Ace:
Fascism is forever descending upon the rightwing but landing upon the left.*
In a move with major legal implications, The California Supreme Court Advisory Committee on The Code of Judicial Ethics has proposed to classify the Boy Scouts as practicing “invidious discrimination” against gays, which would end the group’s exemption to anti-discriminatory ethics rules and would prohibit judges from being affiliated with the group.“The Committee’s invitation ignores the fact that the change also encompasses other youth organizations whose membership is limited on the basis of gender, e.g., the Girl Scouts, as well as the military, which continues to practice ‘discrimination’ on the basis of gender,” wrote Catherine Short, legal director of the pro-life group Life Legal Defense Foundation, in a letter to the Committee obtained by TheDC that predicts possible implications for pro-life judges in the future.
“Perhaps this is not an unintended consequence,” wrote Short.
Perhaps we should just make it official that, in order to qualify for a paying job of any kind, one must submit proofs that one has voted Democratic at least 75% of the time.
Next up: Catholics and Evangelicals.
I did not know that refusing to countenance abuse of minors by those in authority was so pernicious.
I did not know that membership in NAMBLA was a requirement for the judiciary in CA. Who knew?
Hey, guys: just check the voter records. Any member of the Republican Party is OUT. Only Dems, with documented contributions to Planned Parenthood, with no documented support for monogamous heterosexual marriage, are eligible.
And I thought Stalin was bad. Thought control, like 1984, still lives.
At this point in time it is safe to say that gay marriage is coming to all 50 of our states. You know it and I know it. It’s only a matter of exactly when.
Polls show a steadily increasing majority of Americans support gay marriage. The averages of all polls by year are:
2012: 51.5% in support
2013: 54% “
2014: 56% “
…with somewhere in the neighborhood of 10% remaining undecided.
If the will of the people had anything to do with constitutionally protected rights (it doesn’t), here would be your evidence indicating what the people want. The last three referenda on gay marriage all approved it.
The argument that gay marriage in some way violates the democratic spirit of our nation is increasingly indefensible.
There can be no mistaking where these numbers are headed.
In the interim, the argument has been made that “activist judges” who are overturning state gay marriage bans are legislating from the bench. That argument might hold a shred of legitimacy if those making it had cried out in dissent when the Supreme Court overturned congress’s McCain Feingold Act in the “Citizens United” case, but in that case the “activist judges” decided the way Republicans wanted them to, so the “judicial activism” was instead praised by the “right”.
So goes hypocrisy.
The current plethora of state and federal court cases working their way through circuit courts of appeal will soon enough come before the Supreme Court, and that court may well wait a bit longer before stepping in to return the nation to marital uniformity, as it did in the Loving v. Virginia case. But the trend of increasing public support for gay marriage renders the high court’s action (or lack of it) moot. If it takes overturning all of the state constitutional amendments that ban gay marriage, that will be done.
This Boy Scout leadership issue is but one tiny dust devil in the current storm of controversy over the whole issue of gay equal rights. That storm is raging right now exactly because the Supreme Court refused to uphold the criminalization of homosexual sex a decade ago, removing all justification for the persecution of gays as a class. Once the dust of litigation has settled and enlightenment (regarding constitutionally guaranteed equal protection) is fully upon us, all of these silly matters (bakers, photographers, boy scouts) of discrimination will be moot.
Opposition to gay rights doesn’t make you a bigot. Irrational hatred of gays does, but there are legitimate religious issues that some very rational people use to support their opposition to gay marriage. What is NOT rational is the attempt to hold ALL Americans to the religious beliefs held by what is clearly a shrinking minority.
Obviously, only a liberal can be impartial. We see this every day.
@George Wells: “In the interim, the argument has been made that “activist judges” who are overturning state gay marriage bans are legislating from the bench. That argument might hold a shred of legitimacy if those making it had cried out in dissent when the Supreme Court overturned congress’s McCain Feingold Act in the “Citizens United” case, but in that case the “activist judges” decided the way Republicans wanted them to, so the “judicial activism” was instead praised by the “right”.
So goes hypocrisy.”
There was no public vote on McCain-Feingold, but there was on gay marriage. Gay marriage was defeated in California, but the vote overturned by judges who, apparenly, knew better than the voters what they wanted. So goes hypocrisy.
“Opposition to gay rights doesn’t make you a bigot. Irrational hatred of gays does” So what does irrational hatred of anyone that does not fully agree with the gay opinion of gay marriage make one?
@Bill #3:
“There was no public vote on McCain-Feingold, but there was on gay marriage.”
Fortunately, “public” votes are not the end-all solution to resolving issues here in America.
Our “representatives” voted for McCain-Feingold – both houses of congress, and it was a bi-partisan effort – and the Republican president (Bush) signed it. That was the normal way that laws are enacted. Plebiscites are largely used to gauge popular support for ideas that politicians are otherwise afraid to tackle, and they rarely factor into the legislative process. That’s a good thing, as the public is not prepared to tackle the complexities of most legislation, their exposure to the issues for the most part being limited to the 30-second sound bites that issue forth from one biased media or another. Neither do the Republic’s elected representatives always get it right, and when they make mistakes, it falls to the courts to correct them. In some cases, even the courts err, but once an issue has made its way through the Supreme Court, it takes a Constitutional Amendment to overturn that court’s decision.
That’s how this gets done. No group of citizens with a wild hair up their collective a$$, no angry mob of Representatives, no megalomaniacal president can do mischief that cannot be undone. Thank God and our Founding Fathers for that.
“So what does irrational hatred of anyone that does not fully agree with the gay opinion of gay marriage make one?”
Any irrational hatred fits the definition of bigotry. Did you need that clarified?
Personally, I have trouble appreciating all of the “heightened emotions” on both sides of the gay rights issue. I am a scientist, and all of the evidence I have seen suggests that “hate” is far more damaging to the hater than it is to the hated. Anger kills. Hate consumes. My scientific perspective also makes it clear where this issue is going, and I point that direction out because there seem to be a lot of people who seem not to see the big picture. This current preoccupation with gay marriage will soon end – sometime within the next ten years marriage equality will be a uniform right in the United States – and the sooner the better. There are more important and more difficult problems to address.
@George Wells:
““There was no public vote on McCain-Feingold, but there was on gay marriage.”
Fortunately, “public” votes are not the end-all solution to resolving issues here in America.
So, I assume that if Proposition 8 had been defeated, those supporting gay “marriage” would have held such a vote as irrelevant? I kind of doubt that. I guess the lesson is that all elections and votes are irrelevant until the desired left wing result is arrived at.
“So what does irrational hatred of anyone that does not fully agree with the gay opinion of gay marriage make one?” “Any irrational hatred fits the definition of bigotry. Did you need that clarified?” Yes, that needs to be clarified since any disagreement with a left wing opinion is defined as such while the left wing response to a failure to align oneself with the left wing agenda is vilification and demagoguery. As such, one needs to understand the ground rules. Apparently that is merely a “means to an end” and, as we all know, the ends justifies the means.
None of George Well’s comments above have any bearing on the Boy Scouts, until such time as NAMBLA members are allowed to become scout leaders and court the boys for marriage.
@Bill #5:
I think that the short-course on legislation I presented in #4 is accurate, entirely devoid of sarcasm and a relevant rebuttal to your apparent contention that the will of the people is paramount. We have checks and balances in our system of government for the reasons that we learned in civics class back in junior high school. Those processes of review and correction played out as they should have played out in the Prop. 8 case that you evoked, and as you are certainly aware, they will inevitably play out again and again as we move forward, given each side’s unwillingness to ever concede defeat while there is still a chance of reversal. Whether an issue is decided by referendum, legislature, executive order or court order, the side that wins will always applaud and the side that loses will always boo. Sadly, what is almost never seen is grace, dignity and sportsmanship on the part of either side.
“I guess the lesson is that all elections and votes are irrelevant until the desired left wing result is arrived at.”
“any disagreement with a left wing opinion is defined as such while the left wing response to a failure to align oneself with the left wing agenda is vilification and demagoguery.”
Do you honestly believe that this perspective of yours is ANY different from the view from the other side? Does the drama of your hyperbole (or the corresponding crap coming from the other side, for that matter) help to bring us together as a nation? No.
“Apparently that is merely a “means to an end” and, as we all know, the ends justifies the means.”
I don’t know that circular reasoning illuminates here.
@George Wells: While I don’t really care to interfere with gay unions (though I intrinsically disagree with the concept) I object to the unions being called “marriage”. They most certainly are not and, further, the quest for making the unions equal to marriage is nothing at all about fairness, rights or love. It is about destroying tradition and forcing a belief system upon and replacing that of other people.
Saying that makes me a hateful homophobe. Despite the fact that I have gay friends and have never in my life raised a finger to infringe upon any rights of any gay person or group, the fact I have a differing opinion from the far left gay fascists, I am a hater. In addition to that, due to the fact that I feel Obama and his liberal minions are destroying the economy, the social fabric of the nation and our influence abroad, I am also a racist.
But don’t just listen to me; ask Brendan Eich; he has lived the dream.
This is the tactic of the left. This is what I mean.
As to a vote on Proposition 8, either the referendum should be made illegal or the outcome should be honored. I don’t suppose anyone believed such a far left territory as California would have voted for such a declaration, so the left was happy to see it go through. Once the opinion was made law, the left sought to usurp the legal decision by the use of one judge.
It is a traditional practice of the left to utilize legal means, the Constitution, votes and free speech as long as they all serve to further the agenda of the left. Once that fails, one by one these mainstays of democratic existence fall to the wayside, one by one. We have even sunk to the level where the Attorney General and President of the United States openly and arrogantly declare there are laws they will honor and those they, based on their preferences, will not.
The left has no complaint about how anyone reacts to their aggressive assaults upon the liberty of Americans; they know what they are up to and the only problem they have with it is that it is an open secret to which opposition is growing.
@Ditto #6:
“None of George Well’s comments above have any bearing on the Boy Scouts, until such time as NAMBLA members are allowed to become scout leaders and court the boys for marriage.”
And you cannot see beyond your own fantasy. How fortunate that you have NAMBLA and drag queens and child-molesting priests to hold up as proof that all gay people should be vilified.
My comments in #2 were entirely relevant to the Boy Scouts issue because the country is changing rapidly. In ten years, there will be marriage equality here in the UNITED States, and the Boy Scouts will by then allow gay adults to hold leadership roles in their organization. NAMBLA won’t be a part of that. Child molestation of any kind – heterosexual OR homosexual – will still be criminal. And since gay rights will by then have ceased to be an issue, you COULD move on to focus your ineffectual sarcasm on some newer target. But as you show little grasp of the obvious direction that events are currently taking, I suspect that you just might carry on the good fight long after this issue is settled, exactly like some Japanese soldiers in the Pacific theater fought on into the 1950’s.
Good luck with that.
@George Wells: “And you cannot see beyond your own fantasy. How fortunate that you have NAMBLA and drag queens and child-molesting priests to hold up as proof that all gay people should be vilified.”
Et tu? ALL gay people are being vilified?
I’ve had this argument often; gays deny there is such a thing as a gay pedophile. They contend that a pedophile is a pedophile… unless one is a hetero-pedophile. However, if a man preys on young boys, he his a homosexual pedophile, as is a woman that preys on young girls.
Pointing out this fact in no way incriminates ALL gays. Likewise, there are very sound reasons why the Boy Scouts are reluctant to allow openly gay men to be scout masters; there has been a bad history there.
@Bill Burris #8:
“While I don’t really care to interfere with gay unions (though I intrinsically disagree with the concept) I object to the unions being called “marriage”.”
Had the Christian Right embraced the concept of “civil unions” for gay people from the beginning instead of fighting against the idea with every possible method available, gay people would have happily accepted the compromise. I never DID understand what all of the fuss was over the word “marriage,” as there are differences that a reasonable person must concede. But you lost that option. Your very irrational insistence that gays be given NO rights of partnership (read the Virginia Constitutional Amendment for clarification) made too many of your fellow Americans appreciate that separate and unequal wasn’t fair, wasn’t enough. So here we are, and you are left in the sad position of disclaiming the history that is unfolding before your eyes. As so many countries have already done, the United States in in the process of “redefining” marriage.
“Saying that makes me a hateful homophobe.”
I’m sorry that you feel that way. I did not consider you hateful, but I will bow to your intimate knowledge of self.
“It is a traditional practice of the left to utilize legal means, the Constitution, votes and free speech as long as they all serve to further the agenda of the left.”
Are you sure that you mean to argue AGAINST using “legal means, the Constitution, votes and free speech”???
I think that the only other methods available would be illegal, revolution and the like.
I was taught that the preferred way to accomplish change was to work within the system, and that is what gays are doing. We are using the lessons we were taught. We are 1-3% of the population. Perhaps you will give us extra credit for exceptional effectiveness.
@Bill Burris #10:
” ALL gay people are being vilified?”
Why else bring NAMBLA up?
@George Wells:
Huh? I didn’t mention Drag Queens or Child molesting priests so how could I have vilified them? I have no problem with transvestites of any persuasion. The vast majority are perfectly harmless. I will agree of course that all child molesters should be kept away from children, however your mentioning of priests is vilifying of them, in that you ignore the vastly higher numbers of school teachers who molest children, some of whom are still teaching.
Children by law are too young to consent to get married – ergo – Gay marriage has no bearing on children’s fraternal organizations. Yet, I suspect it possible you are attempting to interject it into the argument, because it gets your heart all in a flutter to think of those boys in their uniforms. Admit it, it’s really your own gay fantasies coupled with hatred for religious based institutions that drive you into wanting to destroy scouting.
@Ditto #13:
The evocation of individuals (John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer) or groups (NAMBLA) as examples to justify the restriction of civil rights for an entire class of people is hypocritical mischief of the first order. Doing so makes no more sense than pointing to heterosexual sociopaths like Ted Bundy and Albert Fish or to sects of the LDS Church that sanction “plural marriage” as reasons to persecute all heterosexuals. No, you didn’t mention the individuals noted above, I did. You brought up NAMBLA. Both the individuals and the organizations noted engaged in criminal activity and by doing so forfeited their civil rights. Neither have any bearing on the question of civil rights for law-abiding gay citizens.
“it gets your heart all in a flutter to think of those boys in their uniforms. Admit it, it’s really your own gay fantasies coupled with hatred for religious based institutions that drive you into wanting to destroy scouting.”
This precise type of fantastical distortion has come to characterize the Republican rebuttal to the effort to achieve equal rights for all gay Americans. It indicates an argument bereft of substance and the desperation that comes from holding such a logically bankrupt position.
If that distortion is truly representative of your assessment of your opponents, you are dangerously underestimating them, a sure sign that you will not prevail. But if you want to entertain your childish fantasies about what gay people dream of, be my guest. Your adherence to those fantasies helps us make the case that our rights are being irrationally violated. Thanks for your help.
By now it should be clear to anyone reading my posts that I hate no one and no organizations and I have no wish to destroy anything. Like many other gay people, I seek to gain equality in those corners of life where it has been withheld. The Scouts issue and the marriage equality issue are subordinate parts of that larger effort, and it is succeeding.
Yeah, all you Christians who believe sodomy is a sin, should just sit down and shut up. Don’t you know that the upholding of moral norms in this nation are passé? Don’t you know that you Christians are nothing more than bigots, haters, homophobes?
This is the gay movement, and George’s big lie. Same sex marriage is not only NOT the primary goal (it never was), it is never going to be enough, as is exhibited by the gay left movement in California. Not until you accept that gays have a right to infiltrate our schools and indoctrinate our young children that their life styles are perfectly normal. If you hold Christian beliefs, they must be squelched to promote homosexuality. What part of that do you Christians not understand?
Read Gramsci. The gays have accepted his writings as their play book with a lot of Saul Alinsky thrown in for good measure.
@George Wells:
What comes through in your posts, George, is your absolute disdain for Christians. And the fact that you are willing to lie (yes, LIE) to hide the reality of the gay liberation movement.
@George Wells: ” ALL gay people are being vilified?”
Why else bring NAMBLA up? ”
You DO know what NAMBLA pursues, right? Boy Scouts? Scout Masters? Camp outs? HELLO?!?
However, it is you and the rest of the left that, at the mere mention of such a specific concern declares that this implies that ALL gays are card-carrying NAMBLA memebers. No, wrong.
@Bill:
George is here at FA for one reason; to speak the gay movement’s carefully crafted talking points. That is it. He takes every argument the gays have presented and gives it to us as if he is such a concerned fellow who just wants “equality.” Never mind that marriage “equality” is the new catch phrase that replaced same sex marriage, just as “climate change” replaced global warming as we saw that the globe was not actually warming any more.
Now we have Harvey Milk, homosexual pedophile, with his mug on a U.S. postage stamp. If the government was truthful, the Postal Service would have put “We Must March On No Matter The Gains” under his picture.
@Bill #17:
“You DO know what NAMBLA pursues, right?”
Yes, and I find their purpose abhorrent. As their “mission” is to “advocate” man-boy love, their “message” is protected under the First Amendment. Any actual “contact” in the context of their advocacy is criminal, and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law. Their very existence is offensive, yet it undoubtedly serves law enforcement well to have their membership lists of pedophiles, and for this reason I do not vigorously seek to disband NAMBLA. But I would be happy for you to focus your disapproval upon that specific group of sociopaths instead of pointing at them as being in ANY way representative of gay people as a class. If you didn’t mean to do that, then I still cannot understand why you brought NAMBLA up in the first place.
@retire05 #15:
“you are willing to lie (yes, LIE) to hide the reality of the gay liberation movement.”
You give me so much more credit than I deserve. I haven’t the faintest idea what the “reality of the gay liberation movement” is. Probably because I never read a word of your Gramsci and Alinsky friends. I HAVE read a few crazy articles by some wacko lesbians who want to “destroy” all marriage, and I can’t help but wonder what pain they must be in to venture so far into the absurd. I married Paul because I have loved him unconditionally for 38 years, and I hope others in similar situations are given the same opportunity soon.
“Don’t you know that you Christians are nothing more than bigots, haters, homophobes?”
That sort of sarcasm ignores the millions of gay Christians who stand by your side in Church and who turn their cheeks at such insults as Jesus suggested. Gay activists who accuse opponents of hate, bigotry or homophobia aren’t telling anyone anything that they don’t already know. If you hate, you know it, and if you love your enemy as Jesus taught, you know that, too.
“We Must March On No Matter The Gains”
Now, for the wrong reason, I think that you are likely correct in this assessment. Human appetites (for food, drink, sex, drugs, money, power) rarely remain satisfied. There will be those who demand too much, that is ALWAYS certain. But the prospect of gluttony doesn’t mean that everyone should be starved. At some point in the near future, a reasonable equilibrium will prevail that will bring gay people to a more equitable standard of citizenship while respecting the fact that gay people are not identical to straight people, and that there will always be some of each who are displeased with the very existence of those unlike themselves.
@George Wells:
That does not surprise me. You don’t seem to be widely informed, but only capable of parroting the gay movement mantra from other practitioners of homosexual sex. You claim to come here for conversation that expands your mind, yet you have a critical lack of curiosity about things you have no knowledge of.
Are you familiar with Harvey Milk? You should be; he’s a hero, and martyr to the homosexual movement.
Well, there we have it, don’t we? Anyone who is an opponent to same sex marriage, or the acts of homosexuals, are haters, bigots and homophobes by decree. Thanks for finally admitting that. I also find it hypocritical that someone who, by their own life’s choices, ignores the teachings of Christ yet want to lecture others about teachings you ignore, and even chastise. Yes, Jesus said “Love thine enemy.” but he didn’t say to approve of their actions.
No greater example of the wordsmithing tactics of your ilk. Man-boy love? Call it what it is; pedophilia/pederasty. Changing the terminology doesn’t make it any less disgusting.
@George Wells: You are dodging me, big time. At issue is the exclusion of any BSA member from being a judge in California because of rampant “homophobia”… because the Scouts are not too keen on gay members. Now, the reference to NAMBLA, rather than being, as you allege, a blanket accusations of all gay men being pedophiles, is more to the point of WHY the Scouts avoid gay members and, specifically (since I don’t think they actually exclude gay kids) gay Scout Masters.
So, the specific point is that BSA has a specific and historically defined reason NOT to include gay men as Scout Masters and this reason, valid as it is, should not indicate that anyone that has been a Scout has such poor judgment as to be excluded from consideration as a judge.
Would you agree or disagree with this (that this is the point, not necessarily if you feel the Scouts are fair in their caution) and would you still cling to the accusation that this point is in any way condemning all gay men as pedophiles?
@Bill:
Gay? George said:
I think that is rather humorous for him to say that just at a time when Dimocrats are saying that marriage is useless and a waste of time, now they’re saying it’s ok for gays to ‘get married’. Look at the rate of marriage of gays where it has been made legal. Rather slim. It is not the life-style that most gay bath house gays want to live. Free to have sex with whomever they please, whenever they please without the bonds of faithfulness expected of marrieds.
@retire05 #21:
” Man-boy love? Call it what it is”
The name stands for:
NAMBLA: “North American Man/Boy Love Association.”
“a pedophile and pederasty advocacy organization in the United States. It works to abolish age of consent.”
What’s your point?
“Well, there we have it, don’t we? Anyone who is an opponent to same sex marriage, or the acts of homosexuals, are haters, bigots and homophobes by decree. Thanks for finally admitting that.”
Well, I admit that I could have made my meaning more clear for the cognitively impaired. Let me be more thorough for you:
Not every opponent of gay marriage is a hater, a bigot or a homophobe. Some are, some aren’t. Gay activists who correctly accuse opponents of hate, bigotry or homophobia aren’t telling anyone anything that they don’t already know, so they’re wasting their breath. If their accusations are incorrect, as they often are, they’re simply wrong, and they’re STILL wasting their breath.
I didn’t think that you needed that clarified, but there you have it.
“Yes, Jesus said “Love thine enemy.” but he didn’t say to approve of their actions.”
And neither did I say that anyone should “approve” of homosexual sex any more than anyone should “approve” of heterosexual sex. I can’t for the life of me figure out how the argument for gay rights keeps getting distracted by this suggestion that “approval” is somehow a part of the equation.
I don’t hate you for throwing the Old Testament at me, or for trying to confuse the teaching of your particular Christian denomination with the secular values of our nation. We simply have a difference of opinion over what the Separation of Church and State means, and that is unlikely to change.
“You don’t seem to be widely informed”
Your Gramsci guy is long dead, and was obviously no Jesus. Perhaps he said something wise, perhaps not. It has been my experience that no one, no matter how terrible, ever reaches a point of being 100% wrong about everything. Not Hitler, not Stalin, not Marx or Lenin. That doesn’t mean that the crap they spouted has to be studied like the Bible. The Constitution is worth reading and researching, and so are the decisions of the Supreme Court. Those studies inform me much more effectively than the rants of some nut-job you’ve dug up to rub my face in. I don’t give a crap what Gramsci said – he’s not MY Jesus. If you want to put FAITH in what he said, be my guest.
@retire05 #21:
You have made it abundantly clear that you thoroughly DISAPPROVE of homosexual sex, and that you find me DISGUSTING. I have trouble understanding why. Surely you don’t think that my contribution to the gene pool is needed. (I would think that you would be delighted that I will never reproduce.) And surely you aren’t stupid enough to think that once gays have truly equal rights, that a whole lot of otherwise heterosexual people will magically convert to homosexuality. The incidence of homosexuality in any population is approximately the same, and the proportion is relatively small, so that the group is essentially marginal. There are too few gays to worry about but too many to ignore. So why do you work yourself up so?
@George Wells:
And that is really important, isn’t it? You want to establish the fact that ‘approval’ isn’t important because apparently most gays don’t approve. Only about 2% of eligible gays get married to the same sex. For all the hoo rah that has been brought out to make people accept gay marriage when not even the gays want to get married. They don’t have to express an opinion, they do it every day by not getting married.
@George Wells:
There are so few gays in similar situations that the number is insignificant.
@Bill #22:
OK, Bill. Your account of the history behind the BSA exclusion of gay adults is accurate enough, although it is certainly abridged from the complete picture. I appreciate that some gay men are unsuitable for working with children, as some of them ARE pedophiles. Some gay priests are also pedophiles, as are some gay teachers and some gay doctors and some gay policemen etc. etc. etc. The truth that the BSA is having difficulty grappling with is that not all and certainly not MOST gay men are pedophiles any more than most heterosexual men are not pedophiles. We allow heterosexual men to teach children of both genders, and eventually the same will be true of homosexual men. We’re just in a transitional stage at this point, only a decade past the criminalization of sodomy. It will take time. In the interim and beyond, laws against the abuse of children should continue to be vigorously enforced.
@Redteam #27:
“There are so few gays in similar situations that the number is insignificant.”
A right does not lose significance if it is not exercised by large numbers of citizens. The true measure of a society is not how well the majority’s interests are served but by how carefully the rights of minorities are protected.
@George Wells:
Maybe so, does that include the right of minors to be free of gay Scout master predators? We all know the only reason gays want to be scout masters is that it is a fertile field for predators of young boys that do not know how to defend themselves. Gay men are not interested in camping and hiking, they’re interested in young innocent boys.
But the point I was making about rights. Winning the right for two guys to get married doesn’t mean anything to a gay guy that has no intention of giving up the gay bath house life style. The number of gays such as you portray yourself to be is so small as to be insignificant.
@George Wells:
George, I don’t think the issue with the Boy Scouts is related to pedophiles as most Boy Scouts are too old to be victims of pedophiles (10 years or over) Pedophilia being young children.
I suspect that no more gay men are pedophiles than the general population. But gay men are predators of young boys, especially about 12 and up and they are not looking for gay boys, just any or all that are available.
Something is intrinsically “rigbt” or “wrong” based on reality, not on how many people falsely claim thay can see the emperor’s (nonexistent) fancy clothing…..
@Redteam #30:
“Winning the right for two guys to get married doesn’t mean anything to a gay guy that has no intention of giving up the gay bath house life style.”
And neither does the right of a heterosexual to marry mean anything to the guy if all he wants to do is hop from one prostitute’s bed to another, sampling every available “type”. That some individuals choose not to avail themselves of a particular liberty does not diminish the significance of that liberty.
“The number of gays such as you portray yourself to be is so small as to be insignificant.”
Currently, over 70,000 gay couples have married. I would speculate that that number is higher than the number of law-abiding citizens who have exercised their right to petition for habeas corpus in the same period of time, yet habeas corpus is enormously significant to our protection against tyranny. Habeas corpus dates back at least as far as 1305, while gay marriage in Massachusetts – the first state in the United States to legalize it – is just under ten years old, and the other 16 states that have accepted it did so much more recently. The 70,000 gay couples who have already married:
1. Were already in committed relationships that would have been married previously had the option existed, and
2. Lived in or convenient to a state that would marry them.
Of the 5-10 million gay people in the United States, at least a quarter are not yet of legal age.
Of the 5-10 million gay people in the United States, 62% of them live in states that ban gay marriage.
Having grown up in a world that discouraged gay marriage, gay civil partnerships and gay sex, why would anyone expect a sudden explosion of interest in getting gay-married?
For obvious public health reasons, all persons – INCLUDING GAY PERSONS – should restrict their sexual activities to one partner as soon as possible. 70,000 is a good start. I doubt that the percentage of gay couples who marry will ever equal the percentage of heterosexual couples who marry, but there are reasons for the difference, and the difference itself will never be a good reason to restrict the right. That some individuals choose not to avail themselves of a particular liberty does not diminish the significance of that liberty.
@George Wells:
That is a very small number, as I said, relatively insignificant.
Ah, but there was not this giant pool of persons waiting for the right to exercise habeas corpus as there was theoretically waiting to gay marry. Not a valid comparison.
You doubt that? seriously? With all this pent up demand of all those that have been ‘waiting’ and suddenly they can get married and they all bail. Only 2% of those eligible are getting married, to me that kinda indicates that about 2% wanted to get married. The remainder are just supporting the cause. I doubt that the percentage of heterosexuals will ever get as low as 2%, with the exception perhaps in the liberal camp. Black persons also seem to be doing away with marriage.
@Redteam #34:
You keep calling attention to the fact that the percentages of gay marriages are lower than the percentages of straight marriages, and I guess that you are attempting to make a point there somewhere, but to borrow a quote from your favorite 2016 Democratic contender for the White House: “What difference does it make?”
I am wondering what difference does it make what percentage of gay OR straight people wed.
Are you preparing to make ALL marriages illegal if the percentage of marrying straights falls below a certain number?
“Black persons also seem to be doing away with marriage.” Your point being…?
Are you advocating that Black persons should be PREVENTED from marrying because the numbers of those who DO marry are declining?
Please, explain why the percentage of a group of people who choose to marry has any bearing on their right to do so.
If one person claims a right that is ultimately upheld by the Supreme court, and that right is not subsequently taken away by constitutional amendment, then that right conveys to ALL citizens. How many of those citizens who avail themselves of that right is irrelevant.
Look on the bright side: There won’t be as many gay wedding cakes for your straight bakers to make as you had feared.
@George Wells:
You’re talking about slavery, you know that, right?
My point. The Dims kept promising the gays that they would support them in making gay marriage legal. A state of being, (marriage) that they are abandoning so that they can be more easily supported off of handouts from the governments. They only supported the gays in this so that they would get their votes and they knew it wasn’t going to matter in the long term because they are abandoning marriage for the gov. handouts schemes. So you’ve won a hollow victory with the support of someone that has/is betraying you. I suspect the % of conservatives getting married will stay near the same, it’s only the Dims that are abandoning marriage, a tactic pioneered by the black citizenry in favor of welfare.
Won’t have to, the libs and gays are doing it for us. Sure their was a minor ripple when many gays could get married, but very few elected to abandon their bath house free love lifestyle.
Really? So it doesn’t matter to you that something you have wished for to make you normal is not being joyously welcomed by the masses, who are preferring to maintain their norm of NOT being married. I’m sure it must be distressing to realize that the majority of the gays don’t really support what you want to be normal, they were just politicking.
Yet another teacher performing inappropriate sexual behavior with a minor middle-school student.
Middle School Teacher Accused Of Giving Lap Dance To Student In Front Of Class
@Redteam #36:
“(marriage) that they are abandoning so that they can be more easily supported off of handouts from the governments.”
I’m afraid I didn’t follow what you were getting at here. Having recently filled out OUR IRS 1040 forms, I appreciate that we are chipping in to what y’all have long been calling the “marriage penalty.” No hand-out from the government there.
Gay marriage a “hollow victory?” Not in my eyes. It is a real right gained, and not at all hollow to me, having availed myself of it. I BELIEVE that more gays would be well-served by leading monogamous lives that would eventually lead to marriage, but my beliefs don’t give me the right to interfere in the choices others make.
“very few (homosexuals) elected to abandon their bath house free love lifestyle.”
Incredibly misinformed statement. Never mind that half of all homosexuals are women who don’t even HAVE bath-houses, and never mind that at most only a few percent of gay men live near enough to bathhouses to have even the OPPORTUNITY to use them, and never mind that over 90% of all bath-houses were closed shortly after AIDS was identified. Never mind that the vast majority of gay people don’t go to gay bars, and that the vast majority of gay people are no more promiscuous that their heterosexual counterparts. “Free love” was a hippy invention 50 years ago, and its adherents were both straight and gay, and both have moved on. It does smack of moralistic hypocrisy to suggest that gays should not be allowed to enter into the monogamistic covenant of marriage on the one hand and then on the other hand to criticize them for promiscuity.
Remember that only a decade ago, gay sex between consenting adults was illegal in many states. The sexual mores of gay society are in tumultuous flux as a result of their rapidly changing legal status, and until that has been resolved, no equilibrium is possible. 150,000 married gays is a good start. I’d estimate that the number will grow to a million five years from whenever the right becomes national. Remember that the 50% of heterosexuals who ARE married today did not all get married as soon as they were eligible to do so. There is no hurry, is there?
@George Wells:
obviously I was talking about those that are not getting married, which doesn’t include you.
Seems you also missed that meaning. If only 2% of gays desire to be married, then winning that right is a small right that very few desire. It says you are different from 98% of gay persons.
Some statements are expected to have a little interpretation. How about: ‘very few homosexuals elected to abandon their free love wild partying lifestyles.” Bath house was used to signify BHO.
Yes and immoral, when do you think the immoral part will go away?
Number seems a little high, but I haven’t checked it.
Where do you get your info on this?
@Redteam #39:
“150,000 married gays is a good start.”
“Number seems a little high, but I haven’t checked it.”
Well, where in the F do you think your 2% statistic came from? I DID check it, and your 2% number is based on 150,000 married gays out of a population of 10,000,000 gays, (approximately 3% of the whole population) of whom 7,500,000 are of marrying age. The 150,000 married number is the most certain of the data, as state records are relatively up to date. The number of gays is open to interpretation for obvious reasons, but your 2% statistic was based on the 10 million number – if there are fewer gays than 10 million, the percent married would be proportionately higher, and visa-versa.
“Remember that the 50% of heterosexuals who ARE married today did not all get married as soon as they were eligible to do so.”
“Where do you get your info on this?”
The mean (first-time) marrying age for males is 28.3 years, and for females is 25.8 years old. Look it up. I did.
You do understand that this means that the majority of people who marry for the first time do so when they are older than 25 years of age. Last time I looked, they were all eligible to marry well before 25. What, are you just arguing for the sake of arguing? If you are trying to work up a sweat over THIS data, my guess is that you can’t find anything of substance in what I said that you have a legitimate disagreement with.
“Yes and immoral, when do you think the immoral part will go away?”
As if Old Testament moral guidance has any bearing on this issue. I’ve already referenced to you a bushel of BS from the Old Testament that has already been tossed by an embarrassed Church that excuses it as ancient history irrelevant to the modern world. Your “moral” argument is of the same stripe. As Bill O’Rilley commented, all the opponents of gay marriage have is the Bible, and that’s why they’re losing the debate. The United States is not a Theocracy, and MY church doesn’t find a “moral” conflict in homosexuality. You can believe whatever you want, but you can’t superimpose your moral standards on top of mine. But I guess that it’s cute that you try…
@George Wells:
Now you’re trying to be funny. 150,000 is 2% of 7.5 million. Only problem is that the number 2% is of persons eligible to be married. With 2% of the population being gay, that would be about 6.3 million gays in the US and those 6.3 million are spread over 50 states (60 for your president)and only 17 states is it legal for gays to marry, so I’m gonna guess that, using a straight percentage, 17/50 equals 34% of the states, so 34% of 6.3 million is about 2.1 million gays eligible to marry and 2% of 2.1 million is about 42,000 gays presently married. So is your 150,000 a little optimistic? Hell no, it’s stretching it very much. So now you tell me where the number 150,000 comes from? Someone might have pulled it out of some orifice.
@Redteam #41:
While you still have failed to explain what difference the number of gay marriages makes on the legitimacy of the right to marry, here are some data that indicate, if anything, that my estimation of 150,000 married gays is low:
Wiki answer to “How many gay marriages have been performed in the United States”: “At least 95,696 same-sex couples have been legally married in the United States”
This figure would result in a total of 191,392 married gays.
“In a brief filed earlier this year in the Supreme Court case challenging the federal Defense of Marriage Act, Williams Institute scholar Gary Gates used Census data to estimate that 114,100 same-sex couples in the United States are legally married.”
This figure would result in a total of 228,200 married gays.
Most recent Census data: “Nationwide, about 56 percent of the 149,956 total same-sex marriages reported in the census survey last year were lesbian couples.”
This figure would result in a total of 299,912 married gays.
My estimation of 150,000 came from PEWRESEARCH.ORG’s answer to the question, and their answer was low, as they explained that several of the larger states (California and Massachusetts) have already discontinued collecting gender-specific data.
Obviously, as time moves forward and more gays are given the opportunity to marry, the number will increase dramatically.
AND as I said before, people get married when they are in a suitable relationship that has progressed to the point that marriage is appropriate, and then they schedule the ceremony at their convenience, not as soon as they are eligible to do so. I am baffled as to why you would argue otherwise.
Regarding your percentage figures, I think that your estimation of 2% gay in the population is low. If you Google the question, you will find an assortment of answers in the range of from 1% to over 10%, with the extremes on either end the obvious mischief of self-serving and intentional bias. But the most thorough and reliable numbers fall in the 3.4% – 4.5% range, and it is this range that provides the 10 million total that I used. Since there is absolutely no way to establish a precise number for the same reason that there is no way to establish a precise number of heterosexuals in America, I would fall back on my earlier question: Exactly what difference does it make? The right to marry doesn’t depend on the number of individuals who choose to avail themselves of the right.
@George Wells:
It’s kinda like winning the right to get married in a Church that no one goes to anymore. I doubt that most numbers are very accurate because I can imagine that some significant number of gays are not out of the closet.
George, for example:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/07/gay-population-us-estimate_n_846348.html
Seems reasonable.
@Redteam #44:
“Seems reasonable.”
Well, since it doesn’t matter if there are 6 million gay adults or 4 million gay adults or 2 million gay adults, lets stop fussing over which number it is. Go with your number. If there are only four million gay adults (your new number, not mine), and 200,000 of them are already married, then the percentage of married gays is 5%, not the 2% you claimed before. Do you need some help with your arithmetic?
@George Wells:
Not so far.
That was not my number, it is in blockquotes and the source is listed.
@Redteam #46:
“Do you need some help with your arithmetic?”
“Not so far.”
I beg to differ.
If you quote two different statistics that are mutually contradictory, you’ve got a problem.
If you don’t need help with the arithmetic, than you’re just an idiot.
@George Wells:
I thought you were better than that, George
@George Wells:
First, notice that little word in there: ‘quote’. That means I didn’t make up the numbers or produce the numbers, I only ‘quoted’ the numbers. Are you implying that you think all numbers relating to gay marriage are entirely consistent and there is no contradiction? Wouldn’t the fact that I ‘quoted’ two different numbers that are contradictory kinda destroy your implication?
But I’ll leave the personal rankings up to you, I have no need to call you a name.
@Redteam #49:
“Are you implying that you think all numbers relating to gay marriage are entirely consistent and there is no contradiction?”
Not likely, as I had in #42 supplied you with three different statistics on the numbers of married gays. You had challenged the 150,000 number, and you asked where it had come from. Remember?
And when I gave you three numbers that did not agree, I gave you an explanation for the difference.
You gave ME two numbers in support of your argument that happened to be mutually contradictory. You didn’t bother to explain the contradiction. One could only conclude that either you were too sloppy to bother noticing the problem, or that you lacked the capacity to appreciate that the contradiction killed the argument you were attempting to make.
“If you don’t need help with the arithmetic, than you’re just an idiot” was simply the most expeditious way of pointing this out. Next time, be more careful.