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10-03-04, 06:04 PM | #1 | |
Earthbound misfit
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I know I was opposed to the idea of a topical forum for Politics...
...But given the types of discussions that have taken place here I am glad they don't polute the general forum anymore. We're on the radar now, since the forum is visible to all the web crawlers and snoops on the net now, so I guess we'll see if it was such a good idea a while from now.
The real reason I'm starting this thread is to post an article concerning the gay marraige debate in the news, and specifically to answer the "What are your thoughts on gay marriages?" question (that thread probably belongs in this forum, Gaz, but that's up to you). A long read, but it pretty much sums up everything I believe on the subject. Quote:
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11-03-04, 03:35 AM | #2 | |
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Re: I know I was opposed to the idea of a topical forum for Politics...
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Sure it always used to get personal when we had a single forum and the left/right divide had a strong effect, but the influence of other 'irregular' political contributors diluted the vitriol and predictability, opening up different avenues of thought. Like I said at the time - this was the site's best selling-point, it's uniqueness. This is why I now make little effort with my posts - no doubt a bonus for many - and I started using other forums for a better quality of debate/read. Shame really, Napsterites sells itself short. --TM
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11-03-04, 07:44 PM | #3 |
Earthbound misfit
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I know that you came for the P2P forum and you stayed for Underground, tambourine-man, and I'm glad for that. Being somewhat new your ideas and posts always sound fresh and thoughtful, while everything that everyone else says seems a little stale. I think if we keep things new it will invite more new members who will in turn keep things new, and the Underground regulars might participate too. It's a very positive cycle. The left/right, Dem/Rep back and forth is old; time to grow up now.
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11-03-04, 08:15 PM | #4 | |
my name is Ranking Fullstop
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while i often disagree you, i always enjoy the thoughtfulness of your posts and i especially appreciate the civility of your tone. the Liberal/Conservative thing does get very old, indeed and it's a shame that anyone who attempts to establish some middle ground in a discussion is usually marginalized with one label or another. i'd like to think i avoid that with anyone other than the obvious usual suspects, but i'm probably guilty of it to some extent as well. i always find it striking that the extremes on both sides dominate the discussion here, much as they do nationally and in the media.... |
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11-03-04, 10:17 PM | #5 |
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Where are we? The reasonable fellows thread or the ban gay marriage thread? I find the two concepts opposed. Especially when one posts extreme and unfounded opinions insisting that same sex monogamy will lead to the downfall and ruin of life as we know it. “Our civilization will collapse or fade away.” and “America will no longer be able to raise up children with any trust in or loyalty.” That’s reasonable? Not to me it isn’t.
There are millions of couples living together throughout this country contributing to the general well being of our society. Many of them are of the same sex. This has been true from the earliest days of our history. You may not like it, you might even viscerally hate it (Some reasonable advice? Overcome it), but it’s not a license to spread unfounded and hysterical accusations and predictions, based on…what exactly, fear? Bigotry? Or does Mr. Scott Card posesses some actual empirical evidence to back up these amazing statements? Since monogamous gays are living among us peacefully and productively I posit it’s up to you to prove that by simply allowing them to marry some profound change will occur that ushers in the drastic events you’ve posted as Card’s proxy. In truth, I found his broadside to be one of the most unreasonable I’ve seen at this forum. Filled with dark rumor and portent, based on loathing and superstition, wrapped in a smary lie of balance and fairness. I know you didn’t write it Mazer, but please, don’t for a second tell me it’s reasonable. It is anything but. If I was gay I’d consider it nothing less than hate speech and a call to arms. Insert Mormon or Jew or Catholic etc for homosexual and you may get some idea what it means. Reasonable? You’re kidding right? Not on this planet, and not on this board. - js. |
11-03-04, 11:22 PM | #6 | ||
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our country gets attacked..3,000 people are murdered by terrorists, and you think we should not have declared war. but reading about someone who has a differing opinion of homosexuality, that's a reason for a call to arms? lol...and you called us righties dimwits and morons? Quote:
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11-03-04, 11:46 PM | #7 |
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This is the 'Mazer decided to participate' thread. Aren't you just a little exicted?
I only said I agreed with Mr. Card on the subject, but I didn't say it was reasonable. He's a doomsayer to be sure, maybe that's something that comes with age and the onset of paranoia, I guess I'll find out in about twenty five years or so. However, by that time I hope to have a well rounded family to guard from the rest of the world, so perhaps I will reach that paranoid stage much sooner. So it isn't Card's opinion that I defend, it is myself and my family. My own opinion is that such things as widespread divorce, teen pregnancy, and adultery are in fact bad things. I think those are givens. I'm not a historian, and I wasn't around when divorce was taboo, but I do believe that the changes in the institution of family that have taken place over the past few decades cannot be called progress. Nobody disputes that gays play important roles in society, there's plenty of work for every American to do. If they want to pair up and live together that's fine, I don't really care, and it doesn't diminish their importance in public life. However, I don't see what gay marraige does to enhance their positions in society or the contributions they make. What can a married gay couple do that an unmarried gay couple can't do? The idea of state sanctioned gay marraige isn't only what makes me mad, it's the fact that a federal court took it upon itself to decide what was best for civilization. The court is not meant to be a legislative body, what the Massachusetts Supreme Court did was unconstitutional, and the same could be said for the US Supreme Court as well. I didn't elect those judges, they don't represent me, and yet they think they have the authority to amend the law. It took a three quarter majority of all the states' legislatures to ratify the 13th amendment of the Constitution. The framers understood that when the time comes to cause social upheaval to right certain wrongs that are ingrained in our society, as slavery was at the time, that you better ask everyone. But this federal court decided to sidestep the Constitutional process and that doesn't sit well with me. I'd be damned sure I know what I'm talking about before I label anything hate speech. Hate speech is a dirty and dispicable practice, lower than purgury and on almost par with treason, the accusation of which is not to be taken lightly. Meerly stating a dissenting opinion does not make me a hater. A call to arms? Hardly. Card's article didn't make me want to fight, if anything it disheartened me almost to the point of giving up and taking a vow of celibacy. If people take sexuality, both hetero and homo, this damn seriously then maybe it isn't worth it at all. I don't think this is an issue that Americans are willing to get into an other civil war over. So cool your jets. This discussion, as long as it continues as it has, isn't going to harm anyone. Edit: amendment corrections Last edited by Mazer : 19-03-04 at 01:17 AM. |
12-03-04, 12:27 AM | #8 | |
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Quote:
I am also of the opinion that Marrage is an almost universally accepted union between a man and woman, not man and man, or woman to woman, and has become seated in most religious doctorins as such. Some might call this hate speach or call me Homophobic but I deny that. If the Homosexuals who want the "stuff the married people get by being married" then a Civil Union contract is already in available in most of the country already, if not all of the country. This will cover the legal issues, I think. If not, then this is what they should push for, I think. Why do some of them feel the need to shove their sexuallity in others faces? I do not go around trying to prove to the world how "straight" I am. Now for the disclamer, I do have one "gay" friend, he and I have talked about such things in passing, which is how I formed some of my opinions. He says that his partner wants to have the title of married, but only so he can then say he was married, no other real reason that I could discerne. Ron does not want to marry. You might note that I used quotes where I wrote gay, this is because Gay does not mean Homosexual, the word was hijacked to this defination.
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12-03-04, 01:09 AM | #9 | ||
BANG BANG BANG (repeat as necessary)
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Quote:
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Cheers - nice to know I'm not alone on this issue.
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"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction" Dick Cheney - August 26, 2002 "I did not authorise the leaking of the name of David Kelly. Nobody was authorised to name David Kelly. I believe we have acted properly throughout" Tony Blair - July 22, 2003 |
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12-03-04, 01:09 AM | #10 | |||||
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Shit Mazer, you complain about people hijacking thread topics and then you hand out parachutes and plastic explosives on Wear-A-Turban-Fly-For-Half-Price Day at the airport.
On the topic of topics, I am of the "information should be free" school of thought. I have little to say about the formation of the political forum one way or another, the best thing I can say is that it has focused certain interests and, I think, given some of us an opportunity to get to know each other better... This is no doubt good for some and bad for others. But I do, predictably, have quite a lot to say about the article. I'm sorry, but I really can't take anyone seriously who is claiming that homosexual marriages will "kill" heterosexual marriages. Mr. card cites the declining marriage rate and the inclining divorce rate as if this was a dynamic caused by the influence of people outside of the institution of marriage, and I find this absurd: men and women still have ample and uninhibited opportunity, incentive and encouragement to marry in our culture. If there is a zeitgeist of "easy divorce" who can possibly be to "blame" other than the abundance of examples of heterosexual couples who cannot live together and choose divorce? Certainly there is an increasing disillusion in the institution of marriage, judging from the marriage and gay marriage threads here, and from the overwhelming prevalence of people I know personally who try hard to avoid it (lol). The vast majority of these people are, of course, heterosexuals--people "eligible" in every sense of the word for traditional marriages who have chosen not to pursue it, to avoid it and even mock it, and who take the example of the divorce rate under advisement that it can be and often is a fallible institution and can have legal pitfalls. While so many heterosexuals are blase and even negative about traditional marriage, isn't it a bit over the top to cite a group of homosexuals who have an enthusiastic desire to engage in this kind of union as contributing to its demise? I simply can't get my head around this. If Mr. Card feels that marriage is so threatened in our culture that the idea of it needs to be invigorated and "sold" to new generations, lest the human race perish without it, why does he see same sex couples who are fairly aching to do it as more of a negative influence than the millions of heterosexuals who simply feel it isn't the right thing for them? Look to "your own" Mr. Card, I say. This is like blaming the decline in popularity of country music on fans of rap, or, more aptly, blaming the loss of business for a Mexican restaurant with a history of bad service on the Italian restaurant across town with attentive waiters. Clearly Mr. Card is not a bigot, but he is a cunning linguist who typifies what's really at the heart of the problem in people accepting the concept of gay marriages: the very word itself is a symbol with dark ties to both the propagation of the species and diffused religious ideas. Turns out though, the species propagates all too well whether human beings marry or not, and people form families as result of procreating, if they so choose, regardless of certification. They also very obviously do not if that's their choice. What, if anything, other than heterosexual behavior could be contributing to this kind of heterosexual decision I can't imagine. Happily married gays? I hardly think so, especially in light of the fact that "happily married gays" is something, as a society, we scarcely even admit exists yet. On the contrary, I feel it's the inferential relationship of marriage to religion which causes the institution to suffer most: I think it's indicative of a broader disillusion or ambivalence with religion in general and especially with those spooky words "in the sight of God" and "'Till death do us part," which simply do not have the same meaning to many people today as they did to our God-fearing grandparents. Young people today are liable to be simply more pragmatic than to believe in the implied charming magic spell, to label it a "charade" due to the prevalence of disintegrating marriages that occur quite in spite of this blessing, and disdain and the accompanying legal tribulations. I don't care how long and involved your article is, if the suggestion is implicit that Mr. and Mrs. Jones are going to be more likely break up or never even get married in the first place because Mr. and Mr. Smith down the street are enjoying marital bliss, you're just blowing a gas of denial at the real problem. Regard: Quote:
But let's calm down and be realistic Mr. Card, trust in your species knowing anyone with contrary opinions would be too insignificant to have any influence on anyone anyway--an agenda of tearing apart the human family, besides having 3 million years plus of mammalian evolution opposing it, would be too patently ridiculous to be supportable. Gay marriage is simply not a slippery slope into reproductive chaos and sexual anarchy. And if you feel that heterosexuality is on that slope, I'm afraid you're just going to have to use your own heterosexual engines to climb out. Quote:
First, if we believed our role models on television were indicative of real human statistics, wouldn't about 85% of us be either murderers on the run or cops giving chase? Then, if we really conceded that people aspiring to be like television role models was so significant that we should preferentially craft these role models with more care, why in the world would you feel such a need to start with "happily married gays" when the airwaves are full of murderers, rapists, thieves, drug dealers, and a myriad of psychotics and neurotics engaged in antisocial behaviors too numerous to mention. In fact, why start with the "happily married gays" before cutting out all those "unhappily married heterosexuals" you're so concerned about being depicted, and morphing them into happily married couples. If you want the media to be a homogenous sales campaign for happy heterosexual marriage, you've got way way way more problems than a depiction of a happily married gay couple my friend... Good luck to you sir. And the fact remains that at this point, as far as I can tell at least, being of somewhat limited television expertise, a popular television program that depicts a happily married gay couple is entirely mythical, isn't it? Again, I'd bet on Occam's razor that this is probably because as a society we don't admit of the existence of gay marriages... but maybe there are more complicated and obscure reasons... ...(can't think of any...) I know we've got Will and Grace, which I've watched a few times, enough to know the two gay characters in it are neither married nor even in a relationship with each other and in fact, again with my limited knowledge, apparently never even go on dates or even have discernable actual sex lives at all. Then again, didn't the straight cast of Friends all grow up and get married or something? Didn't the straight cast of Sex in the City all find true love in the end? I watched the final episode, exactly half of the couples ended up married, and the other half just ended up happy couples. In fact I think it's very curious this guy is troubled by a proliferation of "oppresive and conflict-ridden heterosexual marriages" on television because as I sit here I can't even think of one. I mean I think Frazier was divorced but on good terms with the ex and kid, and then you got your Roseannes and Raymonds and Tool Times and even the aptly named Married With Children, all of which maybe somewhat conflict-ridden for comic effect but all center on the depiction of couples with children who all stay together through thick and thin, not terribly different from Lucy and Ricky or Rob and Laura or Ward and June. Maybe in this case Mr. Card is just focusing on what personally troubles him, as we all tend to do. Quote:
I don't want to uneccessarily frighten this guy any more than he already is, but in the strange little world wherein this could ever happen he would have so many problems that worrying about gay people getting married would be even less significant than worrying about a nose hair two seconds before impact with a speeding Mack truck. This can't be taken seriously. Quote:
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The word "marriage" is the prized political and religious football of Mr Card's philosophical team. In the Humpty Dumpty vernacular, this word is their master; it can no longer mean what they say it means if it means something else as well. As long as gays insist on using that word, they're going to think we're trying to take their balls. They don't realize we can have our own balls, and our own playing fields. (pun not intended, but effective.) Instead of fighting for "marriage," gays should be fighting for simple "civil unions" that satisfy every one of the 1049 rights that marriage does, for the same basic filing cost and with the same requisite consents. Period. To walk into the county clerk's office and pay a small fee to legally bestow upon one other person in your life all those joint rights is enough. Then, if you belong to a church willing to "sanctify" this union in a religious sense and ceremony, no one can stop you. You can have rice and everything. There's no need to alter the word of law concerning marriage. No need to alter the language which defines marriage as "between a man and a woman" one iota, as long as these civil unions can effectively "mimic" them between people of the same gender. This would be a case of problem solved I'm certain, except that we do have an administration attempting to preclude it, and we do have a lot of people with this strange irrational concern Mr. Card so eloquently elucidates. The Humpty-Dumpty moral is that a word can master many, or, in time, have many masters. |
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12-03-04, 02:06 AM | #11 |
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A well thought-out post Ramona_A_Stone. Well, most of it.
I found your lengthy post a tad tainted by the first paragraph. |
12-03-04, 02:23 AM | #12 |
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Tainted by a joke? My we are getting sensitive around here.
Sorry. |
12-03-04, 08:44 PM | #13 |
Earthbound misfit
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Nah, the first paragraph isn't bad, it makes me smile every time I read it. I've asked for trouble by making a thread with two topics, so basically it isn't possible to hijack this thread because I've already sabotaged it. If I thought Ramona's scarcasm was offensive then I would have said so a long time ago. Knowing that it is a joke sets the right tone for the rest of the thoughtful post.
I think your right, marraige isn't being attacked from without. If anything it was social pressure that kept divorce rates low, and now that the pressure is gone and people are free to choose, more and more people are opting for it. It's a good sign that married couples have more freedom, but it's bad that they're using that freedom to break otherwise happy families appart. In the face of "easy divorce" I stand by the idea that nothing worth doing is easy. I do think the institution of marraige is founded on the base desire of humans to reproduce, and religion and government have been thrown into the mix to complicate things. Card's essay suggests that in such an unnatural environment like human civilization, for children to survive childhood they must be taught how to succeed in society, and they learn by example mostly from their parents. For people who have no desire to have children marraige is a formality. For people who have children outside of marraige their offspring are less likely to become productive adults. Even in our artificial environment the laws of natural selection apply. In nature when an animal fails to bear offspring then its inferior genes are removed from the pool, but when a person fails to have children it's not just his genes that disappear but also his family history, his knowledge, his wisdom, and his cultural heritage that are lost. Many of those things may be passed on to other people, but children embrace those things, they cling to tradition and the pass it on. For many people having children is the closest they'll ever get to immortality. So despite the fact that everyone has talents and strengths that they use to the benefit of civilization as a whole, if a person dies childless then civilization as a whole looses out. And ironically, if a parent doesn't raise his or her own child then the end result is the same. This is the basis for the idea that family is the best way to preserve culture, society, and ultimately civilization. It may sound a little far fetched, but it has obviously worked for thousands of years. I say, if it ain't broke don't fix it. But if it is decided that we should tamper with the basic design of civilization will it lead to its downfall? That is very far fetched. Card said that rather than trying to change America back to the way it was, people will simply remove their alliegence to her. The same thing happened when the North tried to abolish slavery (I know I keep coming back to the Civil War but bear with me here) and the South decided that secession would be easier than trying to legalize slavery throughout the US. Bad idea then, bad idea now, only the present division doesn't neatly follow a geographic line. War will not happen because of gay marraige, but no good will come of dividing America into two separate cultures neither of which is truely American. Government benefits aside, a lot of gays want to get married just so they can wear it as of badge of honor. The day you get married is regarded as the day you finally grow up, it's your official entry pass into society. People do expect certain perks for getting married, and rightly so because staying married isn't always easy and raising children is never easy. But of those 1049 benefits that marraige provides, most of them are focused on child dependants. Adoption is always a viable option for gay couples and in that case those marital benefits should be given, but without children a marraige isn't really a family, just a token of love. This the the critical question of the day and it deserves a lot of thought: do gays deserve marraige if they choose not to have children? Maybe yes, maybe no, I don't know for sure so don't put me on trial for posing this challenge. Here's my personal anecdote. I know a gay guy who says enjoys his sex life, but in the future he hopes to settle down with a woman and raise a couple of boys; more than anything he want's to be a father. I asked him if that means he's a closet heterosexual, and he smiled and nodded. But since he's in his late 20's and his only experience with women came from a handful of bad relationships in high school, myself and others fear that he may miss the chance to be a father because he won't know how to be a good husband to his wife. I'm positive he'll eventually figure it out, but he will be an old man when he does, perhaps too old to be a good dad. Right now he's doing what he feels is natural and it's interfering with his long term goals. I think this little story this has more to do with premarital sexuality than homosexuality, but it speaks to the widely held misunderstanding that love+sex=marraige. Many straight people think this way too, and it's wrong. I think that for my friend to have a successful marraige he needs to forget about sex completly, it's the only way he'll be able to love his wife. I know I'm revealing my own misconceptions here, but would a gay couple mary if they had never had sex with each other? I doubt it. For gays (as well as many straights), marraige is primarily about the sex, and love is secondary. I don't know why but I keep thinking of the lyrics to U2's One. You say love is a temple, love the higher law. You ask me to enter but then you make me crawl. |
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