The National Organization for Marriage has a long history of not saying what they mean. For instance, on their website they advise their followers:
Language to avoid at all costs: “Ban same-sex marriage.” Our base loves this wording. So do supporters of SSM. They know it causes us to lose about ten percentage points in polls. Don’t use it. Say we’re against “redefining marriage” or in favor or “marriage as the union of husband and wife” NEVER “banning same-sex marriage.”
It’s startling, the admission that they don’t want say the one thing they’re devoted to doing. Want to know another rank example of their hypocrisy? Their claim that they’re protecting the rights of voters in each state against evil activist judges.
- “[T]his case is headed for the U.S. Supreme Court,” Maggie Gallagher says,”where the right of states to define marriage as being between one man and one woman will be affirmed.”
- “The gay activists don’t care about our right to home rule and right to vote on marriage,” NOM claims in a D.C. election mailer.
- NOM’s new radio ad says, “[Candidate for governor] Tom Emmer believes that Minnesota voters should have the final say on marriage, just as voters in 31 other states have done.”
See, they’re not against gay marriage, they’re just protecting the rights of local voters to decide things locally.
Except they’re not.
Maggie supports this version of a federal marriage amendment:
Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution or the constitution of any state, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.
If Maggie were sincere, she’d favor an amendment that allows each state to set its own terms on marriage. But the amendment above does exactly the opposite. It forbids the voters of each state from doing this. If enough red states got behind the amendment, they could dictate marriage policy for the entire country. Even if every California voter supported marriage equality, it wouldn’t matter: California still couldn’t legalize same-sex marriage.
Here’s what NOM and I (and most of you, I bet) have in common: We don’t believe the voters in a state should decide whether we have the right to marry in that state. The difference, though, is that we don’t deceive people by pretending otherwise.
All NOM really wants is to kill our right to marry — by any means possible. When they claim (as they so often do) that they’re standing up for the right of voters to control marriage in their own state, they’re lying. And all we have to do is ask, “Then why are you pushing a Constitutional amendment to strip voters of that right?”
By the way, I posted this in a comment on NOM’s blog (screen shot here). Naturally, they “moderated” it out of existence. God forbid their supporters should learn of their hypocrisy.
UPDATE: I found another article from Maggie that makes it even clearer that she does NOT want to let the voters of each state decide.
Martin, you’ve hit a lot of truth with your comment. You know how I started commenting on conservative web sites? I read about Dennis Prager denouncing our one Muslim congressman for taking his oath office on the Koran. I checked out his column on Townhall.com, and the comments section had devolved into a discussion of evolution. One person offered four arguments against it and they were all objectively wrong (for instance, one was based on a complete misunderstanding of entropy). I posted a polite explanation of why I disagreed and felt the full wrath and fury of the community descend upon me.
That set me up for a terrible cycle. I would post something I considered irrefutable and then eagerly await the response. The response would invariably miss the point, and I’d launch another salvo. It was thoroughly addictive, and you know what I was addicted to?
The disagreement.
I wasn’t addicted to finding common ground and changing minds. No, my dopamine-reward system was activated by the thought of doing battle. Neuroscience tells us why this is such a hard cycle to break: Dopamine rewards are activated just by the thought — the anticipation — of going back into the fray (or of eating cake, or having a drink, or whatever you hope to avoid with sheer willpower). Of course my reasoning mind was able to justify posting another comment in many ways (“I’m researching what our opponents think…I’m testing out arguments…etc.”), but I was wasting hours of time I could have spent with Will, or playing with Lucas, or writing useful blog entries.
And no one’s mind ever changed.
That’s why I started the book club. Let’s see if we can get past our dopamine-induced war of words and find a way to create convincing messages. Here’s one big benefit of the approach laid out in the book: to be successful, we must try to imagine what’s going on the head of the people we’re trying to convince; we have to understand and empathize with them instead of reducing them to caricatures. That’s a victory right there.
Oh and ND30, all those straight people you agree with, don’t like you for doing it. Won’t respect you.
In fact, they’ll think you’re one of those gay people who can’t and won’t challenge them.
The kind of gay person that makes their lives so much easier to stick to other gay people.
Yet, you come on this site and others as if you’re the voice and exemplar of courage, standards and intelligent defense of what laws restrict gay people.
What takes courage, is to go against the EASY route, the common one. The one that actually could make you lose your job, or family or life.
It takes NO courage or special intelligence to go along to get along. Especially WITH people who are actively harming gay people directly and indirectly, then denying that’s what their purpose is.
You betray yourself as quite spineless and without merit. And those anti gay factions that are having their public rallies and internet calls to ‘arms’, are looking so unbelievably hyperbolic it looks like insanity.
And THEIR websites offer no option for dissenting voices. Effectively silencing and shutting out anyone who can challenge them.
Yet, THIS site is wide open to you. It’s apparent you think yourself an important voice because you raise other’s voices in the interest of challenging you.
But take note that you DO get a voice here. Where most anti gay sites don’t allow it.
The Christians who have been persecuted, kicked from their churches and lost their jobs, are those who performed ss ceremonies or supported the gay members of their congregations.
The few Christians who ran into litigation with gay couples turned out to have breached contracts to do with public accommodation and discrimination. That is to say, said Christian organizations didn’t want to hold their end up regarding contracts they had with the public.
So it’s their own fault they ran into trouble.
It wasn’t gay people persecuting them at all.
Some people seem to be very selective about towards whom they are going to discriminate based on their religious beliefs. And whom they want publicly restricted.
In the end, they are very contradictory, inconsistent and impossibly untruthful about who is responsible when they can’t get their way. Most of all, these factions behaving as if they are so threatened and are suffering injustice because they can’t do it to gay people shows the utmost of arrogant cowardice.
Despite bearing false witness, coveting and lacking empathic justice (which are all religious directives too) are not in the interests of faith communities in enforcing for themselves.
There are and should be limits to the extent in which another person’s religious choice restricts another citizen unnecessarily and unjustly.
We all know it and see it.
And should call them on it at every opportunity.
Rob– i understand the fondness for disagreement, but there is something more, another motive.
I post and i write because I want to get my own tihnking clear– my assumptions, my logical processes, my knowledge. I post because i know that for every active commenter, their is a larger group of people hwo are reading andwatching, but not commenting. They are looking for education.
I also think that maybe for me there is a book to be written about the nature of homohatred, and its effect on political, religious, and social processes.
I don’t really exprect to influence Debbie Dallas. The wells of his homohatred run way too deep, as they often do for homo-hatin’-homos. But I have two reasons to write:
1) He’ll never be able to say that no one ever told him the truth before the day (unlikely to ever happen) that he finally realizes that he is full of homo-hatin’-homo crap.
2) I want to understand how that kind of personality owrks, and I how I react to it, should i ever have to deal with it in an actual, as opposed to virtual, arena.
There’s a double-edged sword here. I completely agree that in a debate the real audience isn’t necessarily the person you’re debating, but other people who are listening in or following along. The thing to keep in mind, though, is that those people will pay attention not just to your arguments, but to the respect and treatment you offer your opponent (who may be hurling vile insults at you). Too many times I’ve found myself being pulled down into murky unpleasant depths when replying to those insults; it may be satisfying to reply to insult with an insult, but it may not do you much good with your silent audience.
I shouldn’t say “you,” Ben, because you might not get pulled in like I sometimes do. It’s just something we should watch out for.
I agree with you, rob. Steak and sizzle both.
I suspect I might be pulled in to the extent that I am willing to be blunt. But i try to call things as I see them, and as clearly and objectively as possible.
When I call Debbie Dallas a homo-hatin’-homo, I’m not trying to insult him. I’m trying to be accurate, to convery a world of meaning in a few words. Homo– an object of justifiable hatred. and an HHH, besides being alliterative, says clearly “someone who thinks that homosexuals, possibly even including himself, are worthy of hatred, scorn, and derision, and this mindset determines evrything they have to say, fact, compassion, understanding, and logic be damned.”
Debbie Dallas, now– with it sugestions of porn, oral sex, orgies, and dragqueendom– that IS an insult. and i apologize.
It won’t happen again.
On the other hand, we mustn’t give up the right to moral outrage when a homophobe reduces a long-term committed same-sex relationship to nothing more than an addiction to perversion. Maybe we need some new (alliterative) strategies: Denounce with dignity. Rage with respect. Cri de coeur with courage.
Is anyone here trying to understand the other side? I see lots of arguments why they are wrong, and some hasty assumptions about homophobic self-loathing (that may or may not be true), but no real attempts to understand.
To try to understand one has to put aside the desire to speak out and seriously listen first. Ask questions, not because implied in them is some message, but ask them to really understand the other side.
We all think we know what they are trying to say, and we just burn to give our counter argument. Do you know that impatience, that eager “yeah, I know what you try to say and it’s wrong because…”? Can’t you hear that between every second line in this blog’s comments?
How do you make your own side listen to the black hats? And is there really a point? Do you think that through understanding we can change their minds, where we couldn’t through argumentative head-bashing?
There are some minds we’ll never change. Other minds are open to change, but we need to understand them first.
I’m an instructional designer by trade, and a basic concept of learning theory is that you have to deal with a learner’s “prior knowledge” before you can teach them anything. Experiments have been done around teaching people why summertime is hotter than wintertime. People usually think it’s because the Earth is closer to the sun in the summer (which isn’t even true for the northern hemisphere). When you teach those learners the right answer, they don’t replace their replace their wrong ideas with correct ones. Rather, they incorporate the new knowledge into their prior erroneous beliefs and create a whole new mishmash theory of their own.
In short, if you don’t understand and work with your learners’ preconceived notions, you’ll never get your learners to give them up.
Of course, the whole point of the book club project is that political beliefs aren’t open to correction via facts. Even so, if you want to move them you have to understand their values, associations, and motivations. That sort of understanding is different from a debater/policy wonk’s understanding, but it’s understanding, nonetheless.
Gracious, the lords of irony are favoring me this evening.
Here’s one big benefit of the approach laid out in the book: to be successful, we must try to imagine what’s going on the head of the people we’re trying to convince; we have to understand and empathize with them instead of reducing them to caricatures.
Followed, of course, by:
Oh and ND30, all those straight people you agree with, don’t like you for doing it. Won’t respect you.
In fact, they’ll think you’re one of those gay people who can’t and won’t challenge them.
The kind of gay person that makes their lives so much easier to stick to other gay people.
Caricaturing AND mindreading. Suddenly in vogue when spouted by a black woman.
But indeed, it does get better.
What takes courage, is to go against the EASY route, the common one. The one that actually could make you lose your job, or family or life.
Yes indeed, one could very well lose their job or business, family, reputation, as well as being told to commit suicide and “do us all a favor”, as well as having people hope you got AIDS.
Which is what happens when you disagree with Regan DuCasse and her ilk.
It takes NO courage or special intelligence to go along to get along.
Which those who listen to you demonstrate in spades.
Yet, THIS site is wide open to you. It’s apparent you think yourself an important voice because you raise other’s voices in the interest of challenging you.
But take note that you DO get a voice here. Where most anti gay sites don’t allow it.
Look over at the sidebar of my blog. I’m sure once you review the list under “Blogs On Which Mentioning My Name Will Get You Banned, Too”, you’ll completely reverse yourself and explain why banning and blocking people is a good thing.
Finally:
And I should be able to put a historical racial context to this issue, without being called a racist.
If you were saying something other than, “I have black skin and boobs, so you have to agree with me or you’re a racist,” you would have a point.
But frankly, Regan, you want what you do and say to be judged based on the fact that you are black and female rather than what you actually do or say.
Perhaps that works in the gay and lesbian community. Perhaps you are able to bamboozle people into letting you whine about jobs being lost on the one hand while you’re demanding a person’s firing over a $100 political donation on the other.
But remember, according to the “experts” here, I’m not gay, so you’ll have to actually perform instead of just flashing your skin color and gender.
Child-marriage and polygamy has been addressed elsewhere, although I think it’s fair, given the discussion, to put the same question back to you. Do you think polygamy, child marriage, or even bestiality should be legalized if they’re a matter of religious belief?
No, I don’t.
The reason why is pretty simple. Marriage is to recognize, promote, and support the relationship that is most beneficial to society, which is two consenting unrelated human adults of the opposite gender.
Plural, child, and bestial marriage don’t benefit society, nor is there an automatic “right” to marry what sexually attracts you.
Well ND30, I know your reply will be a defense against what I’m about to say, but bear with me. I see a lot of the old me in your writings and if I may be so bold, I don’t think people take issue with you because you’re conservative – I think it’s because you can come off pretty abrasive – all the time.
Maybe a change in tone, a little bit of deference to the other side, and a little bit of compassion and empathy will get you better results. Please, come and join the party (not party with a capital “P”) – it’s fun in here and if you’d cut it out with the being a jerk routine, a lot of people would be willing to hang out with you (metaphorically of course), and I bet you’d have a lot more fun.
I know because I used to be the same way. After a good retooling of my attitude, I started having a much better time.
Marriage is to recognize, promote, and support the relationship that is most beneficial to society, which is two consenting unrelated human adults of the opposite gender.
While I agree that marriage should be limited to two consenting unrelated human adults, I don’t see why they have to be of the opposite gender or why requiring that they be of the opposite gender is “beneficial to society”. Nor do I see how allowing two unrelated consenting human adults to have the benefits of marriage would be harmful to society, and, so far, you haven’t come up with a reason why it would be.
I suppose you’ll start whining about procreation again, but unless the government starts requiring that married couples either have children or adopt that argument doesn’t hold.
ND30, you still don’t get the difference between an ACTION and a REACTION, do you?
After centuries of invisibility, violent persecution, discrimination and lack of Constitutional protections and equal access, if the gay minority who is challenged at every turn on just being able to live free, in self reliance and support for committed relationships and child rearing, then why SHOULDN’T there be upset, anger, frustration and so on for being treated that way?
It’s heterosexuals who have to answer to why, and with what justification?
After all this, there is still considerable compassion for all the injustice coming from the gay community at large.
Now, who you should be questioning is why heteros are so hell bent on the spite and threat they exact on gay people?
You really think gay people have no reason or no rationale for responding, when some might not do so with a smile on their face and willingness to be civil?
That’s not condescension on my part.
But it sure is of the dominant hetero culture on your part.
The REACTION of gay people is understandable if not always acceptable. But the ACTIONS of heteros, so why do you ALWAYS accept THEIR handling of anything to do with gay people?
Even to the point of damaging and compromising the integrity of the Constitution itself to stick it to gay people.
There is no reason to do that.
The history is there. It’s irrefutable, heteros have posed more threat to gay people than the other way around.
And the hyberbolic insistence that isn’t true, isn’t born out by the facts, or the existence of such federal laws as Prop. 8, DOMA and DADT.
Those are representative of Jim Crow like standards of law aimed ONLY at gay people.
And there are no equivalent laws that gay people have enacted against straight folks.
And there is no wish for any.
ND30 said:”Mocking monogamy?? My partner and I have been monogamous for 19 years?? What???
I provided the link. Feel free to read it.
Me:Reading these rants actually makes me sad. We have no idea what this person had to deal with growing up. Our society can be very cruel..especially when you throw religion into the mix. Internal homophobia is just plain AWFUL!!!
ND30:It’s all right, dear. Throw some money out the window of your limousine and you’ll feel all better. Don’t slow down, though; poor can be smelled on you, or so the ladies at the club say.”
Limo..what? Hardly! Pretty middle class here. I would love to buy a newer better car but we cannot afford it right now. My partner of 19 years has to work two jobs. His main job is self employed. He has to work 32 hours at another job to pay for health insurance. If we were married like my straight married friends at work he could just go on my plan for almost nothing..like my friend Jane who’s new hubby (#3) is also self employed..and is on our plan for an extra $20 a month. Now that is what I call FAIR!
Believe it or not..I really do care for you. It seems as though you have a lot of anger in your heart and you are directing it at gay people who want to spend their lives together and have the same rights as our family and friends..not special rights..same rights. I SERIOUSLY wish you the best! Life is a “quick ride”…. the older we get the more we realize it…
Quite correct and quite compassionate.
Well ND30, I know your reply will be a defense against what I’m about to say,
Ok. Since you’ve already made up your mind about what it says, I won’t trouble you with one to read, then.
I suppose you’ll start whining about procreation again, but unless the government starts requiring that married couples either have children or adopt that argument doesn’t hold.
Then please confirm the following:
1) Children born to unmarried parents are in no way, shape, or form negatively affected or disadvantaged
2) Children acquired by gay and lesbian individuals are not harmed in the least by said individuals’ inability to marry.
Limo..what?
I was referring to your lovely condescension and “concern” as expressed herein.
ND..my straight friends would never troll gay oriented sites and trash gay folk..but people that are gay and closeted would.
Typical limousine liberalism, thinking that pretending to care about the plight of people at which you’re looking down your nose matters.
My partner of 19 years has to work two jobs. His main job is self employed. He has to work 32 hours at another job to pay for health insurance. If we were married like my straight married friends at work he could just go on my plan for almost nothing..like my friend Jane who’s new hubby (#3) is also self employed..and is on our plan for an extra $20 a month. Now that is what I call FAIR!
Sounds like you need to find another job, then, if that’s what is important to you.
It’s all about choices, Jim Stone. You’ve made yours and you don’t like the outcomes. Life can be annoying that way.
ND30, you still don’t get the difference between an ACTION and a REACTION, do you?
Oh, I absolutely get it, Regan.
As I pointed out above, one could very well lose their job or business, family, and reputation, as well as be told to commit suicide and “do us all a favor”, as well as have people hope you got AIDS, and you wouldn’t mind one whit.
Why? Because gay and lesbian people were the ones doing it, and they’re never responsible for their behavior because they’re only “reacting”.
This is nothing new, Regan. It’s whitey that forces black people to have babies out of wedlock, rape and murder black teenagers, burn down their own neighborhoods, etc. It’s Viagra ads that cause gays to have unsafe sex. It’s always, always, ALWAYS someone else’s fault; you’re just “reacting”.
Is this it, Dallas? You got HIV from some guy, and now all gay people are bad people?
Is this it, Dallas? You got HIV from some guy, and now all gay people are bad people?
You really should read the citation first, Ben.
By the way, the person who sent those emails — and there are more than the ones I posted — is esteemed commenter and representative of the gay and lesbian community Priya Lynn, who commands a great deal of respect and adulation from her fellow gays and lesbians, including Regan DuCasse, Jim Burroway, and Timothy Kincaid, at sites such as Box Turtle Bulletin and others.
And no; I am HIV-negative — much, it seems, to the chagrin of others in the gay and lesbian community who evidently would much prefer that I get sick and die. Or kill myself.
ND30, you frequently mention folks who wish you would die. I have not seen anyone in the comments section of this site wish such a dire fate on you. There are certainly people who disagree with you, but it doesn’t seem malice driven, at least not to me. I disagree with you about many things, but I certainly do not wish you ill.
I do wonder, however, what you hope to accomplish here. You post frequently, including a hail of links in your posts, and rehash positions that have made no headway among this crowd in the weeks I’ve seen you posting. You’re clearly not stupid, but I do wonder: What is is that you hope to accomplish here, and do you think your methods are effective?
Then please confirm the following:
1) Children born to unmarried parents are in no way, shape, or form negatively affected or disadvantaged
2) Children acquired by gay and lesbian individuals are not harmed in the least by said individuals’ inability to marry.
Here we have a straw-man tendentiously begging the question. Notice how “born to…parents” is reformulated as “acquired by…individuals” in the second point.
The general point made by advocates of marriage is that the institution is beneficial for the individuals concerned, any children they might raise and by extension to society as a whole. To quote David Blankenhorn in his testimony defending Prop 8, “I believe adopting same-sex marriage would likely improve the well-being of gay and lesbian households and their children.”
I’m personally a little dubious of Blankenhorn’s view but I would concede that the legal recognition conferred upon married couples may well streamline many aspects of family life. I suppose it’s up to the individuals concerned to weigh the pros and cons of marriage.
Same-sex couples don’t have the luxury of choice in this matter unless they happen to live in one of the ten countries where their marriage is possible. If marriage is important to the well-being of children then it is necessary that lesbians and gay men be able to marry since the raising of children is potentially part of same-sex households.
If marriage is not important to the well-being of children then the whole matter of procreation is utterly irrelevant to issue of marriage equality.
Marriage equality is primarily about anti-discrimination. In my opinion the concerns about the raising of children have been brought into this debate for the age old rhetorical purpose such concerns usually serve. In this case, emotional rhetoric about children is being used to head off the primary argument against discrimination. It appears that in Perry vs Schwarzenegger this rhetoric has backfired.
Hey Rob, is there some sort of function where readers can filter out certain commenters? Like I said earlier, I was intrigued by ND30, but now he’s just whining and I’ve had enough of it.
If marriage is not important to the well-being of children then the whole matter of procreation is utterly irrelevant to issue of marriage equality.
Marriage is important to the well-being of children. However, since gay and lesbian individuals never have to worry about producing or otherwise having children, it’s not relevant to the situation.
Marriage equality is primarily about anti-discrimination.
And makes nearly as much sense as saying that being opposed to having separate restrooms for males and females is “anti-discriminatory”.
If two things are fundamentally different, why on earth would there be a problem in treating them differently? Therein lies the question.
I do wonder, however, what you hope to accomplish here. You post frequently, including a hail of links in your posts, and rehash positions that have made no headway among this crowd in the weeks I’ve seen you posting. You’re clearly not stupid, but I do wonder: What is is that you hope to accomplish here, and do you think your methods are effective?
Why not ask the people who have already drawn the conclusions?
Anyone else suspect that the reason ND30 comes here and whines, i mean posts, is because his site just doesn’t get near the traffic Rob’s does?
Everyone: Dallas is a homo-hatin’-homo. think George rekers, Ted Haggard, Ken Mehlman, and a host of others.
’nuff said. Don’t feed the trolls. It only makes them hungry for more.
People that spew the loudest anti-gay rhetoric should always be suspect. They are so miserable with their own life choices they attack gay people who are out and happy. It is sad. I hope ND comes to terms with himself soon. Life is so short. I cannot imagine taking this lie to the grave…
I honestly don’t think Dallas is a homo-hatin’-homo. I think he’s a homo-hatin’-straight.
I’m in agreement with Greg. ND30 isn’t any more gay than my parents. He’s a sock-puppet. Just like all those straights against gay marriage that “claim” they have gay friends that agree with them that marriage is for heterosexuals, not teh gayz.
Folks, I think that ND30 is a pathological contrarian. One of those people who dissents just to get attention and a response.
Pathetic really and indicative of SOME kind of mental problem.
ND30 is projecting his pettiness as a person. He hates being ignored.
Must suck to be him to do something so pathetic and obvious.
ND..my straight friends would never troll gay oriented sites and trash gay folk..but people that are gay and closeted would.
And that, to a huge extent, is the point and the accomplishment. It’s simply making it obvious how the gay and lesbian community, for all its blather about tolerance and diversity, is singularly intolerant of anyone who dares disagree with it.
The most entertaining part of all is watching gay and lesbian people insist that anyone who dares disagree with them is closeted or mentally ill. It certainly speaks volumes for the projection that is inherent in the community’s mindset.
Hey Rob, is there some sort of function where readers can filter out certain commenters? Like I said earlier, I was intrigued by ND30, but now he’s just whining and I’ve had enough of it.
Only on a gay and lesbian site could people refer to someone referencing being told to kill themselves, hoping they got AIDS, etc. be called “whining” — especially after their collective aneurysm over a sign at a rally.
You wanted to know why the “old” NDT left. That blatant, obvious, spoiled-brat hypocrisy based on the belief that your minority status let you do whatever you want without consequences or responsibility was part of it.
The other came from when racist bigots like Regan were telling me that my straight family, friends, and neighbors “don’t like you for doing it, won’t respect you, in fact, they’ll think you’re one of those gay people who can’t and won’t challenge them”.
Marriage is important to the well-being of children. However, since gay and lesbian individuals never have to worry about producing or otherwise having children, it’s not relevant to the situation.
And there you go whining about procreation again. Of course marriage is important to the well-being of children, which is why it’s so important that marital rights be denied to couples who choose not to have children, right? And in the case of single parents, well, how dare they have children without a spouse. Since marriage is so important to the well-being do you think single parents should be forced to marry?
And of course no same-sex couples ever adopt children, but if they were allowed to do so presumably you’d want to put those children into a heterosexual household because of the grave threat posed by allowing an unmarried same-sex couple to raise children.
*sigh*
I actually agree with some of the points you make. And I think it’s bad that people wish death / suicide / disease on you. I’m not saying you don’t have a point, but I am saying that you come across as a real jerk and maybe people just feel like putting up with it. Heck, I’m probably the closest thing to an ally you have on this thread and you crap on me, too!
I’ll point out that you often get huffy when you feel people are putting words in your mouth, so I find it interesting that you wrote:
“You wanted to know why the “old” NDT left. That blatant, obvious, spoiled-brat hypocrisy based on the belief that your minority status let you do whatever you want without consequences or responsibility was part of it.”
*My* minority status let *me* do whatever *I* wanted without consequences or responsibility? Where did I say or do anything remotely to that effect? Or perhaps you were using the second-person, singular pronoun in a general sense. Much like I was using a figurative device when I said “I know your reply will be a defense”?That didn’t stop you from being a jerk to me, though, did it.
I truly do understand your point of view. You’ve got interesting and reasonable points to make. But just play nice, OK? Please?
ND30,
A beautiful 15 year old high school freshman, Billy Lucas, took his own life days ago because of anti gay bullying in his school.
A lesbian couple, after harassment from neighbor, had their house burned to the ground by arson. They are fearful for their lives or to return to the small town they were living in.
Listen up.
You and every other anti gay a hole always bring up that stupid restaurant kerfuffle as if it were a tragedy. As if the owner SUFFERED and for no reason!
She betrayed people she publicly called her friends and who she profited and prospered from. But secretly helped destroy laws that would help their quality of life.
SHE was NEVER a tragedy and was too much of a coward to even confront the people she betrayed.
But this beautiful boy. One of SO MANY gay teens, IS a heartless, unnecessary tragedy.
The threat against this lesbian couple and the loss of their home is a deliberate devastation on them.
People like YOU and NOM and FRC act like the respect and equal freedoms and protections for the LGBT are a restriction of your rights and they are SO put upon and persecuted.
Selfish assholes. Every one of you.
And despite these tragedies and incidents of brutality, gay people STILL respond with greater restraint and compassion than they are given credit for.
So ND30 you are quick to defend the people responsible for these acts against gay people.
But quick to condemn gay people who don’t want to ignore it or are angry and upset that they happen and get no help for whatever measures WOULD prevent them.
Billy Lucas. His memorial page is on Facebook. I’m pissed, sad, can’t believe people let their little savages get away with what they wouldn’t among adults.
Ignorant cowards are the pox on everything.
Marriage is important to the well-being of children. However, since gay and lesbian individuals never have to worry about producing or otherwise having children, it’s not relevant to the situation.
There are and will continue to be households with lesbian and gay parents of children. It is therefore relevant on the narrow matter of marriage and the raising of children.
Marriage equality is primarily about anti-discrimination.
And makes nearly as much sense as saying that being opposed to having separate restrooms for males and females is “anti-discriminatory”.
This is a false comparison. The comparison would make sense in the case where restrooms were available to only one gender. To demand availability to both would be the pursuit of anti-discrimination. Where marriage is available only to two unrelated adults of opposite gender it is to the purpose of anti-discrimination to make marriage available to same gendered couples.
A beautiful 15 year old high school freshman, Billy Lucas, took his own life days ago because of anti gay bullying in his school.
Really, Regan?
You’re claiming you’re upset by suicide or telling other people to commit suicide when it doesn’t bother you a bit when gay and lesbian people do it?
You’re going to pretend that you care about children dying when it doesn’t matter at all that gay and lesbian people are openly praying for it?
I think your true attitude is shown by how you and your fellow minority grievance-mongerers are attacking this child’s mother and saying that she caused him to kill himself. It’s all about having a corpse that you can exploit for your own hatemongering purposes, and woe to anyone who dares get in your way or interfere with your narrative.
It’s all in whether or not it advances your agenda. You wouldn’t care about homes or businesses burning down if it was done by black people, as you have made abundantly clear elsewhere.
And there you go whining about procreation again. Of course marriage is important to the well-being of children, which is why it’s so important that marital rights be denied to couples who choose not to have children, right?
Well, let’s take that logic forward.
Since gay and lesbian couples are completely incapable of producing children, you would support denying them marriage.
Meanwhile, in the case of heterosexuals, they are fully able to choose whether they want to produce or not, and the only reason they would not be able to choose that option would be solely due to matters beyond their own control, such as age-related changes or biological disorders.
So again, you’re comparing a situation in which the vast majority of people can and do and only the tiniest number of exceptions do not under very specific circumstances — with one in which none can under any circumstances.
Meanwhile, since gays and lesbians such as “Bishop” Gene Robinson and HRC hero Jim McGreevey have demonstrated that gays and lesbians are perfectly capable of loving, marrying, and having children with members of the opposite sex, there’s really no incentive to change the rules. Indeed, what these two individuals demonstrate is that gays and lesbians have no regard for the commitment or values required in marriage and simply are acting out of their own sexual convenience in demanding that marriage be redefined.
And in the case of single parents, well, how dare they have children without a spouse. Since marriage is so important to the well-being do you think single parents should be forced to marry?
You’re sort of getting to a point here. We encourage people to marry precisely because heterosexuals have sex, because heterosexual sex produces children, and because marriage is by far the best structure in which to raise children. Marriage exists so that people can avoid single parenthood, but their choice to operate outside of that is theirs to make. We don’t insist that people marry, nor do we grant them the rights of marriage without doing so.
This is totally irrelevant to gay and lesbian people because gay and lesbian sex never produces children. Therefore, there’s no reason for society to incentivize gay-sex marriage.
And of course no same-sex couples ever adopt children, but if they were allowed to do so presumably you’d want to put those children into a heterosexual household because of the grave threat posed by allowing an unmarried same-sex couple to raise children.
That depends. The gay-sex marriage community shrieks that their being unmarried is harmful to children. What I find particularly disgusting is that these gays and lesbians then deliberately chose to put these children in a harmful situation as apparent bargaining chips to force society to give them gay-sex marriage.
Since gay and lesbian couples are completely incapable of producing children,
Lesbians and gay men are completely capable of producing children using methods adopted by opposite sex couples, such as IVF, artificial insemination and surrogacy. Opposite and same sex couples can and do also acquire children through adoption and fostering and through previous relationships.
…gays and lesbians have no regard for the commitment or values required in marriage and simply are acting out of their own sexual convenience in demanding that marriage be redefined.
In the examples you cite, the same could be said for any case of remarriage. This point of marital definition is absurdly reductive. Marriage exists for a vast array of reasons and purposes. Various of these are culturally privileged at different times and in different places.
The idea that people should simply submit to a notion of marriage by tradition without regard to social change would subject many young people today to arranged marriages because that is how marriage is defined by previous generations in their ethnic groups.
What I find particularly disgusting is that these gays and lesbians then deliberately chose to put these children in a harmful situation as apparent bargaining chips to force society to give them gay-sex marriage.
This is an unreasonably reductive and unsupportable insinuation.
People, people, people. I now agree with Rob and others that ND30 is to be pitied, not angered at. ND30 is broken beyond anything I, or any of us, can repair.
With people that broken, unless you hold a degree in Psychiatry, there simply is no understanding or fixing them.
It’s why i have said he is a homo-hatin’-homo.
and Dallas, I wasn’t calling you names. I’m just stating the obvious.
People, people, people. I now agree with Rob and others that ND30 is to be pitied, not angered at.
Well, that’s mighty white of you.
But I think the word you’re looking for is “contempt”, not pity.
And as Wordsworth so eloquently put it,
He who feels contempt for any living thing hath faculties that he hath never used, and thought with him is in its infancy.
No ND30. I know the difference, and it is pity I feel for you.
No ND30. I know the difference, and it is pity I feel for you.
Not really, Bobby. What you’re doing has been described as “white man’s burden” in some situations and “plantation kindness” in others. You’re simply trying to show how “nice” you are by pretending to care about those who you hold in contempt as your inferiors.
The dead giveaway is how you and yours act when one of those inferiors doesn’t shut up and do what Massa tells him to do. It’s kind of hard to think of you as having any type of “pity” for those you describe as “broken” when you and your fellow gay-sex liberals are telling them to commit suicide and wishing death on their families.
Don’t forget, Rob, NOM is also opposed to Civil Unions and Domestic Partnerships, and anything even remotely “marriage-like”. And, they’re also lying about this, too!