Republican fag-bashing... again

[Eric]

These useless-eater Republicans are ranting about the gays again:

"Here we have an openly gay federal judge, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, substituting his views for those of the American people and of our Founding Fathers who, I promise you, would be shocked by courts that imagine they have the right to put gay marriage in our Constitution," said Maggie Gallagher, chairwoman of The National Organization for Marriage, a group that helped fund Proposition 8."

Leavings aside the concept of equal protection of the laws (the nut of the "gay marriage" issue) these fucking Republican bible-beating assholes apparently think the most critical issue facing the country is not the endless wars we're mucked-up in, not the disastrous economy, not the emerging police state, not the destruction of the rule of law... it's whether gays can get married....

I'd like to shove a Bah-bul sideways down their god-damned throats...

[dieseleverything]

The majority of Americans believe that gay marriage is wrong, why should they have rights under the constitution? You bitch about Congress changing the meaning of the constitution to fit modern times, but have no trouble with them giving queers more rights than a normal, in the majority, straight couple?

While I agree that no one should be forced to believe in a religion, I don't think that a MAJORITY of voluntary religious people should have to succumb to things being forced down their throats.

Why should 76% of Americans have to listen to 15%????

YOU, ATHEIST, ARE A MINORITY. So quit bitchin'!

The majority of Americans (76%) identify themselves as Christians

Another 15% of the adult population identifies as having no religious belief

[Eric]

"The majority of Americans believe that gay marriage is wrong, why should they have rights under the constitution? You bitch about Congress changing the meaning of the constitution to fit modern times, but have no trouble with them giving queers more rights than a normal, in the majority, straight couple? "

Just because a majority is in favor (or against) something doesn't make whatever it is right. Right? Or was slavery an "ok" right because at one time most Americans thought it was ok?

The issue here is equal treatment under the law; not "more rights than a normal, in the majority, straight couple." Marriage rights mean having the right to jointly own/transfer property, to act on behalf of one's spouse (power of attorney), inheritance rights, visitation rights and so on.

In other words, respect for the individual rights that ought to be sacrosanct for every individual in a free country. Sexual orientation doesn't determine whether a person is entitled to the same protections under the law as others. Note: No one (not me, anyhow) is advocating that gays be given anything, materially or otherwise. Just that the law recognize their partnerships, for purposes of the things mentioned above. Why would you have a problem with that?

Part of the problem is semantic; the use of the term "marriage" - which has both civil and legal connotations. I agree that gays should not be able to force a religious group to "accept" them as married, in the context of their religion. But that's not what's at issue here. They want the same recognition by civil/legal authorities as any other couple.

How does extending such rights to gay couples in any way harm you, or denigrate your rights?

"YOU, ATHEIST, ARE A MINORITY. So quit bitchin'!"

So it all comes to "because Jeebus says so!?"

Why are religious people - specifically, Christians - so obsessed with gays?

Aren't there more serious, important things to worry about? Or are we still all in junior high? Ohhhh... so and so is a faaaag! Well, so what? Who cares? Is the dude (or woman) trying to mount you or some such? Forcing you to do anything? Taking your property? What?

I just don't get it.

And besides, homosexuality is hardly even mentioned in the entirety of the New Testament; yet many evangelical Christians act as though it was the constant subject of Jeebus' preachings...

Why is it that most Christians are more worried about gays - and gays getting married - than they are about coveting/stealing others' property and murder.... to name just a few items talked about much more by Jeebus in the New Testament and specifically listed among the Ten Commandments? When did fag bashing become the number one priority for Jeebus' "followers"?

PS: I'm not an atheist. I just don't have any specific religious belief. And I think anyone who claims that any religion is "it" is full of shit. Not one of us "knows" a single blessed thing about this thing we call God, what it wants from us, or what happens to use when we die. We all have opinions and beliefs, of course. But one of those is as good (or bad) as any other opinion/belief. Religion is by definition outside of the realm of the provable and thus, the knowable. I think the world would be a much saner place if we all could admit this, be humble about it - and quit insisting we "know" God or that "our God" is the real God (and your God is a fake God) and all the rest of that bullshit.

[Adam]

I read a study that prayer helps the heeling process. Those who pray over the sick and dying have a better outcome then those who didn't receive any prayer at all. Also God I think came 2000 years ago and will come one more time to judge us.

[Eric]

I read a study that prayer helps the heeling process. Those who pray over the sick and dying have a better outcome then those who didn't receive any prayer at all. Also God I think came 2000 years ago and will come one more time to judge us.

Ok, but what about the gay-bashing?

Granted, I'm not a Christian - but I have read the New Testament - and there is virtually nothing in there about homosexuality; it certainly isn't a "high priority" sin like, for example, coveting material wealth.

So, why are so many Christians so furiously up in arms about gays and whether the government recognizes same-sex marriages?

I just don't "get" the whole anti-gay thing. As a straight married male, I don't feel in any way threatened by gays, married or otherwise. I certainly don't see why a gay couple ought not to be able to jointly own/transfer property or legally act on each other's behalf, etc., in the same way that straight couples may.

That doesn't in any way threaten my rights; heck it affirms them.

Maybe the problem is the insistence on referring to this as "marriage."

After all, I'm not religious in the least and my wife and I were not married by a priest - yet we are legally married.

Perhaps if the term was changed to "civil union" or some such everyone would be happy - though I still don't see why so many religious people are so freaked about the gays...

[Adam]

Eric and everyone;
I work with gay people well nobody knows for certain as they don't really advertise. My sister-in-law brother is 100% gay. It's non of my business. I think life is harsher for gay people as they are not accepted readily in most circles. I am going against my Catholic faith and might be admonished for this but I see them as having rights and privileges like everyone else. I don't think they are bad or immoral unless they cheat on there spouses like a lot of heterosexuals do. I accept people for who they are and try not to judge anyone. This being said I am careful of whom I trust and friendships are based on the person at a whole. Faiths or religions or not I have family members that are agnostic,sexual orientations and gender are secondary in my book.

[Eric]

Eric and everyone;
I work with gay people well nobody knows for certain as they don't really advertise. My sister-in-law brother is 100% gay. It's non of my business. I think life is harsher for gay people as they are not accepted readily in most circles. I am going against my Catholic faith and might be admonished for this but I see them as having rights and privileges like everyone else. I don't think they are bad or immoral unless they cheat on there spouses like a lot of heterosexuals do. I accept people for who they are and try not to judge anyone. This being said I am careful of whom I trust and friendships are based on the person at a whole. Faiths or religions or not I have family members that are agnostic,sexual orientations and gender are secondary in my book.

Pretty much my sentiments also.

I think it's fairly obvious that even if one doesn't personally approve of gays, they're far less of a problem (let alone a threat) than, say, straight thieves, or rapists or thugs, etc.

Whom would just about any of us rather have as neighbors? Hell, I'd rather have The Village People (all of them, the whole band) move in next door than just one violent, loudmouthed wife-beater type....

The answer's just as obvious!

[swamprat]

I just caught this article on Lew Rockewell. It is an interesting spin on the topic, one that is way overdiscussed on both sides. We should be more worried about our trade deficit and our dollar devaluation than whether Dick and Rick or Jane and Julie should be married. I could care less.

Note - the author is a homosexual.

http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article...arriage_sucks/

[DonTom]

I just caught this article on Lew Rockewell. It is an interesting spin on the topic, one that is way overdiscussed on both sides. We should be more worried about our trade deficit and our dollar devaluation than whether Dick and Rick or Jane and Julie should be married. I could care less.

Note - the author is a homosexual.

http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article...arriage_sucks/

Seems the guy is an idiot, gay or not. For an example "Marriage is not a civil institution but a religious-cultural tradition".

Okay, then why is anybody worried about the legal definition of marriage? And if it's a religious issue, our First Amendment very clearly says it MUST be legal as there are several churches that agree with same sex marriage. And tradition cannot ever be used to decide law. If we went by that, we would not allow women to vote or for mixed race couples to marry.

-Don-

[Eric]

I just caught this article on Lew Rockewell. It is an interesting spin on the topic, one that is way overdiscussed on both sides. We should be more worried about our trade deficit and our dollar devaluation than whether Dick and Rick or Jane and Julie should be married. I could care less.

Note - the author is a homosexual.

http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article...arriage_sucks/

He writes well, but the article is full of "I say so!" assertions not backed up with a single blessed thing but his personal opinion.

He defines marriage as being "for the production of children," Really? Says who? Him? I disagree. Millions of child-free married couples disagree, too. And their opinion is just as valid as his. Raimondo is not the Marriage Fuhrer who gets to decide the parameters. And so far as I know, there's nothing in the Bah-bul or other religious book that says to be a legitimate marriage, the couple has to produce kids.

Next, he asserts - and that's all it is, his assertion - that no real man wants to get married. A universal statement that's on its face false. (And if the author's gay - as Don indicates - this statement is even more ridiculous. How the "F" would he - Raimondo - know? )

But his most idiotic assertion is the stuff about homosexuality being a choice. Oh, he dresses it up some by saying it's "heavenly" love - that is, purely carnal, responsibility-free sex chosen by immature men seeking to avoid the (to Raimondo) drudgery of straight coupling.

He's worth quoting at length on this:

"Pausanias, in Plato’s Symposium, answers that homosexuality is the “heavenly love” precisely because it is divorced from earthly carnality and centered around an idealized conception of beauty. It is purely aesthetic, and not at all procreative, that is, completely unnatural and artificial. To Pausanias, and his classical Greek comrades, this made it superior to the crassness of “the meaner sort of men,” exclusive hetereosexuals, who lacked the “higher” capacity to appreciate beauty in all its forms, including the male form.."

The whole article is some of the most elegantly written bullshit I have ever come across!

[DonTom]

but I see them as having rights and privileges like everyone else..

Did you leave out the word "should" such as in "should have the same rights? Or do you think gays already have equal rights? If you think gay couples have equal rights, please read about the DOMA and then do your income taxes this way, as Tom & I have to do each and every year.

-Don-

[DonTom]

but have no trouble with them giving queers more rights than a normal, in the majority, straight couple?

Please name one. Just one. But I can name more than one thousand that gays couples cannot get anywhere in the USA at this time. There are more than 1,000 laws that change when a couple is married under FEDERAL laws that NO gay couple in the USA qualify for, married or not.

Oh, I was a little off, it's 1,137 (one changed since the below article, hospital visitation) federal laws that NO gay couples qualify for in the USA. Not even where their state says same sex marriage is legal. See here.

"According to the federal government's Government Accountability Office (GAO), more than 1,138 rights and protections are conferred to U.S. citizens upon marriage by the federal government; areas affected include Social Security benefits, veterans' benefits, health insurance, Medicaid, hospital visitation, estate taxes, retirement savings, pensions, family leave, and immigration law."

-Don-

[Eric]

Please name one. Just one. But I can name more than one thousand that gays couples cannot get anywhere in the USA at this time. There are more than 1,000 laws that change when a couple is married under FEDERAL laws that NO gay couple in the USA qualify for, married or not.

Oh, I was a little off, it's 1,137 (one changed since the below article, hospital visitation) federal laws that NO gay couples qualify for in the USA. Not even where their state says same sex marriage is legal. See here.

"According to the federal government's Government Accountability Office (GAO), more than 1,138 rights and protections are conferred to U.S. citizens upon marriage by the federal government; areas affected include Social Security benefits, veterans' benefits, health insurance, Medicaid, hospital visitation, estate taxes, retirement savings, pensions, family leave, and immigration law."

-Don-

Another point that Diesel should consider:

He writes that atheists (presumably, these are the only people not into fag-bashing) are "in the minority" at 15-20 percent of the population - and so should, in effect, just shut up and take it.

I wonder how many people would say the same about, say, blacks - who comprise 12-13 percent of the populace? Or Jews? (Maybe 3 percent of the population.)

The fag-bashing Jeebus Uber Alles types are typically slavishly, obsequiously deferential toward "African Americans" and other "minorities."

But atheists - and gays (there are probably more of them than atheists!) - don't count. Their rights are second-class. They can be attacked openly....

Praise Jeebus!

[DonTom]

Why should 76% of Americans have to listen to 15%????

There are many reasons, such as the 14th Amendment as well as:

"The voice of the majority is no proof of justice."
--Johann von Schiller

"Any man more right than his neighbors, constitutes a majority of one."
--Henry David Thoreau

"We go by the major vote, and if the majority are insane, the sane must go to the hospital."
--Horace Mann

"A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where 51% of the people may take away the rights of the other 49%".
-(said to be from Thomas Jefferson)

"Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good."
--H. L. Mencken

"Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform."
--Mark Twain

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb
deciding who to have for dinner.
Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote."
- Benjamin Franklin

-Don Quoteman

[DonTom]

But atheists - and gays (there are probably more of them than atheists!) - don't count. Their rights are second-class. They can be attacked openly....

Praise Jeebus!

If a minority is small enough, the majority can get away with it. Small minorities have to rely on courts to make the necessary changes for any equality issue. Majority of people will vote them down every time, until the time comes when it's no longer acceptable. There's nothing in the same sex marriage issue for heterosexuals, so that's one reason why we cannot expect many votes. Another is because of the large number of superstitious (religious) people in this country who feel that they have to be God's police force.

Nevertheless, there are more married heterosexuals (like you) who support same sex marriage than the total number of gay couples (like Tom & me) that exist. But that still won't be nearly enough for a majority vote for marriage equality. Such an issue as same sex marriage should never be decided from a simple majority vote.

-Don-

[Eric]

If a minority is small enough, the majority can get away with it. Small minorities have to rely on courts to make the necessary changes for any equality issue. Majority of people will vote them down every time, until the time comes when it's no longer acceptable. There's nothing in the same sex marriage issue for heterosexuals, so that's one reason why we cannot expect many votes. Another is because of the large number of superstitious (religious) people in this country who feel that they have to be God's police force.

Nevertheless, there are more married heterosexuals (like you) who support same sex marriage than the total number of gay couples (like Tom & me) that exist. But that still won't be nearly enough for a majority vote for marriage equality. Such an issue as same sex marriage should never be decided from a simple majority vote.

-Don-

Yeah...

What gets me down is the ugly reality that so many "conservatives" are really closet theocrats, who don't resent Big Government as such; they just object to it being used for purposes they disagree with.

They are ardent supporters of "the troops" (read: endless war and the pursuit of global American hegemony) and "family values" (at gunpoint, if need be) but don't see that this negates any principled objection to the Big Government they claim to oppose.

Meanwhile, they obsess - literally - about "the gay agenda" (whatever the fuck that is).

I have a friend (well, not so much anymore) who became a hard-core evangelical Bah-bul thumper. He listens to these tapes he gets from some cracker preacher in Texas named RB Thieme. Anyway, he is constantly ranting about gays and gay marriage... which I just don't get.

This guy is married, has two kids... I have asked him how, exactly, it affects him or his family in any way at all if a gay couple commits to one another and this commitment is recognized in law as "marriage"... which leads to lots of mephitic rantings but not a single coherent objection that I can make out....

[Eric]

Hey Diesel,

Check out the Main Page today... another Republican "family values" shyster turns out to have a wide stance....

[RebelKnightCSA]

Hey Diesel,

Check out the Main Page today... another Republican "family values" shyster turns out to have a wide stance....

I posted a little comment of my own there. If the fundamentalcases dont like it, throw them in the woods!