i am not a gay rights advocate any more than an affirmative action opponent is a white-rights advocate. i'm in favor of small government. i dont pay tax dollars so the government can decide who can get married. i dont give a damn who gets married. i understand that god has told you you that gays are bad. you refuse to ever answer how gays getting married affects your life or anyone else negatively. there is no point in arguing with the hopelessly irrational.
Do you know wherefrom gay marriage will be born? Maybe that's not clear to you. It's not going to happen at the ballot box or referendum. It's going to come from the Big Brother, the Federal Courts,, that you profess to dislike. Now, if the great state of Louisiana passes bills next year that gives gays the right to marry, does away with zoning laws, does away with the state income tax, or whatever the elected representatives decide to do, you or I will have an opportunity in 4 years to vote the bums out if we don't like any of the list of items they pass or don't pass to our liking. We don't have that choice with Federal judges. What gay advocates are doing is saying they can't convince people to agree with their position on an issue. They are shamelessly comparing their plight to black men and women who were lynched, denied the right to vote, denied education, denied the right to marry a member of the opposite sex who wasn't of their race, etc. ,none of which are happening to gays. They can't convince the majority of the people or their representatives to overturn centuries of tradition in terms of marriage, so they are running to the unelected Big Brothers to force their special interest onto the people. Note, I gave you a paraphrase of the 10th Amendment, the powers not delegated to the federal government are reserved to the states or to the people. These rights are not reserved to the whims of the Federal Courts. I may agree with you if you believe in the larger scheme of things this should be a non-issue, but unlike you and Kinsley, I believe the preferred method of settling this would be put it on the ballot or the referendum, or put it on the calendar of the legislature, vote it up or down. And when it inevitably is voted down, that's it! No running to Big Brother for them to discover some right that doesn't exist anywhere in the Constitution. In that case the people or the state have spoken.
Why no, it was my wizard. Or was it my Episcopalian minister? When the gay advocate falls back on the boogeyman of how evil religion is to grasp at defending their position, it only confirms they have no ground to stand on. I understand that self-confessed gay advocates want to keep their options open in case that special man saunters into their lives over a beer and football game, and for that, I wish you luck. What you do in the privacy of your home is your business. Heck, you can have a marriage ceremony. You, your roommate, next door neighbor and a pet turtle. But, if you try to claim you are married on your 1040, that will be equivalent of taking the slave deduction. That deduction also hasn't been voted on by the legislature. But, until the people have spoken on the issue and given gay advocates what they want, I'd prefer to keep Big Brother out of it. After all, Big Brother is busy right now with other issues, they have a full docket as it is.
I didn't comment on your chosen sexuality one way or the other. In fact, I assumed you may have a female roommate and neighbor. You are absolutely for Big Government endorsing a social contract. Unless you believe the Federal Courts are a private actor. Good article, as timely as this subject, in this weeks Weekly Standard. For someone such as yourself who positions themsleves as anti-state, you would perhaps be enlightened to read about the Nordic experience with gay marriage.
i dunno how many times i will have to explain this. i am opposed to marriage being endorsed by the government in any way. can you understand that? listen closely. i do not think the government should have any part of marriage. understand? i dont think marriage is an institution that is so weak that it will crumble if it is not protected from gays by the government. at the point at which the government is no longer intrusive upon your life and requiring you to sign papers to make your relationship official, obviously gays would be just as married as you, from the perspective of the law. i asked you many many times how it would hurt you or society for gays to be married. i asked you how your marriage would be affected. i asked how anyone would be negatively affected. you answer with vague references to "social norms", but no real answers. i am aware that the real answer is based on religion, which is based on faith, which of course is irrational by nature, which makes arguing over it somewhat pointless.
I'd refer you to the Weekly Standard article this week. I know its considered a conservative rag, but its a very interesting article, more sociological than political. The short of it is thus. You weaken marriage by opening it to gays which basically says their is no correlation between marriage and parenting. When us dirty males figure out that there is no reason not to move onto the next ladyfriend, after procreating, there is a child left, or children. We are free from what remains of the social stigma of being the father in the family. The child is left with the mother at least 9 times out of 10. Guess who the mother is going to turn to? I'll let the Weekly Standard article explain further, but it has been described in some circles as Big Brother. The Nordic example, weakening marriage to the point of worthlessness by opening it to gays, has essentially strengthed and expanded the biggest welfare states in the freeworld., Noway, Sweden and Denmark. If you don't believe that would happen in the US, you must have plans to disenfranchise alot of single parents, typically women. We have systematically moved to dislodge the idea of family for purely secular reasons in the US as it is. It inconveniences individuals. Its a poke in the eye of the evil of religion. The answer to the breakdown of the family unit to the detriment of the children is not to total destroy the equation of marriage=parenting by promoting gays to that level of recognition.
right. if the gays marry, then the hetero men all leave their wives. absurd reasoning. all rooted in religion. besides, its not the job of the government to keep anyone married.
First, if it has roots in religion, it doesn't make it wrong. The secular police are the most vicious in the world if you look at history. Secondly, the institution of marriage, despite of or perhaps because of its religious ties, has not survived for centuries because its some whimsical creation of a preacher. It has survived because the institution has provided some semblance of stability in terms of parenting of children. You open it to gays or crocodiles or mops and you are disengaging any societal pressure for families to remain together for the parenting function. It's not a matter of the government keeping people married, but you should be fully aware of the consequences of doing away with marriage. The threat of the explosion of the welfare state, much more than the scale the conservatives rally against now in the US, is more than speculation, there are real examples of this. I understand your violent distaste for religion. Dude, I'm down with that. It's not cool and we're cool. Its deconstructing the whole paternalistic white heterosexual protestant male mindset, I'm with ya. I took liberal arts classes and enjoy a latte' from time to time myself. Those people who listen to the wizards on Sunday are nowhere near as cool and intelligent as us.
