Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, an openly homosexual man, has ruled against California’s Prop.8. The Gay community of San Francisco doesn’t think that there is a conflict of interest or that being openly homosexual was an influencing factor.
Many gay politicians in San Francisco and lawyers who have had dealings with Walker say the 65-year-old jurist, appointed to the bench by President George H.W. Bush in 1989, has never taken pains to disguise – or advertise – his orientation.
Californians held a referendum on gay marriage after the Supreme Court voted for legalization of gay marriage. Prop. 8 ruled that marriage was to be between a man and a woman.
California voters passed the ban as Proposition 8 in November 2008, five months after the state Supreme Court legalized gay marriage.
Supporters argued the ban was necessary to safeguard the traditional understanding of marriage and to encourage responsible childbearing.
Walker, however, found it violated the Constitution’s due process and equal protection clauses while failing “to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license.”
“Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples,” the judge wrote in his 136-page ruling.
He also said proponents offered little evidence that they were motivated by anything other than animus toward gays — beginning with their campaign to pass the ban, which included claims of wanting to protect children from learning about same-sex marriage in school.
“Proposition 8 played on the a fear that exposure to homosexuality would turn children into homosexuals and that parents should dread having children who are not heterosexual,” Walker wrote.
Walker heard 13 days of testimony and arguments since January during the first trial in federal court to examine if states can prohibit gays from getting married.
Walker is a Republican that was nominated by Reagan, but his nomination was held up by gay activists, he was later appointed by H.W. Bush.
He was appointed by Ronald Reagan, but his nomination was held up for two years in part because of opposition from gay rights activists. As a lawyer, he helped the U.S. Olympic Committee sue a gay ex-Olympian who had created an athletic competition called the Gay Olympics.
Walker is a Republican. He said he joined the party while at Stanford University during the Vietnam War protests, and spent two years clerking for a judge appointed by Richard Nixon.
Currently, Gays can only marry in Massachusetts, Iowa, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Washington, DC. Walker has asked both sides to submit paperwork by Friday so that he can determine whether to allow marriage during the appeals process.
Legislating from the bench has been considered a tactic of the Left, this is a bit different since Walker is a registered Republican.
First, I don’t have a problem with “gay” marriage, let the fools have at it. And I stick by my earlier posts that spending time on the social issues like this only helps the left.
BUT, to this layman the issue here is one of the 10th amendment, that means the states and the people have the right to address this. Clearly this judge and all like him need to be rounded up and retired.
Somebody once said, let the “gays” marry and in two or three generations there wouldn’t be any democrats left in this country.
I don’t have any problem with gay marriage per se (why should straight people be the only ones miserable). What I DO have a problem with is a judge who clearly should have recused himself from even hearing this case! And why should one judge be permitted to override the votes of 7 million citizens of California?
First off, being a queer isn’t a right, you can be anything you want that isn’t against the law. Who cares.
Marriage is a license issued by the State according to social norms.
But for sure, being queer, it’s not a Constitutional right, nor is a right to be a plumber in the Constitution. What is so hard for lefturds to figure out.
I don’t have a problem with gay marraige but i think the law should still come down to the vote of the people. if the people voted against then it should be handle in another vote not rammed through by judges.
Surprise, Surprise! A gay judge rules in favor of fellow gays. Think he’s trying to score a little? Gays keep trying to proclaim they’re just like everyone else. Well, they’re not.
I have only a “problem” in being one of those sticklers for adhering to the definition of words. “Progressives” (Anti-Constitutionalist’s) are constantly re-defining what society has long accepted to be, and creating Rights out of thin air.
Gay, progressive ,discriminating just to name 3.
For over 10,000 years of human history, in every tribe, clan, city, state, culture, country, religion, language, and race… the word “marriage” in ALL it’s translations was (and always will be) “The formalized pairing of a man and a woman”.
I SO remember the 70′s and 80′s when the homosexuals (we had a relative-by-marriage who owned Tommy’s Flowers on Polk St. in SanFran)…would scream “You’re arguing slippery-slope about giving us “equal rights”, when the LAST thing we want is what you breederz call marriage…Ick!”…
Well, my dad was right, when he would mumble back: “That’s why we’re fighting it now, because that is indeed your final goal.”
I’m gonna start calling my brothers “Grandma” (all 3), and cats will henceforth be known as gorillas. Then I’ll pay off politicians, and work to elect judges who agree with me to make it a “Right” of mine to force ALL OF YOU HATERZ to accept and use my terms. I’ll call you derogatory names in the meantime, and force schools to teach your children my “enlightened” ways, just to wear you down to the point of capitulation.
In the meantime, I need to go to the “dump”* in my “train”* and buy some “hammers”* to put in my “cornflakes”*.
*If you’re confused, you must hate me.
Just goes to proove an assertion many of us have been making…
There are Progresive Republicans.
Just because this Federal Judge is/was a republican, and ruled this way… with his explanation, proves a point. Republicans are not monolithic and united in ideology the way democrats are. Generalizations are usually bad, but the two parties are not ideologically equal.
This Federal Judge is part of the problem the Tea Party movement is rising against. Federal Government over-reach and judicial fiat. The Federal Court system is broken and twisted that it has made the judicial branch more powerful of the three and most powerful over the populace.
The courts are a tool of the democrats and have been for 50 years. They can’t get their agenda forward by popular support, so they force it on everyone via the court. But this will ensure the left/progressives demise in my opinion.
We are seeing people stir and grow angry because they’ve finally started to have enough of it and if it can keep growing, all of this dictating by Federal fiat against the will of the people will become unhinged.
At least that is my hope.
In the continual push or train wreck of everything “Progressive”, one of the tenets is to have the courts, the Executive, and the legislature consolidate all power within the federal government at every opportunity; thereby, the Progressives neutralize the power of the states and the people, while building an ever more powerful federal government that will be a form of tyranny to be manipulated by whatever type of Demagogue or dictator that can seize power.
States are now in the process of surrendering that power, the insignificant cultural issues like gay marriage, issues that should be decided at the state level through devices like the referendum a ‘Democratic Vehicle’ that is only used in only a few states, are only subterfuges for an ever tightening ligature around the necks of Americans and the Constitution.
Personally, I find the thought of plugging up the judicial system while the divorce courts struggle with the complex nature and enigma of who gets ‘screwed’ in homosexual divorces to be an intriguing and entertaining issue that will forced to take the mockery and absurdity of heterosexual divorce into the sublime to be Progressive and maintain parity or is it parody of homosexual divorce. The gay divorce reality shows will be entertaining for a season or two and there will be a lackluster movie or two and then the divorce lawyers will continue to grind out their despicable trade of draining off the resources of a whole new class of victims; but the precedent and its acquisition of power directed by the bench will be in place while we laugh at the gays being devoured in the coliseum of divorce court and the whole destruction of states’ rights and power will have been largely decided over emotionally charged and silly issues like gay marriage.
Is it no wonder why so many lawyers are Progressive Socialists?
This is seen by many, including the judge, as a civil right – which is unconstitutional to be left up to popular vote. The rights of the minority cannot be overruled by the majority. How can the government decide not to issue a contract between two people, based on gender, without calling it discrimination?
Personally, I’m for issuing Civil Unions to every couple – gay and straight. Let churches issue Marriages. Then everyone is treated equally under the Law.
For those who argue that Civil Unions are equal to Marriages, there shouldn’t be a problem with my proposition.
In case you were wondering, the sculpture depicts Zues as he came to earth as an eagle to beguile Gannymeade, the most handsome youth on earth, before abductig him to his den and performing bizarre acts of depravity and homosexual love on the innocent youth. Those ancient Greeks had erotic fantasies that must make gay porn seem boring.
I may be called culturally challenged by saying this, but did someone knock off the kids’s pee pee?
@Buffalobob:
LMAO! I guess Zeus pecked his pecker!
(feel free to delete this if it’s too much!)
Bob, the fingers are also missing from his right hand; it’s unfair to blame Zeus without an investigation, 2400 years exposes the sculpture to many souvenir hunters with varying tastes. I think the pecker issue is small part of the overall picture.
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I don’t have a problem with homosexuality in general. People are allowed to pursue their own happiness. What I do have a problem with is the in-your-face attitudes of some who wish to push their agenda onto the populace as a whole, against the overwhelming opinion and desires of that populace.
The institution of marriage has been around for millenia, and has been defined historically as a union between a man and a woman. The homosexuals in the country who are out front on this issue wish to tear down this historical institution for the stated reasoning of their ‘civil rights’. The majority in this country actually agree that homosexuals should be allowed to engage in civil unions.
What it boils down to is the homosexuals are arguing for a word, while their opponents are arguing in favor of keeping an institution with historical precedent alive and well.
@johngalt:
That historical precedence was present when blacks and whites weren’t allowed to marry, too. Still the institution survived, and is IMO, better for it.
I still fail to see how someones’ marriage could have any effect whatsoever on anyone else’s. When I look into a mirror, I only see myself.
And what do you say to my friend from Singapore, who’s partner is a US Citizen, who cannot get citizen rights through their Civil Union? That’s clearly more than just a word.
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@Cary
What you are stating, with your black/white example, is not one of historical precedence, but of racial bigotry. I was never taught during the times that I went to church long ago, that marriage must be between people of the same race, as well as the same sex. I don’t remember ever reading it in the bible either, but I must state as well that I haven’t read it entirely through either.
What you argue can also be applied to people marrying animals, people marrying more than one person at a time, people marrying teens or even preteens, and a host of other ‘marriage’ acts that haven’t even been conceived of yet.
It is not the union of the homosexuals that I have a problem with. It is the willful intent on the destruction of an institution purely for the sake of being able to call their union a ‘marriage’. I don’t care about gays in general, and in fact, have several friends and co-workers that are gay and I get along with them just fine without any prejudices or animosity towards them. This is an example of a minority of the populace willing their intent upon the population as a whole, and against the wishes of the population as a whole. It has nothing to do with civil rights, since as I have stated, most people are willing to allow for the ‘civil union’ of homosexuals, to include all the governmental “benefits” allowed to married individuals. So, as I have stated clearly, and Patvann has stated with sarcasm, they are merely fighting for a word. Nothing more, nothing less.
As for your friend, while I am not going to comment on their personal relationship since I know nothing of it, in general, legalized partnership(to include civil unions and marriage) can and are abused for the purposes of gaining citizenship rights, and as such, must be discussed in the wider topic of immigration and it’s reform. I understand your point, but your point brings into play more than just the topic of marriage and homosexuality.
This ruling when it hits the Supremes will fly into the garbage can, again. The precedent is in Kansas in 2005. Again the judicial arm is creating law.
I left both militaries when it was time to re-up. One on federally funded sex changes and the other on hidden homosexual behavior. Other reasons were rules of engagement from the UN and Nato. I left the Catholic Church because of the hypocracy of the clergy who openly recruited homosexuals to fill their ranks. Looks like i’m running from problems, but I will not lead men in a Caligula type atmosphere.
@johngalt:
I’m glad that you have such personal acceptance and goodwill towards the gay people in your life. The fact that so many Conservatives are asserting this sentiment tells me that we are a lot further along than we were 20 years ago, which is encouraging.
But you’ve changed the terms of the discussion from a legal one to a religious one. I have read enough of the Bible to discuss it in those terms, but I absolutely will not do so over a political issue. Because then it’s just about people’s beliefs, and people all over this country believe different things. Many support Gay Marriage, based on their religious beliefs. In fact, the Methodist, Lutheran, and Unitarian institutions have publicly declared support for such. I completley respect each person’s beliefs, and I urge anyone who thinks I’m eternally doomed for taking the position I do, to pray for me – it would be sincerely appreciated and welcome. However, it’s only the law that can be applied to each and every individual American. And I have already stated my position in regards to the law.
Pedophilia, bestiality, and incest are, in each and every case under our society and our laws, indicative of one or more types of abuse. Therefore, the comparison of a relationship between two human adults doesn’t apply.
I agree that marriage has been abused for immigration (including by some gays who marry the opposite sex for a fee – since they figure they’re never going to marry the one they love, why not make a buck?), but my point is an example of how the two terms aren’t equal. If they were, why aren’t tolerant straight people advocating the same thing I do in comment #11? I know it brings more into play than the topic at hand, but it still applies to the discussion. Besides, if my friend wanted to abuse the system to get in, there are plenty of women who’d be willing to function as his beard, for no fee. Trust me, he’s a good, honest, not to mention extremely talented, fellow. It pains me to see him having such a hard time.
@Cary
You are correct in not confusing religious opposition with political opposition in general for most discussions, however, here we have precedent of the institution within many differing religions, and the wider christian religion being adopted within our society at the founding of our country that identified marriage as between a man and a woman. So, due to this adoption of the institution from the christian religion into our society, we must discuss the religious aspect of it and it’s history, including pre-American history.
As I stated, I do not have, nor do many other conservatives have, a problem with identifying the unions of man/man or woman/woman as a civil union, up to and including all rights reserved by government(any level of government) for marriages alone. It is a just and equitable compromise for all parties involved and should be the goal of everyone involved to retain equity in society for all. To destroy the historical terminology of “marriage” as applied to unions between two people(specifically man/woman), for the sake of a minority party involved, does not seem equitable to me for society as a whole. In fact, it does ‘injure’ certain parties involved in that it imposes political ideology upon certain religions, and as such, creates a situation where government involves itself into religious actions. Again, the proponents of homosexual unions are fighting for a word, while opponents are fighting for the historical and religious institution of marriage.
As for your friend, I am sure that he is a good person, and personally, especially as I do not know him, I have no ill will intended towards him. As for using marriage to gain citizenship rights, that again is an issue that should be directed towards immigration discussions, especially as their is abuse of the system for that purpose. One step at a time, my friend, one step at a time.
Well, I DO have a problem with gay “marriage”: it isn’t marriage. The concept of marriage has been well-understood for centuries: one man, one woman, bound together for life by the laws of God and man. It’s been the essential family unit, the cornerstone of society, throughout all of human history. Who is this legally-educated dolt who believes his words can redefine the concept of marriage? For all I care, he can call up, “down”; he can call the sun, the “moon”. It doesn’t change the real meaning behind the words (but it DOES prove he’s an idiot).
That said, if gays want to have a means of ensuring they have legal ties to each other, encompassing all the duties, benefits, and obligations that are traditionally associated with marriage, I have no problem with that whatsoever. Call it a “legalized covenant relationship”. (I understand the term “civil union” has been offered and rejected; it appears the “gay-rights agitators” INSIST on the term “marriage”. At other blogs it’s been suggested that the religious overtones of the word “marriage” give a hint that the true target of these activists is RELIGION: if “marriage” can be defined by the state as “any two people who want to be legally recognized as a family unit” [and actually, once you permit THAT, why stop at two? If all it takes is "consenting adults" who "want to be legally recognized", the permutations of the "new marriage" are awesome to contemplate...], and if there exist churches which regard homosexuality as a grave sin and refuse to perform marriages between gays, THEN we can foresee the State stepping in and declaring that those churches have violated the Civil Rights of those people. And THAT would mean federal lawsuits, fines, the stripping of tax-exempt status, and probably the demise of the organized church. All of that, just because waaay-Left social activists want to re-define one word.)
To sum up: I object to corrupting a word which has had the same meaning for centuries, and the concept of which is the foundation of our society. I’m NOT discriminating against gays, who presumably were “born that way” and had no choice in their sexual orientation. They can have THE EXACT SAME RIGHTS AND LEGAL STATUS that the word “marriage” implies, but they can’t use that word. Marriage has already been clearly defined as something else, and I don’t understand why “The Law”, which relies so heavily on “precedent” in other cases, will not accept the precedent here: Marriage=1 man + 1 woman.
@Cary
One thing I haven’t discussed is the obvious conflict of interest by the judge himself. There is no other way to look at that than the judge was wrong in seeing the case in his courtroom. He should have recused himself from the case. On the opposite side, any judge who voted for the proposition should also recuse him/her self from the case as well, otherwise, it becomes a situation where one side feels justice was not done in accordance with law, no matter the outcome.
@johngalt:
Which is why I think that the government should be out of the business of issuing marriages altogether. Let the individual churches decide who to grant or deny marriages to. As I said, some support it, some don’t. Let the government apply Civil Unions equally.
The rest of your statement, I believe I’ve covered my answer. I’m hoping not to get caught up in another endless discussion which prohibits me from doing the other things I need to do!
I appreciate your civility, and your intelligent, sensitive rhetoric, but I have to state my case and move on. I hope you understand.
@Cary
I do understand your case, and in fact, do believe that maybe the government only honoring ‘civil unions’, albeit allowing religious centers to issue them as marriages, is the answer. In that way, no one will have been discriminated against, or have had their religion and religious views trampled on by the other. If the stated case of the homosexual crowd is to have the same rights as the heterosexuals, they should welcome that idea with open arms, and then we can all get back to real problems such as the mounting deficit and outrageous spending and corruption in Congress and the WH.
Now I have to get to work so I can help pay for someone else’s healthcare, lol. I enjoyed our discussion, Cary, and I thank you for it.
@johngalt:
I just mentioned this point to a gay friend of mine just a minute ago, and she agrees with you. Personally, I would think judge would be able to look at the law and prescribe it without bias as much as humanly possible. So what’s the cut off for the bias? What if they didn’t vote for it, but have strong religious ties to a church that vehemently opposes it? What if they aren’t gay, but have close family members who are? Clearly people on both sides of this issue agree with you on this point, but I feel that as long as the law is applied with regards to the Constitution, it shouldn’t matter. I’ll chalk it up to opinion.
@johngalt:
Good to know we can agree on something!
Just about the Gay Marriage thing.
I’ve always been for 100% equal rights under the law. In California we have “civil unions.” I’m in favor of that. But…
Marriage has endured as the oldest institution in human existence (thousands and thousands of years), because it serves the admirable purpose of binding men to their wives and children. Sort of enforces a minimum standard of male behavior. Marriage is a BFD, and this is engrained in all human civilizations.
Same gender marriage is not new — it has come and (quickly) gone, at various times, but it’s just been a historical curiosity.
What makes my point pretty well is the movie Sex in the City II. At the beginning, there’s a gay wedding. At one point, someone asks one of the newlyweds how on earth he is going to be able to be faithful to his new spouse. He replies that the fidelity thing only applies within the state where the nuptials occurred, with a big wink.
The average male partner in a “committed” gay relationship has 5 to 6 partners per year, outside the relationship. Straight people don’t tolerate that degree of casual infidelity, and the main beneficiaries are women and children.
I think that gay marriage will, indeed, degrade the BFD aspect of traditional marriage. It’s a race to the bottom, lowest common denominator thing. It’s still early, but I think that this is already happening in the Netherlands, less than 10 years after it became the first place to do this.
Just as a kind of interesting point of information:
Proposition 8 (“outlawing” gay marriage) passed with only 52% of the vote. Among white voters, the Proposition (outlawing gay marriage) would have been defeated, by a fairly wide margin. The reason the Proposition passed was largely because of black and Latino voters, who were overwhelmingly in favor (i.e. overwhelmingly opposed to gay marriage).
Another curiosity is that the challenge to Proposition 8 was a partnership effort of super-lawyers Theodore B. Olson and David Boies. Olson was the lead attorney for George W Bush in Bush v Gore, while Boies was the lead attorney for Gore in Bush v Gore.
The attorney and legal team who argued the case for Prop 8 were grossly incompetent.
It’s an odious comparison between transracial marriage and same gender marriage. According to constitutional law, there has to be an overwhelming compelling and provable reason for having any type of discrimination at the level of the individual. With respect to business and social contracts, my understanding (correct me if I’m wrong) is that the burden of proof is much lower. One doesn’t have to have absolute proof to introduce a type of discrimination at the level of contracts; one only needs to have reasonable inference of harm to introduce ostensibly discriminatory regulations and laws. In the case of same gender marriage, potential harms are (1) the argument I made above and (2) the possibility that children may be “confused,” and potentially increase the probability that more children will choose a gay lifestyle (this gets into the argument of whether gays are “born” or “made” and to what extent nature vs nurture enters into it). The point is that there currently isn’t proof beyond reasonable doubt of potential harm, but there is reasonable inference of potential harm. This would not be enough to introduce discriminatory laws at the level of the individual, but it is enough to introduce ostensibly discriminatory laws at the level of the business or social contract.
The problem is that pro-Prop 8 legal team called only a single witness, whose testimony was characterized by the judge as being wishy-washy and equivocal. They could have and should have put on a big panel of witnesses, to argue persuasively about potential harm. They didn’t. In contrast, the dream team of Olson and Boies were, of course, brilliant in their execution.
The judge decided on the basis of the evidence presented to him. In other words, he was an umpire calling balls and strikes, which is what Justice Roberts said is the appropriate role of a judge — not to impose his own personal opinion, knowledge, or morality.
I’m very confident that the case presented before the Supreme Court will have much more competent lawyers on the pro-Prop 8 side and that the current decision will be overturned and Prop 8 upheld.
Long term, though, I think that this is a lost cause (affirmation of Prop 8 style laws). The last time something like this came up in CA, it passed by over 60% (I think maybe 65% — I’ll look it up, when I have time). Now it’s down to 52% and the only reason it passed is that a whole lot of Latino “illegals” got citizenship in the past 20 years and, combined with blacks, they provided the margin of victory. Among young, white voters, there is overwhelming agreement with the concept of same gender marriage. I think that this is bad for society, but that’s the handwriting on the wall.
I don’t worry so much for the institution of religious marriage. I worry about the institution of secular marriage. As I wrote above, marriage has always been looked at as a BFD (or, in other words, as the biggest commitment most people ever make). The average first marriage endures for well beyond two decades (statistics to the contrary include multiply-divorced people in the mix), which is sufficient to have children and bring them to adulthood. (Parenthetically, I wouldn’t characterize any marriage which lasts 20 years as being a “failed” marriage, even if it does subsequently end in divorce. The marriage worked for the couple for 20 years, during which time it did a lot of good, presumably. And, often, 2nd marriages do last even longer). Beyond children, it does enforce a useful degree of good behavior in men. Gay relationships, as I argued before, are much more casual.
It’s been argued that states which allow gay marriage see divorce rates drop, relative to states which outlaw gay marriage, e.g.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/01/divorce-rates-appear-higher-in-states.html
But this is very misleading. What matters is long term attitudes towards marriage, especially in the minds of men. I think that gay marriage will erode the concept of fidelity in marriage, which is important for secular people, as well as for religious people. Secular marriage actually does work pretty well, at present, e.g.
http://atheism.about.com/od/atheistfamiliesmarriage/a/AtheistsDivorce.htm
I worry very much that this will change, as marriage becomes redefined and dumbed down.
I wish that gays would simply come up with their own label for committed, same gender unions. There’s no reason to co-opt the term “marriage,” which has a well established meaning. Just call it something else and give it the same rights, responsibilities, and obligations and it then everything would be fine for the vast majority of people, if not for everyone.
- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
@openid.aol.com/runnswim: Hey Larry! Long time no see. Where have you been hiding?
Face it, the argument against gay marriage is basically one of Fudamentalist Christian religion. They were against extending the rights to vote to women and the rights to anything to people of different races other than Caucasians, and now the are against the rights to marriage for gay people. What is the difference, any way? And whose business is it, any how? For people who say they want smaller and less government, they sure try their best to expand it.
@Mike:
>>Where have you been hiding?<<
Waiting for the earth to cool down.
- L
CARY: THIS IS UNBELEIVLY FUNNY: BUT I think you’R MiSTAKEN,
BECAUSE, in thoses time, they where probably whearing the pecker hidden toward the back, for protection from the gods, who where in and out on the EARTH. bye
Didn’t you hear Larry? The University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit says its getting warmer
Heh
There’s the matter of protecting minority groups of citizens from the tyranny of the majority. Perhaps citizens are guaranteed a right to their own “pursuit of happiness” and to equal protection under the law, when the only argument against it seems to majority prejudice or disapproval.
Why should we think that a gay judge is any more or less capable of fairly hearing the arguments of the case than a heterosexual judge, when the matter at hand largely has to do with heterosexual biases against the people in question?
openid ayol.com/runswim: hi, there is realy nothing more left to say after you. thank you.
@Curt:
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/20100728_stateoftheclimate.html
Actually, it’s been pretty cool here in the coastal O.C., this summer, but pretty warm in Mike’s neck of the woods and most other parts, out yonder.
- LW/HB
Oh, I know it….live in coastal O.C. myself Larry but headed to Laughlin this weekend where it’s 110, yikes
@openid.aol.com/runnswim: “pretty warm in Mike’s neck of the woods”
Larry, it’s called AUGUST. And I’ve seen it hotter, longer.
Of course when we have record cold the Global Warming zealots insist it’s only weather. When it’s hot they claim it’s proof of global warming.
Oh, and Larry:
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/26228
@curt
I see your http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/26228 ,
and I raise you http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-stopped-in-1998.htm
(remember your auto drinking water, crossing the Mojave to Laughlin). And don’t go turning off on Zzyzx Road.
- LW/HB
>>I left the Catholic Church because of the hypocracy of the clergy who openly recruited homosexuals to fill their ranks.>>
oilman…personal decisions are personal decisions, but you might want to do some research concerning Bella Dodd ( http://genus.cogia.net/index.htm ) and the involvement of Communism in their efforts to destroy the Church.
If gays have Civil Unions, and if Civil Unions just aren’t enough, what’s the end game?
What if the goal is actually the destruction of marriage and families?
This is one of those topics that I veiw as a side show, misdirection, a distraction or sleight of hand….Watch this shiny coin in my right hand while my left hand picks your pocket…
These people are doing their very best to implode the nation we live in and we get to hear about this crap on the news…
SUEK: hi, I like that other link, do you think I could print the 10chapters? some other days,when my computer is faster.
“What if the goal is actually the destruction of marriage and families?”
Why would anyone think that it is?
It seems to me that gay people who are emotionally committed to each other simply want the right to form legally recognized families, the same as the rest of us. Letting them do so probably increases the general level of responsibility and social stability, rather than diminishing it.
When people willingly take on supportive commitments to each other and responsibily for each other, it’s better for everybody. I don’t understand why it has to become a divisive political issue.
I see your raise and raise you some cooked books:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2010/07/31/agdataw-begins-in-1990/
Ahhh, Zzyzx street…that gives me some fond memories
Firstly what’s religion got to do with marriage? Marriage predates Christianity and no one as far as I can see can pinpoint when marriage started in history. And of course atheists and agnostics can marry – so let’s leave religion out of marriage as clearly that’s a non-starter.
Secondly same sex marriage goes back at least to the Roman times. But this is also irrelevant to whether it should be legal now because how far would the human race heave progressed if we only do things now as we always done them before? That’s a luddite argument.
As for social norms – that’s laughable. America is supposed to celebrate the individual rather than slavishly following social ‘norms’. Is that how some people live their lives – change their behaviour to match want their neighbours do?
And I always been confused exactly how allowing two people of the same sex who want to marry somehow destroys or corrupts the institution of marriage. Are heterosexual marriages so delicate that it will somehow crumble if gays can marry?
They aren’t hurting anyone – let ‘em get on with it.
@tadcf
It’s hard to make a point when you engage in rambling rhetoric without a coherent theme in your post. It also makes it hard to engage in any meaningful discussion as well, but I will try nonetheless.
One – It is not only ‘fundamentalist christian’ religion that opposes the unions of homosexuals being termed a ‘marriage’. There is Jewish, non-fundamentalist christian, Muslim and even atheistic opposition to it. The institution of marriage has been around for millenia, and has been traditionally accepted as the union of a man and a woman. It is an integral part of some religions’ accepted societies. To force upon them by government decree, a complete change in the accepted definition of the institution is to prevent the free practice of those religions, something the first amendment expressly allows in our country.
Two – Most conservatives, as I stated to Cary, and we discussed, are not in opposition of homosexuality itself. We feel that we do not have the right to sit in judgement of someone who engages in a practice between two consenting adults which causes no harm to any other party. It is the forced change in an institution that we oppose. We can even agree on the allowance of civil unions for gay couples, including all rights pertaining to such a union. We have no problem with that.
Three – As I stated, and will again, the people who argue for the right of homosexual marriage are arguing for merely a word. They wish to change an accepted definition of a word. The opponents of gay marriage are fighting for historical precedence to remain the status quo, for the religious intonation of marriage to not be trampled upon, and for their rights.
Four – Their is nothing about ‘smaller’ government, nor the growing of government on trial here. That is an asinine comment that bears no influence on the topic of gay marriage.
@gaffa
I’m (by F/A standards, at least) a liberal who’s been arguing with conservatives, going back to my days as a college newspaper (the University of Louisville Cardinal) political columnist in the mid-1960s. But I’ve never but never experienced the vituperative attacks from anyone which were as nasty as those of defenders of gay marriage, simply because I tried to argue only a single principle, which should be utterly innocuous.
There are two types of people opposed to to co-option of the term “marriage” to apply to committed gay relationships. 1. Pure bigoted homophobes. 2. Pure defenders of traditional marriage. There is a degree of overlap between these two groups, but there are a lot more pure defenders of traditional marriage than there are pure bigoted homophobes.
In my debates with proponents of gay marriage, I have been stunned by their resistance to the simple solution of just choosing a different name for their new institution of same gender marriage. Yes, I read what you wrote about same sex marriage going back to Roman times. But, as I wrote (#28) this is nothing more than a historical curiosity, while opposite sex marriage (to use your terminology) is the most pervasive and enduring and universal institution in the history of the existence of homo sapiens. Yes, it has different flavors (monogamy vs polygamy), but it is essentially the same institution. Certainly, in the history of Western civilization, it has endured as a universal institution.
You talk about doing new things (not being a luddite). Fine. Let’s invent a NEW institution. Same gender “marriage.” But let’s just call it a different name. Same rights. Same responsibilities. Just a different name. You do that, and you’ll get a 75% approval rating. A simple, semantic solution to a contentious problem. Don’t co-opt a pre-existing, treasured institution. Be a true progressive and invent a new institution.
But, no, that’s not enough. I have come to believe that this battle isn’t at all about human rights or equal protection. It’s about winning a war and rubbing the noses of the vanquished in the dirt, in the process.
I find this to be extremely selfish and extremely offensive, despite the fact that I am otherwise sympathetic with almost everything else in the gay agenda. From getting rid of don’t ask/don’t tell to complete equal protection under the law.
- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
I have to disagree with you on this one, Skookum. I’m not a church goer but I will put my moral values up against any church goer, and I don’t belong to a political party. I like to come to conclusions by myself with as much info as I can get from as many sources as I need to decide on anything.
I finally figured out (on my own) that if being gay is a choice, then being strait has to be a choice too. You can’t have one a choice and the other natural. We are all born the way we are, gay, straight, bisexual, and pedafile. Yes, I said even pedafiles are born the way they are. Acting on it is something else, but I believe their genetic code programmed them that way. What about the ones who are born with both male and female parts? Is that something that the devil did, or is it just something that happened through their genetic code?
I do believe we need to teach kids that boys might grow up to like boys and girls might grow up to like girls. How many times have you heard of a husband cheating on his wife with another man? He was gay all along but didn’t want to be a “Queer,” so he pretended to like women, got married, and had kids. Women have done the same thing. Meridith Baxter (Formerly Meridith Baxter Birney) has recently admitted she is gay. I am guessing she went through the same “Queer” thing when she was growing up.
If we all would accept people the way they are we wouldn’t have all the problems we do. We are born the way we are and no religion or political party can change that.
If you live by the Christian religion, the Old Testament laws have been “Fulfilled” and we live under the New Testament commandments. I’m no expert on the bible, but I’m guessing there’s nothing in the New Testament about gays.
Another thing to consider is like an article I read a long time ago. A lot of the manuscripts and rocks that the bible came from had parts missing or damaged and had to be filled in by educated guesswork. When translated to another language the one doing the translating could have written whatever they wanted. Imagine how the liberals would translate it into another language if they were doing the translating.
I don’t want to start an argument with anyone here. I am just stating my opinion as I am allowed in this free USA. I am 64 years old and took most of that time to figure this stuff out, so don’t anybody waste your and other people’s time trying to get me to change my mind.
Marriage should still be between a man and woman, but there should be a separate name for a union between same sexes. They should come up with a name themselves.
One comedian came up with a line I thought was funny: “For a group that can’t physically reproduce, where are they all coming from?”
If you are married, ask your partner, “Are you the opposite sex, or am I?”
I forgot to mention that I am strait but open minded about new things I learn.
Suek #42:
How does the right to gay marriage destroy heterosexual marriage?
Smorgasbord #50:
Why should marriage be limited to a man and a woman?
openid.aol.com/runnswim 49:
If you’re not against other rights for gays, why not marriage?
@tadcf:
Are you equally willing to extend it to be between a man and his daughter….how about between your juvenile son and a 40 year old woman?
We accept age restrictions on marriage. Why not gender restrictions as well?
Also, are you willing to extend marriage to where multiple partners are allowed?
How about some pervert who wants to marry his favorite sheep or that horse he’s been having relations with out in the barn?
If you begin to blur the lines where the limits are drawn…where do you draw the new set of lines?
Who gets to decide that the new lines won’t include multiple partners and/or multi-species areas?
Society, through the votes of the people, must decide what is acceptable and, in this case, the voters of CA, 7,000,000 of them…in one of the most liberal states in the land…said nope, not acceptable.
If you take the gay argument for marriage to it’s final conclusion you will only see anarchy. What about if a father wants to marry his son? A mother his daughter? Three people love each other so why can’t they be married. Commen sense tells me that there needs to be some morallity applied to marriage or this is the logical end. I love my dog, shouldn’t I be able to marry him?? Just kidding. My butt’s not up for any input.
AYE CHIHUAHUA: hi, I’m sure you answerd all the questions, exactly; MORe of another reason to choose the president of AMERICA when you dont look at futures ABUSES of any given powers
WHO will shape a FUTURE of disaster or HAPPYNESS. thank you.
@Smorgasbord:
Beautiful comment. I’m with you completely.
There actually is, depending on which translation you’re looking at (the New International Version uses the word outright). Paul, speaking to the Corinthians (1 Cor 6:9-11), has a list of those who “will not enter the kingdom of Heaven”.
But the Greek language is far more complex than English, where they have 5 words for each type of love, whereas we have to use a qualifier.
So when the NIV translation uses the word Homosexual, others’ use effeminate or weak (which, to me, is irrespective of sexuality) Personally, my view is that it means someone without backbone or conviction, who flakes out on what they say they stand for.
I also believe that some translators of scripture were not above leaning towards their own personal biases. Why do you think King James would have commissioned his own translation?
I should also mention that Paul also deemed that women should stay silent within the church, and that leaders of a church should be married with families. (both found in the book of Timothy)
So, once again, it all comes down to what you personally believe, and people believe many different things. For myself, I believe that denying one group of people the same rights, opportunities, and responsibilities everyone else receives, based solely on being different, is completley contrary to the overall message of Jesus Christ – who held the company of many of societies “undesirables.”
So, since there are so many different views in regards to religion and what the Bible actually says, all valid from their own perspective, this is why I’ve said I don’t wish to debate it from this line of reasoning. The only way to get on the same page as Americans, is to hold to the US Constitution, which applies to everyone.
Smorgasbord, your comment touched me personally, as it took my own dad about as long to come to the same conclusions as you. It was when I acted in play Torch Song Trilogy, in which I played a gay character. A year later he said it was his favorite thing he saw me in, because he learned something that changed his perspective. It remains one of my fondest memories of him. Thanks for reminding me by sharing.
@Aye Chihuahua:
You must’ve missed my comment on #20.
Also, please keep the 14th Amendment in mind. The rights of the minority cannot be infringed upon by the majority. Otherwise, we’d be ruled by mobs.
Speaking of mobs, it’s Yankees vs. Boston today, so I’d better get moving….
@tadfc #53
I’m for equal rights. As I wrote, call it something other than marriage (you get to choose the name) and you’ll have a 75% support level, including from me. I explained my reasoning, in prior comments on this thread. You are not arguing for equal rights or equal protection. You are arguing to co-opt a name with a long and universally established meaning. You are advocating for a new institution which has never been more than a non-enduring historical curiosity and which has never been part of American history. As a new institution, it deserves a new name. So just give it the name and it will be done deal, within a very short number of years. Or else turn it into a war over a word and take twice as long to win a pyrrhic victory, which will be resented by a sizable percentage of the population for a generation. It’s entirely unnecessary and entirely unreasonable.
- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
@tadcf: What I mean is that the word “marriage” should have the same meaning it always has, a union between a man and a woman, otherwise there will have to be terms like “gay marriage” and “straight marriage.” That is why there should be a separate name that the gay community comes up with.
@Aye Chihuahua: Let’s not turn democrat here Aye Chihuahua. When they know they can’t win an argument on existing facts, they bring in all kinds of exaggerated stuff with the “What if…” stuff. Stay conservative.
Those of us who think gays should be able to “marry” are just saying it should be just like a “straight marriage” except between gays.
How did you find out about the guy and his horse? If it is a female horse, is it OK, but wrong if it is a male horse? Which one started the affair?
Your idea that the majority should rule in all decisions means we should get rid of the Constitution and rule by the Polls. I still don’t understand why we should let the Polls decide things for us.
Did we forget that a long time ago the MAJORITY of people said that blacks (called Negros then) can’t vote? Did we forget that the MAJORITY said that the American Indian can’t compete with anything the Americans make? Some times the MAJORITY can be wrong.
I can’t believe your accepting the vote of Californians. When was the last time they voted for something you can agree with, except for the gay issue?
@Smorgasbord:
Is there a sarcasm tag missing somewhere there? Cannot tell for sure.
I don’t think I stated my position on the issue one way or the other.
I simply posed questions to tadcf to see where he would fall with his answers and if he would be consistent in answering the questions that I posed.
Also, if you look to the legal challenges to Prop 8 the first judge said that the People had to speak on the issue.
@Cary: Paul also said that “his opinion” was that a person shouldn’t marry so they could spend more time worshiping God. They should only marry if they had too strong of a desire for sex. If all Christians went by his idea, the religion would have ended in a few years.
You reminded me that even biblical scholars have admitted that there are known errors in the Bible. Some are like you said, where sometimes there were several different words that could have been chosen to be used, only to find out later that the wrong one was chosen.
You reminded me of my dad. He wasn’t religious, and the last conversation I had with him had nothing to do with religion, but it was the best conversation I had with him before he died. I know how you feel.
@Aye Chihuahua: All I am saying is it is a one issue thing. Yes or no for gay marriage. Everything else you mentioned are separate issues that would have to be decided on separately. Let’s settle the first one first. Even in the “straight marriage” you could have the same situations where people might want what you mentioned.
People, most of you are missing the larger point here about the issue of ‘gay marriage’. It isn’t about what some people choose to do, or what some people dislike about what others do. One does not have the right to sit in judgement of another’s actions that do nothing injurious to others. I don’t care what gays do, just like I don’t care if someone walks around their house naked all day, or burns more electricity than I do, or drives a larger or smaller car than I do, or colors their hair pink, or…………………….and it goes on and on. It doesn’t matter.
The main issue that people have with ‘gay marriage’ is the co-opting of a historically precedented institution defined throughout most of history as being between a man and a woman. Certain religious rights and ceremonies are centered around this. When a government, by influence of one group, forces another to accept the will and desires of the first, especially when it goes against a person’s religious views, the government is in violation of the First Amendment, specifically, the freedom of religion clause. It goes both ways people. Government cannot establish a state approved religion and cannot infringe on the religious views of anyone. That is why religion plays an important part in this entire debate.
Cary and myself, and later, Larry, all agree that a civil union of homosexuals is no problem. I’d bet that, like Larry states, the majority of people in the country would agree with that as well. Fine, then if people desire that outcome, then term all unions, in regards to the government, as civil unions. Leave actual marriage to the person(s)’ chosen religion to perform. That way, no one is discriminated against by the government. Everyone is left alone to do their thing as long as it doesn’t cause injury to another party.
@johgalt (#65):
Your proposal to take the state out of marriage and leave marriage to religions is an often-proposed “solution,” but it is only a partial solution. As I wrote before, I don’t worry so much for the institution of religious marriage. I worry about the institution of secular marriage. As I wrote, marriage has always been looked at as a BFD (or, in other words, as the biggest commitment most people ever make).
What matters is long term attitudes towards marriage, especially in the minds of men. When civil authorities no longer perform marriages, then what do secular people do? They just privately say some vows, on their own? Or get friends to give them a ceremony? However it’s done, it’s certain to seem less important, less “official,” much less of a BFD. Presumably, such “marriages” could be ended by simply saying “I divorce you” three times and filling out some forms in the County Clerk’s office.
This is one answer to “what threat to traditional marriage would be posed by gay marriage?” Or else, you just keep the civil institution in place, continue to call it marriage, and make no distinction between traditional marriage pairs (a man and a woman) and same gender pairs. But “committed” gay male relationships are vastly more casual than committed straight relationships. You get harm when the concept of commitment gets dumbed down and you get potential harm when kids are taught that same gender marriage is the same thing as opposite gender marriage and kids see (as they grow up) what goes on in male-male marriage. You also get harm if you’d rather your kids not turn out to be gay and you’ve got a society which makes no distinctions, even at the level of something as basic and traditional as marriage. I think it’s fairly obvious that there isn’t a bright line distinction: gay vs straight. Going back to Kinsey, there is the concept of varying degrees of gayness and straightness. Sure, a whole lot of people are born dominantly one way or the other, but there probably is a sizable zone which could tip one way or the other, depending on life experience. At least, this is certainly the way a great many parents would view the situation, which is why they are so resistant to the concept of creating one indistinguishable institution of marriage, open to both same gender and opposite gender pairings.
All of this could be obviated very simply. Don’t confuse the issue. It is different when a man marries a woman than when a man marries a man. Why is it necessary to pretend that there is no difference, when there so obviously is a difference? So call the man/woman relationship marriage, as it’s always been called; call a man/man relationship something else, but give it the same rights and responsibilities. Call a woman/woman relationship something else, but give it the same rights and responsibilities.
This would work, over time, with much less acrimony and with much more acceptance, in in a much shorter period of time.
I don’t look for Judge Walker’s decision to be sustained by the Supreme Court. This will make it a long and bloody battle through the states. It doesn’t have to be this way, if Proposition 8 opponents (supporters of same gender marriage) exercise some reason and common sense.
- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
@johngalt: I am guessing that “marriage” is not covered in the constitution. That means it is neither legal or illegal for people to marry. It is a religious based act.
The reason Massachusetts allows gay marriage is that their constitution never mentioned marriage, so there was no law against it. I lived there at the time the debate went on.
As I have mentioned different times, to have it the way you want, Christianity would have to be declared the national religion, which is illegal.
Just like Massachusetts, if there is nothing in our Constitution or amendments about marriage, it is up to individual religions to decide for themselves how it will be. I guess that means those of us who have no religion can do what we want and unite with any person place or thing we choose. The US Supreme Court even said that banning same sex marriages is illegal.
Have you noticed that it seems like each religion and cult has their niche group they choose to condemn. Hitler chose the Jews. Dose anybody remember the old saying, “Your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose.” That’s the way the Constitution was set up. Everything is legal unless it infringes on the rights of anyone else. Prove to me that gay marriages will infringe on anybody’s right and I will change my mind. Otherwise we should all accept things as they are. I don’t like to see people risk medical problems by putting on tattoos or all kinds of metal in their body, but there is no law against it after a certain age and it doesn’t infringe on any of my rights, so they can decorate or poke up their bodies all they want.
@openid.aol.com/runnswim:
For someone as eloquent as you are, Larry, I’m actually quite surprised that you don’t believe in the power of words. Words have often been the difference between war and peace.
We learned in the 1960′s that separate doesn’t mean equal. I’ve already demonstrated in my comment #17 here, one example of the legal difference between a marriage and a civil union.
Calling it a different name also opens the door to future laws being passed that apply to A but not to B.
Women are still fighting for equal compensation for equal work. If we keep focusing on our “differences”, rather than what makes us alike, and therefore equal, we all lose in the long run, and miss any opportunities to celebrate those differences as equals.
I think it’s entirely reasonable to insist that if we are to maintain that it’s the same, then we MUST name it as such for everyone – no matter what we name it.
Is a Black Judge capable of hearing a civil rights’ case?
Is Justice Sotomayor qualified to hear a case involving Hispanics?
Will Justice Kagan be allowed to hear cases involving Jewish Lesbians that are homely?
Can the court’s overturn a referendum passed by the people of a state? Absofrigginlutely.
Suppose, North Dakota passed a referendum that took away the right of Black People to vote, would that be a law that a judge could overturn?
Personally, I have decided on a new name for homosexual marriage, I call it “Homocommitment” if you say it enough it just rolls off the end of your tongue
@cary:
[some quotes from your writings, above]
As I wrote earlier (#28), this is an odious comparison. It’s the difference between regulating a specific social contract versus restricting a fundamental human right. The fundamental right is that women have the right to marry men, and vice versa. The great value of this to society for millennia is that it imposes a minimum standard of loyalty, with clear benefits to children and, historically, to women to a greater degree than to men. Today, women are clearly less in need of protection by men than they were even within the lifetimes of some people still alive today. But marriage has deep and pervasive roots as an institution which especially protected children and women. The reasons why marriage was such a BFD for a man were that marriage vows traditionally had not only a line about “forsaking all others” (or other words to that effect) but also a vow to “protect.” These were commitments as equally important in secular marriage as in religious marriage. Society had a clear benefit in promoting and fostering marriage, which is why the state got involved in it in the first place.
But restricting the right of a black man to marry at all was an abrogation of a historically established, fundamental human right. Restricting the right of a black man to marry a white woman (which the majority of white voters in Alabama voted to continue, as recently as 2000) were abrogations of the much more recent civil rights laws. Restricting official state recognition of marriage to man marrying woman, or one man marrying one woman, were consistent with the well established, historical purposes of marriage. Marriage didn’t exist, prima facie, for the purpose of fostering nurturing relationships in general. It existed, prima facie, for the purpose of fostering standards of behavior in men for the benefit of children and women.
Gay relationships are notoriously promiscuous. e.g.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/29/us/29sfmetro.html?_r=1
The above article is obviously supportive of same gender marriage, but it is promoting a radical view — that traditional marriage would be strengthened by following the gay model of “open” relationships.
Gay males in uncommitted situations (free range gays) commonly have scores to hundreds of partners per year. Gay males in committed relationships have 5 to 6 partners per year, outside of the relationship. What this shows is not that gay males are hornier than straight males, but it shows, if you will, the natural inclination of males, and it shows just how successful traditional marriage is at fostering socially beneficial male behavior. The odd Tiger Woods-type situation does exist, but the typical straight couple have zero to 1 extramarital couplings over the course of their marriage, which, for first marriages, endure for an average of more than two decades.
Fostering monogamy does more than protect children and women — it protects society from an even larger epidemic of sexually transmitted disease. 50% of gay males become hepatitis B positive within two years of beginning to have male on male sex. There is a very good reason why gays are still prohibited from serving as blood donors. Condoms are only 80% effective in preventing transmission of HIV, much less effective in preventing transmission of hepatitis B and HSV, and probably much less effective in preventing transmission of HPV. There is currently an epidemic of oral cancer, resulting from HPV infection during oral sex (in which condoms are virtually never utilized). Their effectiveness in preventing other STDs is probably less favorable than the odds of playing Russian roulette.
Many states, by the way, continue to require pre-marital blood tests. e.g. http://www.usmarriagelaws.com/search/united_states/blood_test_requirements/index.shtml I’m personally in favor of these. It wouldn’t surprise me were gays to view the requirements for reporting the results of such tests to be discriminatory and seek to eliminate these regulations.
Official state recognition of gay “marriage” as being indistinguishable from traditional marriage is a radical experiment, the outcome of which we won’t know for more than a generation. That’s how long it will take to determine how the societal view of marriage as life’s most sacred commitment changes or doesn’t change, relative to those in countries and regions where marriage continues to be defined in traditional terms. There is no reason at all to take this sort of risk, when the alternative is equal rights, but different names for obviously different institutions.
Gays view marriage through a different lens, commitment-wise, than do straights. When gays look through the marriage lens, they see a different institution. It should have a different name.
This is a straw man argument. Just as government jurisdictions have a legitimate interest in fostering traditional marriage and in requiring blood tests, for reasons which have nothing at all to do with homophobia, so can the government regulate ways in which rights to citizenship may be fulfilled. Straight couples certainly use marriage as a subterfuge to obtain citizenship. Gay couples would doubtless do the same. The issue of who is entitled to citizenship is entirely separate from the issue of the definition of marriage, as it has been clearly understood throughout the history of Western civilization.
I do believe in the power of words. For people who honor and cherish the institution of traditional marriage, efforts to change laws to foster the absurd concept that same gender "marriage" is no different, are, indeed, fighting words. There is no need, whatsoever to go down this acrimonious path. Recognize that there are fundamental differences between opposite gender and same gender "unions," and just call them by different names, but give them equal rights and responsibilities.
Regarding the "separate but equal" issue. The comparison to the history of the civil rights movement is also odious. In point of fact, the difference between traditional marriage and gay "marriage" is entirely based on gender. The concept of separate but equal, applied to matters of gender, is well established, accepted, and successful in Western civilization and in US law — in matters ranging from separate toilets to separate sports, leagues, and teams of/in athletic competition. There are differences in physical requirements for many jobs, including the military, which are scaled according to gender. So separate but equal as relating to race is an entirely different consideration than separate but equal relating to gender.
- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
@openid.aol.com/runnswim:
Wow. Talk about odious. The way we regard women in our society has changed considerably, as well. While chivalry is not dead, women are not helpless little creatures who must be taken care of for their every need. Your argument would lead to the conclusion that a self sufficient woman would have no need to enter a marriage contract, which is silly at best. And what of couple who choose not to have children?
A highly stereotypical generalization. Some are, yes – but promiscuity is not exclusive to homosexuality. Do you remember the key parties of the 1970′s? The nature of any relationship between two people is their business only, and not a basis for discrimination, at all.
Again, wow. Talk about a straw man argument. My purpose for bringing this issue up was to illustrate how marriage and civil unions are clearly different. It’s not equal if the law applies to A but not to B. This completley supports my stance that only equal language is truly equal. So gay couples could break the law if given the same rights as straight people, who also break the same law, therefore we shouldn’t give them to them? Absolutely Ridiculous.
Your entire argument seems based on your view that gays are somehow less committed to their partners than straight people, and take the word “marriage” less seriously, and therefore should be denied the word because it means less to them. Marriage is “dumbed down” (your words) if two men or two women can marry, yet any drunken straight couple in Vegas can get married on a whim, and not remember in the morning. Yeah sure, let’s use generalizations to illustrate how we decide how meaningful peoples’ relationships are, and then decide what an entire population of people can or cannot have, based on those generalizations…
I do not equate race with sexual preference, but I do equate the discrimination towards a group of people in the minority by the majority. And I do regard gross generalizations by stereotype, of any group of people, equally offensive, and certainly not a basis for denying them any rights whatsoever.
Judge Walker addresses all of your arguments, stereotypes, and irrational generalizations, Larry, in his ruling:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/08/proposition-8-ruling-decision-excerpts.html
http://www.scribd.com/doc/35374462/Prop-8-Ruling-FINAL
CARY: hi, you know how A quite numerous group among them,love to display perversions in public places where all family groups are living; SO if they gain more legitimacy
HOW much more abusive their display will occur, because thoses excess happen ,IT would have been wiser for the judge to restrained himself from that judgement to legalyse without restriction the homosexsuels unions.
@ilovebeeswarzone:
Bees, such behavior is not exclusive to homosexuals, and no more or less acceptable when displayed by heterosexuals. If we passed laws based on what we deem the distasteful social behavior of some is, nobody would have any rights.
For men to decide to stick around after the rut, rather than going on a hunting/fishing trip to the mountains until they feel the urge, is the reason why we as a species have done so well. In more primitive times to the present, a woman with child’s chances of survival were and are increased with a man residing in the domicile or cave who provides sustenance and protection. Thus a bond occurs: the woman gains security and relief from the desperation of survival and a man gains a certain respect in the community for being able to not only provide for himself and others, but to also serve as a role model to his children and other men.
This has roughly been the basic model and reason for marriage for millions of years, whether formalized or just initiated with a series of grunts, this is what society and culture is predicated upon. No matter what a homosexual couple wants to convey to themselves or the public, this basic tenet of marriage would be diminished in homosexual unions.
Should homosexual couples have the same rights as straight couples? Yes.
Is the union different? Yes, indeed.
Although we cannot base our society on the social norms that were present over the eons of human existence, marriage is the oldest surviving trait of human culture and is the very reason for Man’s success as a species. To change marriage by saying, we know will now corrupt the name and dilute the significance of marriage by recognizing gay marriage as the same although it is obviously considerably different, is counter-intuitive to the basic tenets of our culture, our history, and our very existence.
@Smorgasbord:
Homosexual marriage came about in Mass because of the Mass Supreme court, it was never voted into law by the legislature or the people. Sounds like an unconstitutional process around the legislative mechanisms in the in the states Constitution.
As for proving gay marriage infringing on anyone’s right what it does is it forces a society who by and large against gay marriage to accept the reality the homosexuality is real, which it isn’t. There are plenty of formerly gay pay who now live normal lives married to a woman. You won’t hear about it because of media blackout.
Another reason against gay marriage and giving any special rights to homosexuals is homosexuality can be used as a political vehicle to silence any opposing opinion or ideals like when liberals through the “racism” card around, instead it will be a “bigot” or homophone. It metamorphosizes into thought police.
If homosexuality is real and a person is born with it then homosexuals wouldn’t have to indoctrinate children in public schools it would self evident.
Think I don’t know what a gay man knows, I use to be a homosexual, now I’m married with three children and there is no looking back.
@Skookum:
Looks like you posed a theory. I wouldn’t base that theory to give the ideal that marriage can be redefined because of primate beginnings. Marriage was created by God hence the world procreated to the modern point of a 6 billion world population. Homosexuals CANNOT procreate and like wise shouldn’t get married.
Us straight people cannot marry the same sex, nor should homosexuals.
@Offensive Bias:
I don’t believe them. They may have changed behavior, and go on to live a lie, to the disservice of the woman and themselves, because they have submitted to religious fear, family threats, career advancement, or other reasons.. but they still are who they are.
Gay or straight, men still have the equipment to reproduce. Even if I believed that you changed your sexual orientation by will (which I don’t, unless you acted out with other men as a result of some earlier life trauma, which is entirely different…), I still could not support you imposing your own choice onto others. Whether being gay is a choice or not (and I don’t believe it is), is irrelevant, as all Americans have the right to make such a choice as to who they love, without penalty.
@Offensive Bias:
Then neither should infertile couples. Think of all those children in orphanages who will never know what it’s like to be part of any kind of loving family, because your argument prevailed…
@Skookum:
You homos need to quit comparing your made up civil rights campaign with the struggle of blacks.
Being black is natural where as homosexuality isn’t(sounds remedial but it’s the truth).
Sotomoyer is a racists windbag who thinks female latinas are smarter then whitey…she’s unqualified because she’s predisposed racially.
Judge Walker was predisposed in his decision to overturn a Constitutional process of a state amending it’s Constitution. Judge Walker overturned 7 million people declaring them all homophobes. The man wanted cameras in the court room so he can make a public spectacle of himself to the world.
And Kagan who couldn’t answer a simple question “Can congress regulate what food we can eat” she was silent and wouldn’t answer the question. Kagan is nothing more then a rubber stamp for Obama’s anti American agenda.
I hear the homosexual lobby couldn’t get their referendum on the ballet this coming November. Guess it wasn’t popular enough in the state of California.
I probably wouldn’t speak of the rambling nature of my writing, if I were you. Generally I’m short and to the point, offering citations where necessary to document my work.
1.I do not dispute that some non-fundamentalist religious people are anti-gay marriage too, but historically it’s been fundamentalist religion that has been against progressive advancements such as women’s sufferage and intermarriage between the races, and they’re in the forefront of this one.
2.Giving gays the rights to marry is not infringing on any body’s freedom of religion. Religious people still have their freedom to believe and act a they want—as long as it doesn’t intrude of the beliefs and actions of others. (This has been a general maxim of the American way as long as I’ve been alive.)
3.Just because something has been around for a long time, and is a tradition, doesn’t mean it’s right and should be continued. Slavery has been around a long time too.
4.Your statement about “We have no problems with it…(the gays)”, reminds me of a statement that some right-wing politicians used to make during the Civil Rights era: “I’m not against Negroes, some of my best friends are Negroes.”
5.Your third point is just a repetition of the first two, with the addition of some emotive language, i.e., “trampled upon”, which has no business in a rational discussion. One could just as easily say that religious beliefs are ‘trampling’ on the rights of gays.
6.Calling a person’s belief names, like asinine, is generally not considered a rational argument. To create the number of new laws which would be required to make civil unions for homosexuals ‘equal’ to the rights incorporate into marital law, would be equivalant to enlarging government.
Clear enough for ya’?
I forgot to address that last comment to Johngalt
@Cary:
Sir, have you ever thought maybe your the one living a lie? You have to loop inside your head the justifications of your lifestyle and you remain stubborn in your ways?
You say they the formers are still what they are. In the first place what makes a person homosexual? Can’t answer that because there isn’t a answer. I disagree with your assertion that outside forces contribute to a homosexual going straight. Not true it’s whats in the heart is what defines a person.
You don’t need to call the kettle black when you say I’, imposing my will when one activist judge overturns a constitutional legal process in a state. your the ones are imposing your ideology on everyone.
@Offensive Bias:
Here at Flopping Aces, we don’t allow multiple user names or sock puppeting.
Choose a name and stick with it or you won’t be allowed to participate here.
This will be your only warning.
@Aye Chihuahua:
Roger Aye, I’m sticking with this one. I like much more then “b1jetmech” if that’s all right.
The progressive’s end game is indeed to break down society, so they can play God and rebuild it in their twisted image.
The gay population could have accepted civil unions with all the benefits, but nooooooooooooo- because they actually want this battle, and to stick their finger in the lion’s eye. Be careful what you wish for-
In the meantime, this is indeed a “side” issue, meant to keep us tied up while the progressives finish passing their agenda, which will take conservatives at least a generation to roll back- Look at Social Security- a failed proggram that has now officially run out of money. Look at Medicare and Medicaid, in the same boat, with Doctors opting out of these programs.
Now we have “concierge” doctors, where you pay an annual fee, even if you do not see the doctor in that time- and this is the “Change” people wanted? I don’t think so-
As far as being a gay person wanting marriage, I don’t particularly care- Let them “Marry”, with an asterisk, denoting them to be non breeders- after all, they deserve to be as unhappy as regular folks.
@ bias: I’ve never been called a homo, but I had a hearty chuckle after reading your comment. I must suggest that you need to read some of the personal stories in my bibliography to see why other readers probably had a hearty chuckle also.
I have read the polls and election results concerning Prop 8, measure that wouldn’t have passed without overwhelming support from the Black and Latino populations. I am a White male of mixed blood who has a Conservative’s compassion for the plight of homosexuals. I don’t believe they should serve in the military, because of the potential for abuse and the possibility of morale problems. I think the simple term marriage should be a heterosexual term and that gays should have a concept like “Homo Commitment” to serve as the official title for gay ‘marriage’.
My former opponents and sparring partners from the MMA dojos would have cracked up to hear someone refer to me as a homo, such a jest in those places could result in blood flowing and broken bones, thanks for the laugh, I needed that before going to work.
@Offensive Bias:
I love the way you assume that anyone who supports equal rights for gay people are gay themselves! As if it matters.
I can no more answer that than you can definitively answer what makes a person heterosexual. Again, doesn’t matter.
Well, now we agree. To that end, it shouldn’t matter what “equipment” one’s partner has, when honoring their relationship as equal to anyone else’s.
Once again, repetitive argument. I’ve already pointed out that putting peoples’ rights up to popular vote invites mob rule and is counter to the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.
To Cary- Your arguments do not matter in the end, simply because nature has taken many wrong turns in the course of evolution, and gay people are part of that wrong course, much like being born lame, or siamese twins would be.
It is not that being gay is a terminal condition, but nature does not look kindly at abberations, and that is what gay people are- sad, but true.
The main purpose of life is to further that through reproduction, and gay people are not wired that way- also sad but true.
In the wild, an albino animal is generally killed, as that color does not contribute to the effectiveness of its breeding and feeding- you can see an albino from a long distance.
White doves, for example, are a human- induced adaptation. In the wild, doves (and other birds as well) push the abnormal ones out- they have no time for an evolutionary dead end- but we humans have compassion, which messes with the evolutionary aspect of our genetics. I am not saying compassion is bad, it is just uniquely human, and thus gay people survive, instead of being killed by the tribe, as would happen otherwise.
This does not mean that gay people are anything other than evolutionary dead ends- sorry.
Offensive BIAS: hi, I like all your comments,which bring a new angle on the forum which is very realistic and getting to search deeper to understand the differences in people behaviors, thank you. bye
@Blake: it may surprise you to learn that homosexuality does indeed occur in nature. I’ll provide links and further thoughts when I’m not posting from my phone. Still, science like religion, doesn’t trump the constitution.
here have been several ‘primitive’ cultures that made allowances for gay men and considered them to have a ‘special’ place in society. I believe it was the Cheyenne among others who had the unique status for gays.
Of course the early Greeks and Romans tolerated and even promoted homosexuality in the military; however, marriage was a separate and official status and every man was expected to marry and be fruitful.
SKOOKUM: hi, I am not quite sure, but in the bible, there is some humans called EUNUQUES,
that must be the french name.
ALSO POMPEI was one. bye
@tadcf
My point about your writing, in particular comment #30, is that you used several, non-related claims and generalities as support for your point, instead of discussing particular, specific items.
1. Claiming an objection to a group, or certain group, as being against this does not give you support for it. Are you trying to encourage feelings of guilt for opposing gay marriage by relating someone’s opposition to it with the ‘fundamentalist’ christians? Muslims most likely oppose it even more vehemently than them, yet I don’t see you using Islam as your chosen attack target.
2. It does infringe on a person’s chosen religion when society is forced to adopt the changing of an accepted definition of what marriage constitutes. It’s not the action of the homosexual unions that most people are against. There is a difference, and it does affect other people’s lives.
3. Are you attempting to equate slavery with the traditional, accepted definition of marriage? It doesn’t work, as one(slavery) infringed on other’s rights, while the other does not. There is no case you can claim that by disallowing a civil union of gays to be termed a marriage has infringed on someone’s civil rights. On the other hand, as I stated above and do so again, you infringe on people’s religious rights by forcing a change in the accepted definition of an institution that has been around as long as marriage has.
4. Again with trying to equate this issue with those civil rights issues of blacks. It’s not even close to being the same thing. Never mind your misguided relating of the ‘right-wing’ to opposition of black’s civil rights. That is a whole other topic.
5. Again, show me a case of religious ‘rights’ of someone that has trampled on the rights of gays seeking legal recognition of their union to another. If you are talking about disallowing any such union to occur, then I agree that it has happened. If you are talking about disallowing that union to be termed a ‘marriage’, then it has not. As for ‘emotive language’, I don’t see how you can say it doesn’t have any place in a rational discussion, as it is descriptive and paints a visual interpretation to reinforce a point.
6. It wasn’t a name, and it wasn’t directed at your beliefs. It is an adjective referring to your comment about smaller government. I just as easily could have said it was ‘silly’, or ‘stupid’, or ‘foolish’ in describing that comment. Your original comment:
If you use ‘civil union’ as the term defining a legal, committed relationship of gays, you do not grow government(unless the law is written badly, I can give you that). It does nothing more than allow the government to legally term those relationships depending on what term is used. This is not an issue where smaller government, nor the growing of it, comes in to play.
Much clearer, and pointed, than your comment at #30, particularly this:
The argument is on the terming of homosexual unions, not the actual ‘act’ of it, hence my descriptive of your sentence as ‘rambling rhetoric’.
‘Fundamental’ christians, along with orthodox jews and fundamentalist muslims, are against homosexuality in and of itself, never mind the allowance of gay ‘marriages’. ‘Fundamental’ christianity is not the mainstream among christian sects of the religion generally, although it depends on where you live. For example, those in the southeast are much more likely to be baptists or evangelicals, and are more closely related to what is termed ‘fundamental’ christianity. Those in the NE are much more likely to observe catholicism or protestantism, which do not fall under the ‘fundamentalist’ category. One can see why you chose that which you did though. It’s kind of like using ‘emotive’ language in that it paints a picture to go along with the words and reinforce one’s opinions and thoughts based on the ideas presented, but in your case, it is used wrongly and attempts to equate all who oppose within the ‘fringe’ or ‘extremist’ elements.
Don’t know what URI is, guess this won’t go through. I find it interesting that a taboo or false assertion can generate so much dialogue.
Find a subject that is factual and you can’t generate even close to the comments you have going here. Interesting.
@dee
That is because most people are conditioned to argue based on emotions, and their ‘feelings’ about issues. Present a cold, hard, accepted fact to an argument, and the argument is dead.
Also, some topics are divisive due to the emotional nature of them, even amongst some very like-minded people, and thus, naturally end up being argued to death. The Islamic mosque/non-mosque is another of these.
@Cary (#71): You grossly mischaracterize my arguments (#70).
Society benefits when children are raised in home with a mother and a father. Society also benefits when the incidence of sexually transmitted diseases is limited. Traditional marriage fosters both. These are contemporary benefits. In my post, I was explaining the origins and history of marriage, which were indeed based on the concepts of protection and commitment. I was careful to note that women no longer require protection, in the prior sense of the word. I’m disappointed that you sought to mischaracterize this and to use this as a gotcha point. It was important to explain how and why marriage came to be regarded as such a BFD, in the life of a male. It is precisely through the cheapening of the concept of marriage as a BFD, a concept developed over the ages, that traditional marriage is threatened by eliminating the distinction between traditional and gay marriage.
The gay view of marriage is different from the traditional view.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/29/us/29sfmetro.html?_r=1
Your reference to the key clubs of the 70s further makes my point. It’s the natural inclination for most males to have as much sex as possible and with as many partners as possible. To a lesser extent, this applies to a surprising number of women, as well. Yet research shows that (1) the average first marriage endures for more than two decades and (2) the average number of sex partners outside the marriage, over the course of the marriage, is 0 to 1.
The New York Times article seems to argue that heterosexual married couples would benefit from adopting the gay attitude toward marriage (read the article). But this attitude is antithetical to traditional marriage. And an enormous benefit of traditional marriage is that it dramatically limits propagation and transmission of sexually transmitted diseases. The gay model of marriage would erode these benefits, to the detriment of society as a whole. I would be more than willing to get into the detailed statistics of sexually transmitted diseases, from the incidence in different populations of people to the toll it takes on everything from individual health and happiness to the costs to the health care system.
Gay marriage also introduces confusion in the minds of children. Parents have good reasons for wishing their children to not enter into the gay lifestyle — chief among these being to lessen the risk of their exposure to disease. The fact that HIV may now be controlled for decades through the continuous ingestion of toxic and horrendously expensive drugs does not trivialize its ultimate toll. And then there is hepatitis, HSV, HPV, chlamydia, and the other STDs. Of course, you love your children, gay or straight. Just as you love your children, smokers or non-smokers. And you support them with all of your heart. But you do what you can as parents to try and give them the best chance for happiness and health. I believe that, for at least some children, life’s experience and societal attitudes do matter. I agree that you can’t change sexual orientation, once it develops. I also agree that a great many people are simply born gay and that is that. But I do believe that societal attitudes can be a non-trivial influence for some children. A whole lot of people think as I do, for reasons that have nothing to do with religion or sexual practices, and this is one of the reasons why protection of the institution of traditional marriage is such a visceral issue.
With respect to Judge Walker’s opinion, all he’s saying is that the lawyers arguing in favor of Proposition 8 (against gay marriage) did not make their case. This is because, as I wrote earlier, they were incompetent. Additionally, Judge Walker was imposing the manifestly unfair standard of requiring the pro-Prop 8 side to PROVE that gay marriage would be harmful to traditional marriage. This is a manifestly unfair requirement, because gay marriage has currently existed less than 10 years (beginning in the Netherlands) and it will take more than a generation to determine the ultimate effect.
Today’s adults grew up in an environment where marriage meant one man marrying one woman and where a sine qua non of marriage is fidelity (i.e. not the gay concept of an “open” relationship). We simply have no idea what will be the ultimate effect of expanding the definition of marriage to include such a disparate lifestyle. In the absence of data, it’s unfair to require the proof of the currently unprovable.
But Judge Walker was incorrect in applying a burden of proof required to introduce ostensible discrimination at the level of the individual to the legitimate interests of the state in regulating a social contract. He is going to be reversed, and the cause of creating a national institution of the gay equivalent of marriage will be set back. More seriously, there will be a hardening of attitudes and the fostering of entirely unnecessary resentment.
Judge Walker also ignored the hugely important issue of sexually transmitted diseases.
Judge Walker’s main conclusion is demonstrably incorrect. He wrote: The evidence shows conclusively that Proposition 8 enacts, without reason, a private moral view that same-sex couples are inferior to opposite-sex couples.
What prop 8 recognizes is not that same sex couples are “inferior” to opposite-sex couples, but the obvious truth that same sex couples are different than opposite-sex couples. The way that same sex couples view marriage commitments is different than the way opposite sex couples view marriage commitments. Therefore, same sex couples deserve their own institution, with all the rights and responsibilities of marriage, but which should be given its own, unique name, in acknowledgement of these differences.
Added at 11:05 AM PDT: President Obama would appear to agree with the points of view I’ve expressed and explained.
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/david-axelrod-defends-obamas-opposition-to-gay-marriage-on-daily-rundown/
- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
Aye Chihuahua:
I don’t think all these different options are relevant to the gay marriage–although ultra-conservatives do think they are some how connected. Be it as it may, sodomy was once legal in Texas, and now it isn’t. There are a lot of sexual combinations that may or may not be considered good or bad, legal or illegal–but they aren’t under consideration now. Gay marriage is.
Do you believe whether a person is granted their civil rights should be decided by vote?
openid….
But, you fail to understand, gays already have the Right of Civil Union; but it doesn’t have many rights of marriage–such as the right to receive many pension death benefits, survivor benefits in lieu of a will, the right to admittance to see a patient in a hospital when visitors are confined to relative, and many other such rights. It’s to cumbersome to change all the State and National laws to provide civil unions with equal rights to marriage. So why no simple allow gays to enter the institution of marriage, instead?
Skookum 98:
Just because there is no historical precedent does not mean the there shouldn’t be.
Skookum
Are you kidding me. Your primative social anthropology lacks evidence for the best way to conduct a modern society.
@tadcf (#98):
You state:
It’s not all that “cumbersome.” A very simple law needs to be passed: The creation of a new social institution, to be called anything but marriage, which has all the rights and responsibilities of marriage, but which applies to the new social institution of same gender “——” (insert new name).
See my prior statements: #s 96,70,49,28
- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
Skookum:
Don’t worry, I’m sure after your monologue about your own masculinity and MMA experience, I’m sure no one will ever mistake you for a “homo”.
There is such a thing as a minority imposing their will on the majority, just as the majority can impose their will on a minority. Either way, one group abuses the rights of the other, and goes against what I believe in. In this case, the majority was forced to impose their will on the minority due to the threat of opposite action being taken, just as it has been in several NE states.
One can argue against the ‘rights’ of heterosexuals being abused by forcing gay marriage upon society, but when that happens, the views and practices of others, particularly in the religious sense, are forced to change. That is as injurious to a person as punching them in the nose, more so if one sees that by forcing a change upon society of an accepted institution, it changes the entire view of that institution, sometimes to the detriment of that institution.
As has been argued previously, the majority in the country can allow for the civil union of a man/man or woman/woman couple. I don’t think that there is any debate about that. Having said that, the gay groups who push for total victory, meaning the forced acceptance to society of terming their unions as marriages, are merely fighting for the word. It is a dishonest notion to think otherwise.
Compromise does not always mean a capitulation to those who oppose you. Sometimes it means taking what is right about both sides of the issue to reach an understanding. Homosexual groups who ardently fight for couple’s rights similar to heterosexual marriage will find quite a bit of support among those who oppose ‘gay marriage’.
Guess again johngalt.
OLD TROOPER 2: hi
@Offensive Bias: Something can’t be illegal if there is no law against it. Marriage was not in the Massachusetts constitution, so any kind of marriage isn’t illegal. The formally “gay pay” (not sure what that means) who are now leading normal lives could be doing like I mentioned earlier and trying to be straight because they don’t want any more of the name calling like you do and the other stuff but it isn’t natural for them.
“If homosexuality is real and a person is born with it then homosexuals wouldn’t have to indoctrinate children in public schools it would self evident.”
It already is self evident. When a boy or girl are drawn to the same sex as they are growing up, they know there is something different about them, but in today’s society if they let it be known that they have those feelings, they are subjected to name calling, ridicule, violence, and rejection.
“…I use to be a homosexual, now I’m married with three children and there is no looking back.”
I’m curious if you had grown up in a society that accepted people they way they are if you would still be a homosexual or not. We will never know, so I won’t debate it. It’s just something to think about. I wish you and everyone else happiness and success.
@Offensive Bias:
“Marriage was created by God hence the world procreated to the modern point of a 6 billion world population.”
If the gays can’t procreate, then they aren’t adding to the population. It’s us straights that are causing the over population of the planet. Gay marriages that stay true to each other result in ZERO population growth.
Each religion has their own idea of “marriage.” Some require others to decide who marries who, not the ones getting married. Some even allow someone to marry a child.
“Us straight people cannot marry the same sex, nor should homosexuals.”
Am I detecting a hint of, “I wish I could, but if I can’t, then nobody can” here?
@Cary: You’d make a lousy politician. You are making too much sense and taking so little space saying it.
@Cary: You reminded me of couples I have heard about over the years who tried for years to have a baby, gave up, adopted, then had a baby. I ain’t a church goer, but stuff like that makes me wonder.
The judges decision concerning Prop 8 is a travesty not because it allows or doesn’t allow gay marriage. It is atrocious because law is all about words and their meaning. If a judge can change the definition of a word at will, it strikes at the very heart of the US system of jurisprudence.
What is the meaning of is… it’s been all down hill since then.
@Blake:
As promised:
http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/environment/2009/june/Gay-Penguins-in-Germany-Rear-Their-Own-Chick.html
http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/the_gay_animal_kingdom/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUwza5Grxos
Have you ever considered the possibility that nature has a way of balancing itself out against a species that cannot control its own libido, from overpopulating itself? Just my personal theory. The universe has many occurrences within itself that mankind’s intellect cannot explain. Doesn’t mean any of them are inherently wrong.
@openid.aol.com/runnswim:
I responded to your argument as you presented it – full of sweeping generalizations, stereotypes, and backwards thinking. Your stance that acceptance of homosexuality would be confusing to children is nonsense. Children are naturally open and accepting until they are taught otherwise. Nearly all gay people were born to, raised, and surrounded by heterosexuals. Encouraging children to accept themselves and others as they are fosters well adjusted growth as human beings, a healthy self esteem and respect for others, which are the true remedies for the problems you bring up – STD’s, promiscuity, as well as the widely believed number one cause for teen suicide. Take away the hidden shame, guilt, and self hatred a kid growing up to realize they are gay has away and these things, to a large extent, have a much greater chance of disappearing. That we already have straight kids in high school befriending and supporting their gay peers is a lot further along than we were even 20 years ago, and I believe we will soon see the benefits, for both gay and straight people, of such acceptance.
Of course, everyone with children gets to decide for themselves how to raise them. That’s how it should be. But nobody should get to decide how other people should live their lives. Your neighbors’ marriage, gay or straight, has no effect on yours whatsoever. Of course, this point is very difficult to convey within a society that believes that we are entitled to be privy to the intimate details of another person’s life simply because they’re on television. We tend to like sticking our noses into other peoples’ business, and then reacting as if it were our own. Perhaps we’d blossom more if we tended our own gardens.
@johngalt:
Nobody ultimately gets their way in this country without the support of the US Constitution. So I’m actually not too worried about the long run.
@Smorgasbord:
Thank you, I appreciate that. I’ve already spent more time on this than I originally intended. One endlessly repetitive debate that goes nowhere per week should be more than enough for me! At this point, I think I should rest my case and tend to things that needed to be done a week ago. All the best to you.
50% of heterosexual marriages now end in divorce. Maybe heterosexuals are worried that married gay people may have a lower divorce rate and make them look bad.
@cary
I can’t respond to the above. Please tell me what is a sweeping generalization, and I’ll respond. Please tell me what you consider to be a stereotype, and I’ll respond. Please tell me what you consider to be backward thinking, and I’ll respond. The above statement is not an argument, it is an insult.
What is confusing to children is that the traditional concept that marriage, which is based on fidelity is no different from the new idea of gay marriage, which is based, as I have referenced, on “openness.” Traditional marriage is a big F***ing deal, because it involves a vow on the same order of magnitude as a vow of celibacy. It involves a vow of commitment. And the reality of the institution largely matches the ideal. Gay “marriage” is a new age concept. It’s OK to have multiple partners, as long as you are honest about it with your spouse. Your suggestion that we simply encourage children to be themselves is no more the answer to promiscuity and STDs than it is to the problem of substance abuse.
What you can’t seem to grasp is that male/female marriage is not a partnership of biological equals, as in the case of male/male and female/female partnerships. Men really are different from women. Marriage imposes rules which make the relationship much more equal. These rules allow both parties in the relationship to have an equal degree of security. What works for gay “marriage” (I’m going to coin a new term and call it “joinage,” with the verb being “to join,” the past participle of which is “joined,” to refer to same sex unions analogous to marriage). Marriage almost always requires fidelity in order to succeed; joinage, it would appear, does not require fidelity for success. Marriage is, therefore, fundamentally different than joinage and therefore should not share the same name.
That’s a straw man argument. I agree with absolutely everything in the above paragraph.
Agreed.
Agreed; point being???
At the level of the individual, I agree. At the level of society, neither you nor anyone else currently has the data to make this assertion!!
I earlier gave the example of the movie Sex in the City II. There is an enormous amount of creative talent in Hollywood which is strongly influenced by gay culture. SITC II depicted a gay wedding in which one of the newlyweds was asked how on earth he could be faithful. He winked and said that his vows were only operative in the state where the ceremony took place.
One can easily imagine future sitcoms depicting not the currently sanitized versions of gay marriage which are now presented (e.g. Brothers and Sisters), but also the reality, as presented in the New York Times article I referenced in #96. After all, it would make for some very entertaining television. So straight men become influenced by this. Hey, it works so well in gay marriage, why don’t we run our marriage this way, honey? As I wrote before, the male/female relationship is inherently unequal; one of the important purposes of marriage is to impose rules which equalize the relationship. I think anyone with the capability of seeing more than one move ahead in a chess game can see where this is going.
So let gays tend to their own gardens. Develop their new institution of “joinage” as they see fit, in a way which suits them. Do not co-opt a cherished institution which has worked so well for the overwhelming majority of the world’s people, for the long history of American and Western civilization.
- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
@Greg. That’s incredibly misleading. It includes people with multiple divorces. In point of fact, the average first marriage endures for more than 20 years and, during that time, there is an average of only 0-1 sexual encounters outside of the marriage. There is simply no way to deny that the institution of traditional marriage has, until now, been a resounding societal success.
I wrote out a detailed reply to Cary’s #111 attack advertisement (as contrasted with
thoughtful debate), but it was kicked out as spam. I am hopeful that it will be eventually dug out of spam and posted.
- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
@openid.aol.com/runnswim:
I saw it before it disappeared. I’m glad we’re starting to get on the same page, but if you’re going to perpetuate the stereotype of gay men as you do, using a movie as your reference, is it too much to ask that you use one that wasn’t as poorly received as Sex in the City II? I mean seriously! Perhaps you could try Brokeback Mountain or Broken Hearts Club…
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0388795/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0222850/
(now, THAT’S advertising…)
Thanks again for the discussion.
As always Skookum; a great thread!
I have much to say on this topic, but will try to only make the points that have not already been made by others. Firstly, I wasn’t surprised that the vote of 7 million was overturned by “judicial activism”; welcome to the new America! I personally gave up countless weekends collecting signatures to get Prop 8 on the ballot. It was a long road, with many hurdles, and this is just one more bump in the road. But I’m afraid Larry is right; the next generation clearly doesn’t “get it”, and they will be the ones who will pay the biggest price, as society has no chance of survival without the cohesion of family and at least some sense of fidelity within marriage.
For any who feel that the homosexuals were treated unfairly by Prop 8, this is clearly not the case. Prop 8 said absolutely NOTHING about BANNING gay marriage, or anything at all “anti-gay.” It merely defined what marriage is, a union between a man and women, period! Civil Unions have been legal in CA for some time now, we have our “Gay Days” in schools (albeit no “special days” for heterosexuals), as well as our gay parades (again, no heterosexual special parades), and countless other examples where a case could actually be made for discrimination against the heterosexual.
But then, how odd is it that anyone of us would want to be defined by our sexual orientation? Aren’t we more than that? Of course we are, which is why the whole movement has absolutely nothing do with equal rights. It’s clearly a far left progressive movement to bring down the family, which subsequently will bring down Amercia. One even has to wonder how many of them even realize that they are being used as useful idiots, only to be thrown under the bus when mission accomplished.
Seuk made a good point about the communist’s infusion of gay men into the Catholic Church. T here is sworn testimony on record of this fact, with Bella Dodd admitting personally to recruiting at least a thousand. Needless to say, this was quite a few decades ago, with perfect timing to the average age of the sexual abuse crisis within the church, of which 90% guilty were also homosexual men. I’m not at all trying to make excuses for the filth within the Catholic Church, just putting some sense to it.
Even more interesting, the MSM will never address it as a “homosexual” problem when the facts clearly indicate otherwise. FYI, the abuse rate is almost non-existent today (less than 10 reported cases this past year), but one could say that the communist plan indeed worked, as the Catholic Church has never, at least in my lifetime, been weaker in its authority, and that was the goal!
One must understand that the last big elephant in the room is the Catholic Church, and only when it is fully undermined, will the last card fall. Timing should be just about right with the demise of religious authority and the next generation, for the long awaited communist takeover. For all who think the church doesn’t matter, I assure you it matters much, simply because no authentic Judeo/Christian nation could possibly spiral into a ‘family less’ moral relativistic hell, which is surely where gay ‘marriage’ will take us.
Another thing no one mentioned is NARTH, and the work of Dr. Joseph Nicolosi. The big secret few know is that the American Psychiatric Society years ago made the decision (one can only guess under what influence), to dismiss any possibility of psychological factors, let only “reversals” of homosexual behavior. The fact remains, that with proper therapy, many once ‘homosexual’ men have been healed to normal, including normal lifestyles void of homosexual urges. For all who claimed to be so tolerant and compassionate, how can we keep our gay friends and family without any hope? For any who want to read about some fascinating work, take a look, as I doubt you will see it published anywhere else.
http://www.narth.com/menus/positionstatements.html
While it’s not a cure for all, many men have been helped and have gone on to live much happier (and heterosexual), lives.
Lastly I just wanted to say to Gaffe and the others who thing religion has “nothing to do with this”, that you are clearly misguided and would at least ask you to consider the following.
From the book of Genesis, marriage was made known. Not only is it relative to the first words of Divine Revelation, but the entire bible is about “the wedding”, with the Song of Songs, (often a misunderstood book, albeit the favorite of all the great mystics), exactly in the middle of Scripture . In the Song of Songs, God is calling us to a courtship of sorts (preparing us for the ultimate, ‘wedding’. Moving along to the New Testament, the first public miracle of Jesus was at a WEDDING (not insignificant). Lastly, the Book of Revelation is the ultimate ‘wedding’, where, when it’s all said and down, the faithful live in spiritual ‘marital bliss’ with God ( the spouse) , for all eternity.
I’m not going to get into a big bible discussion, only wanted to make the point, that biblically, at least from the Catholic interpretation, marriage is not only important, it’s the goal, with “earthly marriage”, between a man and a women, being highly significant not only in the economy of salvation, but in the survival of a nation.
Lastly, everyone is entitled to their opinion, but in conclusion, here’s mine. We are in perilous times, as a country and as a society. We already have soft tyranny, a government who disregards the constitution and the will of the people, along with increasing moral relativism.
Nothing will destroy a culture faster than Godlessness, as Godless cultures simply and predictably, destroy themselves. Nothing will take us faster down the downward spiral than ‘gay marriage’. For those who can’t relate spiritually, at least consider the fact that maybe “going against nature” just might have its consequences.
My prediction: Eventually the last moral voice of authority, the Catholic Church, will be underground. Once the damage is done, and the gays are “used up”, they will be outcasted, with their only hope of refuge being the remaining underground remnant of the Catholic Church. What they see as “Catholic intolerance” today will be tomorrow’s “misunderstood love.” The family will be totally destroyed, consequently, the America many of us knew and loved will be no more. All because of one judge? Hardly, any more than it was about ‘equal rights’.
As old Abe Lincoln often warned, “If destruction be our lot, we will have done it to ourselves.”
This is a fascinating interview by a psychologist in LA who’s clinic works with 135 cases a week of gays who want to be normal; IMO, worth the time to take a listen.
http://www.josephnicolosi.com/videos2/
Guess I should’ve included But I’m a Cheerleader on my list…
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0179116/
pdill: thank you for your excellent comment; your views on this subject reflect the many
peoples’s views who could not voice so well as you. bye
openid aol.com/runnswim: hi, I also want to mention of how many young children are being pursued by degenerate homosexsuels who have a tendency for using youngster in their fantasy,
it’s too bad that many will seduce thoses young boys, and altering their life which will be of shame and many will ruin their life because of having known perversion from an adult homosexsual,
because of that, they should take another name than the marriage name as now the judge
agree to that union, it give thoses couple the right to adopt childrens who would learn mostly their sexsual way and ruin the young judgement for his future life. bye
@ilovebeeswarzone:
The equation of homosexuality to pedophilia is an old myth at best. Homosexuals are no more or less disposed to child molestation than heterosexuals. I’m not going to get into it further, but here’s an article for you to peruse….
http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/facts_molestation.html
John Galt:
(Responses to John Galt marked by > below)
You seem to believe that the more you write, the more evidence you are developing to make your case. Or, that the more you write, perhaps you might stumble on an argument that make sense. Unfortunately, neither is the case. Verbosity does not equal truth. By eliminating all your repetition, you can reduce all this volume of words to a few short arguments—let me show you:
1. Claiming an objection to a group, or certain group, as being against this does not give you support for it. Are you trying to encourage feelings of guilt for opposing gay marriage by relating someone’s opposition to it with the ‘fundamentalist’ christians? Muslims most likely oppose it even more vehemently than them, yet I don’t see you using Islam as your chosen attack target.”
>No, I’m saying that the arguments against gay marriage is based on religious tenets with which not all people agree, or at least, most are willing to maintain as a private issue . Fundamentalist Christians, e.g., Christians who believe in the Bible as the inerrant word of God, are in the forefront of this opposition to gay marriage. Their main reason is that it says it’s wrong in the Bible. The reason I am not targeting Fundamentalist Muslims is because the are not involved in this fight. But, thanks for the pschoanalysis of my motivations for making this argument.
2. It does infringe on a person’s chosen religion when society is forced to adopt the changing of accepted definition of what marriage constitutes. It’s not the action of the homosexual unions that most people are against. There is a difference, and it does affect other people’s lives.”
>It used to be the the definition of marriage, by law, didn’t include inter-color mixing of whites—not with Japanese, Filipinos, Negroes, etc, in America. Was their inclusion into the definition of marriage law an infringement or extension upon anyone’s rights. History also shows Fundamentalist Christians as being of the forefront of these racially biased exclusion of human rights too, in addition to women’s sufferage..
3. Are you attempting to equate slavery with the traditional, accepted definition of marriage? It doesn’t work, as one(slavery) infringed on other’s rights, while the other does not. There is no case you can claim that by disallowing a civil union of gays to be termed a marriage has infringed on someone’s civil rights. On the other hand, as I stated above and do so again, you infringe on people’s religious rights by forcing a change in the accepted definition of an institution that has been around as long as marriage has.
>No, I’m saying that your appeal to “tradition based on many millenia” is flawed. If you going to base an argument on tradition, then you’re obliged to extend that argument to everything that has a millenia of tradition. Oh, and slavery isn’t limited to black slavery in the American experience—slavery has existed since the beginning of time. Yes, slavery infringed on a minorities’ rights—the slaves—banning gay marriage infringes upon a minorities’ rights—gays.
4. Again with trying to equate this issue with those civil rights issues of blacks. It’s not even close to being the same thing. Never mind your misguided relating of the ‘right-wing’ to opposition of black’s civil rights. That is a whole other topic.
>Just a repetition of what you’ve said before.
5. Again, show me a case of religious ‘rights’ of someone that has trampled on the rights of gays seeking legal recognition of their union to another. If you are talking about disallowing any such union to occur, then I agree that it has happened. If you are talking about disallowing that union to be termed a ‘marriage’, then it has not. As for ‘emotive language’, I don’t see how you can say it doesn’t have any place in a rational discussion, as it is descriptive and paints a visual interpretation to reinforce a point.
>Maybe this statement makes sense to those who agree with you, but you have to be clearer if you intend to argue with anyone else. But, I’ll try, based on what I think you mean: The current court case on Proposition 8 is a result of infringement on gay marriage—that’s an example of what I think you asked for. I do not use ‘loaded’ words like ‘trampled’ because it is emotive and rhetorical. Emotive statements are commonly excluded from rational discourse—do your understand what ‘emotive statements’ are? Rationality is opposed to emotionality, and, as such, is a rational discussion is supposed to be devoid of emotional content. But, I don’t know about your rules, if you can win an argument by calling it stupid (see next comment).
6. It wasn’t a name, and it wasn’t directed at your beliefs. It is an adjective referring to your comment about smaller government. I just as easily could have said it was ’silly’, or ’stupid’, or ‘foolish’ in describing that comment.
>Do you understand that all of these are derogatory comments and have no place in rational discussion? Only on a right-wing site do you win an argument by call another or their idea stupid, or foolish, or silly.
(continuation of John Galt’s comment #6) Your original comment: “For people who say they want smaller and less government, they sure try their best to expand it.”
(misc. unnumbered statements by John Galt) If you use ‘civil union’ as the term defining a legal, committed relationship of gays, you do not grow government (unless the law is written badly, I can give you that). It does nothing more than allow the government to legally term those relationships depending on what term is used. This is not an issue where smaller government, nor the growing of it, comes in to play.
>Oh great, first you’re a psychologist, and now you’re a lawyer. In order to give gays all the same rights under civil unions, as they would have under current marriage laws, you would have to re-legislate so many State and Federal laws that that task by itself, let alone legal changes and enforcement in municipal and local laws, that it would be a create of larger government bureaucracy just to accomplish it. In reality, by proposing a separate but equal institution to accommodate gays to enter into a relationship equal to marriage, you’re actually creating a new, shadow institution, which must mirror marriage, instead of just including all people in an old one. You’ve got to think about these things.
Clear enough for ya’?
>But is it clear enough to you?
(misc. unnumbered statement by John Galt) Much clearer, and pointed, than your comment at
#30, particularly this:
They were against extending the rights to vote to women and the rights to anything to people of different races other than Caucasians, and now the are against the rights to marriage for gay people.
The argument is on the terming of homosexual unions, not the actual ‘act’ of it, hence my
descriptive of your sentence as ‘rambling rhetoric’.
>I think you call it rhetoric because you don’t understand English. Again your comment here is
just repetitious and specious. .
(misc. unnumbered statement by John Galt) ‘Fundamental’ christians, along with orthodox jews and fundamentalist muslims, are against homosexuality in and of itself, never mind the allowance of gay ‘marriages’. ‘Fundamental’ christianity is not the mainstream among christian sects of the religion generally, although it depends on where you live. For example, those in the southeast are much more likely to be baptists or evangelicals, and are more closely related to what is termed ‘fundamental’ christianity. Those in the NE are much more likely to observe catholicism or protestantism, which do not fall under the ‘fundamentalist’ category. One can see why you chose that which you did though. It’s kind of like using ‘emotive’ language in that it paints a picture to go along with the words and reinforce one’s opinions and thoughts based on the ideas presented, but in your case, it is used wrongly and attempts to equate all who oppose within the ‘fringe’ or ‘extremist’ elements.
>This entire last paragraph is just repetitious and possibly a of lack of religious knowledge general, and political influence in particular. Fundamentalist Christians are not just, nor necessarily mostly, in the south. I agree that Fundamentalism objects to both gays and gay marriage. Mormons are Fundamentalists, and they are everywhere in the country. Presbyterians may be considered Fundamentalists—and their province knows no geographical boundaries. Pentacostals, Evangelicals, Minnonites, and even many Catholics, and others, may be considered Fundamentalists. A lot of adherents of different Christian religions are Fundamentalists, in the sense of believing that the literal interpretation of the Bible is the inerrant word of God. The rest are liberal religious people, because they have an interpretation of the Bible which is not literal, are considered mainstream, and probably have little opposition to gay marriage. But, I think you’re trying to say that since Fundamentalist Christians are in the minority and not mainstream, they can have little to do with public policy. However, although estimates of their number is only 30 million, they had a big effect in the election of George Bush, for example. Plus, have a loud voice and can sway a lot of borderline Christians to their opinion through fear and hate. An example of this attitude can be seen in the words of Pat Robertson, was heard on the 700 Club saying these things on 5-18-93 and 8/6/98:
“I have known few homosexuals who did not practice their tendencies. Such people are sinning against God and will lead to the ultimate destruction of the family and our nation. I am unalterably opposed to such things, and will do everything I can to restrict the freedom of these people to spread their contagious infection to the youth of this nation.”
“If the widespread practice of homosexuality will bring about the destruction of your nation, if it will bring about terrorist bombs, if it’ll bring about earthquakes, tornadoes and possibly a meteor, it isn’t necessarily something we ought to open our arms to.”
Now, please, if you’re going to respond to my comment, use a little economy of words. I don’t particularly like reading tomes, and taking the time to separate the relevant from the irrelevant.
tadcf: hi, HERE something for you, YOU GOT TO BE KIDDING, all in one line. bye
ilovebees…
Now what would I be kidding you about?
@49 Larry
I suspect the overlap is 100%. Scratch the surface of those who say they are not homophobes and ‘pure’ defenders of traditional marriage and you will get plenty of homophobic replies (e.g. see this thread!)
lol – never going to work ot be accepted. If it’s the same then why have a different name? The thing is – that if it is different then it will be treated differently as people who have civil unions have found. Currently there are legal difference between marriage and civil unions.
A war? Maybe against bigots – but I think you over exaggerate the whole thing.
@54 Aye
Such a weak argument. If there is a groundwell from millions of americans who want to marry their own daughter or their horse then let them fight for that and see where they get. Simply ridiculous reason to deny a sizable minority the ability to marry who’s crime it is to be gay. Fortunately you are on the wrong side on this one in terms of how western society is progressing.
@JohnGalt
And if you are not religious?
@pdill
Using Genesis as a historically account of reality? lol – good luck with that one. Shame even Genesis can’t be consistent on happened.
@113 Larry
Your views are shaped by a Sex and the City movie?
What else in life should we bar people from doing things based on stats?
I think some of you on here should have it that marriage should only be for virgins, only happen once (no remarriage), only happen to those who are religious, void if either party breaks their vows and only happen to those who can have and intend to have children naturally. That way at least you will be consistent with some of the plainly obvious prejudices against gay people – who are apparently pedophiles who unable to faithful to their partner. I no doubt some of the opinions here echo the same reasons why people were against interracial marriage at the time.
Fortunately whatever gay people do in terms of being able to marry or not doesn’t effect my marriage one iota. I married a woman not some inflexible institution.
@GaffaUK:
I’m not sure that Aye was asking those questions for any other reason but to gauge on what basis the person he addressed stood.
I do find it interesting that pdill would assert that Prop 8 wasn’t about an anti gay sentiment, when its entire purpose was exclusionary, and then advocate the “rehabilitation” of homosexuals.
[sarc]I’m not sure how anyone could be restored to something they weren’t in the first place, but I’m sure there’s no anti-gay sentiment there…[/sarc]
Articles comparing the similarities between the arguments againsts gay marriage to those used against interracial marriage…
http://www.law.virginia.edu/html/news/2004_fall/forde.htm
http://hnn.us/articles/4708.html
@openid.aol.com/runnswim:
I missed this one before…
Reread my comment. I said nothing about “being yourself” as the answer to these problems, but that SELF ACCEPTANCE AND RESPECT FOR OTHERS is. I hope I don’t have to explain this further, as it should be evident.
@Gaffa(#125)
You made two comments, concerning my earlier comments:
#1
#2
These are superficial rejoinders. You choose to ignore entirely the substance of my arguments in the both of these rejoinders.
Let’s take the first. The Sex in the City II movie is simply a useful example, from popular culture, of a very important point, discussed in #s 96 and #113. Here’s a more formal reference (from #96), which you chose not to note:
The gay view of marriage is different from the traditional view.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/29/us/29sfmetro.html?_r=1
With respect to why this is important, I’m not going to repeat the prior explanations. The point is that gay “joinage” will, indeed, threaten the institution of traditional marriage, for reasons I explained.
With respect to the second quote – let’s just say that I utterly detest this type of debate tactic. Argue against an Israeli tactic in Gaza and you are an anti-Semite. Argue against the Iraq War, and you are un-American, or, at least a “Bush hater.” Criticize Charles Rangel, and you are a racist. Take the position that border security should be the first step in comprehensive immigration reform, and you are anti-immigrant/anti-Mexican. Take the position that the Ten Commandments shouldn’t be displayed in a public courthouse, and you are anti-Religious. Support health care reform, and you are pro-abortion. Vote for Barack Obama, and you are a socialist Marxist. And dare to suggest that there may, in fact, be harmful consequences in official government sanction of same sex “marriage” and you are a homophobe.
It is the debate tactic of the intellectually bankrupt.
- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
@Gaffa(#125)
I just replied to you, but it went to spam. @#$%^&*
@Cary (#128)
I read your earlier comment as implying that society contributed to promiscuity and STDs by stigmatizing gay ideation, gay sex, gay lifestyle, and, in the present context, lack of official government sanction of gay “marriage.” My comment was that the solution to promiscuity and STDs was akin to the solution to substance abuse, which has little or nothing to do with societal acceptance or non-acceptance.
- Larry Weisenthal
@openid.aol.com/runnswim:
Actually my comments were quite clear as to what I think, and your dishonest, embellished portrayal of them doesn’t change that. However, I will submit that a healthy self esteem is also the most effective remedy for substance abuse, as well as self abuse such as promiscuity and unsafe sex (which does not automatically or anyway near include all gay sex or “lifestyle” (what the heck is a “gay lifestyle” anyway? Gays pursue equally as diverse lives as straight people…) . Yet you continue offensive stereotyping to make your point.
As to the “study” you cite, I know not a single gay man who has ever been interviewed on this topic, do you? Perhaps if the interviews were conducted near the Rambles of Central Park, I could certainly understand such conclusions. Very narrow and beneath you to take stock in. Almost as ludicrous as using a “bubble gum” movie to back your assertions.
But you prove Gaffa’s points with your replies, which can easily be characterized as homophobic and exaggerated, and way beneath how you otherwise portray yourself. I’m done with you on this.
@Cary:
You now write:
“Actually my comments were quite clear as to what I think, and your dishonest, embellished portrayal of them doesn’t change that. However, I will submit that a healthy self esteem is also the most effective remedy for substance abuse, as well as self abuse such as promiscuity and unsafe sex (which does not automatically or anyway near include all gay sex or “lifestyle” (what the heck is a “gay lifestyle” anyway? Gays pursue equally as diverse lives as straight people…) . Yet you continue offensive stereotyping to make your point. But you prove Gaffa’s points with your replies, which can easily be characterized as homophobic and exaggerated, and way beneath how you otherwise portray yourself. I’m done with you on this.<>Encouraging children to accept themselves and others as they are fosters well adjusted growth as human beings, a healthy self esteem and respect for others, which are the true remedies for the problems you bring up – STD’s, promiscuity, as well as the widely believed number one cause for teen suicide.<>Your suggestion that we simply encourage children to be themselves is no more the answer to promiscuity and STDs than it is to the problem of substance abuse.<>I read your earlier comment as implying that society contributed to promiscuity and STDs by stigmatizing gay ideation, gay sex, gay lifestyle, and, in the present context, lack of official government sanction of gay “marriage.” My comment was that the solution to promiscuity and STDs was akin to the solution to substance abuse, which has little or nothing to do with societal acceptance or non-acceptance.”
My "embellishment" was simply an attempt to further explain to you the way the I read the meaning of what you wrote, above.
Note that your exact quote was, once again:
"Encouraging children to accept themselves and others as they are fosters well adjusted growth as human beings, a healthy self esteem and respect for others, which are the true remedies for the problems you bring up – STD’s, promiscuity, as well as the widely believed number one cause for teen suicide.”
You state the encouraging children to accept themselves makes them well adjusted which, in turn, is the remedy for STDs and promiscuity (I did not myself raise the issue of teen suicide and so did not discuss this).
You directly accused me of dishonesty. Unlike you, I sign my own name to these posts and I therefore have a reputation to protect. I ask you to explain anything in my discussions with you which is in any way “dishonest.”
With respect to the remainder of your comments — you, like Gaffa, are unable to give a specific example of ANYTHING in ANY of my responses which are either “homophobic” or “exaggerated,” yet you have no hesitation in smearing me with the term “homophobic” and in, again, attacking my integrity with your claim of exaggeration.
Please tell me — specifically — which comment(s) you find to be “homophobic” or “exaggerated,” and then we can have a serious discussion.
But I suspect that you have no interest in having a serious discussion. Your defense of gay marriage comes down simply to the point of view that one cannot possibly have voted (as I did) in favor of Proposition 8 without being a homophobe. I carefully explain a point of view and you don’t specifically challenge any of the points I made and discussed.
In the end, all that you can do is to shout “dishonest, exaggerated, homophobe.”
Like gaffa, you should also go and have a nice day.
- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
@Larry
Sorry but denying gay people the option that they can marry because they are seen or are more likely to break their marriage vows is homophobic in my opinion because you are tarring all gay people with the same brush.
Q. If you are so concerned that people should keeping their wedding vows they do you support a ban on remarriage (particularly if one partner strayed)?
Q. Apparently black men are more likely to cheat on their partners than white men – do you support and think that would be a socially acceptable reason to deny black men the ability to marry?
Q.If lesbians were less likely to cheat than black men – would you allow them to marry but not black men?
Your argument is morally bankrupt. I haven’t heard a reasonable reason why gay men cannot marry which hasn’t been homophobic – religious or otherwise.
For instance – whether Elizabeth Taylor has married 8 times or Britney Spears marriage lasted 5 minutes has no effect on my marriage – in the same way if Elton John got marrie’ has no effect on my marriage. There have been plenty of heterosexuals who can be accused of corroding the ‘institution’ marriage but most of us aren’t bothered by that – we just get on with life. If a marriage is a consensual agreement between two adults I have no problem with it.
@Cary: I’m going to show how far behind the times I usually am by asking what a “bubble gum movie” is.
@gaffa
I am not “denying gay people the option that they can marry.” I am saying that the nature of gay “marriage” is demonstrably different from the nature of conventional marriage. Conventional marriage is based in fidelity. As I wrote, the average first marriage endures more than two decades and, during this time, the average number of extramarital sex partners averages 0 to 1. In contrast, 50% of same sex couples have sex outside of the “marriage” within the first two years. According to the study quoted in the New York Times article, same sex couples do not view fidelity as being nearly as important within the marriage as do opposite sex (traditional) couples.
The threat to traditional marriage is exactly as I described. My popular culture reference, which you criticized (SITC II movie), is just the tip of the ice berg of what we’ll see in the future, regarding the trivialization of fidelity as being a bedrock component of marriage. Right now, there are largely timid (and highly idealized) portrayals of gay marriage in popular culture (example previously given of the American TV series “Brothers and Sisters” (which won awards from gay organizations for their favorable portrayal of gay marriage). Eventually, there will be portrayals of the reality of “open” gay marriages. “Open” marriage, among straights, does occur, but it is very uncommon and rarely successful. But there will inevitably be a lot more gay marriages portrayed in TV and movies and there will be (often favorable) portrayal of the open marriage aspect of it.
Infidelity is portrayed in TV and movies about traditional marriages, obviously, but this is never glamorized — I can’t think of a single situation in which marital infidelity was portrayed in a favorable light in any TV show or movie (or country/western song, for that matter). The reality of infidelity in straight marriage is most often heartbreak and worse. The New York Times article actually touted the gay marriage model as being the potential salvation of the institution of traditional marriage. If only straight couples viewed this the way gays do, the article stated. Don’t get uptight if your partner has sex outside of the marriage. Have an “open” marriage. Just be honest about it and everything will be OK.
This is ALREADY happening (e.g. as in the SITC II example and in the NYT article). Once gay marriage is established as an institution, the gay alternative to traditional marriage (i.e. “openness,” coupled with honesty about the outside the marriage sex) will be increasingly offered up as a more glamorous and more successful way to run a marriage.
What will then happen is also inevitable. As I also wrote, male/female relationships are inherently much more unequal than male/male or male/female relationships. The firm “rules” of traditional marriage levels the playing field and offers security to both individuals (and to their children). I can readily see that the concept of “open” marriage would be welcomed by a great many individuals in a traditional marriage — most often men. Pressure will be put on the other partner — most often women — to go along with it. The reason “open” relationships work for gays is that both partners are typically on the same page, in wanting the variety, and have equal opportunities to find and partake of this variety. This is not at all the way it is in a male/female marriage.
What’s also wrong with the “openness,” besides the heartache? STDs. A huge benefit to society is the fact that traditional marriage dramatically lowers the reservoir of STDs circulating in the community by permanently taking huge numbers of people out of sexual circulation. Gays comprise only 2% of the population and, yet, contribute enormously to the circulation of STDs. Turn just 10% of traditional marriages into “open” marriages and there will be an explosion of STDs.
Getting back to my first statement, no, I’m not for “denying” gay people the opportunity to marry. I’m saying, look, the way that gay people themselves view marriage is different from the way that straight people view it. A man marrying a man (or a woman marrying a woman) is obviously different from a man marrying a woman. So let’s have equal rights and equal responsibilities but just call them by different names. It would be such a small concession for gay marriage supporters to make, but it would, by itself, lead to overwhelming support and acceptance. Then, when popular culture starts to have more and more depictions of “joinage” (my suggestion for what same sex unions could be called; again with precisely the same rights and responsibilities as in the case of opposite sex unions), it will be clear that the ostensibly advanced concept of “open” relationships is something which is prevalent and often accepted in the new institution of same sex unions, while remaining a taboo in traditional marriage.
Don’t go twisting my words. What I did was to state some objective facts. 1. The typical traditional (straight) first marriage endures for more than two decades, with only 0 to 1 sexual partners outside the marriage. 2. In at least 50% of gay marriages, there is extramarital sex within the first two years of the marriage. 3. In straight marriage, out of marriage sex is virtually always viewed as a betrayal and as a tragedy for the marriage itself. It is precisely because of this attitude that extramarital sex is so relatively rare. 4. In gay marriage, out of marriage sex is more typically viewed in a much more casual light. 5. In popular culture, the concept of open marriage has never been glamorized (note to cinema buffs: can you think of an example in which this has been done?). 6. In popular culture, the concept of open marriage has already been glamorized (e.g SITC II), and this will obviously be an increasingly common occurrence in future story lines.
Now, what individual couples choose to do, should one person “not keep their wedding vows,” is entirely up to the couple in question, straight or gay. That’s not the issue. And your (rhetorical, I hope) question regarding a ban on remarriage is beyond silly.
Traditional marriage is based on a bedrock of fidelity. I looked for stats to confirm or refute your assertion. Here’s what I found. If you don’t agree, supply your own statistics, along with a source.
Black men are only slightly less likely to remain faithful to their wives, over the course of their marriage, than are white men:
Race Cheated N
White 20.0% 2575
Black 32.5% 268
Hispanic 21.6% 102
Asian* 17.7% 96
Nat. Am. 19.4% 31
Note that 80% of whites, Asians, Hispanics, Native Americans remain faithful, over the course of the marriage. This is pretty darn good. Even among blacks, it’s 68%, which is also pretty darn good. What percent of gays do you think will remain faithful, over 20 years (not just over the first two years). Give me an honest estimate.
The average gay male in a so called “committed” (but non-married) relationship has 5 to 6 sex partners per year, outside of the relationship. This degree of infidelity is simply not tolerated among straight, unmarried couples (or the relationship tends to be over, as soon as the infidelities are discovered). In marriage, infidelity is an enormous taboo, to the great benefit of the opposite spouse, to the children, and to society at large (by dramatically reducing the disease reservoir).
Gay attitudes toward fidelity are discordant from straight attitudes. Gay attitudes toward fidelity spill over to marriage, according to the study quoted in the New York Times. Again, different attitudes, institution of a different character; just give it a different name.
Lesbians should definitely be allowed to have their own institution, with the same rights and responsibilities of traditional marriage, but called by a different name. The New York Times article specifically includes lesbians in the new age attitude toward marital fidelity, by the way.
Anyway, there are many other reasons (which I explained earlier) for giving same sex unions their own name, than because of the vastly different attitude toward fidelity as being a bedrock component of the institution.
.
You may not agree with my reasons, but they have everything to do with a genuine concern/fear for what gay marriage will eventually do to the institution of traditional marriage and nothing whatsoever to do with homophobia.
What you are citing are extreme individual anecdotes and not a general attitude, and you are defining success in marriage as lifelong commitment, which is not how I or most people would define it. Marriage is not a perfect institution, precisely because people are not perfect. Many of us do make “mistakes,” of one sort or another (a “mistake” often being that at which you get caught, while it’s not a “mistake,’ if you don’t get caught). But marriage is an undeniably successful institution, which serves both individuals and society in beneficial ways. Most important are the traditional rules of marriage, which are, indeed, observed in most marriages, and which level the playing field between inherently unequal partners of opposite sexes. The rules of traditional marriage were codified by millennia of human experience and they exist because they have been proven to work.
It’s very obvious to me (and, I’m sure, to you, if you think about it and are honest about it) that the rules of gay marriage, as it develops over time will, in fact, be different, in important ways, from those of traditional marriage, because male/male relationships and female/female relationships are obviously different from male/female relationships.
There is no reason to co-opt an existing, proven, treasured institution, developed to meet the needs of male/female relationships and, once co-opted, begin to change that institution to meet the needs of same gender relationships, with, I am certain, severe collateral damage to the institution of traditional marriage.
- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
@GaffaUK:
Such presumptuous assumptions you make.
First, you’ll notice that there was a series of questions in #54.
Second, you’ll notice that the person that they were addressed to didn’t answer them.
Third, you’ll notice that you didn’t answer the questions either.
So, if you’d like to engage me on this issue, start by answering the questions and we’ll go from there.
openid aol.com/runswim: hi, IT does’nt bother you to know of unions of homosexsuels,
because you and other adult have their judgement formed enough to make your mind adjust to it:
BUT if we say, the youngs must be protected ,as they are not ready to make a true analisyst
OF witnessing a sort of behavior that naturely is known to be repulsive, and
the young minds mental answers would be “this not normal,and this has been okayed by the authoritys that I am supposed to respect, ” SO IT affect them more than anyone,and they keep their thoughts conceiled from their closes family, adding the problem they are trying to comprehend
SO FOR THEIR PROTECTION, I say to any authority, dont legalyse through marriage, and dont legalyse which is not normal,in order to make it accepted as normal, FOR THE PROTECTION OF CHILDRENS.
@openid.aol.com/runnswim:
Does “Cary” sound like some made up screen name? We’ve both been here long enough for you to know that I am indeed using my real name, which links to exactly who I am. Don’t know why you’d make such an untrue statement, when you most certainly know better, as it has been discussed in the past. Do you even bother to double check your statements before you press send? Are you so used to making that self defensive argument that you forget whom you are addressing?
Or do you feel that you’re such an important person and my own identity and reputation is less significant? (you don’t have to bother answering, I don’t actually care…)
Are you now going to pretend to be offended when I call you dishonest?
I have responded specifically as to which statements of yours I have issues with. For you to feign confusion as to what I’m referring to because I haven’t provided a bulleted list is incredible.
I’ve provided much more than that throughout this entire thread, but you repeat your degrading, stereotypical arguments. Sorry I can’t be all warm and fuzzy in response!
@Smorgasbord:
Sorry! When I say “bubble gum” movie, I’m using a slangish term which refers to something that is meant to be superficial fun and without substance. Larry used a poorly received pop culture movie as “evidence” of how seriously gay couples take their commitments to each other, which pretty much makes my head explode, coming from someone who fancies himself an intellectual worried about his reputation.
@Aye Chihuahua:
I’m guessing they may not have, because I already covered it in comment #20. Of course, they may have different answers, so we’ll just have to wait to hear from them…
@Larry
Well – let’s start with traditional. How you or I define that will probably differ. Marriage like many things differ in time and place.
Not that many generations ago – traditional marriage as dictated by law or social ‘norms’ would probably include the following…
* The bride and groom were virgins
* Divorce was frowned upon and a lot lower
* People couldn’t marry someone of a different colour
* It was done within a church
* Parental permission was needed
* Divorcees werent supposed to remarry
* Only the opposite sex can marry
So I suppose the pre-martial sex addicts, multiple divorcees, atheists, non-conformists and those who cross race boundaries have ruined the party? Or is that the gays fault? Are things better now that we don’t expect rigid perfection as defined by some churches? Certainly I wouldn’t want society to go back to that ‘one-size-fits-all’ stifling mentality thanks.
Apparently Kinsley back in the 50s reported that 50% of men had extramaritial sex.
Desperate Housewives
Greys anatomy
Sopranos
and oh…and how much is heterosexual extramartial affairs glamourized in Sex and the City???
Bandits
Jules et Jim
Paint your Wagon
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
…or just about any ‘traditional’ porn movie.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A9nage_%C3%A0_trois
Saying you can marry but you have to call it ‘joinage’ (!) is not marriage.
Black men according to your stats are 61% more likely to cheat than white men and you call that slight???
Woah – one thing at a time – you seem to be wriggling on this point and just reiterate that you would like gay people to call their marriage by a different name. Let’s go through this one point as it seems it’s the key point you focus on. I see there are figures that 28% of lesbians have affairs outside of their relationship ( google – Blumstein and Schwartz 1983). That is less than black men. Your main point is that gay people should not be able to marry as they are more likely to engage in infidelity. Well on this point it seems lesbians are more likely not to cheat than black men – therefore according to your own criteria – if black men can marry then so should lesbians. Isn’t that true or not?
Put it this way – if a gay couple who have been together for 10 yrs and have been faithful to each other – you would deny them being able to marry whilst you would be fine for a heterosexual person who has already been married and divorced due to being unfaithful? Surely if you are so worried about infidelity – why not target those who have transgressed. Would you turn to the gay couple and say sorry – according to my stats – you’re kind aren’t good enough for marriage. That’s like stopping a black kid entering a store – despite never have stolen anything but allowing a white shoplifter in – purely based on stats. What’s wrong with judging people as individuals and keep government out of such bedroom stats? How is your opinion not discriminatory?
As for open marriages – have a lot at the popularity of swinging in the US. Maybe we should get that banned because it encourages STDs and erodes marriages. Or maybe we should let adults decide for themselves – gay, bi or straight.
CARY: hi, I think you are taking it to personal, the comment dont accuse any one
except the ones who are related to it. bye
@ilovebeeswarzone:
As someone who has people I care deeply about who are affected by this, I do indeed take it personally, and will continue to long after this thread has died. I’m reading stereotypes, stats, and myths being used to justify punishing real live, actual individual human beings. What’s more personal than that?
openid… #113
Yes, marriage has really worked well in this country, with a 50-70% divorce rate.
openid….
Marriage has been a success if what way–maybe as legal prostitution.
In the previous comment, please substitute the word ‘in’ for ‘if’.
@cary (#138)
I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. I have no idea who “Cary” is. Cary Grant? I never said that you’re own identity and reputation aren’t important. I said that I sign my name (and city, and I’m in the white pages and I have a real business and a real family). I’m Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA on each and every post. You are “Cary.” My statement was that it is irresponsible for a person who hides behind the cloak of anonymity to personally defame a person who posts under his own name.
I participated on this blog between about September of 2008 and up to about 6 or so (forget how long) months ago. Over the last 6 months, I haven’t been around. I don’t remember ever engaging before with a “Cary.” I just now Googled “Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach” “Cary” “flopping aces” and I can’t find that I’ve ever engaged with you before this thread.
I just now changed browsers from Safari to Chrome and clicked on “Cary,” and I indeed see that you are a real person. I truly didn’t know this previously. I didn’t actually know before that the red screen names at the beginning of the comments were even clickable. I just now clicked on my own screen name at the top of one of my comments and was astonished to see one of my web sites pop up. I truly had no idea of this, previously!
You called me dishonest. I asked you to tell me precisely where I was being dishonest. I’ll take a lot of shots and let them roll off my back or bounce off my chest. I won’t take character assassination. Tell me where I made a dishonest statement — on this thread or anywhere on the Internet.
You said that I made statements which were dishonest, exaggerated, and/or homophobic. That’s all you said. It was a broad brush, ad hominem attack. You did not ever tell me which specific statement was “dishonest,” which statement was “exaggerated,” or which statement was “homophobic.” You never responded to a prior comment by saying “that statement is dishonest,” and then give me the chance to defend what I said. You never responded to a prior comment by saying “that statement is “exaggerated” or “that statement is homophobic.” I can’t defend myself against an ad hominem charge. I can defend myself against a specific charge.
I made an honest mistake, in my last post to you, relating to me referring to you as an anonymous commenter. This was obviously not an intentional lie, as it was instantly refutable, as you illustrated. I do make mistakes, and when these are pointed out, I acknowledge them, as I’m now doing on the issue of your identity.
I ask you again. 1. Please tell me which, if any, statements I made which were “dishonest.” 2 Please tell me which, if any, statements I made which were “exaggerated.” 3. Please tell me which, if any, statements I made which were “homophobic.”
I made a specific charge against you (that you posted anonymously). This allowed you to refute my claim. I ask you for the same courtesy in being specific.
Quoting me, you say:
And then go on to say:
I’m not asking you to be warm and fuzzy. I’m asking you to be specific. Where have I been dishonest? Where have I exaggerated? Where have I been homophobic?
- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
openid…#135
Please list the collateral damages–and document the reasons–that you expect gay marriage to have on the instiution of marriage.
The average first marriage in the USA endures for more than two decades, and in 80% of the time there is fidelity over the course of the marriage, meaning that an enormous segment of the sexually active population is taken out of the reservoir of potential carriers of sexually transmitted diseases, such as HIV, hepatitis, HPV, HSV, chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis. Two decades is also long enough to raise children to physical maturity. Traditional marriage is, by any measure, a resounding success.
What does it matter that Al and Tipper Gore are calling it quits after 40 years of being together and supporting each other and raising a family? It’s always sad whenever any previously loving couple breaks up, but that doesn’t take away the decades of personal and societal benefit.
- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
@ gaffa (#139)
Thank you for a thoughtful, polite, specific, and well reasoned response. I’ll reply, eventually, but right now I need to begin my work day.
- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
openie….
This “bedrock of marriage” is often based on financial dependency, religious fear, and the obligations of being a care-giver.
@tadcf (#146)
Fair enough. I’ve tried to address and explain these issues in prior comments, but I’m willing to try and produce an executive summary. I’ll try to do so tonight (it’s currently 07:37, GMT -7, and I’ve got to start my work day).
- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
openid…
Don’t fool yourself, the statistics would be even worse if people didn’t feel trapped in a dead-end marriage early in it life.
@cary
Quoting you:
Here’s the difference. I never once accused you of dishonesty, exaggeration, or bigotry. You accused me of all three, without giving me the courtesy of telling me specifically what I said which was dishonest, exaggerated, or bigoted. I do care about the reputations of others. Which is why I try as hard as I can not to engage in ad hominen attacks.
- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
openid aol.com/runnswim: I have found your comments highly full of intelligence
AND decency toward this POST’S SUBJECT, and no one can say otherwise as I read all of them.
thank you for visiting FA and stay with us. bye
@Larry
Traditional marriage is a lifetime commitment and traditionally our ancestors had less trouble than we do in fulfilling such vows as ‘to death do us part’. If you divorce then by nature of the traditional vows you have failed.
@Cary: Truck drivers have a way of saying what is going on with some of the commenters.
QUESTION
Why is arguing with a truck driver like wrestling with a pig in the mud?
ANSWER
After a while you finally figure out that the pig likes it.
Some truck drivers start arguments just so they can see how far they can get it going.
You are wrestling pigs in the mud here.
Gaffa stated:
>> Traditional marriage is a lifetime commitment and traditionally our ancestors had less trouble than we do in fulfilling such vows as ‘to death do us part’. If you divorce then by nature of the traditional vows you have failed. <<
Gaffa, I don't understand your point. The only thing I can think of is that you, like tadcf, are trying to trash traditional marriage — the point being that it's already so bad that it's got nowhere to go but up.
The concept that two people could get married at age 28, raise two kids to adulthood, while being taken out of the sexual disease reservoir for that period of time, and having a mutually rewarding relationship during that period of time, only to have the marriage dissolve 23 years into it, owing to irreconcilable differences, infidelity, or anything else, and claim that the couple never should have gotten married (i.e. because the marriage was ultimately a "failure") is ludicrous.
- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA
P.S. I shall address your earlier, more thoughtful message (#139) late tonight, when I have the time.
- Larry W
@smorgasbord:
First rate gratuitous snark. I give it an 8.5
- Larry W/HB
@Cary: I usually agree with @ilovebeeswarzone, but this is a personal issue. All we have to do is look at it this way:
Anything that isn’t declared illegal is legal. There is nothing in the Constitution about marriage or gays, so neither one is illegal.
One preacher said he was asked if oral sex was a sin. He said that it isn’t mentioned in the bible, so he has no opinion about it.
If being gay is a sin in the bible, then I choose not to live by that part of it and another reason why I choose not to be a church goer.
It’s OK for a person to have their own opinions. That’s one of the main reasons people come to the USA. It’s when people try to FORCE there opinions on others that I have a problem. I disagree with a lot of people on a lot of things. If I went on and on and on and on and on like so many people do about the differences I would be arguing all the time. I would rather accept their right to their own opinion and keep them as a friend than try to win an argument that can’t be won.
One grade school teacher gave her class a lesson on prejudice. She picked the kids with blue eyes as the target. They were now the lower class, and the other kids started treating them that way.
The gays are the blue eyed kids in the grade school of life.
@smorgasbord
There’s nothing in the constitution about horse stealing or drug dealing, either. By your definition; both should be “legal.” Anyway, there’s nothing illegal about two people, of any gender, offering vows to each other, in any venue they wish and before any guests they wish, officiated by anyone who will do it, and then saying that they are “married” and living happily or unhappily thereafter, in whatever circumstances they choose. What matters, in the present context, is the degree to which local and national governments recognize this particular social contract, for tax and inheritance and other purposes, and the name which said governments use to describe this particular social contract.
- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
@tadcf: I’ll do it for them:
(1) None
(2) See (1)
SMORGASBORD: hi, I just read about infiltration in TEAPARTY by DEMOCRATS WHO will block
CANDITATES of TEAPARTY choice and get their own instead . bye
@openid.aol.com/runnswim: “There’s nothing in the constitution about horse stealing or drug dealing, either.”
There is no Federal law against them unless it is on Federal property or are Federal items. That’s why each state has to come up with their own.
The way I understand it is the Federal government has to accept a type of marriage, just like they have to accept a new country that has been established before they will recognize it as one and start political proceedings with it. Anybody can have any kind of a union they want that isn’t restricted by law. It is up to the Congress to decide whether to accept it or not.
@ilovebeeswarzone: The democrats know they will lose most of the coming elections, so they are sending in people who are “pretending” to be republicans and Tea Party members. They are hoping to take enough votes away from the actual supporters of the Tea Party movement that the democrats will win. Some say Ross Perot ran for president to take votes away from George Bush. I don’t know.
As the democrats have been doing for some time now, they know they have the propaganda media on their side, but they forget that the Internet is neutral. There are many blogs such as FA that are reporting the fakes. The fake Tea Partiers are being spotted because the locals in the area have never seen them at Tea Party events before, and the fake Tea Parties they create are soon found out and kicked out of the organization.
@openid.aol.com/runnswim:
Okay, Larry, I apologize for assuming that, after somewhere around two years of participating in the same discussions (mostly agreeing around 80-90% of the time) in which I’ve revealed much about myself, including links to my blog you just found, and quite a many discussions at that, you would know who I was. Funny that I’ve been to your site, and even know what you look like!
Perhaps I should change my user name to “Mr. Cellophane.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKHzTtr_lNk
I particularly recall a discussion, some time ago, where I agreed with your point about remaining anonymous, and said so, until Aye posted a very logical reason as to why he wished to remain anonymous, at which time I changed my position and let it go. Yet you continue to bring the same argument over and over and over and over and over again, as if it affected the points being made. You seem to think that adding your name to your posts somehow puts you on the moral/ intellectual high ground. Sorry, it doesn’t.
As for the “ad hominem” attacks, I never called you a bigot. I went through the entire thread to make sure, and never once did I use the word. As for being dishonest, if you were to steal, I would not be tarnishing your reputation by calling you a thief.
I challenge you to walk up to any gay couple, and say to them that you have no problem with them at all, but you don’t think that they should have the same things as you, in word or deed, because they:
are promiscuous
are prone to disease
are a threat to children
don’t take their relationship seriously
will “dumb down” your own relationship
and then gauge how volatile MY reaction is!
You use a pop culture movie and a NY Times article with stats, procured who knows how, as your evidence, to paint an ugly picture of an entire population of people and THEN boo hoo about your own reputation! When confronted with specific examples of heterosexual infidelity, flippancy, and serial marriages, which show that none of the things which you have a problem with are exclusive to one sexual preference or an another, you dismiss them as “exaggerated” and non-reflective of the general attitude of the group YOU’RE a part of. You continue to maintain that these are the reasons you don’t think that gay couples should be excluded from what you have, but you “don’t have a problem with them.” Perhaps the person you’re being dishonest with is yourself.
I also don’t get how someone of your intellect wouldn’t understand the concept that if you have a healthy respect for yourself and others, you’ll be less likely to engage in behavior that is harmful to yourself or others. When one goes to a mental health professional for addiction or other ways of acting out, that’s exactly how it is most often approached, even as part of 12 Step programs. Not too far a path of reasoning to walk down.
Since you like movie quotes, and newspaper “studies” to form your views, here’s a movie quote for you. I’ll give you a gold star if you can name the movie without looking it up….
“You’re an orphan right? You think I know the first thing about how hard your life has been, how you feel, who you are, because I read Oliver Twist? Does that encapsulate you?”
Marriage has not been one thing throughout history. It is a constantly evolving institution, just as the roles of men and women have evolved, and the only reason you’ve voiced opposition to what’s next, when it comes down to it, is your personal distaste. You’re entitled to how you feel, I will not take that away from you.
However, neither my arguments, nor yours, trump my point that the 14th Amendment prohibits the majority to infringe upon the rights and freedoms of the minority. That Proposition 8 didn’t specifically address homosexuals is moot – the entire reason for its existence, its goal, was to exclude the homosexual population, and discriminate because of the gender of whom one wants to enter into contract with. The first judge who said that the issue should be decided by popular vote, made a huge constitutional mistake, which was bound to be overturned just as Colorado’s Amendment 2 was in 1996.
So, although I have presented a reasoned, non-emotional argument, I have indeed gotten emotional. I apologize for hurting your feelings. When I’m next in California, we can meet and I’ll buy you a beer as consolation. I’ll be sure to call “no homo” before I give you a hug.
If you have anything further to say, I respectfully request you to avoid asking me questions, as I’m now incredibly behind on various tasks, and probably won’t have time to answer you. I’ve said all I can say, and have hopefully made my position clear.
@cary:
Before we can have that beer, you have to clarify the following. It’s not about “hurting my feelings,” it’s about the following:
That’s the one thing which I will not tolerate. As I said, I’m a real person, with a real business, and a real family, and a real reputation. It is doubly outrageous to have one’s integrity impugned by an anonymous scribbler of Internet graffiti, which is what I first took you to be (props for the wonderful reference to Mr. Cellophane from Chicago; no disrespect — I’m one of those people terrible with names but good with faces — so long as they haven’t aged or ballooned beyond recognition).
With respect to your assertion that I think the mere fact I sign my own name entitles me to any greater degree of politeness or deference — no, I don’t think that, at all. The only thing it entitles me to is protection against being libeled. Calling me dishonest is libel. Either back it up or withdraw the charge and apologize.
I’m going to address the other points, above, but, first, I demand that you state — specifically — where I have ever been “dishonest,” or else take it back.
BTW, calling someone a homophobe is the same thing as calling that person a bigot, according to the definition of the word bigot. Thanks, at least, for clarifying the last:
You think I’m a bigot because of statements relating to the following, regarding gays:
I’ll address the above later, but I have to object immediately that the third of the above is an outrageously inflammatory charge. As stated, it strongly implies pedophilia. You know that I wasn’t referring to that, but, rather to something much more complex — relating to making parenting more difficult. The example I heard (on NPR station KPCC earlier this week) was a father with a young son and daughter, with the daughter saying, during a car trip, that when she grew up, she wanted to marry her Daddy. The Daddy replied that, some day, she would find a nice young man to marry, just as her brother would find a nice young woman to marry. He said that it would create confusion in the minds of his kids, were there to be absolutely no difference, especially in name, between traditional marriage and gay marriage. His daughter might then think, maybe some day I’ll find a nice young woman to marry and his son to think, maybe some day I’ll find a nice young man.
Now, I don’t consider the above to be one of the greater arguments against gay marriage, per se, but it’s an important point for the following reason. I think society would be well served were gay marriage introduced in a way which promoted acceptance and did not promote enraged resentment. It is a fact that the number one reason for which many people (not me, but I understand the point of view) are opposed to gay marriage is because of the potential negative effect on children. You assert, nonsense, but you have no data to back up this assertion. It’s simply something you take on faith, presumably because of your superior insight into the minds of growing children. In the nature/nurture question, I’m of the opinion that it’s 90% nature and 10% nurture, but studies of identical twins raised apart show much less than 90% concordance, in cases where one twin turns out to be gay; so there’s clearly a nurture component.
It introduces no bigotry in the mind of a child to teach said child that girls are different from boys, girls’ sports are different from boys’ sports, and that unions between men and women are similar, but not identical, to unions between same genders.
Simply calling them by different names would solve virtually all of the problems. I have no idea why it is so necessary to have a fight to the death over the semantics of a single word.
There are now actual data to support my point about the importance of semantics in what same sex unions are called. These data were not presented to Judge Walker, presumably because of incompetence on the part of the lawyers for Proposition 8, who’s arguments and witness were pathetic. I’m currently working on a hopefully straight forward summation of my position, in which my assertions and reasons for concern will be referenced. I don’t agree, at all, concerning your point about the 14th Amendment. You ignore the well established legal principle of reasonable accommodation. I’ll discuss this, as well.
For now, you’ve given me the opportunity to respond to at least one of your three charges (that I’m a homophobe). You still owe me an explanation for the charges that I “exaggerated” and that I was “dishonest.”
- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
Gary- I feel I need to respond to some of your comments with a clarification- I do not, nor have I ever been leery of gay men or women, and while I feel that a “marriage” of some type (civil unions come to mind) should be an option for those who are gay (after all, as I said before- gay people have the right to be just as miserable as the rest of us)- it was, and is a divisive issue to some people, and it IS akin to poking one’s finger into a wild animal’s eye- you might just draw back a stub, and it serves no useful purpose.
My personal take on this is that if the gay population HAD accepted civil unions, with ALL the perks and requisites, after awhile, as soon as the more reactionary people among us could see that the sky did NOT fall, then they might have been more accepting of “Marriage”.
But to some people, there will only ever be one “man, one woman” in a typical marriage.
Those people you will never win over, law or not.
@Larry:
I again scoured the thread for uses of the word “homphobe” as well as “bigot” – again, you should double check your assertions before you hit send. I used neither word, except to quote you. Please stop telling me what I think, when I never used the words. Now who is libeling who?
Please read my reply again. I indeed did. First you point out that references to straights are exaggerated, but to gays are not. I’ll retract that charge when you do.
As I wrote in the above, but you clearly missed it, you continue to maintain that these are the reasons you don’t think that gay couples should be excluded from what you have, but that you “don’t have a problem with them.” I think I can reasonably perceive that as dishonest. Feel free to disagree, but I’m entitled to my opinion.
Fair enough. Here ya go…
http://www.aacap.org/cs/root/facts_for_families/children_with_lesbian_gay_bisexual_and_transgender_parents
http://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/f_gay/f_gayb.cfm
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6542286.html
http://www.parentdish.com/2009/11/23/gay-parents-do-not-warp-their-kids-research-shows/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-mannino/what-do-mothers-day-and-g_b_199407.html
http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_pare2.htm
http://cdp.sagepub.com/content/15/5/241.abstract
http://blogs.babble.com/strollerderby/2010/07/29/adopted-children-raised-by-gay-parents-are-typical-kids/
http://www.aclu.org/lgbt-rights_hiv-aids/overview-lesbian-and-gay-parenting-adoption-and-foster-care
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/20/national-organization-for_n_206003.html
http://sparkaction.org/node/561
That should keep you busy for a while.
From Law Dictionary:
A ramp for a wheelchair, a landlord allowing a blind person to keep a dog, or a drug store allowing a Catholic pharmacist not to fill a prescription for an abortion pill so long as it can be filled elsewhere… Good laws… all which support nondiscrimination.
Now please respect my previous statements about my time.
I’m sorry we don’t agree on this, but look forward to a future conversation when we do.
@cary
So this is the basis for your claim that I’m “dishonest:”
You did not make this clear, when you used the word “dishonest.” You never stated what you considered to be “dishonest.” Now you are specific. You claim that I dishonestly stated that there are dramatic differences between gays and straights in committed relationships, with regard to numbers of partners outside the relationship. That I made dishonest claims relating to incidence of sexually transmitted diseases. That I made dishonest claims with respect to the importance of fidelity in the marriage contract. Is this what you are saying? You still haven’t been specific, but I am inferring, from your last post, that these are the statements which you feel warrant the charges of dishonest and exaggeration.
Fair enough, this gives me something to which I may respond.
Along with the list of references. Most helpful.
(to be continued).
- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA
@openid.aol.com/runnswim:
Please read what I wrote again. Not a speed read, but read it to comprehend. I was very specific about what I perceived as dishonest, and it’s not present in your quote. I’m not going to retype it or copy/paste again. It’s very frustrating to communicate this way. You are free to disagree, of course, but please don’t respond to me regarding something I didn’t say, again. Thanks.
@cary: Why do you have to turn this into an intelligence (or reading comprehension) test? You say that I was dishonest and that I exaggerated. Just tell me what I said which was a lie and what was exaggerated.
All I can find is the following, frankly cryptic, statement:
I still don’t understand what you are saying is dishonest and/or where I exaggerated.
Firstly, I never said that references to straights were exaggerated. Someone said that 50-70% of straight marriages ended in divorce. I stated that the average first straight marriage endures more than two decades. I stand by this. Second, I wrote that the average gay in a committed relationship has 5 to 6 partners per year outside of the relationship and that straight people in committed relationship simply won’t tolerate that level of infidelity. I stand by this. Third I quoted a New York Times article which stated that in 50% of gay marriages there is infidelity within the first two years and that, in straight marriages, there is no infidelity over the entire course of the marriage (which, again, averages more than 20 years for first marriages) in 80% of marriages. I stand by my correct quoting of the New York Times article and by the statistics for straight marriages. Fourth I related that the writer in the New York Times article noted that fidelity was not considered nearly as important in gay as in straight unions (and actually advocated that straights would do well to be more like gays, with regard to tolerating infidelity), and I think the above statistics confirm that this is obviously correct. I stand by this. Fifthly, I never said that gays should be “excluded” from anything, simply that the gay equivalent of marriage should be called by a different name, in recognition of the obviously different natures of the two institutions. I continue to maintain that this should be the case.
If you are inferring that I must be dishonest by stating that my reasons for wanting gay “marriage” to be known by a different name is because I am biased against gays, rather than because of the above (and more), then I’ll will answer you with your own words, directed at me:
More later. And please don’t tell me what I can and can’t write, directed to you, when you call me dishonest, for reasons which you have still failed to clearly explain — the charge being both manifestly unfair and frankly libelous.
- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
@openid.aol.com/runnswim:
I did not make this a test, but it was clear, based on your response, that you did not get what I wrote. FAIL.
And you’re really wasting time for both of us when you retype the same position over and over and over and over within the same thread. Do you think anyone here is incapable of scrolling back up to find what you think?
Among the legal defenses for libel is opinion, which I made clear is what I was stating in regards to you. You’ve also yet to retract accusations of words I did not use. If you wish to continue this train of implied threats, I shall eagerly await my summons. I just ask the favor of waiting until after the World Series – my team is in first place, and I don’t want to miss it!
Enjoy the rest of your day.
Don’t count on it. The Tigers were sitting pretty at the All Star Break, 10 games over 500 and leading the AL Central by a game and a half. Now they are 4 games under and 9 games back. Marking time until kickoff time.
- LW/HB
@openid.aol.com/runnswim:
Tigers fan, eh? Well then, thanks for Curtis Granderson! Yankees next home series will be against them, and I’ve some Detroit friends who’ll be there. The only AL team that really scares me are the Rays, but the Bronx Bombers are good with momentum. One more win, and we’ll be the first in the MLB with 70!
Don’t worry, it won’t be too long a wait to witness some domination from the Giants!
@cary (#167)
Quoting me:
You assert:
Yet, from your #131:
- LW/HB
@Cary, re: Granderson
The Yanks and Rays are in a league of their own, but the former got their clock cleaned on the Granderson/Jackson trade:
http://motorcitybengals.com/2010/08/10/austin-jackson-is-no-curtis-granderson/
- LW/HB
@openid.aol.com/runnswim:
Yup. I wrote that. The things you’ve written could indeed lead someone to such an opinion, as I’ve said, and you’re free to assert your disagreement.
I stand by my stance that to advocate punishing an entire population of people by passing exclusionary and discriminatory laws based on “one size fits all” statistics is extremely unfair to individuals, and beneath every other image you put forth of yourself.
So, as long as you’re making it about you, I will say that I think very highly of you personally, from what I know. But I hold your views on this matter in very low esteem and respect. You’re free to think likewise of me, I can live with it.
@openid.aol.com/runnswim:
Yeah, he’s been slumping a bit, but still has had some great moments. We seem to like him nonetheless. Heck, with our lineup, we’re doing just fine! Cano, Swisher and Teixeira are on fire, Jeter just broke the Babe’s record for all time base hits, Arod just hit his 600th career homer, and our future looks in tact with the likes of Cervelli and Colin Curtis (who has my favorite moment of the season so far when he came in to pinch hit for Gardner who was ejected for arguing balls and strikes, with two strikes and then hit his first major league home run!)… we’re having quite a fun season!
As for you guys, Galarraga should’ve been given his Perfect Game. That whole thing was a travesty, but I immediately became a fan of his with the way he handled himself. Of course, I’m rooting for the Tigers tonight!
@Cary, I don’t mind being called names. You can call me homophobic; just tell me what specific thing I said which was homophobic. You wrote that my responses to Guffa were homophobic. I had no idea what you were talking about.
I wasn’t saying that gays are, by nature, more promiscuous and unfaithful than straights. I think I made that clear. If straight men had the same opportunities as gays, they’d be just as promiscuous and unfaithful. They’d also be afflicted with a slightly different spectrum of STDs, but equally afflicted they’d be. So it’s got nothing to do with proclivity or morality.
What controls behavior in straight marriages is the universal taboo against adultery, dating from Hammurabi and Abraham. One secular; one religious, yet codified and maintained over the ages. I make the points that (1) this tradition is overwhelmingly respected in straight marriage, to the benefit of children, family, and society. (2) this tradition does not have the same, central importance in many if not most gay unions. (3) cinematic and musical interpretations of popular culture have a huge influence in not only reflecting but shaping popular culture. (4) gays have a disproportionately powerful role in shaping cinematic depictions of popular culture. (5) In the future, there will inevitably be an increasing number of story lines featuring and celebrating gay marriage, with the most compelling and funny often being story lines dealing with the “open” nature which is pervasively common in gay relationships (study cited in New York Times article, referenced previously). It would be best if such relationships were not referred to using the term “marriage.”
By the way, your laundry list of links (#167), reassuring me that exposure to the concept of gay marriage doesn’t influence the child’s ultimate sexual preference is not helpful, because there is inadequate follow up, just as in the case of the ultimate influence of the reality of gay marriage on traditional marriage. (n.b. the best evidence to date does show that gay marriage negatively impacts traditional marriage, as I’ll discuss subsequently.)
From one of the links you provided:
http://www.parentdish.com/2009/11/23/gay-parents-do-not-warp-their-kids-research-shows/
To keep things in perspective, we aren’t talking about denying gays the use of an institution (or even the use of a word; we do have the First Amendment). What we are talking about is what term government uses in reference to gay unions.
- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
@cary: Re: the perfect game that wasn’t. Ump showed mega-class, too. One of the game’s better moments. – LW/HB
Completely agreed.
@Larry
Still waiting…
@gaffa:
I ask patience/forbearance. I got seriously behind in my day job, owing to the little bit of a
pi – - ing contest which Cary and I had with each other. I need to devote my time responsibly tonight (at my office, getting out consultations). Then have a short trip out of state, to attend my older daughter’s matriculation (“white coat”) ceremony in med school. Then back. In the meantime, I’m working on a more organized (and referenced) presentation of prior and additional arguments. I really did like your last comment (#139), and it will be a pleasure to consider and address the points which you so thoughtfully raised.
- Larry W/HB
Meanwhile, for your viewing pleasure, the Conservative lawyer, Ted Olsen, who argued and won the case, explains his position and why it reflects both Liberal and Conservative values…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkU9n5GxCDk&feature=player_embedded
@Larry
Fair enough…
@gaffa Still need a couple more days. I was traveling Thursday AM – Sunday night. Need a bit of catch up time at work. But I won’t forget and will be back soon. — LW/HB