31 replies to this topic

[MSpencer]

I don't think I can even properly introduce this one.
David Vitter and Larry Craig name themselves cosponsors of a proposed constitutional amendment which would ban gay marriage.
The people embroiled at the center of two of the most entertaining extramarital affairs in recent political memory have thrown their backing behind an amendment which nobody in the western world, except America, would ever really consider.
This just... really... really makes my day.

David Vitter was the one who was implicated in the DC Madam files as being a high profile client of a massive prostitution ring.
But Larry Craig's the more interesting one; he was censured for verbally assaulting Barney Frank (D-MA) for his sexual orientation (He's the only openly gay representative in American history, I think). He was also one of the most outspoken against Bill Clinton's little slip of the pants and was one of the driving forces behind the Defence of Marriage Act, and ten years later, he's caught propositioning a man for oral sex in an airport bathroom.
I love hypocrisy, especially when it continues for... years.

Of course, America needs this amendment. America needs to prevent things like this from happening.

Breaking ground is nothing new in the nearly six-decade relationship of Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon.

The lesbian couple were the first to participate in a 2004 challenge of California laws against same-sex marriage, exchanging wedding vows only to see the ceremony voided later.

But on Monday, Martin, 87, and Lyon, 84, exchanged vows again. This time, California law -- at least for now -- was on their side.

(snip)

"When you consider these two women, who have been denied their rights for 55 years -- put yourself in their shoes and you start to feel a little bit differently," said Newsom, adding that allowing gay and lesbians to marry is about giving them the respect and dignity they deserve.

Thankfully, we have good, upstanding people like Larry Craig and David Vitter who are always on the watch for evil anti-American ideals like the marriage of two octogenarians who just happen to both be women.
Am I one of the only people that doesn't see a problem with this? Or am I the only one who realizes that allowing two men or two women to marry doesn't mean you're going to allow people to marry chihuahuas?

[MSpencer]

More information on this amendment (Which has failed quite a few times). I tried to get a conservative viewpoint, but I don't frequent conservative blogs and don't know any remotely reputable ones.

http://en.wikipedia...._Amendment#2008
http://www.time.com/...-460232,00.html (Written slightly after the Canadian government decided to sort of... not question the court decisions, leading to the current state in Canada)
http://www.ncsl.org/...arriagesumm.htm
http://www.usatoday....-marriage_x.htm

Also this is sort of a shameless bump since the thread got lost in hell.

[CIL]

Wow... I can't believe they're both at stuff like this again...

[duke_Qa]

Marriage is not more holy to me than a funeral is, and they bury all kinds of people.

Religion and its futile attempts to grasp its waning power, fun stuff.

Anyway, its not a topic that I'm very interested in because I have a hard time seeing myself getting married anytime soon. It's usually just a big mess of a party where you get mixmasters and other things you already most likely had since you likely have lived with your partner in the same home for years. All kinds of people should be allowed to hook together in some strange ritual if they want to, its not for me or anyone else to judge your preferences. Although i have something against those that marry 12-year olds and expect them to have given them 5 children before they have had their 20th birthday.

[CIL]

I agree with you on religion. But I think that a lot of people hate gays and want to see them wiped out of the public (it's not gonna work, though). But regardless, if these guys push this through, it could make a lot of peoples' lives much harder. And yes, polygamy sucks.

[MSpencer]

I hate the general idea of marriage, but some people don't, so I can't blame some people for caring. Frankly I could never see myself doing one of those wedding things, so it's not a topic that really matters to me.

Polygamy is illegal for a reason, it's a bad thing for society in some of the ways it's practiced, but I can't see same sex marriage destroying society.

Edited by MSpencer, 13 July 2008 - 04:40 PM.

[Puppeteer]

Is there anything wrong at all with gay marriages? I see nothing wrong. Only that it's flawed by an outdated religion that tries to cling to tradition because that's all it has.

[CIL]

Entirely correct. Well said, Puppeteer.

[Spectre]

Is there anything wrong at all with gay marriages? I see nothing wrong. Only that it's flawed by an outdated religion that tries to cling to tradition because that's all it has.

I'll tell you whats wrong with gay marriage, it slows down the families genes, you wouldn't expect two eggs to make a baby or 2 things of sperm to make a baby, shit doesn't happen that way, gays slow down the cycle of life because they don't produce babies to carry the gene link on, so forth if the entire world was gay we'd be fucked with no way out of it ever, i don't really care about them, but they aren't a benefit to humanity.

[CodeCat]

They are a benefit. They help counter overpopulation.

[MSpencer]

Is there anything wrong at all with gay marriages? I see nothing wrong. Only that it's flawed by an outdated religion that tries to cling to tradition because that's all it has.

I'll tell you whats wrong with gay marriage, it slows down the families genes, you wouldn't expect two eggs to make a baby or 2 things of sperm to make a baby, shit doesn't happen that way, gays slow down the cycle of life because they don't produce babies to carry the gene link on, so forth if the entire world was gay we'd be fucked with no way out of it ever, i don't really care about them, but they aren't a benefit to humanity.

As someone with extensive training and education in genetics and large population dynamics, you're a total, unmitigated moron. Yes, it's currently impossible to create a baby using two sperm samples, but there's adoption, artificial insemination, and surrogacy. If reproductive cloning becomes a reality, it's very possible that two men, with proper testing and procedures, could create an embryo using enucleated zygotes and microscale techniques.

There's nothing such as a "gene link," and I think you'd be surprised how little reproduction within an established population contributes to genetic diversity. The free movement of people, resettling, and emigration, can account for the vast majority of genetic variation experienced in the last five hundred years. A good piece of evidence for this is the Native American tribes which inhabited both of the Americas before their near extinction over four hundred years of biological and conventional warfare. If you were correct about reproduction providing most of the genetic variation experienced by populations, they would have been reasonably fast to adapt to changing conditions, and would have developed immunities to major diseases in the same time frame as European populations. This is not true, as European populations were able to develop some resistance to smallpox within two hundred years of major outbreaks, while Native American populations never did. The reason for this is that Europe, a continent with a high rate of movement which also had a high infant mortality rate, had a constant flow of people in and out, and as a result, a constant flow of genes. Assuming that reproduction alone between members of an established population provides most of the genetic variation we see is an amateur mistake, but still doesn't excuse your blind idiocy. Reproduction between members of two established populations with a significant geographic separation, as in evolutionary theory, will in theory have the greatest genetic shift from either population.

Additionally, given percentages in history, I hardly think we're in danger of the entire world turning gay. For example, there exists a statistic which says that 1/10 people are GLBTT-SQQA (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered, Two-Spirited, Queer, Questioning, Asexual). This percentage seems to be higher in populations which are more tolerant, have a higher literacy rate, and have protectionary laws, but I believe that's only because people feel less threatened to come forward. Out of those 1/10, I would say perhaps 25% of them may reproduce in some way, depending on the country and geographic area. It's actually not that much less than the heterosexual population. People will never stop being attracted to the same gender, and thinking that that's even possible, or taking it a bit further and saying that there's an evil conspiracy to turn everyone gay, is simple bigotry.

So no, "gays" don't "slow down the cycle of life." Saying something like that is akin to saying "Jews slow down the spread of Christianity," or "Blacks interfere with white supremacy." It's nothing more than simple hate speech, but it's become dressed up as of late in the cloak of conservative rhetoric. "Don't let your kids surf the internet unsupervised, it could turn them gay!" is the same as saying "Don't let your kids go to school, it could turn them into atheists," or "Don't let your children meet their own friends, they could be black." The only difference is the first one is being said by Bill O'Reilly once or twice a day, whereas the latter two were being said all over the world up until quite recently, and in fact, they're certainly still being said.
I rest my case.

[Puppeteer]

Well said, as per usual MSpencer. I think that should be the header of every post here
General Jenkins, I'd like to point out 2 majorly wrong things with your little hatespeech, without going into the details about how icnredibly moronic, discriminatory and uneducated you are:
1). The proportion, as stated by MSpencer, of homosexuals is so small in proportion to heterosexuals that you needn't worry about human existence coming to a halt. It is 99% unlikely that everyone will suddenly turn gay, and the small number in comparison at the moment have no real affect on the population anywhere.
2). Actually, the population has grown increasingly quickly recently, so much so that overpopulation is a serious problem at the moment. Expect food shortages, price increase, crampter living spaces, more competition, more hard-pressed schools...



PS: just a small note, we can thank Cowpox for a first vaccinations against smallpox. The lesser of two evils was actually a benefit.

[Hostile]

Homosexuals do make up a small % of the population but they do their best to force actions against the mass populous opinion. When recently viewed with sure defeat in California on gay marriage when brought to the populous for vote, they reached out to advocate judges in order to BLOCK the measure even being presented for populous vote.

See homosexuals use the court system (advocate judges) to FORCE their way through the system instead of using common Constitutional measures. They know they can't win through the populous so they use courts to "legislate from the bench."

It's a general Marxist approuch. The populous is stupid and needs to be guided by those self empowered people who deem themselves wise enough to FORCE their version of common sense upon the masses.

Personally I don't give a shit who marries whom. Good luck on that. There is no difference between same sex and traditional marriage. End result is it's the same sex every night either way.

[duke_Qa]

Yes, it's currently impossible to create a baby using two sperm samples, but there's adoption, artificial insemination, and surrogacy. If reproductive cloning becomes a reality, it's very possible that two men, with proper testing and procedures, could create an embryo using enucleated zygotes and microscale techniques.

*shh*. If the conservatives around the world start realizing that something like that can be done with enough research into the field, there will be dogmatic hell on earth. It would either cause even more trouble for the subject minorities, or it would cause the religious nuts to forget about marriage and partnership and use all their guns on blocking such research.

[some_weirdGuy]

I'll tell you whats wrong with gay marriage, it slows down the families genes, bla bla, some crap about sperm/eggs, bla bla bla

dude, do you really think people only marry for expanding their gene pool? if you do then you arn't that smart...

marriage is a show of commitment. when you marry you are telling that person that you love them and what to be with them for the rest of your life, and all that crap.


so there is absolutely nothing wrong with gay marriage...

[Vortigern]

He's right, actually. Marriage is a show of commitment and well-being, hence the traditional vows. It's just expected that people will be straight. Gay people may not benefit society as far as furthering the population is concerned, but neither do single people. Do you hate them too now? What would be really funny is if General Jenkins later turned out gay. And single. And infertile anyway.

Edited by Vortigern, 23 July 2008 - 11:27 AM.

[CodeCat]

Not being allowed to marry is akin to being forced to have a divorce. It's rediculous.

[MSpencer]

I view it as being excluded from marriage due to religious beliefs, kind of like if the United States refused marriage licenses to Jews.

[Vortigern]

It is. Homosexuality is a lifestyle choice, just as religion is. In fact, it's even less of a choice, kinda like how you're born a Jew or not a Jew, with all that 'God's chosen people' bollocks. However, the difference is that 'marriage' is a course of action that can only be undertaken by a man and a woman together. This is simply a terminological difference, as there is little to no reason why gay people should not be granted the same civil rights as straight people, but marriage is not the right word for it.

[Mathijs]

Homosexuality is not a lifestyle choice.