Interesting Article (At Least I Found It Interesting)

[Jaybear]

My friend, some of them yes, but others no. As said by california boy, it was a mixed reaction. Some didn't do the above. Some did. And then some did worse.

Not germane to the point. Which is that no one lost their job, merely because of their beliefs.

Also, Moredecai has pointed out that those who consider themselves homosexual have already been granted all the rights of a mairrage through a civil union. So the only right being taken away is the ability to call your relationship a 'mairrage' over a 'civil union'. Which isn't much to be care about tbh... if you know what I mean =P.

Right. Separate but equal. The seats in the back of the bus are just as roomy as those in the front.

Got it.

I am thinking also, for those who do not wish to be around people who live a homosexual relatinoship, their right to not 'be around' those who promote that lifestyle may be stronger right than your right to call your relationship a 'mairrage'. Just sayin'. It isn't really as clear as you try to make it... it's much more complex than that. =/.

Boycotts cuts both ways. I get it. Conservative groups boycotted Ford, because it supports gay rights. Not really complex. Boycotts, and the right to associate are protected first amendment rights. Thank you for the civics lesson, young man.

[Daniel2]

Dan isn't the one arguing that everyone should have the right to "marry the one they love" ... Just sayin'!

I haven't seen anyone universally-propsing that "everyone should have the right to 'marry the one they love'." I believe that's a Strawman arguement--and not one I would advocate.

However, I have seen those of us who support the right of civil marriage for LGBT couples--including the usage of verbiage by the Supreme Court--to suggest that consenting adults should have the ability and right to choose to civilly-marry one another, regardless of gender--and especially if they love one another and are mutually desirous of entering into a civil marriage together.

Implying or bluntly stating that the latter point is the same as "everyone should have the right to 'marry the one they love'" is incorrect--whether stated by pro- or anti- same-sex marriage advocates.

Daniel2

[Daniel2]

Equal protection isn't about treating different behavior as if its the same. That represents an inequality under the law, like giving the son of the chief of police the same penalty for a worse crime.

I haven't seen a clear explanation by anyone (including pro-Prop 8 lawyers attempting to do so in their Federal case) as to what specific "behavior" is different between an opposite-sex couple vs. a same-sex couple so far as the legal ability to enter into a civil marriage is or should be concerned.

Can you address, specifically, what "behavior" you're referring to, that relates to the distinction of "civil marriage"?

For example, with this difference in "behavior" in mind, how would you complete the following sentance:

"Opposite-sex couples all _____________________ , while same-sex couples all ________________________ , which is directly tied to the need to preserve the term "marriage" for the civil unions of the former, but not the latter, because _______________________________ ."

Daniel2

[Jaybear]

If the day ever arrives that I come to hold and to announce such a stupid claim, you will have proved yourself prescient with a preemptive strike. Won't that be cool, if it should happen?

Don't worry Dan. I know fully well that you are capable of identifying the material difference that would prevent a ruling allowing gay marriage to be used as precedent to support marriage to a corpse. You are just offering the comparison of the two, because its powerfully persuasive rhetoric to those with lesser minds.

The shamefulness of your sentiment has exactly nothing to do with the number of people toward whom your attitude is shameful.

I disagree. My sentiment ... lack of sympathy ... would more shameful if hundreds of people had lost their jobs.

But I understand your point.

Seriously, though. You have to give the manager of the Sacramento Theater a Darwin Award for not realizing that donating $10,000 to the passage of prop 8 would not create problems for him.

You find my lack of sympathy shameful. This man had no idea, that gays would take it personal.

The right to marry anybody one chooses has never been unregulated or without limits. There are, for example, limits on the age of consent, limits (as many here on this board may know) to the number of people who may be included within a given marriage, and forbidden degrees of relationship. Frankie may want to marry her brother Johnny, but the law says she can't. For several thousand years, Bob's desire to marry Jim has been further beyond the pale and more absolute than the desire of two cousins to wed, or even (think Ptolemaic Egypt and certain other places) the dynastic marriage of brother and sister.

Of course.

We can debate whether this is wrong or right, and will probably not agree. But it seems fatuous to me to claim that a judge here or there can by fiat overturn thousands of years of pretty universal human tradition, declare a new right, and then expect people to simply bow the knee and submit. Marriage preexists the state. It certainly preexists the current American regime, and I do not grant such power to judges.[/quote]

Its not yours to grant. John Marshall seized that power long ago.

[Mordecai]

What they said was that we are not going to engage in business with a company which is owned/managed by someone who has contributed to a political campaign intended to deprive us of our right to marry, and we encourage others not to as well.

They stood outside and harassed customers at some places. So in fact, it wasn't "encouraging." It was coercive.

[Mordecai]

Right. Separate but equal. The seats in the back of the bus are just as roomy as those in the front. Got it.

This is a great point, if black people had a biological urge to sit at the back of the bus, demanding that the gov't call it, "the front."

I haven't seen a clear explanation by anyone (including pro-Prop 8 lawyers attempting to do so in their Federal case) as to what specific "behavior" is different between an opposite-sex couple vs. a same-sex couple so far as the legal ability to enter into a civil marriage is or should be concerned.

Opposite-sex couples all have entered into a union that represents a means to best express inherent instincts to nurture and protect biological offspring, proven from history. They've entered into an institution that has risen to the top via cultural evolution.

Same-sex couples enter into a union that results in at least one biological parent being absent, should they have children at all, which, if they do at all, wouldn't be through their union but by some other means.

[Hestia]

Everyone watch the rhetoric and keep this at a higher level if possible.

[Daniel Peterson]

Don't worry Dan. I know fully well that you are capable of identifying the material difference that would prevent a ruling allowing gay marriage to be used as precedent to support marriage to a corpse. You are just offering the comparison of the two, because its powerfully persuasive rhetoric to those with lesser minds.

Absolutely untrue. I wasn't even thinking of you when I posted that.

We can debate whether this is wrong or right, and will probably not agree. But it seems fatuous to me to claim that a judge here or there can by fiat overturn thousands of years of pretty universal human tradition, declare a new right, and then expect people to simply bow the knee and submit. Marriage preexists the state. It certainly preexists the current American regime, and I do not grant such power to judges.[

Its not yours to grant. John Marshall seized that power long ago.

No he didn't. Nobody has the power, authority, or capacity to seize from me my capacity for independent thought and moral/political evaluation.

[Jaybear]

No he didn't. Nobody has the power, authority, or capacity to seize from me my capacity for independent thought and moral/political evaluation.

Well it seems that I missed your point about the limits of judicial power.

I thought you were commenting on the court's power to rule by judicial "fiat" and to recognize new rights.

Now I see you simply making a rhetorical point for me, and the other simpletons on the board.

You are absolutely right Dan. No judge has the power the seize from you your capacity for independent thought.

The Court can grant gays the right to marry, but that doesn't mean you have to like it.

Thank you for clearing that up.

[Pahoran]

That is not really what happened.

What they said was that we are not going to engage in business with a company which is owned/managed by someone who has contributed to a political campaign intended to deprive us of our right to marry, and we encourage others not to as well.

Or which employs such a someone. Or the owner or manager of which is related to such a someone.

You seem like a tolerant person. Would you continue to shop at your butcher, if you knew he contributed financially to a campaign to take away an important right or yours?

Perhaps not.

But I wouldn't stop shopping there if I knew that his mother-in-law, or the morning shift foreman of the abbatoir whence he sources his meat, had made such a contribution.

Not being "gay," I'm not that hysterical -- or censorious or overbearing -- about my sense of "entitlement," you see.

Regards,

Pahoran

[TAO]

Not germane to the point. Which is that no one lost their job, merely because of their beliefs.

Sure it is germane to the point, my friend. Let me ask you, is a belief real, if you do not act on it? I would propose no, because it is virtual, it is not 'real' at the time being. A belief only becomes 'real' when a person acts on it. And yes, they lost their jobs because of their actions. So I would propose to you, that because of this, it is valid to say they lost their jobs because of their beliefs.

People on both sides did.

Right. Separate but equal. The seats in the back of the bus are just as roomy as those in the front.

Got it.

Whereas you want different but equal. My friend, both are wrong concepts. Both can become monsters if taken in the wrong direction. =/

Pursuit of Happiness is a very messy subject - because life is full of people infringing on others happiness. It's part of life's lesson to learn how to do it less.

Boycotts cuts both ways. I get it. Conservative groups boycotted Ford, because it supports gay rights. Not really complex. Boycotts, and the right to associate are protected first amendment rights. Thank you for the civics lesson, young man.

Your welcome.

No, I wasn't referring to boycotts, in most of my post. I was referring to how you use special words in your posts that do not belong. No, it is not a battle of 'rights' anymore - that ended several years ago. No, that really happened - people lost jobs according to their beliefs - on both sides. And no, just because they are protected with a right, does not make boycotts any more a 'good thing' than any other group vs group conflict. Nor does it make them 'bad'.

I try not to see one way, my friend, but you are not looking at it that way. You use words like 'rights', 'prejudice', and 'tolerance', but those are hollow words. No, this entire fight is not one of 'rights'. It only sometimes relates to 'prejudice'. And many people in relation to it are losing their 'tolerance'. Don't use those hollow words, Jaybear. That is one thing that keeps this fight going on and on and on. Because people are no longer speaking to those who disagree with them with these statements. They are speaking to those who agree with them. Why do they do that? Because they prefer to force the opponents to agree with them, rather than deal with them head-on.

Maybe I am being too harsh, but no, I do not like the 'hollow' words at all. You are not hollow my friend, so stop using those words - it portrays you as something different than what you are.

You see, 'rights' are not really 'rights'. They are no more unalienable than we make them, or interpret them to be.

Why do I believe this? ...Well, it is because at the howl of the people, those rights can disappear like ashes, gone. Because they are not truly unalienable.

No, with 'rights' we have all deluded ourselves, here in America, if they were 'rights', we wouldn't have soldiers out there fighting for them every day.

A right that can be taken away, is, in it's own way, not a right. =(.

Worried Wishes,

TAO

[Stargazer]

We can debate whether this is wrong or right, and will probably not agree. But it seems fatuous to me to claim that a judge here or there can by fiat overturn thousands of years of pretty universal human tradition, declare a new right, and then expect people to simply bow the knee and submit. Marriage preexists the state. It certainly preexists the current American regime, and I do not grant such power to judges.

Its not yours to grant. John Marshall seized that power long ago.

Actually, John Marshall did not seize that power. He only said that the SCOTUS could overturn unconstitutional legislation (Marbury v. Madison). It took another generation of activist judges to begin acting as if they were a legislature.

[Stargazer]

Everyone watch the rhetoric and keep this at a higher level if possible.

You, you optimist, you!

[Stargazer]

Absolutely untrue. I wasn't even thinking of you when I posted that.

I think he may be confused by something I wrote in the other SSM thread, which involved me attempting to marry Judy Garland.

And just so you know, Dr. Peterson, I resent your plagiarizing my work! I was the one to first mention necrophilia, darnit! Everyone is stealing my ideas.

[Stargazer]

I haven't seen anyone universally-propsing that "everyone should have the right to 'marry the one they love'." I believe that's a Strawman arguement--and not one I would advocate.

Actually, it's frankenstein who has been pushing that particular strawman throughout this and the other thread. I've been trying to disabuse him of the notion, but so far no luck.

By the way, I have to say that you and California Boy have been really outstanding advocates of your position, staying admirably even-handed and -termpered, and I appreciate it. This subject, as you know, can really get down and dirty, but it doesn't have to, and you two are a large part of why this thread has stayed more or less civilized. Others are being likewise helpful along these lines, too, but I thought since you both have a special dog in the hunt you deserved a brotherly fist-bump.

[california boy]

Actually, it's frankenstein who has been pushing that particular strawman throughout this and the other thread. I've been trying to disabuse him of the notion, but so far no luck.

By the way, I have to say that you and California Boy have been really outstanding advocates of your position, staying admirably even-handed and -termpered, and I appreciate it. This subject, as you know, can really get down and dirty, but it doesn't have to, and you two are a large part of why this thread has stayed more or less civilized. Others are being likewise helpful along these lines, too, but I thought since you both have a special dog in the hunt you deserved a brotherly fist-bump.

Well thank you for saying that. I come to this form to really try to understand the position people have against gay marriage. I realize there are some on this board that are less rational on their views. I usually don't find responding to those posts as being very helpful. I hear the same kind of less rational arguments amongst proponents of gay marriage. I don't pay much attention to them as well.

But there are some on this board that actually give me insight into what they feel is right. And that grain of truth is what I am after. Hearing how they have thought out those views and how they defend them helps me understand my own views. Neither side is going to win this argument on this board. But I believe that over time, one side will sway public opinion as more truth and knowledge is exposed over the long hall. To quote Lincoln, You can't fool all the people all of the time.

[Daniel2]

Actually, it's frankenstein who has been pushing that particular strawman throughout this and the other thread. I've been trying to disabuse him of the notion, but so far no luck.

By the way, I have to say that you and California Boy have been really outstanding advocates of your position, staying admirably even-handed and -termpered, and I appreciate it. This subject, as you know, can really get down and dirty, but it doesn't have to, and you two are a large part of why this thread has stayed more or less civilized. Others are being likewise helpful along these lines, too, but I thought since you both have a special dog in the hunt you deserved a brotherly fist-bump.

Thank you, Stargazer. Like California Boy, I try to avoid irrationality (or responding to irrationality) in conversations about this topic.

I recognize that the subject of whom and how each of us marries cuts to our very core--it's a relfection of the most cherished relationship any of us may have. As such, the topic understandably generates profound feelings on both sides, and I think it's often a challenge for us all to avoid assuming personal insult or malintent.

Even as I may disagree with anyone, I'll always strive to avoid being disagreeable, so far as possible.

Thanks for your eventempered responses, as well!

Best,

Daniel2