Mind, as I’ve said many times, I’m not that hung up on the name. As long as gay couples get the same financial and legal rights as straight couples, you can homosexual marriage a “civil union” or “Shirley” for all I care. What bothers me is prospect of being fobbed off with some lesser, Jim Crow parody of legal marriage that does not grant full civil equality. The idea that I am not to be considered as married as a straight person, that the courts are merely humoring me, is infuriating.
There you go, bringing Shirley back into it!
Esprix
Mockingbird needs do no such thing.
He often looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and appears to like to hang out with ducks at times.
So? Those people vote, gobear, and they have concerns that deserve to be addressed. Bleat on about the “wall of separation” all you want, the fact remains that religious and civic institutions are not hermetically sealed off from one another. There is a measure of crossover between the two. And the notion that civic marriage exists, in part, as an homage to the religious institution of the same name is not wholly without merit. **
The difference being, of course, the existence and applicability of the First Amendment to the question of dogma in the public schools. The First Amendment simply doesn’t apply here.
Shirley you’re not serious.
You are one of the most pig-ignorant people I’ve ever read on these boards – no small accomplishment, given some of the characters who wander through here from time to time.
How many bigots do you know who advocate repeal of sodomy laws? How many who advocate the extension of the civil aspects of marriage to gays?
People like you do more damage to the cause of gay rights than one hundred homophobic rednecks.
Well, we’re just going to have to diagree, Mockingbird. I think Dewey is misguided in the way he reasons, but I’d rather save the “bigot” label for the folks who call me a virtual pedophile, an unnatural sinner, and an abomination unto God.
“Bleat”? Nice use of loaded word to cast aspersions on legitimate concerns about the encroachment of religious fundamentalism on civil liberties.
I never said it did. I was drawing a parallel between the restrictions the First Amendment places on religious dogma in schools and the restrictions that (IMO) the Equal Protection Clause places on religious dogma encroaching on civil liberties. In both cases, religious concerns have no standing in civil institutions.
Yes, it is. Again, are the SDMB atheists who think they’re married merely living in sin? Civil marriage, the thing the state recognizes when you apply for the marriage license, is equally valid for all regardless of religious affiliation.
To the average person, perhaps, but you should know better. A just cause is righteous based on its merits, not on the demeanor of the people who advocate it. MLK, Jr. was an adulterous plagiarizer, but that did not mean that the cause of civil rights for blacks was wrong therefore.
Look, I don’t think that Shirley Ujest has any more right to decide who’s married than anybody else. Though I am surprised to see gay men discussing being married to her. 
In all seriousness, the idea that civil unions are “just as good as marriages” has reen refuted right here on this board by comments that no gay couples are married in America today becaus “Vermont civil unions are not marriages.”
If John and Mary can go before a Georgia JP and commit to a union that will be recognized when they move to Arizona and furnish the basis for filing joint taxes, making life-or-death decisions for each other when one is in the ICU, etc., then if there is true equality, John and Mario, who went before a Vermont town clerk, have identical rights. Because in point of fact they do not, the “just as good” argument falls flat on both its faces.
You might want to think twice about that. The Abominable Gobear has a certain pizazz.
“Abomination” is pretty tough.
“I know Kung Fu.” says the guy getting ready to kick your butt.
“Oh yeah, Well I’m an Abomination in the Eyes of God!” You reply.
“Oh. I am sorry. I didn’t know. I’m not looking for any trouble, Sir,” says the guy beating a hasty retreat.
If I could ever pull off Abomination I’d be inclined to go with it.
To have you call me ignorant is ludicrous at best.
I represent myself, not the gay community at large.
To suggest that I cannot speak for myself is ignorant. To say that your words do not often put you in with Scylla, IzzyR, and others like them is also ignorant.
I don’t do damage to “the cause.”
I do speak my mind, right or wrong.
I have also e-mailed gobear and tried to discuss my stance and his perception of how I come off, as I’ve e-mailed a few of the gay people on here who feel they must criticize me.
I find the hypocrisy of being quite willing to take me to task on the boards and not willing to discuss things to change a perception when asked in a polite and civil manner to be asinine at best.
Go around in these circular debates ad infinitum, and make no progress. Let the bigots, to whatever level they aspire to, be their bigoted selves who defy any reality to stick with their own views. Let the indignant gay people on here stamp their foot in impotent indignation, accomplishing nothing, and often trying to create understanding where none can be made.
The gay “debates” on here are not accomplishing a fucking thing. Polycarp has a brain and he uses it. I think he is the exception and not the rule. There are far more who while not as extreme as Jersey or His4Ever, revel and bask in their ignorance and bigotry and would sooner felch a goat than consider changing their views.
gobear, Otto, and others I have reached out to: you have no place criticizing me when you have not seen fit to follow through and had a discussion with me about the topic. You have seen fit to lump on the criticism and have offered nothing in way of feedback that could lead to change. If you can’t do it for one of your own, how the hell do you expect to do it for them?
Well, I apologize for not responding to your e-mail, but you were so vehement that I didn’t think you were willing to listen to any criticsim I had. My bad…
None of us are out to get you and believe it or not, we are all on the same side. Certainly, I have backed you in righteous anger when I felt it was necessary. But sometimes one has to dial it back to get people to listen.
It seems to me that when you participate in these debates, you tend to lump posters as either pro-gay or hateful bigots, when it seems to me that there are gradations between the two extremes.
Dewey is on record in this thread and others as being pro-gay, so calling him a bigot is completely wrong. That’s not to say that debating him can’t be exasperating, but I believe his heart is in the right place. Ditto with Scylla. He means well and he said he supports the freedom of gay people to live as they please. He and I had heated words, but we kissed and made up.
IzzyR, OTOH. . . you can savage him to your heart’s content.
I never said otherwise.
What I did say was that the notion that civil marriage was in part a homage to the religious institution was not wholly without merit. The mere fact that the population of civil marriages does not match the population of religious marriages on a 1:1 basis (principally due to the requirements of the establishment clause) does not change that.
America is a religious country. Indeed, that is why the establishment clause is so important. Keeping a secular state separate and apart from religious belief is a good and noble thing. But it is folly to suggest that one doesn’t inform the other. Religion influences politics, and politics influences religion. The wall of separation is not hermetically sealed. Only a fool pretends otherwise.
It seems to me there are two approaches to take here. One is to pretend that religion does not shape civil institutions, to decry the “ignorance” of the American people, and to fight against potential allies because they insist on allowing their religious faith to color their view of public policy. The alternative is to open your eyes to the fact of religious influence, accept that religious men of goodwill have legitimate concerns that should be addressed, and to seek solutions that are reasonably agreeable to all involved. Personally, I think the latter approach is a hell of a lot more productive. YMMV.
(My third time retyping this…stupid damned hamsters…:mad: )
The problem with this approach is that many of these “religious men [and women] of goodwill” are unwilling to seek solutions that are reasonably agreeable to all. DOMA was not voted into place solely by fundamentalist Bible-bangers. Plenty of religious men and women of otherwise good will voted for that abomination and have shown no willingness to compromise on it. We are not looking at any sort of a continuum here. We are looking at polar opposites, and the side that blinks first “loses.”
If all these religious people of good will were looking for mutually agreeable compromise, we’d have national civil unions already. We don’t, because they’re not.
Point of fact, the problem you address does not turn on the particular label affixed to gay unions. John and Mario are just as screwed in the other 49 states regardless of whether Vermont calls their joining a “marriage” or a “civil union.”
Perhaps if you were to stop accusing everyone who disagrees with your tactics of being The Enemy and hurling invective at anyone who does (including those who reach out to you first), someone might be willing to talk to you. That you have rarely, if ever, over the last few months asked anyone to discuss things “in a polite and civil manner” explains why people see you as a raving loon. This is not “reaching out,” this is being a fucking asshole.
Just a thought.
Esprix
MLK, Jr. also did not make a habit of, say, calling the Supreme Court “bigots” because they ordered the desegregation of the schools take place “with all deliberate speed” rather than immediately.
I don’t particularly care how righteous your cause is, you don’t do yourself any favors by casting aspersions at potential allies.
Obviously,there is a porous border between religion and politics, and nobody here has denied that. But your argument that religious concerns effectively outweigh civil liberties (for that is what your position amounts to) is utterly and completely wrong.
As Otto points out, that is simply not so. “Religious men of good will” have already said that any semblance of marriage for gay people is out of the question, else the Full Faith and Credit clause would apply to Vermont civil unions.
You’ll note that it was not I who called you a bigot, and in fact I have stepped up in your defense.
Well, if they are unwilling to do so then they aren’t “people of goodwill,” are they? **
This isn’t the Cuban Missile Crisis, frcryinoutloud.
Put simply, I disagree. I think that with time, patience, and persuasion, a reasonable compromise could carry the day. But for that to happen, both sides have to let go of their “all or nothing” position, including notions of one side “winning” and the other side “losing.” **
Plenty of people of goodwill supported the 1964 Civil Rights Act. How odd would it be to say in 1960 “if all these people of goodwill were looking for a mutually agreeable solution, we’d have a civil rights law already.” Sometimes, good things take time.