President Obama has finally come out of the closet. He's always supported gay marriage--you can't be doctrinaire leftist without doing so, but now its all out in the open.
The President had no choice. There's too much gay money out there waiting to be scooped up. Obama’s bald-faced misdirection saying he didn’t want this to be a big campaign issue reveals that he does want it to be.
He sure as hell can't win reelection talking about his economic accomplishments, although progressives are suddenly pro-war now that the commander in Chief is also a Nobel Peace Prize winner who has killed more people than fellow laureate Yassir Arafat.
It’s all political. This is red meat designed to energize his demoralized base and amp up his anemic fundraising. Foreign money and other shady contributions will not put him over the $1 billion mark; he’s got to amp it up here in the US.
I see “gay marriage” as a two-part issue involving both fundamental natural rights and societal norms that include religion. Natural rights are non-negotiable, societal norms are not, although they cannot be easily reshaped by force. Progressives love wielding the hammer, but religious people are fighting back to defend traditional institutions, and that doesn't make them anti-gay bigots, Revrund Phred Phlapp's God Hates Fags church aside.
Societal Norms
Societal norms are changing. America has not yet fully embraced the idea of gay marriage, although the majority tipping point appears to have been reached. 70% of 17-35 year olds support same sex marriage, while only 39% of those 55 and older do, so opposition is literally dying out and gay marriage will be mainstreamed in another generation or two.
Protect the Sanctity of Marriage? Too Late!
The institution of marriage has fallen upon hard times, with out-of-wedlock births at 41% in 2009. Is it any wonder? Heterosexuals have done more damage to the institution of marriage than gay people ever could. How sacred is marriage when it can be dissolved so easily and so often? Adultery, spouse abuse and child abuse, and our world-leading divorce rate all make a mockery of the concept of marriage as a sacred institution. I believe holy matrimony is sacred, but we heterosexuals in America no longer treat it as such. Many marriages are nothing more than Kardashianesque slapped-together shams, and Christians don't stand up and protest those "marriages," so we can cut the crap about “protecting the sanctity of marriage.”
My only objection to gay marriage is definitional. Marriage has always meant one thing, and conferring the term upon a homosexual union abominates a millennia-old tradition. All legal partnerships, regardless of genders involved, should be just that: A legal partnership. Only a church should be able to declare someone husband and wife. I realize this is a losing battle (especially given the hetero-induced damage I’ve already detailed), so we need to pick other ground to fight on. Homosexuality will be mainstreamed. Get over it.
Natural Rights
In natural law, human being have rights, whether they be man, woman or some in-between sausage and coconuts combo. We all have a fundamental right to partner with whomever we can convince to shack up with us. At the same time, we must equally respect the right of any given church to choose which relationships they recognize, sanction and celebrate.
The state grants a marriage license, the church confers Holy Matrimony. There is nothing in the constitution prohibiting gay marriage, nor should there be. That same constitution also protects the rights of churches and individuals to hold and exercise their fundamental moral beliefs. As long as everyone recognizes the rights of all, we can maintain a harmonious balance.
Straight Americans have shown themselves to be remarkably libertarian on the issue of gay unions, which is admirable. Will gay activists maintain the same magnanimity when it comes to religious freedom?
221 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 221 of 221Your obsession with Sodomy is impressive.
Its the leading cause of death in the world, and its entirely PREVENTABLE were it not ENCOURAGED by irresponsible idiots.
...for sodomy is the primary contributor to that sad fact.
How many more million need to die in the name of libertinism? Are you a libertarian or a libertine? There IS. a difference.
Sodomy: The oldest - and the surest -- form of birth control.
- FT
Will Rogers said, "I never met a man I didn't like."
Does that mean Will Rogers had to have been gay?
~ FT
How on earth did this get published? You've warmth me another ice cream. How many is that now?!
@"Its the leading cause of death in the world"
No, actually it's not... it is the cause of 3.1%
Heart disease, followed by stroke, lower respiratory infections, COPD, and diarrhoeal diseases all exceed HIV/AIDS as leading causes of death worldwide.
It is the third leading cause of death in low income countries, at 7.8%
It is the sixth leading cause in middle income countries at 2.7%
And it DOESN'T EVEN MAKE THE LIST for high income countries.
In the US you even have a greater chance of dying in an accident, committing suicide, or getting murdered than dying of HIV. It doesn't even make the top 15 in the US.
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs310/en/index.html
http://www.who.int/gho/publications/world_health_statistics/EN_WHS2012_Full.pdf
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/dvs/deaths_2009_release.pdf
You're about as good at science as you are at math.
Then its the leading cause of eaily PREVNTABLE death in the world.
Which really, is THE POINT.
...not spelling the words exactly right or having the sequence in a very smal list of leading causes of DEATH perfectly right.
...but you don't want ANYONE to interfere with your self-proclaimed "right to be stupid", eh FinnTann?
I, on the other hand, am numerate and scientific ENOUGH not to place a great deal of faith in the precise statistics generated from a "survey" of women asking them if "they ever took it up the *ss" or not. I suspect that a LOT of people, Mrs Finntann and Jez included, would LIE were they ever asked THAT question.
And my rankings came from a chart specific to 2001. Switching charts and altering the time period in question takes nothing away from what I presented as fact.
ps - gays commit suicide at greater rates than heterosexuals... so is sodomy a contributing factor to their propensity to commit suicide? I'd say it was. But were I to need to trade 100,000 gay suicides against 20,000,000 AIDS sodomy deaths... I'd make that trade in favour of preventing AIDS deaths. F thegays and their need to feel GOProud.
@ "gays commit suicide at greater rates than heterosexuals... so is sodomy a contributing factor to their propensity to commit suicide?"
Probably, but then again, attitudes like yours probably contribute too.
Switching charts and altering the time period in question takes nothing away from what I presented as fact.
In fact it does, care to discuss the death rate of syphilis in Victorian England?
Welcome to the 21st Century!
In fact it does, care to discuss the death rate of syphilis in Victorian England?
Sure. Shall we start with the enactment of the Contagious Diseases Acts or skip right to the Sexual Offenses Act of 2003 that makes prostitution legal, but paying for sex, illegal?
The history of protecting the public from contagious sexually transmitted diseases is long and storied. And so that one must be "licensed" to legally engage in it, up until recently has been consider, un-controversial.
And it isn't MY attitude that is causing gays to commit suicide, it's THEIR attitude being reinforced by people like you who lead them to believe that THEY (homosexuals) are being singled out for repression out of nothing but pure "hatred" or the "ignorance of the religious". Nothing could be further from the truth. The "truth" is, that the act of male sodomy endangers all humankind... and that acts of sexual reproduction CANNOT be made illegal, unless we want to erase the human presence from our planet.
And we (humankind) "minimize" the risks of STDs when we encourage monogamy and discourage acts of sodomy.
The facts that gays are very promiscuous is what "generally" leads to their premature demise, not individual acts of sodomy "per se". Homosexual marriage would be a very good attitude for them to adopt EXCEPT that to condone a relationship built upon the act of sodomy places the other 98% of heterosexuals at risk.
You can't have it "both" ways with laws. The only "fair" and "consistent" choice you can offer is whether you outlaw sodomy or criminalize all sex outside of marriage between non-married spouses. Pick your poison. There are no win-wins that don't constitute a significant risk to public health.
... or a serious curtailment of individual liberties.
As Isaiah Berlin once stated, one of the few things he ever discovered on his own was that many of the "great goods" cannot survive together, and that we may be forced to "choose" amongst them... and such is the "tragic" nature of choice.
Will AIDS cases have to reach these levels before "Libertarians" feel a need to act?
By 1864, one out of three sick cases in the army were caused by venereal disease; admissions into hospitals for gonorrhoea and syphilis reached 290.7 per 1,000 of total troop strength.
And seeing as how there were no effective treatments for these diseases... penicillin not becoming a recognized treatment until the early (see Tuskeegee syphilis experiments) twentieth century.... one wonders how libertarians would have dealt with the issue.
OCD is a dreadful disease! Probably worse even than AIDS.
Is this conversation REALLY worth having?
Define fair jmj.
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