The Power of SCOTUS V: The Final Frontier

[SJHovey]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS V: The Final Frontier

I don't feel the need to question people's religious faith as I don't know the will of God. That's why I don't swear at the Jehovah's Witnesses that come by my door. What if it turns out they're right?!?!

Probably a good policy. As John R. Butler sang, you certainly don't want The Hand of the Almighty coming after you.

 

[LynahFan]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS V: The Final Frontier

Okay, then. Let's say that it is true that the best setup is mother and father and that we ought to encourage that. How exactly does banning gay marriage contribute to that goal? I honestly don't see that link. It's not like gay people are going to suddenly want to form hetero families just because they don't get gay married. Can you explain how this is supposed to work?

Annnnnd....crickets.

Bob, now that you're back, any comments on why you think allowing gay marriage DIScourages hetero marriage? Is there some finite pool of "marriage" out there that the gays will use up? Will town clerks be so busy with the extra paperwork from gay marriages that they'll no longer have time to knock on doors looking for hetero people to sign up to the cause?

 

[FreshFish]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS V: The Final Frontier

I would think a person with great cognitive recognition and multi-tasking would have a selection advantage, and I don't see why they are mutually exclusive.

IIRC, they are only "mutually exclusive" in the moment as different neurological pathways are involved in each activity and we are hard-wired to use only one of the two neurological pathways at a time.

 

[FreshFish]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS V: The Final Frontier

any comments on why you think allowing gay marriage DIScourages hetero marriage? Is there some finite pool of "marriage" out there that the gays will use up? Will town clerks be so busy with the extra paperwork from gay marriages that they'll no longer have time to knock on doors looking for hetero people to sign up to the cause?

seems like we go in circles on some of these subjects. not saying whether I agree or disagree, but the debate seems to be more semantic than anything else:

"marriage" as sanctioned by the state (you go to the courthouse and have a civil ceremony) is one thing that has much less opposition than

"marriage" as a sacramental union sanctioned by a church / synagogue / temple / mosque, which has spiritual overtones that go beyond the civil authorities.

Many people who have no objection whatsoever to the former[SUP]1[/SUP] get queasy when you also try to extend it to the latter.




[SUP]1[/SUP] many of these people would prefer that you use a different term to minimize the confusion that arises when two different people are using the same word to mean two very different things and then wind up talking past each other due to the semantic confusion

 

[LynahFan]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS V: The Final Frontier

seems like we go in circles on some of these subjects. not saying whether I agree or disagree, but the debate seems to be more semantic than anything else:

"marriage" as sanctioned by the state (you go to the courthouse and have a civil ceremony) is one thing that has much less opposition than

"marriage" as a sacramental union sanctioned by a church / synagogue / temple / mosque, which has spiritual overtones that go beyond the civil authorities.

Many people who have no objection whatsoever to the former[SUP]1[/SUP] get queasy when you also try to extend it to the latter.




[SUP]1[/SUP] many of these people would prefer that you use a different term to minimize the confusion that arises when two different people are using the same word to mean two very different things and then wind up talking past each other due to the semantic confusion

Red herring.

There are zero people (so far as I am aware) who intend to impose requirements that any particular religion or church perform gay marriages. There is no confusion that proponents of gay marriage are speaking in terms of civil marriage, not religious. Even if you don't want your particular church to perform gay marriages, why do you care whether a court rules that the states can issue (civil) marriage licenses to same-sex couples?

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS V: The Final Frontier

Red herring.

There are zero people (so far as I am aware) who intend to impose requirements that any particular religion or church perform gay marriages. There is no confusion that proponents of gay marriage are speaking in terms of civil marriage, not religious. Even if you don't want your particular church to perform gay marriages, why do you care whether a court rules that the states can issue (civil) marriage licenses to same-sex couples?

Exactly.

 

[Jimjamesak]

2. "Paging Jimjamesak."

<img src="http://dashie.mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/img/mlfw5304-didsome.jpg"></img>

 

[unofan]

[SUP]1[/SUP] many of these people would prefer that you use a different term to minimize the confusion that arises when two different people are using the same word to mean two very different things and then wind up talking past each other due to the semantic confusion

**** that. I'm not ceding "marriage" to purely the religious. If they want to call it something different, fine. But I'm not saying I'm not married to my wife simply because some bigots have an issue with gays also using the term.

 

[burd]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS V: The Final Frontier

Let's face it, what 7th Circuit Judge Posner (Reagan appointee) wrote was right:

“The grounds advanced by Indiana and Wisconsin for their discriminatory policies are not only conjectural; they are totally implausible.”

“We’ll see that the governments of Indiana and Wisconsin have given us no reason to think they have a ‘reasonable basis’ for forbidding same-sex marriage,”
The argument that allowing same-sex marriage will somehow undermine the protection of children in heterosexual marriages, the court said, “is so full of holes that it cannot be taken seriously.”

Poorly formatted quote, but accurate. Those holes are showing up in this thread as well.

 

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS V: The Final Frontier

Red herring.

There are zero people (so far as I am aware) who intend to impose requirements that any particular religion or church perform gay marriages. There is no confusion that proponents of gay marriage are speaking in terms of civil marriage, not religious. Even if you don't want your particular church to perform gay marriages, why do you care whether a court rules that the states can issue (civil) marriage licenses to same-sex couples?

I could see caring if you were a business owner or in charge of a corporation with a significant number of gay employees, whose new spouses, and presumably any children they might legally adopt together, would now become eligible for family insurance benefits.

However, I think that's also probably a minor issue at best, given that LGBT persons make up only a small percentage of the overall population (IIRC, most studies have concluded between 1% and 6% of a significantly-sized random sample).

 

[St. Clown]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS V: The Final Frontier

I could see caring if you were a business owner or in charge of a corporation with a significant number of gay employees, whose new spouses, and presumably any children they might legally adopt together, would now become eligible for family insurance benefits.

However, I think that's also probably a minor issue at best, given that LGBT persons make up only a small percentage of the overall population (IIRC, most studies have concluded between 1% and 6% of a significantly-sized random sample).

I think you could see a lot of inter-faith marriages, or divorced Catholics looking to re-marry (in this case join a civil union after divorce).

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS V: The Final Frontier

I agree that it's all entangled together. Culture, religion, enthnicity, individual person experiences, genetics, etc. That's part of what makes it so hard, and interesting, to sort out the hows and whys of what people do. People are complex and defy easy explanation and definition.

I love the word "enthnicity."

 

[LynahFan]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS V: The Final Frontier

I could see caring if you were a business owner or in charge of a corporation with a significant number of gay employees, whose new spouses, and presumably any children they might legally adopt together, would now become eligible for family insurance benefits.

However, I think that's also probably a minor issue at best, given that LGBT persons make up only a small percentage of the overall population (IIRC, most studies have concluded between 1% and 6% of a significantly-sized random sample).

It's also quite separate from the canard that FreshFish threw out.

I agree that it could impose new costs on businesses, to which I have two responses: 1) Tough noogies. I'm sure it can be (accurately) shown that abolishing slavery, ending segregation, repealing anti-miscegenation laws, etc all cost somebody something, too, but that doesn't mean that they were the wrong thing to do, and 2) Businesses sure don't seem to mind, as they are mostly *leading* the courts on this issue - nearly all of the businesses that I work with have been offering benefits to same-sex partners for years, even in the absence of a marriage license.

Back to FF's point on religion - those businesses don't even care whether their employees had a wedding ceremony at all, so they clearly don't care whether there was a religious one or whether it was of any particular religion.

 

[FreshFish]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS V: The Final Frontier

[W]hy do you care whether a court rules that the states can issue (civil) marriage licenses to same-sex couples?

I don't care, one way or the other. Leave me out of this debate entirely.



though part of me thinks to myself, "hey, why not let the gays be just as miserable as the rest of us!"

 

[Foxton]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS V: The Final Frontier

I don't care one way or the other.

And we all believe you...

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS V: The Final Frontier

And we all believe you...

I believe him. Bots don't have emotions.

 

[dxmnkd316]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS V: The Final Frontier

It's also quite separate from the canard that FreshFish threw out.

I agree that it could impose new costs on businesses, to which I have two responses: 1) Tough noogies. I'm sure it can be (accurately) shown that abolishing slavery, ending segregation, repealing anti-miscegenation laws, etc all cost somebody something, too, but that doesn't mean that they were the wrong thing to do, and 2) Businesses sure don't seem to mind, as they are mostly *leading* the courts on this issue - nearly all of the businesses that I work with have been offering benefits to same-sex partners for years, even in the absence of a marriage license.

Back to FF's point on religion - those businesses don't even care whether their employees had a wedding ceremony at all, so they clearly don't care whether there was a religious one or whether it was of any particular religion.

This.

I know my employer has been very vocal about offering these benefits. The one thing that blows my mind is the fact that people out there oppose this on some sort of business or moral grounds when they fail to see what kind of rights these people are actually after. Things like hospital visits, power of attorney, joint tax returns, and any other number of fundamental civil rights these couples need.

It's absolutely baffling how anyone can be opposed to gay marriage.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS V: The Final Frontier

This.

I know my employer has been very vocal about offering these benefits. The one thing that blows my mind is the fact that people out there oppose this on some sort of business or moral grounds when they fail to see what kind of rights these people are actually after. Things like hospital visits, power of attorney, joint tax returns, and any other number of fundamental civil rights these couples need.

It's absolutely baffling how anyone can be opposed to gay marriage.

To be fair to the opposers, a civil union with equal legal standing to marriage would meet that requirement. Heck, Pope Francis supports civil unions.

For those few people who even oppose civil unions, with them it's the old story: an abstract idea trumps concrete human needs. I believe that the vast majority of even them, if confronted with the realities of a friend or family member denied those basic legal equalities, would change their minds. Figure out of every 10 people 1 is a saint, 1 is a creep, and the other 8 of us are just trying to get by. That sets the absolute upper limit on informed opposition to civil unions at 10%.

 

[dxmnkd316]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS V: The Final Frontier

You antisemantic b*st*rd

 

[joecct]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS V: The Final Frontier

To be fair to the opposers, a civil union with equal legal standing to marriage would meet that requirement. Heck, Pope Francis supports civil unions.

For those few people who even oppose civil unions, with them it's the old story: an abstract idea trumps concrete human needs. I believe that the vast majority of even them, if confronted with the realities of a friend or family member denied those basic legal equalities, would change their minds. Figure out of every 10 people 1 is a saint, 1 is a creep, and the other 8 of us are just trying to get by. That sets the absolute upper limit on informed opposition to civil unions at 10%.

I wonder if gay marriage is just a fad because it's the "in" season to do? Pretty soon, the homosexuals will get bored with it like their heterosexual cousins and just live together.