Yet despite the often crushing realities of the world, people still want to believe. Isn't that why, amazingly, people are still watching "The Bachelor"? Isn't that why we New Yorkers were so jubilant this week, when gay and lesbian couples were able for the first time to exchange vows? Isn't that why campaigns selling "true love" get made? Because as much as everybody loves a happy ending, there's something almost unfairly seductive about the notion of a happy beginning -- and the expensive fantasy that a whole lovely lifetime could be lurking within one tiny blue box. (Mary Elizabeth Williams, “She’s the one”: the “She’s the one” director would like to sell you a ring,” Salon, 29 July 2011)
@_bigguns
There are no good arguments against gay marriage. They are all bullshit.
You can't argue that you're right because "marriage is between a man and a woman". There is no "marriage". There's no Magic Space Library on Jupiter where a Super Dictionary is kept in which words are universally defined throughout space and time. "Marriage" used to involve (and still does, in some parts of the world) a woman being handed over like property to a man who can treat her like garbage if he wants. Women in "traditional marriages" couldn't work, vote, inherit property, get divorced or even testify in court against him.
Look to the Middle East to see what marriage "is". It involves women being murdered to restore honor to her husband because she was raped.
If your definition of marriage is a religious one, then blow it out your ass. Our Founding Fathers probably made church and state separate at least partially because they knew how stupid, unsubstantiated and dangerous it was... they came from a country with an official state religion. Today's Tea Baggers would happily have an official religion today, as long as it was theirs, but we liberals have a more Enlightened view of the matter.
If you really think that the consciousness of the universe is in any way concerned about whether two people on Earth declaring their love for one another have different-looking peepees, then you're an idiot and you shouldn't vote. (Oh, noes! Gay people getting married! Now Jesus is all weepy!)
You can tell how evil and dishonest anti-gay-marriage spokespeople are, because they so regularly use dishonest arguments. They know that they're fighting for the right of the majority to oppress the minority, so what do they do? They talk about "activist judges" who want to "redefine marriage" by "legislating from the bench". Nothing is more disgusting than listening to right-wing pundit after right-wing pundit spew the EXACT SAME TALKING POINTS -- not because they're legitimate or even logical, but because they were crafted to be rhetorically effective. EVIL!
It's none of your business what genitalia two fiancees have. There's no defense of your assertion that you have the right to look inside my underpants on my wedding day. And if you can't see what my junk looks like, you can't tell what sex I am... so how do you even know it's a gay marriage? (Clavis)
@Clavis
You know, people who are opposed to safe, legal abortion use your same argument, i.e. "there is no argument FOR legalized abortion; it is always wrong".
Of course in your eyes, gay marriage is always right. But you are in a small minority of extremists.
There actually IS that "Magic Space Library" and it's called HISTORY, and throughout history, every culture and society, every era and regime and religion and nation, has recognized that MARRIAGE is between male and female. In the west, this has been ONE MAN, ONE WOMAN for thousands of years (before Christ, or Christianity, ever existed).
That people do bad things (rape women, then murder them in honor killings) does not equate to "marriage all bad". Most marriages are happy, functional and produce biological children and marriage is the very basis of human society.
By your logic, NO gay marriage will ever be bad, and no gay married people will ever fight, abuse each other, lie or cheat. That is pure nonsense; read up on the Jenkins-Miller split (a lesbian couple in a civil union, and the nastiest divorce/custody I've read about in years).
Not only do Tea Baggers NOT have a official religion, but I AM NOT A TEA BAGGER. It is not just Tea Baggers who oppose gay marriage or how would Prop 8 have passed with a clear margin of victory? Tea Partiers are maybe 30% of the REPUBLICAN party. (I am a Democrat.)
So, let me ask you: is the consciousness of the universe concerned about whether a brother and sister marry? How about if you wanted to marry your own grandmother? How about if you wanted to marry an underage child? How about if you wanted to marry YOUR DOG?
I mean, you just said that THE UNIVERSE does not care if "your pee-pees are the same or different". So surely the universe does not care if you marry a dog, or a dolphin, or your own father.
The fact is, there are RULES about who you can marry and how and why, because without RULES, you'd have CHAOS.
The fact is, those talking points ARE TRUE. Lefty social engineering judges and courts DO want to redefine society for themselves, or their friends, or their kids, or whoever is pressuring them, or get votes or big Wall Street money. It's important enough that Wall Street BRIBED -- openly BRIBED -- the New York legislature and NOBODY even cares. It's important enough that they blackmailed and coerced legislators to vote against their constituents.
That's evil.
Also: I can tell a man from a woman without "looking in their underpants". For starters, there is common sense. Then there is DNA. Then there is your various ID forms (birth certificate, driver's license) that ANYONE needs to get a marriage license.
Surely if genitalia does not matter, then species does not matter. Kinship does not matter. Age does not matter. The fact is, Clavis, what you promote is chaos and anarchy.
bigguns (Laurie Laurel)
There were an estimated 500,000 people who marched in or attended New York's gay pride parade the weekend gay marriage was passed here, so I don't think anyone is too concerned about the 10,000 homophobes you managed to round up.
You're eventually going to need to get your fat head around the fact that, whatever nonsense you may think about national polls, you are most definitely a minority view in New York...and shrinking all the time. Which is what was properly reflected in ALL of the news coverage I watched on this. Largely jubilant and celebratory with occasional mention made of the MINORITY view against gay marriage.
There was plenty of news coverage of the homophobes BEFORE the vote, by the way, pretty much equal time with pro-marriage equality protesters (including endless nonsense from the Catholic Church). And then what happened?? Oh yeah, you and they LOST, BIGTIME!!! So now the news coverage has moved on to the celebration, to the people whose lives have been improved by this. So moving on might not be a bad idea for you too.
I love the statement in your post that the duty of legislative leaders is to protect the jobs of their colleagues. That says volumes about how you think society should be run. He should have shut down the vote on a technicality, I suppose, rather than allow his members to vote their conscience as he did. You've complained about social engineering in prior posts. What kind of engineering would you have called "manufacturing" a defeat like that when all of the votes were clearly there for a victory??
I think your time would be better spent protecting that backwater of Ohio where you live from the ever increasing likelihood that gay marriage is coming there soon, than trying to carry your brand of hate across state lines to New York, where you've already lost. But suit yourself. (@rm2gro)
@rm2gro
I think a march with 10,000 people, on short notice, is significant. The piece I quoted showed where the protest march was ignored, while pro-gay marriage activities and celebrations were given huge media attention; that's the POINT.
New York CITY is an outlier, because of its vast size, media industry/domination AND its huge gay sub-culture. The rest of New York State is completely different, and would likely have voted against gay marriage had they been given the right of referendum.
The right of referendum FOR THE PEOPLE is important, and New Yorkers have long lacked this right: here is an example of why denying people the right to referendum is dangerous and wrong.
Where you are naive is in not realizing that the media is MANIPULATING (or trying to manipulate) public opinion by focusing on gay marriage in New York, making it look glamorous, making the celebrations look fun or important and IGNORING THE OPPOSITION. Then, when New York Staters manage to overturn gay marriage, and invalidate all the bogus gay marriages (in a couple of years; it will be slow because of the lack of right to referendum), they will be screaming "haters!".
Also: the vote squeaked through -- EVEN WITH BLACKMAIL AND COERCION -- by a couple of votes. That's not a landslide, and we did not lose "big time". (Actually I did not lose at all, since I don't live in New York State.)
When Prop 8 WON by a similar margin, did you say "they won BIG TIME" or did you scream "it was only by a few ten thousand votes, so it hardly even counts!"? You twist the truth to your own agenda.
Nobody's life is "improved" by gay marriage; the lives of tens of millions of ordinary straight married people is RUINED when their marriages are DEVALUED and REDEFINED as "super-duper best friends with benefits".
Rm2gro, I suggest you google and read the recent, very in-depth article that the NYTimes (very liberal and pro-gay marriage) did on the New York legislature and the vote.
They made it clear that legislators DID NOT vote their conscience -- they voted AGAINST their conscience, and AGAINST THEIR constituents to get the Big Wall Street money for their next campaigns (remember when you guys HATED Wall Street? And the Koch brothers? so now they are good????? hypocrites!). Or they were blackmailed and coerced like Carl Krueger, with false and humiliating accusations and daily protestors outside their HOMES calling them names.
What you want is to fight corruption in the government EXCEPT WHEN IT GOES YOUR WAY. You are the most dangerous and hypocritical kind of ideologue.
Again, I have not "lost" anything. IF I lived in New York State, however, I'd be working double time to make sure that my hypocritical, lying, cheating, double-dealing legislator would never be elected again -- or recall him/her if I could. Then I'd work to ensure that ALL New Yorkers had a right to referendum votes, to throw out evil social engineering legislation written by special interest groups for their own benefit. Then I'd get rid of Anthony Cuomo. But of course, I don't live in New York State.
What will you say when the REAL referendums OF THE PEOPLE in places like New Hampshire and Minnesota and Iowa DON'T GO YOUR WAY? I'll bet my last nickel, you'll be screaming that "they must be forced to accept gay marriage!" You don't really like democracy, rm2gro. (_bigguns)
@laurel/_bigguns -- the surplanting of gay marriage
I think a march with 10,000 people, on short notice, is significant.
I agree, it is significant.
Where you are naive is in not realizing that the media is MANIPULATING (or trying to manipulate) public opinion by focusing on gay marriage in New York, making it look glamorous, making the celebrations look fun or important and IGNORING THE OPPOSITION.
Making gay marriage seem glamorous and fun is hardly unambiguously doing it a favor: witness the reception of Sex and the City 3, with a consensus of critics saying "thanks for the party girls, but haven't you noticed -- it's going to be a bit harder these days to imagine ourselves enjoying your fun." Every ebulliant, victory-is-near-in-our-grasp gay pride parade, every voice that is jubilant at the inevitable country-wide spread of gay marriage, is unaware that right now it is being essentialized, setup, in a way that will serve it rather poorly in the future. Once the Tea Partiers go down and the conservative mindset can be adopted without risk of IDing its adopter as a neanderthal -- and rather as a sane middle-of-the-roader, as you present yourself -- all this dancing and jubilance will be reimagined, transformed by the public near instantly as beyond preposterous and more a disgrace. You're so affronted by all this, but you're actually getting the setup you'll need to get the society you want.
Nobody's life is "improved" by gay marriage; the lives of tens of millions of ordinary straight married people is RUINED when their marriages are DEVALUED and REDEFINED as "super-duper best friends with benefits".
Gay marriage is to you not just an affront, another middle finger raised at the millions of ordinary Americans, but something worse than cancerous as it instantly transforms, or rather, malforms every single marriage, which is actually something even worse than it appears, as:
[biological] marriage is the very basis of human society.
I continue to wonder how anyone who does not believe that homosexuals are in some way inferior to heterosexuals, could argue that when what they do in their relationships is surplanted onto what heterosexuals do the result is the worst possible thing to happen to a civilization: its dissolution in chaos, for having its bedrock, its essential structural support, crippled.
I have tried to make the case with you before that the surplanting of gay relationships onto heterosexuals ones (or at least marriage) is actually to the benefit of heterosexual marriage, in some sense, gives it a name, an association, it might live up to! This has nothing to do with what gay relationships are actually about (you've heard my hugely controversial take on that), but about true value of the progressive mindset that is broadcasting their supposed essence. Namely, that relationships do not reach a new height in binding themselves to a weight of tradition and rules, but are sundered by it, denied by it. Only the infantile so need society, expectations and rules to encourage them to do what is right, and you should never find value in a tradition that tells you that you are foremost untrustworthy, impulse-driven children in need of restraint and supervision. Adults manage it more autonomously, more independently, more beautifully, more truly.
Link: She’s the one (Salon)
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