The most incredibly stupid ignorant hateful thing I've read Follow

Uhhh, is that a trick question, Min?

Totem

I have a feeling that if some of the posters here are shown their posts in 10 to 20 years time, they will be ashamed of what they have written.

Gonna back this up for a sec, since I thought this was relevant:



Actually, in the context of marriage, it's not homosexuality that is problematic (except in some early tribal cultures where birthrate really mattered), but that heterosexuality is both problematic and necessary.

In settled societies, heterosexual relationships result in children. This is both necessary to continue the species, but also problematic if you can't account for who's responsible for the care of the child in question. That's why marriage was created. We can debate its role in society *today*, but the need to attach children to parents (specifically men) was absolutely the reason the institution of marriage was created.

As I've stated repeatedly, homosexuality does not present any sort of real problem for the society as a whole. We're not burdened with a need to overpopulate in order to fight off a high death rate or enemy tribes bent on wiping us out via attrition and resource competition. Homosexual relationships, regardless of nature, don't significantly affect the society as a whole. Heterosexual relationships do. They statistically produce children. This biological fact hasn't changed. The same socio-economic problems exist, no matter how much we try to pretend that in our brave new world they don't.

There is still a need to encourage heterosexual couples to marry. This also hasn't changed. We've replaced strong social and legal pressures with economic incentives. That's nice, but it doesn't change the purpose of those incentives. They exist in order to attempt to reduce the number of children born to single women. No. It's not perfect. But IMO you're committing a silly slippery slope argument to say that since we've already done things that make these incentives less useful that there's no reason not to make yet more changes in the same direction.

We can debate whether a model in which the government encourages marriage as a means of providing for children, or one in which the government simply directly pays for their care is better. I tend to think that the former is better, but that's certainly subject to debate. However, I think it's patently unfair to the importance of the issue at hand to just assume that this isn't a valid debate and that the marriage benefits granted by the government really don't serve any purpose other then as a reward for people who love eachother.

Because as nice of a sentiment as that is, that's *not* why I'm ok with paying for it. And by extending those benefits to gay couples, you're acting upon an assumption that this is the only reason the benefit exists, without the benefit of any sort of debate. Some of us (many of us), simply disagree with that. While most don't (or can't) elaborate exactly why, they do recognize that this isn't about rights for gay people, it's about destroying the definition and purpose of the marriage benefit itself. That's the key issue here, but it gets skirted by simply arguing about rights and discrimination.


What I'm trying to do is get folks to recognize that there's more to this then just an appeal to emotion regarding a disadvantaged group's rights. There's something else at stake. This is why I've repeatedly referred to this as throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Because including same sex couples in the criteria for those benefits doesn't give gay people rights. It damages the purpose of the marriage benefit. There's a whole social engineering argument about that as well, but it's something I'm opposed to.


My point is that gay people are not being denied a right. They can obtain all the things they want and need in their relationships without making this exact legal definition change. They don't "need" to do this. It's unnecessary and carries with it a cost that IMO far outweighs any benefits to the gay community. I oppose it, not because I don't like gay people, but because I *do* support the idea that children raised by two married parents are not only themselves vastly better off, but generate sufficient positive benefit for society as a whole that it's worth doing what we can to promote it. I feel that in their rush to gain some minor semantic issue, the gay agenda is costing us something much much more dear.

I'll say this again. Those were all determined to be "wrong" based on the specifics of each case, not in a broad "someone gets something I don't" way.

Unless you are prepared to defend the argument that the government cannot provide *any* benefit to one group that it does not provide to all groups, then you cannot make this broad argument. I've already produced examples in which government programs benefit specific targeted groups while excluding others. No one has yet argued that it's wrong for only handicapped people to get to park in the blue spaces, ergo it's not automatically wrong to have "discriminatory" benefit criteria.


That's a failed argument. You need to show that in the case of marriage benefits granted by the state, that there is no reason why the benefit itself should be targeted at opposite-sex couples while denied go same-sex couples. I have already made my argument on this issue several times now. Not one person has yet adequately explained to me the societal need for the government to provide rewards to same-sex couples who choose to marry.


I can and have argued why there's a societal need for said reward/benefits to be applied to opposite-sex couples. If you feel strongly about this, then step up to the plate and make your own argument for same-sex couples receiving them.


What's funny is that I keep asking for this, and yet I keep getting the same blanket "But it's discrimination!!!" argument in reply. That is *not* a sufficient argument. I've already proven that multiple times.




Marriage is not a right. We're specifically talking about a government status that grants "benefits". Exactly like thousands of other government statuses which grant benefits to those who qualify. You've got your head stuck too far into the assumptions of your position. Step back and look at what is *actually* at stake here.



Again (and for the umpteenth time!). Benefits. Not rights.



What on earth have I said that makes you think I'm these things. I have said nothing anti-gay. I have said nothing homophobic. I have said nothing fascist.


I simply disagree that gay marriages should qualify to receive government funded or mandated benefits. Labeling me all sorts of nasty things because I disagree with you is bogus by itself. Doing so while failing utterly to counter (or apparently to have even bothered to read) my argument is even moreso...

You're correct, of course.

However, if there were no inheritance issues, there'd be no need for marriage in the context of property rights. Of course, with no children, all that property would be lying around collecting dust because we'd all have died off long ago...


It's kinda impossible to separate the two.

Spoilsport, you live for tin foil hat territory, it's in your blood, thats why you've been posting here for so long!

It was the second part actually. I said that it was too expensive to filter them out. In what way did you think I contradicted myself?

Again, exactly what I said you said, endless waltz, but...

If you think that it is more expensive to ask if a woman has a uterus prior to her being married than it is to ask a man if he likes to suck *****, then you're.. you're

well you're probably being foolish, and obstinately so.

Eh sure

I'm a lot less invested in this argument than I have been in the past. What I'm doing right now is just marvelling at how I can exactly and precisely know what gbaji will say because of the sheer number of times that we have argued the exact same point, over, and over, and over

It's hilarious really. Just the definition of a farce.

Bullsh'it.

The "specifics" of each case were that a minority was being denied the same rights the majority enjoyed for no better reason than that they were--wait for it--a minority. In each case, they were being denied those rights because somewhere along the way, the minority in question had been deemed less worthy.

Women were deemed unworthy to vote because of a millenia-long history of oppression that had its roots in Judeo-Christian mythology.

Hmmm, which is pretty much exactly where the roots of anti-homosexual bias lies as well. Fancy that.

Gbaji, I love you. You may be solving my insomnia.

And just beause ...I could not disagree more. Do you actually know anyone who is gay? I just gain the feeling you are talking like a completely dispassionate observer with no empathy with the audience.

Edited, Nov 6th 2008 7:44pm by GwynapNud

Why would you assume this? I have several gay friends. I know many more gay people as mere acquaintances. I live in Southern California. I hung out with an "alternative" crowd in my late teens and early 20s. I used to go to the Rocky Horror Picture Show every weekend (twice most weekends). I knew most of the people who performed there personally and hung out at the nightly Denny's food fests that always followed. One of my closest friends during that time period was in the closet. Most of us knew, but he continued to lie about it for years. Eventually, he came out, but felt he had to severe all ties with everyone he knew previously. Which is sad because his friends would have all accepted him. He'd just lived a lie so long he couldn't handle facing those he believed he'd lied to. I occasionally hear about someone who's seen him at a Pride parade, but otherwise I haven't spoken to him in like 15 years.

I used to hang out at one of the local coffee shops with a very high homosexual patronage. I got to know a lot of the regulars (I knew a few people who lived in the area and it was their favorite hangout). I listened to bad poetry on Wednesdays, and semi-decent musical performers on Fridays. And I watched and listened and paid attention to how the people interacted with each other. I probably know more about gay "mating rituals" than 99% of straight men on this planet. I've seen the good, and the bad, of that scene (and some of it is very very bad).


None of that is particularly relevant to the legal ramifications of the legal status in question though. I don't think we should be handing out benefits from the government because we like people or dislike them, or because we think this group has suffered or that group hasn't. IMO, going down that road, while emotionally satisfying for most, does a disservice to us all. We end up causing exactly the sorts of social rifts that we ought to be repairing. When you see someone who is different in some way as a competitor for benefits or resources, it's much much easier to just hate that person (or label that person as hateful of you) than to learn about that person and try to understand their side of the issue.

That's why when I look at this issue, I try to remove the emotional content and just look at the facts. What is at stake? What does that do? Why does it exist? What is the cost? What is the benefit? Does the criteria for the benefits match the purpose and does it make sense in terms of cost vs benefit? To me, that's the correct way to look at this issue. Because it's terrifically easy for us all to just label the other as "wrong" or "evil" for holding a different position as us, but that's not terribly useful, now is it? All we're doing is creating walls that separate us, but in this case, it's not legal walls, but social walls. And they're created because we've been convinced that the things that make us different are the only and sole consideration when we assess our relative positions in the world.


And I believe that if you view yourself only in the context of the labels that others apply to you, you've already lost. And when we assume things about others based on their positions, we're pushing that failed viewpoint onto them as well and just make the problem worse. I'll ask you to assess yourself: Why would you think that someone who holds the position I do on this issue must not actually know very many gay people? Aren't you just assuming that I must adopt the same "us vs them" mentality? What I'm asking is for you (and others) to step out of that. Stop viewing people by their labels, or labeling them by their positions. Look at the actual people, their actual actions, and their actual positions instead.

When you do that, you'll find that people are a lot more alike then you've been taught to assume. You'll also find that most of the reasons you've held in your heart for holding this position or that position don't really make much sense anymore, but are also based on mostly false assumptions about not only other people, but yourself. You assume that you must support things you know and like, and oppose things you don't know or dislike. But that's just a continuation of the "stranger==bad" mentality. You're no better then the bigots who you (presumably) don't like. You've just chosen groups that you like to be bigoted about and assume that makes you better somehow...


I try to challenge people to step out of that mentality. But it's not easy. They're pretty firmly entrenched. Most people just can't step outside of their own personal perception of an issue. But I keep trying. :)