sorry…Pete Knight.
I was looking at another thread just then.
I sure don’t have this opinion of Pete Stark. But you all know that, right 
Vocabulary 101: Being opposed to equal rights is bigotry. This means that he who is so opposed is a bigot. Take it up with Merriam and Webster if you don’t like spades being called spades.
And in point of fact, supporting the separate but equal civil unions fallback position doesn’t make you “far more progressive than the general population.” It’s fast becoming the mainstream position, which makes it no less the product of bigotry.
I am amused by how upset you get over being the subject of “hateful personal insults” in one paragraph and then hurl a “hateful personal insult” in the next. We’ll add “hypocrite” to “bigot.”
What “hateful personal insults” have I directed at you again?
Eh? The definition for “bigot” that I found is this:
Redefining a pejorative word to maliciously characterize a group of people who aren’t in your group and who disagree with your politics strikes me as, well, bigotted. :eek: Hell, for that matter, being glad that someone who politically opposed your own group died strikes me as pretty damn biggoted as well.
Otto, I am willing to accept that I may not be the model of fairmindedness in the world. I am not perfect, nor do I pretend to be.
However, considering your own well-expressed prejudices on this message board, you’re hardly the person to tell me so.
Given your hateful and demeaning attitude toward religion in general, and Christianity in particular, I could easily accuse you of an anti-religious bigotry, and devolve this whole thing into an even worse shouting match. But I’m specifically not going to do that.
The term “bigot” in America today, when it’s bandied about, isn’t done so to encourage debate. It’s done so to shut down debate, like you’re trying to do here.
Pretty simple, really. If you don’t like what someone’s saying, you can just call them a bigot and casually ignore all of their arguments. Welfare reform?
Worthless bigotted idea. Means testing of Social Security? That’s just anti-elder bigotry.
The problem with this is that, if you cry bigot too often, people will start seeing you as a hypersensitive who cannot defend an idea on its own merits.
I’d be happy to express my views on the subject, and have tried in the past. But it has always deteriorated into shouting matches and charges of bigotry.
Otto, can’t you realize that I simply cannot be persuaded to listen fairly to your arguments while you’re calling me a bigot? And that I’m hardly alone in feeling this way?
Treat voters with this kind of withering contempt, and they will reject you and your positions. And rightly so, I might add. I do hope, Otto that you don’t serve as any kind of public spokesman for your movement. They deserve better than you.
Now now, you’ve been here long enough to know that there is no such thing as anti-religious bigotry except in the case of Islam.
Why is it that victims of discrimination are supposed to rise above the hate and vitriol thrown at them and deal calmly with the opposition? Over and over again when people who are spat upon and discriminated against by society and the government get fed up with it and argue and fight back, they’re told this bullshit.
“Oh sure your anger at sitting at the back of the bus and subject to Jim Crow is justified. Sure you may not like being subject to being fired for being gay. Yeah, barring you from equality under the law is unfair. But don’t you go and get too riled up or we ‘reasonable’ people won’t listen to you. No, we’ll not do what’s right because it’s right. We’ll only do it if you prostrate yourself and lick our mutherfucking boots.”
The bigots in white America would have ignored Martin Luther King, Jr. if they could have. It’s their fear of Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael that made them willing to talk to anyone.
Because, that is how societal change comes about. By convincing people that you are calm, reasonable folks who want reasonable things, you will probably achieve those reasonable things.
My grandfather was shut out of educational opportunities and jobs because of his immigrant status. He fought and cajoled all of his children into college slots. His grandchildren today, number lawyers, engineers, teachers, and other successful professional people.
Gay rights have come a long way in just one generation. I think that’s a great thing. I favor civil unions because I do see the value in long term relationships of every kind, and I do not favor denying benefits to people due them simply because of a lifestyle that is, in one small way, out of the mainstream.
There is, however, a law of unintended consequences. Scandinavia is experiencing this with its own civil union and gay marriage laws. Where they have been implemented, heterosexual marriage rates haven’t gone up, and divorce rates haven’t gone down, as many predicted. The marriage situation for heterosexuals in Scandinavia can be best described as troubling.
I concede that this is due in large part to more casual cultural attitudes toward marriage there. But we are developing such casual attitudes here as well.
Therefore, with a social event this radical facing a basically culturally conservative country, the proper course is the middle ground - namely civil unions. This has the advantage of immediately providing benefits for people who need them, right now. It also has the advantage of being less likely to provoke a backlash that would forever deny any sort of civil union or marriage benefit to gays.
If this is unsatisfying at the outset, well, political compromise always goes down like bitter medicine. But it may well be necessary.
And if this position leads me to be called a bigot, well, I’ve been called worse. But hopefully, some will realize that I’ve put at least some thought into this.
Oh, they could. And they still do.
Aww, wook at the duh poor widdle opwessed Christians…
[Sarcasm Mode: ON]
Yeah, they tried to exercise their right to opress others, only to be told that liberty and justice for all includes them damn faggits.
[Sarcasm Mode: OFF]
So you don’t support equality for me and my relationship. You spit upon me and despise me, and hold up for all the world to see that my relationship isn’t equal, isn’t as valid, isn’t as acceptable as yours.
Yes, master, I suppose I should be thankful that you will give me the crumbs of wedding cake from off your table.
As it should. Just as anyone who supports any barriers between racial equality is a bigot. Just as anyone who supports any barriers between gender equality is a bigot. Just as anyone who supports any barriers between equal treatment of religious beliefs is an bigot.
Flying a bunch of stupid missions in a meaningless, evil war in Southeast Asia is not making a “lasting contribution” to this nation.
Would someone please explain to me the difference between a civil union and a marriage? Are there benefits to one that you don’t get in the other? I’ve heard people say that one is secular and the other is religious, but that’s hogwash because a purely secular 15-minute ceremony performed by a JP is as valid legally as the most lavish sacred extravaganza performed at the local church.
So, why the distinction? If a union is identical to a marriage, then why not use “marriage” and dispense with “civil union”? If they’re not identical, then the institution is still discriminatory.
Will someone please lay it out so this simple country boy can understand?
Thanks ever so.
Oh,
And according to Pete Knight’s obit at PlanetOut, his gay son is also a military vet and former test pilot–does his service cancel out his dad’s so we stop talking about something so irrelevant to the issue of marriage for gay people?
Tell me, spectrum, are you an all or nothing kind of guy? You seem to be.
And in the race to get it all, you risk winding up with nothing.
I’m sure you’re aware, as a gay activist, of the recent backlash in the Commonwealth of Virginia on the issue of gay marriage. The measure that banned not only civil unions but also partnership contracts "purporting to bestow the privileges or obligations of marriage” between gays. Not to mention nullifying both civil unions and private arrangements made outside of the state.
This measure, by the way, passed with veto-proof majorities in both houses. And no, I did not support it.
This is what you’re up against. Sudden change won’t come in the face of this. Only incremental change will.
The civil rights struggle didn’t happen overnight. Black leaders were smart enough to take a victory, celebrate it, and then press toward another victory. You’d do well to follow their example.
Because it’s more effective.
“Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable; procures success to the weak, and esteem to all.”
– George Washington
“Violence in the voice is often only the death rattle of reason in the throat.”
– John F. Boyes
“You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.”
– Indira Gandhi
Since when is suggesting that you refrain from alienating potential allies by tarring everyone who has even the mildest reservations about gay marriage with the “bigot” label the same thing as suggesting that you begin prostrating and boot-licking?
Oh, bullshit. Only in the fevered brains of the most addled black nationalist would this statement be true. Indeed, the thing that moved this country in the direction of civil rights wasn’t fears of black power, but images of mistreatment from the south (indeed, I’m convinced that Bull Conner unwittingly helped the movement when he turned on those hoses) and a powerful, virtually unassailable moral argument. Radical black separatism may have whipped up support in the ghettoes, but if anything it retarded the actual advances of the civil rights movement by providing a convenient excuse for inaction (“what those blacks really want is violent revolution…we shouldn’t appease them”).
If you want to do nothing but whip up furor in the gay community, continue circle-jerking your belief that everyone who isn’t 100% on board with your agenda is a hateful bigot. If you want to make actual progress towards your goal, you might consider reaching out and attempting to persuade those of a moderate bent with reasonable, lucid, and civil arguments.
Calling those moderates names doesn’t help you do that. You can be the most reasonable person in the world, with the best quiver of arguments in the universe, and yet if you call your audience an asshole every other sentence then they’re still not going to listen to you – and understandably so.
Given that I couldn’t care less about religion in general and Christianity in particular, except when it is used as an excuse for (here comes that word again) bigotry, it’s probably a good idea that you not bring it up. But I did enjoy your delightfully coy manner in bringing it up while claiming not to bring it up.
Um…this isn’t GD. This is the Pit.
Give that to the best of my recall I have never even mentioned welfare reform or means testing on these boards, your inclusion of them here is bizarre.
:::checks the forum again::: Yup, still the Pit.
No, I am not. As a gay marriage supporter, I am willing to accept as a TEMPORARY situation the existence of a dual system which includes gay civil unions.
However, I do not consider such unions and marriage to be equal, and those who would specifically bar gay marriage and expect us to be aw-shucks pleased with the evil that is “separate but equal” are not really, in the long run, my allies.
Being less bigoted than the trash who would bar gay relationships from any legal recourse doesn’t make one not bigoted.
Not surprising. Virginia proudly fought a war for the right to trample all over black people. Evil and the South go hand in hand.
There is no limit to the evil people will do to make Jesus love them more.
I am not a gay civil rights leader. Wouldn’t want to be, either. I’d prefer the people who hold such positions to be better suited than I when it comes to keeping one’s cool.
I agree with Charles Colson, who wanted this sentence added to the Defense of Marriage Amendment:
This, then, opens the benefit not only to gays, or unmarried heterosexual partners, but to any two people who choose to live together and share benefits.
Obviously, many of these people wouldn’t be considered married in any sense. Such as an elderly brother and sister who decided to share a household together.
But the civil union benefit would enable them to do so, establish POA, tax benefits, property rights, visitation, and so forth, quite easily.
Families and friends already are a tremendous social safety net in America. The civil union, in addition to its other benefits, strengthens this safety net. The savings to government social service organizations could be tremendous.
So, no, it’s not a question of semantics. It’s a legal term for the establishment of a household. Once that household is established, whether through marriage or civil union, a gay or straight couple could call themselves married, and I don’t think anybody would care.
The question of whether different benefits could be granted to civil unions and marriages isn’t settled. I don’t think most states would allow such discrimination, frankly, so it would be a moot point if it is ever implemented.
I’d still like to know the difference between a civil union and a marriage. Unlike Spectrum, I don’t want “gay marriage”; I just want marraige for me and my partner, and we happen coincidentally to be gay. “Gay marrige” sounds like we want something special and new to be created, and the truth is we want the same rights that hetero folks enjoy. No more, no less. I pay the same taxes as straight people, so I deserve the same benefits they get.
Speaking as a proud gay Southerner, may I suggest that you go fuck yourself. I also suggest you read up on the history of this country and you’ll find the North hip-deep in the slave trade and far from embracing racial equlity, even in this century. Google Abner Louima or Amadou Diallo.
Well, what it boils down to for me is there are lots of people who want to set up households but are shut out of traditional marriage right now. But traditional marriage is well entrenched in common law and in our traditions.
I really don’t think this institution should be overly tinkered with or completely jettisoned.
The civil union would be open to all of these couples (I don’t think America is ready for more than two of anything) who want to set up a household, providing they’re not currently in a traditional marriage already.
Two old spinster women? No problem. Oscar and Felix splitting the condo mortgage? No sweat. But you need to call it something other than a marriage because we have marriage already, and this is kind of an add-on.
And Oscar and Felix certainly aren’t married. They’re always scheming to date twins, for crying out loud.
Once this all goes through, gobear, if you want to call yourself married, I’m not going to stop you. I just think civil unions are the better, incremental course along the way.