Well, I don’t doubt that there are people who believe that, or that the rodeo producer referred to in an earlier post is one of them. But it seems hard to believe that a significant number of Americans are genocidal.
I doubt they think of it as genocidal. The homophobes don’t see homosexuals as people who happen to be born homosexual, but as monsters who chose to be morally corrupt and enemies of God. And equate them with child molesters as well; would you be shocked if I said most people would like to see child molesters killed ?
:rolleyes:This will be my last response to you. Why? You’re just not bright enough to make this worth the effort. Seriously, you have got to be one of the dumbest posters on these boards. This point was explained to you in detail in the other thread more than once. Still it hasn’t sunk in. Also, in your attempt to make your point you do so so lamely it almost hurts. I’ll just point out, my soft-headed friend, that desgregating never sought to abolish two groups. They simply wanted those two groups—1) blacks and 2) whites—to be able to enjoy the same opportunities. Now I suggest you go back to that other thread and try to digest what I, or at least what mswas (who is on your side by the way), tried to explain to you.
Good luck.
"Let me start out by saying you have no life, and I do . . . "
Now that that’s out of the way . . .
The difference you’re not addressing is that no one is made to feel inferior by birth or ashamed of who they are in your attempted hero analogue. You’re dodging the root of the question. What I want you to answer, is what do you feel for this whole class of people that you’re willing to marginalize for a word? Do you have no compassion for people who cry themselves to sleep at night because you want to hold for yourself a word that they cannot have, through absolutely no fault of their own? A word?
Much as I hate to subscribe to **Der Trihs]b]'s diatribes, I have to say that for a ridiculously large proportion of self-professed Real Christians ™, he has hit the nail right on the head. It is for them not insulting to compare homosexuality to pedophilia or bestiality, because they are all perversions against God’s Law, chosen for fleeting pleasure. And nothing anyone can say will sway their minds from this mindset.
The first part of my post came off with snark when none was intended. I see that it was poorly worded. I was simply trying to explain my situation. My apologies.
Now, if people are crying themselves to sleep over this, they need psychiatric help. That’s not meant to be harsh, just a simple fact. And all of us are born with all kinds of shortcomings. There are people who are extremely unattractive, really dumb, midgets, etc. Also there are many of us that were born without the requisite talent to do something we’d give a few years of our lives for, whether that be play professional sports, be a model, movie star, brain surgeon, singing sensation, etc. If any of us cry ourselves to sleep at night over that, we, too, need psychiatric help.
As I’ve mentioned, I have friends and family members that are gay, blah, blah blah. I wish them no ill and much happiness. But I see the role the word plays in society as more important than forfeiting it for their pleasure. Especially when it is not necessary to do so. There is another route to them being able to enjoy all the rights and privileges that “marriage” affords.
Also, if you care so much about self image, how about having gays embrace their gayness, hold their heads up and start their own strain of the institution with full knowledge it is as equal to marriage as blacks are to whites and man is to woman?
This is the crux of the issue, and why you will never be able to shake the accusations of bigoty. Being gay is not a shortcoming. It’s normal and natural. There is no “ideal” that needs to be upheld by excluding gays. Their families and their ability to raise children are not inferior to straights’. Since you fundamentally disagree with this, there can be no rapprochement with you.
False analogy. Gays are to straights as blacks are to whites and men are to women.
Gay civil unions, on the other hand, are to straight marriages as black drinking fountains are to white drinking fountains.
[channeling magellan01] Ah, but there is one single source of the water for both, so it is all fine and dandy and perfectly reasonable and equitable.[/channeling]
The problem I have with that is that it doesn’t fit. If a significant portion of the population really thinks that gays should be killed, then you wouldn’t have the advances in gay rights that there’s been over the past 20 years. A group like NAMBLA (to go with the analogy that’s been made) hasn’t been effective at all in passing their agenda because there really is that level of hatred of pedophilia. It’s not accepted at all. With gay rights, though, you have gay marriage in 4 states, civil unions in more. You have anti-discrimination laws in some places and a nationwide anti-discrimination law that always almost passes. You have people who can publicly admit their sexuality. A politican could stand up and say, “I think we should execute child molesters”, without hurting his career. He wouldn’t be able to say “I think we should execute gays” without bad effects.
I’m not saying that there isn’t homphobia out there. There clearly is. But I don’t think there’s the kind of wide spread exterminationism.
Please. It’s a shortcoming for a particular thing. Just as not being a really fast runner is a shortcoming for being an NFL running back.
Over and over you make these horrendously faulty analogies, then have the temerity to wonder why people don’t “get” your point. Marriage is not equivalent to being an NFL running back.
My analogy is not false at all. But I’ll play. Even if you insist in parsing it this way, there is no benefit to society to having white only fountains and black only fountains. Not the same with marriage and civil unions. They allow the two groups to enjoy the exact same set of rights and privileges equally, while preserving the traditional meaning of “marriage” and allowing society at large to benefit from that.
You may want to look up the word analogy. But I take your response to mean, “Oops, that makes sense. DRAT!” You just wanted to jump on my use of the word “shortcoming” as being pejorative. Sorry to disappoint you.
Segregation advocates certainly thought there was. In fact, maintaining social separation between blacks and whites was seen by many mid-twentieth-century Americans as absolutely essential to society’s survival.
Just as racially segregated drinking fountains allowed both blacks and whites to have the exact same drinking water, while preserving traditional racial purity and allowing society at large to benefit from that.
Yes, the people who espoused such arguments were being reactionary bigots whose position was later thoroughly repudiated by the vast majority of society. I’m afraid that shoe fits you perfectly.
So, you’ve got tradition and some vague, unspecified, “benefit”. Completely unlike segregation. :rolleyes:
No, it just means that the most hateful of them are outnumbered; not that there aren’t tens of millions of people like that. Outnumbered, and old; I believe that much of what advances have occurred has been due to the bigots dying off.
You have no idea what bigotry and discrimination does to a person, then.
See, you compare being gay to being dumb, ugly, and a “midget”, and yet you get all shocked and aghast when people call you a bigot. Do you really not see that what you’re saying is bigoted?
A word. Is more important. Than basic human rights and dignity. Astounding. AB-SOLUTELY astonishing.
Slightly off topic, then again, maybe not.
I am in full support of homosexual marriage and I’d wager all I’m worth in a logical argument for or against it – with me arguing in the positive of course. Simply put, I haven’t seen any coherent arguments against it.
That aside, I am curious as to how gay couples determine who is who – IOW, in their relationships do they make a distinction between traditionally male/female roles? Seeing how that’s pretty much gone (going) by the wayside in heterosexual, long term, relationships, I was wondering if the gay community felt likewise. As in who plays the husband and who takes the wife’s role.
In addition to that, do gay couples in general tend to stay with one another more [longer] than their hetero equivalents? Or dare I say it, are they, on the whole, more conservative than straights with respect to the so called “sacredness” of marriage? Because that would be the best ever hoot & holler.
Logically speaking I see no reason for there to be any differences, but it’d be simply awesome if there were – a Silver Bullet so to speak.
Trust my queries are not taken as offensive but rather a matter of fighting my own ignorance on those particular issues.
I kind of got into that later on in the post.
But there’s your problem; precedent can be cited in future cases, but it need not be. And when it is, it may be reinterpreted. And reinterpretations aren’t necessarily codified in the text of the law. What’s stopping someone claiming that your method doesn’t mean that the history of marriage law precedent applies to civil unions? And vice-versa - where’s the protection that ensures landmark decisions in civil union cases will then automatically apply to marriages?
Judges can reinterpret that very intent.
No, actually. I don’t think there’s languages so well crafted that judges have no wiggle room whatsoever, but that’s probably a good thing, to some extent. But I do believe language can be crafted to reduce wiggle room to the maximum extent possible, most certainly; I think though that language would need to be as inclusive as possible, and I don’t think that any language which explicitly sets out two seperate groups (as per your suggested language) fulfils that.
What’s a person? Do mental or physical handicaps raise or lower the bar? Does a history of criminal behaviour alter matters at all? Does the government recognise foreign driver’s license holders where the bar is set differently? Is this law set federally, or state by state? If the latter, are states obliged to respect driver’s licenses of different states?
I spent five minutes on that and i’m not a lawyer. Your language is leaky. That’s going to be true of most language, really, but as I said if you want to decrease the possible interpretation then your method adds more wiggle room than is necessary.
No, we aren’t. I too believe they can be treated equally. It is most certainly a possibility. But I believe that, given language that leaves wiggle room, a hypothetical highly motivated group or groups willing to bring case after case to the courts in an attempt to get different interpretations will result in an inequal state of affairs. Because there only has to be one decision for things to become inequal again. And I believe that those hypothetical groups exist, on both sides of this debate. This is language which has to survive an onslaught of legal cases, money, and radical opinion. I don’t believe your language does the best job of that.