[quote]Beowolf wrote:
I have nothing against gay people. Really, I don’t. [/quote]
Seriously guys! No, Really. I mean it.
Blue eyed babies are not doomed to have blue eyes.
Tall people are not doomed to be tall.
Short people are not doomed to be short.
White babies are not doomed to be white.
[quote]forlife wrote:
Standard Donkey wrote:
Honestly, I would not be all that opposed to gay “marriage” if I knew for a fact that that was where it was going to end.
I have a distinct feeling that we are going to see a lot of legal difficulties arise from this subject.
Like what?[/quote]
Lawsuits galore.
More specifically, homosexuals effectively being made “demi-Gods” by the courts.
Speak against them or do not accept them? Hate crime.
Suing churches
making churches lose their tax exemption
Gay adoption
rainbows everywhere
siemen everywhere
spread of disease
Gay parades
teaching gayness in schools to children for fucks sake
I mean, we are so digusted by those boyscout troop leaders who molest the children. Guess what? THEY ARE ALL GAY MEN!
I don’t want to have to have to worry about my children being molested by some ass pirate.
Really who cares about the rights of marriage to gays? Besides them. It is such a non-issue.
I personally do not have problems with gays, I work at starbucks in a very gay neighboorhood and half the guys working there are fudge packers. They should respect the rights of traditional marriage. Like someone here said why is the minority vote overruling the majority vote.
On a side note gay guys usually tip very well and are usually more wealthy than usual. So be nice to them.
[quote]forlife wrote:
I agree, to some extent. People can choose their behavior, but they can’t choose their sexual orientation. There is an important difference between the two.
A gay man can choose not to have sex with another man, but he can’t choose who he finds attractive.
You can choose to be celibate, but you are still denied the choice of spending your life with the person you love.[/quote]
WTHF? Does your keyboard have a key on it that converts everything you type to bullshit?
If that’s truly homosexuality, then you’re talking about rewriting Constitutions on abstract and ephemeral characteristics like whether someone is recessive for blue eyes or an ESFP on a Meyers-Briggs test. Wholly contrived and, at best, tangentially meaningful bullshit. To act like the act and orientation are wholly separate or even distinctly separate is foolishness. True, one or two acts doesn’t make you hetero/homo/a sexual, but repeated acts overwhelmingly determine and define sexuality.
The gov’t doesn’t deny the celibate ‘predestined’ ‘homosexual’ the choice of spending their life with their anyone. They may deny him the choice of filing joint taxes, preferred immigration status, or hospital visitation with a man he doesn’t have sex with. But they don’t do that more or less impartially to any other two men (or man/woman or woman/woman) who don’t have sex.
Honestly, the actual sex act doesn’t bother me and the majority of people who do it I have no problem with. It’s the continued ‘defined by activity but not an act’, ‘not genetic but determined at birth’, ‘fixed but flexible’,‘married but celibate, living separately, and without kids’, and ‘by not supporting me in my cause, you’re denying me my right to that cause’ bullshit that makes me want to break out the ammunition and ready the Molotov cocktails. I’d calm down and go have a cigarette, but the laws are written in such a way as to deprive me of the happiness that I’m genetically predisposed to derive from it.
[quote]Beowolf wrote:
streamline wrote:
There is not a single guy that would at anytime decide to be gay. It is not a life choice, they didn’t choose to be gay, they are gay because that’s the way they were born.
I’ve never liked this argument. It implies that if they could choose, it would be wrong. As well, it implies that people are their genetics, and that they have no free will.
Seriously. Fuck this argument.
I have nothing against gay people. Really, I don’t. But I could care less if they were “born that way” or not. They still CHOOSE to have gay sex. There is NOTHING wrong with that, in my opinion. But it is still a choice. They have free will. Stop pretending like people are doomed to be something at birth.
Poor babies are not doomed to be poor adults.
Rich babies are not guaranteed to be rich adults.
Straight babies are not doomed to be straight.
Gay babies are not doomed to be gay.
The fact that someone out there thinks a minute old baby can be “gay” or “straight” appears fucking ridiculous to me.
The world isn’t all nature or nurture. At some point, you have to come to terms with the fact that we have the free will to make choices. Two people with identical genetics and upbringings often make vastly different choices.
We are not our genetics. We are not our environment. We are something more than that, combined with that.
I mean, isn’t the very purpose of this site to tell genetics to go fuck themselves?[/quote]
your unconciousness decides for you while the consciousness takes all the credit.
[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
I think it is a sad commentary on the decline of values in this country. I quite understand that some people have no problem with this or with homosexuality in general - great for them - but I think it is sad that we are losing our traditional values and I don’t think we will be recovering them anytime soon.
Some people love this “progress”, I see nothing positive in it and nothing that will add to what was once a great culture.
Being American doesn’t mean anything anymore - it is now just a confab of people with hugely divergent values (this will lead to violence which will lead to oppression) - gone is the Christian nation I was born into- now we have a new socialism that will end in totalitarianism with everyone cheering the loss of our freedoms and privileges- yeah for us!
Welcome to the new singularity and uni-culturalism (political correctness) - enjoy it while it lasts . . .
[/quote]
Excellent post! We created a big government and now different groups fight each other for possession of it, so they can clobber all the others. But democracy had to evolve into despotism anyway — as long as people can vote to rob/club their neighbors, they will.
[quote]forlife wrote:
IrishSteel wrote:
I think it is a sad commentary on the decline of values in this country. I quite understand that some people have no problem with this or with homosexuality in general - great for them - but I think it is sad that we are losing our traditional values and I don’t think we will be recovering them anytime soon.
For someone committed to a personal search for truth with no boundaries, I’m surprised you are so rigid in your definition of “traditional values” that you can’t recognize the possibility of social progress and enlightenment.
Under “traditional values” 100 years ago, women and blacks were second class citizens at best.[/quote]
It was recognised that unlimited suffrage would lead to the gigantic mess we have now. But they should have made restrictions based on roots in a society — someone should have to be a property owner or a renter over age 30, in order to vote. Letting someone vote who lists their address as a park bench has to lead to chaos eventually.
“ass-pirates” and “fudge packers”…
…I’m back in middle school!!!
Well they are fudge packers. Right? Ask forlife if he is a bottom or a top?
[quote]tGunslinger wrote:
The only thing being “denied” gays is the right to file some government paperwork. They can hold a ceremony, buy a home together, live together, die together, with whomever they choose. Nobody is oppressing them. They can do all of this openly, without fear of law enforcement breaking it up.[/quote]
LOL
Hospital visitation, child custody, there are a LOT of things that are denied to them.
Why isn’t it 45 holding and 5 to retake? just curious about that . . .
[quote]MaddyD wrote:
tGunslinger wrote:
Nobody is oppressing gays, nobody is preventing them from life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness. Nobody is denying them the right to love and live with whomever they choose.
but if you are denying a person the right to marry whomever they choose are you not infact telling them what they can and can not do?
[/quote]
nobody is telling they can’t get married. What they are being told is that others will not be forced to recognize their marriage.
No, you are infringing on other people liberty when you force them to recognize a relationship they have not agreed to.
yeah, so? What if I want to marry my sister or my father, or both? Should that be legal? Should others be forced to accept it?
streeeeeeeeeeaaach
partially correct. They should be able to do whatever they want to do as long as it does not directly infringe on ohters’ freedom to do the same. This includes not accepting the lifestyle.
These stances are not contradictory. You can say them out of the same side of your mouth. You really need to think about this a bit more.
[quote]forlife wrote:
tGunslinger wrote:
Gays want the government, and society, by proxy, to accept their lifestyle. Period. That’s what this movement is about.
With all the discussion on this topic, it blows me away that some people are still this ignorant.
As a gay man, I couldn’t care less whether or not you approve of my relationship. I do care about issues like child custody, hospital visitation rights, social security inheritance, immigration rights, and the 1,000 other privileges associated with federal marriage that are currently denied to gay couples.[/quote]
no you don’t. All of these could be addressed without all the hubbub. We’ve already been through this and you refused to comment. List all the priviledges you are concerned with and I will show you a legal and consitutional solution. i am quite sure you have zero interest in doing this and we all know why.
[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
Why isn’t it 45 holding and 5 to retake? just curious about that . . . [/quote]
it doesn’t appear IA will last too long.
[quote]forlife wrote:
IrishSteel wrote:
I think it is a sad commentary on the decline of values in this country. I quite understand that some people have no problem with this or with homosexuality in general - great for them - but I think it is sad that we are losing our traditional values and I don’t think we will be recovering them anytime soon.
For someone committed to a personal search for truth with no boundaries, I’m surprised you are so rigid in your definition of “traditional values” that you can’t recognize the possibility of social progress and enlightenment.
Under “traditional values” 100 years ago, women and blacks were second class citizens at best.[/quote]
How so?
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
forlife wrote:
IrishSteel wrote:
I think it is a sad commentary on the decline of values in this country. I quite understand that some people have no problem with this or with homosexuality in general - great for them - but I think it is sad that we are losing our traditional values and I don’t think we will be recovering them anytime soon.
For someone committed to a personal search for truth with no boundaries, I’m surprised you are so rigid in your definition of “traditional values” that you can’t recognize the possibility of social progress and enlightenment.
Under “traditional values” 100 years ago, women and blacks were second class citizens at best.
It was recognised that unlimited suffrage would lead to the gigantic mess we have now. But they should have made restrictions based on roots in a society — someone should have to be a property owner or a renter over age 30, in order to vote. Letting someone vote who lists their address as a park bench has to lead to chaos eventually.
[/quote]
Why not give a number of “votes” to individuals based on what they paid in income taxes to the federal gov’t? Shit, do the same at the state and local (property tax) level. Problem solved.
Why shouldn’t the ones funding it have more influence?
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
forlife wrote:
IrishSteel wrote:
I think it is a sad commentary on the decline of values in this country. I quite understand that some people have no problem with this or with homosexuality in general - great for them - but I think it is sad that we are losing our traditional values and I don’t think we will be recovering them anytime soon.
For someone committed to a personal search for truth with no boundaries, I’m surprised you are so rigid in your definition of “traditional values” that you can’t recognize the possibility of social progress and enlightenment.
Under “traditional values” 100 years ago, women and blacks were second class citizens at best.
It was recognised that unlimited suffrage would lead to the gigantic mess we have now. But they should have made restrictions based on roots in a society — someone should have to be a property owner or a renter over age 30, in order to vote. Letting someone vote who lists their address as a park bench has to lead to chaos eventually.
[/quote]
Just another note. This is what Burke and many off the founders thought. I think Burke called it a natural aristocracy.
They beleived it immoral for the uneducated and unattached to vote on issues they could not understand. They felt the rich or land owners, amonng other attibutes, had leisure time to ponder the issues. I would say this is certainly not the case today, but there still should be some qualification other than a heart beat. They also believed that the wealthly should fund the federal gov’t, but in no way envisioned it this big.
If everyone wants a vote, then we need to find a way to make everyone take part in funding what they are voting for. It is immoral to allow a group of people that are net receivers of gov’t vote to forcabley take more from the net contributors. This is mob rule at it’s most basic form. The only more basic form would be for a group of us to sack the mansion up the street and donate the lute to charity or use it to fund the youth hockey program. pretty sure that’s not legal.
[quote]tGunslinger wrote:
Trying to alter marriage for the sole purpose of addressing the issues you listed is perhaps the most difficult, thorniest way of going about it imaginable.[/quote]
It makes perfect sense, since by definition the privileges and responsibilities associated with marriage would be granted by allowing gays to marry.
That said, many of us realize that the religious right feels ownership for the term “marriage” because they see it as a sacrament with their God. There is no need to fight that battle, as long as we receive the same responsibilities/benefits at a civil level.
As noted by the Iowa Supreme Court, religions can still choose not to recognize gay marriage/civil unions without having to sacrifice their core beliefs. It is, and should be, a strictly civil issue.
[quote]Standard Donkey wrote:
Lawsuits galore.
More specifically, homosexuals effectively being made “demi-Gods” by the courts.[/quote]
Gays don’t want to be made “demi-Gods” (at least not most of us). We just want to be treated the same as heteros. It’s pretty simple really.
They’re pedophiles, not gay. Statistically, pedophiles are far more likely to go after girls than to go after boys.
[quote]jre67t wrote:
On a side note gay guys usually tip very well and are usually more wealthy than usual. So be nice to them.[/quote]
Thanks, but having equal rights is more important to me than for you to be nice to me. I don’t think many of us care if you like us or not. What we care about is having equal protection under the law.