This has got to be my favorite answer to “Now we know better”. 
Who are “the elite” in your view? What is “ivory tower knowledge?” This is just sounding like unthinking code language, and I really don’t know what the code is.
If you mean the general body of social science, and you dismiss it in toto as simple elitism, I respectfully suggest you’re not arguing with an open mind.
(That’s apart from the fact that the majority of Americans support SSM, regardless of how voting has gone in the past.)
I really hope jtgain isn’t thinking that his arguments (and the vehemence thereof) in this thread are doing his reputation any good. Before he went batshit on marriage equality, I’d thought of him as a reasonable person. Now I…well, I can’t call him that, so I’ll refrain.
The Sixth disagrees with a whole bunch of others, including the Supreme Court itself, overturning the Federal Defense of Marriage Act.
I’m also bemused by the line of argument that goes, “Who says?” “Well, scientists and doctors say.” “What does that have to do with anything?”
You asked, I answered, and now, by no pattern of reasoning that is in any way evident, the answer is to be dismissed.
“What’s the square root of five?”
“Two point two three something.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
So scientists and doctors agree that homosexuality is not a mental illness. Fine. That doesn’t mean that a state or its voters cannot believe that homosexuality is a moral harm. And even with Lawrence where a state may not (and many choose not) to make homosexual sodomy a crime, it doesn’t follow that they must recognize relationships that gay people seek to enter.
“The present case does not involve …whether the government must give formal recognition to any relationship that homosexual persons seek to enter.” Lawrence
“This opinion and its holding are confined to those lawful marriages [a state has recognized]” Windsor
Scientists and doctors are in no better position to make value judgments than you, I, or any state legislature. Your citation to intellectuals is not persuasive.
This probably belongs in the other thread, but I’ll use this as evidence that there can be no reasonable disagreement with the left. It is either agree with us, or be unreasonable and have your reputation sullied.
meh
Based on the rantings of Coulter, Hannity, O’Reilly, Buchanan, and Limbaugh, there seems to be a fair amount of the same sort of nonsense from the Right.
Generalizing a claim that “the other side” acts “this” way simply perpetuates the problem.
Are you seriously still putting forward the astounding idea, given your arguments and the force (and, frankly, desperation) with which you make them, that you are not homophobic and some of your best friends are gay and they really like you, dammit?
Fair enough. However, I think my hyperbole in this matter doesn’t compare with that of my opponents.
My opposition to the idea that the Constitution demands that each state recognize SSM is not akin to racism, and such a scandalous charge and outrageous personal attack is unsupported by any evidence that you can provide.
I am simply participating in a contemporaneous and popular debate which is an issue soon to be decided by the Supreme Court, and one that I have 4 votes secured for my side, and one that more than 30 states support via their state constitutions. I would sincerely hope and request that you could debate my arguments instead of attacking my personal character.
Okay, I’m done. That you actually still believe you have some kind of point or even have any facts on your side makes it nonconducive for me to continue to engage, as I’m sure I’ll end up banned before long. Enjoy your life, sir. I’ll try to enjoy mine, despite your vehement attempts to make sure I can’t.
Oh, and in the spirit of this not being in the pit, I’ll just assume you already know where you can store your self-righteous outrage at being called out on the actual nature of your arguments.
You will forever be known as the man of the washing machine analogy. It’s true that there’s no comparison between your hyperbole and that of your opponents, but not perhaps in the way you’re thinking :).
How can they do that without violating the equal protection clause? What prevents a legislature from declaring that possessing certain political views is “a moral harm?” How far do you want to take this interpretation?
Again, how do you reconcile this with the equal protection clause?
This is in regards to why gay rights were not recognized in earlier times. In those times, we (society, civilization, humanity) were ignorant of the nature of homosexuality. We’ve learned since then, and thus we can (and should, must, and shall!) revisit those old laws in light of new knowledge.
You asked a specific question. I gave an answer. Society is in a better position to make a value judgement today than we were fifty years ago. That’s part of human progress, and how the democratic process works. We learn, and improve ourselves.
Now: can you possibly tell me why gays should not have equal rights and protections? What is the basis for this antipathy? Have any existing gay marriages been shown to produce any harm to anyone?
Akin to racism? Maybe not. Akin to Jim Crow? Absolutely.
Your arguments have been debated exhaustively, and I agree that attacks on character are not the best way to proceed. But whether our country is controlled by homophobic arguments is a perfectly legitimate question, and whether your position is predicated on homophobia is also a legit question. I would hope you could consider the question reasonably without attacking the personal character of your opponents (via sweeping declarations about the inability of the left to think rationally, for example).
The washing machine analogy was hyperbole that is open for debate when allowed
Political views are protected by the first amendment.
Unless it infringes on a protected class, laws are only evaluated for rational basis. Sexual orientation has not been found to be a protected class.
Again, who is “we”? It is not the people who have voted and/or elected representatives to outlaw SSM; most in these enlightened times where we have been instructed that our betters have told us that homosexuality is just fine.
Since SSM was only legal in one state a scant ten years ago, we don’t and can’t know if there is any harm from them; nor can we know if it has worked out. We also don’t know if these scientists and doctors are looking at moral harm as defined by voters or state legislators. A kid raised by a same sex couple is no more likely to shoot up a school than one raised by a traditional couple? Great. There are a million more metrics to look at. You can’t tell me that those smart guys have studied them all.
That is your burden to prove that my argument is akin to Jim Crow. You can’t just say it and make it true.
Now we get to debate “homophobia.” Quit using labels and debate the propositions.
So if we add “gay” to the list of protected classes, will that satisfy you? Because it seems to me that doing so is one possible outcome of this series of cases.
Not by your interpretation of states’ rights. One could be held to be morally defective for holding an opinion, not for expressing it.
Remember, there was a time, not very long ago, when it was illegal to be a member of the communist party. Where was your first amendment then?
The Supreme Court may give us an answer to that. Until then, what is the “rational basis” for denying civil rights to gays?
“We” is human civilization. Except for places like Uganda. Is that, just perhaps, your role model of an enlightened state approach to gays?
“We” have also moved on past racism.
Gonna have to call bullshit there. Show me the harm. Claiming that some invisible possible distant harm might possibly show up some day in the far future is really crappy empiricism. Meanwhile, we have numerous cases where the ban on gay marriage did inflict serious measurable harm on individuals, interfering with survivorship rights, inheritance rights, property rights, and so on.
Show me the data. You can’t just make it up. Maybe this, or just perhaps that. Suppositional and hypothetical data doesn’t frost the cupcake.
It’s also really crappy civics. Did Brown vs. Board of Education look into the “million metrics” that followed from the decision? Should they have been compelled to examine every possible consequence before issuing a ruling? Hey, wait, it’s going to make one school there in Missouri become seriously overcrowded: I guess “separate but equal” has to remain the law of the land.
Something about rights seems to be eluding the loyal opposition here. Rights don’t depend on “being harmless.” But even if they did…no one is showing that any harm exists anyway! The argument is wrong both ways!
I’m sorry, what reasonable disagreement should we have? You want to deny my friends and my family fundamental rights afforded to all Americans and humans all over the world. There’s no reasonable disagreement to be had, any more than there was on the topic of slavery. You’re wrong, you’re on the wrong side of history, and there’s no reason to pretend otherwise.
It was also phenomenally dumb for an assortment of reasons that we’ve gone over in this thread. Yes, even statement meant as inflammatory hyperbole can be better or worse; yours falls clearly deep in the “worse” end of that spectrum, around “is this guy even serious?”
But you’re not banning me from marrying someone because of my sexual orientation; you’re banning me from marrying someone because of my sex.
Pre-Loving, people said You Can’t Marry Her, Because You’re White; If You Were Black, You Totally Could. Post-Loving, you’re saying You Can’t Marry Him, Because You’re Male; If You Were Female, You Totally Could.
They were wrong then, and would need to do better than “rational basis” now. You’re wrong now, and need to do better than “rational basis” now.
“We only hire females” requires intermediate scrutiny; it can be done, but it’s hard. “We only hire blacks” requires strict scrutiny; it can still be done, but it’s even harder. "We only hire people who are at least eighteen – sure, that’s an easy bit of rational basis, but this ain’t that.
This you’d let me do if I were a different [del]race[/del] sex; rational basis ain’t enough.
Having studied all the possible harms that anyone can imagine is not a reasonable standard. It’s incumbent on supporters of discriminatory laws to demonstrate a reason–any reason–for the discrimination. And they’ve failed spectacularly to do so, despite tremendous effort at doing so.
Sure. Fortunately, it’s trivially easy. Jim Crow treated black people as second-class citizens, denying them rights for no good reason, instead basing the discrimination initially on explicit racism, and later changing it to states’ rights arguments when society started to frown on that sort of explicit racism. Some folks were okay with that. Anti-SSM laws treat gay people as second-class citizens, denying them rights for no good reason, instead basing the discrimination initially on explicit homophobia, and later changing it to states’ rights arguments when society started to frown on that sort of explicit homophobia. Some folks are okay with that. In the particulars, there are a few differences, but the structure of both systems have significant relevant similarities.
No, we don’t need to debate every word out there.
Wow, it’s a textbook example of one of the Good Doctor’s observations:
[QUOTE=Isaac Asimov]
Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge”.
[/QUOTE]
Yes, in much the same way that the lightning doesn’t compare with the lightning bug.