GOP--Sore Losers

Cielingcat · Post by **Cielingcat** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 7:49 pm

Why the hell should we do that? Because you bought the hype that the religious right has created about marriage being theirs? Marriage is not a religious thing-it is a cultural thing and stripping it away from everyone who the church doesn't approve of in the name of "fairness" or whatever is flat out wrong.

Marriage is a cultural issue that is recognized by the state. Whether you want to have your marriage in a church, or in your back yard with all your friends and family, it should still be called marriage. But if you allow discrimination even in just the name of the institution, you are still allowing discrimination.

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 8:00 pm

That’s why I put it in quotes Cielingcat. There is one part of Marriage that is society, culture and religious based. There is another part of Marriage that involves the tax code, hospital visitation rights, insurance, the right to refuse to incriminate a partner, etc. In principle the state shouldn’t grant any rights or special privileges to a basic societal function, nor should they set strict definitions for which cultural norms are OK and which are not.

Cielingcat · Post by **Cielingcat** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 8:15 pm

Tzor, I was actually replying to the original; you posted while I was typing.

However, there is no reason why the state should not grant rights based on marriage. What it cannot do is discriminate on who you can and cannot marry.

I'm not really sure where there is a knot to untangle, unless you're adamant about not letting gays be married-in which case I can legitimately call you a bad person.

mean_liar · Post by **mean_liar** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 8:22 pm

Cielingcat wrote:Why the hell should we do that? Because you bought the hype that the religious right has created about marriage being theirs? Marriage is not a religious thing-it is a cultural thing and stripping it away from everyone who the church doesn't approve of in the name of "fairness" or whatever is flat out wrong.

Marriage is a cultural issue that is recognized by the state. Whether you want to have your marriage in a church, or in your back yard with all your friends and family, it should still be called marriage. But if you allow discrimination even in just the name of the institution, you are still allowing discrimination.

We agree - marriage is CULTURAL.

The State should not be playing such a major role in cultural issues, it should be pushing paper and building roads.

The American government should have NOTHING AT ALL to do with religious institutions and their ceremonies.

The problem is currently they feel like the flow is Community Recognition -> State Recognition, and that's backwards. The State should be the primary determinant of all this stuff, with Community stuff occurring on the back end.

But like I said: the people that want to be married where they can't don't want a separate-but-equal arrangement and so they want to define marriage to fit their culture's perception of it... but that perception is exactly CULTURAL and depends entirely on the culture. You shouldn't be able to legislate a way to say "marriage is X" (gay, straight, whatever) anymore than you should be able to legislate that "Saturdays are the Sabbath" since your state is more than one culture.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 9:01 pm

What?

Okay, first off, an unrelated, is that most of Plain's ethics charges have come up negative not because she didn't do the thing she was blamed of doing - it's because Alaska doesn't actually have many laws pertaining to the behavior of the governor. It apparently isn't illegal for her to charge the state for the cost of living in her own home, or... I'm going to quit there.

On marriage, it's a stupid argument. States have now passed laws saying that consenting adults and private companies are forbidden to give the same benefits via a different contract to unmarried people as married people. You can't have your 'government get out' business here.

It isn't illegal in any state for consenting adults to have a commitment ceremony, no matter the number or gender. What is illegal, is visiting one of those consenting adults in a hospital (most are run by religious organizations). What is illegal is giving health benefits or life insurance payouts to a selected adult from another adult who isn't married. What is illegal is taking dependent deductions for a selected adult and their dependents if that adult isn't married to the one doing the deducting. And any number of nearly a thousand little things written into our law.

So fuck off the 'get out of the marriage business'.

Grr.

-Crissa

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 9:44 pm

Draco_Argentum wrote:It does and if you believe otherwise you're the scum that means society can't have nice things.

And this is why liberals are dumb.

IGTN · Post by **IGTN** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 9:49 pm

Psychic Robot wrote:
Draco_Argentum wrote:It does and if you believe otherwise you're the scum that means society can't have nice things.
And this is why liberals are dumb.

You're a piece of shit.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 10:43 pm

PS: Abortion isn't a 'good thing'; it is a medical procedure that affects only one person, the person choosing to have it. Not allowing it means forcing women to undergo a huge ordeal lasting months or decades, most likely resulting in a child whose requirements cannot be met. Why does the law have the right to force a woman to continue when she opts not to?

Like I said, marriage rights are pretty simple; there's nearly a thousand state and federal laws relating to giving permission to another person to receive your income, make medical and legal decisions for you, share tax and debt burdens, and gain benefits from job contracts. Why this affects heterosexuals is really a moot point, because it literally does not.

And lastly, affirmative action is making sure that the pool of applicants is a level playing field. This benefits poor white people as much as poor black people, too. It is supposed to check and make sure biases against things like names and places, when we do our best to scrub against even unconscious biases. And it does level the playing field for kids from lower income schools or businesses without connections to the 'old boys network'. Affirmative action is not hiring quotas. And Al Sharpton has never benefited from Affirmative Action.

-Crissa

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 10:54 pm

I'm going to go out on a limb and state that abortion is a good thing. Just as colostomies are a good thing and tracheotomies are a good thing. It's a medical procedure. The fact that you need it is bad, but the fact that you're actually getting one from a skilled professional in a hygienic setting is good.

-Username17

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 11:44 pm

I would suppose that it was neutral, not really a thing or not. Having access to it is good and not having access to it as an option is bad, but in and of itself, it isn't any more 'good' than any other excise procedure.

-Crissa

Cielingcat · Post by **Cielingcat** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 12:43 am

I personally think abortion is a bad thing, but access to it is a good thing. Abortions should ideally never happen, but they have to be available to anyone who wants them.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 1:26 am

Yeah, amputating a limb isn't really a good thing, but having the option is a good thing.

-Crissa

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 1:26 am

Why does the law have the right to force a woman to continue when she opts not to?

Because [insert pages-long abortion debate here].

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 2:21 am

Psychic Robot wrote:
Why does the law have the right to force a woman to continue when she opts not to?
Because [insert pages-long abortion debate here].

I have actually heard the audio recording of the Roe v. Wade case being argued before the Supreme Court. The only argument brought forward in favor of the abortion-restricting position is that the state has an interest in the well-being of its citizens. However, since the fetus is not a citizen until it is born, this turned out to be a non-starter.

edit: grammar

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 2:24 am

So, the law does not have a right to restrict a woman's choice.

The rest is smoke and mirrors. Much like the prop 8 decision.

-Crissa

Akula · Post by **Akula** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 2:45 am

Prop 8 seriously makes me ashamed to live in California in a way that having Arnold as governor never could. (Hell, in a way Ronald Reagan couldn't top.)

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 3:10 am

Crissa wrote:So, the law does not have a right to restrict a woman's choice.

Not wholly true.

From the wikipedia article:

Section X explained that the trimester of pregnancy is highly relevant to the weight of the factors in this balancing test. Thus, during the first trimester, the state cannot restrict a woman's right to an abortion in any way; during the second trimester, the state may only regulate the abortion procedure "in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health"; during the third trimester, the state can choose to restrict or proscribe abortion as it sees fit when the fetus is viable ("except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother").

So the state can act to restrict abortion in order to preserve the mother's wellbeing.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 3:13 am

Most pro-lifers are in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade, though, which would make the ruling invalid.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 4:07 am

Psychic Robot wrote:Most pro-lifers are in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade, though, which would make the ruling invalid.

Yes, but they can eat all the dicks. Not some of all of them; all of all of them.

The current pro-life arguments against abortion aren't new arguments. And they have exactly as little legal footing as all the arguments that weren't considered valid enough to be argued before the Supreme Court 35 years ago. And the one that was considered valid enough to be brought before the court was met with incredulity and found seriously inadequate.

Of course, even more important than the basic fucking human rights angle is that making abortions illegal does not meaningfully reduce the number of abortions; only the number of safe abortions. Criminalizing abortion actually increases the number of people who die from abortion procedures. Anyone who calls themselves 'pro-life' while calling for laws that raise the body count is unworthy even of scorn.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 4:23 am

The current pro-life arguments against abortion aren't new arguments.

...Neither are the current pro-choice arguments. Nothing is new in regard to abortion.

Anyone who calls themselves 'pro-life' while calling for laws that raise the body count is unworthy even of scorn.

"Anyone who calls themselves 'pro-choice' while calling for laws that ignore the choice of a child-to-be is unworthy even of scorn."

To which you'll undoubtedly start sputtering the same tired arguments about a woman's right to choose and piano players, and we'll start going around in circles, and it's really just a pointless exercise. "Pro-life" and "pro-choice" are useless monikers used to exalt those they describe and implicitly demonize those they do not: if you're not pro-life, you must be anti-life; if you're not pro-choice, you must be anti-choice.

While this has been said by others, I will reiterate it myself: no pro-lifer is anti-choice, and no pro-choicer is anti-life. Pro-lifers don't want to control a woman's body, just like pro-choicers don't want to murder babies. They're only trying to do what they feel is right.

It's funny, isn't it? How what's right to one can be so wicked to another?

IGTN · Post by **IGTN** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 4:33 am

Shorter Psychic Robot: "Both sides are really the same! Douche and a turd!"

Seriously, when you get to arguing "both sides are really the same" what you mean is "my side is actually indefensible, and I know this, so I'm going to pretend that we aren't actually any different."

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 4:43 am

He's just trolling. Ignore him.

He does draw a very false equivalence, but there's no way to deflect that the implementation of the pro-lifers' agenda will achieve the exact opposite effect of what they claim to want.

I don't know if what they really want is different from what they claim to want, or if they just ignore any data that doesn't fit their worldview. But I don't care if they're dishonest or delusional, neither makes them worth listening to.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 4:44 am

Actually, what I'm arguing is that I'm not going to get into an abortion debate because I know exactly how it will turn out:

PRO-LIFE: [Insert arguments about right to life.]
PRO-CHOICE: [Insert arguments about right to choose.]
PRO-LIFE/PRO-CHOICE: [Commence petty squabbling and nitpicking. Add in doubleflames for being on TGD. Debate eventually ends in a stalemate with everyone refusing to budge on the issue.]

EDIT: Aaaaand both of your responses provide ample evidence that pseudointellectualism, arrogance, narrow-mindedness, and the inability to reason go hand-in-hand. I guess you sure showed me, huh?

Akula · Post by **Akula** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 7:27 am

Oh fuck, PR, don't act like you aren't trying to start a damn flamewar. I don't care what you say you're doing. When you continue to post about the subject repeatedly; you aren't avoiding a debate, you're trying to incite one.

Draco_Argentum · Post by **Draco_Argentum** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 8:04 am

IGTN wrote:
Psychic Robot wrote:
Draco_Argentum wrote:It does and if you believe otherwise you're the scum that means society can't have nice things.
And this is why liberals are dumb.
You're a piece of shit.

No, shit can be used as fertiliser and if you don't want it the sewage system can take care of it. PR is less useful and harder to get rid off than a piece of shit. The same goes for anyone else who can't get a basic human rights question correct. Half of California for example.