BS: About Same-Sex Marriage

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Amos
Date: 24 Mar 04 - 10:53 PM

Rosebrook:

It is only some of each gender who think as you describe it.

A

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Rosebrook
Date: 24 Mar 04 - 10:45 PM

about the sex aspect...I have yet to understand why many men are erotically aroused by the fantasy of 2 women being sexual together, but want to enact laws prohibiting their union if they truly love and are commited to each other... what, it's okay for 2 women to have sex if it's for the benefit of a male fantasy but not for their own expression of love?

about the marriage aspect...there's a 50% divorce rate. What is this sacred institution that people think they need to protect from being "infiltrated" by gays? How are we going to wreck it for you?
~Rose

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 19 Mar 04 - 05:37 AM

katlaughing..not unbelievable. This is what is so worrying...xx..e

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Ben Dover
Date: 19 Mar 04 - 05:32 AM

Equal rights for hamsters!

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Blackcatter
Date: 18 Mar 04 - 11:29 PM

Hello all - I started a new thread on the subject:

Orlando, FL Unitarian Church action for Friday morning.

My church is going to be holding a consciousness-raising event Friday. See the new thread.

Blackcatter

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Amos
Date: 18 Mar 04 - 09:53 PM

On a more serious note, most of us missed the actual Scopes trial, but it looks like we'll get a rough equivalent at a second shot:

"Backlash


Tenn. County Wants to Charge Homosexuals
Associated Press - March 17, 2004

DAYTON, Tenn. (AP)- The county that was the site of the Scopes "Monkey Trial" over the teaching of evolution is asking lawmakers to amend state law so the county can charge homosexuals with crimes against nature.

The Rhea County commissioners approved the request 8-0 Tuesday.

Commissioner J.C. Fugate, who introduced the measure, also asked the county attorney to find a way to enact an ordinance banning homosexuals from living in the county.

"We need to keep them out of here," Fugate said.

The vote was denounced by Matt Nevels, president of the Chattanooga chapter of Parents, Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.

"That is the most farfetched idea put forth by any kind of public official," Nevels said. "I'm outraged."

Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites) struck down Texas' sodomy laws as a violation of adults' privacy.

Rhea County is one of the most conservative counties in Tennessee. It holds an annual festival commemorating the 1925 trial at which John T. Scopes was convicted of teaching evolution. The verdict was thrown out on a technicality. The trial became the subject of the play and movie "Inherit the Wind."
In 2002, a federal judge ruled unconstitutional the teaching of a Bible class in the public schools."

My mother registered black voters in Mississippi in the 60's; maybe my daughter's burden will be to organize   gay and lesbian voters in the 00's?. Hmmmmmm?

A

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: el ted
Date: 16 Mar 04 - 05:08 AM

Hamster curry! Now you're talking dave.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Sttaw Legend
Date: 16 Mar 04 - 04:01 AM

The meaning of the name BRENDA is: fiery hill, sword-blade. The origin is: Scandinavian, did she come over on a curry ship jOhn ?

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Ben Dover
Date: 16 Mar 04 - 03:22 AM

I think jOhn and Brenda are a little too busy with other at the moment Greg, He may come up for air in a couple of weeks.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: greg stephens
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 06:40 AM

JOhn from Hull
Congratulations to you and Brenda, this is really great news. You should have been on Radio 4 news this morning, they had an American Gay and Lesbian Spokesperson on. The interviewer repeatedly asked her about the very issues raised by your approaching happy event, and she flatly refused to answer the qiestions( which related to (a) brothers and (b) animals.) Now if you had been there, to give a personal view of very difficult moral issues, wouldnt the discussion have been much more illuminating?

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: katlaughing
Date: 13 Mar 04 - 12:59 AM

I heard a woman on NPR actually say she believed gay marriages would spell the demise of families as all procreative sex would go by the wayside. She went on to say that we can't possibly allow that because then all those other countries, such as Iraq, etc. would have more and mroe children than us and invade our country! She was completely sincere in the statement of her belief.

Unbelievable....

kat

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: ranger1
Date: 12 Mar 04 - 09:46 PM

jOhn, has Brenda been to church in the last three months? And how about some lovely pine shavings or some flavored chew sticks? What color would match the china pattern?

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: akenaton
Date: 12 Mar 04 - 03:23 PM

And I didnt say that you were the "sanctimonious arsehole".

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Amos
Date: 12 Mar 04 - 03:16 PM

Right, ake. Must drop you a note to find out if you'd be willing to share your inside access to the great plan, so I too can make pronouncements with the safety of insde knowledge. I didn't say you were a bigot for feeling whatever you feel when you imagine homosexual activity. I said your broadcasting of your "Ewww---yuck" response was unkind. And it is unkind, and insensitive.   And abusive in a way my harsh, explicit language will never be. Seeing as how homosexuals by and large leave you nicely alone, I'd like to see you at least endeavour to reciprocate instead of clanging your balls about in public.

A

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: akenaton
Date: 12 Mar 04 - 02:29 PM

Amos...Its not PC to use abusive language on Mudcat.
And just to put the record straight,I am a very broadminded person in most things.I have nothing against people doing whatever they want to each other in private,I just dont want to see it on my TV continually, or have some sanctimonious arsehole tell me its "really quite normal" and I must be a bigot if I feel disgusted by it.
Im a great supporter of the natural cycle and sex is a wonderful gift,but im afraid homosexuality to me is a perversion and not a part of the "Great plan"...Ake

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: GUEST,Judah
Date: 12 Mar 04 - 01:58 PM

I don't know who wrote this about the Earthquake of '06, but here goes in honor of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, who believe God punishes those who violate their (Pat and Jerry's) beliefs.



If God had meant to tame the town
For being over-frisky...
Then why'd he burn the First Church down
And leave McKelly's Whiskey?

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: pdq
Date: 12 Mar 04 - 01:02 PM

jOhn...sawdust may sound OK, but wouldn't you prefer rice hulls?

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: el ted
Date: 12 Mar 04 - 11:37 AM

Sure is, but we do it blindfold on motorbikes to make it a tad more interesting.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 12 Mar 04 - 11:31 AM

Bowling?, isent that for old blokes with flat hats?

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: el ted
Date: 12 Mar 04 - 11:29 AM

Rats!!! I am bowling that night. Is emma rugg playing there that night?

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 12 Mar 04 - 11:27 AM

it will be a civil ceremony, apparently to get married in a church, you both have to have attended the church for the last 3 months, and i didn't been to church for ages.

reception will be at The Lamp, Hull, wensday 17th.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: el ted
Date: 12 Mar 04 - 11:23 AM

How about a weeks holiday in Canada?

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Sttaw Legend
Date: 12 Mar 04 - 11:19 AM

We need to start thinking about a wedding present list for jOhn and Brenda.....bigger cage 3rd on the list after Guinness and sawdust

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Ben Dover
Date: 12 Mar 04 - 11:03 AM

hmmmm... I take Amos's last point, but wish it was all back in the closet. I would LOVE an invite to jOhn's wedding though.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Ben Dover
Date: 12 Mar 04 - 10:47 AM

jOhn,
    Make sure The Guardian newspaper covers your wedding, lots of photo's etc, and then in time I will have to accept your marriage as "normal" because Amos will tell me to. el ted PAY HEED!

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 12 Mar 04 - 10:38 AM

I'm going to marry my hamster, shes called Brenda, wedding is next week, bring appropriate presents, ie Guinness and sawdust.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Ben Dover
Date: 12 Mar 04 - 10:33 AM

OOh, he's gorgeous when he's angry isn't he.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Amos
Date: 12 Mar 04 - 10:24 AM

SueB:

Thanks for a dollop of reason and calm. I must apologize for letting the Philistinian tenor of these snideries get under my skin.

A

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Amos
Date: 12 Mar 04 - 08:40 AM

El Ted:

What I am blustering about is not so much poeple feeling queasy about it -- I used to feel really uneasy about it myself, back when -- but the ill-mannered hooliganisms that people give out with, the hobnailed attitudes with a complete lack of understanding or caring to understand about what they are speaking about. I am not looking for gay sites, thanks very much.    I am looking for ordinary signs of human compassion and intelligence. And I'm finidng far too few of them. Have a nice quease.

A

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Ben Dover
Date: 12 Mar 04 - 08:29 AM

My name is also my hobby!

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: el ted
Date: 12 Mar 04 - 07:49 AM

In case any of you are in any doubt, I am with bobjack and akenaton on this one. Amos, you bluster and puff all you want. A lot of people feel queasy on the subject of homosexuality. Why the hell put it on a music site? I'm sure you could find a Gay site to post onto if you looked hard enough.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Ben Dover
Date: 12 Mar 04 - 06:35 AM

errrh... with a name like mine maybe i shouldn't join in with this "debate"

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: GUEST,Patrick Fitzwilliams
Date: 12 Mar 04 - 06:21 AM

No no, it was by William Fitzpatrick.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: SueB
Date: 12 Mar 04 - 06:20 AM

Change is scary, Amos - I think that's why we're in such a reactionary period these days, politically, religiously, 'morally', what have you. The world seems to be changing at an accelerating rate, our definitions of just about everything are being challenged,
and some people are desperately trying to shove the genie back in the bottle, clinging desperately to nostalgia, digging their heels in and insisting on being dragged kicking and screaming into a new world, crawling into bed in a fetal position and dragging the covers over their heads, however you want to put it. I don't think it'll work, though - what is, is. There's no right and wrong in this matter, it's simply a fact: gay people exist (it doesn't matter how or why) and they want what everyone wants, to live happy and meaningful lives.

Everyone's idea of what makes for a happy and meaningful life is probably a little different, but to make a sweeping generalization,
security and a sense of 'connectedness' play a big part in it.

Whether it's true or not, a lot of people have the idea that the institution of marriage bestows on its adherents some measure of that security and sense of connectedness.

I'm not one of those people, myself - if marriage were irrevokable, then its benefits would be too, but it isn't. For me, the question is not whether we should allow same-sex marriage, but whether marriage will eventaully altogether lose its relevancy and what kind of social contract would it be replaced with?

Somebody way up at the top of this thread said something about it not mattering as long as the couple were consenting adults and not related by blood, and that struck me as funny, somehow - if your union can't produce offspring, then does it matter if you're related by blood? Lois McMasters Bujold wrote a novel called Ethan of Athos - Athos is a completely male society on a planet off the beaten track where the children are created in uterine replicators. The right to have a child is earned by accumulating credits based on your service to the community, and to have this child you must have entered into a contract with someone for the purpose of raising the child - you are the Primary Caregiver and your lover or partner is the Designated Alternate Caregiver, or something like that, but if you don't have a lover and you're eligible to have a child, you can enter into this contract with a male relative...

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Mar 04 - 04:33 AM

Can't recall the title but I believe it was by Patrick Fitzwilliams

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: el ted
Date: 12 Mar 04 - 03:47 AM

There was a rather good book published some years back that described homosexuality as being an 'abomination.' Can't quite recall the title, anybody else read it?

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: GUEST,a normal bloke
Date: 12 Mar 04 - 03:33 AM

I heard on the radio today that "same sex marriages" have been discontinued in America. A victory for common sense at last.Amos, stop pontificating on what is supposed to be a music site! Who the hell do you think is reading your preachy meulings? You are wasting your time.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: John P
Date: 12 Mar 04 - 01:27 AM

Bobjack, you wrote: "Ugh, ugh, yuk! Sorry, but I hope I never have to go a "gay" wedding. What's next? Is there any perversion you lot would not grow to eventually accept if the politically correct media pushed for it?"

Every gay person I know just wants to be left alone to live their lives. They can't do that, however, because perverts like you and Akenaton want to stick your noses into who they sleep with. Jeez, man, get your mind out of the gutter and stop worrying about other peoples' sex lives.

Why do you care if other people want to do things you consider perverted? In what way, exactly, does homosexuality have any effect on you or me? Can you really not see the difference between consenting adults minding their own business and "any perversion"? The ethical situation changes as soon as people make choices that effect other people: murder, theft, sex with children, slavery, and so forth, all hurt others. Are these the kind of perversions you're afraid we're going to embrace?

I'll ask you the same question I asked Cruiser earlier: If you think it's all right for you to talk about other peoples' sex lives, is it also OK for us to talk about yours? If not, how is this not hypocrisy on your part? Or is it just cowardice and bullying? Can you understand the raw selfishness of reserving legal rights to yoursef that you would deny to others?

On the subject of the PC media: I keep hearing people who are referred to as conservatives saying the media is left leaning. Many of us on the left, however, think most of the media is hopelessly conservative. Which probably means it's more or less in the middle, where it should be.

Oh yeah, one more thing. Obviously, you will never have to go to a gay wedding. Given that, why are you concerned about whether or not they take place?

John Peekstok

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Amos
Date: 12 Mar 04 - 12:51 AM

Strick,

I returned to your original post and I find you are right. You were talking about reversals by the Supremes. My apologies for getting revved up.


A

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Strick
Date: 12 Mar 04 - 12:23 AM

Amos, you're a few bricks shy of a full load on this one. Perhaps you could explain what you think is wrong? Calling a perfectly logical conclusion illogical doesn't exactly cut in this case.

Are you saying that the Supreme Court can only reverse rulings you disagree with?

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Amos
Date: 12 Mar 04 - 12:11 AM

Strick:

Calling illogic logical isn't gonna make it so. The issue of what te Supremes may or may not do was not the point. No sense thrashing in reverse, it won't make it so.

Tinker, I concur heartily with your analysis about repugnant manifestations.

A

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Tinker
Date: 11 Mar 04 - 09:21 PM

Okay, I know I'm coming in here late but I do have an interest in this one. You see as a practicing Miscegenationist for the past twenty plus years I absolutly know there are people who would still like to make my lifestyle illegal. I take this intolerence as a means of re-opening the need to pass a morality test to qualify for the rights and privledges of citizenship.

As for the "Yuck" factor... it's an arguement I expect from adolesents rather than adults. I remember having this discussion with a Coast Guard Cadet who was shocked to find out that young women might find some unwelcome advances by the opposite sex absolutely "yicky". Moral character and sexual preference are two distinctly different issues. Repugnent characters come in all persuations. The ability to make our own choices yeah or nay is the right and responsibility of each individual.

Just my two cents...

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Strick
Date: 11 Mar 04 - 09:13 PM

"Your answer is articulate but non-responsive. You insert a fallacy by instantiating "that should ALWAYS be left to the individuals involved" as including issues which don't qualify. Request the answer be stricken and deponent asked to respond, your Honor."

Sorry, Amos, the logical transition must have stumped you. The Supreme Court address Constitutional issues and, on occassion, goes back and reverses itself. Cases in involving individual liberties, including some addressed in the specific cases I refer to, are Constitutional issues. Therefore the Supreme Court can reverse itself on cases involving individual rights and has many times, including cases which set precedents I'm sure you take for granted.

Q.E.D.


Net, net? The Supreme Court can reverse itself anytime it wishes for whatever reason it wishes. The men and women in the black robes always call the shots.

Now that wasn't hard was it?

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Amos
Date: 11 Mar 04 - 08:05 PM

Ake:

I dunno who you think I am but I am not a high priest of any thing, and I find your smarmy attitude as annoying and evasive as you probably find my PC mumbo jumbo. So, without further adom let me put all th emumbojumbo aside and put it as plainly as I can.

Your prepubescent kneejerk abhorrence is   small-minded and intolerant and, for want of a better word, fockin' ignorant.

Well made point,. my royal butt. If you find it so indispensable to stand in judgement and condemnation over people about whom you obviosuly know nothing, why don't you go out and do a little Paki-bashing? Maybe you could really get in to the dramatization of lizard-brainitis. Roll a few fags, eh? There's a good lad.

A

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: akenaton
Date: 11 Mar 04 - 07:03 PM

Bobjack...Right all the way.
Instead of answering your well made point, you get handed a load of PC mumbo-jumbo from one of the high priests of Mudcat.
This forum is getting more like the "Ricki Lake Show" every day ...Ake

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Barry Finn
Date: 11 Mar 04 - 01:28 PM

If Bush contiues to push this amendment it's most likely, because of the amount of time it'll take, he won't be in office. How nice start a fire & let the next president put it out. He's pretty much keeping his MO the same. Religion & Government by the law of the land need to remain seperate. Regligious org can do as they please we all have the choice of which to join or not join depending on their beliefs. There is no choice of Government for an American citizen to join. Since when was the gov allowed into the bedrooms of it's people in order to decied which people or group should become 2nd class citizens & deny them of the same rights that other enjoy. We have been guilty of this & each time history views these acts it views it with shame. The peoples of the first nation, slavery, women's rights to vote, WW2's treatment of Japanese Americans & lately the treatment of Mid Eastern peoples. Now we toss in the rights of people of different sexual orientation from what's main stream. As to those here that find there sexual & emotional preferences different from there own check out yourselves first. Do you think you were born with a choice of what gender you choose love. Those that love their own gender have no more say in the matter than you or I or my son who did not chose to be born bi-polar. So where do we go from here? Create new Bedlams & Maudlins & return to the 18th century when it was so easy to deal with all these different people. If they're different they don't belong in "OUR" society & we can once again lock them all up. Pretty soon it'll come to be that those of us who don't have the same beliefs as the ruling majority will be spied upon, have their patriotism called into question & be treated as 2nd class citizens. Let's call for the creation of one Master Race that seemded to work the last time around, hindsight sucks if it doesn't help to develop any foresight the next time around.

It's almost like Bush is playing the race card.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Amos
Date: 11 Mar 04 - 12:29 PM

Strick:

Your answer is articulate but non-responsive. You insert a fallacy by instantiating "that should ALWAYS be left to the individuals involved" as including issues which don't qualify. Request the answer be stricken and deponent asked to respond, your Honor.

A

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Strick
Date: 11 Mar 04 - 12:26 PM

"Why should a new generation of justices on the Supreme Court be able to ban this, approve that, and play games with situations that should ALWAYS be left to the individuals involved?"

For the same reason that a new generation of judges of the Supreme Court was allowed reverse a number of rulings that had supported slavery, supported school segregation, prohibiting abortion, ruled income tax unconstitional and any number of things. A very wise Supreme Court justise once pointed out that sometimes the Court's rulings go further than they expect and must be reined in and sometimes, they're just plain wrong.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: GUEST,bobjack
Date: 11 Mar 04 - 12:16 PM

"up yours mate" ohh errh that sounds a bit gay!

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Amos
Date: 11 Mar 04 - 12:13 PM

Bobjack:

Up yours, mate. "Ugh ugh yuk" indeed. To recite an earlier complaint: "your adolescent callow and calloused "Ewwwghhhhwww" response is inhumane, barbaric and ineffective."

To make it quite clear, I am not homosexual, and I don't care whether your are one or not, explicitly or just latently. But I sure as hell don't see where you get off using words like perversion, measuring against a moral code rather than some scientific standard. Did someone appoint you Moral Arbiter of Others' Lives? Or is it just that your own life is so unconfrontable that you'd rather pass judgements elsewhere to avoid dealing with it? Or was this privlege a secret passed to you from God or someone, while others slept?

A

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Bobjack
Date: 11 Mar 04 - 11:19 AM

Ugh, ugh, yuk! Sorry, but I hope I never have to go a "gay" wedding. What's next? Is there any perversion you lot would not grow to eventually accept if the politically correct media pushed for it?

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Wolfgang
Date: 11 Mar 04 - 10:59 AM

A tiny, but only a tiny bit off topic:

BIOLOGY BEHIND HOMOSEXUALITY IN SHEEP, STUDY CONFIRMS

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Amos
Date: 10 Mar 04 - 11:15 PM

The other issue is that rights are not granted to the people by the Constitution -- only to the Federal government with the clear explicit caveat that rights NOT allocated tot he Federal government are reserved to the STates and the people individually.

It is unfortunate that too many decades of power mongers and idiots have gotten this key element of our consitutional strutcure backwards, believing that the Federal government should craft laws taking away rights not theirs to take.

A

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Mar 04 - 08:44 PM

but...how to set up the system so that a new..(and usually conservative) administration can't go back and abrogate (I think that's the word) rights that should not be debatable? How can the 'right' to an abortion be preserved in the face of potential court appointments by those opposed to it on some personal moral principle?

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: GUEST,guest fron NW
Date: 10 Mar 04 - 08:11 PM

"Ah, there's the rub. Not everyone agrees with that definition of rights..."

once again, exactly right. that's why we have a judicial branch of the government to interpret the meaning and latitude of those rights laid out in the constitution rather than having a majority vote on it. that's why this question must be decided in the courts and not according to social debate. the question is about rights that are granted by our constitution not what the majority of people think about it. there was a time when most people thought slavery was ok. it wasn't, even tho they thought it was. there was a time when women were considered chattel. they weren't, even if most people thought it was ok to deem them such. the courts exist to make these distinctions in an environment insulated from popular opinion and based on the constitution and the law.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Amos
Date: 10 Mar 04 - 07:58 PM

Bill:

As usual, incisive and succinct and to the very point. Well said.

A

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Mar 04 - 07:55 PM

John P. and guest from NW...your comments are VERY clear and hit the mark as well as I could say it!

" our constitution exists in large part to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority."....indeed!

I have been for some time now trying to properly frame a set of thoughts about certain rights and rules that should taken out of the latest "majority rules" controversy. Why should a new generation of justices on the Supreme Court be able to ban this, approve that, and play games with situations that should ALWAYS be left to the individuals involved? Abortion, sexual relationships, civil rights...etc. should never be pawns of media campaigns. If YOU don't like same sex relationships, fine--- don't have one..leave everyone else alone!

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: ranger1
Date: 10 Mar 04 - 06:36 PM

Been gone for a couple of days, but to get back to Cruiser's remark to me: did you know that the population at most risk for contracting HIV happens to be heterosexual women? I work in a doctor's office currently, and let me tell you, STD's are not even close to being the sole provenance of gays. If you're going to make sweeping statements, better back 'em up with facts and cite sources.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: pdq
Date: 10 Mar 04 - 04:57 PM

"Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same."
-- Oscar Wilde

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Strick
Date: 10 Mar 04 - 09:05 AM

"everyone is entitled to their views. everyone is NOT entitled to take away my or anyone else's rights because they don't like the way they have sex. rights are not subject to majority rule. according to our sacred documents they are inalienable and endowed by our creator."

Ah, there's the rub. Not everyone agrees with that definition of rights and, for many people (though not necessarily me), their creator had something different to say about that.

That's the problem with the current state of the culture wars, they've become entrenched stalemates because we no longer try to come to common terms for what we're discussing. We argue "the sky is blue!"/"the earth is brown!", reducing it to "blue!"/"brown!", back and forth, no longer even on the same page and at a loss for words that would allow us to discover it. Compromise becomes impossible. We're even to the point where we consider the opposing side inherently evil (at least that's the impression I got in another thread where some called called me conservative as if it were the most perjorative term -- my being "conservative" will come as a shock to some folks who view me as quite the opposite).

In the mid-term (not even the long run) civil unions will be the rule. The arguments against them are fairly silly but forces against using the word "marriage" are too strong. Sadly the process will drive us further apart. The extreme ends of the debate will set the tone as usual.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: catspaw49
Date: 09 Mar 04 - 09:51 PM

I am glad to have read this thread as it has changed my mind on the issue completely. Up to this point I have been against same sex marriages because I just didn't think they were healthy and probably led to a lot of fighting and ill will between the partners in the long run.

Now I have to admit that I thought a same sex marriage was one where the couple fucked the same way all the time and I'm still against that, but I don't give a shit if the couple are both males or both females. As far as I'm concerned they can both be aardvarks.....That's not a problem! Fucking in the same position every time, now that is a problem...or at least it would be for me...........

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: John P
Date: 09 Mar 04 - 09:31 PM

Ha, Guest from the NW, you were posting the same point I was making while I was composing it. I guess we're on the same page.

JP

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: John P
Date: 09 Mar 04 - 09:28 PM

Strick,
On the whole issue of whether or not Mrs. Grundy should have the right to define society, the big difference is that Amos is saying he doesn't have the right to tell others what to do, and Mrs. Grundy is saying she does. I categorically deny Mrs. Grundy, or George Bush, or Cruiser the right to have anything at all to say about who other people sleep with or marry legally, assuming the consenting adult caveats.

Of course the courts should define the issue. That's their job. It's a constitutional issue, and our constitution exists in large part to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority. So what if a majority of the populace doesn't think gay people should be able to get married? Does majority rule dictate what is right? Are demogogues to rule the day? Do you think Mississippi would ever have desegregated their schools if they weren't forced to by an "activist" court? Do you think lots of police departments would refrain from beating suspects and coercing confessions if the courts hadn't defined such behavior as unconstitutional -- and started throwing out convictions?

John Peekstok

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: GUEST,guest from NW
Date: 09 Mar 04 - 09:12 PM

"Government defines what an allowable marriage is..."

exactly. as pointed out earlier, government once defined marriage as man and his property(wife). times changed, the defination changed. women's human rights were recognized. at one time marriage between races was not included in the definition. times changed, equality of rights for all races were recognized, the definition changed. it is now time to recognize that rights are not compromised by sexual orientation.

"I disagree with you when you suggest that religion, culture, tradition or even personal feelings should not be
taken into account in defining what constitutes marriage. Everyone's entitled to their views however they came to them."

everyone is entitled to their views. everyone is NOT entitled to take away my or anyone else's rights because they don't like the way they have sex. rights are not subject to majority rule. according to our sacred documents they are inalienable and endowed by our creator.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: John P
Date: 09 Mar 04 - 09:07 PM

Guests,
Of course the issue is about equal protection under the law. Of course the issue is about Bush's desire to curry favor with the "moralistic" crowd and to distract us from real issues. How not? But the problem is that equal protection doesn't exist, and Bush is able to use the morals issue to his advantage, primarily becuase so many people are willing to think they should have anything to say about what other people do in bed. And so the debate moves to that corner. I don't have Bush on the other end of my computer. I do have people who apparently support him because they think they are in some way affected by other peoples' sex lives and desires to get married.

As for the polygamy thing, have any of you read "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" by Robert Heinlein? It describes a multi-generational pluralistic marraige that works and continues on into the future. I've always thought it made a lot of sense. But the real issue, of course, is that our society shouldn't presume to tell people how to live their lives.

John Peekstok

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Amos
Date: 09 Mar 04 - 07:45 PM

Let's define names, then.   Two people mutually stand and claim to support the other for the rest of their lives, share their values, share their property, share their name, be known as an indivisible couple, raise their children (natural or adopted) responsibly and care for each other as best they can.

As far as I can see this is a marriage.

If they're both named Nancy , it changeth nothing about the substance of the deal.

A

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Chief Chaos
Date: 09 Mar 04 - 07:43 PM

Yes we know that this is about equal protection under the law. Please don't belittle us just because we're trying to convers with the terms as introduced.

This is also a red herring thrown out to the public to distract us from the real issues:

The No-Job Recovery
The Weapons of Mass Dissappearance
The State of Intelligence (poetic license here)Agencies
Outsourcing of Jobs

As if this issue wasn't enough, the Health and Human Services secretary just launched his War on Obesity! Watch out for operation Buns of Steel and Shlock and Jaw coming to a fast food restaurant near you.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 09 Mar 04 - 07:34 PM

Seems to me a lot of this is about names.

Seems to be lots of people who wouldn't mind gay marriage if you'd just call it 'Civil Union.'

There's lots of emotion wrapped up in the word 'marriage.'

clint

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Mar 04 - 07:09 PM

Hooks? You wanna talk hooks? Well enough to satisfy most men. And then some.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Strick
Date: 09 Mar 04 - 07:07 PM

"How many hooks?"

How many do you want. We do custom orders for a small fee.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Peace
Date: 09 Mar 04 - 07:01 PM

Strick: It was I who asked the question about the hat rack. We get VERY lonely in Alberta. And I am a little pissed off because no one has had the decency to answer my question: How many hooks?

Rapaire: It's the sap in the maple that attracts the 'strange' ones. Real men use oak trees.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Strick
Date: 09 Mar 04 - 06:16 PM

Whistle Stop, the hatrack was an attempt a levity. I'm not sure how seriously I want my views taken, after all. It's nice to see you're consistent.

My main point was what I've stated here and else where. This is not about same-sex marriage, but a radical redefinition of marriage. Government defines what an allowable marriage is and society has determined little things like the legal age of consent and other aspects that limit it and infringe on people's rights.

I disagree with you when you suggest that religion, culture, tradition or even personal feelings should not be taken into account in defining what constitutes marriage. Everyone's entitled to their views however they came to them. It's the purpose of public debate to examine the issues and reach a consensus on how to deal with issues as a society.

What offends me most is anyone, whether right or left who thinks there's only one valid point of view and that opposing views are not worth considering. If you don't like the reason someone gives for their views, don't support them.

Dictating how society must be is hardly the sole provence of conservatives. It's wrong regardless of who tries to do it.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: artbrooks
Date: 09 Mar 04 - 04:14 PM

Simple answer - it should not.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Mar 04 - 04:14 PM

Actually Guest from NW, I tried pointing out quite some time ago in the thread that the constitutional amendment wasn't about sex, but about rights to the benefits and entitlements of the nation's citizenry, but everyone here proved us both wrong.

The current proposed constitutional amendment is ONLY about gay sex, because that is what the Republican party and fundamentalist Christians want the debate to be about.

Looks like they will win this one, hands down. The more people talk about gay sex, they never quite get around to talking about equal protection under the law, the wisdom of trying to amend the constitution to mandate personal behavior rather than limit government power, etc.

The Republicans and their Taliban wing one this one, hands down.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: GUEST,guest from NW
Date: 09 Mar 04 - 04:04 PM

all the baloney about hatracks, incest, polygamy, etc. is distraction from the real issue. EQUAL HUMAN RIGHTS UNDER THE LAW. there are plenty of legal distinctions made in the law about how rights are exercised, how one person's right should not infringe the other person's etc. but the basic right of equal protection under the law is what is at question here. all the other stuff is a coverup for homophobic bigotry. answer this question: why should sexual orientation be cause for denying a person equal protection under the law?

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: artbrooks
Date: 09 Mar 04 - 03:52 PM

I heard of a couple that habitually engaged in somewhat irregular sex, until he came down with gonorrhea of the big toe and she was diagnosed with athletes' vagina.....

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Rapparee
Date: 09 Mar 04 - 02:57 PM

Knew a guy who had an affair with a tree, a "hard" maple to be precise. They finally broke up after a windstorm. The guy suffered from arboreal warts and aphids for a long time thereafter, and he didn't even know that "his" tree had been infected. Sad, really.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: KateG
Date: 09 Mar 04 - 02:46 PM

Interesting thread. I confess Cruiser's squeamishness about certain sexual variations brought to mind the old W.C. Fields quip: Q "Is sex dirty?" A "Only if it's done right."

Let's face it, the question of "who will do what, and with what, and to whom" (to quote an old limerick) is intensely personal, and can only be decided by the participants.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: GUEST,Whistle Stop
Date: 09 Mar 04 - 01:56 PM

Strick, I'll take a pass on the hat rack discussion; greater minds than mine can weigh in on that one.

As for the other two, I was referring to sexual behavior when I used the phrase "consenting adults". Whether or not we should allow incestuous and/or polygamous marriages is a different (albeit related) question. I will confess that they make me uncomfortable, but I agree with you that my discomfort shouldn't be the determining factor, any more than someone else's discomfort with homosexual marriage should be the determining factor in addressing that question.

I would want to examine the legal aspects of your question before giving a definitive answer. Government's role in this question should be limited to the legal/contractual aspects, and any prohibition of these sorts of marriages should be based on identified legal wrongs that would result from allowing them. For example, while I am not an expert in contract law, I do know that a contract between two parties brings different considerations to bear than a contract involving multiple parties, which may have some bearing on the polygamy question (particularly when potential divorce, child support, and similar issues are considered). There may be some comparable considerations in weighing the question of incestuous marriages, along with the medical concerns others have already raised.

What I would NOT do is seek to prohibit these sorts of marriages based on religious, cultural or personal objections. These have no place in a country whose Constitution explicitly prohibits the passage of laws respecting one religion or another, and they also have no place in a country that proudly proclaims its multicultural character and its respect for individual rights.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Chief Chaos
Date: 09 Mar 04 - 12:33 PM

So they should have to take a test but we allow any simple minded idiots, as long as they are of legal age, and opposite sex, to marry and procreate till the cows come home. Sorry folks but I know too many people that should have "FORBIDDEN TO BREED" stamped across their drivers licenses.

By this I don't mean to insult anyone that is differently abled.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Amos
Date: 08 Mar 04 - 08:53 PM

The test could demonstrate that they know where the stick shift and the clutch are. Beyond that, what in particular?

A

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Peace
Date: 08 Mar 04 - 07:26 PM

OK, now you have my attention!

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Strick
Date: 08 Mar 04 - 07:22 PM

"A mahoghany hat rack. Polished within an inch of it's life. Gleaming and proud. And she has a sister."

Kinky, but I'm open minded.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Bill D
Date: 08 Mar 04 - 07:19 PM

I have pragmatic difficulties with 'most' incestuous and poly**** relationships, not 'moral' ones.....same with homosexual ones.
The parties (ALL parties) to such relationships should perhaps be required to take a test, vaguely like a driving exam, to show they undertsand the issues and agree to certain obligations. Then they should be left alone unless they violate the law(s)! (The SANE laws I am going to get passed!..*smile*)


but hatracks can't sign a contract.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Mar 04 - 06:34 PM

A mahoghany hat rack. Polished within an inch of it's life. Gleaming and proud. And she has a sister.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Strick
Date: 08 Mar 04 - 06:28 PM

"As for 'But who said you have more right to decide for society than Mrs. Grundy?' -- you're missing the point. I am not seeking such a right. I don't think such a right should exist, for me or anyone else, unless an issue of public health can be demonstrated."

But you've decided that public health is the only critera without asking anyone else. Who said you have the right to make that decision for society? Forcing the parameters of the conversation so that your logic seems inevitable to you is just as bad. That's the point in having a public debate, so all sides get heard. Then we have a process for changing society.

Pushing these changes through the courts is not the answer. If all social changes are forced to go through the courts, you'll just turn the battle into one of controlling the courts. The problem with that is that there's no social debate with the courts. It's BAM! here's what's going to be. Presidential elections won't be the only thing that's polarizing society, will it?

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Peace
Date: 08 Mar 04 - 06:19 PM

I'm from Canada; specifically, Alberta. Uh, could we go back to the hat rack thing again? How many hooks on it?

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Amos
Date: 08 Mar 04 - 03:16 PM

For example, if the Federal DOMA is struck down by the courts, the Federal anti-polygamy will inevitably follow.

I would like to see an actual study supporting the supposition that a polygamous family life is in some way harmful for children. I have no opinion about it being so or not, never having seen any data or observed such a situation myself. But if it is not, then I don't see why polygamy/polyandry should be disallowed by some mortalistic law. It is practiced much more widely than is generally acknowledged, and is no-one's business, unless it is harmful in some way. I can't think why having several moms or several dads in parallel should be any worse for a child than having them in serial, as is currently practiced widely. In fact I think having several would make for better support and more balanced learning, if they were basically rational folks... But I could be wrong.

As for "But who said you have more right to decide for society than Mrs. Grundy? " -- you're missing the point. I am not seeking such a right. I don't think such a right should exist, for me or anyone else, unless an issue of public health can be demonstrated.

A

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Mar 04 - 03:09 PM

Not natural?

I guess we should let the females bite our heads off and consume us after mating with them. This is natural behavior in a lot of species.

I guess we should let the females drive off us males after we reach a certain age and only let us back in to mate once a year or so. This is natural behavior in a lot of species.

I guess that we should all work like hell so that the alpha male and alpha female and their offspring survive while staying celebate ourselves, or try to get as many females to ourselves and protect our harems from interlopers, or just have females lay at the bottom of the stream while the males spread their seed all over the place and hope to get the female pregnant, all of the above are natural behavior in a lot of species.

And by the way, homosexual behavior is evident in primates, canines, cetations, and apparently there is at least one pair of homosexual penguins at the nat'l zoo.

Let's face it. The human species has to be about the most unatural of all. We hunt and kill for the fun of it (not just other animals but other humans as well). Mate for the fun of it. We're the only ones that play golf {shudder}.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Teresa
Date: 08 Mar 04 - 03:07 PM

Alanabit,

Just want to clarify that gay people raise children, too. Perhaps there is a child from a previous marriage, or a child is adopted by a couple or single person.

One guest has pointed out that sex is discussed before anything else ... constitutional or civil issues. Well, there is a reason for this. Perhaps our society is not ready to deal with this issue in a reasonable manner. Instead, it is an emotional issue, with all the attendand slights and taboos. Remember when mixed-race marriages were thought to be "unnatural"? :( The fight will simply have to continue.

judy Small sang a song called "Tears for the Widow" about a woman whose lesbian lover died of breast cancer. She can't even be called a widow. This song gets me every time I hear it.
Teresa

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Strick
Date: 08 Mar 04 - 02:54 PM

"3) Is a hat rack a consenting adult in your neck of the woods?"

Not really, but I was hoping to take out some life insurance...

"2) Polygamy? Why not, can not think of a reason against it if all parties are consensual. Could prove awkward benefit and legal wise, maybe those problems could be legislated against to accomodate the scenario"

A fairly managable issue since it's handled in other cultures and was handled in the US until the Federal government forced Utah to change its marriage laws.

"1) Could have medical implications if the relationship too close, this could be a valid reason not to legalise."

So the consenting adult thing only works for those who can't reproduce, not those who shouldn't? And recessive gene related birth defects are an issue for all couples. Should we reconsider marriage when it's know couples will have problems even if they aren't related?

Amos, Amos, you're right. But who said you have more right to decide for society than Mrs. Grundy? Remember the issue here is not limited to same-sex marriage. It will necessarily redefine marriage in ways we might not have considered. For example, if the Federal DOMA is struck down by the courts, the Federal anti-polygamy will inevitably follow.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Amos
Date: 08 Mar 04 - 02:49 PM

Hat racks have feelings too...don't they? Maybe I am wrong about that. Is having an affair with a hat rack a form of necrophilia? This is a hard one. That's why I am in favor of leaving it up to those involved. It's too hard for me to figure on from the outside.

Unless, of course, the human in question is taking advantage, in which case something should certainly be done! I am sure no-one will disagree with me about that!! :>))

A

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Mar 04 - 02:40 PM

1) Could have medical implications if the relationship too close, this could be a valid reason not to legalise.

2) Polygamy? Why not, can not think of a reason against it if all parties are consensual. Could prove awkward benefit and legal wise, maybe those problems could be legislated against to accomodate the scenario,

3) Is a hat rack a consenting adult in your neck of the woods?

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Amos
Date: 08 Mar 04 - 02:38 PM

You want to tell me why the notion of "society" allowing or not any private relationship is the proper province of anyone but some old Grundies who are just trying to suppress others? "Society"? Well, I'm one of the individuals who make up "society" and I say hell, no!



A

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Strick
Date: 08 Mar 04 - 02:30 PM

I'm interested in Whistle Stop's "consenting adult" guideline for this question. Solely on that criteria (and allowing no other morale issues expression), should society forbid the following kinds of marriage? Please explain why. Note that a bad personal reaction to any of these examples is not sufficient to forbid the marriage. Remember what Amos said: "... your adolescent callow and calloused "Ewwwghhhhwww" response is inhumane, barbaric and ineffective."

1) Assuming consenting adults, marriages that would otherwise be considered incestuous (you pick the relationship).

2) Marriages involving more than two consenting adults.

3) Marriage involving an adult and a hat rack.

Remember that according to this theory, government is not to define what is marriage, only to assign rights and responsibilities within in it.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Wolfgang
Date: 08 Mar 04 - 02:14 PM

I have been the same sex for 36 years and I'm married. Am I doin somthin unnatural ?

No, just because one particular human behaviour is quite rare doesn't make it unnatural. But that has been told by all the posters above with which I agree.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Mar 04 - 01:59 PM

I have been the same sex for 36 years and I'm married. Am I doin somthin unnatural ?

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: alanabit
Date: 08 Mar 04 - 01:48 PM

I think that in addition to saying, "Well said," to everything Amos, Bill D. and Whistle Stop have just written, I want to add that recognition of homosexual relationships is long overdue. I qualified an earlier statement by saying that I do not agree with every demand on the gay rights tick list. I left out some of the positives that have been too little proclaimed - even by gay people themselves.
We are (slowly) moving towards a time in which gay people will be able to live more openly and freely than ever before. It is in society's interest in general that they be able to live together, share housing, enjoy high double incomes in partnerships which have no children. It is also in society's interest that gay people are left in peace to develop without intimidation, spite or indifference from the rest of us. It important that they can live fulfilled, productive lives, because it is in our own interest that as many people as possible - gay or straight - do so. Gay rights are human rights - and they will inevitably prevail.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Amos
Date: 08 Mar 04 - 10:11 AM

Correction: if it was education it certainly was NOT education within the family

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: GUEST,Whistle Stop
Date: 08 Mar 04 - 10:03 AM

For me, the acceptability of sexual behavior begins and ends with the phrase "consenting adults". Within that framework, people have all sort of preferences, and it isn't up to me to declare which ones are acceptable and which ones aren't.

As for marriage, the government has no business getting involved in anything other than the legal aspects. It's all about legal rights and responsibilities, and I should have the same rights and responsibilities as any other citizen of the US, regardless of my choice of partners. It really isn't any more complicated than that.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Amos
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 11:04 PM

Well I have known people who come from completely straight families on both sides as far back as the stories reveal it, straight as arrows, as far as behaviour goes, who suddenly throw a gay scion. So it ain't just some culturasl shtick, and if its education it certainly was education within the family.

Can't say I know for certain why it goes one way or the other, but I suspect that intolerance just makes it more miserable and does nothing to "correct" it, anyway, if it needs correction, which I dispute. But even if it does, your adolescent callow and calloused "Ewwwghhhhwww" response is inhumane, barbaric and ineffective. I guess it depends, of course, on what effect you're really trying to dreate; if all you want is to be right in the eyes of the Old Club then you're probably right there. Let me add that the society of ancient Greece, often honored as the wellspring of all the best of Western thought, was entirely complaisant about the issue.

A

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Peace
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 08:29 PM

Giok: Just read your 'ballpark' post. Very good. LMAO.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Cruiser
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 08:20 PM

Guest: No aspirations to be James Dean, though to this day my hair is combed straight back like his.

Mrrzy: I also think it is prenatal, but both genetic and hormonal, especially concerning the over/under abundance of testosterone. The determination of sexual orientation is multifactorial.

Geneticist Matt Ridley {Quote}

"Nobody in science now believes that sexual orientation is caused by events in adolescence...Homosexuality is an early, probably prenatal and irreversible preference." {End Quote}

However, Dean Hamer could not conclusively find a "gay gene" (yet, in my opinion).

Dean Hamer & Peter Copeland "The Science of Desire: The Search for the Gay Gene & the Biology of Behavior", Simon & Schuster (1994)

Cruiser

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Mrrzy
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 07:04 PM

Don't confuse the innate with the genetic - the evidence is strongest that prenatal hormonal environment has the greatest influence on all aspects of gender, including whom you find sexy.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 07:02 PM

Akenaton you said: "gay culture" ouzes from every media orifice".

Has it never struck you that the reason for that is the majority of people are accepting of it? Which means thankfully your smallmindedness is a minority opinion.

And I bet Cruiser aspired to be James Dean.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Bill D
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 06:55 PM

"I too think homosexuality is repugnant,against nature and based on psychological problems." you 'think' so...but more & more evidence keeps coming in that says that it is usually NOT "against nature" nor "based on psychological problems", but is determined by genetics and random luck!... as to it being repugnant-- it sorta is to me too, so I don't do it...problem solved.

"PS At least folk music seems to be pretty clear of this scourge.
Just shows what well adjusted ,sensible hetros we are."

I see we don't travel in the same circles...I know quite a number of FINE folkies who happen to be homosexual.... we deal with it by singing with them, not by going to bed with them....problem solved.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: artbrooks
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 06:37 PM

But the same question keeps coming around. If John and Bill, or Mary and Jane (or John and Mary, for that matter), perform acts of loving, consentual sex with each other in the privacy of their own bedroom, is it anybody else's business? So you happen to find the specific act personally repugnant...why should you care? The issue isn't sex, it is marriage, a legal (not a religious) bond between two individuals that governs such diverse issues as income tax liabilities, child custody, end-of-life decision making and legacies. The sex act itself is legal in most jurisdictions, whether or not any individual's personal opinion is outraged, so why should the legal tie be banned? There are certainly still people in the US who are disgusted by the idea of cross-racial sex, but should we go back to forbidding interracial marriage?

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Peace
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 06:18 PM

Vaseline is also good for sex involving couples with kids. Smear it on the doorknobs of your bedrooms. Keeps the kids out.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: akenaton
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 06:10 PM

I must give my support to "cruiser"in this thread. He has had the courage to say what many of us feel about homosexuality, but are too intimidated by the politically correct "Gay"pressure group.
I too think homosexuality is repugnant,against nature and based on psychological problems.
Cruiser says the answer is to turn away and let the homosexuals get on with their lives,but unfortunatly this is getting harder and harder to achieve, as "gay culture " ouzes from every media orifice,
with all its nasty innuendo,like little boys behind the bike shed
and god help anyone who tries to stop them....Ake
PS At least folk music seems to be pretty clear of this scourge.
Just shows what well adjusted ,sensible hetros we are.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Peace
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 05:25 PM

Hey, pdq:

And ya knew what DA really was.

BM

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Metchosin
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 04:46 PM

sorry for the repetition Amos, I wandered away for a bit while you posted.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Metchosin
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 04:39 PM

by dictionary definition, it also means to tie two pieces of rope end to end, hence the expression "tying the knot". Nothing is specifically mentioned about the gender of each individual rope.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Amos
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 04:26 PM

Let's be clear about language. The American Heritage offers these meanings to the verb:


1a. To join as spouses by exchanging vows. b. To take as a spouse. c. To give in marriage. 2. To perform a marriage ceremony for: The rabbi married the couple. 3. To obtain by marriage: marry money. 4. Nautical To join (two ropes) end to end by interweaving their strands. 5. To unite in a close, usually permanent way: "His material marries the domestic and the exotic" (Clifton Fadiman).

INTRANSITIVE VERB:
1. To take a husband or wife; wed: They married in their twenties. 2. To combine or blend agreeably: Let the flavors marry overnight.

Of these, 1a, 1b, 1c, 2, 3, and 5 apply equally easily to same-sex as to hetero-sex ties. So does intransitive 2, but leave that aside.

It's pretty clear that the predominant definition is non-specific about gender.

A

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 03:55 PM

I've come into this thread rather late and I haven't read everything that's gone before, so apologies to anyone whose posts I may be repeating. I've no axe to grind about other peoples' sexuality - I don't want sex with another man but, if others do, that's fine (fine too if women want sex with other women). But I can't accept same-sex marriages for the simple reason that marriage is, by definition, a union between a man and a woman.

However I do feel that a form of formal commitment for homosexuals, male or female, should exist - it has to be right and proper that a partner should have the same rights as a husband or wife with regard to property, pensions et al. Just don't pretend it's marriage. That's like pretending a donkey's a horse.

Johnny :0)

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Metchosin
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 03:40 PM

and another odd fact, the oldest man in the world just died recently in Spain, I believe at age 114. Can you imagiune the savings society would have incurred if had smoked heavily, instead of moderately as he did and croaked atage sixty instead.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: pdq
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 03:38 PM

...how to tell if a person was really a cruiser...

1) They can identify every American-made car, from 1950-64, by its tail lights.
2) They know that "Barbara-Ann" was by the Regents, not The Beach Boys.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Metchosin
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 03:28 PM

myself, I object to society paying medical benefits for those that engage in self controllable risky sports such as skiing, snow and skateboarding, rock climbing etc.

In fact, recent results from a long term ongoing research project in Sweden have shown that those who adopt a "super" healthy lifestyle, obsessed with fittness and dietary modification, have a higher mortality rate than those who just carry on with the societal norm for fitness and diet.

jeez, its about time we stop paying the bills for harmful lifestyle choices embraced by those weirdo health nuts.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Cruiser
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 03:28 PM

Good one pdq.

John P: I respect your position and I just can't argue with you since we are diametrically opposed on this issue.

I believe that homosexuality is genetic based. That is why I would accept civil unions. Something like that is going to happen with my opposition or not. I must also accept that. I will just avoid the members of that lifestyle as I avoid being around drug users, etc...

Cruiser

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 03:25 PM

Guest 02:31, I suggest you re-read my post.
John

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: pdq
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 03:01 PM

...new definition...

"The 'good old days': When vasoline was something that went on your hair".

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Cruiser
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 02:59 PM

brucie,

I regret to say we have never met.

For me the hair groom was Brylcreem:
Brylcreem brylcreem brylcreem!
Brylcreem - a little dab'll do ya
Brylcreem - you look so debonair
Brylcreem - the girls will all pursue ya …
They love to get their fingers in your hair!

There was some other sticky Vaseline-type hair groom I used called Royal Crown Pomade. Yes, the big combs, sunglasses, and the tee shirt sleeves rolled up.

Man, I miss the 50s and 60s!

Cruiser

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 02:58 PM

I guess the fundamentalists will win this one no matter what. Why? Because everyone would rather talk about sex.

Since no one is doing a better job of defeating Dumbya in November than Dumbya himself, I congratulate Karl Rove on coming up with gay sex as an election issue.

Constitutional amendment? The economy? Unemployment up 33%? The war in where?

Who gives a flying fuck. Let's talk about the REAL issues, like men who prefer fucking men in the ass, men who prefer fucking women's vaginas, men who prefer fucking women's asses, and men who have no preference, and will fuck just about anything.

In fact, let's just make the election about why and how men like to fuck.

That will get Bush out.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: John P
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 02:42 PM

Cruiser,
On the "self controllable behaviors" that you say folks shouldn't engage in, do you really believe that gay people should spend thier lives celibate? Or are you one of those who still think that people can choose which sex to be attracted to? I invite you to remember back to when you were 13, or whenever it was that you first got turned on by girls. Do you really think there was any possibility of getting turned on by boys? Do you think anyone else had any more choice in the matter than you or I did?

John Peekstok

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: John P
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 02:36 PM

Cruiser, if my language was base and crude, how would you define this post, from you, from earlier in the thread:

"Rectums did not evolve as sexual organs. The transfer and insertion of a sexual organ from one end of the alimentary canal to the other is about as "distasteful" as possible, in addition to being very unsanitary. "

Deciding that I am being crude doesn't get you off the hook of explaining to me how your unnatural interest in other peoples' sex lives isn't perverted. Please explain.

John Peekstok

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Peace
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 02:34 PM

Cruiser,

We may have met if you're from Montreal. We may have been in the same 'gang'. That girls, cars, girls thing rang a bell. Especially the cars. And the girls. And the radio, especially the radio. And The Big Bopper (JP Richardson). And vaseline in the hair and combs ALWAYS available in a hip pocket. Yep.

Bruce M

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 02:31 PM

Which medical journals state that most STDs are as a result of homosexuality?

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Cruiser
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 02:08 PM

I am not for a constitutional amendment on marriage. Kerry and Edwards are against same sex marriage and prefer civil unions, as I do.

John P: Your language is a bit too base and crude for me to respond to. However, as I stated above: The impulse to engage in dysfunctional sexual behavior, either homosexual OR heterosexual, should be reasoned as unacceptable behavior.

ranger1: the harm comes from society paying the bills for any harmful lifestyle (the life expectancy/health stats for homosexuality and bisexuality are available in many medical journals).

I am against the homosexual lifestyle just I am against lifestyles involving drugs, smoking, alcohol use, and other self-controllable behaviors that cost societies time, energy, and funding that are better allocated to bettering those societies.

Alanabit: My nickname comes from the days in the 60's I spent crusin' (draggin') main steet in "souped-up" cars with a group of guys listening to "oldies" music and discussing girls, cars, and girls.

brucie: As usual, thanks for the laugh.

My main point for posting on this topic is there are people that are against same-sex marriage that do not base that decision on religious grounds. I knew that the opinions on this topic on this forum would be more liberal than mine, and I accept that.

Cruiser

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 01:27 PM

Well a couple of off the wall thought occur.
1 If as they say the quickest way to kill your sex life is to get married.
and
2 If as they say many homosexuals are very promiscuous
then

By allowing them to marry..

1 We cut down the amount of STDs
2 We reduce the sales of KY Jelly by at least 50%

Sell your shares, and buy a wedding ring!
John ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Amos
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 01:00 PM

Don't leave the Dred Scott decision out of your list of abominal legal flips, there, Guest. It wasn't a Consitututional item but the Supreme Court. to its eternal disgrace, published it.

I do like the 1916 proposal on acrts of war, but I must say I agree it doesn't belong in the Constitution. I think it is obviious that Bush is not the first politician to have an overly shallow understanding of what it is and why,

Baptist Taliban, aye!! Didn't they try that a couple of dozen times before?


A

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 12:10 PM

Of course, no one seems to know the history of proposed constitutional amendments on marriage either.

If everyone was made aware of the 1912 Anti-Miscegenation Marriage Amendment, they might think better of this latest attempt to enshrine bigotry in the constitution by "God fearing folk".

Only once has an amendment concerned a social issue marginal to the Constitution's framework of government and the citizen's relation to it. The 18th amendment, ratified in 1919, banned the sale of alcoholic beverages in the United States. Subsequent experience with constitutionally mandated sobriety showed the folly of writing marginal social values into the Constitution. Americans learned a lesson from that and revoked the 18th in a 21st amendment in 1933. Such basic values as the wrongfulness of murder or the immorality of prostitution aren't and shouldn't be embedded in constitutional amendments. Ordinary statutes do that work.

Some states burden their constitutions with all sorts of provisions to establish law on this or that. Alabama is the most notorious example. Adopted in 1901, Alabama's constitution has 287 Sections grouped into 17 Articles. Subsequently, the state has added 706 amendments to an already cumbersome document. The amendments intrude on local governance in hundreds of ways, from regulating bingo games in the town of Jasper to providing for the compensation of the Judge of Probate in Barbour County. As a result, Alabama's constitution is an embarrassment to the state.

The current race to protect traditional marriage is a conservative reaction to Lawrence v. Texas (the Supreme Court decision last June that struck down anti-sodomy laws as unconstitutional). Bastions of conservative opinion from the Vatican to National Review and the Family Research Council have joined the backlash.

There have been close to 10,000 amendments proposed in Congress since 1789, and only a fraction of a percentage of those receive enough support to actually go through the constitutional ratification process. The success rate of an amendment to become part of the Constitution is less than 1%. The following is a very limited list of some of those proposed amendments that never left the halls of Congress:

1876: An attempt to abolish the United States Senate

1876: The forbidding of religious leaders from occupying a governmental office or receiving federal funding

1878: An Executive Council of Three should replace the office of President

1893: Renaming this nation the "United States of the Earth"

1893: Abolishing the United States Army and Navy

1894: Acknowledging that the Constitution recognize God and Jesus Christ as the supreme authorities in human affairs.

1912: Making marriage between races illegal

1914: Finding divorce to be illegal

1916: All acts of war should be put to a national vote. Anyone voting yes has to register as a volunteer for service in the United States Army

1933: An attempt to limit the personal wealth to $1 million

1938: The forbidding of drunkenness in the United States and all of its territories

1947: The income tax maximum for an individual should not exceed 25%

1948: The right of citizens to segregate themselves from others

The above should give everyone a better historical rationale for why the current debate is happening. It's political, folks. Pure and simple pandering to the religious right, who would like nothing more than to ban the constitution and our civil rule of law, erase any separation of the Christian (sic) church and our national state, and enshrining the bible (which denomination's bible they would use is never made clear of course) as the new document of governance and rule of law. That way, we can be governed by a Baptist Taliban.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: John P
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 11:36 AM

The only perversion I see in the whole gay issue is in those who want to discuss -- and make decisions based on -- what other people are doing in bed. It's really kind of sick. I'm talking to you, Cruiser. You're a sick puppy, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself.

How 'bout this, Cruiser? If it's OK for you to talk about what other people do in bed, it must be OK for us to talk about what you do in bed. I'll pretend to be as sick as you for a minute. Are you married? Do you like to go down on your partner? Does she moan when you do? Do you do it face to face, or doggie style? Does she ever get on top? Do you ever put it in her mouth? Do you come in her mouth??!? Have you ever tied her up, or has she ever tied you up? What about "sexy" clothes? What's your favorite style of negligee? What's your wife's name? Is she as perverted as you? Do either of you have jobs where you come into contact with children? Do the parents of those children know how sick you are?

Please share with us the intimate details of your bedroom so we can try to understand the sick perversion you are advocating and participating in here.

John Peekstok

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 11:33 AM

Reading through the thread, I realize that most people posting here can't define what marriage is. Most here seem to be saying they believe marriage is a religious institution, and not a civil institution, a legal entity, or an economic unit.

Just a short thirty years ago, 75% of the adult population in the US was married. In 2004, only 51% of adults are married (and many of those marriages are not first or only marriages). Half of those marriages will end in divorce. That 51% is expected to decline to less than 50% before the next census, which will mean that less than half of the US households will be headed by a married couple. Yet, we are allowing the tyranny of an ideological, fanatical minority, to dictate who should receive and who should be denied basic benefits that married couples enjoy, like health insurance.

Should the government attempt to reverse the declining rate of marriage? Republicans and Democrats obviously thought so when they tripped over one another in 1996 to vote their approval on the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act. But the more important question is, why are we allowing religious minorities to undermine our citizenry's civil rights?

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: ranger1
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 11:32 AM

As a non-religious heterosexual in a domestic partnership, I feel that the institution of marriage is highly over-rated. However, if two people truly love one another and wish to tie the knot, hey, go for it. Just remember that it ought to be a life time commitment. I'm not saying I'm against divorce, my mother would be dead now if divorce weren't legal, but a lot of people jump into marriage blindly and end up divorced within 18 months. I don't feel that gender ought to be the issue. If, as Cruiser does, you feel that homosexuality is repugnant, well, look the other way! My question is: how is this really gonna affect you?

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Peace
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 11:28 AM

GUEST: That is an erudite, considered and definitive post with regard to this thread.

Yeah, what he/she said.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 11:07 AM

Perhaps I also should have said that the civil institution of marriage has nothing to do with sex or with love.

Marriage is about the state regulating legal relationships between people who may or may not have children in common, but do share property, benefits, and entitlements in common.

Civil marriage was never about love or sex. From it's inception (and from the current debate, it appears Americans need a lot of educating about the history of civil marriage), the institution of civil marriage has been about property, money, benefits, and entitlements. It is also true that marriage has been used, at various times throughout history, as a means of enforcing the moral code of the ruling elite that was in vogue at the time. In that regards, what the conservatives are doing with the gay marriage debate is nothing new. But their attempts to conflate marriage with their moral code of conduct simply can't work in the US, because too few people ascribe to their moral code.

So again, people need not allow themselves to be fooled about the debate about the sacredness/sanctity of heterosexual marriage. That isn't what this is about. This controversy is being fueled by the ruling elite, who wish to pre-empt the coming debate on universal health care, on universal education benefits, etc.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Rapparee
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 10:56 AM

Cruiser, whether I or you approve or disapprove of polygamy isn't going to stop the lawyer pursuing its legalization. Nor is it going to stop those who want to do it from doing it. Laws against speeding don't stop people from speeding, laws against murder have never stopped it.

Nor have I anywhere given my own opinions in the matter -- my opinions are my own and I haven't shared them. I'm a librarian, and I'm trained not to let my opinions in such discussions as this either show OR influence the data supplied (we give you the data, you make up your own mind).

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Peace
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 10:52 AM

Silly me. I thought we were discussing same-sex marriage.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Cruiser
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 10:37 AM

paddymac

We are discussing members of Phylum Cordata, Class IV Mammalia, Order IV Primates, Homo sapiens. We are not discussing Order I Monotremata (egg-laying mammals like the duckbill playtpus) or Class III Aves, Birds or any of the other cloacal vertebrates, including reptiles and fish.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: alanabit
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 10:32 AM

I will say Cruiser, that for one who is allegedly so opposed to homosexuality, you have chosen a pseudonym which is interesting.
Homosexuality is unnatural to me because I was not born homosexual. To homosexuals it is as natural as drinking, eating and breathing. What you do in your bedroom is none of my business and what gays do in theirs is none of yours.
I don't accept every item on the tick list of the gay rights agenda. I often get the impression that some of the attitude is based on the feeling that, "Our love is as good as yours". I don't think there is any great debate about that any more more. Gays won that argument years ago - and even most of those who don't feel overly sympathetic to gay rights usually take an approach of, "Live and let live." On the other hand, I don't agree with the tenet, "Our love is the same as yours." This is why I do not see gay marriage as being the same as heterosexual marriage. The latter has evolved over many years as much as to create certain priveleges for those who raise children as it has as a contract between men and women. We expect a considerable number of married people to have children and society gives them certain rights and responsibilities in the hope that a better environment for child raising will be created.
In principle, the basic argument for gay marriage, civil unions or whatever it's called is obviously reasonable. All partners, gay or straight, deserve the right to share property, nurse a sick partner, inherit property or grieve for a loved one.
Marriage is not what I want. (I live with my girlfriend and two small children). However, I respect the right of people to live as they wish (without harming others). As far as I can see, this is what the Californian gay marriage law has set out to do. Good luck to them.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Amos
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 10:17 AM

And what is the issue, then? Marriage between same-sex couples, right? It's not about sex directly but the noisy right are machinating pretty hard against the rights of others based on how they imagine they must have sex, just as friend Cruiser was doing. Why should the entitlements of civil marriage be denied homosexuals if not on the basis that they ARE homosexuals.

But even Bush isn't stupid enough to attack sexual conduct directly. This is as close as he could get. (If asked, he'd probably be tempted tp support a Consittutional amendment limiting thenumber of valid sexual positions. But he's not dumb enough to originate the idea.)

The man is incompetent.

A

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 10:07 AM

Marriage, as a civil institution, is not now, nor has it ever been about who the partners in the union are having sex with, or not.

The civil institution of marriage is about certain benefits and entitlements that are extended only to those whose relationship is legally recognized by the state.

Does anyone here understand that? This isn't about sex, it is about health insurance, legal rights involving guardianship of children, and of entitlement to benefits provided by the state, like the tax benefits for married couples.

This controversy isn't about sex, and who is having it with whom, or in what ways it is being done.

See? Not about sex.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: paddymac
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 10:06 AM

Cruiser - you might want to look up the word "cloaca."

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Amos
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 08:10 AM

Ain't natural? It's occurring in labs and factories? What does that mean, it ain't natural? As far as I know it happens in nature and is an aspect of human nature.

A

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 04:58 AM

Ballpark!!!! Brucie?
John

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 02:05 AM

Forbidding gay marriage won't make homosexuals turn heterosexual, any more than forbidding homosexual acts will.

Whether it's hereditary or not, whether it's pro-survival or not, for sure homo- or heterosexuality isn't anybody's conscious choice.

None of us chose our sexuality after carefully weighing all the possibilities.

Well, maybe Spock.

clint

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Peace
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 01:06 AM

I would ballpark a figure of 10% of the nation as being gay. I don't think the human race is in a difficulty with regard to replacing population as we older people die off.

PS That 10% figure is a flat ass guess.

BM

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: richlmo
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 12:50 AM

My personal opinion, and I know everyone has one...
If the Neanderthal were gay, I don't suppose we would be here ,would we?
It ain't natural!

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: GUEST,guest from NW
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 12:38 AM

"There are some behaviors that are unacceptable to me"

that's fine. there are some behaviors that are unacceptable to me too but i don't feel the need to amend the constitution to prohibit them or make laws against them if they are acts engaged in by consenting ADULTS (no underage red herrings or bestiality baloney) in their privacy. i don't see any reason to deny them equal protection under the law either. you know what i do if an act is unacceptable to me? i don't engage in it and i don't hang out with people that do. voila! the problem is solved.

"and no matter how I try to rationalize homosexuality it is
fundamentally dysfunctional."

according to you and not supported by scientific research. and i don't mean scientific research funded by the baptist church or pat robertson's "scientific" foundation.

"Rectums did not evolve as sexual organs"

neither did mouths but are used commonly by gays and straights in a sexual capacity. is oral sex also unacceptable in any capacity? there used to be laws against that too but society seems to have "evolved" beyond that.

here's my position. give all people equal rights under the law and mind your own damn bizness about what consenting adults do in the privacy of their bedroom. does that make me a "liberal"?

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 12:36 AM

I had a good friend in high school who despised "them queeries," and pursued lots of girls with considerable success. Met him a few years after school and he said he was having trouble "making it the first time" with women, and then he propositioned me.

Interesting, but not real surprising.

clint

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Amos
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 12:00 AM

Rectums, as you say, did not evolve as sexual organs. But I would hasten to add that they did not evolve, either, as legal organs, or religious organs, nor yet as moral organs -- but they don't seem to mind moving in those circles!

A

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Kim C
Date: 06 Mar 04 - 11:57 PM

If they're all over 18 and not related by blood, I personally don't care how many people they marry or what sex they are. It's not my business.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: LadyJean
Date: 06 Mar 04 - 11:21 PM

I got the gay apocalypse from my sister today. I did not tell her that my only objections to gay marriage are her last two partners. I wouldn't have wanted either of them as an in-law.
Every sect has their own way of getting married and their own rules to govern it. Come to that every state has their own laws governing marriage. We might as well let gays spend too much money on a wedding only to divorce 18 months later.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Mar 04 - 09:55 PM

Conundrums of your life. Most of us don't spend any time puzzling over others choices.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Cruiser
Date: 06 Mar 04 - 09:42 PM

Amos, thanks for your frank response.

There are some behaviors that are unacceptable to me and no matter how I try to rationalize homosexuality it is fundamentally dysfunctional.

There is no real complete answer, right or wrong, on this and as I stated before, homosexuality is one of the great conundrums in life.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Amos
Date: 06 Mar 04 - 09:21 PM

Why do you think it is up to you to accept or not accept sexual arrangements not including you? No harm, no foul -- it is no business at law what people of homosexual bent do. To say that is is even MORE abhorrent than your imagined homosexual buggery. Does heterosexual buggery induce similar spasms of nausea on your part? I don't know anything about either one, but I see no reason to be so willing to impose your will on others.

As for the notion that there must be some standards, how about the standard of individual self-reliance? That's a good one!

A

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Cruiser
Date: 06 Mar 04 - 08:43 PM

What do you say Rapaire? Is that acceptable to you?

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Rapparee
Date: 06 Mar 04 - 08:40 PM

Cruiser, efforts to legalize polygamy are already underway.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Mar 04 - 08:40 PM

So because something isn't your idea of a good time makes it unacceptable? Glad you spell behavior without a U.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Cruiser
Date: 06 Mar 04 - 08:30 PM

Rectums did not evolve as sexual organs. The transfer and insertion of a sexual organ from one end of the alimentary canal to the other is about as "distasteful" as possible, in addition to being very unsanitary.

If that is not abhorrent then as Jim Stafford would say "Lucille, you and me got an altogether different idea about a real good time" (music connection)

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Mar 04 - 08:17 PM

How can something that has no bearing on your life be so abhorrent to you? What two people do in the privacy of their own bedroom is nobody elses business than their own.

I think that comparing it to underage marriage is a poor comparison. Two consenting adults are not exploiting anyone?

And if all parties in a polygamous relationship are also consenting I fail to see what is wrong with that. Live and let live.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Mar 04 - 08:15 PM

Actually, I think this is a good issue to be discussing during the election. The reason it is a good issue to discuss, is we can use it to draw attention to the need for universal health care.

One reason why gays and lesbians want legal recognition of their relationships is because in the US, unlike in other civilized nations, health care isn't provided to all, and insurance benefits are not extended to all members of a committed partnership household unless the couple is married.

Give everyone the same benefits, as the Danes do for instance, and the gay marriage controversy disappears as an issue. Because the Danes pay high taxes to receive their universal benefits (among some other more complex social reasons), their marriage rate has dropped pretty low. There isn't any reason legally to be married if benefits are extended to everyone, and not tied to one's marital status or relationship to a married couple.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Cruiser
Date: 06 Mar 04 - 08:09 PM

The sex act of two males together is particularly obnoxious. I am as irreligious as one can be, so homosexual behavior is not just disgusting to fundamentalist Christians alone.

I am against same sex marriage, but as I mentioned before, since there is no other fair alternative, civil unions should be allowed.

Homosexuality occurs in many mammals, but our species has evolved the ability to reason. The impulse to engage in dysfunctional sexual behavior, either homosexual or heterosexual, should be reasoned as unacceptable behavior.

What is next, Polygamy and underage marriage? There must be standards and limits to what society allows. As a heterosexual male, I don't carry out unacceptable behavior that society prohibits and my common sense, good judgment, and conscience reason is fundamentally wrong. Societal rules for sexual mores are there for good reason.

Cruiser

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Rapparee
Date: 06 Mar 04 - 07:43 PM

Actually, they're all quoting the old testament. I ain't yet found anything 'mongst the sayings of Jesus of Nazareth in the New Testament about same-sex stuff one way or the other.

(A friend used to point out that Jesus of Nazareth hung around with twelve other guys, his mother, and a reformed harlot. Hmmmm....)

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Chief Chaos
Date: 06 Mar 04 - 07:38 PM

Years ago Pat Robertson wrote the directors of Disney World that God would smite them for having a homosexual day at Disney World. Since that time the area has not suffered a hurricane or tornado. The area where Pat Robertson's CBN University resides, Virginia Beach, VA was hit last year by a hurricane and Georegie's state of Texas was visited by several tornadoes the other day.

I think God is trying to tell the self-righteous buggers something.
I don't think they'll listen though.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Gareth
Date: 06 Mar 04 - 07:24 PM

No, I would not marry a Ram (Male Sheep)

Joking aside - Click 'Ere

Well the fundementalists do say the follow the Bible

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Amos
Date: 06 Mar 04 - 07:08 PM

The big issue has nothing to do with marriage; it is Bush's frank willingness to trovialize the Constitution. It demonstrates more plainly than any attack by his enemies that he is deeply unqualified to hold his position.

A

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Frankham
Date: 06 Mar 04 - 06:28 PM

A big fat red herring designed by some Bush-ites to divert attention from the real problems we have in this country.

Marriage is not affected one way or another.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Amos
Date: 06 Mar 04 - 06:08 PM

I am coming to the conclusion that the Cat may not be ready fr a discussion of same sex marriage. By and large they haven't gotten thier arms around the opposite-sex variety, which is presumably a mor eintroductory grade...or should it be the other way around??

A

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Mar 04 - 05:38 PM

Whether it's called "marriage" or not is a matter of linguistic convention, rather like the kind of arguments we have about "what is folk". That shouldn't be confused with the argument about whether people ought to have the legal right to decide whom they wish to share their lives with, and property rights and all that stuff.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Art Thieme
Date: 06 Mar 04 - 05:26 PM

What will go down, will go down. It will or it will not be legal. At least, now we all know that there are gay people who WANT to get married. That is something I hadn't realized as well as I now do. For me, these days, it's all a fascinating panorama. Not only this issue but all of them. In Jerricho, Berlin, Israel (maybe), even China----walls come down--and then they go up.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 06 Mar 04 - 04:12 PM

I don't believe in same sex marriage. But then again, I don't believe in opposite sex marriage either.
John

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Midchuck
Date: 06 Mar 04 - 04:11 PM

I only hope that soon, this new tolerance and understanding will be extended to relationships that cross the cruel, arbitrary lines dividing one species from another, so that I and dear Petunia will be able to celebrate our love without fear or shame...

Peter.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Peace
Date: 06 Mar 04 - 03:32 PM

Well, ship captains can perform the service. So, if you got hitched in the chapel of the ship by the captain in the presence of G-D(ess) would you be married or matrimonialized? And if the ship sank, where would the survivors be buried, huh?

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Rapparee
Date: 06 Mar 04 - 03:05 PM

I don't see a problem: marriage is a religious institution, a sacrament in some churches, and the union itself is a civil matter (not a 'civil union' as it's used in the press). If a church forbids same-sex marriage, denying the blessings of that religion to those entering into a union, that's the church's business. If a state wants to allow unions between members of the same sex, that's a civil matter. We don't have to confuse the two, but we have.

Or, perhaps better yet, call the religious rites "matrimony" and the civil rites "marriage".

Now let's get back to the "render to Caesar/render to God" thing. Get hitched in a church, before God(ess), you're engaging in matrimony. Get hitched before a JP, judge, or the mayor, you're married.

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Amos
Date: 06 Mar 04 - 02:23 PM

Aw, Joe, I was afraid I'd trigger the cut, and justly too. But the rest of the article is even funnier, so I recommend to all to go to the link above.


A

Subject: RE: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Teresa
Date: 06 Mar 04 - 01:19 PM

LOL!

Ah wait ... folks have all stopped loving each other in their own bedrooms, because it is forbidden. Oh, and straight spouses don't deceive each other, either--not under any circumstances whatsoever. right? :> ;)

Jeeeeez, leave folks alone already, as long as they aren't harming anyone else. What is so frightening that it's impossible to understand your neighbor? The world is a sad place when we condemn first and say "howdy" (or something irrevocable) later. ...
Teresa

Subject: BS: About Same-Sex Marriage
From: Amos
Date: 06 Mar 04 - 12:57 PM

I find the following side-splittingly incisive.

A.

---

Where
Is My Gay Apocalypse? (Click for original article)

I have been waiting patiently.

I have been staring with great anticipation out the window of my
flat here in the heart of San Francisco, sighing heavily, waiting
for the riots and the plagues and the screaming monkeys and the
blistering rain of inescapable hellfire. I have my camera all ready
and everything.

There has been nothing. I see only some lovely trees and a stunning
blue sky and my neighbor walking by with her pair of matching chow
chows as a pained-looking woman struggles to parallel park her SUV.
Same old, same old.

And this is San Francisco, same-sex-marriage HQ,
Sodom-and-Gomorrahville, debauchery central. We are supposed to be
careening off the nice, safe road of social acceptability right
now, welcoming chaos, exploding into a fiery hell mist of our own
sick godless depravity and dropping off the disgusted planet any
minute now.

Where is my raging apocalypse? This is what I want to know. Where
is the social meltdown? The moral depravity? I was promised an
apocalypse, dammit. What am I supposed to do with all these tubs of
margarine and confetti and kazoos?

There have been more than 3,500 same-sex-marriage ceremonies in San
Francisco so far. Hundreds more are just now kicking up a storm in
Oregon and in beautifully rebellious little burgs around New York
state. And, yet, nothing. No chaos. No rain of terror. Not even a
lousy heat wave. Sigh.

---

Lengthy non-music copy-paste article deleted. follow the link for the rest of this article.
-Joe Offer-