Nonsense. The previous status quo was the absence of the amendment. Therefore, any defender of the status quo is required to vote against the amendment. QED.
I can recall hearing people say “He’s not my president” when Gerald Ford took office upon Nixon’s resignation, due to the fact he had not been on the ballot for either president or vice-president in 1972.
I think the problem with that is potentially in the reasons. Not that they think it, but why they think it. Many things go against the traditional culture of your country; would these people act against all these things across the board? Technically, the general oppression of minorities has a much longer history than tolerance; that people can even be out of the closet publically now is not necessarily going to ruin your life. I would tend to assume that people who respect traditional culture in this way don’t respect everything at the same level; I imagine few of them would want slavery brought back, the reintegration of traditional gender roles, and the like. So the question becomes, why is gay marriage as an untraditional custom deemed unacceptable when other traditions are happily left by the wayside, and is the mental process by which that person judges that the same, unbiased process by which they judge other things?
So it isn’t simply a matter of bigotry being a point of view. Rationally developed thoughts and conclusions from a biased premise may certainly show a rational thought process, but that doesn’t mean the initial premise is therefore free of taint. Bigotry is not redeemed by having reasonable conclusions lead off from it; there must be no bigotry at any stage of the process.
Walter N. Risko is an Ohio man who has announced via a letter published in today’s Columbus Dispatch that, since he is no longer proud to be an American after his country elected Obama, he is enacting his distress through flying his flag at half-staff.
“…I see the America I once knew as being dead and in distress. Accordingly, I am flying my American flag at half-staff in mourning of the passing of a once-great nation. I invite any of you who feel the same way to join me in this show of love for the country we once were.”
I believe there should be considerable tolerance for public misuse/abuse of our flag in the service of free expression, but Mr. Risko does deserve a heaping helping of public contempt and withering disdain for violating the commonly accepted rules of flag display for political purposes.
Shame, Walter N. Risko!!!
Given the number of times Obama has specifically said that the government cannot fix everything and that people themselves would have to take responsibility for enacting change for the better, methinks Walter N. Risko has not been paying attention.
My theory is that RWs such as Mr. Risko do pay attention, but everything they hear is selectively edited/rewritten at some stage between impingement on the eardrum and impingement on conscious thought. Identification of the precise mechanism would be a fascinating field for groundbreaking neurological study.
Boy, what a jackass he is. “I didn’t get my way, therefore democracy is broken.”
While I agree that he’s a dumb shit, for the record, I endorse Mr. Risko’s right to fly the flag at half staff or upside down or on the end of his penis if he so chooses.
Yeah. See how well his penis would work as a flagpole with a [del]stiff[/del] healthy breeze [del]blowing[/del] gusting.
The original point I was trying to make was that I’ve heard arguments from SSM opponents that could, by some definitions, not be based on bigotry. Based on what I’ve seen here, it is impossible to have any arguments against SSM, regardless of motives, because any argument against SSM is by definition bigotry.
SSM opponents don’t see any bigotry in their position or starting premise but rather much more a defense of our cultural and moral traditions. If you look at it from that perspective, things do look a little different. I’m not saying that is the right perspective, but it is somewhat defensible and not simply based on religion. Whether or not it is bigotry or this is just another example of one of the many abhorrent cultural traditions we need to shed is at the crux of the debate.
No, they look *exactly the same *as they did when racists defended segregation in the exact same way.
Or get out of my asshole, State…as would be the pertinent argument.
Fair enough. You are of the mind that opponents to SSM are bigots by definition. It then becomes disingenuous to ask for someone defend opposition to SSM in a way that isn’t based on bigotry. Any argument they give will be labeled as bigoted. The original request is impossible to fulfill.
Something just occurred to me. Some people seem to be defining bigotry based on the results (exclusion of a group of people based on a characteristic) where I can definitely see others saying it isn’t bigotry because of the motives (“that isn’t the way we’ve done it before” vs. “Eww! Yuck!”). If someone sees their motives based on something other than classification, they aren’t apt to label their conclusions as bigoted.