The Glade 4.0

What mob rule?

Let's put it another way: If society is not saying what its own proper role in the sanction of marriage is, who exactly gets to determine that?



Since we sanction marriage at the state level, that's fairly irrelevant - not to mention completely unsupported.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I'd much rather this issue be kept at state level instead of a national one. There will always be states that won't legalize it. If you don't like living in a state that does(or doesn't), move to a state that doesn't(or does). OR you can keep yelling and complaining about it, making you look like a complete tool(I'm not calling anyone out here on this board because I don't see it here, but both sides of the argument have people that look like complete **** idiots and don't help their cause).

For the record, I think gay couples should get the same benefits as straight couples, but I'm not going to lose sleep over it if they don't and I'm not going to crusade to get them those rights. I also feel that the government shouldn't force religious institutions to marry gay couples. Because you know as soon as it is made legal, some assholes are going to try and get a church to marry them out of spite for religion.

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Los Angeles Kings 2014 Stanley Cup Champions

"I love this **** team right here."
-Jonathan Quick

/agreed

Make it so, Number One!

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"Said I never had much use for one, never said I didn't know how to use one!"~ Matthew Quigley

"nothing like a little meow in bed at night" ~ Bruskey

"I gotta float my stick same as you" Hondo Lane

"Fill your hand you son of a *****!"

I would live with that.

And everyone has equal access to marriage as it has been classically defined(Hense the supposed need to redefine it) i dont think marriage is a civil right though. The right to marry isn't in the Constitution, only the promise that if you are married in one state you get to keep all the privileges if you cross state lines. It possibly may be an extension of the right to free association, but again see above.

I can't join the American medical organization, Daughters of the American Revolution, or the congressional black caucus, but my right to form and join organizations isn't infringed by the fact.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

For that matter I can't marry a 15 year old girl or my first cousin (not that I want to), but that's not considered a gross violation of my civil rights.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Actually, depending on the state you're in, you can do both of those.

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Holy shitsnacks!

The sort of mob rule implied by this:


No one should ever be deprived of anything merely because someone else wants to do it. A mugging doesn't become okay because it is being done by majority, consensus, or even unanimity. Ethics is not a numbers game unless you believe that might makes right.


Only if you ignore the 14th amendment. But it doesn't really matter. A consensus among even 1 million people is a mythical beast. And even if it weren't, how would you ever know what the consensus is? On the basis of a minority of the population voting on some yes-or-no, black-and-white referendum? "What people think" is, in general, way more complex than the ballot box can accommodate, not least of all because their choices are limited.

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Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

I can't because I live in Ohio. Point is government has limited who can get married to whom without limiting access to marriage.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Bah

http://www.gladerebooted.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=8265&p=195056&hilit=After+taking+the+time+to+read+through#p195056

Gay marriage is supported fairly strongly by younger people, whom Obama needs. Blacks oppose, but they'll vote for him anyway.

His position is changing with convenience only.

So I heard that Romney helped hold down some gay kid (or kid they thought was gay) in high school and cut his hair.

I'm done with Romney. I **** hate bullies. Hate them.

Then you shouldn't be voting for Obama either as he admited in his book to pushing a young black girl. He's racists and sexist!

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"It is true that democracy undermines freedom when voters believe they can live off of others' productivity, when they modify the commandment: 'Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.' The politics of plunder is no doubt destructive of both morality and the division of labor."

The President's feelings about an issue do not constitute law. If this thread was about congress, I'd agree. Furthermore, DOMA is completely unsupportable, and I'm pretty sure we agree on that.

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Tangu Matraa

Oh, and so you don't go around being uninformed...

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/kyle-drenn ... amily-alle


Anyway, I'm sure that will put you at ease and give you the leeway to find another really important reason to not vote for Romney.

Amazing how this story came out just a little over 24 hours after Obama's...evolution...

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"It is true that democracy undermines freedom when voters believe they can live off of others' productivity, when they modify the commandment: 'Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.' The politics of plunder is no doubt destructive of both morality and the division of labor."

This is probably a far more utilitarian approach to be taking to this issue in the first place.

Looking at it as, "Okay, we allow heterosexual couples to marry. Should we start allowing gay couples to marry now too?" is getting it backward. If you're going to sanction marriage, equitably, then you sanction *all* marriages. It is unequivocally not up to government to define what marriage means.
The problem here is that government appropriated the concept of a contractual union between two people, a man and a woman (of the same race! if we're going to be correct about what they were talking about when they adopted it), and didn't account for the possibility that other types of unions might be considered (like, say, interracial marriages, which weren't legal in all states until 1967). Marriages between a man and a woman are, granted, the most common type of union. However, they're still obviously not the only type of union, and unfortunately some of those still aren't legal. What gets to determine the sanction (not who) is the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

If you are going to predicate the extension of privileges to people based on marital status, for me, to be just you start by applying them to all marriages, and you don't knock yourself out trying to nail down exactly what a marriage means. If people want to enter into a contract, that's a good enough start. From there, you start denying if there's a good reason to (instead of starting with one group and then adding). Enter what Rorinthas said.

We generally don't allow adults to marry 15-year-olds. A rational basis review of the equal protection clause is sufficient to show that this is not a reasonable thing to grant. That is to say that we can say, "we don't think this is a good idea, because 15-year-olds who are years from reaching their majority are hardly in a position to make an informed decision like that", or something like that. Anyway, there is a "legitimate governmental interest" in not sanctioning that kind of marriage, as we've taken the position that the child is not yet capable of acting independently in his/her own best interest.

I'm not sure if there's an argument to be made that there's a specific "legitimate governmental interest" in refusing to sanction gay marriages. However, a rational basis review might not even be the appropriate route to take. If a group has historically been discriminated against, we've sometimes instead decided that a more rigorous level of scrutiny is called for because the group in question is of a "suspect classification". Adults marrying teenagers haven't been defined as a suspect class. In California, at least, sexual orientation - like race and religion - is a suspect class.

Anyway, on what specific basis would someone say the sanction of marriage should be denied to a gay couple? Let's forget talking about why we should start allowing it for a minute. Let's pretend it's already okay, and talk about why we should take it away.

Edit: If I could go to law school and solely study constitutional law, I'd be all on it. This stuff is great. Unfortunately, the curriculum is riddled with stuff like civil procedure and torts and whatnot. Bleh.

Yes, because a 12-year old pushing a girl away in response to other kids teasing that they (the only two black kids in the school) are boyfriend and girlfriend is exactly like a senior in high school (the wealthy son of a state governor) rallying a bunch of his friends to go hold the new kid down and cut his hair off because he's presumed to be gay or at least effeminate.

And more importantly, Obama apparently felt enough remorse over that incident to write about it in his book. Romney can't even be sussed to remember (or admit he remembers) his bullying.


To be precise, the family has said they didn't know about the incident, not that the incident never happened, and that "the portrayal of [their brother] is factually inaccurate." So, high school kid in the 1960s doesn't tell his family he was bullied for seeming gay/effeminate? Said family still doesn't like their (now dead) brother/son being portrayed in the media as an effeminate and possibly gay victim of bullying? Shocking!

First off, I was joking you moron.

Secondly, THIS WAS 50 YEARS AGO! Look at this story!! The players involved can’t be for sure, the family of the guy say it’s wrong, the writer of the story played it to make Romney look as horrible as possible and didn’t change it till called out…this is a purely a “Hey, look over here! Evil republican alert! Don’t worry about the economy, jobs, fast and furious, solyndra, etc…”. And like I said, less than 2 days after Obama’s “evolution”. Man, it sure is nice that the MSM wrote a 5,00 word story about Obama trying cocaine once…oh wait…

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"It is true that democracy undermines freedom when voters believe they can live off of others' productivity, when they modify the commandment: 'Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.' The politics of plunder is no doubt destructive of both morality and the division of labor."

This is what I was talking about in the Trayvon Martin thread, NF. Here you see a story about some politician you don't even like but who happens to have an R after his name being a dick, and your immediate response is to point at Obama and say "neener neener, he did it too!" and ***** about the MSM being biased. It's the same defense every. single. time. I mean, jesus, can't you just evaluate these things on the internal merits instead of deflecting back to the Obama/liberal/MSM auto-response?

When the MSM and libs actually start, you know, being truthful, consistant, fair...then yes. But you just let it go RD. You have been brainwashed by all this groupthink and liberal feel good **** and then when someone points it out to you, you blame the folks who are trying to get to see that YOUR SIDE isn't playing fair or by the rules. You don't hold your side to the same standards as the others and you ***** and whine if someone points that out. And don't try to play this "Oh, i'm open minded and see things as they are" bullshit. You know which side your bread is butterted on. You're just too much of a chickenshit to admit it.

Wake up RD, you are part of the problem.

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"It is true that democracy undermines freedom when voters believe they can live off of others' productivity, when they modify the commandment: 'Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.' The politics of plunder is no doubt destructive of both morality and the division of labor."

You just perpetuate the real problem, which is "YOUR SIDE" vs "MY SIDE". I think RD is right, you lack objectivity.

None of us should be on sides. It's disgusting.

Cole's law states we need more sides.

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If Hellfire gets enough sides, does it eventually turn into a circlejerk? Or, at least, a polygonaljerk indistinguishable from a circlejerk?

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

You just stay away from me with your freakish, talking coleslaw.

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Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

By your own first sentence, refusing to give the mugger money is itself unethical, as is refusing someone time on a radio station, refusing to marry a gay couple in one's church, or indeed, refusing anyone anything at all. I think you may want to rephrase that so as not to be so absurdly broad. Furthermore, in your second sentence, you beg the question. A mugging (robbery) is defined by law. If the majority wish to make that law something else, then how is it still a mugging? This is essentially the "taxation is the same as theft" argument; that taking anything by force is theft. The problem with it is that taking by force is not theft. Taking without legal privilege to do so is theft, whether or not force is used.

If we accept the idea that government is (or at least should be) answerable to the people, then if the government imposes a definition of mugging/robbery/theft that prevents taxation at a level desired by consensus of the population*, the government is simply imposing its own ethics and will on the people just as if it had imposed taxation at a level far above what the populace* desired. The same applies to marriage; if the government tells society* "you must grant sanction and privilege to any and all couples" when society* does not want that, it is imposing morality no less than if it tells society* "only these people may get married, regardless of the wishes of the majority to allow it to others." In point of fact, ethics IS very much a numbers game. Imposing morality is imposing morality, regardless of what the morality in question is. There is no objectively correct moral or ethical system. Trying to claim society* has an obligation to adhere to some particular moral or ethical principle is really no different than claiming it must adhere to a particular religious viewpoint; the desired result being to please the ideas of internal consistency of academics in ivory towers rather than gods in heavenly palaces. Complaints about "might makes right" are accurate when one person or group is imposing a morality without giving anyone else a voice or say; when everyone has a voice or say complaining about "might makes right" is simply complaining that the ethics or morals imposed by the majority are not one's own morals or ethics.

*Society, consensus of the population, populace, etc. in this context assume that all competent adults are guaranteed a voice in determining societal opinion, not merely through the vote but also through freedoms such as speech and the press to persuade others and protections of due process that prevent 'undesirables' from being removed from the process by arresting them. If society fails to offer these protections, then any consensus reached is not that of society, but rather that part of society that has granted itself a voice and denied it to others. Furthermore, competent adult does not necessarily mean "Every adult over the age of X" but can allow for a qualification process provided that process does not include "group membership" caveats other than the group of those that completed the process itself, and the process is one that can be completed within reasonably young adulthood; by age 24 at the latest provided one begins by age 17 or 18 and which is open to all young adults not seriously mentally impaired.

As long as society does not try to marginalize groups of people by excluding them from the process, the chance of extremism as a societal practice or of those groups in turn becoming oppressed or persecuted is minimized. It also behooves a society not to so offend other societies that it becomes marginalized, nor outrage them to the point that they decide to address the situation by force. The morality of any society must bear in mind that no other society is under any obligation to tolerate it.


Only if you ignore the 14th amendment. But it doesn't really matter. A consensus among even 1 million people is a mythical beast. And even if it weren't, how would you ever know what the consensus is? On the basis of a minority of the population voting on some yes-or-no, black-and-white referendum? "What people think" is, in general, way more complex than the ballot box can accommodate, not least of all because their choices are limited.[/quote][/quote]

Consensus reached at the ballot box is, in fact, consensus. Scoffing and acting incredulous at it is hardly a counterargument. If only a minority choose to vote then the remainder can be assumed to have acquiesced to the consensus reached there. (remember, I specified that "societal" consensus is reached only when all competent adults have the franchise). The fact that the ballot box does not take into account individual nuance is irrelevant; it does not need to. A consensus merely means a majority opinion or general agreement and that can certainly be determined at the ballot box. You have not actually shown any reason to think it is "mythical" or unreachable.

As to the 14th amendment, since you seem to think that states ought to be able to secede, why should that be any obstacle? Why should states not secede, do as they please, and dismiss with both the 14th amendment and those people that tell the people of that state they have no right to govern themselves except as it conforms to the ethical dictates of others?

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."