To deny to me and my wife what is not denied to other people would be discrimination - and wrong. But that is not what happened in the case of polygammy.
You have repeatedly mischaracterized my point. Either I am being completely unclear, or you are being disingenuous. Address my analogy between this thing that we both agree to be discriminatory, and gay marriage: Suppose that we decided to define marriage as "a union of two people that are not both Mormon". You would both be free to marry other people. I agree that this would be discriminatory, and it would obviously require a constitutional amendment to be even vaguely allowable as a state law. I would find such a definition of marriage to be despicable and persecutory. Dig?
Since the only reason that you consider psychological dysfunctionality to be relevant is w.r.t. child-rearing, I will address that in the other thread.
The US has the moral and legal perogative to ban gay marriage or more accurately to refuse to allow marriage to be redefined (polygamy stuff as my main example)
The burden of proof for changing an existing law is on those who want to change it.
So far I see very little reason to change the legal definition of marriage (since i reject the "rights"-based arguments) and I see some potential reasons not to change it.
I agree that the government can, does, and (so long as it enforces contracts) must regulate marriage.
Whatever.
Same-sex families exist, and it is in the government's best interest to regulate them.
I don't disagree with anything of substance in your above comment.
It's analagous to me saying "you believe the square root of two is not a rational number because your math profesor told you so."
You're right. It is significantly analogous to that.
the "rhetoric" that I inserted was actually not just a guise to cover my authority-based belief - it was sincere argument and should be addressed as such.
I do feel that I have addressed it sufficiently for our purposes: I do not think it is relevant whether homosexuality is a psychological dysfunction. My point was not that Mormonism is a psychological dysfunction. My point was rather that we do not need to agree about whether Mormonism, or homosexuality, are psychological dysfunctions.
I feel that your "final note" is simply ignoring what I've said. Imagine for a moment that you more-or-less agreed with one of those stronger anti-Mormon cases. I'm sure you would still agree that it would be wrong to prevent you and your wife's marriage.
On a final note, I want to point out that Mormons can get married. A Mormon man and a Mormon woman can go get married. This isn't playing with words. It's essential. The "right" to marriage is available for all responsible adults already. What's at stake is not the opportunity to marry - but the definition of marriage.
And I don't know what you mean by "authoritatively speak" on marital law. If y'all got fucked that doesn't mean you get to pick who gets fucked next. Consider that analogy drawn another way: Mormons, of all people, should know how destructive it is to force your definition of marriage onto other people. I'm not trying to make a point here, I'm just not sure I understand.
I hope you respond in that other thread. I appreciate how well reasoned this comment was, but I wish it was about the things I disagree with.
You're right. It wasn't in this thread. It was this thread. I feel that your "generic response" is mostly covered by my response in that thread. You even said that there was a possible case in which I might be right about gay marriage, so I felt it was worth asking for a followup.
In addition I tend to view homosexuality as a psychological dysfunction... (argument omitted)
But really, all that rhetoric wasn't necessary to convince you of that. You believe it because homosexuality is prohibited by the inspired word of God. I'm going to skip the individual arguments. I consider them spurious.
Anyway, it couldn't possibly be more irrelevant to gay marriage. I don't think it's a psychological dysfunction, but even if it was: There are families with same sex parents and it is in society's best interest to regulate them.
I think Mormonism is a psychological dysfunction. Should I lobby for a constitutional amendment to prohibit marriage between Mormon people because you are, in my opinion, more likely to have dysfunctional children? I really do believe that to be the case, and could provide rhetoric to that effect, but I don't see any reason why that should prevent you from marrying your wife or having any of the other rights that I enjoy.
Ok. There would have to be rules for the governance of such a trust, and that would be rather challenging to work out in a manner that worked for all such marriages. Especially for a doctor asking a room full of people whether to resuscitate your overly married ass.
Do you feel like responding to any of the hard points I put you to? (Child rearing)
If you're going to allow civil unions for homosexuals, however, I think you have to allow them for any group of consenting adults. Why stop at two?
Because there would be no legal meaning to such a union.
Marriage with two people: Your spouse inherits your stuff by default. Your spouse makes medical decisions for you if you are incapacitated. Your spouse gets social security survivor benefits.
Marriage with three people: Who inherits what by default? Who makes final medical decisions for you if you are incapacitated? Who gets what social security survivor benefits?
This argument might have used to apply to gay marriage.
Marriage between a man and a woman: Husband makes all decisions for the wife's property. etc.
Marriage between two women: Who makes decisions for their property? etc.
So since marriage has changed, and marriage is now supposed to be mostly equitable, no such objections are available. Perhaps, marriage could further change in such a way that it would have some meaning for three people to be married, but I don't see how. Who would inherit what by default? I just don't know how such a union would be implemented, so I don't know what it would mean or whether I would oppose it. Mostly I don't care.
I don't know the details either. I'm just pretty sure that such winnings have to be taxed as income, otherwise people might use "contests" to circumvent income tax.
Will Apple provide low interest financing to the winner so that they can pay for the taxes? Otherwise they probably threw in the extra 9 iPods just to make it more prohibitively expensive & hope that the winner can't claim the prize.
Lambda Legal is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization. Not for profit.
"Lambda Legal is a national organization committed to achieving full recognition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people and those with HIV through impact litigation, education and public policy work."
You keep ignoring my central point. The issue is not "why is the gov't involved in marriages at all?"
Then I'm glad we've made some headway. I didn't mean to ignore anything. I was responding to your assertion in your original post:
So why does gov't get involved in the institution of marriage at all? Because marriage is traditionally the basis for a family, and families are the conduits for bringing new lives into the nation and raising and nurturing them to be productive citizens. The gov't - and the public - have a vested interest in protecting the institution of marriage for that reason alone.
And I attempted to show that this was false. Government is involved by definition, because marriage is a contract. If your main point is that it is a good idea to change the meaning of that contract in such a way that society is improved, I agree in general. I agree that we use regulation to make that contract as beneficial for society as possible. But since it started out as an agreement with legal significance, the government was involved so long as the government is in the business of enforcing contracts.
You are right IF gay parents can raise kids as well as straight parents.
Really? Boy, am I glad it was that easy to turn you around.
Fortunately, we can both agree on this point without any further scientific study: Some gay parents would raise children more poorly than some straight parents, and some straight parents would raise children more poorly than some gay parents.
So, just like any other criterion that may or may not influence, but definitely doesn't determine child-rearing ability, it doesn't make any sense to prohibit marriage based on it.
But I think the burden of proof is on the gay-marriage advocates.
Good thing we don't determine our government based on what you think. Coincidentally, your religion says that homosexual behavior is a sin and is corrosive to moral well being. Why isn't the burden of proof on people who may be infertile? Oh, right. Because that's an invasion of privacy.
Lastly - I think the argument you make is the strongest argument for legalizing gay-marriage, but it's not one that is used.
It's used all the time. If you consider internet forums to be a good place for public policy debate, you are sadly mistaken.
Instead the "rights" rhetoric is employed. It may sound better, but it's logically bankrupt.
This doesn't change the fact that the US government doesn't issue contracts.
I'm with you there. They don't issue contracts. They enforce them.
If there was no license the gov't could still be involved in the case of a dispute via the civil courts.
But that's what I'm talking about. They are involved in the case of a dispute via the civil courts. It's the government's court and the government's laws, as well as the content of a contract, that determine the outcome of a civil case.
The reason that the government is involved in marriage is that the government determines the legal meaning of marriage. Whether it provides the ability to make medical decisions. Whether a parent is a legal guardian of their children. If the only thing that the government had to do with marriage was the license - the physical peice of paper, then no one in their right minds would care.
The reasoning behind the gov't granting marriage licenses is to provide for families which will raise children. However there is no way to tell which couples are going to be fertile and which ones aren't. Even if you did take a medical test the fact is that infertility can be overcome by science. And I think the tests themselves would be an unwelcome invasion of privacy.
I don't understand. Many gay couples raise children. That is one of the primary reasons that marriage is desireable for gay people: they are raising children, and would like to have the same legal rights as other parents. If you are correct, and the government provides marriage licenses so that it can provide for families that raise children, (which is not my opinion), then it should provide marriage licenses to gay people. Right away.
A marriage license is not a contract. It's a license.
I didn't say a marriage license was a contract. I said marriage was a contract. Since you don't have a pre-nup that modifies the standard enforcement of that contract, you and your wife have agreed to share your assets and debts, durable power of attorney for health decisions, and twenty other things.
While you may be able to come up with a definition of contract that doesn't fit marriage, I'm sure you see my point. It acts like a contract. That is why the government is involved: The terms of that contract will be enforced by the courts.
The Religious Right has made this a political issue, when in fact it is not even an issue.
This is demonstrably false. The Religious Right is a powerful force but the fact is that a lot of otherwise non-religious, modertate people in this country are not comfortable with the idea of gay-marriage. Take the 2004 presidential election as your evidence. I think it was 17 states that had ammendments to ban same-sex marriage on the ballot.
Hmm. That is a good example. Who do you think put those amendments on the ballot? Who spent the money? All the experts I've heard from say that those ballot measures were effective at getting one particular group to show up at the polls:
THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT, you ignorant moron. So whatever the opinion of most people on the subject of gay marriage, in your particular example it was still made an issue by the religious right.
Demonstrably give up on that example, please.
So why does gov't get involved in the institution of marriage at all?
Because it is a contract between two people. We depend on courts to enforce contracts. You are saying that your desires for the regulation of marriage are the same as the government's. To quote Reservior Dogs: Now that don't necessarily make it fucking so.
There isn't a current Creative Commons license that fits my needs. I would like one with all the qualities of the GPL that I like, but none suffice.
ShareAlike-1.0 worked, but now it's somewhat defunct. Flickr doesn't have it, for example. There's no current attribution-less license. They said that was due to lack of demand, based on lack of web-hits to their no-attrib licenses. What the fuck ever? They apparently have no interest in which licenses are most functional for encouraging a "creative commons". Nothing with a recent CC license can be used in GPL projects, because you'd have to require attribution, which is a restriction in excess of the GPL.
And they've got these sampling licenses that are so convoluted and restrictive that it can hardly be considered a contribution to public culture. To my reading, the sampling license says, "We'll allow what should already be considered fair use. Ok, some of what should be considered fair use."
Theres no feeling quite like seeing how poorly your point has been made. Allow me to try again...
...
...
Longer didn't help. Your analogy to sharing sexual and drug-related anecdotes on the job is completely invalid, and strengthens my opinion of you as a homophobe. You don't seem like a bad person at all, so I hope that in the future you'll be able to look back at these posts and realize you were wrong.
However, as the company that makes the servers, and runs them, and makes the rules that everyone agrees to, Blizzard gets to keep the peace. If they say they don't want people in game openly organizing around sexuality, then thats simply their perogative.
Obviously it's their prerogative. It's also the wrong choice. I'm not trying to sue Blizzard; I'm just pointing out that you were wrong.
However... there is "out of the closet" and there is "out in the street". Theres a big difference between being open and against prejudice, and shoving your views/lifestyle in everyones face.
Uh, you've lost me again. Even though this isn't what they were doing: "Do you want to join a club for Gay people" isn't shoving anything in your face. Unless thinking about gay people is upsetting for you, in which case your problem is homophobia, not gay people.
However, frankly, I think that if I meet you, and find out for no aparent reason that you are bisexual within 5 minutes of meeting you, then maybe you need to consider that you are going a bit far with this openness and may even be doing your own cause harm by making people feel like you are pushing acceptance of your lifestyle on them. _I_ wont personally feel that way... but others will and I think it does hurt the cause of fighting for equality for ALL people.
Here, you are completely full of shit. You wouldn't, for example, consider it strange if you discovered that I was straight within five minutes of meeting me. That would not be too "out".
My point here is that I am on the side of GLBT people...
Is that true because you say it is?
Is there a double standard? Yah most probably. Should we work to get rid of it? Yup. Should we pick our battles? absolutly.
Whatever, dude. This isn't a battle. You said there was no reason to form this club. You were just wrong. Here you seem to be agreeing that Blizzard made the wrong decision, but you don't consider it a big deal. If that is the case, then we are almost on the same page.
How would you feel about a BDSM guild?
Differently.
A Golden shower guild?
Differently.
How about an anal sex guild?
Differently.
Should Blizzard just allow any of them? How are any of them different from a GLBT guild? (other than being slightly more specific in the type of sex that they are organized around)
GLBT isn't a type of sex act. It is perfectly acceptable (and common) in WoW to discuss romantic relationships. Don't know why you haven't finished reversing yet.
Slashdot Mirror
I will address this post late this evening.
Since the only reason that you consider psychological dysfunctionality to be relevant is w.r.t. child-rearing, I will address that in the other thread.
I feel that your "final note" is simply ignoring what I've said. Imagine for a moment that you more-or-less agreed with one of those stronger anti-Mormon cases. I'm sure you would still agree that it would be wrong to prevent you and your wife's marriage.
On a final note, I want to point out that Mormons can get married. A Mormon man and a Mormon woman can go get married. This isn't playing with words. It's essential. The "right" to marriage is available for all responsible adults already. What's at stake is not the opportunity to marry - but the definition of marriage.
And I don't know what you mean by "authoritatively speak" on marital law. If y'all got fucked that doesn't mean you get to pick who gets fucked next. Consider that analogy drawn another way: Mormons, of all people, should know how destructive it is to force your definition of marriage onto other people. I'm not trying to make a point here, I'm just not sure I understand.
I hope you respond in that other thread. I appreciate how well reasoned this comment was, but I wish it was about the things I disagree with.
Oh, dear. I thought it was just taxed as income.
Never the hell mind.
Anyway, it couldn't possibly be more irrelevant to gay marriage. I don't think it's a psychological dysfunction, but even if it was: There are families with same sex parents and it is in society's best interest to regulate them.
I think Mormonism is a psychological dysfunction. Should I lobby for a constitutional amendment to prohibit marriage between Mormon people because you are, in my opinion, more likely to have dysfunctional children? I really do believe that to be the case, and could provide rhetoric to that effect, but I don't see any reason why that should prevent you from marrying your wife or having any of the other rights that I enjoy.
Ok. There would have to be rules for the governance of such a trust, and that would be rather challenging to work out in a manner that worked for all such marriages. Especially for a doctor asking a room full of people whether to resuscitate your overly married ass.
Do you feel like responding to any of the hard points I put you to? (Child rearing)
Marriage with two people:
Your spouse inherits your stuff by default.
Your spouse makes medical decisions for you if you are incapacitated.
Your spouse gets social security survivor benefits.
Marriage with three people:
Who inherits what by default?
Who makes final medical decisions for you if you are incapacitated?
Who gets what social security survivor benefits?
This argument might have used to apply to gay marriage.
Marriage between a man and a woman:
Husband makes all decisions for the wife's property.
etc.
Marriage between two women:
Who makes decisions for their property?
etc.
So since marriage has changed, and marriage is now supposed to be mostly equitable, no such objections are available. Perhaps, marriage could further change in such a way that it would have some meaning for three people to be married, but I don't see how. Who would inherit what by default? I just don't know how such a union would be implemented, so I don't know what it would mean or whether I would oppose it. Mostly I don't care.
I don't know the details either. I'm just pretty sure that such winnings have to be taxed as income, otherwise people might use "contests" to circumvent income tax.
Plus it ain't working anyway. Oooh, dear.
(1,699 + (10,000*.99) + (10*399)) *.3 (ballpark) = $4,676.7
Will Apple provide low interest financing to the winner so that they can pay for the taxes? Otherwise they probably threw in the extra 9 iPods just to make it more prohibitively expensive & hope that the winner can't claim the prize.
I'm 25 and a fan of lots of movies. Elwood P Dowd seemed like a good pseudonym back in February 1999.
"Lambda Legal is a national organization committed to achieving full recognition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people and those with HIV through impact litigation, education and public policy work."
Fortunately, we can both agree on this point without any further scientific study: Some gay parents would raise children more poorly than some straight parents, and some straight parents would raise children more poorly than some gay parents.
So, just like any other criterion that may or may not influence, but definitely doesn't determine child-rearing ability, it doesn't make any sense to prohibit marriage based on it.Good thing we don't determine our government based on what you think. Coincidentally, your religion says that homosexual behavior is a sin and is corrosive to moral well being. Why isn't the burden of proof on people who may be infertile? Oh, right. Because that's an invasion of privacy.It's used all the time. If you consider internet forums to be a good place for public policy debate, you are sadly mistaken. I deny that you have shown this to be the case.
The reason that the government is involved in marriage is that the government determines the legal meaning of marriage. Whether it provides the ability to make medical decisions. Whether a parent is a legal guardian of their children. If the only thing that the government had to do with marriage was the license - the physical peice of paper, then no one in their right minds would care.
While you may be able to come up with a definition of contract that doesn't fit marriage, I'm sure you see my point. It acts like a contract. That is why the government is involved: The terms of that contract will be enforced by the courts.
You mean WoW isn't meant to push the "shut up, fag" agenda?
Hmm. Maybe someone should do something about that.
THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT, you ignorant moron. So whatever the opinion of most people on the subject of gay marriage, in your particular example it was still made an issue by the religious right.
Demonstrably give up on that example, please.Because it is a contract between two people. We depend on courts to enforce contracts. You are saying that your desires for the regulation of marriage are the same as the government's. To quote Reservior Dogs: Now that don't necessarily make it fucking so.
Are you saying that your insertions into RMS's text should be prohibited by law and you should be prosecuted for above comment?
Of course you can write that. What is your problem?
There isn't a current Creative Commons license that fits my needs. I would like one with all the qualities of the GPL that I like, but none suffice.
ShareAlike-1.0 worked, but now it's somewhat defunct. Flickr doesn't have it, for example. There's no current attribution-less license. They said that was due to lack of demand, based on lack of web-hits to their no-attrib licenses. What the fuck ever? They apparently have no interest in which licenses are most functional for encouraging a "creative commons". Nothing with a recent CC license can be used in GPL projects, because you'd have to require attribution, which is a restriction in excess of the GPL.
And they've got these sampling licenses that are so convoluted and restrictive that it can hardly be considered a contribution to public culture. To my reading, the sampling license says, "We'll allow what should already be considered fair use. Ok, some of what should be considered fair use."
Yes, yes it is clearly a Guest style mockumentary. It falls into the same traps, too. Repetitive and slow...