Based on the arguments presented to you so far, your argument of “unfair treatment against heterosexuals” has yet to be substantiated. Please, explain further how your choice not to get married is discrimination while same-sex couples not even having the choice isn’t.
Congratulations. My friends Ken and Jerry have been a loving couple for over 20 years. Personally, I think they get dibs.
The same might be said about those same feelings towards heterosexuals like you. I’m really glad you are not indicative of heterosexuals as a whole. Why, some of my best friends… never mind!
I’m not sure what you’re getting at - are you complaining because you’re under the false impression gay couples don’t have these problems, are are you complaining because you do and think this is somehow unfair? In case you missed it, same-sex couples are capable of spending their lives together as well, including being poor, getting sick, having children, and owning teeth and eyes. We are more the same, I think, than you care to admit.
Esprix
Next time I want your opinion I’ll beat it out of you.
I thought one of the purposes of the Pit was so you could “pop off.” Moderator? Little help?
And, if I’m not mistaken, this is sort of turning into an interesting discussion - we’re already into 2 pages. I think that counts for something. It’s just a tad more fiery than other boards, despite the fact that several similar discussions are currently going on on other boards.
Esprix
Next time I want your opinion I’ll beat it out of you.
No, but you might if/when Vermont legalizes gay marriages, and DOMA is challenged and overturned by the SC. Check out Great Debates for the discussion there, and comments on Cecil’s columns for the discussion there as well.
Ouch! My condolences. Is that legal?
Well, congrats! I hope this helps out your financial situation as well as your mental state.
Are you kidding? The only good thing about the whole gay marriage thing is that some churches do actually perform commitment ceremonies, so even if the government won’t give me the same rights it gives other people, I want the par-tay!
Indeed. It’s easier in areas where domestic partnership registries are already established, but generally companies ask for some proof of already existing long-term commitment (joint checking account, mortgage, etc. for more than a certain number of years).
Esprix
Next time I want your opinion I’ll beat it out of you.
Actually…when we first set up the web MB, we had envisioned the Pit as more of a garbage disposal area. On the old AOL message boards, threads would sometimes turn into flame wars. We had planned to just move discussions from the other fora into the Pit as they turned into flamefests. However, a lot of people have used this area to just pop off, and we’re willing to allow it, up to a point.
It’s entirely permissible to have an interesting, thoughtful discussion in the Pit. This is also the place where you can describe someone’s ignorance as precisely as you wish.
And sure, gays should be allowed to marry. Why should straights be the only ones to suffer?
Seriously…I think that we should look at “partnership commitments” rather than just marriages. I see no reason why a commitment should be limited to only two people of the opposite sexes. (This last paragraph is simply my own opinion, not official SD.)
[sarcasm]Oh yeah, that’s real fucking romantic…[/sarcasm]
Seriously though, this is a lot like what France is doing with their “pacts of civil solidarity” (PACS). “PACS” is fast becoming a verb, as in “voulez-vous PACS avec moi?” (my second foray today into French…please help me). Of course, you have to be in this PACS for THREE YEARS before all the benefits kick in and you’re still frozen out of adoptions and it’s not really marriage or equality…
Christ, Esprix. Read all the new posts on the thread before you respond. That way you can respond to all of them in one post, instead of posting individual responses to all of them. Observe:
Kyla, I brought the Constitution up in response to Esprix’s example of Truman integrating the military. A President cannot force the states to institute gay marriages. Neither can Congress, for that matter. Marriage is a power delegated to the States, and the federal government has no say in who they allow to get hitched. Therefore, there will be no one law passed in Washington that allows gay marriages all over this country. There will have to be fifty different laws. It’s all in the Constitution.
That’s very witty, I’m really amused. But we’re discussing reality here, and the reality of the situation is exactly as I stated it. So I’m very happy that you are trying to make a change, even though in the OP you said, “When is someone going to stand up and do something that’s right instead of just doing something that’s popular,” indicating a passive, “this looks like a job for somebody else,” attitude.
I think what StarvinMarvin was trying to point out was that sustaining a life-long relationship, whether you call it “marriage” or “life-partners” or “a legal partnership” or whatever, is difficult for everybody. It’s just as tough for a man to get married to a woman, and maintain that marriage, as it is for two men or two women to have a lifelong relationship. It may be difficult in other ways, for instance, while you can’t have your “par-tay,” it’s harder for them to get health care from his company. I hate to speak for Marvin, or put words in his mouth, but that’s what I think he was trying to say.
And I think that everyone around here needs to back off CalifBoomer for a minute. Yeah, he expressed his opinion using the word “freaks,” but it was his opinion and he is entitled. If you cut through the way he presented it and look at what he’s saying, he believes that homosexuality is a choice that you make, and if you make that choice, you need to be prepared to accept the consequences. You may agree, you may not. But ignoring him and saying “fuck you very much” isn’t really conducive to the discussion here (plus, it’s rather harsh since it was his first post, and I’m going out on a limb and assuming that he is really new and not just an alter-ego used to post that one remark).
I know this is the Pit, but that doesn’t mean that you can just shoot down everyone who has a different opinion than you.
The IQ of a group is equal to the IQ of the dumbest member divided by the number of people in the group.
[quote]
Esprix
Member
Posts: 111
Registered: Jan 2000
posted 02-08-2000 11:03 AM
quote:
Originally posted by StarvinMarvin:
I think I just made 2 new friends and Esprix wasnt one of them. Oh well, cant win em all.
Aw, boo hoo. Can’t we all just get along?
And who, pray tell, do you now consider friends?
Esprix
Next time I want your opinion I’ll beat it out of you.
[quote/]
Doesnt that just seem to sum it up? Angry and mean are we? I decided to be nice and drop it and you just cant. At least I dont have to post 6000 responses to myself and everyone else and basically make up all the posts made to the ENTIRE thread
"When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him. "
Jonathan Swift
It’s a little more complex than that. The power to regulate marriage has traditionally been delegated to the several states. The feds have on rare occassions placed restrictions on marriage. The two that come to mind are the requirement that Utah include a ban on polygamy in its state constitution before the application would be approved and, of course, the evil “Defense of Marriage Act” passed by a sniveling Congress and signed into law in the dead of night by cowardly sell-out Clinton.
The courts, however, retain the power to strike down marriage laws as unconstitutional. The USSC struck down antimiscegenation laws, for example, in Loving v Virginia. The Court has also struck down a law barring convicts from marrying and a law barring “deadbeat dads” from marrying. The Constitution requires that “full faith and credit” be given by each state to the judicial act and records of the other states. This is why married people are still married as they move from one state to another. If one state legalizes SSM (as Vermont may be poised to do) then widely-held opinion is that all states will be required to recognize SSM performed there.
sigh We are standing up for what is right. What’s popular today is kow-towing to every whacko group who think they’re disenfranchised and downtrodden; they want what they want when they want it, and think that constitutes a natural law. This includes homosexuals. I am not homophobic; I don’t fear faggots. Nor do I believe in gay bashing. They just need to crawl back in the closet where they belong.
Homosexuality is sexual deviancy, Period. It is not right, has never been right, and will never be right. They have no ‘rights’, and I will fight to my last breath that concept, every time I enter the ballot booth.
Some say that true homosexuality is genetic;
If that’s the case, fantastic! It will obviously be self-correcting.
Staring… staring…checking around corner.
Checking rooftops? Looking for black cars?
Seeing none, MARVIN runs to hide in a safer place as gunfire and flames are sure to errupt.
Tossing a note at Diamond as he runs that reads, “that took courage to say what many think but are too spineless to say, but your still gonna die ya know”. Oh well in 35 posts I cant say.
Dear Diamond, for I knew him/her well.
"When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him. "
Jonathan Swift
Marvin, It’ll just be noise from the rabble.
Right and truth are eternal, and whether ‘they’ like it or not, the source is the Word. Unlike mans’ laws, the laws of God cannot be set aside or broken, only validated, just like gravity.
Funny, whenever the word ‘benefit’ pops up everybody and his bleedin’ cousin comes squirmin’ out of the woodwork to shout, “Me Too!”
But I don’t see anyone lining up to assume the liabilities. You really, really wanna get married? Among many other lovely ‘benefits’, you have the right to: 1. Support yer spouse financially after he/she ‘lands’ you and can then relax. 2. Pay discriminatory taxes on joint tax returns. 3. Assume ‘joint and several’ liability for any and all bills the moron runs up. 4. Be named as co-defendant in any lawsuits the moron precipitates. 5. In many States have 50% of everything you owned prior to marriage convert to your spouse under ‘community property’ laws. 6. Spend the rest of yer life crippled by medical bills should yer spouse have the misfortune of getting seriously ill. 7. Pay alimony to the idiot in the (statistically likely) event you wake up one morning and just can’t bear looking at them for another minute (or vice-versa). Not even to mention the other fun aspects of breaking up a marriage, like fighting over Grandma’s crystal goblets and helping attorneys make their yacht payments.
I have no problem with SSM’s, so long as the package includes the whole ball of wax, and isn’t just about getting the ‘benefits’.
Dr. Watson
“Nobuddy ever fergits where he buried a hatchet.” – Kin Hubbard
BTW – The argument that “marriage is not a legal option for gays” as a justification for extending benefits is specious at best – Ye could just as easily argue that Affirmative Action should be extended to everyone on the grounds that being a racial minority is not an option available to everyone.
Missy2U, Thanks for the congrats and ditto to you!
Probably, since I worked for the biggest law firm in town. I was pretty much screwed. The way they handled it, I had no choice but to quit.
Anyway, back to the OP: Diamond, It’s people like you that say what is and isn’t right, but who the hell are you to say that? And don’t mis-quote the Bible to me, either. People like you have been using God to spread hate for too long.
You say you don’t believe in gay-bashing, but what do you call using the terms, “faggots” and “wackos”–not to mention saying they have no rights? Isn’t that gay-bashing? Would you use the n-word to describe a black person and then go on to say they have no rights? It’s the same thing, since it’s genetic. Do you think gay people enjoy being discriminated against and treated like freaks? Do you honestly think they CHOOSE that lifestyle?
I don’t know why I’m bothering, since you seem so mired in hate, that you probably can’t see the light of day and will just come back with more hate in response. Oh well.
Ah, I understand. I apologize for my rudeness, but I thought…ah, you know what I though you said. Never mind.
To…whoever it was who posted about gay marriages needing to have all the downsides as well as the benefits: I don’t think anyone here disagrees. Marriage is marriage. I would be unhappy if I saw gay marriages recieving special benefits. Of course, I don’t actually expect to ever see that.
It’s my personal opinion that in twenty or thirty years, we’ll look back at these debates the way we look back at debates on interracial marriage from the 1940s. Of course gays should marry, it’s every person’s right to live with the one they love and choose to spend their life with and enjoy recognition in the eyes of the law.
~Harborina
“This is my sandbox. I’m not allowed to go in the deep end. That’s where I saw the leprechauns.”
Um, actually…no. It used to be “right” to deny women the vote. The “truth” about slavery used to be that it was A-OK. It used to be “true” that Jews were sub-human. It used to be “right” to shut cripples up in a room somewhere so they wouldn’t embarrass their families and it used to be “right” to forcibly sterilize the “feeble-minded” in the name of genetic purity. Concepts of “right” and “truth” are constantly changing. There is not fixed universal “truth.”
By the way, It’s been my experience that those who feel the need to label themselves as “not a bigot” are usually bigots.
The defendants in the various marriage lawsuits around the country are all quite clear on the concept that legal marriage entails both rights and responsibilities. They are willing to take on both the rights and the responsibilities.
