, irremediable effects.
I am willing to forgo whatever benefits the singles’ rights movement purports to offer; the rest of society should not have to suffer long-term damage just to accommodate my hard case.
And that’s where I’m coming from.
YMMV
here dicentra this will make your day
You’re right, feets. I love corvids. If I didn’t have a black cat (named Raven) I’d go get me a crow to raise. Maybe after he kicks it.
Thanks!
happyfeet says April 7, 2015 at 2:52 pm
good gracious you’re also an imputer dicentra just like Darleen god bless america
You mean she sees you for exactly the thuggish little creature you are.
Though it’s been obvious for years, you just are finding it more and more difficult to hide.
dicentra wrote:
In none of these cases do I attempt to deprive the proprietors of their livelihoods, nor do I reckon that they ought to lose their businesses (whether by market or gubmint forces I’m looking at you Penn Jillette), nor do I punish people who patronize bakeries who diss me or mine, nor do I add punitive reviews to their site nor mete out any degree of vindictiveness.
Because you’re an adult.
Apparently, that’s not the “future” according to the thugs.
dicentra: So, with all the damage done to Society by the Left’s desire to destroy it, we get a group of people that want to participate in a fundamental institution and are….were told hell no. If the idea is to do things that support the institutions that support a healthy Society, shouldn’t people be supporting others seeking to join those institutions and honor them?
This isn’t about granting the inch. MAYBE there are 30,000 marriages out of millions per year that are going to be gay, and you have to think the initial numbers are inflated by demand. Victoria stated that should gay marriage ever be legalized she had no intentions of actually marrying me. Our 18+ year relationship was so rare that out of hundreds of gays we knew and met, less than 10 were in long term relationships.
If supporting and stabilizing Society was, or is the goal, giving gays marriage would have seemed, to me, to be a no-brainer way of co-opting gays into the institution and taking away one hold the Left had on the gay community.
Tracy, you’re trying to tell be men and women are the same species? Ha! We’re not even from the same planet!
Anyway, uniting the sexes through marriage for the propagation of humans is a stablizing building block of civilization. A small subset of humans trying to change the very nature of marriage to legitimize their controversial sexual proclivities is, as this current flap in a long line of flaps illustrates, decidedly de-stablizing.
Ya’all are being played like pawns in the effort to destroy America, through dividing our house against itself.
People that don’t want America to be a Christian nation will rue the day they get what they want. Mark my words.
we get a group of people that want to participate in a fundamental institution and are….were told hell no
tracy … “hell” no? Or more like, “you don’t qualify”
The military is an institution with defined benefits exclusive to it. But not everyone will qualify to join. Is that “hate” or “hell no” or more like “so sorry, but you don’t qualify”
The vast majority of people aren’t H8rs unless you want to believe the majorities that consistently voted to not to radically redefine marriage in California, of all places, secretly want to toss gays from buildings. Those same pro-marriage people do understand the micro of giving gays the space & legality for a partnership — hence domestic partnerships or civil unions.
But unless you are willing to enter into the fantasy that men & women are fungible, then opposite sex couples are not the same as same sex couples. Hence, any same-sex partnership cannot be “marriage” in any fundamental way. Not in the macro.
I have gay family & friends; indeed I’ve been a photographer at a same sex commitment ceremony. I understand the love and commitment.
It still doesn’t make it “marriage” and should not. I feel compassion that the ideal is out-of-reach — but that holds true, too, for the polyamorous.
(you made a comment about about a Christian baker participating in a Muslim wedding – I would support their opting out of polygamous wedding – no one should be forced to affirm a message they disagree with)
This isn’t about “hate gay marriage”, it is about maintaining a fundamental institution that has been arrived at after centuries of experimentation.
And, again back to the told you so, the libertarian impulse to say “GET THE GOVERNMENT OUT” is great. But it won’t work and hasn’t for the reasons the author of the piece I linked stated. This was never REALLY about same-sex marriage. And every “crazy it’ll never happen” prediction the more cynical of us put forth has come to pass.
This is more about the Junior Anti-Sex League than it was ever about “gay rights.”
Darlene: I served in the Air Force. I get the military and by the way, two members of the squad were gay and everyone (in the barracks) knew it. Dear Jim, you qualify for marriage. Dear John, you qualify for marriage…just not together. There is a slight difference and I get you don’t see it…doesn’t mean there isn’t.
As to the institution, ‘let know man tear asunder….yada yada…’ The institution is killing itself…no, strike that, people are killing the institution and they’ve been doing it for decades with no help from gays. Worse, as was pointed out elsewhere, the…by dicentra…the welfare state killed black families. No fault has killed many of the rest.
Fine, I get that people wanted to draw a line in the sand. Line drawn, tide came in and washed it away.
As to the separate but equal, I don’t think it played well the last time it was tried. Coming around for a second bite of the apple ran afoul of the Republican Civil Rights Act….
As to fungibility, in some ways, yep. A typist can be a man or a woman. Walmart doesn’t care which pays. CJ (my daughter) was very dismayed to find out my ‘racist’ remark that Asian women (CJ is adopted from China) were terrible drivers was in fact accurate when she finally got her license and started driving….so men and women… As to raising children. I don’t think perfect families exist. I think two women or men that do it well do it better than a man and a woman that are destroying themselves and their kids, but no one is suggesting taking the kids away from those parents (except the occasional DCFS worker on a tear…). I’d personally think CJ got a better deal than she would have had in China. But those tend to be the exceptions and I will kinda paraphrase the Iowa Supreme Court in it’s decision to allow gay marriage: Gays are raising children, with or without the benefits of marriage. We don’t want straights to be having kids out of wedlock, maybe we should give those that want the institution a chance.
So, in the ‘macro’, lots of gays are raising the kids straights didn’t want. And there are a couple tens of thousands….a hundred thousand?… kids in foster care right now awaiting adoption that are going begging. I met lots of couples when we were in the process of getting licensed to foster (when CJ was 5), that wanted children. I met lots of parents when Victoria was a family attorney that really shouldn’t have had children. Frankly, your definition of marriage lacks….substance. A pairing of a man and a woman is no more a marriage than LBascom’s dog and chicken.
Actually, I was thinking that fundamental Islam is incompatible with a woman’s liberty…but polygamy was on your mind so….ok.
The fundamental institution is a crumbling ramshackle edifice hanging on by pure momentum and is unlikely to survive routine life expectancy over 100. When the ‘ideal’ of a straight couple getting married and raising a gaggle of kids over 30 years is superceded by 50 years of life AFTER the kids are grown and gone…50 year marriages are rare – my parents are at 56 and counting. If you want to save marriage, get rid of divorce. A million divorces a year are doing it way more damage than 20k gay weddings.
I have supported the idea of getting the Federal Government out of marriage. I’ve even supported the idea of making everyone do civil unions and letting religions offer their sacraments to whomever they want. But all that is just saying something to keep the conversation going. Gays will get married, soon in every state (there might be some holdouts…Took Jews a long time to get accep….nevermind.
Yea, it was about same sex marriage, but when the Left realized the Right was going to die on that hill, it jumped into it as a great power play. And as Dicentra pointed out, birth control had more to do with women choosing sex over marriage than condoms being handed out at high schools were likely to.
I know I’ve said it before, but maybe not here: I’ve been married before. Opposite sex marriage. It lasted 4 years back in my early 20’s. No kids. I’ve been in both an opposite sex and a same sex committed relationship. I can tell you that from the inside, there was no difference. From the outside, well, even the Pastor of our fundamentalist non-denominational Christian Church asked me what took so long when I called asking for help to find somewhere to live when I left. Yet, after 30+ years divorced, we email once or twice a year.
I HATE the phrase that ‘marriage is between a man and a woman’ as if it could be reduced to such pathetic and little formulation. Tell me dear straight married couples: did you really have a marriage 10 seconds after your I do’s? Or is it something that is worked on every, single, day, together?
Sorry…
3 legs so-so.
0 legs best!
“A typist can be a man or a woman.” However, the two parts of a marriage – specifically, those occupations known as “mother” and “father” – are not gender-fungible, and there are lots of studies showing how destructive to the kids trying to ignore that reality actually is.
Laws are made for the majority, not the rare outliers. And the definition of marriage is not interested in your sexual preference. Your age, your gender, your current marital status, the degree of consanguinity between the participants, and the willingness to enter into that relationship. Mess with any of those, and you cannot defend any of the others without being a hypocrite.
That having been said, once “that tide” (more accurately, the people in black robes bringing buckets full of water and throwing them) rolled in, no one is denying them the right to go through with whatever ceremony they can arrange. What is now being argued is whether those people who disagree should be forced at the point of a (metaphorical) gun held by a (real) government agent to aid and abet in a political act with which they disagree.
Are people no longer allowed to disagree? Are people no longer allowed to be wrong? Are people no longer allowed to act in unpopular ways? Should government have the power to force people to act in ways that violate their religious beliefs, First Amendment be damned? Better give me some reason that trumps the Law of the Land, because I don’t see it.
“Sorry…”
In my opinion, you are one of the lions in the den. As long as you successfully hide homosexual behavior you will continue to make small incremental gains in society. But you can’t control your inner fascist long enough to gain a plurality of the voting public, hence the attempt at rule by edict. Pro Tip: Because you can do a thing doesn’t mean you should do that thing.
Shorter Tracy:
Progressive social engineering has all but destroyed marriage and the family, so we may as well finish the job…
When one personalizes a debate about law, one loses by default.
If states choose to sanctify SSM, I’ll support that (and have, though I believe same-sex marriage is a usurpation of language, and therefore illegitimate) because that’s the way it’s supposed to work; but what we see is that when a state doesn’t support the practice, courts are used to beat back the will of the people — some of whom may indeed be “haters” but many of whom are not at all that way, but rather disagree with giving legal status to something they believe isn’t legitimate.
Five star, five syllable award to Drumwaster for the use of the word consanguinity in perfect context.
Well placed Sir!
Do and you shall Be: Kant
Be and you shall Do: Goethe
Do, Be, Dooooo: Sinatra
Here’s the problem:
I’m aware of the wrenching legal difficulties that Tracy faced relative to the daughter that she and her partner raised, a daughter rescued from a foreign orphanage and given a far better life than the one she’d otherwise have had. Better by several orders of magnitude.
That’s God’s own work, as far as I’m concerned. Anyone, gay or straight, single or married, who rescues such children is on the side of the angels. And what Tracy faced was the fact that while their daughter was a minor, had her partner died, Tracy would have no more legal standing to raise their daughter than the man in the moon. I think we know how family courts work well enough to know that a veritable nightmare would have ensued, followed by the very real possibility that Tracy wouldn’t be granted anything resembling legal guardianship, much less parental rights.
That genuinely sucks. I know you guys explored all of the legal possibilities and found yourselves thwarted and stymied at every turn. In your shoes, I’d be thoroughly outraged at any effort to maintain that status quo for the other gay couples who rescue children from certain hell.
Like I said: if there were any way to grant the inch without losing the mile, I’d jump at it. When it comes to rescuing kids and giving them a better life (whether with a single parent or same-sex parents) I will support those efforts to rectify the legal stupidities that prevented Tracy and others like her from having those parental rights.
That said.
I cannot in good conscience support social changes that countenance turkey-baster fathers and egg-donor mothers. This is an entirely different category from rescuing orphans, because in the case of the orphans, they’re being elevated from No Parents to One or Two Parents.
With donor parents, OTOH, the couples have conspired, ab ovum (as it were), to bring fatherless or motherless children into the world. I’m with Dolce & Gabbana on this: Elton John and his partner decided that their children would not have a mother, and look at the shitstorm that ensued when D&G pointed that out!
It is true that a prosthetic is better than no leg at all, but it is not better than a real leg. Our culture is so effed up that we are cutting off real legs and justifying it because look! prosthetic!
We currently criticize adult behavior that hurts kids, because that would mean the Feminists were wrong and the Sexual Revolution was a disaster. As long as the baby-boomers are still alive (and in positions of power, no less), we will not be able to call a spade a spade.
We haven’t even been able to undo the criminal policies that have consigned generations upon generations of poor (mostly minorities) into bitter little gulags where they prey on each other and rail against those who might actually help them.
If instituting SSM turns out to have horrific consequences, we will not be able to undo them. We will not even be able to name them, lest we be shouted down and pummeled with “homophobe!” or worse (and they will come up with something worse).
If we can find another way to help Tracy and people in her situation without destroying ancient cultural wisdom regarding the complementarity of the sexes, stable notions of sexual identity, and the foundational benefits of marriage (civilizing men, if you must know, which SSM cannot do), I’m all over it.
I am not without compassion for those who, for reasons beyond their control, cannot bond with the opposite sex. It’s a tough row to hoe under the best conditions. There are a lot of other people who are prevented from marrying for reasons beyond their control, too.
It genuinely isn’t fair that Tracy and her partner could not marry. It’s wrong to deny that.
But it’s also foolish to remove load-bearing walls for the sake of an unfortunate few. I wish it were otherwise but it’s not.
In my opinion, you are one of the lions in the den. … But you can’t control your inner fascist long enough to gain a plurality of the voting public, hence the attempt at rule by edict.
Gulermo, Tracy is one of the good guys, er, gays, er, a Constitutionalist. She’s not down with punishing the baker: she just wants the legal protections that she and her partner did not have while raising a child and would like to obtain those through marriage.
‘feets is the fascist, not Tracy.
Oh yes you are, ‘feets. If you can impute bigotry to vast swaths of the country for supporting Policy X, then I can impute all kinds of foul things to you.
Your rules: live by ’em.
Entered without evidence.
That is my take on the issue as well.
As an aside, I have never really understood this whole “godbotherer” thing. Concern that a being that you don’t believe exists is being bothered by excessive prayer isn’t really an exemplar of logical thought.
In none of these cases do I attempt to deprive the proprietors of their livelihoods, nor do I reckon that they ought to lose their businesses…
This, by the way, is why we lose. Until we make life painful for our would-be overlords, they’re going to keep pushing. We can make fascist idiocy painful, or we can prepare for more of it.
It’s not the world I want to live in, and it’s not how I would choose to live my life, but if my freedom and that of my kids is at stake, then I’m not above being a conscienceless prick and a relentless force of destruction. I just hope that those who have forced us on to this path realize, before the end, that they could have avoided their fate if they’d simply left us alone.
I have never really understood this whole “godbotherer” thing.
I believe the original term was “Christfuckers.” You can see where that might be something they’d want to keep out of the light of day.
Not that there could possibly be anything wrong with that, right?
The first sentence validates the second. Change that variable and the later proclamation fails spectacularly.
Here. Yet. But chapels are.
How can I leave you alone of you won’t go the fuck away?
I regret imposing long missives. Thank you dicentra. While my experience informs my positions, they are established by my conviction that individual rights are more important. And that tends to be where I seem to part ways with others. I can’t stress this enough, with all due respect, it is the difference between the classical liberal and the classical conservative. Once the details of liberty are exposed, the classical conservative returns to the needs of society trumping the liberties of the individual. I don’t for a moment believe that the classical liberal was ignorant of the issue, or even uncaring. I think that they assumed people would not act in ways destructive to society. That doesn’t mean they opposed change, on the contrary, I think they designed a Constitution that would bend and flex with the needs of society without requiring it to ‘breathe’.
I have tried to find an argument that supports my position of individual rights, addresses the real and clearly occurring consequences of battle being lost, and can move the needle in the argument. That no one here, or on the Left, or in the Libertarian camps I wander amongst has been moved in any way suggests my failure. It may not exist, but I do know that the arguments offered here and by the Right in general against individual rights have failed also.
Drumwaster: laws are made BY the majority. Fortunately we have this concept of minority rights that prevents the majority from running roughshod over the minority. If the minority has learned to game the system…well, they’ve often had plenty of experience on the short end of the stick.
Drumwaster: “Are people no longer allowed to disagree? Are people no longer allowed to be wrong? Are people no longer allowed to act in unpopular ways? ”
Your questions, had they been made 25 years ago, would have received a resounding NO…had we been talking about gays in public. There was a reason Victoria wouldn’t hold my hand in public.
Again, I’d love to find an argument that makes sense all around…these types of conversations help me work on it.
LBascom: Gay marriage does not prevent 98.5% of the population from having heterosexual marriage/relationships and propagating the species. If the institution is so fragile that .005% of the population getting married to same sex partners destroys it, it wasn’t long for this society in the first place.
Jeff: Just because a majority wants something does not mean is should be given it. Or to use Gulermo, just because the majority can do a thing doesn’t mean that it should.
Gulermo: I’ll stand my positions against anyone’s anyday. You can find the platform at tracycoyle.com. I am working on writing out positions on 50 issues. I don’t claim to be a prophet, so getting one wrong isn’t a stoning offense.
dicentra: “It is true that a prosthetic is better than no leg at all, but it is not better than a real leg. Our culture is so effed up that we are cutting off real legs and justifying it because look! prosthetic! ”
I agree. But if my choice is to give up individual rights or give up society, then Patrick Henry wins. 230 odd years ago we gave up on 8000 years of political and economic history and started with something new. I think the change was good.
Change has terrible consequences for some people. Humanity is not a zero sum game, neither is our society. It’s going to break things if we give people sufficient liberty to make their own choices. I’d be for making more people suffer the consequences of their own choices, but we have to watch the carnage and resist the impulse to stop stupid people from making stupid choices. That is the liberal mantra.
My parents could not live in their parents society. They wanted better for their children. I don’t have the freedom to change society, I have to make do with this one and I can’t, in good conscience, live in the one I was born into. It had to change, it has, for the better in some ways, not so much in others. It took generations to deal with the carnage of the Civil War, it’s taking generations to deal with the Great Depression. It’ll take generations to deal with the Information Revolution that isn’t even done yet.
Again, thank you dicenta, and to Slartibartfast also.
>Your questions, had they been made 25 years ago, would have received a resounding NO…had we been talking about gays in public. There was a reason Victoria wouldn’t hold my hand in public. <
yea woman hold hands in public 25 or 55 or 155 years ago was no big deal. get over your "victimization"
<Jeff: Just because a majority wants something does not mean is should be given it. Or to use Gulermo, just because the majority can do a thing doesn’t mean that it should.<
oh good paralysis by analysis
>Jeff: Just because a majority wants something does not mean is should be given it. Or to use Gulermo, just because the majority can do a thing doesn’t mean that it should.<
what are your thoughts on obamacare and how it was passed?
>the classical conservative returns to the needs of society trumping the liberties of the individual<
thou shall not murder is one of those "oppressive" -trumping the liberties of the individual-
That’s the democratic part of federalism under the system as constructed, particularly if you value a constrained central power. And as an obverse to your assertion, just because a minority wants something doesn’t mean they are entitled to it, either. I don’t see any constitutionally protected right being violated. I see no federal jurisdiction under civil rights law. Therefore the decisions on what constitutes limits on marriage are supposed to rest with the individual states, in my view.
Your questions, had they been made 25 years ago, would have received a resounding NO…had we been talking about gays in public.
Who was using The State to shut down gay-owned businesses 25 years ago?
Your answer to Drum was a false-equivalency tu quoque
Not one of the businesses being vilified, threatened and fined ever turned away one gay or lesbian customer. They all merely said they would opt out of participating in a celebration of a union their religion considered illegitimate.
in the 60s-70s our family Dr was a practicing Roman Catholic – took care of all my mom’s “women’s health issues” but opted out of prescribing any birth control. My mom & the rest of his female patients, just got their b/c from another doctor without using The State to seize his license or make his life unbearable.
Indeed, in today’s Totalitarian Left climate, I will predict not only a movement to strip any church or synagogue that refuses same-sex marriage of its tax-exempt status (AND strip any minister, rabbi or priest of legally marrying anyone if they refuse SS marriages) but the push to strip nurses and doctors of their licenses if they refuse to participate in abortions.
That’s just how the Left rolls. Their dogma has no room for dissent.
>resist the impulse to stop stupid people from making stupid choices. That is the liberal mantra.<
oh good like
Woman attacked after ‘shushing’ teens at movie theater
Black city councilman breaks the silence on black on white crime
so tracy are you low iq or someone who gets pleasure from their stupidity?
Contract law would cover the legalities of a relationship, and benefits would not accrue to citizens based upon whom they choose to offer monogamy.
When I stood with the Bride of Monster before our assembled families and friends, and we made certain promises before those witnesses, we created a contract not only between each other, but also between our then-yet-to-be-conceived children (and arguably our grandchildren, etc. as well). Since negative ages are trivially provable to be less than whatever positive age at which one considers necessary for the competence to enter into a contract, Monsterette One and Two were not able to give their consent to this contract, even though they were parties to it.
So we have a problem, because normally the people who sign contracts on behalf of minor children are their parents, but we could hardly do so when we were ourselves parties to the contract. What to do? The State says it will set certain requirements on this particular contract in order to protect the rights of those children who can’t bargain for a better deal themselves.
In short, the sole reason why there is any legitimate state interest in regulating marriage is to protect the interests of the children who may arise from such unions. And no matter how much SSM proponents may scream epithets at us, we know that there is nothing two men or two women can do to produce a child without some assistance from the opposite gender. The reason why the state should not recognize same-sex unions is that there is no basis for it to intrude into them, and therefore should leave them to the lawyers to write whatever contracts the parties find agreeable.
[When I raise this line of reasoning, inevitably someone points out that marriages like my father’s second, to a post-menapausal woman, are equally incapable of producing children, therefore shouldn’t such marriages also be unrecognized by the state? My answer is that if a state wants to declare that a person who is certified to be 100% infertile, with absolutely no chance to produce any offspring, is ineligible to have a state-sanctioned marriage, I’m fine with that. They can still be married in the eyes of the church and leaving the government out of it is just peachy.]
When those people enter into arrangements to get sperm, egg, or uterus donors, and actually start producing humans that are too young to enter into contracts, that is precisely the point at which a legitimate state interest can be ascertained. So states that legislate controls on such contracts are justified.
maybe related to topic
>Minstrel shows lampooned black people as dim-witted,[1] lazy,[1] buffoonish,[1][2] superstitious, happy-go-lucky,[1] and musical. The minstrel show began with brief burlesques and comic entr’actes in the early 1830s and emerged as a full-fledged form in the next decade. By 1848, blackface minstrel shows were the national artform, translating formal art such as opera into popular terms for a general audience.[3]
By the turn of the 20th century, the minstrel show enjoyed but a shadow of its former popularity, having been replaced for the most part by vaudeville. It survived as professional entertainment until about 1910; amateur performances continued until the 1960s in high schools, and local theaters. As the civil rights movement progressed and gained acceptance, minstrels lost popularity.
The typical minstrel performance followed a three-act structure. The troupe first danced onto stage then exchanged wisecracks and sang songs. The second part featured a variety of entertainments, including the pun-filled stump speech. The final act consisted of a slapstick musical plantation skit or a send-up of a popular play. Minstrel songs and sketches featured several stock characters, most popularly the slave and the dandy. These were further divided into sub-archetypes such as the mammy, her counterpart the old darky, the provocative mulatto wench, and the black soldier. Minstrels claimed that their songs and dances were authentically black[citation needed], although the extent of the black influence remains debated. Spirituals (known as jubilees) entered the repertoire in the 1870s, marking the first undeniably black music to be used in minstrelsy.<
trayvon, mike brown et al or demonrat media: ymmv
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minstrel_show
Sacramentally, it was about immediately after the “I do’s.” Legally, I think it was after the signatures were on the license. I don’t remember if that was before or after the ceremony, truth be told. And since I’m not a lawyer….
The relationship is a day to day thing. But good bad or indifferent, whatever the case may be, the relationship isn’t the sum of the marriage.
newrouter: “get over your “victimization””
Did you note I said Victoria would not hold my hand, that implies that I reached for hers. I had/have no issue with holding hands in public, or kissing in public. I don’t give a shit what other people think about me, so, I’m not a victim. I tried in vain for 20 years to get Victoria to stop caring what other people thought about her. I have tried, somewhat unsuccessfully to get CJ to likewise stop caring about what others think. There are times and places to care about what others think, wandering around in public isn’t one of them.
Obamacare is an abomination. It’s passage violated more rules than I care to think about, it passed without Republican support (rightly so). I think it is an unConstitutional mess and it is clear that Chief Justice Roberts was either coerced or lost his f*king mind. I’d like some guys in black robes to subvert the will of the majority of the legislature and overturn the shit – but that would just be judicial activism….right? Absent their effort, the GOP should (LOL, HAHAHAHAHAHA) overturn it. If he hasn’t already done so, Obama is dangerously close to impeachment, that the GOP will never actually bring forth.
There is no ‘thou shall not murder’ on any criminal code in the United States. There are various ways the States have crafted penalties for committing murder however. I however do not believe there is an absolute liberty to individual rights. If I have an absolute liberty, so do you. Therefore, the only sane move on my part is to acknowledge your liberty and come to an agreement as to the extent of our respective liberties. Over time, this has been done by many people and they have gotten together to formalize those agreements, we call them laws. Where the laws transgress, such as the government thinking it has any skin in the game, it violates not only our Constitution but the agreement between each of us concerning the conduct of Society. The government is a servant, it is not a co-equal partner of the individuals, nor the master of them. When it forgets it’s place, it needs slapping down. Leviathan indeed.
Jeff: “That’s the democratic part of federalism under the system as constructed, particularly if you value a constrained central power….”
I agree, with all of it.
Darlene: You’ll have to be more specific with regard to my various responses to drumwaster. Also, I think I was clear that I was not defending, justifying or agreeing with the actions of the morons that attacked businesses for their views. I wasn’t doing so in the case of the Oregon bakers which is the last time we all got into this. I support boycotts if that is something you or others want to do – I choose not to do business with some companies and individuals. I don’t call my 2000 friends on Twitter or 200 on Facebook to bombard such companies with hate either. Nor do I think it is appropriate for others to do so. And while some people here are quick with name calling, I don’t ask or suggest their opinion, no matter it’s value or lack, be quashed. I don’t defend the tactics of the Left, I hope you are not suggesting that I do or have.
BTW, 25 years ago I didn’t care about gay businesses, weren’t even on my radar. 25 years ago I was barely political. I called myself Republican and voted as such. I didn’t get political until 2004. I’m sure there were lots of things that I should have been aware of, but I was back living in Chicago and Republican politicians were (and still are) so rare the newspapers posted sightings. I was the worst kind of citizen: uninformed, uneducated and voting.
newrouter: If you want to stop people from making stupid choices, please feel free. Tell me where you plan on stopping because right now we have a President making some doozies and I’d like to hear your plan. WE need to stop thinking government can fix things, including stopping people from being stupid. Because we HATE the nanny-state. So, if you want to stand up with your walker and get between 6 teenagers aggressively threatening a lone young woman on a trolley, I’m not going to stop you…I might join you. But government making a law….yea, not my idea of enjoyment. And I think I have a stellar IQ…
The Monster: Gee, nice idea, someone should codify that. Of course, applying said contract and monitoring is a choice. My sister’s daughters have had 5 children out of wedlock. Victoria and I had a child without benefit of a marriage contract. As a matter of fact, in the Black community, something like 70% of children are born without benefit of a marriage contract. So, there are a whole lot of people having children without marriage. Maybe it is because the contract is too stifling, maybe it gives the government too much ability to step in and muck around, maybe it is just being ignored. Maybe people figured out that you don’t need a marriage contract to have kids (we can argue the ‘good’ of it later). So, lots of people are having kids without marriage. If you want to change that, you have to find out how to get people to want marriage, especially if they want kids. There is an idea for you Mr Monster….find out how to get people to want marriage! There is this small group that is clamoring for it…maybe they have some suggestions….
Mr Schreiber: tomato, potato. I think marriage IS the relationship and I don’t think it IS at the time of the wedding, it starts there and realistically well before then. I guess my thought and wording didn’t work well together there. My point, obviously not well made, was that marriage is more than the ‘I do’.
Whatever you say humpty dumpty. You’re the one with the State to make it so for you.
marriage is more than the ‘I do’.
Property rights and child rearing traditionally.
Of course, that was before we let the “fuck-buddy” aspect elide the rest.
Mr Schreiber, if you think the institution has been irreparably harmed first and foremost by the introduction of same sex marriage, you haven’t been paying attention. If you want to blame people, start with women. If you want the first step on the slippery slope, go back to 1919. Blame bio-tech and marijuana. You can blame liberals, then Leftists. I don’t sit on a bench, I haven’t voted for or against same sex marriage. I haven’t demanded a business provide me with goods or services and I haven’t rallied people against such a business and I haven’t supported those that did.
And people have and are going to pass a law to give them freedom of religious expression….as if a government could ever give them such.
Ok, so that I am clear and not just shooting from the hip. RFRA says that government can not burden the free exercise of religious beliefs unless it has a compelling state interest and there is no other way to do so, and even if it does, it has to minimize the impact. I am willing to concede that there are places where this law might be applicable outside of the context of ‘gay rights’, though I am not aware of any examples.
Further, it is a restriction on government. My issue with Indiana, is why is the RFRA needed? What law or laws on the books in Indiana potentially risk such a situation. There is no ‘gender’ or ‘sexual preference’ anti-discrimination law on the books in Indiana. What potential religious expression is threatened in Indiana by government?
FTFY.
Maybe we’ve adopted the morals of a pack of feral cats. Maybe the government has found it easier to control people when it becomes their Daddy. Maybe there really is no difference between a person’s male parent, their female parent and, well, anyone else on the planet. Maybe this handbasket is headed for Aruba.
First, any municipality could pass such laws at any time. Second, there’s a laundry list of possibilities, from Muslims wearing beards/headscarves, to Sikhs wearing kirpans, to Catholics objecting to participating in abortion and so on.
Now, for the flip side. When, where and how are gays being discriminated against in Indiana? What oppression does this RFRA validate? (Let’s keep in mind that a ceremony is not a person.)
I’m sure gays are being discriminated in Indiana all the time…there is no law against it, so there is no way to ‘know’, there is no ’cause’ to bring lawsuits. And by all the time, that means there are probably a dozen examples of all kinds of ‘sexual orientation’ discrimination across Indiana…maybe only 4 or 5….maybe just one or two. Like Memories Pizza is just one of hundreds of pizza places…ok, maybe 4 or 5….or maybe just one pizza place attacked. One bakery, one florist, one photographer. I am sure there are hundreds of cases of restrictions on religious expression….in Indiana. And if it is JUST ONE…it is wrong.
Elizabeth Warren. Back in 2004 she and I had two conversations about the Bankruptcy Reform Bill before Congress. I said her claim that 50% of bankruptcies were caused by medical bills. I said that was a ridiculus claim and she said she was relying on the stat that 50% of all bankruptcies listed medical debt. I told her 25% of bankruptcies listed Fingerhut as a creditor but 25% of bankruptcies were not caused by Fingerhut. Later, our second conversation concerning fraud, that 10% of bankruptcies had some fraud in them was nuts. That 10% of cases might have had something that needed to be corrected might have been more correct. We had a case (not our case, V was there for the hearing for the attorney of record), where the young man didn’t list any jewelry. The trustee noted he had a stud in one ear. He made the attorney amend the petition for the $2 stud earring. That was not fraud, it had no material effect and no one had an intent to defraud creditors by failing to list it.
If there are tons of cases where people’s religious expression are being restricted by courts and states, I’d see a reason for more effort at taking one or two of those cases up the chain of courts. “Reinforcing” a protection that everyone seems in agreement is already in the Constitution seems to be admitting the premise that the Constitution doesn’t already protect religious expression. Someone said that law is not about the minority, not about the ‘one’. I argue it is about individual liberty, individual rights, first and foremost. If there are hundreds of examples of legal cases finding religious expression under attack…I am sure someone can find them. I couldn’t. (I did find lots of cases of Muslim’s being told to remove headwear….I don’t think that is what is at issue. Though Crowder’s video was informative…)
Indiana needs a come to Jesus I’m tellin you
you can’t be all doing the bigotry on people or everyone’s gonna think you’re a buncha losers
>doing the bigotry on people or everyone’s gonna think you’re a buncha losers<
serving pizza at your "wedding" is really gay
nevertheless
now a nice gay wedding needs a
cabbage soup
The law seeks a balance between the individual and the society as a whole. The Constitution commands the State to tilt the balance in favor of the individual.
Arguing about law based on personal, emotion-laden experience tilts the balance in favor of the mob.
McGhee: the problem is that the ‘mob’ (ie the majority) has conceded the argument space to the obnoxious few (the lefties). If the ‘mob’ would just quit caring about what others think and focus on their oft repeated rights/principles/liberties, the argument would be nasty, brutish and short.
> ‘mob’ (ie the majority) has conceded the argument space to the obnoxious few (the lefties). <
the "mob" are the obnoxious few (the lefties) with a MEGAPHONE – see nytcbsabcnprnbc et al
> ‘mob’ (ie the majority) has conceded the argument space to the obnoxious few (the lefties). <
your fantasy "mob" were not gunning for the indiana pizza shop or the wa florist. i hear isis needs female lesbians in its brothels. poor boys need service. cutting xtains heads all day is nerve wracking .
you can’t be all doing the bigotry on people
Since none of the “opt out of an event” isn’t about the identity of the people involved, nor was the opting out done out of irrational, unfair intolerance, it doesn’t involve “bigotry”.
Now, you’re Christophobia and attempt to force Churches (and I assume, synagogues) to do what you demand they do does qualify on the irrational, unfair intolerance level.
Gotta love the inadvertent moment of honesty in “doing bigotry” though.
You will not, in fact, be left alone. You will be made to offer sacrifice.
Tracy, newrouter is correct. While it is popular to equate the mob with the majority, it has almost never been true. Mobs are driven minorities, winning power by force of rage, because neither right nor numbers are on their side.
They are the political equivalent of “pounding the table.”
I had thought this would be dead by now. Fortunately, hf seems to be less manic than he has at other times, so some good conversation has occurred.
I’d like to suggest, though, that children are irrelevant to marriage. People may marry with the intent of reproducing, or not. Is one marriage more valid than the other? I don’t think so.
My wife and I married with the intention of having children, but we wouldn’t have married if that was the ONLY reason. And, as it turned out, both of us were somewhat lacking in fertility. So, we adopted.
Tracy, there’s a picture of my kids from close to a decade ago that I posted on my FB wall today. My views on adoption have been under construction for nearly two decades, and I think that committed gay couples (which would have to undergo the same level of screening as pretty much everyone has to, in the present tense) SHOULD be permitted to adopt, and furthermore there should be a vehicle for them to pledge their commitment to each other.
And (this is my own view, and probably will be vigorously opposed) you can even call it marriage if you like. It doesn’t affect my marriage any more than my failed first marriage affected anyone else’s more successful ones.
Slart, that was the bestest most rational argument for SSM I’ve ever seen. Well done!
I still think it a mistake to reddfine such an important institution to accommodate a tiny number of outliers, and my religion will never allow me to reject its standards of behavior (you may as well try and convince me lying should longer be discouraged because sometimes good people do it for well intentioned reasons), therefore I still can not accept the queer agenda as a civil rights issue. There has to be a better way to address the situatio you describe besides opening a floodgate of social experiments with marriage
Sorry.
the gay marriage ship has sailed i won the p wizzles lost
wouldn’t have married if that was the ONLY reason
Even Jewish & Christian religion does not hold that.
“Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”
The complementary relationship between husband and wife that Judeo-Christian religion holds sacred. Children come & go, but the marriage remains.
Individual personal relationships should voluntary & the people involved should have the space for legal contracts.
“Marriage” refers to a specific, defined relationship. SSM doesn’t affect my marriage. But it has had a profound affect on the religious rights of those that don’t want to participate.
Hey hp, you can call your car a yacht if that’s what floats your boat, but it will never fly with true Christians.
Yer gunna hav ta make us. Previous persons in your position have used crucifixions, lions, tigers and bears (oh my) in the arena, and the inquisition. What u got?
Oh yeah. Lawyers. *shutter*
Beaurocrats. *shivers*
The IRS *reaches for ashes and sackcloth*
Still, I ain’t going along. Do your worst.
SWAT is disconcerting. It’s the thought of potential abuse and the shady lines regarding domestic armies that’s rough on my concerting.
i have a disapproving glance
The ‘majority’ are too busy with their lives to worry about other’s, and that includes electorally. The ‘mob’, a minority, are the largest group of loudmouths seeking to drive what few are willing to expend an ounce of energy actually doing something other than writing a little missive on a blog, on facebook or Twitter. The Left has more willing to do it than the Right. I know, I and others have been trying for 7 years to get more than a handful to sit down and do more and it isn’t happening.
The left wins because people show up. And unfortunately, even when the Right shows up it is for a day, an afternoon, a few hours. I made fun of and routinely showed up at Occupy San Diego to heckle them, much to CJ’s HORROR and fear. I got into a least a dozen shouting matches that pulled cops in from the edges to make sure fighting didn’t break out….but THEY showed up, day after day for months, rain or shine.
Abortion has been on the GOP agenda for 30 years. It hasn’t moved an inch. Every time I bring up even the slightest suggestion of some compromise, neither the Left nor the Right are willing to budge. 60% of the population and what…85% of the Right support some restrictions…and it can’t get done. Why? Because it’s a nice rallying issue.
Gay marriage wins in the courts and will eventually in the general population because people BELIEVE in Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of happiness. Not Life, Liberty and the historical definition…. The Right is losing the argument because they, WE are not making any argument that sounds like anything more than …..animus in disguise.
I truly appreciate the support people have here for my situation and the compassion I received when V passed away, but the arguments put forth are pathetic. It is history, that is not the definition, it can’t be what everyone knows it’s not… Excuses for your lack of support, not reasons for anyone else to agree with.
We lose because no one wants CJ to be the orphan in China with no parents and the only argument is that ‘the definition has always been man and woman’. I win….and I am….because Victoria didn’t care about anything other than being a mother and none of our friends, family or neighbors saw us as anything other than a couple raising a child and could see no reason not to support and encourage us….definitions not withstanding.
Fight for your beliefs, I’m there for you, 100% no hesitation, 100% my support. I sat with Victoria and CJ in church every Sunday for 18+ years defending in full, unhesitating support of them. Respect and honor. My position. I served, respect for our republic, honoring Our commitments. No one sees the anti-ssm position as respecting or honoring others.
We’ll have this conversation again…next time Darlene or Jeff brings up something about it and I climb off my high horse and stir the kettle again. I apologize for the long missives but I think you guys, who have been very kind (except newrouter!), deserve something more than a punchline.
BTW, I read every post and frequently a chunk of the comments. I don’t get too involved because I very often agree both with Jeff and Darlene and with the people here. When I don’t, I see the arguments I would make being made…
No one is forcing anyone to have a SSM.
Probably that’s not what you meant, but it sounded like that.
Look: I completely get that wedding planners may balk at planning a gay marriage. And, frankly, if you’re getting into a SSM, you don’t want a straights-only wedding planner plotting your course for you. IMO, of course. I also completely get that although a bakery might sell wedding cakes, and shouldn’t balk at selling a cake to someone because they’re gay, a wedding-cake maker might have some thoughts about decorating a cake for a gay wedding.
Again: you don’t want that baker working for you, if that’s the case.
I think what we have here is a shift in the way people have to regard their role in things. Talking to gays is not condoning homosexuality. Selling things to gays is not condoning homosexuality. That should be pretty clear.
But it may (should?) be equally clear that there are other lines that aren’t going to get crossed at present, and may never be crossed.
On the counter-side of the above, though: you are not entitled to a custom decorated cake for your SSM. In the old days, we didn’t have other people to bake and decorate our wedding cakes for us; we had to do it ourselves.
Frankly the whole wedding industry is kind of overblown, and the fact that people wanting to get into SSMs have bought into it in kind is quite disheartening.
So.
Ah, but Tracy — things like bakers, florists and pizza parlors being harassed out of business by mobs tend to wake up majorities.
When that happens, mobs get slapped down. Hard. And pendulums don’t stop swinging back exactly where the bad stuff started.
Selling things to gays is not condoning homosexuality
No, it’s not. And none of the people punished by the Leftist mob have denied gay customers from their products.
All they wanted to do is to opt out of supporting an event that is contrary to their religious beliefs.
The so-called “hurt” gays readily got their custom cakes, flowers & photography from other vendors. This is all about punishing Wrong Thought.
I’m waiting now to hear about musicians & wedding singers sued into compliance.
This is a direct consequence of redefining marriage instead of having both marriage and something else (e.g. civil unions) for people who don’t qualify for marriage.
I would stand right next to gay owned businesses that refuse to have Westboro Church or Church of Christian Identity as customers.
NO ONE should be forced to participate in messages they disagree with.
how can a civil ceremony be contrary to someone’s religious beliefs
it’s the epitome of separation of church and state
you’d think these ones would be happy seeing gay people having separate segregated marriagings
but it’s not enough
no cake for you they say
and it’s so sad
but it will get better
someday
there’s a place for matrimonial homos
somewhere a place
for matrimonial homos
tasty cakes and pretty fleurs
wait for them
somewheres
griefer
Let me know when you agree to write the next KKK recruitment brochure
that will never happen i promise you that
griefer
then never go into business for yourself where you will be forced to create messages you disagree with
The State commands it
I am totally against a morally bankrupt whorestate like failmerica or indiana doing the forcings on people
People should just do the right thing
Why is that so hard
I sigh pensively for I do not know the answer
The right thing being, of course, what happyfeet says is the right thing.
happyfeet,
You know that I have a lot of love for you Bro, but you really must admit that this whole kettle of fish has taken on a far different odor than you ever predicted back in the day.
Gay folks aren’t content with having the legal equality they used to claim to seek. This isn’t about equality of all, but about forcing an agenda on all; it’s not about tolerance at all, but about demanding that those otherwise guilty of thought-crimes against the progressive’s 5 year social plan be forced to affirm, acclaim, and celebrate!11!1! the wonderful diversity enhancing new marriage paradigm-no matter whether their own ickey God-bothery cosmology doesn’t allow them to.
Better they deny the Almighty Himself, that to be branded a racist/homophobe/h8ter in contemporary US society. Though hell is a terrible choice of residence for all eternity, they haven’t any harpies like those the GayKK can unleash on one in Obamerica…
It’s a whole level Dante couldn’t have imagined back in the day.
My regards to all.
Or maybe that construct should have flowed KKGay to be freighted with the meaning I intended it to connote :)
Once upon a time there was a thing for that.
I wonder if there were edible Fumi-e ;) Because there are now. Not just edible, but celebratory!
I wonder if for some there is double-plus-celebratory meaning symbolized in the cake. Both the celebration of joining in relationship, as well as forcing the submission of ones erstwhile-cultural opponents…
For while the deeper meaning of freedom of religion has now been replaced in progressive-circles by the reductionist appellation, freedom of worship, the two being the night & day difference between a life-guiding cosmology, a way of life, and a Sunday morning Jesus fan club, that same reductionist impulse doesn’t seem to apply to one’s sexual orientation; which is a sacrosanct, intrinsic, integral part of a concrete reality, indeed a way of life! that mustn’t be subordinate to anything or anyone else.
That’s because religion is something you do in the privacy of your own bedroom. Preferably with the shades down, the curtains drawn and the lights turned off.
Unlike sex.
>Abortion has been on the GOP agenda for 30 years. It hasn’t moved an inch<
nah killing babies is uncool dudette. see mr dr black gosnell . tnb with the defenseless. eff the proggtarded
.
.
.
Abortion hasn’t moved an inch except in public opinion which is increasingly against it.
Pendulums.
i’m not sure i understand your point Mr. Bob
what’s more reductionist than the pizza-slinging crystal kadiddlehoppers what reduce christianity to a spiritually and intellectually empty anti-gay manifesto
these people demean christianity and they demean themselves
fortunately they are a wee small minority
What’s more reductionist than that? Well, for one thing: anonymous internet idiots who want to pigeonhole them like that without knowing the first thing about them other than what they’ve read in our failed media. And who have bought, lock stock and barrel, the narrative that said pizza-slingers have actually discriminated against anyone at all.
But thoughtcrime is cool when your side is doing it, right?
cleaning is completed
moving towards the charger
Thanks for taking the time to bore us.
“what’s more reductionist than the pizza-slinging crystal kadiddlehoppers what reduce christianity to a spiritually and intellectually empty anti-gay manifesto
these people demean christianity and they demean themselves”
I’m understanding more every day why some cultures just kill the fags and get it over with. Show them any tolerance, and next thing you know they are demanding tribute.
that is an extreme view
LBascom: I’ll assume that statement reflects more frustration than actual ‘understanding’ otherwise, the ‘barely disguised animus’ isn’t barely any such thing….
In your neighborhood. It’s mainstream in most of the world.
I suggest now would be a good time to back off on the demanding tribute thing, even in your neighborhood. Tolerance stretched too far can be dangerous when it snaps…
these people demean christianity and they demean themselves
Said Antiochus about those stiff-necked Jews who didn’t think giving up kosher & putting a statue of Zeus in their temple was right.
Just who did they think they were to not celebrate modernity?
It should be interesting to note that it is the “mainstream” Protestant Christian churches … who have thrown out basic Christian morality for the 60s “if it feels good, do it, no one is really sinning” stance that have been hemorrhaging membership.
It is the denominations that actually require a little effort on the path to salvation that are gaining members.
Conservative & Orthodox Judaism is much more vibrant than Reform.
Tracy, here is understanding.
The God I worship razed whole cities when the sexual perverts got out of hand. When the pervs start believing they can dictate to Christians what their religion is, and that they must partake in their perversion, it may be time to rid ourselves of some perverts, lest they cause the whole city to burn.
I ain’t disguising anything, I’m saying it straight out. Don’t push me, pervert.
then god made this guy get eated by a whale and the guy was all like
well this is just fucking fantastic fuck my life
God is free to raze cities, ISIS shouldn’t be. And I’m glad to be outed by your words.
I think MY efforts have been more to ‘suggest’ what our Constitution and form of government is than what YOUR religion is. As for partaking, Jeff is a fan of definitions, so let me offer two:
partake: participate in, take part in, engage in, join in, enter into, get involved in, share in, contribute to, play a part in, have a hand in, sit in on
I hardly think I am partaking in a religious ceremony when someone says to me “have a blessed day” and I say thank you. Of course, you might consider me a Christian for having sat, participated in, Church every Sunday. Or is just sitting insufficient to actually make me a celebrant, a claimant of the ‘born-again’ mantel?
I’ll feel free to push you all day on matters of individual liberty and rights. All day…
When this Country has a ‘religious litmus test’, based on ANY religion, it will have truly died.
When this Country has a ‘religious litmus test’, based on ANY religion, it will have truly died.
And that is what happened when a photographer was fined by government for not participating in an event she disagreed with.
Tolerance means free to disagree and go about one’s business.
I have photographed a same-sex commitment ceremony. I will fight to the death for the right of any person who wishes to opt out of participating.
The default position of The State is that all parties to any transaction must all voluntarily agree, or the transaction doesn’t take place.
Period.
Liberty is the right to say “get off my lawn” and not be punished for it.
and when God would have had to raze who continents….
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
I’m not sure which God you worship, but the wrathful one seems to have altered His approach. Now, you might counter with Revelations….
If I were in the business of determining whether someone is a Christian, all I would want to know is whether he or she accepts his or her personal responsibility, as a sinner, for Christ’s sacrifice.
Going to church is all well and good, but He wants to be sure you know, truly, why you’re there.
Because of The State at the behest of SJWs is moving into the realm of redefining the First Amendment to take out the “free exercise of religion” clause
(e.g. you are free to believe, but not live by those beliefs)
churches are being encouraged to try and protect themselves from a religiously-hostile Government.
The Constitution is being shredded by SJWs (not that they ever liked it to begin with)
Gee….such a difference of perspective.
I fully support liberty – I think a business should be free to serve, or not, anyone it damn well pleases. I think that a business, by opening it’s doors, does not make it public ground. I think that a proprietor, a business owner, has all the rights guaranteed by our Constitution and an infinite more yet unknown or unrecognized. I think if someone says they have a religious belief, government has no business inquiring into ‘how much, how deep, how consistent’.
McGehee: isn’t that inquiring into someone’s stated beliefs? What God wants to know is between God and the person….isn’t enough for you that someone is there? Of course, you didn’t say your were in such business…
Darlene: yea…..no. Government said that a photographer, by opening her business under the laws of New Mexico was government by such laws and one of them was not to discriminate based upon the sexual orientation of the consumer. The Courts of NM found that she did. So, there wasn’t a ‘religious litmus test’. I think that if you want to fight for the right to opt out of participating, fight to get rid of anti-discrimination laws. Fight for courts to apply the Constitution…
Could the opposite be said? That the NM courts said that the photographer’s religious expression was involved and that it rejected the ‘free expression’ claim? As a matter of fact:
Eugene Volokh: I’m pleased to report that I filed a friend-of-the-court brief, on behalf of the Cato Institute, Dale Carpenter, and myself, arguing that wedding photographers (and other speakers) have a First Amendment right to choose what expression they create, including by choosing not to photograph same-sex commitment ceremonies. All the signers of the brief support same-sex marriage rights; our objection is not to same-sex marriages, but to compelling photographers and other speakers works that they don’t want to create.
The Court rejected that argument.
“The express provisions of the statutory definition do not exclude a business entity which is by its nature expressive and artistic. The fact that the services offered to the public by an entity are not provided in a fixed place does not exclude the entity from meeting the statutory definition of a place or establishment of public accommodation. See National Organization for Women, Essex County Chapter v. Little League BasebalL Inc., 318 A.2d 33, 37 (1974). The hallmark of a piace of public accommodation has been found to be that “the public at large is invited.” Id.”
Further:
“In addressing the constitutional protection for free exercise of religion, the United States Supreme Court determined that its “cases establish the general proposition that a law that is neutral and of general applicability need not be justified by a compelling governmental interest even if the law has the incidental effect of burdening a particular religious practice.” Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520, 113 S.Ct. 2217, 2226 (1993). Cf. Axson-Flynn v. Johnson, 356 F.1277, 1294 (10th Cir. 2004) (“Neutral rules of general applicability ordinarily do not raise free exercise concerns even if they incidentally burden a particular religious practice or belief.”). The United States Supreme Court has consistently held that “the right to free exercise does not relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a ‘valid and neutral law of general applicability on the ground that the law proscribes (or prescribes) conduct that his religion prescribes (or proscribes). ‘” Employment Division. Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872, 879 (1990).
As I have suggested elsewhere, Courts screw up, fail to rule consistent with the Constitution, are human. However, we are a nation of laws, not Scripture.
Lastly, I have suggested that the Photographer has a claim that they are participating in the wedding – they are there, they are actively involved with the participants. Baker, not so.
Tracy, you aren’t talking about liberty, you’re talking about license. As for our form of government, have you heard about the Defense of Marriage Act? How about all those states where the citizens voted overwhelmingly for something similar in their state constitutions only to have them thrown out by a judge with an agenda? What you are pushing has nothing to do with the constitution or the consent of the governed.
Yeah, Jesus didn’t come to condemn the world because it was condemned already.
Here’s the thing, everyone is a sinner; homosexuality is no worse or better than lying, stealing, cheating or drunkenness. Jesus said even thinking of doing adultery is sin. We’re all going to hell unless we put our faith in Jesus.
What you are doing is trying to deem homosexual behavior no longer sin. Sorry, you don’t have the authority.
The God I worship? It’s the one that saved the woman being stoned for adultery, then told her ‘go, and sin no more‘. She didn’t try and explain the adultery was OK ‘cuz she really loves the dude…
Darlene: “(e.g. you are free to believe, but not live by those beliefs)”
Render unto Caesar. Bringing those beliefs into the public sphere subjects it to the public sphere. Could a Christian bookstore refuse to sell a Bible to someone planning on using it during a same sex commitment ceremony?
LBascom: call homosexuality a sin. Fine by me. Doesn’t change anything for me. I could care less if homosexuality IS a sin or just ‘called’ a sin. And the law doesn’t care if it is a sin or called a sin.
Yea, I know about DOMA. I called it unConstitutional when it was proposed, passed, signed and relied upon. Our system of government does not, or at least shouldn’t, allow the law to be used by a majority to take away rights of a minority. I remember that there were ‘discussions’ as to the suitability of John Kennedy…because he had ‘dual’ loyalties. Judges with agendas are only bad when those agendas conflict with those making the claim. Lots of people on the Right were hoping Judges with agendas found Obamacare unConstitutional….lots still are hoping it.
Interesting choice of story….I don’t recall that the man was being stoned at the same time.
Bringing those beliefs into the public sphere subjects it to the public sphere.
So The State can make a law prohibiting my wearing of a Star of David in public?
Could a Christian bookstore refuse to sell a Bible to someone planning on using it during a same sex commitment ceremony?
Should they be able to refuse selling it to a person who planned on using it in a Satanical rite?
Could a Muslim bookstore refuse to sell the Koran to a person who planned on burning it?
the law to be used by a majority to take away rights of a minority.
No one ever stopped marriage based on orientation. Indeed, no family law statute covering marriage has a “declare your orientation” requirement.
Everyone is free to live/order their lives as they want without government censure based on orientation. The State also has a right to set up parameters on what contracts they will/will not allow/enforce.
If you feel that same-sex marriage is a “right” based on “who you love” than there are no parameters to marriage. If sex is not a valid criteria, than neither is number or degree of consanguinity.
I have to say I don’t care too much for this kind of threatened mobdeath here than I do when the lefties do it with masses of pissed-off poor people taking their piece back.
Vengeance is _mine_, sayeth the Lord.
I tend to interpret that as, loosely: it isn’t your business to judge and carry sentence; that is My job.
I do think this shit is going to boomerang in unexpected ways, but it isn’t worth my energy to wish for that, or arrange it in any way. I suggest that for one, artists and musicians will have to deliver their products to all customers.
But maybe not.
All around, a much better conversation without so much hf in it.
Could a Christian bookstore refuse to sell a Bible to someone planning on using it during a same sex commitment ceremony?
Obviously, the clerk at the store isn’t going to have a clue on what it is to be used for unless the person buying it is trolling him.
Custom work is entirely different. What if the store offered custom-binding where an artist created a leatherworked cover with name(s) & event on it? You know, “Mary Smith, Baptized 3/4/15, St. Peters Church” “John & Judy Green, Holy Matrimony June 1, 2015, St Anthony’s Church” … Should they be forced to do that custom work for Westboro Church or a same-sex couple?
This discussion seems to be getting shifty. Where the hell are the damn goalposts now?
I’m out.
Was not a threat, but a prediction.
I could be wrong, maybe Americans have become so soft and soulless they’ll lie down and stick their ass in the air for whoever wants to give it a good rogering, in which case the queers have way more problems than Christian bakers. Islam will make sure of that.
I suggest that for one, artists and musicians will have to deliver their products to all customers.
Well, that’ll cut down on the musicians who get all bent out of shape when the Wrong People (ie non-leftists) license their music for events
Right?
Darlene: yes, the State could make such a law. A majority could want it. And a bunch of guys in black robes could call it unConstitutional and by means of that opinion, repeal it. Is that really your question?
Or are you asking if it’s possible that a majority might try to take away someone’s rights?
My answer to my question and it’s the same as the answer to your two questions is, yes. Unfortunately, under the law, it would be no in all three cases.
Darlene: “No one ever stopped marriage based on orientation.” What the hell do you think DOMA was? What do you think every state that enacted similar legislation was? !!!??
Darlene: “If you feel that same-sex marriage is a “right” based on “who you love” ”
No, it is a right based on the fundamental need humans have to bind ourselves to another as they bind themselves to us. ‘who you love’ is onesided. Marriage is TWO people coming together as one. It requires the consent of both.
“By the contract each spouse is entitled to the conjugal society and comfort of the other and this association is one of the mutual obligations growing out of the union of husband and wife The affection and comfort which each is supposed to derive from the society of the other springs from the joint relation and is as valuable and important to her as to him”
I find nothing in that is invalidated if the union is between those of the same sex.
Darlene: “Custom work is entirely different.”
As I said, my position is that a business should be free to turn away any customer for any reason. That is not the law and very few people seem willing to say “do away with all anti-discrimination laws”. Hence, as long as they exist, people are bound by them. The photographer, the musician hired for working AT a same sex wedding, I support their position of infringing upon their free expression. The baker, the florist, even the pizza maker, or chair supplier, caterer….no. If they hold themselves out the general public then to all the public they must provide what they would provide to any other. Even to Westboro….
Rightio!
all in all a much better conversation without Mr. Slart being all mean like a buttface
oh wait nevermind
What the hell do you think DOMA was?
A woman, of any orientation can marry at will, as long as the other person is a man.
Don’t blame DOMA on anything but on SJWs and their judicial activists on the Left.
Marriage is TWO people coming together as one
What’s so special about two? Are you some sort of anti-poly bigot? <--said for effect Don't you see? Trying to radically redefine marriage based on "sex of parties involved is irrelevant" is equally valid where it concerns number of participants or degree of consanguinity.
nd a bunch of guys in black robes could call it unConstitutional and by means of that opinion, repeal it. –
I’m not so sanguine. Justice Vaughn Walker’s opinion of Prop 8 was all manner of horrible.
I’m starting to see a trend here.
Is it people with adoption in thier history that seem to discount the wisdom of maintaining traditional marriage?
I know Jeff mostly supports traditional, but if I’m not mistaken that’s based more on the abuse of language and procedure than the larger question involving the consequences to broadening the definition.
Darlene: Yea, I do oppose polygamy. Men are incapable of dealing with more than one woman at a time and women have enough children to raise without having to raise 2 men. :)
But, I still oppose it as it is impossible to fulfill the ‘obligations’ between a couple when a third (or more) requires the compromise of another. I do believe in ‘absolute affection’, that means within a couple each is the only partner of affection. Polygamy precludes that.
How can I blame the social justice warriors and the Left for DOMA when 1) there was no gay marriage at the time (I know Hawaii was on the cusp of it) and 2) it was overwhelmingly supported on the Right? The fact that it passed almost unanimously says a lot about the Left’s about face than the Rights lack of culpability for it.
As to consanguinity because it replaces bestiality in the discussion, I’d have no problem with siblings if children were unlikely (as in 100% unlikely). That applies across degrees until it makes no difference with regard to children. I have problems with parents and children for the same reason I have it with 60 yr old men and 14 yr old girls. It is not a marriage, it is legalized sex slavery. Also I don’t think you can actually have consent in that situation.
Walker and Prop 8. Attempting to address every possible reading, interpretation, correct or mistaken meant throwing everything and the kitchen sink into the blender. No one can say he didn’t allow or address everything. Yet, it still comes back to lots of people will support the guys in black robes if they find for their side, it is only when they don’t that accusations of ‘activism’ come into play….as few people dare suggest prejudice….in the face of an extensively reasoned opinion.
BTW, I think Walker’s trial was a farce. He could have found against the Prop 8 without a fraction of the time and energy…
tracy
You don’t have any more right to define poly or familial marriages for those participants than I do same-sex marriage
Either we both get to argue pros/cons or we don’t. Poly & consanguinity is your “ick” — to use the word that SJWs beat marriage advocates about the head & shoulders with.
Consanguinity isn’t anything like bestiality because we are talking about consenting adults. Demi Moore can marry Aston Kutcher (enough year spread that she could have been his mom) why shouldn’t it still be legal even if she WERE his mom? Woody Allen/Soon Yi?
The birth defect argument is a red herring, btw, since there is really only little more chance of bad results once the environmental risks of poverty are removed.
Walker’s ruling ASSUMED bad motives on the part of Prop 8 supporters. Any other ‘legal’ argument he had lost any credibility based on that.
He could have found against the Prop 8 without a fraction of the time and energy
he had to pretend he gave a fuck about Law & Due Process
LBascom: because I see children having children, parents that abuse (and murder) their natural born children, that childless couples self destruct over not having their own children. Of the 10 couples that adopted at the same time (in the same group that traveled to China) as Victoria, 9 had tried unsuccessfully to have their own children. In what is common, 7 of those couples gave birth to natural children in the years that followed.
Yes. Our society doesn’t treat adoptive parents the same way as parents of natural born children. Victoria and I underwent FBI background checks, local police checks, a home study by a social welfare organization and two surprise visits by a Child Protective Services in order for Victoria to adopt. We went through it all again (in addition to 12 weeks of classes) when we became foster parents. Natural parents have no such requirements. Naturally. So, many people watch adoptive parents compared to natural parents and ask, why are the ones that work so hard at it scrutinized but the ones that fall into it and abuse their progeny not?
The same thing happens to parents with gay children. They see their children bullied, marginalized, hated and it tears at them. They see the ‘Christian culture’ they were supportive of become this vicious hyena attacking their children.
The ‘traditional’ marriage is about raising children in the faith of the couple. It was not about ensuring the Society at large but rather in providing for the future of the Church. Parents and Godparents are not charged with raising good citizens but faithful adherents to the Church.
I know someone in his 80’s that took me aside and said, he though lesbians were fine, he said Scripture only condemned the men. Our attitudes are informed by our experiences and when the only experience is seeing Gay Pride Parades, it’s easy to marginalize gays. When you work or live near and see gays behaving like everyone else, it becomes harder to justify marginalizing them.
Darlene: I can define my positions. I can express the reasoning I have for stating my positions as they are. I assume that others can have and voice differing opinions. I’ve never said your or anyone else’s (except newsrouters) opinions were invalid or unjustified. I just disagreed and increasingly so have others and the courts.
Please, if you feel that other definitions are inappropriate, wrong, unjustified, speak up. I like to think my positions on polygamy and consanguinity are based on more than ‘ick’, and I think I offered such reasoning.
I don’t mean that bestiality and consanguinity are the same, it’s just that in discussions the bestiality was often brought up but consanguinity was not. Now, given the pathetic infantile argument of bestiality has been removed (along with marrying my toaster arguments), consanguinity has become more common. Again, I think I offered cause/reason for my positions other than ‘ick’ or animus.
As I suggested with regard to parent/child, I think the disparate place the adults are coming from limits ‘consent’. Age for age sake is less of a problem, the 60 yr old man waiting til the 14 yr old becomes 18, alleviates my major concern. I still think a 64 yr old man with an 18 yr old bride is ick….I thought, think, any 30, 40 or 50 year differences are ick. I’m not suggesting my ick has any legal value or standing.
The genetic issues are not a red herring, even if they are unlikely, they are not impossible. My brother had muscular dystrophy because both of my parents carried the specific gene. My mother has gone back to the 1700s for her side of the family and the late 1800s for my fathers and found no common link. The variety of MD is called limb-girdle. At time of diagnosis it was about 3% of the dystrophies, in other words, rare in a rare genetic disorder. And given I am a big fan of science fiction, genetic diversity is a good thing…but it doesn’t end all problems.
By the way, it’s ok by me to call me a hypocrit on polygamy and issues of consanguinity. I’m ok with it…..being a hypocrit that is.
Darlene: “he had to pretend he gave a fuck about Law & Due Process”
He had to pretend that the Opponents at least addressed the assumed Proponents positions.
Walker’s assumptions were justified. While I don’t think everyone’s positions on same sex marriage are based on animus, the ones that are constitute a significant (not majority) presence. Otherwise, come into Court and make the non-animus case. That’s just this ‘pervs’ point of view…..
Darlene: I can define my positions.
I know you can, and much of your writing is well reasoned, even as we disagree on the fundamentals.
My point is that I will no longer entertain double standards. Either I get to put forth and have my position accepted as reasonable on why same-sex couples are fundamentally different than opposite sex couples, therefore, man/woman marriage is more different than even polygamous marriages (which DO have history and DO contain both sexes) and not be dismissed as a bigot OR you don’t get to make position statements on poly/consanguinity without being subjected to the same dismissal as a bigot.
There are thousands of years of experimentation in marriage, and the Judeo-Christian one is the one society finally settled on as the best for the sake of Western Civ. As dicentra has previously stated, the channeling of all sexual energy into heterosexual monogamy had profound affect on societies health, advancement, not to mention the elevation of women to marriage partners rather than mere breeding stock.*
*For Romans & Greeks, status drove sexuality and what was the proper object to carry out sexual satisfaction — acts of homosexuality were expressions of class status, not identity. Females were to carry on the family line, younger males and male slaves were for sexual pleasure through dominance. The whole idea of “gay” would have been foreign and troubling to such a society. In essence, the use of male/male sex was a class exercise of how male/male sex in prisons works today. This is one of the reasons why the Old Testament addresses male sex and not female.
And we are going to have to disagree on Walker. I followed the procedures very closely and Walker dismissed out-of-hand every reasoned argument from the Prop8 supporters. He pissed on due process and pronounced the majority of Californians who voted for it as pieces of shit he was disgusted to wipe off his shoe.
I have nothing but the utmost contempt for him.
The ‘traditional’ marriage is about raising children in the faith of the couple. It was not about ensuring the Society at large but rather in providing for the future of the Church. Parents and Godparents are not charged with raising good citizens but faithful adherents to the Church. –
No.
>Parents and Godparents are not charged with raising good citizens but faithful adherents to the
Churchgovernment.go hillarity 2016
But for Christians, the situation has become clearer, much closer to the one familiar to the founder of their faith. It was an illusion, though a pleasant one, that our social order was ever very closely related to the religion that seemed to uphold it. Now that the connection is almost completely severed, it is easier to see the faith for what it is – always despised and rejected, always virtually impossible to sustain, yet always reborn at Easter.
Darlene: exactly when did I call you, or ANYONE here a bigot? Others may have, but I have not. Even when I’ve been slandered…
I accept your definition of traditional marriage as being between a man and a woman. And guess what? I AGREE it is the traditional definition. I accept and adhere to many traditions. Many are part of my Roman Catholic upbringing, a couple are from my time as a born-again Christian, and others Victoria and I started with CJ. None however do I expect to become a law.
As to the trial, I did not see it, I was not here in CA at the time. I did however read the opinion so my view is a little different I guess.
I make my arguments based on ‘individual rights’. It doesn’t require that I put down your religion, or your beliefs, or your rights. I try not to call into question your (or anyone else’s but newsrouter) sanity, reason or heritage!
The statement you said no to….why? I have been a Godparent, I have been to several baptisms, including CJ’s, and it is quite clear that was the intent of the statements made.
I will ask this after conceding, for the purpose of this question only!, that same-sex marriage will hurt society or the institution of marriage.
How? How will it hurt society? How will it hurt the institution? I will offer my own answers first.
It will cause children to view marriage to a same sex partner as normal and a society accepting act.
It will confuse children that see their parents as different that other parents.
People will assume that if gays can get married, their own marriage is no better.
People will assume that if gays can get married, polygamists will agitate for similar recognition/access and that they should be allowed to do so. People will assume gays getting married opens the door to incest.
Feel free to add to the list or comment….
>
I can’t push you and I won’t. If you want to keep your opinions — left, right, moderate, libertarian, anarchist — hidden, it’s your job. I am not the keeper of your soul.
However, I want you to think of the dark and dank place that fear and that suspicion and the constant spying lead.
And then I want you to think of how good it would feel to get off your knees, stand on two, look your tormentors in the face and say “No more. I’m free. My thoughts and my opinions, my beliefs, my tastes, my friends are my own. You have no power over me. Not now, and not ever again.”
That’s all. I just want you to think.<
link
Voice Of Truth – Casting Crowns
You know what….never mind the question. The Left has an agenda and it is to be the sole arbiter of what is right, allowed, controlled, provided. The actions of the people on the Left are across the board deplorable and often despicable. I do not support, encourage, or defend their actions, words or attitudes. It uses whatever group it can bundle for consumption in order to go where it wants. The fact that my goal and PART of the Left’s intersect at all is strictly coincidence.
I believe that there is animus on the Right. It manifests itself in negative ways also. I believe there are people of good character and good intentions on both sides and there will be unintended consequences regardless of the outcome. Two imperfect people raised a wonderful, productive and caring adult. Whether the exception that proves the rule or just plain dumb luck, I am deeply proud of what we did and what CJ has become.
Casting Crowns Praise You In The Storm
> The Left has an agenda <
do tell?
Tracy, I’ve enjoyed the back and forth but maybe we could not personalize the issue with CJ?
It’s a bit like the adoption talk or whether or not marriage has to do with offspring that has also cropped up in the thread.
No one with good manners wants to be a jerk. Let’s say that I actually thought you somehow screwed up CJ with your actions. That’s not something anyone would want to say.
Let’s give an example from my end. Dicentra will often make an argument about directing male energy to the family and she’s kind enough to not say “BH should be married” and I reciprocate by not thinking she’s talking about me. It’s in this manner that di and I get along famously.
Casting Crowns – Set Me Free
>BH should be married” <
nah 8 hrs @140 f to be safe
Let me rephrase that a bit. Di (and not just di, of course, most all societies say such things) IS actually talking about me in the way that she’s talking about a group of people that includes bh. But, not personalizing it allows people to speak their minds without wasted etiquette and also allows people to consider the possibility that other people could be right without the ego blockage.
Newrouter: damn…I liked the link. I’ve been fighting the Right and the Left for seven years. I don’t care about the opinions of ME, I do care about the opinions of the positions I espouse. Hoyt has a point. Going along to get along is almost always fatal in the end. If not physically, then emotionally and psychologically. When I brought Victoria home my parent’s jaws were on the floor for weeks. My father, Archie Bunker prototype, finally looked at me and threw up his arms. “Are you happy?” he asked. I said yea. “Fine.” That was it. CJ is their 15th and last grandchild and they love her with all that’s in them. (I’ve never had reason to question their love for me, their Firstborn.)
Tracy, I’ll say first that you are a good sport, and very even tempered. As a person you’re head and shoulders above most all the dissenting voices we get around here. Course that’s mostly happyfeet, so not much of a compliment, sorry.
Having said that, I think your main tactic is to baffle with bullshit. The newest and easiest example being your reasoning (or rationalization, being more common to you), that polygamy is not legitimate even though SSM is a right. I mean, if you’re going to say two men have a right to marry, why the hell not three? The same arguments you make for one works just as well with the other,
Anyway, I will concede one point to you. Marriage as practiced in modern day America is a frivolous shadow of what it is meant to be. No fault divorce was pretty much the last nail in the coffin. SSM probably can’t do much more damage to the institution than has already been done, but it will guarantee it will never be what it should be ever again. And that’s a bad thing for the future of civilization.
Unless you think civilization is better off as wards of the state. Some do I guess.
three
>Archie Bunker prototype<
me too. same sex stuff is anti DARWIN. you proggs keep saying us xtians are anti DARWIN. the holy darwin suxs no?
bh: thanks, but I have no problems with people thinking I (and Victoria) have done CJ wrong. It has been said, I don’t think here, but in other venues where I have similar conversations amongst conservative-types. They believe we ‘took’ CJ from a traditional two parent family. That if Victoria had not come along another family would have and she would have been better off for it. I challenged that opinion but even if CJ had been perfect, she would have been better off… Can’t change opinions even when the evidence is on my side. But one example doesn’t make a pattern.
And that is the foundation of my point: there ARE examples that dispute the positions held by others. I’d rather not be ‘opinion vs opinion’. Ok, so we disagree. Ok. Now what? and move on? I want to be personal. That is why I put the person’s name in posts – I want to address them specifically. I think it is important. I want people to know I respect them and their opinion enough to directly address it.
I appreciate your point. Don’t disagree with it in places where there are drive-by shoutings. This place Jeff has, has always been a good place to settle in for an evening (or five) of lively debate.
Yes – Close To The Edge (Full Album)
>Can’t change opinions even when the evidence is on my side. <
thanks judge judy
LBascom: thankfully no one here every sees everything I type before I self edit! Thanks for the kind words, but I think my argument for same sex marriage and my positions for/about polygamy are, have sufficient daylight between them so as not to be interchangeable. Maybe that is a bias on my part of my own opinions.
Yea. Marriage as an institution has a much better image in people’s minds than actually has existed or currently exists. Spend a year in family court and you’d be thinking that abolishing marriage and mass sterilizations are are in order as soon as possible. Oh, and kill all the lawyers.
I think the future is going to disrupt everything, right down to our own relationship with our own bodies. I think if we don’t figure out how to adapt and still remain grounded we are likely to be whipsawed to death. And I think there will be religious war the likes we haven’t seen since the Crusades and it will be worse than anything we saw in 1915/16.
newrouter: it might help your case if you posted things that actually support your position. The ‘three’ was symbolic as ‘three’ nor even same sex marriage is allowed in….Thailand….
Okay, Tracy, good deal. I both distrust anecdotal statements when I think about issues in the abstract and appreciate them when speaking with everyone in good faith. It’s not calculus but it is how we get to know one another.
Up above you posed the possible concerns with SSM. Without concern then of sounding like I’m talking shit about you or your kids I suppose I have one standard argument. (There are another couple bits of argument I hold in some weak form or another but I don’t know that they matter all that much.)
1. Marriage is a fairly old institution. Insert standard Burkean argument here. Yes, serial marriage, young people not getting married, widows/widowers not quickly remarrying, singles playing the field for a decade are all part of this, not just gay folks suddenly adopting what everyone else is rejecting.
That’s my main concern. I tend to distrust social movements that go from fringe to the most important matter of our lifetimes in a couple years.
Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here
If we stay on the same trajectory and velocity we are now, you’re probably right. Personally I think it more likely caticlismic events are going to bring techknoedgy to a screeching halt and everything old is going to be. Ew again. A nuclear exchange taking out most of the first worlds power grid for example.
Most people don’t understand how rare and fragile what we have is. Not here anyway. They likely have a better grip on the concept in the Middle East and. North Africa theses days…
>newrouter: it might help your case if you posted things that actually support your position. <
darwin. are you an anti "theory" kook?
Technology. Stupid iPhone.
or anti conjecture kook?
Damn, what a mess. That’s it, no more commenting from my phone.
yo tracy the “homo” lifestyle is a dead end by the god DARWIN. settled science no?
stalker news
Crazy People Are Dangerous
for hillarity
Pink Floyd – Animals (Full Album)
newrouter: so what if homosexuality is a dead end. First, given that homosexuals apparently have been in society for thousands of years, it suggests it is a natural variation that pops up regularly. Second, society no longer needs every member to reproduce. As a matter of fact you might be able to make the argument that we don’t want every member to reproduce. The Apostle Paul kinda said as much….2k yrs ago. Third, what difference does it make? It only matters to you if YOU are a dead end. It doesn’t matter to me if your genetic material or experience moves on to the next generation, from a ‘humanity’ point of view. As an argument, your point has no use….other than to point out that you thought you had one…
bh: “I tend to distrust social movements that go from fringe to the most important matter of our lifetimes in a couple years.”
From the end of WWII to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was 18 yrs, 10 months. From DOMA to today has been 18 yrs, 11 months. Change in many areas has been accelerating for the last 30 years, in many ways society is struggling to keep up, in other areas, it is dragging it’s feet. The largest casualty is the status quo.
>: so what if homosexuality is a dead end.>
scientifically homos are outliars with idiot mouths. fu biological losers.
fatties united
You’re doing the nishi thing, nr. If someone was to stumble into this thread at pw for the first time then the smart bet would be that you’re a Moby on the side of SSM because surely no one would be such a poor advocate intentionally.
tracy
Point of order, I wasn’t calling “you” a bigot, I was outlining the usual “SHUT UP” technique used against people who support actual marriage.
I hope you’ve understood that I have supported, up thread and in the past, a legal contract and set of default rights/obligations for people who cannot qualify or opt out of “marriage”. What that did (CA had registered domestic partnerships) was to give non-conforming couples a vehicle to legally combine their lives/property while leaving marriage unmolested.
The main objection I have to marriage being redefined is that it shoved society ever closer to the biological fantasy that the sexes are fungible and that “mothers” and “fathers” are irrelevant to children.
I won’t argue with your characterization of family court (mostly has become an abomination – due to defects at inception) but understand I have worked in the criminal justice system now for 17 years and the pattern of defendants coming from father/absent/abusive homes is so overwhelming that to ignore it is, dare say, criminal in and of itself.
Again, this doesn’t mean that families configured differently cannot succeed. Not all cigarette smokers will get lung cancer. It is the odds we are playing. it is a CHILD’s right to have first crack at having both a mother and a father.
And, as I have said repeatedly over the years — kids in need of homes need to get OUT of group homes or foster care. The hierarchy should be for any adoptive child … opposite sex married couple, same sex committed couple, singles. I think ss couples rank higher on the list than any single of any orientation.
Outside of this, I objected to same-sex marriage AS “marriage” for exactly what we are seeing today. I predicted it. Others predicted it. We stated flat out that once SSM was granted by fiat the targeting of ANYONE who objected would come next and would enlist The State to carry out the vendetta.
As someone wrote — it is the equivalent of the victor walking the battlefield and summarily executing the enemy wounded.
Darlene: I support ‘actual’ marriage. I think that like religion, 95% of people need it in their lives. It is an integral part of their lives. That they seek the love, support and affection that comes with it. It’s a crime that an institution that should be so dominant in society needs government to protect it…..from failing at the hands of .005% of the population.
As to the lack of a parent. I agree that most children are much better served with two loving parents. 99.9% of children born will at least know their parents. Maybe 95% will be born into a two parent relationship…ok, scratch that, 70% of Black babies are born out of wedlock so my number is probably closer to 90%. 30% or so will watch their parents self destruct either individually or only as a couple. Another 10-15% will live in abusive homes that will irreparably damage them as people.
Yet, maybe half of the kids will be with parents that themselves are damaged goods and unable to teach and show those kids how to be adults. In large part because their parents were equally damaged. These are not new numbers to me, I saw this play out when I was a kid back in the 60’s and 70’s and the parents in my neighborhood were not baby boomers or the hippy generation. This was largely before the Great Society even got it’s feet under it. The damage was already there. How many women were abused by their husbands but divorce was something that just wasn’t done. How much child abuse was going on but covered up from the first cop to the judges to the priests?
What I am seeing is that drugs are destroying people and in large part it is prescription drugs given by a doctor to a patient that is taking them as ordered. For years I had to monitor the drugs doctors wanted to give V for interactions and just plain stupidity. Kids on anti-psychotic drugs that come off them and are maniacal. People scared to death of skin cancer now facing who knows what systemic damage because vitamin D levels are all but non-existent. The ‘illegal’ drugs that maybe 75% of my generation has at least tried and 50% that were chronic users. Want an argument that has people talking out of two sides: legalize marijuana. I see nothing different between it and cigarettes and alcohol. I’ve never smoked anything at all.
In some battles it would have been a mercy to walk the fields and kill the wounded and I don’t doubt that it happened. I’ve never seen a ‘good’ that didn’t have a ‘bad’ attached to it.
Darlene: this will sound bitter and harsh, I’ve tried a couple of different ways of saying it and I want to go to sleep but post it before and I am getting tired.
I am sure the people that made sure the bathrooms and faucets were of equally good quality thought they were being fair too. I am not saying (though I have) that gay rights are the same as civil rights, I am saying that the behavior of the people around the subject are roughly the same. Whatever the justification is for treating people differently, it is still treating people differently… And I get you think they are different, but as someone that has been on both sides (unlike a Black or White that never could), I can say that it is not except as it relates to child creation. And as that is not the reason, or sufficient reason, for the State to treat people differently, the sexes are not fungible. However, very large sections of our population….they’re getting there. Metrosexuals?
I am sure the people that made sure the bathrooms and faucets were of equally good quality thought they were being fair too.
They weren’t, on both counts. And, please, Jim Crow LAWS were a way to stop the cultural desegregation that were organically taking place during Reconstruction — and it was government enforced law that dis-allowed the free association of people. Even if you wanted to, you were forbidden to desegregate your place of business. The government decides “this is the message everyone will support, no dissent possible.”
Now SSM advocates are doing the same, use of the state to force people into participating in messages they disagree with
Congrats on the new Jim Crow laws.
where did you get your wedding cake it’s so awesome i like how they did it
oh thank you we had to force these people to do it cause of they were all hatey
well good for you it’s awesome-looking … I can’t wait to have a piece!
This may get lost in the forward motion of the day, but a little thought experiment for those that support two biological parents:
You, husband or wife, have 2 kids, 10 and 7. Boy and girl. Your spouse dies. How long will you wait to marry and give your children 2 parents again? How do you justify the time frame?
[how pro-Liberty adults handle contracting]
where did you get your wedding cake it’s so awesome i like how they did it
oh thank you, it was a new baker we found when our regular one couldn’t do it.
I can’t wait to have a piece.
fin
tracy
One’s 7 & 10 y/o are old enough to have known & loved the parent that is now missing. The remaining parent needs time to mourn and there is no set time for grieving – that is a personal thing. The children need grieving time, too.
Only after that can moving on to future relationships take place.
Darlene: segregation laws bad, desegregation laws bad – commonality? Laws passed by legislatures elected.
I’ll stop here. Talk to everyone on the next go around. Thank you.
It’s really disconcerting to me to be commenting on a thread where at least two of the people sound more fucked up than I would be after visiting World Of Beer for lunch.
Which is, not coincidentally, where I spent a couple of hours of my day, today.
I’m pretty sure the barn burned down in the process.
BTW, my last was not aimed at Slart.
Yikes, I seemed to have missed this thread.
My position is much simpler: I tolerate lots of stuff; just don’t make me celebrate it.
I am going to put this here because I read it and agree with it and it applies. Not many will see it, but maybe Jeff will…
“Now that organized segregation and the systematic violence that enforced it have been vanquished, I am willing to bear indignant cries from anyone who objects to my effort to limit the nondiscrimination principle of Title II to common carriers and public utilities, where they blunt the risks of monopoly power in the provision of standardized services. To be sure, as a matter of political economy, it is unwise to mount a legal revolution to attack on principle a widely supported statute whose basic application causes no harm. But by the same token, the uncritical acceptance of the view that these public accommodation laws are so important that they should sweep everything else aside has produced serious dislocations where there is a horrible fit between the legal command and the social practice.”
http://www.hoover.org/research/problem-antidiscrimination-laws
Me too.