The kicking and screaming of the anti-gay marriage bitter-enders is becoming a national embarrassment, especially since some of the Republican Presidential candidates can’t seem to resist pandering to them. The social contract in a democracy involves accepting where the system decides to go and following along to the extent the law requires. If we don’t like a law, or a war or a government program, we are free to complain and to try to get them changed, or to pay the price for defying the law as part of the contract. We may not unilaterally declare that the law doesn’t apply to us. No, not even if we think God agrees. He’s not a party to the contract.
This is straightforward and clear. The ethics of citizenship requires it. Two current situations that have had significant developments in recent days illustrate the principle in the breach of it.
The Cake.
Jack Phillips, who is yet another Christian cake baker, lost an appeal that asserted that he had a First Amendment right to refuse to provide a cake for a gay couple to celebrate their wedding.
The Colorado Court of Appeals ruled that his Masterpiece Cakeshop had an obligation to bake and sell the cake to the couple as requested, under Colorado’s public accommodations law, and upheld a cease and desist order filed against Phillips by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission.
In July 2012, Phillips had told same sex couple Charlie Craig and David Mullins that his religious beliefs prevented him from baking the cake they needed but that he would be happy to sell them cupcakes, bread or other baked goods. Phillips argued that decorating cakes is protected expression and religious practice, that he honors God with his artistic talents, and he would displease God by creating cakes for same-sex weddings.
Presumably this is a surmise on his part: no supporting testimony by God was offered in court.
The Court of Appeals rejected his argument, declaring that creating a cake is not sufficiently expressive to trigger First Amendment protections, writing,
“We conclude that the act of designing and selling a wedding cake to all customers free of discrimination does not convey a celebratory message about same-sex weddings likely to be understood by those who view it. We further conclude that, to the extent that the public infers from a Masterpiece wedding cake a message celebrating same-sex marriage, that message is more likely to be attributed to the customer than to Masterpiece.”
The court’s conclusion is impossible to rebut. The cake the baker was asked to bake for the gay wedding differed not all from one he would normally sell a straight couple. In truth, this had nothing to do with expression. He was just refusing to serve a gay couple because of their sexual orientation. Selling them a standard cake would neither constitute, nor would it be recognized as a “message” in support of gay marriage.
The Court agreed that a wedding cake with a customized message celebrating a same-sex marriage as such might implicate First Amendment speech issues, but “we need not reach this issue,” the court said. “We note, again, that Phillips denied Craig’s and Mullins’ request without any discussion regarding the wedding cake’s design or any possible written inscriptions.”
In other words, Phillips was gratuitously and unnecessarily being a cruel jerk. An alleged Christian who is unable to detect the basic Golden Rule application in treating fellow citizens with the minimal level of respect inherent in allowing them to buy a standard wedding cake requiring no “Yay Gay!” or “Charlie and David Forever!” messages in pink frosting deserves no sympathy or quarter from the law. Could the couple have just shrugged and found another bakery? Sure, they could have. Linda Brown could also have just shrugged and found an all-black school to attend, too.
The gay couple are not the villains here. Jack Phillips broke the social contract, as well as the law.
The Clerk.
As jerks go, however, Jack Phillips is strictly small potatoes compared to Kim Davis, the clerk in Rowan County, Kentucky, who says her Christian faith bars her from authorizing same-sex marriages, even though they are now legal, even though authorizing them is part of her job. Like the pharmacist who won’t distribute birth control pills to unmarried women, she has no ethical or constitutional argument worth making. Jobs are jobs. Employees don’t get to pick and choose which duties they choose to perform, and their religious beliefs are irrelevant.
Davis is currently refusing to issue any licenses, either to same-sex or heterosexual couples, on the theory that this avoids her discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation. I wonder which of her genius lawyers thought up that dodge. She ignored a direct order from Gov. Steven L. Beshear that she issue the licenses, while Judge David L. Bunning of the United States District Court for Eastern Kentucky, ruling in a case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, ordered Davis to resume issuing licenses. Davis’s lawyers appealed and sought a stay, and Davis did not show up at work.
I don’t understand why she cannot be summarily fired. Eventually, she will be, I assume. Meanwhile, some churches sent buses full of congregants to rally behind Davis when she appeared in court. “We feel very proud of her,” said the Rev. Harley Sexton Jr. of Sharkey Freewill Baptist Church, “that she has taken a religious stand against the state.” No, she really hasn’t. She is making her state and her faith look backward, cruel and dumb, and she hasn’t any basis for behaving like this. She lives in the United States, she benefits from its laws, and she is allowed to worship as she pleases. If she doesn’t want to issue marriage licenses to all citizens, she can set pins in a bowling alley, be a geek in a carnival, hold up signs at NASCAR races, be a molecular biologist or work for the Westboro Baptist Church painting “God Hates Gays!” signs. Nobody’s forcing her to be a county clerk, and nobody has a right to hold a job she is unwilling to perform. There is a right to be legally married in Kentucky, however, gay or not.
Davis has said that issuing same sex marriage licenses was not something she agreed to when she took the job. So what? We all have new requirements and restrictions to deal with in jobs. Our choice: accept them or work elsewhere.
I bet Jack Phillips will make her a nice farewell cake.
Ethics Alarms 
Did someone inform her there’s no such thing as a “same sex marriage license” that she is compelled to issue?
She is compelled to issue marriage licenses, however…
It’s idiotic, to simplify the issue.
Huh?
So there is a special “homosexual license” different from a “heterosexual license”?
I think simplifying the issue shows just how equal protection is supposed to work.
Did I suggest that? I do not believe that. She believes that there is something sinful about a giving a generic marriage license to a same-sex couple (whether they are homosexual is none of the government’s business either.) And it’s idiotic to think that the government is required to let her change the duties of her job because she believes that. There.
Then I’m confused by your first comment… Did you say my simplification of the problem is idiotic?
Touchy, touchy! Issue: meaning a clerk who says she can refuse to do her job, issuing marriage licenses, for ANY Reason, and keep her job. Idiotic: meaning her actions and attempt to justify them. Simple: meaning you don’t have to know squat about the Constitution or the First Amendment to puzzle this out.
I wasn’t responding to your comment at all. Sorry for the confusion.
My mistake…
There can be no “gay marriage” (per the Supreme Court) for any number of reasons. Chief among them is that the Supreme Court does not exist to make law, that there is no right to gay marriage in the U.S. Constitution or statutes and that the recent case was not lawfully passed by the court due to the failure of two justices to recuse themselves as they should have, thus turning the proper vote to 4-3 against. Additionally, there’s the blatant fact that this concept not only promotes and legitimizes odious conduct, but to such a degree that normal, decent people are reduced to having to do so themselves in their own lives under penalty of persecution. Thus this is an instrument of tyranny as well. Being such, it is the duty of patriotic citizens to oppose it by any means and of Congress to impeach any federal judge who has endeavored to impose this criminal despotism on Americans.
Last I checked, there was no right to any sort of marriage in the U.S. Constitution, but I don’t think you can Constitutionally grant women the right to marry men but deny the same right to men, or vice versa. I’m not sure to what degree the Constitution is interpreted to imply equal rights for different genders, but don’t go spreading the misinformation that the Constitution talks about heterosexual marriage. I checked, and couldn’t find any mention of marriage at all.
“Blatant fact”? Blatant means obvious. It’s obvious to me that theism promotes and legitimizes destructive conduct, persecutes and tyrannizes people, and should be opposed (though not by just any means), but I don’t expect you to believe it without listening to my reasoning just because I say it’s obvious.
SMP was so far off the reservation that I couldn’t bother to rebut him. Education and schools is isn’t mentioned in the Constitution. Automobile licenses. Pornography. The internet. It’s not an encyclopedia, its a statement of principles, and one of them is that the state can’t allow some people rights that it withholds from others. God has His own rules, if one wants to believe that, but they are not relevant here.
Jack; aren’t you concerned that the federal judges are using this issue not only to thwart the will of the people and the legislatures, but to (literally) pervert the Constitution in the process? When unelected judges can savage the laws and documents of the nation, the states, the churches and the people at will- using people of a despicable nature as their instrument- then tyranny is upon us.
They preverted the 14th amendment?
That’s just the point. The Constitution doesn’t mention marriage as, at that time, marriage was well defined by tradition and was considered to be a function of the churches. Yet, by some amazing legal hocus pocus, the federal judiciary has come up with yet another “right” after once again bending that document out of shape and redefining its context. Time and again over the last several decades, the federal judges have not only amended the Constitution by redefinition (and by fantastic leaps of logic), but struck down acts of the state legislatures and Congress- plus setting aside plebiscites of the popular will (including those against elevating adulterous and deviant relationships to the level of marriage)- by their own authority; the citizens and the Constitution be damned. I find that to be an even more dangerous concept than that of homosexual matrimony itself. It’s also an attack on the Jewish and Christian faiths, as it extends federal authority over their faith and teachings. That makes this triply dangerous. This was what the founders and the framers warned us of; the government supreme over all.
In addition, the equal protection clause was not understood to hold sex discrimination to a higher level of scrutiny than rational basis. Indeed, Supreme Court justices who lived during the ratification threw out challenges to laws that deprived women the right to vote and the ability to practice law because of their sex.
The doctrine that holds sex classifications as quasi-suspect should be thrown out.
The Constitution left the question of voting eligibility open to definition by Congress. Since then, amendments to the Constitution have specifically extended voting rights to women and all citizens from 18 years of age up. Now… how is any of this relevant?
An attack on a religion would be a law saying no one is allowed to subscribe to it. It’s not an attack if regular, secular laws are still enforced on religious people even though their religion tells them the laws are wrong.
SMP: “The Constitution doesn’t mention marriage”
The Constitution also doesn’t mention driving. Would refusing driver’s licenses to women be unconstitutional in your view? If so, why?
It would depend on if such a law was rationally related to a legitimate government interest.
Note that the 14th Amendment does not prohibit states from prohibiting women from practicing law on the basis of sex.
Of course, the government’s interest is expected to be synonymous with the best interests of the populace: what will benefit the society overall. Whether or not the government’s interest actually aligns with the best interests of the populace is up for debate. I’d say the government’s interest often aligns with people’s vices (because pandering gets politicians elected), which means it diverges from what’s actually good for them.
Chris: I suggest you look up the 10th Amendment and read it very carefully.
https://ethicsalarms.com/2015/06/26/unethical-quote-of-the-month-justice-antonin-scalia/comment-page-1/#comment-338200
Read that. And the 14th amendment. No one is denying States Powers here.
They’re reading into the 14th Amendment powers that don’t exist and which impinge on the states’ authority.
Erm…
They aren’t reading any power out of it…
They are reading a limitation on how States can craft their laws…that is to say they must be crafted not to cause unequal impact on the citizens.
Show me where in the 14th Amendment or anywhere in the Constitution it states that a federal court can force a state to alter its marriage laws in such a fashion or force private citizens to acknowledge degeneracy. And try to explain why, in your opinion, the crafters of this amendment had deviants in mind.
I demonstrate it here
Please tell me this time you actually read that.
“One class of people”? You’re approaching it as a civil rights issue, Tex. It’s not. These are people with a non-genetic behavioral issue. They are not a “class”. Where in the Constitution does it codify citizens into classes to begin with? The traditional marriage laws of America have, until recent developments, followed the concepts of marriage that reflect the biological and social realities of normal human beings. It is not the province of the federal government, the STATE governments or the federal judiciary to overthrow them based on a devious and unwarranted blasphemization of a constitutional amendment or any other legal antics. Nor is it their province to enforce such illicit decrees on the Christian citizens of this nation.
And because the Constitution doesn’t divide citizens into classes, governments cannot pass laws that treat people as though they are part of different classes. Thanks for proving the argument!
Not at all. What you- along with the liberal elitists- are attempting to do is set up perverts as a privileged class. What they are is a collection of mentally ill persons given to acts of grossness without parallel. In order to grant them “equal rights” (as though they were some community of expatriate Martians) you would overthrow and degrade the very basis of civil society, marriage being a universal contract with a clearly defined purpose. In doing so, you would not only threaten decent society, but the free society built upon this institution. You cannot uphold perversity without dragging down the very values that allow a decent civilization to function.
1) I can’t speak for what the liberal elitists want, but as for texagg04 and myself, making sure a group of people has the same rights as everyone else doesn’t make those people privileged.
2) So, anything you think is gross is wrong, and anyone who does something gross is mentally ill? I think your reasoning is gross, and I think you’re mentally ill, on the basis of confabulating and maintaining delusions. I also think that if we didn’t give you the same rights we give everyone else, that would undermine civil society.
3) Marriage is not a universal contract, and a society which falls apart without it was never civilized to begin with.
4) To me, you sound exactly as stupid as a person who says, “Our society’s entire value system is founded on the basis of the natural law that people must wear blue hats. Once some people start wearing differently colored hats, or stop wearing hats altogether, our entire civilization will crumble and regress into savagery.” See if you can work out how to sound less stupid than this. It will require you to explain how you think values work, and to understand someone else’s point of view in detail rather than simply writing it off as “insane”. I know you can do it, but will you? Or will you continue to say the same things over and over again, despite the fact that it’s not having the intended effect of changing people’s minds?
Settled law. REALLY settled.
Are you trying to say that the War Between the States settled queer marriage?? Even Thaddeus Stevens would have turned backflips upon hearing that one!
It settled states rights when it comes to state officials refusing to follow the law. so did school segregation…and on and on.
I submit to you that racial issues and those concerning the mentally ill are immiscible.
Well, you get brownie points for “immiscible” again.
You last used it here in 2010, and I had to look it up.
What inequality is there?
Uh, some citizens get to partake in a state endorsed contract that confers automatic privileges and benefits, some citizens didn’t. And no, the reply “nothing was stopping gay men from marrying women or gay women from marrying men and enjoying the benefits” doesn’t debunk the argument.
If same-sex marriage is banned equally for all, there is no discrimination.
Saying silly things makes it hard to take you seriously.
There has been NO ban on homosexual marriage.
That has been a legal conferment of privilege and benefit on marriage that only allows a certain class to partake.
Now, try again. This time, don’t say silly things.
That argument has been rejected by SCOTUS applying the “Don’t make us giggle” rule. I also addressed it.
The Supreme Court did not address the equal protection arguments.
They alluded to them rather definitively right up front, in a footnote 3 on page 4, beginning…:
I’d call that “addressing”.
In other words, “We, the Court, can mix up disparate sections and amendments, words and phrases, from any part of the Constitution, mix them in an oratorical blender and call it constitutional in whatever way we want… and you had damn well better like it, because you peons can’t stop us”.
And yet they did not go through the typical equal protection analysis such as carefully describing the classification at issue, describing whether or not the classification is suspect or quasi-suspect, and then applying the level of scrutiny the classification demands.
They should have, and many analysts have said so. But that’s Kennedy.
It would seem that the equal protection thing is obiter dicta and thus not binding on the lower courts.
I’d agree with that. But I’d also say that any effort to run with that would be slapped down PDQ.
Women have the right to marry men. If men don’t also have that right, it’s discrimination on the basis of sex. Also vice versa, of course.
The justices who decided Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1875), and Bradwell v. State, 83 U.S. 130 (1873), knew that the 14th Amendment did hold sex discrimination to a greater level of scrutiny than rational basis.
I think using pre-women’s suffrage SCOTUS opinions regarding gender discrimination defines desperate. Come on.
The justices who decided Minor and Bradwell were alive during the ratification, so they have special expertise in knowing how the 14th applies to sex discrimination.
It took an amendment to stop states from banning women from voting ion the basis of sex. It therefore follows that it will take an amendment to take away states’ power to prohibiting women from practicing law on the basis of sex.
UGH. When they were alive, women were regarded as intrinsically inferior. Who cares what their perspective on gender was?
When it comes to interpretation of the 14th Amendment with respect to sex discrimination, it is especially relevant.
We, as a nation, rejected the ERA. It is completely unethical for the Supreme Court to act as if the ERA was ratified.
We didn’t reject it, we decided it was superfluous and redundant. And it was and is. Adds nothing new at all.
The failure to ratify says otherwise.
Why? Why ratify an amendment that is just symbolic rather than necessary? It was a stunt, that’s all.
If the 14th Amendment prohibited sex discrimination, the 19th Amendment would not have been necessary.
The Declaration of Independence forbade slavery by clear meaning, but we still needed the 13th and 14th.
The Declaration was only a statement of values and intentions, Jack. The Articles of Confederation and the Constitution were crafting documents of government.
WRONG!!!!! The Constitution enabled the Declaration, which was the mission statement. “Only” a mission statement? The mission statement is far more important than the by-laws.
I wasn’t trying to minimize the importance of the Declaration, Jack. But it is not an instrument of government.
Having run many organizations with mission statements, I assure you that a mission statement is an indispensable tool of governance. It is also routinely cited in SCOTUS rulings, and has been for 200 years.
It however does not constitute the ERA. Nor should it be interpreted so.
Jack; I have often stated that American society rests, in main, on three great pillars of thought- The Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution and the Holy Bible. I stand by that. But each of those pillars has a different purpose, though all three overlap to a necessary degree. All three are vital, but it is the Constitution alone that defines the workings of the federal government. The Declaration, its predecessor, tells us why the Constitution is necessary. The Bible tells us who the ultimate Author of this all is and what He expects from us.
Actually, I’m pretty sure quite a few of the founding fathers were deists…
Regardless, though, I’m curious. Why should I heed the expectations of an energy being, even if it created me? That’s pretty arrogant of it, don’t you think? The story goes that an energy being plays Frankenstein, creates a sapient species, proceeds to demonstrate all the communication skills and nurturing acumen of the Incredible Hulk, and expects unquestioning loyalty in return? Of all the “is”s to attempt to derive “oughts” from, that’s one of the stupidest. Only a sociopathic cult of personality as powerful as the Roman Empire could have hoped to jam that idea into the mainstream cultural of humanity.
I predict your reply, if you dare to give one, will be fatally riddled with apodicticity as usual. However, do me a favor and don’t invoke the moronic “free will” argument: any competent parent knows the difference between interfering with a child’s free will and stopping them from getting into the medicine cabinet or sticking a fork into a wall outlet, and any parent who doesn’t has earned my contempt, which is a lot harder to earn than it used to be.
The ERA was a naked power grab by the feminists and their political allies. They came so close to succeeding that most pundits of the time considered it inevitable. It took a woman- Phyllis Schlafly- to put together a Christian based organization that eventually stopped it and turned it back. If this hadn’t happened, we wouldn’t have needed a Barack Obama to bring us to this state by now.
I think using pre-women’s suffrage SCOTUS opinions regarding gender discrimination defines desperate. Come on.
Rejected argument. Why don’t you try Calhoun’s secession theory again too?
And the connection exists…where?
Michael Ejercito:
It would depend on if such a law was rationally related to a legitimate government interest.
Yes, that’s correct. The problem in the same-sex marriage case is that opponents were utterly, hilariously unable to explain what legitimate government interest was served by denying same-sex couples marriage licenses. The best they could come up with was “Children deserve a mother and a father,” which is entirely true, but is in NO WAY furthered by denying same-sex couples marriage licenses.
It would be exactly like saying we should prohibit women from driving because “Children deserve a mother and a father.” Licensing gay marriage no more takes children from their biological parents than allowing women to drive does.
Note that the 14th Amendment does not prohibit states from prohibiting women from practicing law on the basis of sex.
I assume you’re referring to an arcane court case here. I can’t imagine that if a state tried this today they wouldn’t be overruled on equal protection grounds.
Actually, Chris, several courts found that banning same-sex marriage satisfies rational basis scrutiny. See Citizens for Equal Protection v. Bruning, 455 F.3d 859 (8th Cir. 2006), In Re Marriage of J.B. and H.B. , 326 S.W.3d 654 (Tx. 5th Ct. opf App. 2010)
In response to Michael Ejercito:
Well, specifically banning same-sex marriage doesn’t seem to serve a purpose, because same-sex marriage isn’t destructive (you heard me), so to look for a state interest let’s turn it around. The idea is that the government offers special benefits to pairs of people who are biologically capable of procreating, or at least look like they ought to be at first glance. They’re not extending those benefits to pairs of people who can’t procreate because of their sex, but they still extend them to those who can’t procreate for other reasons (e.g. age, infertility, injury). The government may not be medically examining people to determine whether they can procreate, but it is nevertheless discriminating, in broad strokes, based on whether two people can generate a zygote all by themselves.
I agree that it is good for society that people who can biologically have kids can get special benefits that allow them to stay united in life. My question is this: is there a net downside to extending those same benefits to people who obviously can’t biologically have kids? Wouldn’t society be better off if more couples could conveniently live together as a single economic unit, supporting each other in life?
Explain why those courts ruled as they did.
As I understand it, the court recognizes that heterosexual couples will want to have children, and they want to help give children a stable place to grow up.
I think I can see it from your perspective. I guess I’m bothered by the fact that any heterosexual couple can get married regardless of whether or not they can or intend to have kids, thereby getting the government sponsorship that you imply is solely intended to support kids while subverting its purpose. That’s like giving really tall kids basketball scholarships whether or not they have any intention of playing basketball. If helping kids is really the only purpose of marriage, then I object to the government allowing some people to waste government assistance by marrying without having kids.
Of course, there are a lot of other important aspects to marriage, too, that the state might also have a vested interest in. You can read about some of them here, starting with the line “Marriage offers legal benefits and responsibilities that protect families.” http://www.marriageequality.org/facts_at_a_glance
I am also disturbed the statement in the second case about how the court thinks it’s reasonable to simply assume that opposite-sex couples are significantly superior for raising kids compared to same-sex couples, effectively legally sanctioning the idea of pre-judging people’s character traits based on sex and concluding that females inherently have some important ones males lack and vice versa. If we’re going to allow couples to marry contingent on whether they collectively possess character traits suitable for raising children, then at least we should do some actual character tests instead of just counting X and y chromosomes.
The second case does show the deferentialness of rational basis scrutiny. Under rational basis, a legislative choice is not subject to courtroom factfinding and “may be based on rational speculation unsupported by evidence or empirical data”, See FCC v. Beach Communications, 508 U.S. 307 at 315 (1993)
I do believe that the Supreme Court’s sex discrimination jurisprudence was wrongly decided, in no small part because justices who lived during ratification rejected sex discrimination claims with respect to suffrage and the practice of law. (Indeed, an amendment was needed to take away the states’ power to prohibit women from voting on the basis of sex.)Critics may say that sex discrimination is unethical, but that does not change the fact that the 14th Amendment was not understood to subject sex discrimination to anything other than rational basis scrutiny, and that such scrutiny is highly deferential.
Would it not be fair, then, to say that the 14th Amendment was historically interpreted so as to allow laws to discriminate baselessly if a judge could come up with a half-baked rationalization for why the state might have a motivation to discriminate, whether or not it actually demonstrates that motivation? I think the reason the interpretation is changing is that judges aren’t as prejudiced as they used to be. I also think that the concept of “rational basis review” seems like a terrible idea in general.
Also, if higher levels of scrutiny than “rational basis” are required for suspect groups, why wouldn’t we apply higher levels of scrutiny to laws that discriminate against gays? Why do you think sex classification isn’t a reason to involve higher scrutiny?
The authors of the 14th did not view one’s choice in sexual partners to merit any higher level of review than rational basis.
As for sex, the results of Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1875), and Bradwell v. State, 83 U.S. 130 (1873), prove that sex discrimination was not intended by the authors of the 14th to be held to any level of scrutiny greater than rational basis.
This is, of course, not to say that it would be wise or fair to prohibit women from voting or practicing law, merely because they are women. But states still reserve the power to prohibit people from practicing law on the basis of sex. Because Bradwell was decided by justices who were alive when the 14th was ratified, we must agree that their conclusion about the 14th in this context was correct. If a state (however unwisely or unethically) chooses to prohibit people from practicing law on the basis of sex, there can be no 14th Amendment remedy under Bradwell.
As the law is written, however, there is no reason sex categories can’t be held to stricter scrutiny, and I would argue that the authors may very well have intended it that way. You write a law that can be generalized so that when the situation changes, it can still protect people. When any class of people becomes discriminated against, the law will be there even if the authors did not anticipate it being used for that purpose. That’s why the 1st Amendment protects internet speech, and the 2nd Amendment protects modern handguns, even though neither of those applications were “intended,” by dint of not having been invented yet.
The concept of sex certainly existed in 1868, and yet the authors clearly did not intend for sex discrimination to be worthy of a greater degree of scrutiny.
Your examples of Internet speech regarding the First and modern handguns regarding the Second would be better compared to the examples of racial discrimination in the context of pilot’s licenses. The 14th clearly holds racial discrimination to strict scrutiny, whether it be in the context of university admissions (which existed in 1868) or pilot’s licenses.
This is, of course, not to say that Congress can not prohibit sex discrimination by the federal government (which it did), or that states may enact state constitutional protections that restrict sex discrimination to a much greater degree than the 14th Amendment (see e.g., Michigan’s Proposal 2 and California Proposition 209)
But a historic understanding of the 14th, plus the early cases of Bradwell and Minor, lead me to conclude that rational basis is the correct level of scrutiny for sex discrimination claims
I still don’t see how rational basis ever makes any sense, regardless of who came up with it or how much precedent it has. At its worst, it gives the flimsiest excuse for discrimination the full force of law. At its best… what good does it do? By definition, if the state had a legitimate interest in a particular type of discrimination, it wouldn’t need rational basis review, and if it didn’t… then it shouldn’t have it.
Rational basis may be alive in the law, but I have yet to be convinced that we shouldn’t excise it.
SMP,
Are you under the impression that the tenth amendment somehow, magically, overrules all other amendments to the Constitution?
Do you realize that the 14th Amendment was passed after the 10th Amendment?
Are you aware that states do not have more rights than people? In other words, are you aware that if a state violates the right to equal protection, as established by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, that the federal government has not only the right, but the duty to step in and say “No, you can’t do that to people?”
Or are you one of those fake small-government people who is a-OK with governments trampling all over the rights of citizens, as long as it’s a state government doing so?
Chris: You’re reasoning backwards and on a false premise. The 10th Amendment denies the federal government those powers not specifically assigned to them in the Constitution. Got that? And where does the 14th Amendment come into this? It was placed there to insure that there would be no dispute that the freed slaves in America would be regarded thereafter as full citizens. There was no other purpose intended or implied. Only an utterly corrupt and criminally revisionist federal judiciary could have warped it into a weapon of oppression against other Americans to favor a a small, vocal minority of deviants. Likewise, only such judges as those could further malign it into a weapon for imposing an alien population on this nation in order to further destroy it traditions and concept of nationality.
“Destroy its concept of nationality?” That sounds so sinister, Steven. How exactly are gay people going to do that? Or are you just coming up with a bunch of stuff that sounds scary and pinning it on people you’re prejudiced against? I do expect people who make grandiose claims to trace their reasoning. Otherwise it’s sloppy arguing, no matter whether you’re right or wrong.
Read more closely, Poddy. I was referring to the other perversion of the 14th Amendment. More specifically, the “anchor baby” issue. You have a bad habit of putting words in my mouth, as an earlier post of yours took to the extreme. I’ll address THAT when I can find the time.
What?
Foul!
This has been a discussion of gay marriage. You don’t get to pretend this discussion has been about the first sentence of The 14th amendment and how the post Civil War lawmakers could have anticipated a horrible immigration nightmare based off of its abuse.
Cheating of the 1st degree. Get back on track.
What? Tex, I added that last sentence to illustrate how the 14th Amendment has been abused in more ways than one. What’s so damn “foul” about that?!
It’s a foul because he specifically addressed the topic at hand. You diverted.
I see you playing tgt games here.
I diverted nothing. I added another issue in passing to illustrate a greater overall issue concerning the 14th Amendment. Chris seized upon that single sentence and tried to turn it into a mention involving the homosexual issue specifically. I think my words were plain enough, so I doubt highly that it was subject to unintentional misinterpretation.
Uh really? Chris discussing the 14th amendment in regards to gay marriage on a topic about gay marriage then you making a vague reference to illegal immigration is somehow him getting it wrong ? Bzzzzt. Nope.
I didn’t consider it “vague”. It was just an addendum to the greater overall issue concerning the 14th Amendment. IN PASSING. You’re just grasping at straws, Tex.
You are flat out wrong on this. It cannot be explained in plainer English.
Keep the tap dancing though.
I don’t tap dance, Tex. I speak plainly enough for anyone who got past grade school.
So why the willful obtuseness?
Mine? Or yours?
It took me a while to learn this, but arguing over who is at fault for a misunderstanding is generally a waste of time unless the purpose is to prevent future misunderstandings, which is mutually beneficial, rather than to assign blame, which is a zero-sum game.
I moved on from the illegal immigration issue after SMP accepted my apology, because I figured that that particular misunderstanding was an anomaly, so there was little point in negotiating changes to either of our communication styles on that basis. I’d recommend everyone else do the same.
Everyone else did.
Did they? And if so, was it mistakenly or willfully?
“Did they? And if so, was it mistakenly or willfully?”
I’ve already shown you how your comment you expected everyone to magically understand was out of the blue and off topic.
Only one person is at fault here.
Yes. Yourself. You jumped at a false conclusion and can’t admit it.
No, no, I’ve already shown you how your little addition was out of the blue and off topic. Nice try.
Keep that reality-denying head in the sand.
I’m sure it’s very comforting.
I’ll cop to misinterpreting your intended meaning. Sorry about that. I see now where your last sentence used the word “likewise” to transition into a jab at illegal immigration. The words “alien population” make more sense that way, in retrospect. The transition slipped past me because I didn’t realize there was a connection between illegal immigration and any rulings regarding the 14th Amendment.
Okay, Poddy. Maybe I should have been more clear. The other issue I mentioned briefly is also (as you might have noticed!) a damn big issue that will likely play more prominently in the months ahead than this one over “gay marriage”. That said, I’ll put it behind me.
I’m not sure which 14th Amendment you have a copy of, but the one I refer to says this in section 1:
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” (bold added by me for emphasis)
I know the Founding Fathers used incredibly high language and even the men of the late 1800s mastered it better than us, but that bit seems pretty easy to grasp to me.
Interestingly enough, the 13th and the 15th Amendments specify race/color as pertinent to those amendments…if the 14th needed such specificity (according to you) why is there no mention of race or color?
And no, it doesn’t overrule the 10th Amendment as Chris implies errantly. States have every power not delegated to the National level of government to make laws. They just can’t violate the Spirit of the Declaration and apply those laws disparately or create laws intending disparate impact.
And just where does “equal protection under law” become a factor, here? If I shoot a pervert for that reason alone (or he me) someone is supposed to be prosecuted. Right? Where does this become an open ended promotion of gay marriage or perversion in general?
I didn’t think you read this: https://ethicsalarms.com/2015/06/26/unethical-quote-of-the-month-justice-antonin-scalia/comment-page-1/#comment-338200
If you had, you wouldn’t say nonsense like you have been.
Does there exist some rule that I have to double check with Justice Scalia on everything, Tex?
Can I start calling you tgt? Don’t get smart ass with me. It’s like arguing with a kindergartener why they can’t have more candy.
I linked to a sound argument I composed in the commentary. Read that.
Then don’t get candy-assed with ME. If I had to wade through every legal opinion out there, I’d be in front of my computer screen until Christmas! I’m not a “constitutional scholar”, but I can read plain English. I can also understand historical context and the stated intentions of the author of a constitutional amendment. Not having a legal ax to grind, I consider that more than sufficient. I DO have an ax to grind when it comes to those who intentionally revise the words of the Constitution in order to promote an agenda that has, as its final aim, the trashing of the Constitution in its totality. I don’t accuse Justice Scalia of this, but I don’t have to agree with him in every detail, either.
You are illiterate. I even just said you didn’t have to read the whole post or anything Scalia posted. I gave a nice summary argument for you to peruse. Would have taken 45 seconds to read and you are still making diversions.
What a piece of work.
I have to LEAVE for work in 20 minutes, Tex. I have a huge backlog of messages yet to deal with. It must be nice to have all that time on your hands.
Cute sign off.
Not yet.
Since you are still going to pretend like you can’t read the post I linked to, here it is on this page for you to read:
1) States have the power to enact ANY laws they see fit that are not listed in the powers enumerated to the National level of government. (10th Amendment)
2) A whole slew of states, eventually all of them, decided they could issue marriage licenses. Nothing happens without a law. To the State, a marriage is simply an extremely exclusive economic contract. They decided to regulate such contracts in such a way as to confer benefits to the people engaging in that particular contract – tax breaks, decision making power, property security, etc
3) The nation has determined that, though States can make whatever laws they want as per #1, those laws can’t impact people disparately based on certain criteria. (14th Amendment).
4) A whole slew of states, most of them, decided that marriage licenses could only go to one class of people.
5) As per #2, that conferred privileges on a single class of people. A violation of the 14th Amendment.
How exactly was this not in the Constitution?
I also added it to the bottom of the overall forum for easier reading.
There. It is in summary.
I know you are capable of grasping the argument.
Now, say one more thing about Scalia and I’ll have to assume you are utterly ignorant, willfully obtuse and nothing but a troll.
So then it comes back to some judge (whomsoever) finding legal pervert unions and citizenship for the babies of illegal aliens inherent in the 14th Amendment. It seems to me we’ve already worked that one over.
,i>”So then it comes back to some judge (whomsoever) finding legal pervert unions and citizenship for the babies of illegal aliens inherent in the 14th Amendment. It seems to me we’ve already worked that one over.”
If you can’t keep from bringing up the Illegal Immigrant abuse strawman, it is safe to assume you’ve quite arguing in good faith and you ought to recuse yourself.
And yes, anytime laws come into conflict it is up to judges to determine how they settle out…in an ideal society that would then spur the Legislature to start Amending or Repealing & Rewriting laws…
tex: I don’t think the illegal immigration issue is a straw man. I think he just likes to complain about them both at the same time. Is that accurate, SMP?
Once again, I just referred to the anchor baby issue in passing, as it is relevant to the OVERALL debate over the meaning of the 14th Amendment. I didn’t intend to start a debate on this thread over it. Okay, gotta go to work now. Later.
Then it’s a false equivalency.
“Look, I think judges have misinterpreted this sentence of the Constitution, therefore they have misinterpreted this other sentence in the constitution! Nanner nanner, I win!!!1!”
That “strawman” was entirely of your making, Tex. Now exactly how much power are you willing to grant the federal judiciary in overturning states’ laws and peoples’ plebiscites in order to forward a political agenda based on sexual perversion?
“That “strawman” was entirely of your making, Tex. Now exactly how much power are you willing to grant the federal judiciary in overturning states’ laws and peoples’ plebiscites in order to forward a political agenda based on sexual perversion?”
Erm. I still don’t see how you can be so illiterate regarding the 14th Amendment. The English isn’t even Shakespearean…it’s downright modern.
I also have a sneaky suspicion you haven’t or can’t read Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution.
The 14th Amendment was insufficient to prevent states from prohibiting women from voting or practicing law on the basis of sex.
The 14th Amendment was also held by the Supreme Court as insufficient as to allow citizenship for an American Indian who had moved off his tribal reservation. It required an act of Congress in 1924 to make American natives full citizens. Yet, we’re now told that this same amendment gives full citizenship to babies born to illegal aliens on American soil and likewise gives their families the right to stay as well. As for the homosexual aspect… well, I’d just be repeating myself.
“Are you under the impression that the tenth amendment somehow, magically, overrules all other amendments to the Constitution?
Do you realize that the 14th Amendment was passed after the 10th Amendment?”
Taken together, these comments are asinine. We are to assume you think that the 14th Amendment overrules the 10th. It doesn’t. The 10th still applies, the 14th merely clarifies and constricts (only slightly) how the States can apply laws they create within their Power.
“Or are you one of those fake small-government people who is a-OK with governments trampling all over the rights of citizens, as long as it’s a state government doing so?”
And this is another incredibly asinine comment. It’s one of the favored strawmen of Leftists. “Oh you hate big government do you? But you support the military/public education/police/department of transportation/state government/blah/blah/blah. Hypocrite!”
Nope. You can be for smaller government at the national level and be just hunky dory with an overbearing government in your home state. That’s federalism. You can demand small government at national & state level and wish for your counties to wield lots of power. Or you can demand small government at all levels. You can even be like many of the dolts who run politics and demand small levels of government at state & local level and give it all to the national level of government (though usually definitions of small government require a top-down approach to decentralization).
TEX: The 14th Amendment does not overrule the 10th Amendment. All the 10th says is that those powers not specifically delegated to the federal government are inherent with the states and the people. The argument here is over just what powers ARE delegated to the federal government under the 14th Amendment. I don’t see any credible justification for wither gay marriage or anchor babies in that passage. If you do, then maybe you should be sitting on one of the Circuit Courts yourself. You’d probably fit in nicely.
SMP: My interpretation of texagg04’s comment regarding the 10th and 14th Amendments was that he was criticizing Chris’s criticism of your point (that would have been a tongue twister if I were speaking). That is, he was effectively defending your point regarding the 10th Amendment from Chris’s particular line of criticism.
If so, then it’s my turn to eat crow! I’ve hurrying along too quick, perhaps. On a time deadline.
Read the argument I’ve shown you. Quit diverting.
Then read mine.
“Then read mine.”
I did…my argument was a reponse…
derp.
“And where does the 14th Amendment come into this? It was placed there to insure that there would be no dispute that the freed slaves in America would be regarded thereafter as full citizens. There was no other purpose intended or implied.”
Then why does the 14th Amendment say “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
That certainly seems to imply that it applies to more than just freed slaves; for instance, it says “any person,” not “any freed slave.”
If the 14th Amendment was only meant to protect freed slaves, why does it contain this language? Were those who wrote and ratified the amendment just stupid?
What other cases based on equal protection should be thrown out? Brown v. Board, perhaps?
“Only an utterly corrupt and criminally revisionist federal judiciary could have warped it into a weapon of oppression against other Americans to favor a a small, vocal minority of deviants.”
1) Giving gay people marriage licenses is not “a weapon of oppression” against anyone, any more than integrating schools was a weapon of oppression against racists. Segregationists thought they were being oppressed too; they were wrong, just as you are now. Yours is the language of George Wallace.
2) Gay people are not “deviants.” You are simply bigoted.
And how, in your mind, does “equal protection under law” demand that states force ministers or other Christians to perform a blasphemous parody of marriage? And “bigoted”? Sexual deviance isn’t a genetic feature inherent at birth. It is a form of insanity. It represents a danger to the society in which it manifests itself. There’s no question of bigotry when this simple fact is pointed out.
Slippery Slope fallacy. The day the government forces ministers or churches to officiate or house conduct against their religion we have a 1st Amendment violation. Nice try, but no objection to the issuing of marriage licenses.
And then tell me again how a state’s laws regarding marriage licenses have any logical bearing with the provisions of the 14th Amendment.
Straw man and equivocation: States still can’t force religious figures to perform religious ceremonies. I can’t legally sue a rabbi to give me a bar mitzvah, because I have not met the requirements of the religion to which the ceremony and the rabbi belong. Just because the institution of a religious ceremony and the institution of a state issuing a license are both called “marriage” and often coincide does not mean they are the same thing. The state has authority over one, and religions have authority over their various respective versions of the other.
Also, stop pulling “simple facts” out of thin air. You have yet to show me in any way that the average homosexual person is more dangerous than you are.
Poddy: In reality, it forces Christians to accept deviants as normal human beings, which they are not. We’re only one short step from openly mandating that churches perform such marriages. The entire purpose of this movement is not some sort of “civil rights” issue as is so often claimed. The purpose is to subdue or marginalize the Christian faith.
That “short step” is flouting the 1st Amendment, or repealing it, just so you know. Churches aren’t defenseless.
More importantly, if the state is somehow forcing Christians to accept “deviants” as normal human beings, then how do you intend for Christians to treat such people? What is your ideal world?
If you’re looking for where the First Amendment is being flounted, I’d suggest you look first at just about any college campus in America. Look to those groups who worship the concept of political correctness, itself a refutation of free political speech. Look at the total number of organizations dedicated to eliminating all vestiges of the Christian and Jewish faiths from a public arena. This is a mainstay of the Left’s strategy, for they know they cannot rule a land for long where a strong, independent church exists. Speech, press and church were mentioned together in the 1st Amendment for a reason. The framers knew that without all three being unshackled by political restraints, a free society could not long exist. Thus, the Left has been eroding it and redefining it at every opportunity. The deviant movement has proved useful to them in that endeavor.
Just because the Civil War was primarily fought over slavery doesn’t mean states rights wasn’t a big part of it as well. The issue of the Federal government’s primacy had been tearing at the fabric of the union since Andy Jackson was at swordpoints with John C. Calhoun. The 14th Amendment was designed to end that bone of contention like the 13th was designed to end the slavery question.
Tex:
“The 10th still applies, the 14th merely clarifies and constricts (only slightly) how the States can apply laws they create within their Power.”
This is what I meant to suggest, not that the 14th overrules the 10th. Sorry for the vagueness.
As for my comments re: state vs. federal government, I think my argument is fair when it comes to someone supporting a state’s decision to deny actual, concrete constitutional rights to a group of people. But I will grant that what counts as a concrete constitutional right is kind of an ever-shifting thing with many leftists, so I can see why you read my comment the way you did.
If only there was a part of the Constitution that listed the rights we have.
“I don’t see any credible justification for wither gay marriage”
What part of “equal protection” do you not understand?
Where do you see deviant marriage in “equal protection”?
“And how, in your mind, does “equal protection under law” demand that states force ministers or other Christians to perform a blasphemous parody of marriage?”
Obviously, it doesn’t, since absolutely no minister or Christian has ever been forced to perform any marriage they don’t want to, ever, and you know this. Unless you believe that baking a cake amounts to “performing” a marriage.
“And “bigoted”? Sexual deviance isn’t a genetic feature inherent at birth. It is a form of insanity.”
Please cite the relevant, peer-reviewed psychiatric literature proving that homosexuality is a mental illness.
Until fairly recently (when medical societies became politicized) this was an accepted reality.
“Where do you see deviant marriage in “equal protection”?”
Assuming you mean same-sex marriage, this is easy: bans on gay marriage treat similarly situated people differently, for no reason other than gender, for no compelling reason.
And no, “Steven Mark Pilling and a few horribly illogical people think homosexuality is disgusting, and therefore legally punishable” is not a compelling reason.
I said nothing about “punishing” homosexuals. I’m merely disputing your contention that they have some sort of right to receive marriages of the same status as natural ones between a man and a woman.
“Until fairly recently (when medical societies became politicized) this was an accepted reality.”
You’re right! Medicine and science were never politicized prior to the 1960s! Before that all ideas were always rationally and coolly considered and there was no social pressure at all! Whee!
Up until around that time, professional societies tended to be professional and deal with facts instead of radical theories. In science, it has long been held that extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. Now, instead of evidence, personal prestige and money grants have become the premier considerations.
SMP, I’m genuinely curious: why do you continue to believe, contrary to all available evidence, that merely shouting “pervert! pervert! pervert!” over and over again, in liue of any actual argument, is going to convince anyone?
You have yet to even attempt to try and prove that your premise that homosexuality is a perversion is true. How do you expect anyone to take your arguments seriously when they all rely on a premise that we clearly do not agree with?
Are you arguing in good faith? Because if so, it seems that it is your behavior that matches a common definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result.
I got him to go as far as a teleological appeal to nature once (essentially, the idea that any urge or activity unrelated to or distracting from effective procreation or the survival of the species is bad). When I asked him where that left the arts, or for that matter us as people rather than animals, he simply stopped responding, crashed, restored from backup, and never spoke of it again. He crashed again when I later brought up his argument and my question. I haven’t heard from him any actual line of reasoning other than that.
If nothing else, it’s the only established means of exorcising him from a comment thread.
I just don’t think that subject is one Steven is able to discuss rationally, unlike others. In Fiddler on the Roof, Tevye, after bending to several new ideas, refuses to accept his daughter marrying outside the Jewish faith, so he disowns her, saying “If I bend that far, I’ll break.” We all,even the most rational and open-minded and analytical of us, have some core beliefs…maybe faith, maybe ideology, maybe loyalty, maybe some truth we cannot allow to destroy our illusions… that we dare not accept, even in the face of logic, ethics, irrefutable facts. Sometimes it’s a truth about ourselves. This is the message,essentially, of The Ice Man Cometh, which may be the greatest American play.
It’s a good exercise to consider what that belief is for each of us that we cannot and will not surrender for fear that it will break us.
I must have missed your comment, Poddy. Understand that I have some pressing and irregular work requirements that often enough take me out of the conversation for so long that I’ve lost the essence of what’s being discussed or simply don’t have the time to dig back through the postings. Some of us have to work for a living. Don’t get swell headed and assume that just because I haven’t commented further, I’ve run out of arguments. I only wish I could afford to retire and “enjoy” all this 24 hours a day!
Well, now that you’re back and have read it, will you answer it?
I find it highly bizarre that you’d consider any rule or system to be “natural” and “common sense” which you believe to have been put in place by an explicitly supernatural being whose motives are said to be incomprehensible. Other than love, that is, which it expresses in ways so bizarre it might as well not be called love.
To me, “natural” means “it just happens, and is neither good nor bad by default.” “Common sense” can mean “the simple, obvious answer, defying convoluted rationalizations which try to obscure the truth” or it can mean “a simplistic, obvious answer, which ignores the more complex reality.” Anyone can claim common sense, but if you can’t back it up, it’s just like expecting us to believe you because you say you’re smart.
Now read those words of yours again, Chris, and turn them around at yourself. I don’t believe in political correctness. I look at things from a foundation of reality and call them what they are. The Left, which you represent, bases its universe on man centered dogma which is ever shifting in accordance with political expediency. I prefer truth… and let the chips fall where they may. I’m afraid that I could never subscribe to your Orwellian world.
Extradimensional Cephalopod:
“I am also disturbed the statement in the second case about how the court thinks it’s reasonable to simply assume that opposite-sex couples are significantly superior for raising kids compared to same-sex couples, effectively legally sanctioning the idea of pre-judging people’s character traits based on sex and concluding that females inherently have some important ones males lack and vice versa.”
I think it’s probably true that on average, a child is best raised by their married, biological parents.
But since we’ve never based marriage on child-rearing ability, this is a moot point. We know that step-families are much more unstable, but we don’t outlaw marriage between couples where one person has children from a previous relationship. Hell, even child abusers are allowed to marry. So gays could be the worst parents in the world, and the “think of the children!” argument would still be complete bunk, since lack of positive child-rearing skills has never, ever been a requirement of marriage.
SMP:
“If you’re looking for where the First Amendment is being flounted, I’d suggest you look first at just about any college campus in America.”
So not at same-sex marriage, then, correct?
Jack has written extensively on suppression of free speech on college campuses, if I’m not mistaken. That hasn’t stopped him from supporting same-sex marriage, because there is no contradiction there.
Constraining the freedom of others is not a solution to attacks on your own freedom.
A person’s freedom ends when he tries to impose a decadent agenda on everyone else, Chris. If you read my words carefully, you’d note that I mentioned that the “gay liberation” movement, for all the depravity it represents, is in itself but a tool of an even greater and- ultimately- even more depraved movement; that of imposing a statist/socialist/secular order on this nation. Deviants are willing minions of this because it gives them all they want in the making. But none of them can achieve their goals while there exists a free church and a free republic under the Constitution.
Again.
No conflict and no “special class”. What the “gay marriage” issue is all about is creating a special class among the perverse. They are not a religion, a ethnicity or a political sect that has been discriminated against in some way. They are an instrument of institutionalized insanity. And what’s more, they seek to impose that insanity on others by depriving of civilization’s most binding institution of all; the union of a man and a woman in order to raise of family. You cannot “normalize” what clearly is not. Nor can you rightfully drag the most important tenets of civilized man down into the muck to appease depravity… without imposing tyranny at the same time.
SMP, do you read what you write? Because here’s what you sound like to me:
“Gender, sexual, and romantic minorities are obviously nasty, horrible, and wrong, and we shouldn’t allow them because kids might think not nasty, horrible, and wrong, and then badstuff happens. We need more real, heteronormative Men(TM), like me, to uphold tradition(TM), because without tradition we won’t know how to have a functioning society and we’ll be doomed.
“Also, the arguments against what I say merit only momentary acknowledgement, because they are all unsubstantiated nonsense, unlike what I say which is completely substantiated sense, by virtue of me repeating it over and over. If you disagree you must be [ad hominem].”
–Steven Mark Pilling, the full transcript of Everything Steven Mark Pilling has Ever Said About Being Homosexual or Transgender, Ever [citation needed]
You can retire now, SMP. I can post your message whenever gay people are brought up. Your voice will be heard.
In return, Poddy, I would say to you that endlessly repeating the politically correct assertions of the leftist handbook does not make them right. The collective insight of the human race prior to the investment of your movement- based on observable reality- weighs against you.
SMP, you wrote:
““When a privately owned bakery is ordered by a government to provide its services to enforced customers, people who represent an offense to the business and its other customers, then tyranny has begun.”
It does not matter if you don’t see gay rights as equal to black civil rights. Your framing of the issue in this comment is IDENTICAL to the reasoning of George Wallace.
Privately owned stores were forced by the Civil Rights Act to serve customers, people wh represent an offense to the business and its other customers. You say that’s tyranny. By the logic of your comment, tyranny began in 1965.
Alternatively, EC, you could just post a meme of the church lady. That would be about as substantive as any SMP comment.
Pardon me, Chris, but didn’t I already answer that silly argument of yours?
“Poddy: In reality, it forces Christians to accept deviants as normal human beings, which they are not.”
No, it absolutely does not force Christians to accept deviants as normal human beings.
No one can force you to accept anyone as a normal human being. That is up to you.
Nonsense. When a privately owned bakery is ordered by a government to provide its services to enforced customers, people who represent an offense to the business and its other customers, then tyranny has begun. When state and local governments are ordered, like it or not, by a federal court to violate their conscience and their own laws by “marrying” perverts, tyranny has erupted full blown. To establish (as has essentially been done) a privileged minority of perverts by (ironically) perverting the law and the Constitution itself to accommodate them, then the time has come to resist that tyranny.
SMP:
“When a privately owned bakery is ordered by a government to provide its services to enforced customers, people who represent an offense to the business and its other customers, then tyranny has begun.”
Do you realize you sound exactly like George Wallace?
Does that not bother you at all?
No, Chris. It doesn’t. You’re again trying to equate the civil rights movement with gay lib. Ask the average black guy what he thinks of that!
“Now read those words of yours again, Chris, and turn them around at yourself.”
I don’t need to; I have nothing to prove. Pretty much everyone in this thread other than you has accepted that homosexuals are not sexual deviants, and American society as a whole is accepting this rapidly as well. I don’t need to change my tactics; they’re working. Yours, clearly, are not, and yet you refuse to rethink them.
You are the one who continues to make the extraordinary claim that all gays are perverts without any attempt at backing it up with reason, other than “it’s always been that way.” Even in this comment you once again simply assert that you are speaking “truth.”
Again: why do you think this would be convincing?
I- and just about everyone else who existed before the reign of political correctness- understood exactly what sexual deviance was and the dangers to all that it represented. I suggest, Chris, that you get your mind out of the liberal lockbox and see things as they truly are. It may be unpleasant, but it’s necessary. Otherwise, when reality DOES come knocking at your door, you’ll find yourself unable to cope.
SMP:
“Don’t get swell headed and assume that just because I haven’t commented further, I’ve run out of arguments.”
The problem is that you haven’t even backed up the central premise of your argument. You haven’t even tried. Every single one of your comments relies on the premise that gays are mentally ill. When asked to provide evidence for this, your response is a bunch of mumbling about tradition and how science was better in the early 20th century, with no actual facts.
If you can’t be bothered to back up your central premise–which no one here but you accepts–then what is the point of even commenting at all?
Chris; I’m simply offering you a dose of reality that has been common and accepted knowledge since Day One. Deviants are not normal, are not psychologically stable and represent both a crime and health hazard. This is the reality. Deal with it.
What are you talking about, Chris? “Women speaking in church”??
Oh. Silly me, expecting that a theocrat like you would actually be familiar with the Bible; you’re always the least knowledgeable about what the book you thump people over the head with actually says.
You see, shortly after Paul–the only New Testament writer to mention homosexuality–airs his personal issues with homosexuality, he also commands women to not speak in church, and to always make sure to cover their heads while in church as well. He also says it is unnatural for women to ever assume any position of authority over a man.
Now, assuming your opposition to homosexuality is based on the Bible, can you explain why we as a culture should take Paul’s word on homosexuality as gospel truth, but not his statements on women?
First of all, I’m a constitutionalist, not a theocrat. That latter term is what atheists usually level at those who are Christians and stand up for Christian values… which, BTW, are basic to this country’s founding. You further claim that Saint Paul was the only one to mention homosexuality. Directly, perhaps- but the Bible has many references to this that you obviously missed. Bear in mind that perversion is the only sin described in the Bible as an “abomination”. Is that plain enough for you? Your attempt to link that to a concurrent plea by Paul that women dress appropriately (by the standard of the times) when attending church is pretty pathetic. And, since this thread is predominantly dealing with the topic of “gay marriage”, might I direct you to what Jesus Himself said about this?
You’re dodging the question: Why aren’t you following the other stuff the Bible said? Is there anything in the Bible about women having the same rights as men? The reasoning you use (to stretch the term) when you disparage gays is equally valid (which is to say, not at all) when used to oppose the idea of women having a voice in society, owning property, holding jobs, and generally being independent people.
There’s the Bible and tradition: only in the last century did women get the right to vote in the United States; that’s centuries of tradition of women being prohibited independently representing themselves, and most people, men and women, considered it obvious and natural.
Speaking of “nature”: prehistoric humans did form family units wherein the females gathered food, raised children, and maintained the dwellings while the males went on days-long hunting expeditions. Evolutionary psychology and neuroscience describe real statistical trends in thought patterns based on gender, though how much of it is nature and how much is nurture is a bit less certain. (As an aside, I prefer to describe people just by the thought patterns, because “gender” lumps together a bunch of traits that are conceptually distinct and only loosely correlated.) “Naturally” women wouldn’t need jobs, because they’d be solely focused on bearing and raising children and running a household. Of course, “naturally” men wouldn’t wear suits and sit inside all day looking at rectangles of colored light in order to get pieces of paper, but that’s addressed in my previous comment.
What makes it so “obvious” to you that enforcing the traditional, biblical, “natural” role of women in society isn’t right?
Steve: “Bear in mind that perversion is the only sin described in the Bible as an “abomination””
Not just wrong, embarassingly wrong.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=bible+abomination
Here’s an idea: Before you try and force everyone else to follow the Bible’rs teachings, why don’t you find out what it actually teaches?
Nobody’s forcing you to become a Christian… CHRIS. That’s the usual ploy that atheists use to try and portray others as oppressors because they choose to believe in Almighty God and His Son. You can go worship Odin, Crom, Allah or the Easter Bunny for all I care. For myself, the only time I can recall ever seeing the term “abomination” applied in the Bible was to those who engaged in perversion or witchcraft- the latter referring to pagan rituals often involving highly ungodly things such as human sacrifice. As I don’t have access to my Bible right now, I can’t double check. Regardless; the point is made. You sure are grasping at straws, aren’t you?
SMP, I have noticed how you tend to act as though nitpicking a tangential aspect of a comment invalidates its main point so that you are excused from addressing it. That’s why I’ve attempted to keep my comments simple and precise, which in turn is why you simply stop replying to me, lest you be forced to actually engage with my argument. This is called intellectual cowardice.
Chris didn’t mean you are literally forcing people to become Christians, though you are telling us we are all fools for not subscribing to your Christian moral code regardless of whether we believe there’s really an energy being threatening us into obeying it.
Chris’s point was that if your moral code is derived from the idea that the normative statements in the Christian Bible are right, it seems there are some other things you should also believe, because they are also normative statements in the Bible. Since you don’t appear to believe them, your worldview is inconsistent and hypocritical.
That’s exactly what he was attempting to do, Poddy, and I resented it. Once again, don’t assume that because I can’t answer all the barrage of snide innuendos and TRUE intellectual cowardice I get from certain posters here that I’m in hiding! Unlike some, I work for a living and have limited time for these things. This may be some little pseudo-intellectual parlor game to you, but these issues are of vital importance to some of the rest of us. Solutions are needed if this country is to survive another decade. No games, no deceits, no schemes. Survival. Therefore, I take it seriously indeed. Don’t flatter yourself just because I can’t give you as much time as you have to spare for idle demagoguery.
1) I also have a job, so get off your high horse.
2) I agree that the country is in poor shape, and I am actively working to fix things. My idea of fixing things is very different from yours, but I take it equally seriously.
3) I don’t use demagoguery. I am trying to get people to be more rational, not less. Don’t throw words around sloppily.
4) I am calling you out because you use the time you do have to spare to counter the most tangential things other people say, rather than addressing the meat of their point. It would not take more time than you have, but it might require examining some of your “core beliefs” to the point where you realize they are nonsensical. That’s why I think you’re hiding. Everyone else here, job or not, manages to address the main arguments of others.
5) The mature thing to do when Chris corrected you would be to explain what your true intentions are, if indeed they are not to force people to become Christian, and to apologize for your error. Instead you used Rationalization 31, the Troublesome Luxury, effectively saying “fact-checking my arguments is something I can’t afford to do, unlike you lazy bums!” Take responsibility for your arrogance and your mistakes.
SMP: “For myself, the only time I can recall ever seeing the term “abomination” applied in the Bible was to those who engaged in perversion or witchcraft- the latter referring to pagan rituals often involving highly ungodly things such as human sacrifice. As I don’t have access to my Bible right now, I can’t double check.”
Are you for real? Of course you can double check–you’re on the Internet. I literally left you a link to a Google search for “Bible abomination,” and you’re too lazy to even click it? You’re impossible.
The Bible describes eating shellfish as an “abomination,” yet I don’t see you decrying the perversion of this practice.
“Nobody’s forcing you to become a Christian… CHRIS.”
No, you’re just trying to force people to live under Biblical law when it comes to homosexuality. You’re not trying to force people to live under Biblical law when it comes to shellfish or women’s rights because you’re a hypocrite and a coward who hides behind the Bible as a shield for your own bigotry.
You don’t have weird, deep-seated and inexplicable issues with shellfish, so you’re not preaching against that.
First of all, Chris, I leave the unreality to you, since you seem so dedicated to it as a way of life. Secondly; my laptop is operating slow these days and giving me fits, rendering it difficult to access a lot of information. Third; I wouldn’t trust your sources on your say-so alone. Fourth; you once again engage in absurdities in attempting to make a false point. The laws of the ancient Israelites concerning forbidden foods are as irrelevant to the topic as that previous attempt of yours to equate the Apostle Paul’s admonition about women’s apparel in church! Questions of human conduct insofar as sexual perversion is concerned are a category on an entirely different level. Now either try making some honest comment or get lost. I don’t have a lot of time these days to deal with stark foolishness of this sort.
SMP: “This may be some little pseudo-intellectual parlor game to you, but these issues are of vital importance to some of the rest of us. Solutions are needed if this country is to survive another decade.”
Do you really see your conduct here as providing solutions to problems?
So far you have done nothing but repeat “homosexuals are perverts” like a mantra, and balked when asked to justify this with evidence or reason. You’ve convinced no one. If you really see this issue as so important to society, don’t you have the responsibility to explain your arguments in a way that others will understand? You epect others to see this as obvious, but we’ve made it clear to you that it’s not, and that we disagree. Yet you’ve offered no substantive arguments to change our mind. In short, you haven’t behaved like someone legitimately trying to solve a societal problem, but like a common Internet troll.
You want people to see homosexuality as a perversion? Explain why we should.
Let me be blunt, Christopher. You’ve made it very apparent that you’re not prepared to honestly argue any point of this topic. Therefore, I don’t take you seriously. How on Earth CAN I do so with someone who can’t even concede the very basic fact that homosexuality is a perversion? I don’t have the unlimited time to play these drawn out rhetorical give-and-takes when there’s no serious discussion to begin with. Plus, my patience with this sort of buffoonery becomes necessarily limited with every caffeine pill I take to keep awake on long night shifts. Therefore, I see little reason to go any further than this. Reason, reality and natural law mean nothing to you. Therefore, your alleged opinion is worthless and unworthy of my giving it further attention. And before you start yelping about my being arrogant, I’d suggest you take a look at your own posts. I bow to my master in this category!
Well, natural law doesn’t mean anything to me, but reason does, so in the spirit of reason, I’m calling a time out to ask an important question.
Steven Mark Pilling, what does the word “perversion” mean as you use it? I think I have been mistaken about what you mean when you use the word. I get that it implies “inherently wrong”, but how do you determine whether something is a perversion?
It’s one excuse after another with you, SMP.
“How on Earth CAN I do so with someone who can’t even concede the very basic fact that homosexuality is a perversion?”
No one here concedes that “basic fact” accept you. Do you acknowledge this?
Why have you continued to comment here if you are unwilling to argue the central point of disagreement? What is the point of you?
You won’t explain why you believe homosexuality is a perversion because you can’t. All of your excuses are mere deflections from this fact. You clearly have enough time to post the same repetitive comments over and over, but somehow lack the time to back up your central premise?
You, sir, are a troll.
SMP, please explain why you believe homosexuality is deviant. Heck, I’ll even let you cite the Bible as a defense. Then I’ll ask you whether you also believe women speaking in church represents a “deviant agenda,” since Paul lists that as a sin right after talking about homosexuality.
What are you talking about, Chris? “Women speaking in church”??
And yet, in some places, county sheriffs have discretion to deny concealed carry permits to people for arbirtrary reasons, even if such people have no statutory bar to such permits. Look up “may issue” “concealed carry”.
If it is all okay for San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore to deny a concealed carry permit to Ed Peruta, why should not the clerk in this case have the same freedom to deny marriage licenses?
Because county sheriffs have discretion to deny concealed carry permits to people for arbitrary reasons, even if such people have no statutory bar to such permits, and county clerks do not have discretion to refuse to issue marriage licenses.
Nothing says the law has to be consistent.
Inconsistent laws violate equal protection. Either all officials should get to arbitrarily infringe on our rights, or none should.
But that is perfectly consistent. Some governmental tasks are discretionary, some are not. Prosecutors have the discretion to charge you with a crime, but when they do, the court must give you a trial (barring a plea). In this instance, society has deemed the issuance of marriage licenses as a non-discretionary function, but the issuance of concealed carry permits to be within the discretion of law enforcement. Those judgments aren’t inconsistent, though you may disagree with them.
So then some rights are more equal than others?
I think you’re being deliberately obtuse. We don’t punish all crimes equally either. If it really helps you to a point of understanding to think of it as some rights being more equally applied than others, go ahead. But we both know it isn’t that simple.
Rights are safeguarded in different ways using different means. Some protections are more robust than others. You have the right to an attorney and the right to a gun, but the government is only required to get you one of those things if you can’t afford it.
The government also has the option of dropping criminal charges to avoid having to provide a lawyer.
You have to prove it is arbitrary. If it is, you have a legit beef. But, I guarantee the sheriffs in question have a set of legally defined parameters within which they must evaluate CCL requests.
Because you can’t kill someone using a marriage.
Submit all snide comments regarding spouses below.
No, it can only seem like it.
Something something life sentence, amiriteguys?
My prayer: Please God, Hurry Up and Cause a collision in America between the state’s secular laws and sharia… – Make it a much, much bigger collision than this goofy, petty “marital” stuff. Let terrorism and genocide enter into the national discussion on a sustained basis, too. Amen.
Are you kidding? You want people to die? To be killed?
Granny, my prayer is serious. I am under no illusions about the future. It is not that I want people to die and be killed. It is that I fully expect that people are going to die and be killed, as conflicts develop as a result of the irreconcilable differences between laws founded upon secularism and laws founded upon other religions. What I want is for the conflicts to be resolved, or headed off. Such events are going to have to happen, no matter what directions the governments and peoples in this part of the world go. So, they are going to happen – including terrorism and genocide. Perhaps I am somewhat of the mind of Ronald Reagan when he said in another context, “If it’s a bloodbath they want, let’s get it over with.” I would rather see the scores that must be settled, settled sooner rather than later.
See parallel courts in England. do you think once these are set up here the politicians have the stones to take them out or even dismiss them ???
So you expect the U.S. to go the way of England, with parallelism. That is possible, but I don’t see it as likely soon if ever, seeing as how Americans are learning and acting in their own, non-English ways in recognizing and responding to the inherent inequality of separateness, which parallelism is. Any establishment of parallelism will be short-lived.
Perhaps Davis is an elected official. The clerks of the circuit court in Virginia are, for eight year terms no less. If so, there may be a method by which she can be removed from office, but I don’t know that she can be “fired.” Better, though, that she simply resign if fulfilling the duties of her office conflicts with her religious views. Wouldn’t that be the more ethical course?
Yeah, if she objects to secular law, I’m sure there are many jobs and volunteer positions available where she won’t have to admit people are not all the same as she is. However Issuing licenses is not a religious piece of bureaucracy. If she want the pay and bennies that go with working for the government, she has to DO the job as the state requires.
Using religion to promote bigotry, goes way back. Our country guarantees us the right to practice our religions. But not the right to Force our religion on others. Christ himself stated the necessity of respecting secular laws- “give on to Ceasar what is Caesars” to not reconize secular authority she is not only, not doing her job, but she is disobeying Christ! I know others who. Would disagree as they love to use the bible to protect their narrow views, and forget all that do not judge others stuff as it I incovenient. Particularly when you, have that first stone in hand. What are you going to do with it? – Rip Claassen
County sheriffs are allowed to impose their animus against gun owners by denying concealed carry permits.
Look Michael…. This is like saying that someone at a McJob is allowed you make the burger, but not spit in it. Or maybe being allowed to deep fry the fries, but not the milkshakes is a better comparison. The point is that one of those activities is specifically allowed by the employer, part of their job, in fact, and the other isn’t, in fact, it’s specifically not allowed.
The thing is, Marriage Licenses CAN be denied by the authorities. They just CAN’T be denied on grounds of sexual orientation.
Concealed Carry Permits CAN be denied likewise, just as parallel, they CANNOT be denied on grounds defined by law…I bet sexual orientation would be one.
As far as I can tell, ALL licenses are subject to possible denial, though those possibilities are constrained by a list of “Cannot be denied on the grounds of…” restrictions.
The real beef with denying Conceal Carry is that that is a bright line Constitutional prohibition against infringing the right to bear arms. But that is not related to the discussion as you have posed it.
(and the tests for denial of any license will always be guided by a list of *customer-oriented* evaluation criteria….not *provider-oriented* evaluation criteria)
Even the sheriffs who deny CCL’s do so, though based on subjective evaluation, on a basis that the *customer* doesn’t match a set of criteria…
“Employees don’t get to pick and choose which duties they choose to perform, and their religious beliefs are irrelevant.”
-Jack if you had a mooslem employee, would you allow them call to prayer breaks, when everyone else was working ?
Prayer breaks if known in advance can easily be accommodated but the employees should clock out if they are more then the local jurisdiction allows for normal breaks. That said most employers and most employees do not know their respective laws well enough. And as such often get taken advantage of on these issues.
Private company? Whatever has been agreed upon in the employment contract.
Government employment? A reasonable period of time seems appropriate as long as they get their contractually required tasks completed.
Which, I would think that when the rubber meets the road, both the Private and Government solutions would look similar, giving an employee *reasonable* leeway – that is too say, if the potential employee can’t handle the limitations, the potential employee would need to seek other employment or adjust their life expectations accordingly.
Now, your challenge is to find an Islamic equivalent that involves the employee doing something as they relate to the client and not to their coworkers or employer.
If your analogy had been “What if a Muslim employee wanted to cut off the head of a Kaffir customer in accordance to what their religion commands them to do”, then your analogy would be closer as it relates to how a believer feels they ought to act towards a customer.
In which case, no a Christian can’t discriminate against a homosexual customer in terms of mere licensing because Christianity holds sacred an exclusive Male-Female definition of marriage, just as a Muslim can’t decide who gets to keep their head because Islam holds sacred an exclusive definition of those who get to live simply because of fidelity to the Koran.
Separate law, requiring reasonable accommodations for religion. That’s reasonable.
Well, by definition, reasonable accommodations are reasonable. The issue here is where we can draw a reasonable line. At what point can the government make a law that says that a religious injunction is unreasonable, i.e. unethical, i.e. a wrong way of life?
People keep talking about the separation of church and state, but they dance around the ultimate impossibility of total separation between the two: religious viewpoints always influence people’s views on right and wrong, and those views are manifested in their entire lives, including in their political participation.
If people’s views on right and wrong differ, any attempt to paint the issue as “you have your truth and I have mine” is a cop out and ultimately deprives everyone involved of the opportunity to advance in their understanding of the world. It also makes politics worse, because it leads to total war in the political arena. “We’re obviously right, but we can’t convince them, which means they’re evil or stupid, but the only way to defeat them is to win as many votes as possible, no matter what it takes.”
And yet, because people grow up learning neither perception of reality nor communication between paradigms, they feel that anything other than shrugging and sticking to their own story is impossible, because they’re afraid of losing their direction and place in the world and having to discover better ones. An Ubermensch is unafraid of such things, because they can make a place and find a direction no matter how many times they lose their footing, and so it is only by becoming Ubermensch that our society will end the perpetual ideological conflicts.
The problem is and always will be that while you can command a separation between church and state, you cannot command a separation between state and culture. Indeed, if a culture does not feel respected by the state, the state is doomed, and religions is a big component of culture.
Only if we are a party to the (metaphorical) contract. Some people aren’t, and even those that are may unilaterally declare that they are giving it up (ethically speaking, unless they are separately unethical, though it may not work in practice; currently, this is most realistic for politically driven emigration like the young Einstein’s to Switzerland, though that now involves taking up other loyalties instead). Just about the only ethical bar is to trying to have one’s cake and eat it by rejecting some laws while still claiming the rest of the contract.
1) States have the power to enact ANY laws they see fit that are not listed in the powers enumerated to the National level of government. (10th Amendment)
2) A whole slew of states, eventually all of them, decided they could issue marriage licenses. Nothing happens without a law. To the State, a marriage is simply an extremely exclusive economic contract. They decided to regulate such contracts in such a way as to confer benefits to the people engaging in that particular contract – tax breaks, decision making power, property security, etc
3) The nation has determined that, though States can make whatever laws they want as per #1, those laws can’t impact people disparately based on certain criteria. (14th Amendment).
4) A whole slew of states, most of them, decided that marriage licenses could only go to one class of people.
5) As per #2, that conferred privileges on a single class of people. A violation of the 14th Amendment.
How exactly was this not in the Constitution?
“A single class”? So now the 97% of the population that aren’t sexually perverted in one form or another become a single class of people and are thereby forced to accept a destructive form of lunacy as being on par with the scope of any non-insane society on record?
That’s what makes me so alien. The closest thing I have to such a belief is my assumption that things make sense, that we can figure them out, and that we can live without angst by making the best of what we find out.
On the other hand (and unlike Tevye, I’ve got plenty of hands), it’s very common for a human to adhere to a very specific set of assumptions about how the world works, which is inevitably incomplete and therefore flawed, and refuse to update it because losing their blind certainty is scary. It’s one manifestation of the addiction to the decreased quantity of experience, also known as cowardice.
It’s a dangerous and anti-conscious way of existing, and I don’t see any reason to tolerate, in the long term, the idea of people living like that. I reject it as ultimate weakness. Human society will never move past its infantile problems if this weakness is not cured.
Then human society will never move past its infantile problems.
Alternatively, humans could learn to be more like me, at least as far as perception is concerned. Is there a particular reason humans cannot transcend this particular mental limitation?
Human society imperils itself when it rejects truth and substitutes bizarre theories in the place of tradition and common law. It’s likewise defined by the quest for ease, no personal responsibility and a paternalistic government to protect its worthless members from the consequences of their own follies. Cowardice, indeed! This is called “decadency”. Once it sets firmly in, that society is doomed.
How about taking responsibility for figuring out right and wrong for yourself instead of letting a paternalistic energy being, made famous by the cult of personality known as the Roman Empire, tell you what’s important and protect you from having to stare into the abyss?
Jack; it’s an easy out to arbitrarily dismiss as “irrational” some hard truths that nonetheless defy the “approved” outlook. I’m not big on doing that. When I see a concept or agenda that unabashedly insane and/or malignant, I’m going to call it out for what it is. That’s a tougher road than the one that counsels going with the flow, but I’m not the flowing type.
“Jack; it’s an easy out to arbitrarily dismiss as “irrational” some hard truths that nonetheless defy the “approved” outlook.”
It’s also easy to arbitrarily define what is “truth” so that you never have to back up your assertions with even an ounce of logic.
“When I see a concept or agenda that unabashedly insane and/or malignant, I’m going to call it out for what it is.”
Explain why homosexuality is unabashedly insane or malignant. What is obvious to you clearly isn’t obvious to us.
An irrational position is one that is held to be unassailable simply because one holds it. The loophole here is faith: those who believe God is displeased with his gay creations (in the absence of any evidence except a subjective interpretation of the Bible) can, and do, simply argue that the Word is The Truth, God doesn’t have to give reasons, and if you call bullshit you are attacking their religion. It’s pretty airtight, actually. And the next step of Pat Robertson claiming that yesterday’s stock market dip was God’s punishment for gay marriage doesn’t embarrass the faithful at all, even though they own it.
If it isn’t obvious to you, Chris, then I suggest you see a headshrinker… now.
It isn’t obvious tO anyone else here but you, Steve. Have you not noticed that by now?
You can’t keep defending your bigotry by saying it’s “obvious.” No one hear agrees with you. Repeating yourself over and over and over isn’t doing any good. You have convinced no one. This is the behavior of a troll.
So either have the decency to explain your arguments, or shut the hell up.
Accusing another of one’s own shortcomings is the basic tenet of Clintonism, Chris. Now, this may come as a shock, but there comes a point where plain common sense outweighs all the sophistry in the world. Your adamant insistence that homosexuality is- somehow- not a perversion is a case in point. If I have to repeat myself often, it’s because ludicrous claims such as this and others on the topic are likewise oft repeated.
And, on that note, let me repeat YET AGAIN; condemning degenerate and/or criminal behavior is not bigotry. No one but you, it seems, still swallows that incredible claim (even the queermeisters themselves anymore) that deviancy is a “genetic predisposition”. Now, please have the decency (if you actually have any understanding of the term) to explain how two men performing savage acts of pseudo-sex on one another is NOT a perversion of nature.
Either that or stick you head in a bucket of something and count to a hundred.
Where did you get the idea that perverting nature was bad in the first place? I gave blood today. Taking blood, and even solid organs, from a human and putting them into another human’s body is a perversion of nature. You can tell so because nature gave us immune systems to prevent foreign contamination of our bodies, and we have to bypass those systems in order to do things nature never planned for, like deliberately harming our own bodies to keep other people’s bodies alive well beyond the point where they “naturally” would have died.
Heck, selectively breeding animals is a perversion of nature! Have you seen some breeds of dog? They’re cute, but they couldn’t survive in the wild, and are therefore definitely not natural. The foods you eat have been perverted over millennia* to be convenient for humans to eat. Farms pervert the lives of animals in order to maximize food production.
Perverting nature is ethically neutral, capable of being used for good, ill, or more neutral. Your assertion that something is a perversion of nature tells me exactly nothing about how ethical it is, and it’s consummately hypocritical, because very little about your life was ever “natural”.
Here is an educational link on the on the logical fallacy you keep trying to pass of as an self-evident argument: http://www.fallacyfiles.org/adnature.html
Find a different argument against gay sex.
*Yes, web browser spell check, the plural of millennium is conventionally “millennia”, not “millenniums”–go read a book.
Now the excuses are really getting silly. Sexual deviance by human beings is now the equivalent of life saving surgical procedures… or breeding animals such as dogs or livestock?! Come on, Poddy! This entire thread has become absurd enough without you taking it down yet another notch.
My point is that they’re equally “natural”, so if you want to criticize “sexual deviance”, find a reason to do it without invoking “perversion of nature.”
Anything that threatens to reveal to you the inconsistency in your point of view, you dismiss with some empty excuse, like “it’s ridiculous” or “sophistry”. Anything that you can’t explain but happen to believe, you assert as “obvious” and substitute a sophisticated vocabulary for a coherent argument, committing the very sophistry of which you accuse others.
You say things that don’t make sense, and you don’t recognize when other people are making sense.
You’re the most absurd thing on this thread.
Also, you have a nasty habit of insulting and belittling those you disagree with. Is there a reason for that, or a purpose? Is it meant to help them understand, or is it meant to help you feel better?
Maybe there just comes a point where I give like for like, Poddy.
Where did you get the idea that giving like for like was a good thing?