posted
Some of them prefer that marriage law remain centered on its procreative aspects and fear dilution of that aspect of the law if the legal institution is opened to entire couples that don't contain both sexes necessary for reproduction.
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: That's been pointed out as an acceptable compromise by many people, although perhaps not specifically on this thread. It's important to realize though, that many people on the anti-gay side are in fact bigots and would not accept this solution . . .
Because of course no one could possibly be against civil unions unless they were a bigot. Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Gonademobe: Has anyone on either side pondered the idea of civil unions for all under the recognition of the government?
This would allow the Religious to keep their sanctity/tradition/values in place. (Because you can still get 'married' in a church and have it considered a marriage within your religion)
This would allow the government to be truly secular.
And this would allow the gay community to be recognized as a minority group with rights within the government.
This wouldnt hurt soul and completely gets rid of the arguments for both sides.....what are you thoughts?
That sounds nice, but what about the details? How would tax filing status work? Would civilly unioned couples be able to file jointly?
When a straight married couple has a child, the husband is automatically considered the child's parent. Would this work as well for civil unions?
Anyway, it won't work. Because opponents of marriage equality want this to be unequal. I've run into plenty of non-religious and anti-religious folks who are just as homophobic as Fred Phelps.
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quote:Originally posted by Omega M.: In my ideal world I'd allow gay marriage. But I wonder if allowing any two people to marry in our current society would result in children being seen as an ever-smaller adjunct to marriage, resulting in underpopulation and neglect of the children that are born.
Basically, if the vast majority of people (gay or heterosexual) get married with the intention of having children somewhere along the line, I'm fine with gay marriage; I think any hypothetical deficiencies in the childhood experience caused by not growing up very close to a member of each sex can probably be worked around. I'm not keen on paying taxes just to help people validate their romantic love for each other, though.
Sounds reasonable to me. I assume that straight married couples who don't have children would also be a problem according to you?
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quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: Some of them prefer that marriage law remain centered on its procreative aspects and fear dilution of that aspect of the law if the legal institution is opened to entire couples that don't contain both sexes necessary for reproduction.
And yet they have no problem allowing infertile heterosexual couples to marry. That sort of makes their claim seem a bit questionable.
Maybe a fertility test should be required before issuing a marriage license. Or... oh, wait. My daughter managed to be born just fine, thank God, so fertility didn't seem to be an issue for my partner and myself.
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posted
starlisa- The civil union in MY world would have all the rights and benefits of marriage right now. I am simply just offering a name change to make people more comfortable in the religious realm.
Their issue is mostly a religious one...even if it is just about diluting the marriage system...and that change be changed in this way.
In my opinion this isnt that complicated......as a previous post stated before the majority really shouldnt have a say in minority rights unless (in my opinion) it incringes on theirs.
On being against civil unions: I just dont see how any self respecting human can be against civil unions...that doesnt mean you have to be FOR civil unions, just that you dont vote on the issue. It doesnt effect you.
on proving 'gayness': This will be a time old debate that will go on forever and all I can say is this. If you are gay and think its a choice...could you make the choice to have sex and fall in love with someone of your gender? If yes, then you aren't straight....SORRY! ;-)
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how would one prove their straight? you have relations with the opposite sex? maybe you're just in denial.
its not like gay people can't get kids. if you're a guy find a egg doner, if your a gal go to a sperm bank. the real issue is legalling making their partner a guardian of that kid.
as long as their are males and females, unless we evole to become asexual, unless you don't believe in evolution, then we'll be okay, if anything OVER population is more of an issue.
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quote:And yet they have no problem allowing infertile heterosexual couples to marry. That sort of makes their claim seem a bit questionable.
As I have stated previously in this thread, I don't buy the argument myself. BUT, there are particular legal rules about determining paternity that are very much tied to one-man, one woman. I think the problem can be handled by intelligently interpreting these exisiting laws (if not substituting DNA testing for them entirely; some legal scholars disagree.
Something else I've said before, many times: If you refuse to understand the reasons underlying opposition to gay marriage, you will never convince anyone to change their mind. If you assume the person whose mind you're trying to change is a bigot, you'll never change their minds.
quote:Maybe a fertility test should be required before issuing a marriage license. Or... oh, wait. My daughter managed to be born just fine, thank God, so fertility didn't seem to be an issue for my partner and myself.
This is specious from a legal point of view - we have lots of overinclusive laws. For those who think reproduction is the underlying central reason for having any societal recognition of marriage, this demarcation makes perfect sense, as there is no other 100% easily determinable marker for whether children are possible.
In fact, the reason I favor civil marriage for same sex couples is because I think it can be granted without interfering with the central functions of legal marriage that support the societal goal of orderly reproduction. Since the benefit can be extended at no cost to its legal functioning, I view it as discriminatory not to do so.
But there are two places to disagree with that reasoning: 1) that it won't interfere, and 2) that it would be discriminatory not to do so. Either or both clauses can be disagreed with on bigoted grounds or non-bigoted grounds.
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Well, it might be the case that allowing people to get married (and receive marriage benefits) before they have kids will make it easier for them to have kids; if so, we shouldn't worry too much about childless couples getting benefits for free. Encouraging couples to have kids is probably done least invasively by couples' friends and family.
I do get concerned when I hear so many people saying that they don't want to have kids because they're "too much hassle." They don't seem to realize that if everybody adopts their attitude the human race will disappear, as it already is in Europe. I hope gay marriage won't encourage the idea that children are an "optional extra," to be had only if they'll enhance the parents' lives.
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Dear me. People who think children are too much hassle - admittedly an eminently rational attitude - are a completely self-correcting problem. I don't know whether the trait is genetic or cultural; but in either case, it doesn't get passed on to children, and disappears. Poof!
In any case, the world is rather badly overpopulated; 1 billion would be entirely enough, really.
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posted
I'm not so much concerned that people won't have children but rather that societal structures exist to help raise them and promote their welfare once they exist.
My support for equal civil marriage rights for same sex couples is entirely contingent on my belief that extending these rights will not hurt the institution of marriage's ability to do that.
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Dear me. People who think children are too much hassle - admittedly an eminently rational attitude - are a completely self-correcting problem. I don't know whether the trait is genetic or cultural; but in either case, it doesn't get passed on to children, and disappears. Poof!
Unfortunately, I don't think that's the case. It's almost certainly cultural, and the "DNA" of culture is the media. TV, movies, music, literature... they have a far bigger impact on children these days than parents do. Tragically enough.
posted
rivka, You know, I would have figured that you would have more integrity and sense of shame than to follow Directive 27, but there you go.
Dag,
quote: If you refuse to understand the reasons underlying opposition to gay marriage, you will never convince anyone to change their mind. If you assume the person whose mind you're trying to change is a bigot, you'll never change their minds.
Yes, but part of understanding the reasons for the underlying opposition to gay marriage is acknowledging the large amount of bigotry and irrational prejudice that is out there. Assuming that a person, regardless of evidence, isn't a bigot will greatly hamper your ability to change their opinion and/or overcome their objections. I think the recent exchange on this thread (or OSC's columns and the reactions to them) has shown how far you can trust many people when they make claims about why they are against gay marriage and what they know about it.
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quote:They don't seem to realize that if everybody adopts their attitude the human race will disappear, as it already is in Europe.
I wasn't aware that the human race had disappeared from Europe. How shocking.
The idea that the birth rate is not keeping up with the death rate constitutes the vanishing of the human race is a silly one. Growing the population is not an unconditionally good thing, nor is it shrinking an unconditionally bad thing.
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: rivka, You know, I would have figured that you would have more integrity and sense of shame than to follow Directive 27, but there you go.
Trying to shame me, instead of owning your implication? Charming.
BTW, am I supposed to have any idea what Directive 27 is, or did you simply pull that out of thin air?
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It's the bit where, in order to counter the severe liability of there being many, many bigots on the anti-gay side, you blindly say that any statement the refers to bigots means that the person saying it believes that all anti-gay people are bigots. It's somehwat related to directive 26, where you say "I'm suprised that people who value tolerance are being so intolerant of people having a different opinion."
There is no such implication in what I said. I was suprised that you would be one of the people to pretend that there is. I always had more respect for you than that.
I said, quite clearly, that there were many people on the anti-gay side who were bigots who would not accept this comprimise. I was specifically pointing out that one of the main problems in resolving any gay issues is that there are a whole host of people who are anti-gay bigots.
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quote:Assuming that a person, regardless of evidence
I'm sorry, we're we talking about a person here? Or the best way to get equal civil marriage rights for same sex couples. I've convinced two very conservative people to change their minds on the issue using my method. How many people have you called a bigot that have changed their mind?
quote:I said, quite clearly, that there were many people on the anti-gay side who were bigots who would not accept this comprimise. I was specifically pointing out that one of the main problems in resolving any gay issues is that there are a whole host of people who are anti-gay bigots.
And one of the other main problems is the insistence of people on the other "side" in villifyig the opposition and thinking this will change their minds.
Squick, you have given the very clear impression here that anyone against civil unions is a bigot. You blithely dismiss motives that you think aren't consistent with your view of the enlightment as inappropriate ("You don't get to legislate off of your values") andinsist that only reasons that your standards for not offering equal civil marriage rights are acceptable.
If you want to be an effective voice in this debate, you need to understand this: There are people who honestly think that allowing gay marriage will harm society through a further dilution of moral standards. They believe, as did some of the best judicial minds of the last century, that preserving the moral standards of society in the face of a change is a legitimate function of the law. You disagree. But if you don't meet them on their grounds using their premise, you can't change their minds. This means you can convince either convince them that it won't lead to moral dilution, or you can convince them to change their more foundational premise to something closer to your (and mostly my) standard that identifiable harm to other people or society as a whole must exist before restricting people. But simply repeatedly stating or implying your premise and inisting that others' arguments satisfy it is not going to change their minds. Especially when you imply that those not advocating policy in accordance with your premise are acting from bigoted motives. And taking your posts here as a whole, you definitely imply that.
posted
No, no I don't Dag. That's what your mind wants to see, but I've been very clear that I don't think that all people who oppose gay issues are acting out of bigotry. Or did we not have this conversation? You, on the other hand, seem to think that there's a small, pretty much insignificant handful of them out there.
And, as I've said before (I think on this very thread), I agree that you don't change people's minds by calling them bigots. However, it is important to have people realize the extent of the bigotry out there and also to acknowledge that an effective argument will atually make bigotted people more bigotted. The way to change people's prejudice is not through reasoned argument, but through less diret manipulations of their environment. Failing changing their minds, you can at least get people to see them for what they are and greatly dimish the power they achieve by displaying their prejudices.
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"I'm sorry if people feel oppressed because they can't force other people to live the way they want them to, but I'm not going to say that they deserve to be taken seriously."
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Do you think that the argument that we should be able to lock people up for not following Christianity is an argument that is worthy of respect?
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But you have, in the past, on too many occasions, trotted out your little standby that making up rationales for policies is a hallmark of bigotry. So when you state or imply that people aren't letting on their real reasons for opposing a particular policy, in the context of a thread where you are also accusing people of bigotry, the implication is clear.
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Where did I say that, regarding the civil unions thing, that people's objections would all be answered by changing it to civil unions?
I was responding to the idea that introducing the "civil union" moniker for legal marriages would pretty much resolve all the problems people have with this issue with what I think was the greatest stumbling block to this, the large contignent of anti-gay bigots out there.
In the context of this thread, I've already taken exception to Directive 27 when you applied to crumudgeon and by extention to me by explaining that saying that there are bigots (a statement that people jumped on as displaying that I was too uncivil to talk with) means that I'm saying that they are all bigots, which I've repreatedly, here and in many other threads, said that I don't believe.
Just as in that case, what was said is that there are bigots and that they are a serious obstacle. There was no indication that I thought that anyone who wasn't satisfied with the name change was a bigot. And I've been very clear in the past that this is not how I think, or do you doubt that I can easily link to mulitple occasions where I've said that I don't believe all anti-gay people are bigots (some of them directly to you)?
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quote:Where did I say that, regarding the civil unions thing, that people's objections would all be answered by changing it to civil unions?
You didn't. Is this a random question?
quote:I was responding to the idea that introducing the "civil union" moniker for legal marriages would pretty much resolve all the problems people have with this issue with what I think was the greatest stumbling block to this, the large contignent of anti-gay bigots out there.
And I was pointing out the other major stumbling block to this idea:
quote:And one of the other main problems is the insistence of people on the other "side" in villifying the opposition and thinking this will change their minds.
posted
Dag, I'm sorry, what are you accusing me of again? From what I understood, you seemed to be saying that I was clearly impying that the people who wouldn't accept the civil union compromise are all bigots. That is the heart of what I'm being accused of, right?
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And I'm pointing out the other stumbling block, which is apologists who like to pretend that groups that they belong to don't have any bad points. You can't have a comprehensive discussion of gay issues without acknowledging the extremely large anti-gay prejudice that is out in our society. As I've repeatedly said, you don't change people's minds by calling them bigots, but the fact that there are bigots is an important part of the converstaion.
In a parallel track, check out the dialog I had with estavares. I was clearly not trying to change his mind (I highly doubt that this would be possible) and yet I believe that I accomplished some important stuff in this exchange. Were it just he and I, the converstaion would have little effect other than to reinforce his beliefs. However, (I hope) that wasn't the only effect here, because there are other people reading this thread besides the two of us and judging what is said.
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quote:I'm sorry, what are you accusing me of again? From what I understood, you seemed to be saying that I was clearly impying that the people who wouldn't accept the civil union compromise are all bigots. That is the heart of what I'm being accused of, right?
I'm saying that's the impression you've left. And it is - that's an almost indisuptable fact given that at least one person had that impression. Of course, you treated her possession of that impression as a dishonest, shameful, rhetorical tactic instead of an honest impression. And this is exactly the heart of why your posts give off that impression: because you don't just question, but pronounce final judgment on the motives of those who disagree with you.
What you're being accused of is being so caught up in your self-righteousness that you accuse one of the most honest people on this board of lacking integrity and a sense of shame. Of failing to see that you leave a swathe of insults in your wake.
quote:And I'm pointing out the other stumbling block, which is apologists who like to pretend that groups that they belong to don't have any bad points.
If I see any I'll let you know.
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posted
Dag, rivka posted dismissively and disrespectfully and followed the pattern that has been clearly laid out of claiming that any mention of bigots must be met with an accusation of "You're saying all people who disagree with you are bigots." which I was clearly not doing. I stand by my description of what she did.
If I'm wrong, then I guess I owe her an apology. Of course, rivka would also owe me an apology.
edit: Do you see yourself as not dripping with insults? Because that's not how you come across to me.
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posted
The very first thread I discussed this topic with you you accused me of accusing you of "saying all people who disagree with you are bigots" when I did no such thing. The closest I've come is in this thread, where I said that you give off the clear implication. In the first thread we talked about religion in, you accused me of accusing you of hating Christians (or religion, I can't remember which).
If you want to examine patterns in people misinterpreting or showing disrespect for others, buy a mirror.
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posted
I probably am dripping with insults - at you, that is, because you make a point of insulting me just about every time we interact. You show disdain for others, you make periodic pronouncements about how shallow Hatrack is, and you lie about what I've said on a fairly regular basis. You call our hosts names, you make outright pronouncements about the motives of others - pronouncements that are 100% wrong for the only case I can verify personally.
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And I don't have a particularly good impression of you either Dag. What do you hope to accomplish here?
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Well, there's always that mutual ignoring pact. If I wasn't worried about you misrepresenting me, I'd do it unilaterally. Since you can't seem to break yourself of the habit, I'm not sure.
What do I hope to accomplish here? Maybe for you to start treating people as if they were intelligent people who mean what they say instead of questioning their motives so often.
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posted
Dag, Where did I misrespresent you here or in the other threads you're breaking your previously declared "I'm going to ignore you." thing? I wasn't aware that I had done so.
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Do you think that the method you've chosen of convincing me is an effective one?
I'd be much more impressed if you admitted to the large number of anti-homosexual bigots out there or for example that the Catholic Church has made and continues to make major mistakes.
I don't think that people are generally scrupulously honest. I don't think that the majority of people have a lot of integrity, are free from prejudice, or are particularly difficult to manipulate. That doesn't fit with what I know about people. I don't trust people unless they give me a reason to. Even then I don't accept what they say without reservations. I don't have a rosy view of the world, even those parts of the world that belong to the same groups I do.
posted
Easiest example: The fact that I didn't say "I'm going to ignore you."
quote:I'd be much more impressed if you admitted to the large number of anti-homosexual bigots out there or for example that the Catholic Church has made and continues to make major mistakes.
Since I've admitted both those things before, forgive me if I don't believe you this time.
There's been at least three people, all generally considered reasonable, who have noted the general implications in your posts in this thread alone. You can insist you don't mean them. I even kind of believe you. But you keep making them.
quote: Even then I don't accept what they say without reservations.
Not surprising from someone who lies as a rhetorical tactic and is proud of it.
quote:I don't have a rosy view of the world, even those parts of the world that belong to the same groups I do.
And yet, somehow, you're going to figure out how to fix us all.
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Hey Squick, if you admit there are a bunch of narrow-minded, self-righteous hypocrites on your side, and accept without protest the implication that these character traits are somehow implicit in your opinions, then I think everyone will be even and we can all be friends Posts: 1539 | Registered: Jul 2004
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Geoff, I've never denied the first part. I'm not sure what this:
quote:accept without protest the implication that these character traits are somehow implicit in your opinions
means. I'd need you to explain it before I think I could agree to it.
How would that make us even, though? I've not seen people acknowledging the large amount anti-gay bigotry that is a major force behind this issue.
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Dag, I must have misunderstood you here, where you said
quote:I'll pretend you don't exist.
It's possible that this wasn't a firm resolution, given the somewhat ongoing nature there. It seemed so to me. Especially in light of you then ignoring me and then later where you appeared to be saying that replying to me involved breaking your own rule. I'd be curious as to what rule that was you were breaking then?
As far as I can tell, I didn't in any way misrepresent in the threads in which you are replying to me today. Again, could you point this out to me? I'd think that an accusation of lying would require some sort of support.
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posted
Geoff, Also, while I make it a practice of answering accusations of my misconduct even to the point where they become very tiresome, I'm not all that interested in them.
I think we've left off with me asking for a argument against gay marriage that doesn't rely on prejudice and/or appeals to religion or possibly a specific argument for how allowing gay marriage is going to destroy people's cultures. I've been asking these questions for 4 pages or so now and I've yet to get an answer, except one for from estavares that I found...unsatisfactory.
I'd also be willing to go into areas that you think are relevant if you could indicate what they ara.
posted
Yes, you said it was because I can't seem to stop misrepresenting you. And yet, I didn't do this in any of the cases where you came at me. Again, you came at me. I don't talk about you unless I'm talking to you.
Quoting it in context? I linked to the darn thing, which gives the full context. Weren't you resolved on a course of action of ignoring me after this? If not, what was the whole deal about "breaking your own rule" in responding to me?
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quote:Quoting it in context? I linked to the darn thing, which gives the full context.
Leaving out the part where the damn proposal was mutual ignoring - how the hell is that in context? The very sentence you partially quoted made it very clear that it was a MUTUAL thing I was proposing.
Why was I insisting on this? Because of the post immediately preceeding the one where I made the proposal, the one in which you misrepresented me.
That's why the proposal was mutual. That's why I can't safely ignore you. Because you've made it clear you won't not respond to my posts, and I can't trust you not to misrepresent me.
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posted
And yet, you came at me. I was neither talking about you nor in any way responding to something you said.
Again, you said you were going to ignore me. I said, sure, if you need to. You then did ignore me. Then, when you responded to me in the other thread, I thought you were pretty clear in that respondingto me was breaking the rule you had set for yourself. How then is me saying that you said you were ignoring me a mischaracterization?
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I'm also not clear as to how I was misrepresenting you in the preceding post to the proposed pact. I wasn't being particularly nice, but I don't see the misrepresentation.
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quote:I'd need you to explain it before I think I could agree to it.
Essentially, as Dagonee has shown, whether you explicitly intend it or not, your posts about "bigotry" seem to imply that people who hold certain opinions about gay marriage are implicitly sanctioning or promoting bigotry. Yet you expect people who hold such opinions to sit there and take it without responding to these implications.
So I was suggesting that, to be fair, you would need to similarly sit through implications that people with your opinion implicitly sanction narrow-mindedness, self-righteousness, etc, without protesting.
However, it seems to me that you would be hard-pressed to sit through just about ANYTHING without finding a way to protest about it
quote:I've been asking these questions for 4 pages or so now and I've yet to get an answer, except one for from estavares that I found...unsatisfactory.
If your standard of "getting an answer" requires that you be "satisfied" with it, despite the fact that you are completely intransigent when it comes to this issue, I submit that nothing I do will ever count as "giving you an answer".
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quote:Again, you said you were going to ignore me.
God gracious, can you actually read? I did not say I was going to ignore you. I said "So how about this - you pretend I don't exist, and I'll pretend you don't exist." A linked joint proposal. An offer to ignore you if you ignore me. You rejected the offer in the very next post.
The rule I was breaking was responding to you, not ignoring you. And it was my own rule, not the one discussed here. I would have liked to have been ignoring you.
quote:I'm also not clear as to how I was misrepresenting you in the preceding post to the proposed pact. I wasn't being particularly nice, but I don't see the misrepresentation.
The Crusades thing is an utter misrepresentation. And you know it.
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By the way, I find arguments by highly-aggressive arguers that "he attacked me first!" kind of funny, and not conducive to sympathy.
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posted
No I don't. You said that the Crusades was a case of people setting out to do good that resulted in evil. You said that right here. You took strong objection to my description of the Crusaders as bad peopel who set out ot do bad things. How is saying that you claimed they were pure at heart a misrepresentation? Weren't you saying they had extremely good intentions?
And, agin, I may have been wrong about you resolving to ignore me, but from you saying "Hey, let's mutually ignore each other." and me saying "Nah, you can ignore me if you want but I see no reason to ignore you." and then you ignoring me, I kinda thought that's what you were doing. Right now you still seem to be implying that you'd like to ignore me but can't because I'll say terrible things about you, but that doesn't fit with your behavior.
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I'm not saying that you attacked me first. I'm saying that you seem to be saying that the reason why you can't ignore me is that I'll be misrepresnting you and you'll not be able to defend yourself. However, you have clearly be responding to me in a completely non-defensive context. So, to me, saying that you'd ignore me except that I'd then misrepresent you doesn't seem to fit.
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What do you get out of this, Squick? You never seem to learn anything. Nothing anyone says ever seems to impact you in a positive way. People who discuss things with you either get attacked, get ignored, or get bored, but they never get through. Don't you ever tire of this conflict?
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quote: The crusaders, at least some of them, deceived themselves about what their purpose was and what they could accomplish. The specific evil they committed was based on the conditions of their society and beliefs. The fact they committed evil was based on their human nature.
Yep, you accurately summed this up, didn't you. </sarcasm>
For example, I said this:
quote:Their attempt was flawed because their understanding of good was flawed.
Having a flawed understanding of good is pretty much the opposite of "pure in heart."
I also said this:
quote:The execution of the Crusades was unjustifiable. The stopping to slaughter people was unjustifiable.
quote:Weren't you saying they had extremely good intentions?
Nope. I said:
quote:The Crusades were undertaken, at least by some participants, in order to accomplish what they saw as a great good. Yet they committed evil in doing so.
Their intentions were not good. They thought they were good. Which would be why I brought them up as an example of the proposition that "humanity's attempts to do good carry the capacity for evil." It's why I say "they intended good" rather than their intentions were good.
Of course, you know that even if I had said "they had good intentions" it would not mean the same as "they were pure in heart."
quote:I'm not saying that you attacked me first. I'm saying that you seem to be saying that the reason why you can't ignore me is that I'll be misrepresnting you and you'll not be able to defend yourself. However, you have clearly be responding to me in a completely non-defensive context. So, to me, saying that you'd ignore me except that I'd then misrepresent you doesn't seem to fit.
The benefit I get from ignoring you is not reading your posts. Being unable to do that, for reasons stated, means that I don't get the benefit.
Ignoring does not equal not responding to.
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Geoff, That's ridiculous. I've had plenty of illuminating conversations, some of them with Dags himself. I think you and I may have slipped one or two in there too. I have learned and taught a great dal at Hatrack.
What was I supposed to have learned during this thread? I could barely get you to actually speak to me. People kept on shooting the "tolerance" and "you're saying that everyone who disagrees with you" script arguments at me, estavares claimed a bunch of things that just weren't true and no one has yet to answer my request for arguemnts agasinst gay marriage or for specifically how this would destroy people's culture. Also, despite making a clear argument for gay marriage multiple times, I was told that no one made such an argument.
Where should I have handled things differently? You jumped on me for saying that there are a significant number of anti-gay bigots out there and didn't seem to me to want to respond to the epistemological distinction I was making between values that guide ones one life and values that are used to guide other peoples. I don't think you did answered any of my requests for information or clarification and you implied that you didn't even read the lengthy exchange o nthis subject I had with estavares.
What should I have done to have a productive conversation with you? This is an honest question. I would like to explore all of those issues but seemed unable to get you to do it. I would like to build and understand, but by that I mean actually build and understand and not just swallow assertions that, for example, the anti-gay bigots are not a significant force.
I do truely want to know why poeple fear that homosexual marriage will destroy their culture. I don't see this occuring. I'd also like to hear the arugments against homosexual marriage that don't rely on prejudice or appeals to religion. How do I get people to share them with me?
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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See Dag, to me, saying that they intended to do good is equivilent to saying that they were pure at heart. Wanting to do good but not knowing what it is is being pure but ingorant. And that's not what the Crusaders were. Nor did it seem, at least to me, to be your argument at the time. I took this to be that they intended to set out on a sacred quest to free the Holy Land, but ended up falling into doing evil. Whereas I was arguing that they set out having the slaughter of Jews and Muslims as a primary goal and then sucessfully slaughtered Jews and Muslims.
quote:The benefit I get from ignoring you is not reading your posts. Being unable to do that, for reasons stated, means that I don't get the benefit.
I don't talk about you in posts that aren't related to you. If you feel you need to set about the ornerous task to defend against that, set you mind at rest. I will not introduce you as a topic of conversation when I'm not talking directly to you. I never have and I never will.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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I vowed to stay away but when I saw the proliferation of posts I was silly and took a peek. I'm addicted! I NEED HELP!
Dagonee:
Don't get sucked up into this. I'm sorry, but Squicky is very, very manipulative. He's very good at this, and I'll admit it would have been a rip-roaring hootenanny to have met him during my college debate years. He does make me think, and that's always good.
But the problem here is like this––a guy comes up and slaps you on the head and when you say "Hey! Why did you hurt me?' he'll say "I never intended to hurt you, that was my way of saying hello, but if you can provide evidence as to my motives and/or current studies as to how head-slapping is, in actuality, abuse, then perhaps I might consider those findings."
And see, here's the funny part, because you CAN'T meet his criteria, because the rules keep changing! And he dismisses everything you say anyway, all because he disagrees with it! And if you doubt him, he'll infer you're a liar and an idiot when you don't dance like a monkey to his calliope!
Mwa ha ha ha ha haaaa!
It's helpful to review the definition of bigot, per Webster: "One blindly and obstinately devoted to a particular creed or party." In this regard, I think just about everyone fits the bill, both those against AND for gay marriage.
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: Dag, rivka posted dismissively and disrespectfully and followed the pattern that has been clearly laid out of claiming that any mention of bigots must be met with an accusation of "You're saying all people who disagree with you are bigots." which I was clearly not doing. I stand by my description of what she did.
If I'm wrong, then I guess I owe her an apology. Of course, rivka would also owe me an apology.
edit: Do you see yourself as not dripping with insults? Because that's not how you come across to me.
Gawd, I hate to break into such a slapstick discussion, but at the risk of making certain people blow blood vessels, I think it's clear that anyone who opposes equal standing under the law for gays and lesbians is, technically speaking, a bigot.
I generally don't use the term "bigot", because it's been so overused that it's become a general pejorative, like "fascist", which is just a thing to hurl at anyone who disagrees with you.
But according to dictionary.com, bigot means "One who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ."
How can you argue that this doesn't apply to someone who supports a situation in which my brother could marry my partner and have all the rights and responsibilities pertaining to marriage, but I can't do the same thing?
Sure, there are people who oppose gay marriage, and even civil unions, who aren't "bigots" in the sense of surly and obnoxious haters. I'm well aware of that. I don't think that all such people hate people like me. Far too many, perhaps, but definitely not all. Still, it's an unconscionable prejudice.
It is just plain wrong for people to try and force their personal religious beliefs into the laws of a country whose Constitution prohibits doing that kind of thing.
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If you would have no problem if I were to classify those who oppose legal protection for unborn children as bigots against the unborn, I can accept your usage.
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