What's the fuss about same sex marriages?

the boston globe had an article yesterday about/interviewing Jesse Ventura, the inimitable ex-gov of MN who is teaching for a spell at Harvard (believe it or not).

i was amused by his comments regarding same-sex unions/marriage:

"Could someone please tell me how this will affect me? Come on, this is Harvard, folks. I came all the way out here to learn this?"

in my mind, this is the core issue. it's very unclear how this actually affects anybody other the couples seeking same-sex unions/marriages.

clearly it offends some folks' morals, but it doesn't seem to affect them in any financial or physical or other actual, measurable manner beyond the purely psychological and ideological.

the US Constitution protects free speech and the right to assemble both of which conjure up far more hateful and distasteful and immoral people and behavior than same-sex marraige (in my mind). i'd rather a constitutional amendment (if we must do one) to ban hate-mongers and racial-bashers and women-beaters. those seem to me to have far more deleterious effect (actual and potential) than same-sex unions. but that's just my opinion.

i think it is WILDLY unlikely that congress will actually act on this. the president can say what he likes, but at the end of the day, congress makes these decisions, not the president (for better or for worse).

doody.

 

imo, gays should get all legal rights afforded to straight marriages ie, insurance, inheritance, etc.

i do have problems with adoption though. i am strictly thinking of the child who may have an easier upbringing if raised by traditional parents. might be more comfortable with this if preference was given to straight couples.

i do think a gay adoption would be preferable to group home, foster parents, orphanage, etc.

 

Doody.

You are the man!! Short, concise, and on target. Who does it hurt, really? Offend and hurt are two wildly different things.

Wow, and you got deleterious into a sentence, too.

Dave

 

thanks dave . the benefit of a liberal arts education, i guess

this just popped on CNN:
http://us.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/TV/02/26/odonnell.ap/index.html

apparently, during Rosie O'Donnell's nasty legal battle and trial with the former publisher of Rosie magazine (right or wrong), the prosecution called to testify or subpoenaed her partner. because they're not protected by marital privilege, her partner had no choice (beyond jail for contempt of court) but to testify to everything even vaguely relevant that the two discussed.

you may or may not like the idea of same sex unions, but this behavior certainly turned my stomach - that a prosecutor would basically stoop to this level. i'm not surprised it happened, but i have to say i'm disgusted. regardless of your opinion on the topic, access to information like that isn't part of the intent of the constitution no matter how you slice it (imo).

doody.

 

Interesting find Doody. I guess that is how we could be affected. If we were prosecuting one unit of a gay couple, then we could inquire with the other. I'm not a big fan of Rosie, nor have I ever found her funny. But this article, she comes across very strong witted, and that I admire highly.

 

Did you not read the entire thing. I left all of it in there, so that you would see that there is a way out. Here let me put it up for you to read again.

1 Corinthians 6:11 And this is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit or our God.

Yes we are all born guilty of sin. But those that are forgiven have that sin wiped away.

 

Don't worry redhead, they are just big fans of all that is wrong with this country. I am by NO MEANS A BIBLE THUMPER !! But I will say this: I do not care what someone does in the privacy of their bedroom, COULD NOT CARE LESS as it effects me little. However, other than the fact that when I am in public with my wife, every bit a woman, and my child (demonstrating heterosexuality since he has often been referred to as a "mini-me"), how do I SHOVE my sexual preferences in anyone's face? I do not. It is a private issue best kept behind closed doors. I mean come on, my wife and I do things I'm sure 99.9% of you on this board would object to, or have never tried, or aren't interested in trying, but it FLOATS OUR BOAT!! But I do not tell anyone about it. I think the backlash against gays in this country was precipitated in the 70's and has progressively gotten worse because they have felt the need to "out" themselves. It became fashionable to "be gay" and I do not care what anyone says about prejudice, it is FASHIONABLE. For every gay-bashing incident, there is a Rosie, Melissa Etheridge, Ellen Degenerate, that uses their profile to further the gay cause, and that is what ENRAGES old fashioned, hard-working, meat and potatoes America. I think if there were not so many Gay Pride marches (a modern day Soddom and Gomorrah BTW), and "We're here/we're queer" banner wavers strutting through towns with their schvantzes flopping around, overly effeminate guys (Queer Eye for the Straight Guy)on TV and other such nonsense in the media, middle America would not care one bit and all these issues would fly quietly to passage UNDER the radar.

And Rob, before you say it, I have several gay friends including 2 sisters-in-law and they AGREE with me. I mean, why do we need "Queer as Folk" or the newest sign of the impending downfall of Western Civilization "The L Word" on TV? You are a lesbian, you like to eat at the Y, hey, I'm with ya', me too, God's greatest invention, but IT BEARS NO RELEVANCE on your day-to-day life ie. your ability to perform the functions of your job, your ability to be a productive, considerate member of society, etc. so WHY BRING IT UP? The gay pride/rights movement has created this backlash itself and then point the finger and say: "see what did we tell you?" Whatever happened to the only cogent doctrine Bill Clinton ever produced: don't ask - don't tell? Nobody cares if I like boys or girls, why should I care, or more importantly, why should it be RELEVANT what they like?

 

DRTAX, you are the Man!! Very interesting points. Surely there are some people in the US practicing polygamy. Maybe as time goes on, others will learn of it's advantages (Esp. financial). If I had 2 wives, we could all work, and have a 3 income household, or one could stay home and take care of the kids, but then we would still have a 2 income household. Maybe if I had enough working wives, I could stay at home all day and surf ferrarichat!!

As the polygamy movement gets bigger more and more people will be accepting of it. Many of us are already practicing serial polygamy. Lobbyists and activists will enter the fight. Soon, and IMHO, it is just a matter of time, polygamy will become legal.

While your suggestion about man/boy marriages is pretty unlikely due to age of consent rules, what about the situation where a 45yrold guy decides he wants to marry is 20 year old daugher, or the daugher of his brother...

Ultimately, there needs to be some standard of moral code. In the past, religion had set this standard. Now, however, it seems like most people no longer accept the authority of religion. So, what will set the new moral standard?

I have no clue.

Dom

 

Correct DOM.

1. I like the idea of letting the wive's work in order to free up time for ferrari chat
2. Don't kid yourself about so-called "age of consent" laws. NAMBLA (National Association of Man/Boy Love Association... yes this is FOR REAL) is currently engaged in litigation with the ACLU (the most putrid, vile, vitreolic piece of SHAT, hate America organization that exists today) acting on their behalf, to ban laws against adult males seducing teenage or younger boys and having sexual relationships with them. YES, THIS IS ALL TRUE !! NAMBLA believes it is their RIGHT (I am so sick of hearing that word bastardized and bantied about) to have sex with 8,9,10 year old boys and the government should not be able to stop them. Furthermore, they believe they have a Constitutional right to travel to foreign lands on "chicken hawk" expeditions and pick up young boys in Malaysia, Singapore, China, Central and Latin American countries, and adopt them and bring them back to the US for their own sex slaves. They claim there is nothing unatural or harmful about homosexual sex between grown men and children. WTF !!!

3. All this is occurring because the left wants to SECULARIZE this nation. You asked, if religion plays no role in determining what is moral and what is immoral conduct, then what or who will? The answer is .... NO ONE AND NOTHING !!! It will be a freakin' free-for-all where there is no right, no wrong. Hell, we're half way there now. BTW, in case anyone was wondering, I haven't set foot in a church since my mother passed away 3 years ago, and it was 12 years before that. I am no bible thumper. When you secularize EVERYTHING the moral quandries get washed away because gradually there is no right and wrong. There is no one to hold accountable for BAD behavior, and in the interests of EQUALITY we can neither "praise" someone for what the general consensus deems GOOD behavior. The further down the secularization road we travel, thanks to the ACLU and others, supposedly in the interests of "separation of church and state", the more blase we become about EVERYTHING, and eventually there is no longer any general consensus about ANYTHING !!!

I would hazard to guess most people on this board think NAMBLA's position is wrong....am I correct? Ok, well most of these jackasses quoting separation of church and state have never even read the Constitution. It does not say "Elimination of church FROM the state" The so-called intellectuals from the left know this and that is why they try to SECULARIZE everything..... we can't have a copy of the ten commandments in a government building...our school kids can't say the pledge of allegiance... Congress should not open their sessions with a prayer.... we need to remove "In God We Trust" from our money... blah, blah, blah. By slowly secularizing, eventually the NORM becomes not immoral, but rather AMMORAL, and then it's a short step from there to a total free-for-all.

 

Great post, and it directly relates to the topic at hand as well.

 

Thanks redhead, I thought so.

 

<<would hazard to guess most people on this board think NAMBLA's position is wrong....am I correct? Ok, well most of these jackasses quoting separation of church and state have never even read the Constitution. It does not say "Elimination of church FROM the state" The so-called intellectuals from the left know this and that is why they try to SECULARIZE everything..... we can't have a copy of the ten commandments in a government building...our school kids can't say the pledge of allegiance... Congress should not open their sessions with a prayer.... we need to remove "In God We Trust" from our money... blah, blah, blah. By slowly secularizing, eventually the NORM becomes not immoral, but rather AMMORAL, and then it's a short step from there to a total free-for-all.>>

Tifosi69, The US Constitution does not allow the US government to establish a religion. Subsequent rulings by the Federal courts have continuesly clarified the 1st amendment. Which God do you trust? Is it the Jesus? Is it the God of Moses? Maybe the God that NAMBLA members pray to?

I'm Catholic, go to church every Sunday and all Holidays, (went yesterday Ash Wednesday). I do NOT need the word God on my money, my government buildings in the pledge of allegence, or on my car.

The bible is for my moral guidance. The laws of the US are for my legal guidance. They are for two different concepts.

Now excuse me, I have to get back to the NAMBLA chat room

Bob

 

Hey, I'm glad to see some folks finally see the light. In the USA, we are no longer governed under a "Rule of God." I'm not saying that is good or bad. It is just a fact. What we have evolved into instead is a "Rule of Law."

The difference is that, for better or worse (sorry for the pun), the Rules of God are absolute. The Jewish and Mulism taboo against pork is just one example.

Rules of Law, on the other hand, are elastic. What was unthinkable yesterday can become the norm today. Take Porn as an example. Twenty years ago, no one would have ever thought that just about every pornographic act imaginable, and then some, would be freely available to anybody with access to a computer and a credit card. Not only is it out there, but apparently it is legal.

This is why I think we should move slowly on this issue. I see nothing wrong with allowing some type of civil union that gives same-sex couples what amounts to common-law martial rights and obligations. This would appy for benefit purposes, Social Security, and income tax.

However, I think we should stop short of calling it a marriage. This might seem to be mere semantics, but most cultural norms and taboos evolve for a reason. Perhaps the reasons for a particular taboo no longer apply, but before throwing 20,000 years of social evolution on the junk pile, we need to ponder the wisdom of such a move.

One last example: Why do you suppose that pre-martial sex has historically been a taboo and that monogamy is supposed to the norm? I wonder if an article that I read in the paper yesterday has anything to do with this issue. That is, they are predicting that maybe as high as 50% of people under 30 (or was it 50) will catch some type of STD. As the father of a 20 year old daughter, and 17 year old son, this brothers me greatly. As someone who came of age when universities were dispensing the Pill like candy, I can testify that the sexual revolution really did happen. Yep, there was a time when sex was safe and motorcycles were dangerous. But now that I'm a parent, what seemed so cool back then, doesn't look so cool anymore.

I understand that we can't put the cork back into the bottle. But, somehow we are going to have to use the Rule of Laws to replace some of the old Rules of God that have gotten us this far.

Dr "Not so cool anymore" Tax

 

I have NEWS for you, this IS a secular nation; as in: "shall make no laws regarding the establishment of religion". That is, it is the expressed intent of the CONSTITUTION to prevent the government from leaning towards one religion or another, or even away from all religions. Our government should not say anything for or against religion or religions. This leaves each and every person to make their own search and arrive at their own conslusions.

However, the constitution also prevents the govenrment from trampling the rights of the (certain groups of) people EVEN when a majority of the (voting) population want to tranple that group of people's constitutional rights under the equal protection clause.

Just as or collective societal conscience towards slavery, womens rights, racial discrimination have evolved during our short tenure as a nation, so shall sexual discrimination pass.

 

Freedom of religion does not mean freedom from religion. If not, open your wallet remove all bills with "In god we trust" on them and burn them.

This county was built on a foundation of religious convictions by people with religious convictions. They are impossible to replace. People have tried in other nations and they end up rulled by tyranical dictators.

Name one fundamentalist christain dictatorship...... For soem reason they just don't happen. Oddly enough freedom seems to flow from christianity over the last 300 years.

 

WRONG!! Read my above post, am I the only one that has read the Federalist Papers? You are right, the Establishment Clause was designed to prevent the favoritism of one religion over another, however, this is by NO MEANS a secular state. It is a predominately, like it or not, Christian nation with laws founded upon Christian principles, but not to the state-sanctioned EXCLUSION of other religions. My business partner is Jewish and we can all co-exist, get along and prosper, but you are deluding yourself if you think this is a PURE secular nation. If that were the case there would be NO reference to God on money, in Congress, in the OATH that EVERYONE must take in a court of law, in schools, etc. Again, as I stated earlier, everyone thinks ESTABLISHMENT means ELIMINATION and it simply does not.

 

So, you are on record as saying that people who worship Satan are somehow better than people who worship no god at all?

But notice that Druids, Wiccans, Mythrans, Pagans are all established religions. Are you saying these people worship a god just as worthy as yours? Or just that the government should not stake a stand on which of these gods that are worshipped are better than the others?

[QUTOE] ANY GOD IS BETTER THAN NO GOD.[/QUOTE]

Are you saying that people who worship a god that directs them to hatred, bigotry, murder, mayhem, and confiscation of property; are somehow better than the agnostic who just never bothered to worship any god whatsoever?

Or are you saying that your knowledge of gods is so limited that you don't know of any such gods?

 

Actually there was no reference to god on our money until 1953 or 1955 during the hallowed era of McCarthyism when we were in a cold war with those heathen comunists. In addition, the phrase "under god" was installed in the pledge of allegance in the same time period.

If you have a reason not to swear to a god or gods or a bible, there is an alternative oath that one can administered that is accepted just like the regular oath both in courts and in swearing in cerimonies.

 

Are you saying that people who worship a god that directs them to hatred, bigotry, murder, mayhem, and confiscation of property; are somehow better than the agnostic who just never bothered to worship any god whatsoever?

Or are you saying that your knowledge of gods is so limited that you don't know of any such gods?[/QUOTE]

I have been accused in the past of always profering the "straw man" argument but it has never been so succinctly expressed as here. Where did I say Satanists are better than someone who believes in no god? I DEFY you to extrapolate that from what I wrote. What I said was, as it pertains to the gradual erosion of ANY morality in this country, religious or otherwise, is BAD, any way you slice it. I have stated on NUMEROUS occasions I am a piss-poor devotee of my own religion and am by no means a so-called "Bible thumper" Nevertheless, taking religion out of it, I used the NAMBLA example to illustrate that secularizing, and by extension, making people who are devout feel BAD or ASHAMED about their devotion, only serves to make NOTHING wrong and EVERYTHING right. I am sure there are many agnostics and even atheists that agree NAMBLA members, along with the ACLU attorneys that support them, should be castrated, then KILLED. It is disgusting, and more importantly, that judgement has ZERO to do with religion, it's common sense. The problem with denying the existence or importance of religion is that those who CHOOSE to be devout, to whatever degree they deem appropriate, are now treated like THEY are the social pariah.

And I would hazard to guess my knowledge of religions far exceeds yours, any time you want to compare let me know. Did I say that "people who worship a god that directs them to hatred, bigotry, murder, mayhem, and confiscation of property; are somehow better than the agnostic who just never bothered to worship any god whatsoever?" No I did not. In fact you just made my point. The whole "crisis" we are seeing with Islam now as a result of 9/11 illustrates this. Muslims complain they are being discriminated against, profiled, etc. Well, history proves that, more often than not, fundamentalist terrorists who wish to do our nation and its citizens harm, are in fact Muslim. But because we have SECULARIZED our nation and become so PC we cannot do what is right and necessary to protect our own. I am going on a flight tomorrow and am dreading it because I know the WOP (me) is going to get anal probed in the interest of "fairness" while someone with a burkha will not. So what is the result, well I think we all know the answer to that. The agnostic is neither better nor worse than a Satanist. But that is a personal choice. We were talking about the effect of religion disappearing from the WHOLE of society in terms of religions affecting laws and societies norms.

And again incase anyone missed it: I AM NOT MORAL MAJORITY MEMBER, I don't even go to church any more, mostly out of laziness.

 

<<And again incase anyone missed it: I AM NOT MORAL MAJORITY MEMBER, I don't even go to church any more, mostly out of laziness.>>

Sadly, you're doomed to hell

 

Sorry Jim, looks like we are heading down this road again!!

 

Just joking!

 

I'm thinking of starting a tread of "What's the fuss about NAMBLA"!