Halx, I love you in a heterosexual and entirely proper platonic manner, but trust me on this: don't go to Law School. Your love of uncomplicated things would not survive, and that's a precious thing in and of itself. :)

I don't create the complications. I'm not that old, and they far predate me. But the complications do indeed exist.

Well I live in a homosexually progressive area. Not only do I live in california, but I live in an area that has many gay couples. Some of my wife and my friends are openly gay. Despite my religious upbringing, I could never say that these people deserve anything less than equal rights in every sense. We are in the beginnings of the movement to normalize homosexuality socially and legally. I happen to see those who voted against gay equality under the law as being bigoted. I see this as being very similar to racial bigotry.

Rubbish. Children do have some rights that animals and objects do not have. Children are not property unless we are talking about illegal slave trading. Does that apply to gay couples? Both members of a marriage are equal unless otherwise stipulated. My wife and I are 100% equal in our marriage, legally and otherwise. In a gay relationship no member is property. If the person is dead or it we are talking about an animal (non-human) or an object, then the other party is property. You cannot marry property.

The legal rights of the deceased are greatly limited (and can be compared to those of an animal actually). A dog cannot legally own a human, whether the ownership is total or partial. If a marriage of human and animal (illegal as of right now) were hypothetically legal, then the animal would be allowed many rights, but the animal could not have the cognitive abilities to raise a human child. The dog (using dog as an example) could not teach the child social skills or real world lessons besides that which a dog knows. What the dog knows is limited to what it is trained to do and what is inate. What the dog can be trained to do is at a maximum the ability to keep the child from immediate danger. An animal cannot legally own property. Our constitution and amendments are here for the rights of people.

Nope. I'm a moron! :thumbsup: The nature and extent of an owner's rights with respect to land or other property is an estate. It has no bearing on this at all.

The dead person is not allowed to make any legal decisions after he or she dies (with the exception of recessitation). That's rather obvious. Consent is given before the death. If the person consents to necrophilia before death, that's up to a judge. If the person has dies and did not stipulate any such arrangement, then it is illegal.

Like I said before, this is about homosexuality. I indulged your argument becuase it seemed like the right thing to do, but I still believe that the homosexual mariage issue should be argued of it's own merrits. You can marry your toaster if you want, but this is about homosexuality. The opposite of your argument can be just as interesting. If homosexuals cannot marry, why can Filipino people marry? Why can people under 25 marry? Why can anyone marry? It's too open ended and it eventually only serves to distract from the subjecxt at hand.

And the complications only exist because of people who tried to assert their will on others by creating exceptions. It's called control. Don't be controlled. Let free will reign.

Thank you, good night.

I've argued it before, but I don't consider opponents to gay marriage automatically bigoted. I've met at least a few who seem to oppose it genuinely on the grounds that traditional marriage will be damaged, and I've seen studies cited. Ultimately, I deem it far-fetched and wholly unconvincing. But if I did believe that gay marriage was a threat to the stability of traditional marriage, I'd be hesistant in supporting it. Now, it's certainly possible that bigoted feelings lie below this visible explanation, but I'm not going to assume it. In some cases, in fact, I'm convinced that there isn't bigotry.

And then there's my belief that people against homosexual activity aren't necessarily bigots, but that's getting a bit too far off-topic.

Whoa. Which part of your wife? That's freaky.

Why is it freaky?

Usually the top part of my wife and our friends starts out gay; then after a bit, I get involved and then the bottom parts of her and them are openly gay.

Then we switch back. Goes on for a few hours, few orgasms...nothing freaky about it; much fun actually, have you seen my wife :)


BTW, I'm not even supposed to be here. I blame this on you, tecoyah! lol, among others who asked that I not let my account lapse, see now? Here I am again posting away. Anyway, we're off to enjoy a good superbowl weekend away from the computer, have fun everyone :thumbsup:

There have been studies that find that homosexual equality will damage traditional marriage? Somehow that sounds more like a study of opinion, as "damage" to traditional marriage is in the eye of the beholder. I, personally, would be interested in seeing the particulars of said studies, if it isn't a bother to you.

That's your call.

Arg. Grammar is a bitch. My wife and I have many friends who are openly gay. We sometimes go on double dates with them. To my wife and I, it seems no different than any other relationship. We don't believe this because we are trying not to be bigots, but because we just automatically believe it. No one ever had to teach me that all people are created equal. It makes sense.

Ding........and here lies the answer.

Tell him what he won

Then they're going about it in a piss-poor manner. The end result is most likely going to be a Constitutional Amendment which will bar what you see as full equality, and the vast majority of the country sees as special privilege. FYI: Constitutional Amendments are AUTOMATICALLY Constitutional upon ratification, and therefore are not subject to being overturned by the Courts.

But you keep seeming to miss the point of WHY you can't marry property. Marriage, as we're talking about in this case, is a statutorily defined artifice. Under current law, it's illegal for a same sex couple to marry, correct? At the same time, under current law, it's illegal for a human to marry a dog, right? These are both things which are EXPLICITLY spelled out in the code. The ONLY thing preventing ANY form of marriage which is currently illegal is the fact that the specific type of marriage IS ILLEGAL. Remove the statutory barrier, and it become legal. You say "Remove this barrier, but leave that barrier intact." WHY?

So you're saying that what makes a marriage is the ability to RAISE a child? Really? Are you SURE you want to stick with that?

...

Sorry, it's illegal almost everywhere REGARDLESS of if consent is given while the person is alive.

Wow.

You guys are...prolific.

The thread is relatively polite, so carry on.

I'm not doing anything about it really besides talking to people about it. When and if the time comes for me to vote for the person that agrees with sexual prefrence equality or what have you, I'll vote for it. I'm a little ashamed to say I've done nothing more than talk. Honestly, I'm politically exhausted after the election.

Becuase of my specific ethics. Somehow I don't see keeping gay people from marriage as being ethical. This ultimately boils down to your individual, personal view of what is or isn't socially acceptable. I'm not sure if the norm will ever side with me on this, but I hope they do. They are hurting a lot of good, honest people out there who's only crime who they fell in love with. That bothers me.

No, a dog cannot be a parent. You asked about adoption. As far as procreation, biologically it won't work. A dog can't be a parent, so adoption is out. As far as marriage:
Whatever you think seperate marriage from any other kind of relationship can be used to explain why dogs can't be brides or grooms. If you think a marriage deals with soul mates, the bible asys animals don't have souls. If you think it's about procreation...well that won't work. If you think it's financial, dogs cannot own property or have a job where the dog makes money. Any money made by the dog is the owners by right. You get the idea.

We were speaking hypothetically. If, hypothetically, it was not illegal...etc. (reread the response with that in mind)

The strongest possible argument that I can give you that your position is out of touch with the mainstream in the US is the results of the 2004 election. The people had their say, and they were heard, loud and clear. Now who LISTENS to what they said....well, that's another matter entirely.

So, your specific ethics say that homosexual marriage is OK, and that the law should be changed. OK, you certainly have the right to think that, without having to offer ANY justification to back it up. But the evidence keeps piling up to indicate that the vast majority of American people (well, ok, people who actually voted in those 11 states on the various referendums) do NOT feel that way.

I've known dogs who would be much better parents for children above the age of, say, 5 years old than their actual biological parents made. Of course, I've seen some pretty good examples of so-called "parents" who shouldn't have been allowed anywhere NEAR a child, and had a small part in depriving them of their liberty for the rest of their natural lives (with due process of law, of course)

Ummm...I'm pretty sure that, biologically speaking, same-sex couples have exactly the same odds of naturally producing a child from their union as a human and an animal have of naturally producing a child from their union, which is exactly zero. That's not bigotry, that's biological fact. Until cloning/DNA technology advances, this will remain the case. Of course, once molecular biology advances to that point, I'm thinking that it will shortly be possible to create a hybrid being from a human and another species, provided that we're not talking porcine and elephant donors, since we all know that pig and elephant DNA "just don't splice."


Marriage in the sense we're talking here is quite literally a legal construct. Is a relationship any different because there's a piece of paper from the State involved? In my book, it isn't. My wife and I were together for seven years before we legally married. Honestly, the actual marriage part was a huge pain in the ass...we had to have a big party, everybody got frazzled, there was the whole prenup thing, et cetera. The WORST fight my wife and I EVER had was on the way to the rehearsal dinner the night before the ceremony over where it was located. No other fight before or since even came close. Once the "festivities" were over, our lives returned to normal.

Is it the State's business to determine that the partners both have souls? PETA people probably DO think animals have souls.

But it IS illegal, in a completely non-hypothetical sense, even in California (which just passed the law banning it, since apparently it had never come up, and then did). The law may not explicitly state "it is illegal to marry a corpse and have sex with it with the consent of the corpse before it became a corpse", but there are various other statutes that cover it, such as "abuse of a corpse". That's a real code section, which tells you how twisted our society is becoming.

Now here's an interesting (if somewhat silly) scenario (I know it's a complication, Halx, but that's what the training does to you). What if, say, a person had their arm severed. What happens if the potential spouse wants to marry JUST the severed arm? Now technically, the person is not dead, right? The person that the arm was a part of could consent to the marriage, right? (I'm picturing the ceremony, when the priest or official asks "who gives this arm to be legally wed?") It's a human-human match, so the animals/soul thing wouldn't apply, right? Procreation as a requirement is out the window, right? What result?

/sings "Twiddle-de-de, one two three, Eric, the Half a Bee!"

Well, the mainstream posotion here in California is different. Watch to see what blue states vote one way and what red states vote the other. This has a lot to do with the President trying to convince people that being a Christian means refusing to understand and allow homosexualism (not sure that's a word, but whatever). Those people don't speak for me, and their voting won't change my mind. I'll live to fight another day if we lose this round.

My ethics follow a combination of morality and logic (logic in the senser that it makes sense to me). My ethics tell me that these people don't deserve to be treated as any less than other people. Why should they be punished (and this does seem like a punishment)?

Well, we have to speak in averages in this situation, as case-by-case would make this very much more tedius (and some of the exceptions are so small that they become irrelevant in the scale we'ree talking aout, i.e. nationwide legislation). The average human adult makes a better parent for a human child than the average dog.

Well I was just mentioning to biological thing to cover all bases. The important point was the adoption (or insemination involving a third party). If the couple gets a child from with outside help, they are still just as responsible to raise that child as those who had a child without a third party.

We aren't just arguing on a strictly legal basis here. The movement behind the law is based on beliefs and social rules. You can't disregard that because of the ultimate decision will be in law. Law is based in (ta dah) ethics (logic and morality).

Well the religious right seems to be heading this, so I'd say that if they believe the bible so completly, they'd have to stick with the animals-sans-souls belief.

You also can't have sex with public property. Yikes as far as that having to be a law. Yikes.

The arm doesn't have a soul. Usually the part of the body connected with the brain and heart is considered the person. I still stand by what I said before: this (marrige rights for dead people, animals, inatimate objects, arms, puppets, etc.) is distracting from the real argument.

Hell freezing over yet? I guess we both just got tired of yelling at each other. I'm actually coming to respect daswig to a certian extent. Go fig.

California. Kal-I-For-Nie-Ayyyy. Nuff said. Oregon is a Blue state, isn't it? It voted to ban same sex marriages by 57%. THAT fact in and of itself speaks volumes.

Homosexuals can legally marry just like the rest of the population. How many times have you heard of gay people marrying a member of the opposite sex, having kids, et cetera? If you've ever hung out in a gay bar, you know what I'm talking about.

Well, the average dog is far less likely to sexually abuse a child than a parent or other close relative is, yes? Familial child sexual abuse is far more rampant than most people are willing to come to terms with. I'm not talking about gays specifically here, I'm talking about across the board.

And they're still just as incapable of having a child as the man/dog arrangement, or a single parent.

ROTFLMAO!!!!! Dude, Dudette, whatever your gender/sexual orientation/political outlook is, I now KNOW, beyond a SHADOW of a doubt, that you've never, EVER attended Law School. That's not meant as an insult. Your statement is the equivalent of claiming to read "Swank" and "BiggJuggs" "for the articles".

That doesn't work with me, since I'm pretty much Anti-Christian, a Heathen, and have, on occasion, been accused of being the Anti-Christ himself. I support freedom of religion, but exercise freedom FROM recognized religions, at the point of a gun if necessary. But you REALLY don't want to get me started on religion, ESPECIALLY my religious beliefs.


From my perspective, the human body doesn't have a soul, so hey. I'm a longtime subscriber in the "meatsock" philosophy.

DON'T DO IT!!!!

I really was both pissed off and amused by the "you're a bigot!" thing earlier. If you had ANY idea about my background, ties to the homosexual community, et cetera, you'd understand why.

BTW, in my book, calling somebody or an entire class of somebodys a pervert/s is not what I'd consider to be an insult. I generally define a "pervert" as somebody who engages in illegal sex acts of one form or another. Considering what sex acts are illegal where I am, active homosexuals are, by definition, perverts in my book, just as I'm a pervert, ALMOST all of my friends of perverts (I know one couple that used to be perverts, but then got fundie religion, and now obey the law, meaning they have sex only for procreation, in an unlit room, on a bed, wearing 80% body coverage with nightclothes, in the missionary position, and they don't enjoy it, but for some unknown reason, we've "grown distant"...These are the same people who begged my wife and I to go to church with them, and then introduced us to their pastor as "our Heathen Friends"... ;) ) my wife is a pervert, hell, my MOM is presumably a pervert. The ONLY person I know FOR SURE isn't a pervert in my book that I really, really "dig" is my daughter, who is under 7 months old. A homosexual could potentially NOT be a pervert, but ONLY if they were celibate. If you were to come up to me and a group of my friends and ask "which one of yall are perverts!", we'd all gleefully raise our hands. I s'pose it's kind of like the people who write "Yes, please!" in the "sex" box on a job application.


As another "BTW", I oppose same-sex marriage. That doesn't mean I couldn't come up with a potentially agreeable solution to the problem for most of the people on this board that I would agree with. It would involve removing the State from the marriage business alltogether.

Some of us try out hardest to see the glass as being half full. Laws are supposed to be based in ethics (the combination of logic and morality). Whether they are or not (not) is up to you. If I was pushing for a law to get passed or not to get passed, I would argue the law's ethical effects. I, as you so eloquently pointed out, am anything but a lawyer.

I was not saying you are religious. I was saying "the religious right seems to be heading this", so I poked a hole in them, thustly *pop*. As for you....hmmm...well some people in this thread have accused you of being bigoted towards homosexuals. I haven't decided for sure myself - as some of the time you push peoples buttons for fun :lol: (don't think I don't notice that). I *think* we can all agree that being a bigot is wrong. If your case is based in the fact that you don't want homosexuals ruining what you consider to be marriage, then it's a weak one. What is traditional marriage? Haven't gay people been around, and a lot of the time socially accepted, for generations? Rome, Greece, and several other civilizations make a multitude of references to homosexuality even in high ranking governmental officials and heroes. That awful Alexander movie was actually right in that Alexander the Great may have been openly bisexual. Was he dethroned? Was he shunned because of his love of other men? Somehow I doubt it. What we are seeing now is leftovers from our puritanical days. Had the "right" been left unchecked, we might have seen David Copperfield burned at the stake next to David Blane for witchcraft. There is still this tug of war between the puritanical roots and our let-freedom-reign side (I know, this sounds like a load of crap, but maybe someone out there agrees with me). The homosexuality conundrum comes down to a simple "play it safe" against "why not". I'm starting to babble.

I hope I had some good points in there somewhere.

Care to indluge us? Insight into your backround may serve to answer some questions, though it could potentially bring up more. Your call.

You think gay people are perverts (by your definition) when they have sex. You are a self proclaimed pervert (again, by your own definition). Why would you not want to let fellow perverts have their day? Somehow it seems...not contradictory...but it seems to go against the idea that if you do something, you accept it in others. I'm not calling you a hypocrate, because this is a simplfied version of what's going on, but doesn't it strike you odd that one of the reasons that you don't want them to have rights happens to be something you enjoy?

Our daughters are about the same age. Mutuality's a bitch. Jk.

Hahahaha. We are in agreement yet again. The state should have very little to do with marriage. You should get the license, and the basic rights, and then they should leave us to our liberties.

Well, let's see. I first met people who were openly homosexual at the Rocky Horror Picture Show in the early 1980's, when I was a "castmember". If you know how the RHPS used to work, the movie played onscreen, the "cast" acted out what was on the screen, while people screamed retorts and threw things. I generally played Eddie and/or Dr. Scott and worked "security", which meant beating the shit out of drunk rednecks and sailors who misbehaved (it took a LOT to qualify as "misbehaving"...normally it involved REALLY anti-social behavior, such as physically attacking a castmember over their sexuality). And yes, when playing Dr. Scott, I wore fishnets and high heels in my wheelchair. I'd say prolly half the cast were openly gay. Afterwards, there were GREAT "castparties", which were generally debauched enough to rival anything out there in the modern era. These generally started out at after-hour gay clubs, and then moved to a castmember's house. I did that for over 15 years (I started when I was 14, and by the time I was 17 was one of the two "go-to" people when fights broke out), on average once a weekend for the entire time. My wife, BTW, played "Columbia" with one of the casts, that's where I met her. During my time at RHPS with various casts, I got into literally hundreds of fights protecting castmembers, many of whom were attacked for no other reason than their open homosexuality (there was a Navy base close-by). In the early 1990's, I marched in DC at the national gay rights march as part of PFLAG. I spent some time as a firearms instructor at the local Pink Pistols chapter when I lived close to one. Outside of the Pink Pistols, I sold a LOT of guns to gays (mostly by word-of-mouth, and YES, I had the appropriate licenses, it was 100% legal), and taught them to use them. (a LOT of the gun culture refuse to have anything to do with openly homosexual people, and I lost some "straight" customers by doing what I did, but fuck'em if they didn't like it, I wouldn't want to sell guns to the people who were offended by it anyway.) I volunteered at a free health clinic that was used by a mostly homosexual clientele back in the late 80's and early 90's, doing staff-work, cleaning up, and other sundry things that other people were not equipped to deal with based upon size/health. That led me to being a female reproductive services clinic "escort" (for some reason, the two groups intermingled a LOT, and when they needed a big beefy guy who didn't mind being spat upon and cracking the odd skull in accordance with the laws of self-defense, I tended to "get the call") when Operation Rescue was at their height of activity. I helped bury more gay friends who died of HIV/AIDS than most people have friends, period. There are a fair number of other ties, but those should be enough to establish my bona fides, and if they aren't for some people, well, nothing I could say would establish them for those people.


You don't see me out there lobbying to remove oral sex from the code, do you? Our statutes are neutral. They apply regardless of the orientation of the parties involved. It's just as technically illegal for me and my wife to engage in consentual oral sex as it is for a same-sex couple to consentually do it. Of course, the laws are almost never enforced, and when they are, it's generally because the conduct was SO outrageous in ways other than the sex act itself that it is the reason that there is a prosecution to begin with. By far the most common example of this involves forcible rape. If a person rapes another person, they're charged with rape, plus whatever other sex crimes were involved. So a person who forcibly rapes somebody else is charged with the rape, but if they do other things, they can be charged not only with rape but also with sodomy in the case of oral sex, or buggery in the case of anal sex, or whatever. I don't WANT the sex laws to go away, because they serve a very real purpose in punishing people who commit "mala in se" (like rape) crimes rather than "malum prohibitorum" (like consentual sex) crimes. I sometimes jokingly say that "you know you're doing it right by the number of laws you break doing it". As long as it's consentual, it's virtually NEVER prosecuted here, but if it isn't consentual, the laws are there so that the offender may be punished more in-line with their actions.


If it's a right, you shouldn't have to get a license to exercise it.

Aw geez, now i'm offended too. This is one of the most hurtful opinions out there about adoption. "far less optimal"??

Taking a child into your heart and home, from an orphanage or birth mother that chooses to not raise the child, is LESS optimal? Not adding another child to an already crowded world is LESS optimal??

I would encourage you to look at the sentence you wrote. "viewed as" by whom? Clearly by you. Sure not viewed that way by me, and many others. I think there is a word for those that view equivalent situations as "different". That word may have been thrown around on this thread already...


As an aside, I'd be curious to know your view on abortion. So many anti-all-abortion people are so quick to say "adoption is the answer!". But some then turn around and suggest that adoption is "less optimal".

I'm not saying I'm sure that's you, daswig. But that's how I'd bet my money.


sorry to tangent

Chill, dude. It's far less optimal in the sense that the child was either orphaned in the first place (dead parents=bad), taken away from the birth parents by the State for their being bad (child abuse/endangerment = bad), or abandoned by the parents (birth parents not wanting baby = bad). You don't end up being put up for adoption because things in your life had gone WELL to that point. Adoption itself is fine and dandy, but you don't end up being adopted because your life is going great.

It'd be nice if every pregnancy was a wanted pregnancy, so that abortion was rare. We don't live in a "nice" world, however. Abortion MUST remain legal on demand and without apology, and I support full governmental funding for abortions for those who desire them but cannot afford them. I guess you missed the bit about my having volunteered as an abortion clinic "escort" to protect women from Operation Rescue lunatics in my post above...

Will might not want to call your position a contradiction, but clearly it is - you are a self-proclaimed pervert who is married to a pervert, yet you deny the right for perverts of the same-sex to marry. And with your apparent background this is all rather suprising, the contradiction is enormous.
In your ten thousand words in this thread, you have still not explained your first post. You have tried dodging the question (as above where you entirely ignore Will's question and instead focus on the your definition of perversion and the legality of perverted acts), you have tried to explain that the gov't wants to promote healthy children, as if this somehow eliminates its ability to support the gay lifestyle, and you have tried pointing to your supposed history in the gay community. Yet none of those methods have addressed the essence of your first post - that gays are perverted and are attempting to have laws changed and should therefore not be allowed to marry.

the logic is quite odd, as you note manx.

he seems to want to keep the laws on the books, in case of sex criminals. Why not make forcible sodomy illegal? That covers things well. Etc...

The idea that the law is "usually" unenforced offers no protection to a politically dienfranchised group. And beyond that...a selectively enforced law is a danger in and of itself. the opportunity for a malicious prosecution is raised, the power of the government to threaten...

the point is that laws should outlaw conduct that should be illegal, not be blankets that have uncertain interpretations. i don't trust the state to tell me what "sodomy" is good and what is bad.

The End of Marriage in Scandinavia:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/conten...3/660zypwj.asp

Like I said, I ultimately found it unconvincing. Correlation != Causation.

It's a matter of special privilege. The marriage laws are written in a non-discriminatory manner. Sexual orientation is immaterial. Any man (straight or gay) who is legally able to marry can marry any woman (straight or gay) that can legally marry and that agrees to it. There's been a long history of homosexuals who have done just that.....married people of the opposite sex, for whatever reason. Many of them have indeed had children as a result of the marriage.

Now if the law said "only straight men can marry women, as long as they are straight, too", THEN there's be a discrimination issue. But that's not the case.

Look at hate crime legislation. I don't support hate crime legislation. Why? Because who has ever heard of a "friendly crime"? ALL crime contains some element of hate, and setting one group or another up for special protection is discriminatory to those who don't receive the special protection. If somebody shoots somebody else because they are gay, how is that WORSE than somebody shooting somebody else in the course of a robbery? The act is the same, the result is the same. Now differences based upon means of death, I don't have a problem with. For example, being dragged to death behind a pickup truck by a rope around your neck is a far more heinous or infamous crime than shooting somebody in the head from behind, instantly killing them without their knowing that they were ever in danger. Both are murder, but the means in the first case are more horrific than the means in the second case. The level of suffering inflicted is far different. But if there were two cases where people were dragged behind pickup trucks by ropes around their necks, and one dead person was black and the other white, varying punishment based upon the skin color of the attacker IS discriminatory.

ALL laws are selectively enforced. Barring implementation of a full-fledged Big Brother Police State, all laws will CONTINUE to be selectively enforced, even strict liability offenses.

understood.

but murder laws don't get winked at for certain folks. when the prosecutions are pretty much soley at the personal discretion of the prosecutor...doesn't that seem like a problem? YOU may never be charged for what you do with your wife. But there are a lot of folks who don't get that same leeway with the same law.

the law should reflect what we ACTUALLY want to make illegal. no?

I have to disagree, due to the continued freedom of the Alpha Jackass, Teddy Kennedy.

Murder laws are selectively enforced all the time. It's not a matter of who the persons involved are, but rather the circumstances of the case. For example, in cases where the prosecution thinks that a successful case can not be made, or a legal justification exists, charges will not be filed. That is done in the INTEREST of justice, so that people are not prosecuted unjustly. Think about it. Suppose somebody shoots and kills an armed intruder in their house. Should they be forced to go through a trial for either murder or manslaughter, at considerable expense to themselves and the government, when the prosecutor knows that the outcome of such a trial would be a not guilty verdict because of the circumstances?

Now if the law is facially neutral, but enforced in a discriminatory manner (for example, if only homosexuals are charged with sodomy, and heterosexuals are never charged with sodomy), there's legal grounds to seek review the constitutionality of the law itself on the grounds that it's enforced in a discriminatory manner. Different levels of appellate scrutiny apply from a facially discriminatory law, but the law can indeed be struck down if it's used in a discriminatory manner.


FYI: In the state where I reside, the sex crimes laws are enforced in an OVERWHELMING majority against heterosexuals, NOT homosexuals. Why? Probably because heterosexuals commit far more of the crimes in question than homosexuals do. I've personally seen dozens of cases where sodomy charges were brought against a heterosexual, virtually all of them involving mala in se crimes, and most of them involving crimes against children. I've NEVER personally seen a case where such charges were brought against a homosexual, either for a mala in se or malum prohibitorum crime. Is it possible that a homosexual could be charged with sodomy here? Sure. But from what I've seen, it doesn't happen often.

You're all over the place in this thread. I can't tell what your position is other than some generic form of opposition. Whenever you're asked to address one point that you have made, you switch to an altogether different point - as if adding a new point bolsters one of your older points.

Of course, each of your points has had numerous weaknesses. Such as this latest one, where the laws are not discrminatory because gay people can marry someone of another gender. This is clearly absurd, one need only look at your interpretation of the law and then apply it to brother and sister - techincally they should be allowed to marry according to how you read the law, but they are not. So your reading of the law is incorrect. It is obvious that marriage is meant to be provided for strong relationships - just look at INS, a marriage with a foreigner is constantly reviewed by the INS in order to ensure that the relationship is serious and not simply convenience. In your interpretation of marriage laws, the INS would have no business making such judgements: marriage need not be about relationship. Since your interpretation is not the interpretation of the gov'ts, it becomes clear that prohibiting gay marriage is indeed discrminatory - a gay person, if they want to be married, is forced to accept a relationship with someone that they are, naturally, not strongly attracted to.

So again, your latest in a number of poor excuses is invalid. When are you going to address your first post, or do you expect it should simply be forgotten?

I assume you're referring to this definition:

Under this definition, you apparently missed the "that can legally marry" part. Other portions of the code specify what the disqualifications of marriage are.

You keep saying my reading of the law is wrong. Where did you get your J.D. from again? Consanguinity is a codified disqualification for marriage practically everywhere if it's within a certain distance. Will this need to be changed in case a pair of homosexual siblings wish to marry?

As I'm sure you're aware, immigration law is handled differently in many ways than standard civil law is. Checking for immigration fraud in the form of a sham marriage isn't about enforcing the marriage laws, it's about enforcing IMMIGRATION laws. You know this, but are either deliberately trying to obfuscate, or are grievously misinformed. IF MARRIAGE IS THERE TO PROVIDE STRONG RELATIONSHIPS, WHERE'S THE CIVIL LAW ENFORCEMENT VEHICLE? When was the last time you heard of a couple being busted for "marriage fraud" for engaging in a marriage of convenience????? Would you care to cite a statute which criminalizes marriages of convenience if the intent is anything other than a specific intent to defraud?

What, exactly, have I NOT explained to death about my first post? Please be SPECIFIC.

You don't seem to realize what you've just written. That's not non-discriminatory. What you're saying is that marriage law is always discriminatory. Apparently, if we make gender-based discrimination the rule in all cases then it's no longer discrimination. By this logic, any gender discrimination is perfectly OK as long as it's done ALL the time.

So you're saying a woman can't marry a man under current law, only the man can marry the woman?

Man, woman, gay, straight, they all can marry. There's no gender-based discrimination there. There are certain restrictions on marriage. You can't marry your mother or father. You can't marry somebody who is already married. I can't marry Angelina Jolie even if I was single. You can't marry somebody of the same sex. You can't marry an infant. You can't marry a dead person, or an animal, or a host of other things like fireplugs. But men can marry, and women can marry. What other gender is there?

Honestly, marriage by law is property and tax deal. That is mainly what marriage is by the LAW. Religiously it is much different, the churches can deal with the issues of gay marriage not the government. The BIG "G" shouldn't be able to tell us who we can marry.

I'd have to be a lawyer of some kind in order to keep up completly with this. What about morally? Let's subtract law here for just a few posts (then we can jump right back). Let's just ask (hypothetically): Is it morally wrong for homosexuals to be allowed to marry?

Note: daswig, I'm counting on you responsding by saying something like "YOU CAN'T JUST TAKE LAW OUT OF THIS" Prove me wrong. In a hypothetical (adj.; of, relating to, or based on a hypothesis: a hypothetical situation) world, we can explore all possibilities and angles of something by subtracting something that exists in the real world. A hypothetical world is ruled over by logic and those who explore the scenreo.

The flipside of this argument is that same-sex marriage would not be a matter of special privilege. Males (both straight and gay) and females (both straight and gay) would be able to marry people of the same sex.

Why are you against gay marriage again?

If marriage were completely divorced from the law, as in marriage was strictly a matter of religion, no State marriage license required, then I'd have no problem with same sex marriage, UNLESS a same sex couple tried to force a certain religion to let them marry. If the UUs or any other church wanted to have same sex marriage, it'd be protected under the First Amendment.

Okay. So to clairify: outside of the law, you believe that they should be allowed to marry (unless they try to force their beliefs).

What the article (see page 1) is about is changing the letter of state law in that it contradicts the constitution. Usually when a state law butts heads with the constitution....what happens? You have told us you have a history with law, what do you think happens when the constituion (all men [people] are created equal) butts head with state law (those queers can't marry!)?

Either the constitution is wrong, or the state law is wrong (or people can try to bastardise the constitution by saying that "all men created equal" doesn't apply to gays marriage rights). The only question that we should be asking ourselves is does "all men created equal" mean that gays should be allowed to marry (whether society is ready or not)? It's up to the judges.

The thing is that what you call the "bastardization" of the Constitution is in fact NOT a bastardization of the Constitution at all, since the interpretation of the Constitutionality of the issue we're talking about has been in place all along. Marriage has traditionally not been seen as a Federal issue at all, and rights not specifically granted to the Federal Government in the Constitution are retained by the States or the People. Now if SCOTUS ruled that same sex marriages were indeed Constitutionally protected (barring a Constitutional Amendment on the issue), that would be a different matter, but that's not what has happened. What happened was that a judge in a State trial court ruled one way, but that certainly doesn't settle the issue. Look, for example, at the procedural history of U.S. v. Miller, (1939). In that case, the trial judge held that the NFA 1934 was an unconstitutional infringement of the Second Amendment. SCOTUS disagreed, and the law still stands to this day, although it's currently under attack in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in U.S. v. Stewart on ICC grounds.

The majority of American people are NOT ready for same-sex marriage to become the law of the land; the 2004 state referendums prove this fairly conclusively. Even in Oregon, a pretty strongly "Blue State", a same sex marriage ban was approved with 57% of the vote. IF (and that's a HUGE "if", considering the makeup of the court right now) SCOTUS were to rule that same-sex marriages must be allowed, there'd be a Constitutional Amendment passed and ratified in RECORD time. There may be one passed even before SCOTUS gets a chance to rule on it.

I'm reminded of the old T-shirt slogan which states "If we cannot reform it, we will abolish it." If this issue continues to be pushed while so many Americans oppose it, that's EXACTLY what will happen. And once the Constitution has been amended, the odds of it being repealed are slim at best (it's only happened once since the Constitution went into effect). In twenty years, the situation may be different, but right now, considering the level of popular approval out there on this issue, it's a complete loser of an issue for no reason other than the backlash.

What is it that you think you are doing, daswig? Do you think you are providing a logical reason that gay marriage should not be legal? In this entire thread, you have provided two reasons that you believe gay marriage should not be legal:

1- Because gay people are perverted, apparently to a degree more so than yourself that should therefore prohibit them from being afforded the right to marry, a right that your own perverted-self enjoys.

2- Because the gov't wants healthy children and a gay married couple would negatively impact the possibility of healthy children.

The rest of your energy in this thread has been almost exclusively devoted to describing your perspective on how gay marriage is presently not legal. Do you see the difference? No one is arguing whether gay marriage is legal. The standard discussion around this topic is whether gay marriage should be legal.

The entirety of it. Let me break it down for you:

Maybe from your perspective, the ability of a man and woman to be married is a special privilege, or maybe not. But from almost everyone else's perspective this is a right. So a person demanding the ability for two people of the same gender to marry is also the demand for a right. That they presently do not have that right does not make it a privilege above and beyond (a special privilege) the existing privlege afforded to heterosexual couples.


And the converse is true - as long as they are denied this, there is no accomodation that can be reached which will satisfy both parties. Either they stop demanding to have the same rights as heterosexuals, or heterosexuals stop preventing them from sharing those rights.

This is like claiming the woman brought the rape upon herself by wearing a mini skirt to a bar. It's utter nonsense. If there is a Constitutional Amendment along the lines of DOMA, it is going to suck for gay people, it is going to suck for heterosexuals and it will be very specifically due to the unfortunate intolerance and discriminatory mindset of the heterosexuals that create and lobby for it.

And here's your contradiction which I will now point out for the 4th time and that you have yet to explain or answer for. You have already claimed to be a pervert. You are married. So why shouldn't another pervert who does not have the right that you, as a pervert, have, be prohibited from acquiring that right simply because they ask for it? And what exactly does "force their beliefs upon the rest of the population" mean? Do you believe they are trying to force everyone to be gay? What about the fact that the rest of the population is trying... no, succeeding in forcing them to be heterosexual? Should heterosexuals therefore have their right to marry taken away from them? Almost all of them are perverts.

And really. If perverts is essentially the norm - why would you even use the word other than to be intentionally confrontational.

That's exactly why we can't discount the law-your morality might be different than mine. I personally think it's morally wrong, you probably don't. Whose morality is right? Neither of us can say for certain whose morality is correct. Therefore you can't remove law from the issue.

Morals (as you describe them, they aren't actually morals*) aren't like emotions They can be negative and positive.

Man 1: It's morally wrong to allow Jews to exploit our society. Based on that moral truth, we should persecute them.
Man 2: Shut the f*** up Hitler.

His "morals" were based in his perception of reality. Were his perceptions wrong? Almost certianally. His perceptions were fed by paranoia and a slew of mental and social diseases. There are people living in America right now who think it's morally acceptable to kill black people for simply being born black. Are they right? Of course not. The same thing is going on with homosexuals. People misinterpret the bible (ask your pastor/preist/rabbi/etc. if you should persecute those who live in "sin", then talk to me about how to treat homosexuals). Now we are stuck in this aweful situation where a group of people have been taught propoganda wrapped in the word of God, and they'll stick to it no matter what. It is alright with me if you want to believe that being gay is wrong. It is not alright for you to prevent them from living the way that makes them happy and doesn't hurt you.


*Moral: of or concerned with the judgment of the goodness or badness of human action and character This is the way people are born. There is a genetic trait associated with being a homosexual. How can it be wrong to be born? Should we punish people for being born with detached or attached earlobes?

RB: Love isn't even on the radar of my "political machine." Your blatently subltle attmepts at equating conservatives/the christian right (no need to convolute your position, call us all one thing), is nothing but a pretext for your "mobilized bigotry" argument. I'm not afraid of being called a biggot, but i'm sure you weren't speaking to me in particular, that was you're "political machine" talking. Marriage is a social concern, love isn't.

You are misusing the term moral. Every definiton I have seen of moral includes some form of "goodness" or "correct" or some other term. And all of those are subjective. Just because some people agree that something is good doesn't make it inherently good, you cannot prove that there is some absolute good. And without that you cannot have moral be anything but subjective.

Also, you make quite a few broad assumptions which aren't entirely based in fact:

1. I "persecute" those who live in sin. Really, I personally don't care what people do in their own homes, I'm not peronally trying to ban homosexuality.

2. If I believe that something is bad for society, it DOES hurt me if it goes on. Crimes not commited against me do not hurt me, but that doesn't make them right, nor does it mean I should support them. Again, I personally don't care about homosexuality, nor do I think it can be legally banned. However, that is not the issue, the issue is marriage not allowing the act.

3. That people are born homosexual has not been conclusively proven one way or the other. There are many people who lived a heterosexual lifestyle for many years before becoming homosexual. We could probably play duelling experts here, but it will boil down to there being no definitive scientific proof one way or the other. And as for people being punished for how they are born, it happens all the time. Just look at many inner cities, these people are punished for being born to poor parents. Many people are imprisoned for actions they commit due to mental illness (often that they are born with).

actually, there are entire branches of philosophy devoted to objective morality. I don't know if they are currently running over in Philosophy, but someone over there should be able to direct you where to look if interested.

That argument works both ways. How can being gay be morally wrong if it isn't univerally morally wrong? Becuase there is no such thing as "univerally wrong". If there is not a universal moral code to apply to, then differing moralities will butt heads. This is one such butt. The only way to coexist with different sets of moralities is if all groups agree not to try and force their specific moral code on another group. I was trying to illustrate that to you by showing you my moral code. If your moral code tells you that being gay is wrong or homosexuals cannot get married, then you should not be gay, or if you're gay, then don't get married. How can you try to dictate someone elses morals?

You're trying to keep them from being accepted in a legal union. We've explained before how this is a facet of anti-homosexual morality. Please explain how you are alright with gey people being gay in society, but you are not okay with them getting married.

What makes something "bad" for society? You are personally hurt by two people you've never met being able to get married?

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...highlight=gene

The proof is possiblty on the way. Because there is no conclusive proof either way, shouldn't they be given the benifit of the doubt?

I know people are punished for the way they are born, but that does not make it right. I'm surprised you would suggest that. We are talking about right and wrong here. People are being raped all over the world too, would you try to stop a rape if you saw one? Or would you say, "Well, it's going on all over the world."?