Jeff, you do realize that your arguments can also be used on negroes? They're born that way, they're a minority, they have a subculture, some kinds of unwanted behavior is more prevalent among blacks, ... Everything you need to declare them "abnormal", and deny them full rights on whatever you wish.
And about the Constitution: when the Founding Fathers wrote about the rights of every man, they probably weren't thinking of women or slaves.
Race isn't a choice. Homosexual attraction is probably not a choice. Homosexual behavior is a choice. Alternate lifestyles are a choice.
Living an alternative lifestyle is a behavioral choice made by the people that choose to do so. This isn't an issue about rights, but an issue if USA society should treat alternate life choices the same a marriage, which in the USA, at the federal level, is defined as a relationship between one man and one woman. Currently, USA doesn't not recognize polygamy or homosexual relationships as marriage. Gay couples do get preferential treatment that polygamist don't, such as the domestic partner laws.
Also the reaction in California is mostly to the 4 judges that in effect changed the law, especially after the previous federal defnition, and the passage of a previous proposition. The federal government has already defined marriage as between a man and a woman, and regardless of what the states do, a federal tax filer will still be filing as single or head of household. Prop 8 doesn't look like it will pass, but it will be close.
It boils down to a moral issue and choices. Every society has some set of moral standards. The age of consent (sex, marriage, contracts) is a moral call that even atheist agree with (although the age varies).
That's because polygamists are genetically predisposed to be bad at arithmetic and can't work out that if they get an odd number of spouses they'd be able to form several couples (including themselves and one of the spouses) as per the domestic partner law and get the same benefits.
This could be and is used as an excuse for a lot of behaviors, including some that most consider criminal. It's not a valid argument. Also, how can anyone truly know what is in their very nature, as opposed to how life experiences have affected them?
The point here is benefits versus rights. For example, although driving is a virtual necessity in most parts of the USA, it's considered a benefit (privilege) and not a right. There's a difference between being punished for choosing to live an alternative lifestyle, as opposed to not making choices that the government rewards with benefits (as opposed to rights), such as marriage, or driving a fuel saving car (allowed to use car pool lanes, tax credits), or subsidies for certain types of research at universities.
if anything you should be happy about aids having a much better shot at wiping out all gayness in america
do you have anthing other than platitudes to offer?
if youre going to be insipid enough to compare homosexuals to pedophiles at least be smart enough to spell the damn word correct
as funny as it may be to see an american who ticks almost all boxes when it comes to cliches youre really starting to become nothing more than annoying
You seem to be of the opinion that i've made a choice. I chose somebody I love as my partner, having previously been attracted to her. The same way a heterosexual does it except I was sent tongue wagging by gal. If you want to put it this way you could say that the part of me which decides what I am attracted to is male. With that in mind, gender is already a blurry grey area - some men are even capable of asking for directions, like some women dress up in padded shoulder pads and work as lawyers.
Gender is not about genitals, it's about self identity - and there is more than one aspect to itentify too. I've terrible spatial awareness (A female attribute) but i'm prone to untidyness without much of a nesting instinct (a male attribute). I drive like an old woman (according to my sister) but my choice of cars is that of an old man (also according to my sister). There is ample research on the subject of gender which conclusively states that gender is not binary. The definition of gender as binary is archaic.
Falling slightly further away from you norm than average doesnt meen i'm following a lifestyle choice, it meens I am not average.
Yes it is a basic human rights issue, it is about equality. What your conservative christian federal government has written into law is not by definition fair, it is just the current law. It is, in my eyes, wrong. The law in my country is no better, nor is it better in the Netherlands - but that doesn't make it right.
I'm still not sure what polygamy has to do with homosexuality
Yeah well it's good that 4 judges would stand up for what is right when others wouldn't. I'm proud of them, the law has always been defined as much in court with case histories as it has at governmental level, so I dont see the problem. If you want to do away with precedents then that's a entirely different matter, and one that I would suggest would be rather foolhardy.
There is a long way to go for homosexuals to get equality, the fight is going to carry on right through my life time. As i've said previously i'm not much of an activist, at least I wasnt before I got involved in this thread - but the more I see of the other side, the less I want a single living organism that holds that point of view to be left alive.
Here is a moral question for you: Does a person of a radical religious faith have the right to harm others because their faith commands them too? That is what this situation boils down too - people who are not effected and do not understand wanting to bring about a constitutional ammendment to allow them to harm other people who they do not understand. Specifically, that is exactly what is happening here.
It is not a question of whether proposition 8 should be passed, it is a question of wether people should be allowed to campaign for things like proposition 8 in the first place.
Nobody has the right to judge me for my sexual orientation, nobody - not one person alive on this world today - has the right to impose THEIR morale code on my private affairs.
I'll stand and defend my right to exist, i'll stand and defend the rights of others to exist. I'll fight as hard as I have to fight. Because I believe in equality, I believe that opressors should not just be stopped - but wiped out.
It's a matter of principle. My morals forbid me from not fighting against opression.
Now that's a moral code.
Morality is nothing to do with judging things that are not your business and deciding whether they should be allowed - that is what we call a lack of morality - or the absense of ethics.
Morality and ethics are about standing up for those who are being opressed, and proposition 8 is about opression. It should be called opressition 8.
In fairness to Jeff, it must be difficult to make a call on this given the clear lack of comprehension of what the words "equality" and "discrimination" actually mean. This whole discussion is obviously too much of a double-whammy.
It's accepted as virtual fact, at least in the USA. You can always do a web search on this if truly interested. The extremely rapid spread of aids in the gay male communities, along with other sexually transmitted diseases, is a well known fact, exploited by blood researchers as mentioned before.
It was in response to shooting anyone with a towel on their head.
It's a case of a right versus a privilige or benefit as I mentioned in my last post.
Both are alternative life style choices. I don't see a significant difference, and the polygamists would argue the same thing.
No, but look at history. The Jews of the old testament wiped out every man, woman, child, and even the livestock of other civilizations. In the middle ages, Christians and Muslims were killing each other, a tradition that somewhat continues today.
Being denied a benefit or privilege is different than being punished.
... and many feel that similarly, no one living an alternative lifestyle has a right to ask for the same benefits (versus rights) for behaviors that the government has decided to reward. Although a weak analogy, if I choose to buy a non-hybrid car, then I don't receive the same government benefit that those who do buy hybrid cars get.
I'm missing the point here. Morality is part of government, age of consent being the example I mentioned before.
I think you missunderstood my post, I was giving you an example of what it feels like to be preached at as being sub-human for something I can't control.
Bollocks. It's about justifying your intollerence of a minority.
Polygamists can go suck my yeast infestion, frankly. You have made a lifestyle choice too, the difference is you believe yours gives you the right to judge, tarnish, and persecute people who dont lead your lifestyle. My choice of partner is not a lifestyle choice. I have a certain lifestyle that it is my choice to lead, I would describe it as that of a reasonably active professional worker who enjoys social activity. My partner is not my lifestyle choice, she is my lover.
So the fact that history is full of examples of injustice and bastards gives you the right to embrace the same concepts!? I can't believe i'm hearing this. You're meant to learn from history not repeat the same mistakes.
Firstly opprosition 8 does punish people, there are married gay couples with families in California right now who will loose their married status. Secondly it is not a benefit or a privelege, your constitution gives people the right to marry - but due to prejudice you and your compatriots have allowed it to exclude some people. This is wrong, and you should be ashamed of yourself - instead you seem proud.
I do not believe your lifestyle gives you the right to exist - as I explained above I would fight you to extinction for your beliefs given the legal opportunity to do so, my moral code allows me to kill you - only the law prohibits it. It is your lifestyle choices I disagree with, if you chose not to live like a prejudicial wanker I would be quite happy to see you live...
OK that's an exageration, but I exagerated deliberately - do you see where i'm coming from? This is what you are doing to me...
The point is that your constitution, your personal beliefs, demonstrate immorality in the name of morality. You and your federal constitution are ethically wrong, and the desire to change California's constitution to bring about discrimination is immoral.
Why something is defined as an alternative lifestyle is because some authority decided it is "beneath" the norm and hence does not warrant the same threatment.
And it is only because of such decision from the authority do you get an "alternative lifestyle".
when there's no logical reason proving one lifestyle is worse than another, it is just discrimination - while actually there's no "lifestyle" at all.....some people are gay some are straight....that's not a "lifestyle". just like some people are black, some are white, some are yellow and so.
the hybird example is total bollocks, it just proves that when a government has it own agenda in pushing something forward, it provides different benefits. But up till now the true value of hybird cars are still debatable and it's not a golden rule that hybird cars should get better deal than standard cars....it's just an intermediate decision base on our perception and partial knowledge that hybird cars help the environment. If one day it is proven that hybird cars are not more environmentally friendly, it would be correct to let both have the same threatment.
So now back to homosexuality, is there a logical argument that makes homosexuals less worthy than hetrosexuals? if not it is nothing but discrimination.
I'm also against mid to late term abortions, and there I seem to be in the minority.
No, my lifestyle doesn't give me the right to judge others. I'd have to be judge in order to judge or persecute.
There are plenty of hetero sexual couples living together as lovers, yet aren't married, and note that California does not recognize common law marriage, regardless of the number of years.
I said no, I went off tangent and included some history of people that did justify it.
At a federal level, there is no same sex marriage status. Also most other states won't recognize those marriage licenses, and there's not much difference than the domestic partner laws already in place.
Where? I must have missed that one.
Yes I see your point, but for me it's an issue of privilege versus rights, versus the meaning of "marriage" in the USA. The feds have already made their case with defense of marriage act (DOMA), that defines "marriage". What's the issue of using another term like domestic partner?
Anyway, I was just trying to include some perspective here, but I'm no expert on this stuff, so here's a Wiki link.
This is a seperate issue, it depends whether you consdier a featus to be a person - religious people tend to do so, non-religious people tend to consider a life as being formed at birth. All non-religious people agree that harming others is bad, the difference here is whether a featus is a person - at what point is life formed? Well it's a seperate debate. What is different however, is on the issue of homosexuality the religiously inclined DO want to hurt other people, with odd and perverse justifications of things being "rights" and "privaleges".
The word you are looking for there is prosecute I think , but it amuses me how you agree you've no right to hold the views you do - but then you carry on expressing those views.
Marriage is not for every couple, that does not make it a justification to deny some people a right to marry - when at the federal level this DOMA grants this right to some people - but because of intollerance, bigotry, persecution and blind faith in zealoutry some people have been excluded.
As i've said, your nations laws (and mine for that matter) on this issue are an abomination to common decency and an afront to all rational and tolerant people everywhere. It's disgusting these laws are advocated and defended by some citizens - and that these people do not even see that their point of view is discriminatory.
It's an issue of equality. You deny me equality and in return the most I can do is to offer you my contempt - would you expect more of me?
Your nation claims to be a free nation, you claim the moral high ground, but it's rubbish, at least at the legal level. This is not the America our grandfathers fought and died in order to give us freedom. You've ended up with freedom on certain stipulations.
People have died for freedom all through history, including in the struggle for gay rights.
If you really believe in a free America, if you truly believe that freedom as a concept is something worth fighting for, if you truly believe that America is a great nation and should be setting an example to the world - then you can only vote against proposition 8.
In voting for it you are trampling upon those who gave their lives to make this world a better place.
Surely this creates a disparity in law where it is ok for one homosexual couple to be married but not ok for another. This fundamental unfairness would, in any society with a judicial system, surely be subject to a high court ruling where precedent is maintained?
Technically not, AFAIK. (This is all legal stuff, not having much to do with perceived fairness, etc.) Same-sex marriage is currently allowed. If they wanted to revoke those marriages, they'd have to prove that it was already against the law, and that the law was misinterpreted. If Prop 8 is accepted, it becomes against the law. The couples who want to marry after that won't be allowed to, which may seem unfair, but that is basically what you can get with every new law.
It's still discrimination, though, and it's thinkable that someone takes the DOMA to the US Supreme Court and wins the case, based on the inequality that it creates.
Homosexuality involves consent, pedophilia is basically rape. No comparison. And what do you care about what homosexuals do anyway? It has no effect on anything you do or the validity of your marriage whether they're married or not. Laws are supposed to regulate situations where someone's rights are breached by another, not apply overreaching control on how people live their lives on a day to day basis. We've turned into a very nosy society regarding how we treat each other through regulation.
I only brought that up as an statement against being "born that way", or "it's in their nature". Regarding that, from the Wiki article about same sex marriage: American Psychiatric Association's statement which reads "some people believe that sexual orientation is innate and fixed; however, sexual orientation develops across a person’s lifetime." Which gets back to my point about behavioral choices.
It all boils down to standards of morality and what society thinks the purpose and definition of marriage is. The federal govement has already defined marriage as between one man and one woman, so that is the current legal definition. What about polygamy or other extended group families that don't involve minors; a moral judgement call. What about the right of a 14 year to consent to sex, getting married, signing a contract, working full time; also a moral judgement call. What about prostitution, another moral judgement call that varies between states in the USA.
even if something is not born that way, it doesn't mean they can actively change it or decide who they are. The American Psychiatric Association have also state that for most people they cannot change their sexuality. There's no certified threatment for that as well - while there are threatments available for pedophiles. So your example does not hold.
there are influence of your life experience that you cannot choose to ignore or overcome.
Seriously, society can define marriage all it likes, but if one of societies values is "freedom" and another one is "equality" then marriage must apply to all.
Whilst we're at it, lets discuss the issue of transgendered marriage - there are a plathora of gender conditions which make legal classification of a gender difficult, you can read some of the complications about it on your wiki page, i'll quote the start of it to set the scene...
So in your ideal society of one man one woman marriage how do you define the marriages of transexuals and intersexed persons, and how do you define their gender?
I'm interested because I am genuinely curious to know your view. I'll tell you right now before we begin, and set the ball neatly in the court: The bible offers no guidance on the issue of transexualism or intersexed conditions that i'm aware of. Although both existed in the days of the bible (genital surgery was only being performed in Asia at the time of JC if I understand correctly).
is accepted: