When all is said and done...

[jonottawa]

As someone who's never been married and who wishes more people were gay (that just leaves more chicks for me) I'm pretty turned off by the whole 'woe is me' wail from the gay rights crowd. At the end of the day, who cares if the government recognizes that your sexual/emotional/co-dependent bond is as valid as one between two folks whose gonads aren't the same?

 

100 years from now people will wonder at America's war crimes, embracing old wives tales from before the 'Dark Ages' about a cosmic jewish zombie and the American people's willingness to believe whatever the corporate-shilling idiot-box told them was true. I doubt that their unwillingness to wholly embrace the sanctity of the unions between people with an affinity for anal sex will be near the top of the list. Only time will tell if I'm right.

[Lobowolf]

As someone who's never been married and who wishes more people were gay (that just leaves more chicks for me) I'm pretty turned off by the whole 'woe is me' wail from the gay rights crowd.  At the end of the day, who cares if the government recognizes that your sexual/emotional/co-dependent bond is as valid as one between two folks whose gonads aren't the same?

I see no substantive difference between this and a "Who cares if the government recognizes that your sexual/emotional/co-dependent bond isn't as valid as one between people of the same race?" argument that could just have readily been made when the Supreme Court was invalidating laws against interracial marriage.

[cherdano]

As someone who's never been married and who wishes more people were gay (that just leaves more chicks for me) I'm pretty turned off by the whole 'woe is me' wail from the gay rights crowd. At the end of the day, who cares if the government recognizes that your sexual/emotional/co-dependent bond is as valid as one between two folks whose gonads aren't the same?

 

100 years from now people will wonder at America's war crimes, embracing old wives tales from before the 'Dark Ages' about a cosmic jewish zombie and the American people's willingness to believe whatever the corporate-shilling idiot-box told them was true. I doubt that their unwillingness to wholly embrace the sanctity of the unions between people with an affinity for anal sex will be near the top of the list. Only time will tell if I'm right.

History also will hardly mention that women got the right to vote, who cares with a world war just finished and with another one yet to come a few years later? And, wait, blacks are allowed to vote now?? And since when were those biracial marriages legal, anyway? Who cares about those things?

[han]

Nobody who is 37 years old should be that adolescent.

[jonottawa]

Wedge issues like this take up all the oxygen in the room when we should be talking about vastly more important stuff like the financial crisis, war crimes, politicization of the justice department, election reform (the US conducts its elections like a banana republic,) health care reform, tax reform (starting with the inheritance tax, which drops to 0% in 2010,) entitlement reform, habeas corpus/Guantanamo, torture of prisoners held abroad, warrantless domestic spying, energy policy, immigration policy, overseeing the latest massive corporate welfare/bailouts, caging people for victimless crimes, massive waste and fraud in the defense budget, etc.

 

America will get this issue right eventually. We almost always tend to lurch in the right direction over time. If they want to call them 'civil unions' for a couple of decades, it hardly matters. There are WAY bigger fish to fry and this is a pathetic distraction from those important issues.

 

(And it's not like many of us don't have our own 'pet issues.' I, for one, see the discrimination against atheists and the promotion of superstitious supernatural fiction by the state as an immoral outrage. But I recognize that that's not the be-all and end-all issue of our time and that by raising the issue I'm merely playing into the hands of its opponents (by firing up the Wasillabillies, whose ignorance is exceeded only by their passion.))

[helene_t]

Jon: With all those issues being non-important, I wonder what is left. Allowing cell-phones at ACBL events?

[Lobowolf]

Jon: With all those issues being non-important, I wonder what is left. Allowing cell-phones at ACBL events?

Sanctions for the next Bermuda Bowl team accepting its medals wearing T-shirts that say "We didn't vote for Obama."

[cherdano]

Wedge issues like this take up all the oxygen in the room when we should be talking about vastly more important stuff like the financial crisis, war crimes, politicization of the justice department, election reform (the US conducts its elections like a banana republic,) health care reform, tax reform (starting with the inheritance tax, which drops to 0% in 2010,) entitlement reform, habeas corpus/Guantanamo, torture of prisoners held abroad, warrantless domestic spying, energy policy, immigration policy, overseeing the latest massive corporate welfare/bailouts, caging people for victimless crimes, massive waste and fraud in the defense budget, etc.

 

America will get this issue right eventually. We almost always tend to lurch in the right direction over time. If they want to call them 'civil unions' for a couple of decades, it hardly matters. There are WAY bigger fish to fry and this is a pathetic distraction from those important issues.

If you wanted to make the point that there are more important issues than gay rights, and that proposition 8 should take up less oxygen, then there would have been better ways to make it than

- calling out gays as whiners, and

- mixing in homophobic cliches on the go ("Gays are those that prefer anal sex").

[Lobowolf]

Wedge issues like this take up all the oxygen in the room when we should be talking about vastly more important stuff like the financial crisis, war crimes, politicization of the justice department, election reform (the US conducts its elections like a banana republic,) health care reform, tax reform (starting with the inheritance tax, which drops to 0% in 2010,) entitlement reform, habeas corpus/Guantanamo, torture of prisoners held abroad, warrantless domestic spying, energy policy, immigration policy, overseeing the latest massive corporate welfare/bailouts, caging people for victimless crimes, massive waste and fraud in the defense budget, etc.

 

America will get this issue right eventually.  We almost always tend to lurch in the right direction over time.  If they want to call them 'civil unions' for a couple of decades, it hardly matters.  There are WAY bigger fish to fry and this is a pathetic distraction from those important issues.

If you wanted to make the point that there are more important issues than gay rights, and that proposition 8 should take up less oxygen, then there would have been better ways to make it than

- calling out gays as whiners, and

- mixing in homophobic cliches on the go ("Gays are those that prefer anal sex").

It's also a false multichotomy(?) that there's some specified amount of energy and that it should (must?) be devoted to only the X most important issues.

 

As an analogy, hopefully, despite the fact that murder is more serious, things like burglary and fraud will still be investigated and prosecuted.

 

I guess you could also try it out on your girlfriend/wife/significant other, too... "Well, yes honey, I slept with your sister, but isn't that relatively insignificant compared to the economy and Iraq? I can't believe you'd bother spending energy as if this were a serious problem."

[cherdano]

Juts in case it wasn't clear, I agree with Lobowolf.

[jdonn]

America will get this issue right eventually.  We almost always tend to lurch in the right direction over time.

Perhaps that only happens because of exactly what you are railing against. What are you suggesting, not dealing with it until it's the most pressing issue? I think you are mixing up importance with urgency. Of course gay rights willl never be the most urgent issue in the same sense as something like nuclear bombs, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't deal with it.

 

If they want to call them 'civil unions' for a couple of decades, it hardly matters.

To you. Of course the exact words don't matter, but the inherent prejudice behind them does (even if not to you). And if it takes courts or politicians or both to change that, then in my opinion that is part of what they are there for.

[awm]

There is something a little messed up going on with the Proposition 8 campaign in California.

 

If I gave $2000 to the Obama campaign, that doesn't count as a charitable donation. I can't write it off on my taxes.

 

Similarly if I gave $2000 to "No on 8" (or for that matter "Yes on 8") I can't write that off on my taxes either.

 

But suppose I gave $2000 to the Mormon Church. This is considered a charitable donation, and in fact millions of Mormons do this every year (tithing is part of the requirements of the church). Then the Mormon Church can turn around and use that money to fund the "Yes on 8" campaign (which they more or less paid for), and like any other church they are tax exempt. Isn't something a bit wrong with this picture?

[cherdano]

I thought the millions of contributions from Mormons were individual contributions, not money obtained directly from the church?

[akhare]

I thought the millions of contributions from Mormons were

individual contributions, not money obtained directly from the church?

 

Andrew Sullivan had an series of interesting articles about prop 8 (among other things):

 

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_...ns-vs-gays.html

 

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/.sha...07/tt081107.jpg

 

 

Massively funded by the Mormon church, a religious majority finally managed to put gay people in the back of the bus in the biggest state of the union.

[helene_t]

Like most tax deductions, the deduction for charity donations should be abolished IMHO. I have nothing against genuine charities, but when the Mormon church is considered a charity it is obvious that the concept of "charity" is too subjective.

[jonottawa]

I think the Mormon church's motivation is pretty understandable. 120 years ago they were forced to renounce polygamy, a practice considered mainstream for thousands of years in dozens of cultures. Now instead of giving serious consideration to decriminalizing polygamy you've got a judge legislating from the bench and creating new rights that were certainly never intended by the founding fathers. A backlash was inevitable.

 

Again, I'm all for gay marriage but even in terms of a civil rights issue, it's not at the top of the list. At the top of that list would be the millions of Americans currently incarcerated for 'pretend crimes'. I'd put the right to affordable health care way ahead of it as well. People need to focus on what matters and not let the 'Governor Palin was in a TOWEL!' crap distract them.

[pclayton]

Like most tax deductions, the deduction for charity donations should be abolished IMHO. I have nothing against genuine charities, but when the Mormon church is considered a charity it is obvious that the concept of "charity" is too subjective.

No they should remain tax-deductible. But when 501-C3's start using their proceeds to fund candidates and voting initiatives, their tax-exempt status should be revoked.

[DrTodd13]

To a great degree, I think that health care is a triangle. One side is cost. One side is time. The last side is amount. You can force any two sides to any value that you desire but then you're helpless to accept the natural value of the third side. You can't legislate away market forces even under communism. Try to force the third side to the value you desire and like whack-a-mole one of the other sides will change regardless of laws to the contrary. You obviously can't hide the time and amount aspect from the consumers but you can try to hide the cost. People are gullible and will believe that health care is cheap but won't connect the increase in taxation or the devaluation of the currency to the government providing that for them. For all you liberal uber-rationalists who think people need to be controlled like cattle, check out the following video and see if you want to rethink the wisdom in universal health care.

 

[jdonn]

Tempting, but I don't listen to people with string neck ties held in place by a buckle.

[helene_t]

For all you liberal uber-rationalists who think people need to be controlled like cattle

Hmmm .... I consider myself a liberal, by which I mean that I would like to see the government's control of citizens reduced. I am aware that the word "liberal" has a different meaning in the US than elsewhere, but even in the US, a "liberal" would typically be in favor of less government control on issues like abortion, anti-terror laws, and what people do in their own bedrooms.

 

I think everyone thinks of him/herself as pro freedom and the bad guys as against freedom. This is because by "freedom" we think of those particular freedoms we personally think are important.

[pclayton]

Tempting, but I don't listen to people with string neck ties held in place by a buckle.

Only if you are bidding on cattle Josh.

[Lobowolf]

Massively funded by the Mormon church, a religious majority finally managed to put gay people in the back of the bus in the biggest state of the union.

While I'm strongly in favor of gay marriage (to the point where I don't think states should be permitted to ban it), they were hardly "finally" put in the back of the bus, even in good ol' progressive California. The history of gay marriage in California, in a nutshell, is that was illegal forever, then it appeared on the ballot, and was OVERWHELMINGLY rejected by more than a 60-40 margin. It briefly became legal on the basis of a 1-vote majority at the Supreme Court level, before reappearing on the ballot (in a different legal form) and losing again, very narrowly. It's not like Californians in general were big fans of gay marriage before the Mormons came along and ruined it all.

[Lobowolf]

For all you liberal uber-rationalists who think people need to be controlled like cattle

Hmmm .... I consider myself a liberal, by which I mean that I would like to see the government's control of citizens reduced. I am aware that the word "liberal" has a different meaning in the US than elsewhere, but even in the US, a "liberal" would typically be in favor of less government control on issues like abortion, anti-terror laws, and what people do in their own bedrooms.

The word "liberal," at least in the United States, has morphed quite a bit from having a connotation akin to "libertarian" ("classical liberal," e.g. John Locke and others) to what we now think of as "progressive." With respect to certain issues, both sides emphasize a core value of liberty, and with respect to other issues, that emphasis is revealed, essentially to be a bunch of hypocritical crap. Both sides want a lot of government intervention on some issues, and both sides want minimal government intervention on other issues; it just depends what the issue is.

[Lobowolf]

For all you liberal uber-rationalists who think people need to be controlled like cattle

Hmmm .... I consider myself a liberal, by which I mean that I would like to see the government's control of citizens reduced. I am aware that the word "liberal" has a different meaning in the US than elsewhere, but even in the US, a "liberal" would typically be in favor of less government control on issues like abortion, anti-terror laws, and what people do in their own bedrooms.

Here's a private message I received from someone following the homosexuality/choice subthread that came up a few weeks back:

 

 

"In Europe, if you say that being gay is a choice, you are correcly sued for being extremely discriminatory. It makes me sick that important politicians can speak out this opinion. "

 

 

 

 

I can't vouch for the accuracy or lack thereof regarding European law in general, but certainly the notion that offering a general opinion that doesn't defame anyone or cause monetary damages could leave you open to civil liability, or that exercising free speech in way that hardly seems abusive, even if it's wrong, would make someone "sick," doesn't seem to comport with your notion of liberalism.

[helene_t]

This private message is bullshit, Lobowolf. You can even publicly encourage people to kill homosexuals without being guilty of anything. The only people you cant legally insult are moslems and members of the royal house.

 

As for the semantics, it is very confusing to me that in the US, being "liberal" means that one is actually anti-liberal on lots of issues (pollution, trade, gun ownership). I am used to using the word "liberal" on specific issues. True, we have "liberal" parties over here, also, but they are quite marginal in most countries. Left-wingers are sometimes called socialists and right-wingers are sometimes called conservatives or christian democrats but those terms are rarely used except when one has a specific party in mind. "Liberal" parties, to the extent that they exist, tend to vote with the right more often than with the left.

 

I tend to vote for "liberal" parties which I consider to be liberal (i.e. anti-regulation) on most issues, but maybe that's just my biased perception.