What better tool than to mobilise your supporters to harass people who are opposed to it?
From OP’s link:
What buisnesses are listed here for me to boycott?
Lets say it turns out Kathy is a “home maker”. What do I do with the info that she gave money?
Personally, I would/will do nuthin.
But if a nutjob (Let’s call him Mark) decides to hurt Kathy, how much responsibility does the website with this info bear? Mark only targeted Kathy based on the info provided by the website.
What do you think was intended with this info?
Mark goes to Kathy, calmly and rationally engages in debate about Prop 8
or
Stand out in front of Kathy’s house with a sign with statements of support for SSM, and that Kathy is a bigot
or
“TP” or egg Kathy’s home
or
Verbally assault Kathy every time she leaves or returns home, or use the phone for this purpose (if her phone number can be obtained)
or
Slash the tires of any vehicle in her driveway
or
Physical assault
Again, with some of the “passion” expressed during and after the vote, I worry.
Can we tell from the OP’s link what is the “purpose” of putting a scarlet letter on Kathy?
(And the OP him/herself states “These people need to learn that bigotry has consequences.”)
I will grant that the reports of violence appear to be few in number. So, I’m making a mountain out of a molehill, maybe. Sigh.
I think you’re taking a wholly unwarranted negative view of the motives behind this website. If nothing else, the fact that several posters in this thread see these sites as a good idea, but have expressed strong opposition to illegal activities, ought to be evidence that the people responsible for actually creating them could have similarly benign motives.
When I first saw the lists, my first initial assumption is that the makers of “the lists” hope that Mark engages Kathy with any of my above scenarios 1-5, with low expectations of the success of #1, and a preference for #2 & 3.
But what difference does it make if he gets the info directly from the Secretary of State’s website or a third party that organized the data? How does the intent of the data provider matter? It’s the actions and intent of the data user that matters, I would think.
Is there anything on that website that is encouraging violent behavior?
I understand where you’re coming from though, and we can only hope that people protest peacefully. There are nutjobs out there, to be sure. But it’s no secret that political donations are public record, so a person voluntarily relinquishes their right to privacy of their political stance when they do make a political donation.
I think the lists exist to shame people who otherwise like to pretend that since they play tennis with a gay person, they are sympathetic to the gay cause, all the while keeping them legally under their thumb and feeling superior in their duplicity. Personally, I think they should be ashamed. Granted, I’m sure they aren’t all like that, but I believe those are the targets and the intent behind the presentation of that particular data compilation.
I have to wonder about “housewives” who have $10,000 that they can just throw away on a donation to a political campaign. I wish I lived in that house, that’s for damn sure.
Housewife, nuthin’. I was looking at one of these maps, and I spotted a self-described “student” in San Francisco who had donated $500 to Prop. 8. Twice! What kind of student can afford to blow a grand on a political donation? Especially if he’s paying SF rents?
Better yet, have an openly gay friend mope around at the party and half way through totally break down sobbing in full view of everyone. When she asks about it, tell her that after his marriage got dissolved by prop 8 (assuming they do end up doing that) his husband got so depressed that he killed himself.
I’m pretty sure Kathy would see that as a victory. But I fully support **Algher’s **idea of inviting her to the block party anyway. We just won’t clue her in on this year’s theme.
Really, I was just popping in to see whether **magellan **had deigned to answer Ensign Edison. Not so much, apparently.
Better yet, have the husband go back to the female wife that left him when he realized he was living a lie. Of course the wife, who had a change of heart because her husband was her meal ticket, is Kathy’s best friend and now she has to live with the fact that her best friend’s husband, who they’ve played Canasta with every Thursday for years, is GAAAAYYYY!!! And only if she’d minded her own goddamn business that fairy would still be with his boy-toy and *he *wouldn’t be blubbering into her drink at this lame party.
Hello, all. Pardon the delay in getting back. I’m pretty busy these days. That said, I’ll try to respond to some of what is on the table and leave it at that.
I tend to think of true rights as those things that couldn’t morally be denied you in a very basic society. Back in the cave, for instance. Or a modern-day group stranded on a desert island. I do think wanting to spend time with the person you love, and grow old with them, could be considered a right. And in that regard “marriage” would fall short. Because two people could do that and not have it be called marriage, or anything for that matter. Again, California proves this to be the case. A gay couple can commit to each other and grow old together just like a hetero couple can. The only difference is the use of the word and a few minor hoops one has to jump through. Which, as I’ve said, should be the same for both groups.
My defense of the word “Marriage” is not based on a particular couple’s desire to have it mean what they want it to mean. It is based on the benefit I see in having the word mean what it has meant to society at large. We disagree here, obviously. But as one can see from a search of past threads (if they are so inclined), I feel that marriage, as we have known it to be, has been a foundational institution. I think it is of particular help to women and children, and thus, society. I think a home that consists of a loving man and woman is the ideal environment for the raising of children. We should encourage that. By preserving “marriage” to refer to that arrangement we do that. We send young people that signal. Now, this does not mean that a particular gay couple can’t be as good a set of parents, or better, than a particular straight couple. I believe they can. And have personally seen this to be the case in more than one instance. (By the way, I’m in favor of gays being able to adopt.)
So, on the one hand I see a groups of gay couples just as in love as hetero couples, with the same desires to build a life together and be of comfort to each other in old age. On the other, I see an institution that has been a a great benefit to society. Where I come out seems to be an ideal and perfectly sensible compromise: gays and heteros can enjoy all the special rights of being in a committed long term relationship, yet we keep “marriage” to mean that union that can exist between a man and a woman: that which represents both the traditional institution and the ideal situation for children.
On the importance of the word.
Since this comes up so often, I’ll try to explain things more fully. Language changes. Yes. But those changes usually make language more helpful, more specific, not less. Take the word “laugh”. It’s perfectly useful word that describes what someone does when they find something funny. But at some point we saw a need to slice things finer. We realized that a “guffaw” is very different from “giggle” is different from a “belly laugh” is different from a “snicker” is different from a “cackle”. So when we noted these different flavors of “laugh”, we enriched language to aid communication.
Another example: take the color “blue”. That descriptor is helpful, and many times it’s all we need. But we’ve learned that it is often more helpful to say something is cobalt, indigo, denim, teal, cerulean, turquoise, aquamarine, navy or periwinkle. Inserting an adjective, we make distinctions with sky, royal, powder, midnight, baby, cadet, and slate blue, to mention a few. so the language has changed, yes, but in a way that it enables us to communicate better, to give other people a clearer idea of what is being conveyed, by being more specific.
So, I am not some advocate or stickler for a language that cannot change. I do advocate that a change should be beneficial to communication. I don’t see how intentionally making a word more vague does that. It does the opposite. For some words that might fall into the category of becoming more vague, I’m sure it’s not a big deal at all. But I think what “marriage” represents deserves having a word to describe it.
To give you a better idea of where I’m coming from on this. I feel the exact same way about the word “hero”. I think that way that word had been used, it represented an act that deserves it’s own word. Those instances in which a person risked his life, putting others before himself. An act that if, not taken, would not reflect poorly on him. Something well above and beyond what we can expect of someone in putting himself in danger for no benefit. Toady, that word is used way to loosely, I think. I first noticed this one the hostages were released from Iran after Reagan was elected. They were referred to as “heroes”. This was ridiculous. They may have been brave, strong, stoic, whatever? but their act constituted 1) volunteering to serve in Iran, 2) getting an increase in pay to do so, and 3) eating what was fed to them to stay alive. There is nothing in their actions that remotely resembles a “heroic” act.
More recently, take the pilot, Chesley Sullenberger, who successfully landed the plane in the Hudson River. Here we have an extremely skilled pilot, someone very well trained, who did what his training taught him to: stay calm, do A, do B, do C, etc. You can’t heap enough accolades and compliments on this guy. But his actions were not that of a “hero”. I like the fact that he seems to agree, attributing what he did to having been trained to do exactly that.
I bring this up, only because I thank that word “hero” is much like the word “marriage”, in that they both represent an ideal that it benefits us all to have a word represent. I’ll just add that referring to the hero of the baseball game or saying that a person is married to their job is not problematic, as the expression is so far from the real meaning of the word that the liberty taken is obvious.
Here you go, Bubb: I’m more fervent in my position now because I see how steeled the other side is. How willing they are, you included, to break with fairness and adopt an “ends justifies the means” attitude. I’ve learned how unwilling they are to acknowledge the opposing view to be anything be hateful, mean, and homophobic. I see they wish to quash dissent with a steamroller of PC populism. I see that the cry for “rights” is bullshit. I see that apathy is one thing they count on. They see SSM as a crusade to have the world bend to their ideology, regardless of what is lost in the quest for what they want to gain. I feel the responsibility to stand up for common sense and what I think is in the long term interest of our society. So, I thank you and the others here from rousing me from my vote-and-right-a-little-check-apathy.
By the way, the degree to which you are willing to contort and recast reality (your nonsense directly above included) in order to pursue what you think is the right course here is entertaining, befuddling, and saddening. But you go right on defining my motives in a way that makes you feel good. You’ve already admitted in another thread that you are not purely rational on this issue. By all means, keep proving it.
Ahem. Your bias is showing. You greatly reduced his insult and dialed up mine. And I’ll say whatever I want wherever I want. I will try to stay within the bounds of the rules, if for no other reason than to take up some time out of your day to report me.
I’ve explained why it would be—and is—perfectly logical that I would have many more posts than any of the majority on the other side. If you refuse to digest what is logical, I can’t help you.
And why is it, I ask, that you have felt it necessary to enter this thread. We’ve been through this before, haven’t we? And then to address every one of my posts to you. Is no one else covering the territory. Yes, you supplied your NINE HORRORS!!!. But beyond that, is everyone else on your side so dumb that they need YOU to make the points? Somehow, that sounds familiar.
As far as Mr. Moto’s involvement, he was discussing a different aspect: the actual OP. I tried to stay on course, but no, the PC Police, would have none of it. I apologize to the OP for being weak in that regard. But at least I acknowledged and tried. Several times. Oh well…
Sorry, but I’m going to have to point out your very low behavior again. First, I’d like to thank you for admitting that you are trying to portray me as a zealot so I will be ignored. Of course, I’m shocked that you’d want to quash such dissent. But the really amazing thing to me is that you don’t see how cheap, pathetic, and low it is to try to get others to help you do it. And so overtly. The fact that you don’t see this as scummy and low is telling. You’re the type who yells “grab the pitchforks”, or “anybody have a noose?”. I love the fact that you don’t see this. I picture you as a 5’2" greaser with a pack of cigarettes rolled up in your sleeve spouting a lot of tough shit when you have your gang around you. Beyond pathetic.
While I think my post was of the FOAD variety, I see your larger point and agree. Wilco. My apologies.
So you’re saying that adding specificity to the word laugh by using giggle or guffaw is an acceptable evolution of language, but not using same-sex marriage to add to the usefulness of the word marriage? Gotcha.
So, you’re saying that marriage isn’t a right? That it would be okay for the state to dissolve and legally deny any marriage by anyone? Why not prohibit interracial marriage? Marriage under 30? Marriage without religion or between different religious sects? Why not stop legally recognizing marriage altogether? Really, what difference would it if you could still be married in the church?
As has been pointed out to you numerous times, it’s not the only difference. You choose to ignore the distinction because you can’t justify it.
What about the couple I talked about? Jane and Mary have been committed lesbians living together for years, and were recently married, in Massachusetts. Jane’s employer offers her a promotion that entails a transfer to head up their California office. If Jane accepts the transfer, her marriage will no longer be recognized. If Jane were John, this wouldn’t be an issue. And this is equal how?
Well, unless that particular couple is a man and a woman, right?
Not everyone wants to or does raise children. Some people are unable to and some are unwilling. How does marriage apply to them? Aren’t they essentially reaping benefits that they aren’t justly entitled to in those childless cases?
The signal is get married and spawn? Please don’t send that signal to my children, thankyouverymuch.
And yet these wonderful gay parents must decide who claims their children on their taxes since they can’t exactly file jointly and reap the economic benefits of a singular tax-filing household, as one example of the downside.
Guess what. They don’t have to be on opposite sides if it weren’t for people like you. They could be as unremarkable as a short woman/tall man marriage. Really, gay people aren’t all as strange and different as you seem to think they are. They’re just people.
There’s no compromise there. Basically what you have here is status quo for you and a little, tiny bone for gays. Not equality, mind you. Just something to placate them while you go through life with your bizarre notion of sanctity of marriage intact.
To paraphrase, “La-la-la, I can’t hear you. Marriage: man-woman. I say so. Period.”
Sorry, but that whole discussion made no sense to me whatsoever. Wikipedia describes it thusly:
Why do I bring this up? Because that description is not less accurate because ‘man and woman’ is not where ‘individuals’ appears. It’s a still a union whether it’s a man and woman, woman and woman, or man and man. There is literally no reason for the state to recognize only those unions that don’t repulse people like you. None. Whatsoever.
Because if all states and the federal government recognized gay marriage, nothing would change in society all that much. Civilized society as we know it wouldn’t collapse. People would still fall in love. People would still fall out of love. People would still marry. People would still divorce. People would still grow old and die together. People would remain single. People would be happy and fulfilled. People would be sad and unfilled. People would still go to church. People would still sleep in on Sundays.
But for those who have long been denied equal access to their particular pursuit of happiness with their same-sex partner, it would finally open up the same opportunities you enjoy to love, marry, save on your taxes, insure and even pull the plug on your loved one, if necessary, among so many other things.
Except that you don’t want marriage to benefit gays. Oh, they can have their heroes and maybe even an Oscar (but not likely), but they can’t have your marriage.
Do you feel the same could be said by those who were strongly opposed to permitting inter-racial marriage to be recognized? Or how about those diametrically opposed to the civil rights movement? How is denying part of the population equality based on an arbitrary standard of morality not hateful? If you aren’t homophobic, than why treat homosexuals differently? Are you simply better than them? More moral? More worthy of social and legal protections and benefits?
It’s bullshit to you because nobody is denying you anything. It’s people like you who make me less apathetic because I don’t really have a dog in this fight. I just feel you are being unfair to a segment of the population and acting all righteous in the process. Why do you think that treating people equally is an ideology? How do you not see that your idea of morality is ideological?
The long-term interest of our society is not to allow religious ideology to interfere with spirit of our constitution and pledge to treat all men equally. The constitution is not about curbing legal right, it’s about establishing legal right. Common sense does not tell me to exclude, it tells me to include. As history clearly shows, your attitude may be in the majority now, but your days are numbered.
He called you a dumb, bigoted fuck. For that, you wished a wasting, fatal disease on him. You got a mod note about it, but you still defend it. And you’re still trying to paint me as the low, pathetic person here. Wow. You really do lack self-awareness.
You were factually in error. I corrected you, extensively. I hope I fought some small part of your massive ignorance. I realize that I probably wasted my time, because zealots like you don’t take kindly to flaws in their logic being pointed out. But, I did my part. I tried.
You are a zealot. You do pursue this topic with great zeal, do you not?
It’s not so much dissent as a mindless repetition of the same points, over and over. New data is provided to you to no avail. Is there anything we can say that will change your mind? Honestly? You’re definitely not going to change ours. Thus, the question is, what’s the point? I have experience in arguing with you. Others apparently do not. I’m trying to save them the trouble of a pointless argument. You do admit it’s a pointless argument, right? If somehow you can extrapolate that into a lynch mob, you do have an overactive and self-martyring imagination on you.
I don’t need any help in showing you to be a zealot. Your post count, tortured logic, and shrill repetition speaks for itself. And do you admit that your death wish on Bosstone was cheap, pathetic, and low? Or do you only hold forth with those moral standards for others’ behavior?
You are a fucking drama queen. I don’t want to have you lynched, mouthbreather. I just want you to receive the attention you deserve: none. I’d like to save others from taking the time and effort to point out your factual errors, to try to have a rational debate with you, when it’s really just a huge waste of time. I’m going to start taking my own advice. Talking to you is like clapping with one hand.
You ever have one of those dumps that’s a petrified blockade, which you strain and push and finally manage to expel, and behind it it’s all messy liquid? I hate that.
No, stupid is sad and pitiable and something I try to have patience with. **magellan **is an intellectually dishonest turd, which is something I have nothing but contempt for.
Marriage is an institution. A tradition. One that has served us well and w=one we encourage people to participate in: men and women, one of each. It produces a husband and a wife. Again, one man and one woman.
I haven’t ignored them, I’ve said that didn’t amount to much. I also said I think the nine minor differences should not exist.
Don’t try to blame this on California. The law here, like virtually every other state, does not recognize SSM. So, if you’re couple moved to Florida or New Jersey or Oregon or almost almost any other state there’d be the same problem. If there marriage is that important to them, they can stay in Mass. Let me ask you something, do you think states should be able to decide these issues for themselves?
No. I meant what I wrote. I don’t apply it to SS couples only.
If they are a man and a woman they don’t fuck with the definition really. There have been plenty of couples that either could not have had children, lost children, or married very late in life, even some that chose not to have them. They do all share one characteristic with the much, much larger group that does have children, the marriages are composed of a husband and a wife, one man and one woman.
I agree that there not very different as individuals, but once they constitute a couple, that entity is quite remarkably different.
This is ridiculous. I think they deserve and want to them to enjoy all the same rights as straight couples EXCEPT the use of one word, and I’m just throwing them a bone? You’ll forgive me if I find it difficult to take what you say seriously.
I never stated the world would come to an end or anything of the like. I do think that marriage would be a less special union to enter into for hetero couples. And given the increase in hetero couples to not marry, even if they have children (like a very good friend of mine), I don’t think it healthy to further encourage that option. I don’t think it is good for society in the long term.
I want them to have all those things. Except use of the term “marriage”. You seem to ignore that in most of your responses.
I don’t want to treat them differently. They simply don’t fit the criteria of a union composed of a husband and a wife: marriage. I think expanding the definition to include that possibility is not helpful to society, so I oppose it. It’s really that simple. I don not see inter-racial marriages falling in to the same problem, as they are composed of one man and one woman. It was an issue because the country was unable to live up to the moral underpinnings of its foundation as laid out in the Declaration of Independence. The repeal of the anti-miscigenation erased a bias that had no foundation in reality. SSM is different because a man is not the same thing as a woman.
Huh? I’m not looking at ideology. I’m looking at nature. I’m looking at tradition. I’m looking at what anyone with a synapse would understand to be the truth if not blinded by PC nonsense.
I’m not religious and I’ve not attributed anything to religion, so I don’t know why you bring that up. Not that I think that a religious influence is integral to our founding. But that has nothing to do with my position on SSM. And it’s one thing to call for equality, its’ another to call fore sameness. Men and women are equal, but they are not always interchangeable. You just need to look at the NBA and the WNBA for proof of that. Or check any maternity ward.
