SF throws down the gauntlet to Cali

[Giancarlo]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


Conditional verb, could. You could sleep around as much as you like, and the law would not care.

But I don't.

You having trouble with English? Would you prefer Spanish?

Do you have a problem with common sense? Or is something messed up in your head? You idiot, if I had trouble with english I wouldn't be doing well in college.

But when you start to dig into the question of why do we bar polygamy, and why do we bar incest, then they do come into play. It can't be all that bogus when someone who disagrees with me on gay marriage, agrees with me on this point.

Incest and Polygamy are not relevant to this debate so can you please move on.

[Giancarlo]

And why the hell should I marry somebody of the opposite sex? What good would that do Ben?

[Ben Kenobi]

You say polygamy isn't allowed to refute that the state shouldn't be allowed to discriminate based on gender or sexual preference. I have never asserted that the government cannot discriminate in other ways.

Is what you are trying to say that polygamy is wrong because of the gender or sexual preference of the parties involved? (ie. X males shouldn't marry Y females, but other combinations of more than 2 parties are acceptable)

No. It is entirely relevant to the point that David Floyd is making that the state can restrict marriage, because the state creates marriage rights. No state, no civil marriage.

Yah, all those studies done about gay marriages. How many gay couples have been married? How long have they beem married. Impressive database there.

Studies are done based on the cohabiting couples, since marriage data is not available. And the numbers are not good.

I'd argue that the success of a marriage is obviously not an issue when the state allows marriage in Las Vegas between two intoxicated individuals who most likely will get divorced in the morning. Not to mention that 50% of all marriages in the country end in divorce.

Agreed. Let's do away with both quickie Vegas marriages, and with gay marriage. Both fall short of the ideal.

I'd guess you don't feel a job isn't a fundamental right either?

Yep. No one has a fundamental right to a job. Not hard.

Should the government therefore be able to discriminate against potential job cannidates based on gender or sexual preference?

Actually, this is not true. One can discriminate if it can be shown that this would adversely affect the job performance. The Boy Scouts are not required to hire gay men, and do have a right to screen potential employees.

Most jobs should not care what your preferences are, so they should not be an issue.

Your logic is terrible.

No. The church and the state are seperated. I hate that trope that whenever a Conservative stands up for what he believes, liberals tar and feather him as forcing his beliefs on others. Conservatives could care less if you disagree with them. It's always liberals who whinge about forcing opinions on other people.

I didn't make the assertion that conservatives are forcing their religious beliefs onto others.

Yep, just firing a shot at that trope, because your point affirms the seperation of the church and state. I could have been clearer that the point was not directly related to you, but some of the other posts. Sorry.

What they will, while not infringing on the rights of others.

Much better. Still doesn't get you all the way to gay marriage though. The state has to intervene, in order to recognise the marriage. So you need some kind of positive argument for them to do so.

I am certainly not comparing slavery to being denied the right to marry, but using the issue of slavery to illustrate an extreme case of being denied a right.

Distinction without a difference. You are making an analogy.

From other posts you've made, you view a fundamental right as one which doesn't require more than one person, right? Does that mean you don't believe that procreating is a fundamental right?

Yes.

Please post a study of the effects of gay marriage. I can't seem to find any.

http://www.narth.com/docs/whitehead.html

General effects,

The researchers report a high rate of battering within the context of intimate homosexual partnerships, with 39% of those studied reporting at least one type of battering by a partner over the last five years.

In contrast, only about 7.7% of heterosexual men of all ages report physical or sexual partner abuse during their entire lifetimes. (Lifetime rates of abuse are generally higher than those within a five-year period.)

http://www.narth.com/docs/domestic.html

Battering rates,

that's just for starters.

Children are raised and brainwashed, guilted into following a certain lifestyle.

Are they brainwashed? I would contend this assertion, because all religions allow their members to leave them voluntarily. Cults are a different matter, in that they do not, and prevent their members from leaving through a variety of methods.

Should we disallow practicing religion because of this, or should people be allowed to make choices about how to live their own lives which someone else may not find optimal?

I think that if a cult bars someone from leaving, then they are impacting the lives of others, and infringing on their freedoms. They should be disallowed and discouraged.

note the importance even in their findings of aquiring more data (like their own) from non-American studies. Why?

All studies are interested in widening scope. Fact of life.

so using a British study about British homosexuals doesn't seem as applicable.

True, but it is much better than pure conjecture, to have some hard data.

[
Not to mention the fact that the findings failed to take into account the differences in social pressures gays face compared to their hetero counterparts.

They account for these differences. Sorry, but this is an old trope that has come up every time, regardless of the study and the source that I cite. It's getting tiresome.

a population segment that faces such a social stigma

Even in San Francisco, you will see these effects.

[quiote]
In short, there is no relevance given to the findings.
[/quote]

Have a look at my other sources. They are relevant regardless of old tropes.

that feeling outcast leads to deviant behavior.

Interesting. So you would characterise homosexuality as deviant behavior.

Lacking evidence for gay marriage, and looking at the rates for relationships, I would not be as optimistic as you are.

"If I were to drag up some statistic about the correlation between believing in a deity of some sort and terrorism, would that be a valid argument against allowing people to practice their religion?"

Again, if it could be shown that the beliefs encourage terrorism, then that would be a valid argument. However, not even Islam espouses terror, and not all Islamic believers support terror.

quote:
An unconsummated marriage remains grounds for divorce to the denied partner. So no go.

2. a. To complete (a marriage) with the first act of sexual intercourse after the ceremony.
b. To fulfill (a sexual desire or attraction) especially by intercourse.

Stop for a minute. Sexual intercourse. The penetration of the vagina by the penis.

This is precisely my point. Homosexuals cannot consummate their relationships.

[Ben Kenobi]

But I don't.

I never said you did. Conditional verb.

Incest and Polygamy are not relevant to this debate so can you please move on.

Two people of differing opinions say they are relevant. Deal with the points.

And why the hell should I marry somebody of the opposite sex? What good would that do Ben?

So don't get married then.

[Giancarlo]

Two people of differing opinions are mistaken.

Don't get married? I don't think so.

[Ben Kenobi]

Two people of differing opinions are mistaken.

Floyd and I never agree.

Therefore, the topics in which we would agree, we're more likely to be right, than just your opinion.

[Boris Godunov]

Oh lord, BK now throws out NARTH...typical.

Hey, let's talk about how the skewed the conclusions of that study, shall we?

Results. Prevalence estimates were 34% for psychological/symbolic battering, 22% for physical battering, and 5% for sexual battering. The strongest demographic correlate independently associated with all forms of battering was age 40 or younger, whereas education and HIV serostatus were associated with physical and psychological/symbolic violence.

Now, if you would take a look at statistics for female abuse by male spouses, you'd find that these numbers are about the same--a full quarter of women say they have been physically battered in a relationship. Comparing gay men in relationships with men to straight men in relationships with women is deceptive, since women are by and large not batterers, but men are.

The other thing is that legalizing marriage is exactly the kind of thing that could HELP these rates go down, as the very study cited here concluded:

Implications and Future Directions
Because judicial, legislative, and public health systems do not recognize or are not aware of intimate partner abuse among MSM, serious social and structural changes are needed. To respond to this very serious public health problem, we need to develop and support shelters for battered MSM, educate and train law enforcement personnel about battering among MSM and how to respond to it, and expand preventive and clinical care7–10,14,29 for these men. A full range of medical and domestic violence services for MSM, particularly services targeting MSM aged 40 years or younger, are needed. Health professionals need to be able to appropriately screen, treat, and screen, treat, or recommend services for intimate partner abuse. Our society needs to understand that men are victims as well as perpetrators of violence.9,10 Equally intensive and multilayered public health efforts are also needed to intervene with and serve the perpetrators of violence among MSM. Surveillance, prevention, and intervention research on intimate partner abuse among MSM has not been well conducted. Sorely needed are theory-driven, longitudinal, mixed methodological and well-controlled studies that systematically elucidate the etiology, maintenance, context, and trajectories of partner violence among MSM.29 These studies could also help to identify how intimate partner abuse among MSM is similar to, and different from, such abuse among lesbians and heterosexual women. Finally, "best practices" research could be conducted to identify which treatment approaches work best to reduce the burden of same-gender battering among these men.

The problem isn't some inherent part of homosexuality that causes violence, it's that there does not exist the legal, social and medical resources as of yet to handle the problem.

NARTH advocates reparative therapy, and every major medical, psychiatric and psychological association agrees that reparative therapy is not only a crock, it's psychologically damaging to the people who try to undergo it. So citing them as some sort of source on what's good and bad for gays is pretty damned funny.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by mindseye
Even if SF is trounced in court, it's still MISSION ACCOMPLISHED for the very reason Boris described

Good for them. However thier actions have made the issue secondary to the precedent they set and it keeps me from wishing the sucess in the arena thier challenge should have been waged in to begin with.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


Sure. There is no law preventing them from marrying a nice man if they are a woman, or a nice woman, if they are a man.

That's the point there, that seems pretty solid for all your refutations you have provided.

I deny that this argument has been trounced, PWNED or anything of the sort. Hence, repetition of a point increases my consistency. And consistency is a virtue.

You never stop distorting the argument, do you??

The issue that we have is not that we're denied the right to marry someone of the opposite gender, but that we are denied the right to marry someone of the same gender.

[Ned]

David Floyd, you discount the voluntary/involuntary nature of homosexuality as being significant in the issue at had. I disagree. It is critical.

I come down on the side that homosexuality is involuntary. I do so without scientific proof, which I think we will find eventually. I base my position on this primarily on the apparent fact that homosexuality appears at an early age and appears to be persistent.

[Ned]

David Floyd, you discount the voluntary/involuntary nature of homosexuality as being significant in the issue at had. I disagree. It is critical.

I come down on the side that homosexuality is involuntary. I do so without scientific proof, which I think we will find eventually. I base my position on this primarily on the apparent fact that homosexuality appears at an early age and appears to be persistent.

[Ned]

David Floyd, you discount the voluntary/involuntary nature of homosexuality as being significant in the issue at had. I disagree. It is critical.

I come down on the side that homosexuality is involuntary. I do so without scientific proof, which I think we will find eventually. I base my position on this primarily on the apparent fact that homosexuality appears at an early age and appears to be persistent.

[chequita guevara]

Given the crap most gays have to deal with, no one in their right mind would choose to be gay. Hell, some people kill themselves rather than deal with being gay. For social animals like humans, disapproval is a very strong motivator.

That said, I think it is irrelevent whether homosexuality is a choice or not. There is nothing wrong with being gay. Therefore, being gay should not be a reason to be punished.

[Ned]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Given the crap most gays have to deal with, no one in their right mind would choose to be gay. Hell, some people kill themselves rather than deal with being gay. For social animals like humans, disapproval is a very strong motivator.

That said, I think it is irrelevent whether homosexuality is a choice or not. There is nothing wrong with being gay. Therefore, being gay should not be a reason to be punished.

Ah, but Che, the issue is critical if one is being denied rights bases on STATUS.

[MrBaggins]

Which they obviously are... like Taxation and health benefits.

I'd like to see ANY and EVERY social benefit conferred to straight married couples, also conferred to Gay couples in some form of civil union.

Thus gay couples would file for the same tax status as married couples, be able to apply their health insurance to their partner, and or be guaranteed the same health rights (visiting and making health decisions for their partner in hospital, for instance.)

If you confine marriage to different genders as in a religious sense, I see thats fine... Gays are used to be labelled as being different...

but you then have to give gay couples every advantage a male-female couple have, if you want to avoid discrimination.

Of course, some here might want to discriminate against gays, socially... by having them paying more tax, etc... but whats your reasoning for doing so?