In this thread you reveled in the fact that 78% of Louisiana voters approved a ban on gay marriage. You could barely contain your glowing praise of the democratic process, and how wrong we liberals were.
What joy are you getting out this Bricker? Does it fill you with happiness to know that others can’t pursue their dreams, not for any rational reason, but because a large number of people just don’t like the idea?
I know you like the democratic process and all, and you hate activist judges. Ok, I can accept that. But you don’t need to gloat about things like this Louisiana incident.
I’m here to suggest a different course for you. Maybe you should do something positive with your time other than gloat over people keeping other people down. Since you agree that you personally feel gays should have equal rights but you must respect the democratic process, why not donate towards organizations that seek to change peoples minds? Or failing that, why not merely speak with some of your real life conservative friends and persuade at least one other person that letting gays get married is a good thing? Put your powers of reasoning and persuasion to some positive use for a change.
I don’t agree that I was gloating. I posted that thread to point out that the seeming victory of getting the Massachusetts Supreme Court to mandate same-sex marriage is a phyrric victory.
I don’t agree that there is no rational reason to forbid same-sex marriage, which I am repeatedly on record here as being aganst. I support civil unions that provide all the rights and privileges of marriage, but I do not agree that the word “marriage” can properly refer to a same-sex pairing.
As I noted above, I will not work to persuade others to approve same-sex marriage, since I don’t support it.
And I would point out that the Louisana amendment does not purport to forbid same-sex civil unions. When Virginia passed a law forbidding civil unions as well as same-sex marriage, I spoke out here - and in real life - strongly against it.
Finally, I would point out that I admit to a certain animus that’s developed over the course of these many debates here on the SDMB. I believe that support for civil unions in lieu of marriage is a perfectly reasonable and defensible position, and I strongly believe that this is an issue for state legislation, not federal control or judicial activism. For that attitude, I have been called homophobic, bigoted, and a liar – the latter charge arising out of an apparent belief that no one could REALLY hold a position on federalism in this issue; my claim was obviously merely a smokescreen for my deeply held bigotry.
When I am faced with tactics like this, it is perhaps inevitable - or at least understandable - that I take some interest when my view is endorsed by the electorate.
Even if they are a bunch of scum-sucking, sister-fucking, web-toed, slackjawed, drooling, imbecilic, banjo-plucking, pig-squealing, hate-oozing, swamp-mucking, inbred, stupid, homophobic bigots.
Excuse me? I’m criticizing the people who voted for a ban against gay marriage, not “Alabamians” or “Southerners”. I don’t think I’ve ever seen ANYONE on this board call someone out for going all Pitty on actual Islamicist terrorists, so don’t get all pissy about me going all Pitty on Alabamian bigots.
FWIW, I don’t see anything Bricker’s posted in that thread as “gloating.”
On the other hand, I think that this:
is really reaching for validation. The people in Lousiana didn’t vote the way they did because they have some deep, abiding interest in original intent when reading the constitution, they voted that way because they’re bigots, plain and simple.
So is your opinion closer to:
(1) Same-sex unions should not be referred to as “marriages”, because the word “marriage” already has a very specific linguistic and cultural meaning. Thus, you respect a committed, solemnified same sex union just as much as you respect a marriage, but don’t to use the same word to describe them, much as you respect helicopters just as much as you respect airplanes, but don’t want to use the word “airplanes” to describe them, because you think they are two distinct things.
or
(2) You respect the right of same sex couples to form unions, but view those as somehow less important/sacred/meaningful/fundamental/natural/significant than a Marriage.
? (Or is it best expressed some other way entirely?)
To view it another way, suppose you had two children, one of whom grew up to be gay and one of whome grew up to be straight. And suppose each of them got into a relationship, which gradually over time grew more and more serious, and then eventually culminated in a ceremony-of-solemnification-and-permanence. Suppose also that both couples were dead set against ever having children, for whatever reason, just to remove that variable from the equation.
How would you treat and view your gay child’s partner? Would it differ at all from how you would treat and/or view your straight child’s spouse? Why or why not?
What a stupid, transparent attempt to reduce this to just another simplistic Left vs. Right argument.
I suppose all these queers wanting to be treated with a basic level of respect are nothing more than whiners getting all up in your business for not being politically correct?
This imaginary “Lefty Brigade” that you’re so afraid of will get on your case for suggesting that all muslims are terrorists, not for saying that there are a lot of terrorists who are muslims. If you don’t get the distinction then you’re the one who’s being defensive. Evil people do unspeakably evil things in the name of Islam, and evil or ignorant and misguided people do evil things in the name of Christianity.
mmmm? Civil unions cannot be actually equal as long as the Federal tax code does not recognize them. How can this be a state issue or be decided at the state level (unless we actually recognize the “full faith cand credit” clause and impose rulings from Massachusetts, Vermont, and Hawaii on the rest of the country)?
Not at all. Just pointing a big ol’ stinking pile of hypocrisy.
A basic level of respect? Queers have that. What you are looking for societal acceptance of homosexuality at the same level as heterosexuality, and no court can force that. As recent events have shown, and will show again when the November ballot proposals are voted on, is that people don’t like having change forced on them by the courts. Pure and simple.
Would every person who regards himself as conservative please read that post?
Then reread it. Then consider that in this matter Sol speaks for the 60% of the board or so who regard themselves as moderate-to-liberal clear thinkers.
Pointing out that not all Xians are Y does not mean that we don’t recognize that there are evil people who are Xians and who do Y – it means that we are disgusted by your generalization that all Xians are Y or your facile presumption that we are idiots who think that no Xians are Y.
Or, granted that it’s a very simple proof that there are conservatives who are homophobic bigots who wish to legislate their religious beliefs into mandatory behavior for everyone, you have just authorized us to class you with them, since generalizations of that sort must be OK – you just made one.
Yeah – I’m talking to you. And you, and you.
If you don’t like being branded with a disgusting sterotype, then don’t brand others with disgusting stereotypes.
(Geez, I’m glad I got some practice at this refereeing fights between my grandkids!)
That’s because when pressed, you refuse to explain why advocating civil unions in lieu of marriage is a perfectly reasonable and defensible position. When asked why the love between two people of the same sex is so fundamentally different than the love between two people of opposite sexes, you respond with nothing more than “because that’s the way it always has been.” When asked why my love for my boyfriend isn’t deserving of the same status as your love for your wife, you go on about how it’s an issue for the states to decide and because most people feel the same way you do.
You claim to have compassion and understand how homosexuals feel, and then you document every single case where a vote is made against the rights of homosexuals, and instead of being up-front and reiterating your opposition to same-sex marriage, you instead talk about the “process” and how it’s a victory in the rule of law.
You talk about how the “right” to marriage between two loving consenting adults is a made-up, imaginary right – a capricious whim of people trying to overturn society and re-write history. You claim that you are irritated that people would suggest something as ludicrous as people of the same sex getting married. It’s so clearly and obviously different than true heterosexual love, so much so that it warrants the creation of a separate term.
And then you become defensive and insist that you’re not a homophobe or a bigot.
And believe it or not, I’m not chastising you for it. I’m not going to call you to task on it. Because I definitely understand what denial is like. I was able to convince myself for years that I wasn’t gay, despite all evidence to the contrary. Even though I felt an attraction to other men, I was able to really, genuinely believe that that didn’t make me gay.
So I can totally understand how someone could say, and honestly believe, that even though he didn’t view homosexual relationships as valid enough to be called marriage, and even though he payed close attention to every case that reinforced the idea that these relationships aren’t valid, that didn’t make him prejudiced or homophobic.
Nothing whatsoever that Bricker said in the linked thread (or anywhere else that I’ve seen) warrants a Pit thread. He has been nothing but respectful to homosexuals, either individually or collectively.
The sum total of his offense, it seems, is to disapprove of the word “marriage” when applied to same-sex unions, even though he apparently supports all the rights and privileges of marriage under an alternative name. That, and daring to point out that the Massachusetts Supreme Court decision recognizing gay marriage appears to be prompting a counter-productive backlash on gay marriage across the country.
If this is what serves as grounds for a Pit thread, it’s time for someone to get some fucking perspective.
Not to put words into Brickers mouth but he may have a reasonable position. Consider the civil rights movement of the 1960’s.
At that time, the majority of the population felt that discrimination on the basis of skin color was at least a little wrong. Even with overwhelming support, the passage of laws criminalizing such behavior was a long and painfull process.
Of course we are partly comparing apple and oranges, African Americans have never been forbidden to marry and I have never seen a straights only water fountain.
Nonetheless, there are similarities between all equal rights matters. Popular support seems an essential ingredient IMO. Perhaps the United States simply is not ready for gay marriges. Harsh for proponents but quite possibly reality, at least right now, younger generations seem much more receptive to the idea than older citizens.
I am familiar with the standard rights chant
What do we want? ___________
When do we want it? NOW!!
Unfortunatly life seldom delivers with that kind of rapidity
I’m sorry, minty green, but what you’ve seen isn’t respect. It’s barely concealed contempt covered by a veneer of condescension. I can’t view it as anything else.
“You people can play house but don’t think for a second you have a right to call your disgusting little arrangement a marriage. Take your civil union and be happy to have it.”
As if a financial arrangement is all same sex couples are after. :rolleyes:
Tell ya what. The next time someone denies you a basic right afforded everyone else based solely on their bigoted ass clenching fear, you can tell me all about perspective. K? K.
Given that Bricker has explicitly said that he’d be fine with removing all marriages from the domain of government (something I advocate for reasons unrelated to gay marriage), I don’t believe his position is dishonest. I disagree with him that straight marriage has any more legitimacy than gay marriage, and I disagree with him that the process in this case carries more moral weight than the justice that the process is denying, but I do not believe his position is dishonest.