Exactly. That’s what I call “disparate impact” based upon gender. After guy has sex, he loses ability to choose whether he wants financial responsibility for the kid; after gal has sex, she retains the right.
Disparate impact happens all the time in the law. Plus it ain’t the law anyway that disparate impact is per se illegal or unconstitutional. So it doesn’t constitute much of an argument for gay marriage.
She also has the body parts that force her to make a choice that he’ll never have to make. Nature is “disparate” in that way too. So, allowing her a choice that he doesn’t get (because nature doesn’t force him to make that choice) doesn’t seem so out of line.
Unless, of course, you’re one of those guys who wants to have it all his way—wants to enjoy all the goodies but not have to deal with any of the downsides. (I’m not saying you are, though, and it doesn’t appear that that was your point.)
Yeah, well one of the arguments trundled out against gay marriage has to do with nature as well. So again, life is disparate, the law is disparate, nature is disparate.
It just ain’t a good argument in support of gay marriage.
Nope - both RU 486 and the morning after pill have effects on the woman’s body.
Potential side effects of RU 486
Potential side effects of the morning after pill
End the pregnancy in a way that has NO effect on the woman’s body, and I’ll grant you the right to force her to abort so you don’t have to support an unwanted child. But if there’s ANY risk to her body, she gets to be the one who makes the decision about what to do - because she’s the one who’s most intimately affected by the decision. She gets the choice because she (and only she) bears the physical risks.
Physical autonomy outranks financial autonomy. A person’s body is rightly afforded more protection under the law than a person’s wallet.
You may be missing the point of saying this. There is an ongoing national debate about the issue. Yet many in the pro-gay-marriage camp say that “obviously” not allowing gay marriage is a violation of state or federal equal protection clauses. Stating the opposite “obvious” makes a point: perhaps it’s not as obvious as some think.
Oh please. Similar warnings are put on almost every OTC drug, mostly to reduce litigation.
Morning after pill can be obtained without a prescription in several states, and the FDA was considering making it available OTC nationwide. It’s safe, it’s effective, and the possible side effects are minimal and generally don’t even happen:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/12/16/health/main588777.shtml.
And it fails miserably, on two counts. Homosexual acts ARE natural - they’ve been observed in many species of animals. And marriage in Western societies has nothing to do with sexuality in any case. There’s no requirement you even have sex with your spouse and no requirement that you be fertile and produce children for your heterosexual relationship to be granted the privileges of marriage. If marriage was fundamentally about promoting heretosexual behavior and reproduction, we’d deny marriage licenses to heterosexual couples in which one of the prospective spouses is incapable of intercourse or is infertile. We don’t.
If we’re willing to let two 80 year olds marry, why not allow homosexuals to marry? If a man and woman can choose to practice nothing but anal intercourse and still be allowed to get a marriage license, why the uproar over giving one to homosexuals?
The risks are real. The incidence of serious side effects may be low - but I can assure you that’s absolutely no consolation if you’re the person unlucky enough to experience one of them. The litigation risk the drug companies face occurs because a small number of people who take the drug WILL be harmed by it even though they have no obvious contraindications to taking it.
Aspirin is sold over-the-counter, too. It has a low but non-negligible risk of serious side effects. Should I be able to legally force you into taking an aspirin tablet?
There’s no such thing as a “safe drug” - there are only drugs which are more risky or less risky. The person whose body is going to be affected by the administration of the drug is the ONLY person who should be making the decision about whether or not to take it.
That linked article is hardly a comprehensive list, nor does Cecil claim it to be so. homosexuality has been observed in nearly every species of monkey and ape, as well as dolphins, ducks, dogs and well, many others. Now please shuat your pie hole. You’re polluting our atmosphere.
I quote:
“Herewith the contents of my *entire file * on kinky animal habits”
Quod erat demonstrandum.
And I don’t use my pie hole to type in these posting. It’s the fingers I stick into pie holes…
That means all he knows…not all there is to know, silly. I could probably find an observation of homosexual behavior in almost any species of higher animal you care to name. Rabbits, for instance.
I’m game. Got a pic you can post?
But he knows everything:
http://www.straightdope.com/faq/officialfaq.html
QED
I’ll see if i can get one of my friends that has rabbits to take one. In fact, one of them is msrexrabbit, who is a member here and tadaa raises rex rabbits.
schplebordnik: You’ve already lost the argument. All you’re achieving now is prooving that you’re a dickhead. (Not that it wasn’t apparent already.)
Homosexuality in animals:
http://www.salon.com/it/feature/1999/03/cov_15featurea.html
http://www.bidstrup.com/sodomy.htm
http://www.rnw.nl/lifestyle/html/gayanimals000808.html
http://www.sciencenews.org/sn_arc97/1_4_97/bob1.htm
To name just a few…got to love that Google! =)
Hey, thanks for clarifying for me that disparate impact is never countenanced in the law and hence gay marriage can never be held not legal.
3 years of law school, 3 state bar admissions and 12 years of practice down the drain…
Pshaw. We all know that Cecil is the ultimate authority. At least here…
No pics (and I wouldn’t be able to tell if they were the same gender even if there were), but how about a link?
Avaliable at Amazon, Biological Exuberance, which you can take a look through here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/031225377X/ref=sib_dp_pt/103-1141543-4323839#reader-link
According to the contents page, not only primates, but also marine mammals, hoofed mammals, carnivorous mammals, rodents, birds of all varieties and a few others are implicated in this scandalously unnatural practice.