This is TOO much!

[ericb]

in the most general terms - i think a HUGE majority of america believes that gay couples should have similar benefits as straight couples.

 

the devil is in the details.

 

You think???...because you have further diluted the argument about popular opinion....first marriage, then "legal unions" and now your bold assertion of "benefits". A couple of permutations more and you might be right.

 

Nonetheless....if "the devil is in the details", as you say, perhaps you can produce some data in support of this statement, I'd love to see it

[lI1|1!]

wow, spray seems kinda heated up today.

 

wonder if it's cause of teh election tomorrow?

 

[tvashtarkatena]

I've got my best William F. Buckley game face on today...

Edited November 7, 2006 by tvashtarkatena

[cj001f]

when someone makes the assertion that 'people should be able to marry anyone they please' ... it is more than fair to bring up polygamy and all other topics of marriage. IMO.

 

Well, I was going to ignore ericb's desire to legalize man on dog, but now that you brought it up

[tvashtarkatena]

when someone makes the assertion that 'people should be able to marry anyone they please' ... it is more than fair to bring up polygamy and all other topics of marriage. IMO.

 

 

Well, I was going to ignore ericb's desire to legalize man on dog, but now that you brought it up

 

He just wants to talk about it...

 

Edited November 7, 2006 by tvashtarkatena

[ericb]

when someone makes the assertion that 'people should be able to marry anyone they please' ... it is more than fair to bring up polygamy and all other topics of marriage. IMO.

 

Well, I was going to ignore ericb's desire to legalize man on dog, but now that you brought it up

 

Even if I'm successful, you are still going to do time for the pitbull incident

[cj001f]

when someone makes the assertion that 'people should be able to marry anyone they please' ... it is more than fair to bring up polygamy and all other topics of marriage. IMO.

 

Well, I was going to ignore ericb's desire to legalize man on dog, but now that you brought it up

 

Even if I'm successful, you are still going to do time for the pitbull incident

 

It's not a crime for me to wield a camera ericb......

[ericb]

so why is there such a debate?

Because religious conservatives are actively working to impose their doctrines on all of us through public policy.

 

Based on your observations would you say that 57% of the state of Oregon are religious conservatives? If not, I'd say that you have more people to blame than just the religious conservatives.

[tvashtarkatena]

OK; religious conservatives and morons.

[ericb]

All people that don't agree with you are morons.... the true doctrine of Liberalism

[tvashtarkatena]

No, just people who generalize my statements as you just did...

[foraker]

All people that don't agree with you are morons....

 

Sounds like the sort of thinking one associates with Jihadists, Inquisitionists, and True Believers everywhere.... Doesn't sound like it has much to do with 'liberalism' or 'conservatism'. Unless you're an idiot that is.

[tvashtarkatena]

All people that don't agree with you are morons.... the true doctrine of Liberalism

 

Here's a link that provides the statistics to back up my point:

 

Oregonians and Gay Marriage

[Dave_Schuldt]

If it hasn't been posted already

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=100742

[JayB]

Actually, JayB, you're the one who missed the point. No one here has called for government to get out of the business of marriage. That would be patently ridiculous: marriage is a fundamental legal contract. No shit, Sherlock.

 

Quite the opposite. I am calling for government to become more involved, not less, by enforcing the equal protection clause of our constitution for gays so they have the same marital rights (or whatever you want to call it) as heterosexual couples to marry who they want. Note the word SAME: last time I checked heteros couldn't marry 26 other people. You're the only person on this forum confused by this. If you want to obfuscate this debate by involving polygamy and other scenarios that have not been under discussion, by all means start another forum. Gay marriage is a big enough topic for this one.

 

I think that you are reacting to some of your own preconceptions and seizing an opportunity to do a bit of grandstanding instead of actually reading what I am writing. I am not arguing against gay marriage. I am saying that people who want gays to be able to marry should frame their arguments carefully so that people who are opposed to the idea understand that what they want is a very limited and tightly constructed extension of the existing rules, and any argument that includes something along the lines of "I don't think it's any of the government's business to..." or "Anything that involves consenting adults..." etc tend to give people the wrong idea.

 

The sociocultural evolution of the West has resulted in a state of affairs where one type of consensual relationship has been granted a legal status above all others. Since this didn't come about as the result of any abstract logic or analysis - things just evolved in this manner - it's pretty hard to come up with a logically bulletproof defense of this arrangement. It's something that we've inherited because it worked as part of social evolution. Given that that you can't defend this state of affairs in the way that you defend a geometric proof, trying to argue on behalf of gay marriage using a purely logical proposition isn't going to work, because once you start asking why a consensual relationship between a man and a woman should be given a legal status and a set of privileges that's not granted to a man and two consenting women or two consenting women and a man, it's rather difficult to make a logically consistent argument to the contrary, which is probably why I have never heard one. Instead people veer off into empiricism or practicality, and while I accept these and they are compelling - they fall way short of a logical refutation of the idea.

 

The institution of marriage is an arbitrary construct that we've inherited through social evolution. That's just the way it is. People who support changing the arbitrary rules that we've inherited are making a mistake to claim otherwise, or to base their advocacy on logical arguments because, like it or not, the arguments employed in this fashion do not exclude any relationship between consenting adults. A strategy which emphasizes that the goal is not to overturn this arbitrary arrangement, but simply expand it's scope to include two persons of the same sex gives a much clearer idea of what I think most gay people's objectives are, and helps people understand that no one is talking about substantially modifying the arbitrary rules that we've inherited to include any consensual relationship between adults, nor getting the government out of the role of determining which relationships get this special status.

 

Gay marriage. Great idea. Less suffering, fewer women investing their lives in conflicted closet cases like Haggard, hopefully more stable and healthier relationships amongst gay people - sounds great to me, but anyone that wants to see it happen is going to have to convince lots of people who are uncomfortable with the idea, and bad arguments aren't going to help.

[Dave_Schuldt]

Pastor Ted has a diet book.....

http://shop1.mailordercentral.com/newlifechurch/prodinfo.asp?number=BK011

[JayB]

Must only have one recipe.

 

"First combine 156 blister packs worth of pseudoephedrine with..."

[tvashtarkatena]

I think that you are reacting to some of your own preconceptions and seizing an opportunity to do a bit of grandstanding instead of actually reading what I am writing. I am not arguing against gay marriage. I am saying that people who want gays to be able to marry should frame their arguments carefully so that people who are opposed to the idea understand that what they want is a very limited and tightly constructed extension of the existing rules, and any argument that includes something along the lines of "I don't think it's any of the government's business to..." or "Anything that involves consenting adults..." etc tend to give people the wrong idea.

 

The sociocultural evolution of the West has resulted in a state of affairs where one type of consensual relationship has been granted a legal status above all others. Since this didn't come about as the result of any abstract logic or analysis - things just evolved in this manner - it's pretty hard to come up with a logically bulletproof defense of this arrangement. It's something that we've inherited because it worked as part of social evolution. Given that that you can't defend this state of affairs in the way that you defend a geometric proof, trying to argue on behalf of gay marriage using a purely logical proposition isn't going to work, because once you start asking why a consensual relationship between a man and a woman should be given a legal status and a set of privileges that's not granted to a man and two consenting women or two consenting women and a man, it's rather difficult to make a logically consistent argument to the contrary, which is probably why I have never heard one. Instead people veer off into empiricism or practicality, and while I accept these and they are compelling - they fall way short of a logical refutation of the idea.

 

The institution of marriage is an arbitrary construct that we've inherited through social evolution. That's just the way it is. People who support changing the arbitrary rules that we've inherited are making a mistake to claim otherwise, or to base their advocacy on logical arguments because, like it or not, the arguments employed in this fashion do not exclude any relationship between consenting adults. A strategy which emphasizes that the goal is not to overturn this arbitrary arrangement, but simply expand it's scope to include two persons of the same sex gives a much clearer idea of what I think most gay people's objectives are, and helps people understand that no one is talking about substantially modifying the arbitrary rules that we've inherited to include any consensual relationship between adults, nor getting the government out of the role of determining which relationships get this special status.

 

Gay marriage. Great idea. Less suffering, fewer women investing their lives in conflicted closet cases like Haggard, hopefully more stable and healthier relationships amongst gay people - sounds great to me, but anyone that wants to see it happen is going to have to convince lots of people who are uncomfortable with the idea, and bad arguments aren't going to help.

 

Brevity works, too.

[Mr_Phil]

I think that you are reacting to some of your own preconceptions and seizing an opportunity to do a bit of grandstanding instead of actually reading what I am writing. I am not arguing against gay marriage. I am saying that people who want gays to be able to marry should frame their arguments carefully so that people who are opposed to the idea understand that what they want is a very limited and tightly constructed extension of the existing rules, and any argument that includes something along the lines of "I don't think it's any of the government's business to..." or "Anything that involves consenting adults..." etc tend to give people the wrong idea.

 

The sociocultural evolution of the West has resulted in a state of affairs where one type of consensual relationship has been granted a legal status above all others. Since this didn't come about as the result of any abstract logic or analysis - things just evolved in this manner - it's pretty hard to come up with a logically bulletproof defense of this arrangement. It's something that we've inherited because it worked as part of social evolution. Given that that you can't defend this state of affairs in the way that you defend a geometric proof, trying to argue on behalf of gay marriage using a purely logical proposition isn't going to work, because once you start asking why a consensual relationship between a man and a woman should be given a legal status and a set of privileges that's not granted to a man and two consenting women or two consenting women and a man, it's rather difficult to make a logically consistent argument to the contrary, which is probably why I have never heard one. Instead people veer off into empiricism or practicality, and while I accept these and they are compelling - they fall way short of a logical refutation of the idea.

 

The institution of marriage is an arbitrary construct that we've inherited through social evolution. That's just the way it is. People who support changing the arbitrary rules that we've inherited are making a mistake to claim otherwise, or to base their advocacy on logical arguments because, like it or not, the arguments employed in this fashion do not exclude any relationship between consenting adults. A strategy which emphasizes that the goal is not to overturn this arbitrary arrangement, but simply expand it's scope to include two persons of the same sex gives a much clearer idea of what I think most gay people's objectives are, and helps people understand that no one is talking about substantially modifying the arbitrary rules that we've inherited to include any consensual relationship between adults, nor getting the government out of the role of determining which relationships get this special status.

 

Gay marriage. Great idea. Less suffering, fewer women investing their lives in conflicted closet cases like Haggard, hopefully more stable and healthier relationships amongst gay people - sounds great to me, but anyone that wants to see it happen is going to have to convince lots of people who are uncomfortable with the idea, and bad arguments aren't going to help.

 

Brevity works, too.

 

Not always. Live isn't always simple. Too bad some people can only think in Sound Bites.

[cj001f]

longwinded babble

 

Brevity works, too.

 

Not always. Live isn't always simple. Too bad some people can only think in Sound Bites.

 

I'm pretty sure he just used the rightwing wonk paragraph generator.

[JayB]

Shhhhhh.

[Dechristo]

It's been discovered that Ted Haggard's "masseur" was Chuck Norris.

[archenemy]

Social conservatives screw this up all the time by ignoring the distinction between the benefits of a civil contract/marriage and the religious aspects of marriage.

 

To me, the civil contract of a marriage means that my partner and I are an economic unit as far as our finances, arranging health benefits, being responsible for offspring, etc. As well, we mutually agree to be legally responsible for each other, including making medical decision for the other if they are incapacitated. The state has an interest in this to the extent that it clarifies ground rules as far as responsibilites and benefits in a relationship. If that level of committment is too heavy for someone, just don't get married.

 

A religious marriage is an overlay on this basic civil contract, with whatever baggage a particular religion brings to the table. The baggage may include requirements to only marry someone from that faith, it may restrict by race, caste, gender or whatever.

 

It makes sense to me to have the civil and religious aspects completely separated. Any consenting adults should be able to enter the civil partnership, but only those parties that meet a particular religion's stamp of approval would be able to become married in the eyes of that church.

 

Attempting to apply religious standards to the legal institution of marriage is foolish at best and unconstitutional at worst.

So what about non-religious heterosexual couples who get married (either in a church of convenience, in a Las Vegas shack, or by an ordained minister w/o a church, or whatever other permutation you can think of)? They are still considered "married" not "civil unioned" even though they aren't religious. Why would this option not then be available to homosexual couples? And what about homosexual couples who could marry in one of the churches that would perform a marriage for them? The state still does not recognize this as a marriage. The state is still defining and controlling marriage, religion, and the contract between two adults.

[Dave_Schuldt]

[tvashtarkatena]

Live isn't always simple. Too bad some people can only think in Sound Bites.

 

But it's a good thing that those who can't seem to manage the english language think in them...

Edited November 8, 2006 by tvashtarkatena