web operations and data that are clustered or distributed around the world would be immune to a single site's seizure.
something along the lines of freenet would possibly work better than mirroring. They'd have to sieze an indeterminate number of computers, possibly limitless from a practical viewpoint. It'd also protect visitors from being watched.. at least to more of an extent than the web. It's not quite perfect though.
Leave "marriage" alone. If it must, let the law deal with some legal construct that poses as a suitable abstraction (civil union).
It is not a matter of the state mandating a definition of marriage upon christianity, but rather christianity mandating a definition upon the state. In a legal sense, "marriage" has nothing to do with religion. Atheists, in fact, get married all of the time, I promise. They don't get married in Catholic churches, however--not only because they would probably rather not, but because the church only recognizes the catholic concept of marriage. Nor can an evangelical take sacrement in a catholic church. Which is fine, because it is not a matter of Catholics saying "you can't receive sacrement because you are not catholic," but a matter of "you aren't catholic, so you can't receive the catholic version of sacrement."
That's exactly as it should be with marriage. I don't expect the pope to recognize the marriage of two men in the eyes of god, but I do expect it of a government that 1) espouses the separation of church and state, and 2) guarantees rights regardless of race, class, wealth, gender, or sexuality. Defining marriage thus is not defining it in the eyes of any respective God that may or may not exist, but instead in the eyes of a secular state. Allowing marriage only for straight couples is no better than allowing suffrage to only upper class males. If all are to have the exact same freedom universally, then there can be no "except these people, or these people" amendments to the law.
Well, see, marriage is between a man and a woman, it's been like that for thousands of years. But more importantly, to me, is this: should marriage even be dictated by the government? I mean, seperation of church and state and all, you'd think that, at the government level, all marriage would be called civil unions, and it'd be up to a church, after the fact, to tell you you're married.
Actually, that's entirely untrue. Many cultures have or had unions between two men or two women, yet still called it "marriage"--or the equivalent word in their respective language. Perhaps you should say that Western Civilization has been that way for thousands of years. And while we're at it, let's say that western civ. has also persecuted the jews for thousands of years.
That definition is nothing more than a tradition of western society. So were pogroms. In most cases, both were state sponsored in some form or another. Not only that, but words change in meaning all of the time throughout the years to encompass more or different meaning than was first attributed to them. "Nice" roughly meant "ignorant" in middle english. And though There are many ignorant people who are in fact nice, there is no true corellation between the two ideas (except, maybe, in the case of naivity). Marriage is, if nothing else, a word, and one with an archaic definition that doesn't reflect the contemporary social atmosphere. I'd call less than half (if that..) of the legal marriages I've seen actual marriages, at least according to the definition it's had in western civ. for thousands of years. I'm guessing it's the same for homosexual couples, and I don't think they should be exempt from proving to their partner just how fallible they are any more than a straight couple.
Slashdot Mirror
something along the lines of freenet would possibly work better than mirroring. They'd have to sieze an indeterminate number of computers, possibly limitless from a practical viewpoint. It'd also protect visitors from being watched.. at least to more of an extent than the web. It's not quite perfect though.
http://freenet.sourceforge.net/
It is not a matter of the state mandating a definition of marriage upon christianity, but rather christianity mandating a definition upon the state. In a legal sense, "marriage" has nothing to do with religion. Atheists, in fact, get married all of the time, I promise. They don't get married in Catholic churches, however--not only because they would probably rather not, but because the church only recognizes the catholic concept of marriage. Nor can an evangelical take sacrement in a catholic church. Which is fine, because it is not a matter of Catholics saying "you can't receive sacrement because you are not catholic," but a matter of "you aren't catholic, so you can't receive the catholic version of sacrement."
That's exactly as it should be with marriage. I don't expect the pope to recognize the marriage of two men in the eyes of god, but I do expect it of a government that 1) espouses the separation of church and state, and 2) guarantees rights regardless of race, class, wealth, gender, or sexuality. Defining marriage thus is not defining it in the eyes of any respective God that may or may not exist, but instead in the eyes of a secular state. Allowing marriage only for straight couples is no better than allowing suffrage to only upper class males. If all are to have the exact same freedom universally, then there can be no "except these people, or these people" amendments to the law.
Actually, that's entirely untrue. Many cultures have or had unions between two men or two women, yet still called it "marriage"--or the equivalent word in their respective language. Perhaps you should say that Western Civilization has been that way for thousands of years. And while we're at it, let's say that western civ. has also persecuted the jews for thousands of years.
That definition is nothing more than a tradition of western society. So were pogroms. In most cases, both were state sponsored in some form or another. Not only that, but words change in meaning all of the time throughout the years to encompass more or different meaning than was first attributed to them. "Nice" roughly meant "ignorant" in middle english. And though There are many ignorant people who are in fact nice, there is no true corellation between the two ideas (except, maybe, in the case of naivity). Marriage is, if nothing else, a word, and one with an archaic definition that doesn't reflect the contemporary social atmosphere. I'd call less than half (if that..) of the legal marriages I've seen actual marriages, at least according to the definition it's had in western civ. for thousands of years. I'm guessing it's the same for homosexual couples, and I don't think they should be exempt from proving to their partner just how fallible they are any more than a straight couple.