I think marriage is more significantly undermined by the idea that it is rigid and unyielding and only suited for certain kinds of people than it could possibly be by any accomodation of diversity.
I know rather a large number of people who believe that marriage as currently legally constituted is fundamentally discriminatory, and who therefore are not going to support it even tacitly by going through a legal marriage process – who nonetheless are entirely happy having handfastings, non-legal marriages, and other such things which are available to gays, polyfolk, and others.
Good advice. However I must comment on the myth of the “Marriage Tax”. More than half of married couples in the U.S. gain a marriage benefit under the tax codes.
Thanks for the cite, Homebrew. However, I would say that you confirmed that the Marriage Tax applies to many married couples, but not all of them. Your cite showed that 42% of couples do pay higher taxes for the privilege of being married. The fact that many other married couples save tax doesn’t offset the penalty for this 42% of couples.
Ahhh, Minty. It seems my admiration for your ability to pull off a good tactical retreat, expressed so recently in another thread, was well founded. This thread is another excellent showcase for your talents. You started, if you recall, with this:
(italics mine)
You then retreated to this:
(italics and underlining both mine)
This nicely rendered my question irrelevent, giving you cover to ignore it.
You then fell back to here:
Now, it seemed that Scylla was determined not to let you get away with it this time, and for a while there it looked like he (she?) might succeed. I was truly on the edge of my seat. The suspense was killing me. But, slowly but surely, by deploying a constant stream of 101 variations of “Republicans are nasty and evil”, as well as the “yawn” smiley (which I guess is technically superior to your usual “rolleyes”), you were able to confuse the issue and get Scylla bogged down in what appears to be (I’ve only skimmed it) an argument about the technical workings of the DOMA. And now even that appears (upon further skimming) to have petered out.
A virtuoso performance, Sir (or Madam). I salute you.
Scylla has made the point that the Democratic Party is less than perfect on gay rights. Scylla has done nothing whatsoever to demonstrate that the Republican Party is not a hundred times worse. My party is way better than his. So there.
And if you have anything to say about another thread, Al, how 'bout you not act like a complete :wallyand say it in that thread instead? I believe I know the thread of which you speak, and I can only laugh at your characterization of it.
Scylla was not arguing or defending such (for the 8th or 9th time.)
Scylla had made no such statement.
And, if Scylla were interested in analyzing the relative merits of Democrats vs. Republicans on gay rights, it would not be up to Scylla to show that “the Republican party is not a hundred times worse.”
Since it is Minty Green who is making the positive statement it is up to Minty Green to prove it, not Scylla to disprove it.
Minty Green has yet to admit or acknowledge that his original statement regarding the Democrats’ legendary “intolerence for homobphobia,” is in fact a falsehood.
Nor has Minty thanked Scylla for correcting his error in this.
Do the Republicans in this thread believe that the Republican Party have a better platform for gay rights than the Democratic party from the point of view of a gay person? If you repeat something often enough, weak minds will believe it, but that doesn’t make it true.
And, if Scylla was interested in analyzing the relative merits of Democrats vs. Republicans on gay rights, Scylla would have to concede that the Republican Party is actively hostile to gay rights and dwarfs the sins of the Democratic Party, which, despite its cowardly and expedient embrace of DOMA, still promotes and works toward an equitable alignment of benefits and a legal prohibition on employment discrimination–both of which the Republican Party actively opposes.
minty green and others have proven this active hostility by reference to the respective platforms of the two parties, the voting records of the parties on key gay rights legislation, and various anecdotes regarding the Republican Party’s tolerance of horribly bigoted actions and statements on the part of its members, such as Trent Lott and a number of Texas delegates to the 2000 convention. Scylla has stuck his fingers in his ears and gone “la la la la la.”
minty green acknowledges that his original statement regarding the Democrats’ intolerance for homohobia is incorrect if interpreted as a blanket statement. On the whole, however, Bob Do . . . er, minty green sticks by the assesment.
Perhaps if the good people leave, the bad can be exposed for how truly evil they are and that element of the party can wither and die.
Both major parties have bigots, I’ll grant that. But in the Republican Party the bigots have power; they lead both houses of Congress.
As to questions about Ashcrofts’ homophobia, let’s just look at who his biggest financial supporters during his time in the Senate.
When opposing the nomination of James Hormel as ambassador to Luxembourg, Ashcroft said Hormel’s “conduct and the way in which he would represent the United States is probably not up to the standard that I would expect.”
Oh yes, and Bush is so gay-affirming that he twice signed a proclamation request from an employee group to declare June as Gay Pride Month. No, wait. He didn’t, much to the pleasure of his support base.
Much has been made about his meeting with the LCR. Let us not forget that he initally refused to meet with them until the backlash caused him to reconsider. His record also includes his term as Governor of Texas where he vetoed a hate crimes legislation that included sexual orientation and expressed his opposition to gay adoption.
I’m assuming that you’re granting me that DeLay and Trent Lott are, without arguement, homophobes.
Minty has told another falsehood. Scylla has on several occasions in this thread stated outright that his party’s record on gay rights isn’t so hot, and has even said that the Democrats’ record is better.
Seeing as we both agree on this, I see no reason why Minty continues to make an issue of it, except to camouflage his own party’s inadequacies.
Polycarp is appreciative of the responses to his question. However, he questions why it seems necessary to the principal debaters in this thread to refer to themselves in the third person. Perhaps this might be a bit of infection from the “Witness” thread?
The list of supporters demonstrates who agrees with his positions. This list of supporters are the folks who paid his travel expenses to come talk to them.
Like Bush at Bob Jones University, if you disagree with them, you wouldn’t be speaking there and taking their money.
