Civil Union Amendment

[hardeeharhar]

I propose that instead of removing a right for a group of individuals in the bill of rights, we add one. Let the federal government create an amendment that says all states much recognize the civil union between two consenting adults (or some such) and grant tax privledges etc for such couples and leave the institution of marriage up to the states/religion...

[groverat]

No.

[BuonRotto]

In legal/government terms, it seems that "civil union" is the same thing as "marriage." If it would make everyone feel better, should states just change the word "marriage" in their books to "civil union" and be done with it? Would people be less itchy about this issue if a term with less of a religious connotation were used in what are, in fact, civil matters?

[tonton]

Yay! My hero! Let's push this forward.

[hardeeharhar]

Originally posted by groverat
No.

Care to explain?

[groverat]

This issue does not need a Constitutional amendment. All it needs is some level heads and everyone will see that their lives will be a lot better without concerning themselves with making sure queers are kept disenfranchised.

[Frank777]

Originally posted by hardeeharhar
Let the federal government create an amendment that says all states much recognize the civil union between two consenting adults...

Only Two? Why not three or four consenting adults?
What's the logic in restricting the rights of people who want multiple partners in their union?

You intolerant redneck. :)

[groverat]

As usual, the pro-ban crowd finds it easier to go off-topic than make an argument.

We should not dissolve the legal institution of marriage. We should not change "marriage" to "civil union" to make right-wingers feel better. We should simply extend legal marriage to homosexuals and be done with it.

No one outside of any church is pushing churches to perform or ordain gay marriages. We're talking about the law here, not the Bible.

[BuonRotto]

Originally posted by groverat
We should not change "marriage" to "civil union" to make right-wingers feel better. We should simply extend legal marriage to homosexuals and be done with it.

No one outside of any church is pushing churches to perform or ordain gay marriages. We're talking about the law here, not the Bible.

This was my point above, really. Seems so trite.

[hardeeharhar]

I agree wholeheartedly, but if the amendment goes up (and it will) the Dems need a counter proposal that makes their position...

[BRussell]

Originally posted by groverat
We should not dissolve the legal institution of marriage. We should not change "marriage" to "civil union" to make right-wingers feel better. We should simply extend legal marriage to homosexuals and be done with it. It just isn't going to happen though. Not only gay marriage was banned last week, but also civil unions were banned in many places. That's why I think it's not such a bad idea to have everyone, even straights, have civil unions recognized by the government rather than marriage. I don't think a constitutional amendment is necessary to do it, but whatever.No one outside of any church is pushing churches to perform or ordain gay marriages. We're talking about the law here, not the Bible. And what the Christian conservatives don't like to talk about is that many churches do perform gay unions now, and would perform gay marriages if they could.

[Scott]

Why not just get a law passed? It's much easier.

[groverat]

Originally posted by BRussell
It just isn't going to happen though.

Yes it is. It will take time, but impatience should not be a reason to compromise.

It is going to happen, and the right-wing freakjobs will either (1) live in denial that they ever oppossed it or (2) be a source of shame for their own families.

[trick fall]

I'm with the Rat on this one. Gays should be allowed to marry and religion should keep it's nose out of politics.

[dmz]

Unfortunately for Christians in the right "tolerance" once meant "just let the gays come out", but now means taking the cross off the Los Angles city seal.

The recipe for boiling a frog unawares doesn't include taunting the frog while you're killing it. I don't think we want to hear any more about tolerance, when it's simply a Trojan Horse.

Paybacks are hell.

[Jubelum]

Originally posted by trick fall
religion should keep it's nose out of politics.

AMEN! Oh, er, uh.. oops. :embarrass

[Harald]

Originally posted by dmz
Unfortunately for Christians in the right "tolerance" once meant "just let the gays come out", but now means taking the cross off the Los Angles city seal.

The recipe for boiling a frog unawares doesn't include taunting the frog while you're killing it. I don't think we want to hear any more about tolerance, when it's simply a Trojan Horse.

Paybacks are hell.

I'm just now beginning to understand the psyche of the Reconstructionists.

"To a liar all things are lies" you see; they see 'tolerance' as a Trojan Horse heading for compulsory gayness in school or something. This is because their 'Constitution Restoration Act' and their 'Freedom of Speech Act' are Trojan Horses in a process designed to deliver political power to very right-wing, hate-filled fantasists.

Why should it be in the Christians gift to "let" the gays come out? Gay people have the right to acceptance, not tolerance, and if your head is full of what they get up to behind closed doors, YOU are the one with the sick mind.

[Hassan i Sabbah]

edit- hippy bollocks about loving people removed. I mean, what a ridiculous idea that people might be allowed to love each other. That's the sole preserve of American Christians for their Old Testament God. I feel sorry for Jesus, but I guess it's not his fault if people are too scared to listen to his message. Always stuck me as a pretty tolerant guy, but if you're full of enough hate I guess you can distort even the best and wisest of ideas.

In the meantime, people who like to compare themselves to frogs being boiled, Native Americans, European Jews and African slaves are in the most powerful position they have ever been in. Gay people would not take away churches or prayers or the right to worship anyone. American Christians on the other hand would legislate against love between two men or two women, and they are, and they're complaining here that they're in danger, that they're the ones that need tolerance. Fuck off.

[crazychester]

Recipe for Boiled Frog (Bouilli à Grenouille)

Catch a frog
Bring 1/2 litre of lightly seasoned holy water to the boil
Taunt the frog for 15 minutes by dangling it over the water
When the frog is suitably distressed, plunge it into the boiling water and cover to prevent escape
Cook until tender (approximately 20 minutes)
Add 1 cup each of chopped Native American, European Jew and African slave
Simmer for a further 35 minutes stirring occassionally with a wooden crucifix

Serve on a bed of Leviticus.

[dmz]

Originally posted by Harald
I'm just now beginning to understand the psyche of the Reconstructionists.

"To a liar all things are lies" you see; they see 'tolerance' as a Trojan Horse heading for compulsory gayness in school or something. This is because their 'Constitution Restoration Act' and their 'Freedom of Speech Act' are Trojan Horses in a process designed to deliver political power to very right-wing, hate-filled fantasists.

Why should it be in the Christians gift to "let" the gays come out? Gay people have the right to acceptance, not tolerance, and if your head is full of what they get up to behind closed doors, YOU are the one with the sick mind.


More ephitets -- how refreshing.

Until the cross was removed from the Los Angeles (irony anyone?) city seal I might have agreed with you. Like changing B.C. to B.C.E. -- and not even changing the dates! -- it's plainly past the point of vinidictive. The left isn't satisfied with removing the religious-based statutes from the books, they want to erase even the historical nods that Christianty was once there.

I can take a hint.

[dmz]

Originally posted by Hassan i Sabbah
Gay people would not take away churches or prayers or the right to worship anyone. American Christians on the other hand would legislate against love between two men or two women, and they are, and they're complaining here that they're in danger, that they're the ones that need tolerance. Fuck off.


What you said here simply isn't true. It's basically a hate crime in progressive Canada to call homosexuality immoral. That is a direct legislation of moralty in total conflict with the freedoms of Christianity.

To be fair, the left's vindictivness is probably a function of the completeness of a philosophy as it applies to a culture -- and not simply smallmindedness. I do think it's a fantasy of the left that culture can hold two dominant philosophies simultaneously, just as it is a personal fantasy to claim to hold two opposing ideas at once.

[hardeeharhar]

I know it is a fantasy of the christian right that a nation is of one culture.

[rok]

marriage + civil unions = "separate, but equal".

terrible idea, no matter the decade.

[hardeeharhar]

Originally posted by rok
marriage + civil unions = "separate, but equal".

terrible idea, no matter the decade.

Marriages, they argue, are religious institutions and thus should be left up to, well churches... Civil Unions should be our only legal entity...

[rok]

Originally posted by hardeeharhar
Marriages, they argue, are religious institutions and thus should be left up to, well churches... Civil Unions should be our only legal entity...

well, yeah. i see your point. then i guess the counter argument is that the churches can have "marriage" as their exclusive property, so long as it is divested of any benefits bestowed upon such a union from the state. but, of course, they would never stand for that, either.

[Hassan i Sabbah]

Originally posted by dmz
What you said here simply isn't true. It's basically a hate crime in progressive Canada to call homosexuality immoral. That is a direct legislation of moralty in total conflict with the freedoms of Christianity.

To be fair, the left's vindictivness is probably a function of the completeness of a philosophy as it applies to a culture -- and not simply smallmindedness. I do think it's a fantasy of the left that culture can hold two dominant philosophies simultaneously, just as it is a personal fantasy to claim to hold two opposing ideas at once.
And I think it's a fantasy of the right that things are either totally one thing or the other, which is why we have all the poets and you have all the golfers.

But to address your point about Canada, skinheads desire to be 'free' to hate black people, misogynists want to be 'free' to hate women and evidently some Christians consider it a 'freedom' to hate homosexuals. Canadian laws, however, are made by judges — not racists, women-haters or priests — and are enforced with the aim of benefitting society at large rather than a single section of it.

You're not denied a freedom when the state tells you it's against the law to beat your wife any more than you're denied a freedom when the state tells you that you can't impose your idea of what's 'right' on society at large.

[dmz]

Originally posted by Hassan i Sabbah
You're not denied a freedom when the state tells you it's against the law to beat your wife any more than you're denied a freedom when the state tells you that you can't impose your idea of what's 'right' on society at large.

Now you are hitting the nail on the head. The state is very uniform in how it sees right and wrong -- there's uniformity there that doesn't "tolerate" what is not "good" for the culture. If you settle on the materialist side of the coin, it's all or nothing in culutral matters -- just as would be if things fell the other way.

This is why when in the 'quest for toleration', I see the left being incredibly disingenuous in their rehtoric. This isn't a quest for tolerance in any case, it's a quest for control.

[hardeeharhar]

Um, the state doesn't decide what is good for the culture...

[dmz]

Originally written by James Russell Lowell
For mankind are one in spirit, and an instinct bears along,
Round the earth's electric circle, the swift flash of right or wrong;
Whether conscious or unconscious, yet Humanity's vast frame
Though its ocean-sundered fibres feels the gush of joy or shame; --
In the gain or loss of one race all the rest have equal claim.

Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide;
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight,
Parts the goats upon the left hand and the sheep upon the right,
And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light.

Hast thou chosen, O my people, on whose party thou shalt stand,
Ere the Doom from its worn sandals shakes the dust against our land?
Though the cause of Evil prosper, yet 'tis Truth alone is strong,
And, albeit she wander outcast now, I see around her throng
Troops of beautiful, tall angels, to enshield her from all wrong.

Backward look across the ages and the beacon-moments see,
That, like peaks of some sunk continent, jut through Oblivion's sea;
Not an ear in court or market for the low foreboding cry
Of those Crises, God's stern winnowers, from whose feet earth's chaff must fly;
Never shows the choice momentous till the judgment hath passed by.

[Hassan i Sabbah]

Originally posted by dmz
Now you are hitting the nail on the head. The state is very uniform in how it sees right and wrong -- there's uniformity there that doesn't "tolerate" what is not "good" for the culture. If you settle on the materialist side of the coin, it's all or nothing in culutral matters -- just as would be if things fell the other way.

This is why when in the 'quest for toleration', I see the left being incredibly disingenuous in their rehtoric. This isn't a quest for tolerance in any case, it's a quest for control.
Well, OK, but domestic violence and racism, say, are in no way comparable to two people of the same sex loving each other. I'd share an apartment with a gay couple but I'd never live with a wifebeater or a skinhead, hey? (I'd rather not live with gay people because I can't stand German techno, but this kind of intolerance isn't really going to impoverish me in the long run.)

The state is tolerant of faith. No-one's preventing anyone from worship where either you or I live. Giving gay people the same rights as the rest of us isn't handing them them 'control'. It isn't giving gay people the levers of power to let them marry. It's letting them enjoy the same rights as the rest of us. Letting gay people marry isn't going to stop people from worshipping, or from exercising any other human right.

What do you mean by 'control'? Control of what, exactly? Gay people aren't angry because you're a Christian, they're going to be angry because you don't want them to enjoy the same rights you do.

It's so incredibly simple.

[dmz]

Originally posted by Hassan i Sabbah
Well, OK, but domestic violence and racism, say, are in no way comparable to two people of the same sex loving each other. I'd share an apartment with a gay couple but I'd never live with a wifebeater or a skinhead, hey? (I'd rather not live with gay people because I can't stand German techno, but this kind of intolerance isn't really going to impoverish me in the long run.)

The state is tolerant of faith. No-one's preventing anyone from worship where either you or I live. Giving gay people the same rights as the rest of us isn't handing them them 'control'. It isn't giving gay people the levers of power to let them marry. It's letting them enjoy the same rights as the rest of us. Letting gay people marry isn't going to stop people from worshipping, or from exercising any other human right.

What do you mean by 'control'? Control of what, exactly? Gay people aren't angry because you're a Christian, they're going to be angry because you don't want them to enjoy the same rights you do.

It's so incredibly simple.

I don't agree -- these things precipitate into much different realities. One excludes the other, literally and legally.

Enough!

.....and don't forget your daily nonsequitur:

Can you remember
Remember my name
As I flow through your life
A thousand oceans I have flown
And cold, cold spirits of ice
All my life, I am the echo of your past

I am returning
The echo of a point in time
Distant faces shine
A thousand warriors I have known
And laughing, as the spirits appear
All your life, shadows of another day

And if you hear me talking on the wind
You've got to understand
We must remain
Perfect strangers

I know I must remain
Inside this silent well of sorrow

A strand of silver
Hanging through the sky
Touching more than you see
The voice of ages in your mind
Is aching, with the dead of the night
Precious life, your tears are lost in falling rain

And if you hear me talking on the wind
You've got to understand
We must remain
Perfect strangers

[BuonRotto]

It's the whole "gay agenda" thing again, some sort of paranoid and dimented idea that gay rights supporters are trying to teach children how to sodomize one another and kill all the heteros. I ask you, who should you fear more, someone who has gay sex or someone who thinks the gay population is coming to eat their babies?

[Hassan i Sabbah]

Originally posted by dmz

.....and don't forget your daily nonsequitur:
Ah, the sublime (does a Google) ...Deep Purple.

Ai me.

[Hassan i Sabbah]

Originally posted by dmz
I don't agree -- these things precipitate into much different realities. One excludes the other, literally and legally.

I just realised that this response isn't good enough.

Please tell me how your civil liberties are curtailed by allowing gay people to marry.

Please tell me how it is that when gay people demand the right to marry each other they are actually trying to get their hands on the levers of power in an attempt to disenfranchise Christians.

That's what I'm asking.

I mean, this idea that asking for tolerance is a 'Trojan horse' is such crap. Homosexual people don't want to see an end to Christian worship. Many gay people are Christians. All you're being asked for is some freaking generosity of spirit.

Women can vote now. It didn't mean the end of the world. Women can even lead Christian services, as they should. The Church is fine. In your country it's even doing rather well, what with the fact that the President himself is a born again Christian who holds prayer meetings and Bible study in the White House.

This phrase 'Trojan horse' is terrible, awful.

[tonton]

If you believe marriage is between one man and one woman, then don't marry a man if you're a man, and don't marry a woman if you're a woman. It is that simple.

[dmz]

Originally posted by Hassan i Sabbah
I just realised that this response isn't good enough.

Please tell me how your civil liberties are curtailed by allowing gay people to marry.

Please tell me how it is that when gay people demand the right to marry each other they are actually trying to get their hands on the levers of power in an attempt to disenfranchise Christians.

That's what I'm asking.

I mean, this idea that asking for tolerance is a 'Trojan horse' is such crap. Homosexual people don't want to see an end to Christian worship. Many gay people are Christians. All you're being asked for is some freaking generosity of spirit.

Women can vote now. It didn't mean the end of the world. Women can even lead Christian services, as they should. The Church is fine. In your country it's even doing rather well, what with the fact that the President himself is a born again Christian who holds prayer meetings and Bible study in the White House.

This phrase 'Trojan horse' is terrible, awful.


SONOFABITCH! you are a stubborn rascal.

Okay.

1. Christians enjoy a status that, for the most part, it's practices are all approved by, or within the bounds of codified in the law in America.

2. Enter the Gay Mafia. (is this term inflamatory enough?;))

a. Find Frog

b. Find Pot

c. Find Stove

3. The Gay's are a tiny minority, BUT have a great deal of money due to their demographic peculiarities -- they build a VERY shrewd special interest/advocacy group that, yes has an agenda -- and begins running that agenda both through the courts and the popular culture, agian due to the high concentration of gays in the media industry.

a. Place Frog in pot, fill with water, place pot on stove

4. Here is where it gets tricky and you and I diverge -- BUT TRY TO LISTEN TO MY POINT -- the nature of culture is binary, especially when it comes to codified law. You cannot have laws on the books that contradict each other (at least not for very long). Either Christians will have the right to call Homosexuality unethical, the BSA can just say no to the Gays, the Church can refuse to pay same-sex benefits, etc, etc, etc -- without fear of litigation by these same advocacy groups -- or they can't.

a. Turn on heat

5. Once the Gay lifestyle gets codified as ethical, and marriage is probably the best way to do that, it will be open season on those who call it unethical. If the gays can simply achieve that step, to have the state offically sanction their lifestyle, they will have the codified approvale of their lifestyle, and the legal horsepower to shove the lifestyle into the culture at large -- and anyone who decries their lifestyle as unethical will have to solve the cunundrum of operating in a legal environment that says the opposite.

a. Don't taunt frog

6. This is the 'Great Game' of culture, I don't fault the gays for wanting things their way in this game, but I do fault the lot of you on these forums for either being ignorant of the ramifications of gay marriage -- and yes, there are many anitreligious bigots here -- or not being mature enough to grasp this concept.

[hardeeharhar]

Fool. You want state sanctioned hate (and disliking a group of individuals because they hate other groups is not bigotry).

[Anders]

Originally posted by dmz
3. The Gay's are a tiny minority, BUT have a great deal of money due to their demographic peculiarities -- they build a VERY shrewd special interest/advocacy group that, yes has an agenda -- and begins running that agenda both through the courts and the popular culture, agian due to the high concentration of gays in the media industry.

Oh. I see.

The gay liberal media.

BTW how do you define tiny minority?

[dmz]

Oaky, fine, there's no elephant in the room.

There really is no 1-3% portion of the populace with a disproportiate degree of wealth and education -- and there is no concentration of this demographic in the media, print, screen, blipvert, etc. industry.

Just forget I said anything,

[Anders]

Originally posted by dmz
There really is no 1-3% portion of the populace with a disproportiate degree of wealth and education

Is that the percentage of gays in the population?


Originally posted by dmz
and there is no concentration of this demographic in the media, print, screen, blipvert, etc. industry.

Do you actually have statistics on that? In my own experience its true for advertising but not the rest of the media and certainly not for those who decides what make it to the press.

And even if thats true does that really result in a gay media agenda? Do nurses have a female agenda? Auto repair shops a masculine agenda? Customer service industry a indian agenda? Nike a chinese agenda?

[Anders]

Originally posted by dmz
There really is no 1-3% portion of the populace with a disproportiate degree of wealth and education

BTW. The group of 1-3% riches part of the country have a much higher degree of wealth(doh!) and education. They have a much higher degree of access to the media and capability of setting the agenda. And their agenda is quite different than the gay portion of the population.

[dmz]

I meant the the GAYEST of them all (1-3% of the population) are disproportionalty wealthy and educated -- and disproportionatley concentrated in the print, ad, screen media.

You guys can have the rest of this (unless Hassan i Sabbah firebombs the thread).

[Anders]

Gayest?

[thuh Freak]

"Once something has been approved by the Government, it's no longer immoral." -Reverand Lovejoy

its a stupid and ridiculous idea. abortions, depending on your religious persuasion, are immoral and allowed by the government. divorce is considered unethical, and yet is accepted by the government. something can be legal and still unethical and immoral. law should not match morality simply because we, in this country, are allowed to practice difference religions, which value different ethics with different amounts.

presently, again, abortion is legal. those who oppose it are still free to do so peaceably (infact, you are allowed to NOT have as many abortions as you want). i don't see why it can't be the same for gay marriage.

[Hassan i Sabbah]

Originally posted by dmz
a. (is this term inflamatory enough?;))

a. Find Frog

b. Find Pot

c. Find Stove.
I have to admit that this is very good. And funny.