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mygif

I just… how is this still an issue?

I don’t know. I seem to know more people who are gay or bi than I do who are heterosexual, so I’m sure I’m coming from a biased position, but I don’t think I know anyone who opposes gay marriage other than my grandfather. Can’t it just happen already? There’s so much other shit to argue about.

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mygif

It’s still an issue because there are still enough people out there who will vote against their economic interest to “keep them queers in their place”, and God knows the GOP needs people voting against their economic interest to stay alive. Simple as that.

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mygif

Listen to the clip all the way through and you’ll get a clue why some of us detest the practice of homeschooling; for a lot of parents (including some in my extended family), it’s a way to isolate their children from ideas or people who might contradict the parents’ own prejudices. I can only hope that this child’s future “career path” takes her out from under her parents’ thumb to allow her to eventually develop her own experiences.

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mygif

See, I pegged Crank as a pregnant teenage meth head in six years, and a born again “Emergency pregnancy councillor” in another six.

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mygif

The phrase “conventionally pretty” is funny.

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mygif
Mitchell Hundred said on February 2nd, 2012 at 11:59 pm

The thing that really bugs me about this is that she’s just parroting the lines that adult anti-gay marriage campaigners have been spouting since forever. I mean, the testimony from children of same-sex couples can be used to specifically refute the assertion that same-sex families are unwholesome in a way that no adult testimony can. But she brings no new perspective to the matter with her arguments beyond the fact that, as a child, she is cuter than an adult. So it’s like these people are trying to win this argument with emotional appeals rather than facts and logic, which saddens me even more.

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mygif

Dear Sarah,

I don’t want any more kids to get confused about what’s right and OK, either. But some of them get home-schooled by asshat hate-mongering bigots, so there’s not much hope for them.

Thankfully, my daughter is growing up in Canada, watches “Glee”, and knows that discrimination isn’t acceptable. She doesn’t remember a country in which gay people could not marry whom they would.

Of course, she doesn’t remember a world without Facebook and Youtube, either.

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mygif

Thankfully, my daughter is growing up in Canada, watches “Glee”,

CHILD ABUSE

CHIIIIIIIIIIILD ABUUUUUUUUUUSE

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mygif

The worst part is that this kid probably honestly believes she’s trying to be a good person because she trusts her parents so much.

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mygif

So if courts can change the definition of any word then they can make that “Santorum” thing official.

I have no problems with that.

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mygif

I choose to believe that in a few years she’ll be screaming at her parents for trying to tell her how to live her life, in a few more years she’ll be experimenting with her sexuality, and eventually she’ll be a healthy, well-adjusted individual with stories to tell about why this kind of parental pressure always backfires. Because I’m optimistic like that.

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mygif

And to add a whole new level to this steaming pile of FAIL: just before the section MGK quoted, the kid mentioned that it was her birthday and she wanted the politicians to vote against the bill as a birthday gift.

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mygif

“People have the choice to be gay, but I don’t want to be affected by their choice.”

Logic fail. Don’t want to marry a gay person? Don’t! And just like that, you’re not affected by their choice to tie the knot! Same thing with abortion. You’re pro-life? Great! Nobody’s going to make you get one! 🙂

But why do the people who want those things have to be ‘affected by your choice’?

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mygif
MonkeyWithTypewriter said on February 3rd, 2012 at 7:34 am

“An endorsement of traditional straight marriage as “special” and “wonderful” without bothering to explain why it is special or wonderful. A suggestion that homosexuality is wrong without bothering to explain why it is wrong.”

It just IS, okay? *STOMP*

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mygif

Actually, it’s pretty easy to see how same-sex marriage will destroy the traditional institution of marriage. Once we affirm that people can make their own choices instead of cowering before well-monied religious patriarchs, what’s to keep them from just enjoying their relationships and not worrying if they’ve finished their Good Life checklist?

It’ll be chaos, I say! CHAOS! The check list is HOLY!

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mygif

I ran across one anti whose argument was that Of Course it won’t destroy individual marriages–it will destroy the institution of marriage! And it will take a very long time so the fact people still get married in Massachusetts, etc. doesn’t mean it won’t eventually have consequences.
Bullshit, of course, but I give him credit for shifting the goal posts so far that nothing that happens can disprove him.

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mygif

From the title, I thought for sure this was the Before Watchmen rant.

Here’s mine:

http://sketchcardsaloon.wordpress.com/2012/02/01/before-watchmen-adam-hughes-did-sketch-cards/

Bring it on.

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mygif

Same here, Rian.

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mygif

Try this: replace the whole marriage issue in that rant with any other privilege argument or random topic. It doesn’t really change how pointless and meaningless the argument is.

I really feel bad for the kids who (don’t have a pony of their own).
or
I really don’t want to grow up in a world where (being middle class and white) isn’t such a special thing anymore.
or
If they can (remake Total Recall), then they could (remake any movie that I hold to be special).
or
People have the choice to (like Creed), but I don’t want to be affected by their choice.

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mygif

I want a Total Recall pony like Creed.

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mygif
auf_weiderzen said on February 3rd, 2012 at 2:12 pm

People have the choice to (like Creed), but I don’t want to be affected by their choice.

I misread that initially as “People have the choice to (follow a Creed), but I don’t want to be affected by their choice.” Which I think brings up an interesting point regarding Freedom of choice and religion. It is a classic debate and I lack the skills to articulate it, but it seems to me that the choice was made (more likely by her parents than her) to believe as they do and yet those of us here have to deal with their choice. Maybe I’m also pulling in the Surviving the World t-shirt “Individuals: We’re All in this Together”, but this seems to be point of the entire exercise of democracy and life as a whole. The ability to affect each others’ choices and hopefully optimize to a better place than we are now where these questions can be resolved (hopefully in favor of love over ability to breed).

So, while we all love to poke holes in arguments and poke fun at the silly religious people, just remember that education is better than labels and insults. (Yes, I am aware of the irony of that sentence.)

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mygif

I’ve been saying for a while that the point of these people’s argument, of most discrimination arguments for that matter, is that if everyone is allowed to have something, that diminishes its value to them. It’s not special any more if there aren’t people who aren’t allowed to have it. This kid is pretty close to just admitting that.

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mygif

Auf; I am one of those religious people, and I see what you say crystal clear. There is not one word anywhere in the guidelines given to me that I have any responsibility to make someone who does not agree to those guidelines to *act* as if they do, in any way.

In fact, if those screaming about traditional “Christian” values really took the time to look at study and absorb the actual values they purport to follow- The only madate given to those we live around is to treat them as we would have ourselves treated, or better.

This is a scary idea, if one takes the attitudes of the vocal slice of that particular group and then uses that particular measuring stick – is that how they want to see thier demograpic treated by others?

Note- I use the example of Christian values because most often the ones I hear screaming about teh ghey are, indeed, self proclaimed Christians. Sometimes I want to be able to summarily vote them off the island, but that’s against the guidelines too, so I try to step up where and when I can.

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mygif

The “traditional value” that Gay Marriage challenges is the idea that the woman is supposed to subordinate herself to her husband in all things. If two men (or two women) marry, which one is supposed to be the “surrendered wife”?

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mygif

Observer: aren’t you(or at least your church) supposed to acquire converts though? To make people that don’t agree to the guidelines eventually agree to them.

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mygif

I’m straight, married, and totally unconcerned about whether gay people can get married or not, just like I am unconcerned about abortion (I physically cannot have one, also, married to a Hispanic Catholic woman – abortion doesn’t exist) and gun control (I work in law enforcement, spent 6 years in the Army shooting some of the biggest guns out there, and I can live without automatic weapons). Don’t give a flying fuck about any of these topics.

All of which is to say, why do others give such a damn to where this ‘issue’ has political relevance? If you are a Christian, Muslim, Jew, whatever… and you are married, conservative, what have you… what bearing does gay marriage, gun control, and abortion have on your life? Is anyone forcing these issues upon you, the law abiding conservative? Ideas, I suppose, are scary.

The problem is, I figure, that the Left is too unfocused and fractured – you got the environmentalists, you got the LGBTs, you got this, you got that, and it appears none of them can get their shit together enough to become a powerful voting bloc. The conservatives at least can fall back on to some shared values – kill the poor, but save the babies; kill the fags, but let’s support infidelity, etc. Thus, across ideological lines, there is at least some common ground.

If the LGBT community and gay rights supporters could build bridges, and I guess, move closer to Center (maybe a PR campaign, hell, I don’t know), and build stronger ties with other liberal voting blocs, then the hypocritical Right wouldn’t be able to stomp all over their rights as easily as they do. Gay rights needs to be percieved as a legitimate cause, because right now, it’s not. Mainstream America needs to perceive gay rights just as legitimate as women’s rights, racial equality (such as it is), and every other liberal cause that has slowly become part of the American Idea. Do that, somehow, and you can fight back against conservative repression. Some might say that time has already come, but apparently, we’re still grappling with this issue, so it’s obviously not.

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mygif
highlyverbal said on February 5th, 2012 at 2:49 am

@ Sam: “The problem is, I figure, that the Left is too unfocused and fractured – (…) you got this, you got that”

Well, as you suggest, the “Left” is the side that has chosen tolerance. An immediate consequence is that perfect focus recedes out of grasp.

Staying on message has been the chief tool of conservatives for a couple of decades. At some point, monolithic messages will begin to be perceived as lacking nuance and reality. I think it may be as soon as Gen Text grows up.

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mygif

The problem with same sex marriage in America is that it’s already starting to infringe on people’s 1st amendment rights of freedom of religion. There was a professional photographer in Arizona who was fined by the government because they wouldn’t take a job at a gay commitment ceremony. Let’s not pretend what this is really all about. A tool the left can use to chip away at religious freedoms.

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mygif

Briareos-oh, please. What about the fact some people don’t practice a religion that forbids same sex marriage? Then others religious ideas are being forced on them

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mygif

Briareos – Let’s just change some of the wording in your example. We’ll remove “Christian” and replace it with “Some Religion.” We’ll remove “gay” and replace it with “any other minority group with an inborn trait.”
Now, let’s see how the story reads. “An Arizona photography company is being fined for refusing to do business with Any Minority Group With an Inborn Trait. They say that they cannot do so, because they are part of Some Religion.”
I believe their legal case was sealed by so very many anti-discrimination laws and lawsuits that came before. There is no way they could honestly have hoped to be able to do this. Whether you believe that forcing businesses to engage in commerce with minorities in general is a bad thing, that’s one conversation. To say that this is a valid argument based on religious beliefs alone? That’s just not do-able, and I honestly would hate to think that anyone in this country is so ignorant of major laws that they think it would be.

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mygif

@ Highlyverbal-“Well, as you suggest, the “Left” is the side that has chosen tolerance. An immediate consequence is that perfect focus recedes out of grasp.”

I agree, we have issues with tolerance on the left, even within the minority communities. Whether we want to acknowledge it as one of the many problems with the Prop 8 voting results in California (and there are so very many,) minorities were still a huge block that voted against tolerance and equality. I think that one example more than shows the validity of your statement that perfect focus is out of our grasp. So what about Sam’s suggestion of a PR campaign to bring all of the disparate groups together? I think this idea has some merit, but have no idea where one would begin to focus.

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mygif
highlyverbal said on February 7th, 2012 at 1:03 pm

@ Jack: “So what about Sam’s suggestion of a PR campaign to bring all of the disparate groups together?”

Thank you for the great reply. I still harbor fundamental uncertainties that we (the “Left”) have the raw materials to convert our disparate and varied constituencies into an effective, larger whole. We may be stuck herding cats, forever.

But the larger context of this discussion is “base envy.” Libs see the effectiveness of a galvanized, monolithic, and gullible base for the conservatives and want a piece of the action. Thus, the wishful thinking about PR campaigns, etc. My suggested approach is from the other direction… make cultivating a monolithic base seem to be too political and calculating. In the 80s, Reagan (et al) made “liberal” a bad thing. In the new century, liberals need to make “staying on message” a bad thing. Diversity is sexy! Play to our strengths, not theirs.

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mygif
highlyverbal said on February 7th, 2012 at 1:06 pm

@ Briareos: “There was a professional photographer in Arizona who was fined by the government because they wouldn’t take a job at a gay commitment ceremony.”

Citation, please. Your layperson assertions (that this incident hurts religious freedom) will require greater scrutiny. The religious have cried wolf just a bit too often for this to be swallowed uncritically.

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mygif

@Highlyverbal, regarding the story Briareos brings up, there was indeed a woman in Arizona who was sued and fined because she refused to take a job photographing a same-sex wedding.
Two lesbians were having a commitment ceremony and called the photographer. The photographer said “I’m sorry, I don’t do same-sex weddings. It conflicts with my religion,” and ended the phone call.
The person she turned down sued her on grounds that the company was practicing discrimination and she had to pay a $7000 fine. It was upheld on appeal. The lawsuit was in New Mexico in 2008 (I believe…my memory on it is a little muddled…) It really did happen, and at first look, it really does look like a case of “OMG! You are trampling my religious freedoms!” Until you stop and consider that no, it really is just the type of discrimination on the part of businesses that’s been addressed and punished in countless lawsuits.

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mygif

Also @Highlyverbal. Thanks for the reply. It certainly runs with the idea of turning a perceived weakness on the part of the Left into something at least resembling an advantage. And I don’t necessarily disagree with the idea.

The problem I run into is the idea that if we don’t manage to somehow solidify the party around and get everyone supporting the different ideas on our side, we’ll all continue supporting our own “special interests” and continue to be better known as the party that can’t actually get anything done.

Of course, if the Right does the same thing, at least they won’t look as effective anymore.

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mygif
Jason Barnett said on February 8th, 2012 at 7:59 pm

I’m okay with the Arizona photographer being sued there, because I like it when people are punished for stupidity. All she had to say was I’m sorry I won’t be able to photograph your wedding and boom, she doesn’t get sued and she doesn’t go against her religion.

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mygif

Jason: She shouldn’t have to say she’s sorry. She did say that she wouldn’t be able to photograph their commitment ceremony and the gay couple went to some civil rights board that fined the photographer. That’s a clear violation of the 1st amendment.

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mygif
Candlejack said on February 11th, 2012 at 2:23 am

If she was a restaurant owner instead of a photographer, would you support her right to refuse service to gays? They’re both businesses, they should have pretty much the same rules on who they can turn away, and why.

Or what if her religous hang-up was about the mixing of the races, and she refused to photograph an interracial couple? Would you still be outraged that she was fined?

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mygif
highlyverbal said on February 12th, 2012 at 1:28 pm

“That’s a clear violation of the 1st amendment.”

Let me put it in terms that whiny drama queens can understand: I have founded a religion where business discrimination is against my religion. So if Arizona allowed the discrimination, it would violate MY 1st Amendment. You think my 1st Amendment rights are important, too, right?

See how easy that is?

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