Apologies to BK. You were right about gay marriages.

[Ben Kenobi]

So staff members are allowed to post threads bashing posters? News to me.

[SlowwHand]

Can we restrict this discussion to people with JDs only, please? This is insulting my intelligence.

What specific religion or Church is being endorsed by government here in violation of Amendment 1? Atheists can get married for ****s sake. Civil ceremony.

No, they can't, you ignorant ass. I guess they can get married and have it not accepted by the state. Big damned deal.
Again, at this time, I'm not for religious marriages. Civil service SHOULD BE binding to the state, in my opinion, but it's not.

Hi, Ben.

[Ben Kenobi]

You know, that strategy has been tried roughly five thousand times with BK, and never worked. The man is outdone only by AAHZ when it comes to immunity to criticism. The ignore-him strategy, while to my mind perhaps fatally flawed, at least hasn't been seriously tried to my knowledge.

How about treating me like a human being? You think I spend my time 24/7 campaigning against gay people? Heck, I've spent far more time out canvassing against this HST and watching Hockey games.

I'm a simple guy. You want me to be considerate, then perhaps it might do all of you some good to reflect the behaviour that you desire.

Or you can continue to make threads attacking me, and act all surprised when I push back.

It's your call.

[Wiglaf]

No, they can't, you ignorant ass.

Do you know what a civil ceremony is? Atheists are entitled to the same rights as any married couple. If they were not, Amendment 1 would be in play.

I see you edited this in:

I guess they can get married and have it not accepted by the state. Big damned deal.
Again, at this time, I'm not for religious marriages. Civil service SHOULD BE binding to the state, in my opinion, but it's not.

What? What the hell? States cannot deny civil matrimony, nor any of the rights ordinary marriage between straight people entails, on the basis of religion. Where has this happened? Can you elaborate? I can help you file a civil claim if your atheist marriage rights have been violated.

[SlowwHand]

You're an idiot, don't bother me any more. If you're representative of Washington and the political process in any way, other than emptying trash baskets, the people of the United States are screwed.

[Wiglaf]

This has been a textbook example of why people need to understand the Constitution before throwing around terms like "rights" and "first amendment" without knowing what they mean. Slowwhand's case is egregious, but even Asher (who we know isn't retarded) is also guilty of it to a lesser extent, presumably because he has a vested interest in the matter as a homosexual himself.

[bc1871]

Crack addicts, degenerates & even homosexuals can get married in a civil ceremony. The only people forbidden from being wed in a civil ceremony are the under aged & those deemed mentally incompetent.

Also, you can't obviously get married to animals or corpses, but then again I don't think even the most depraved liberal would approve of that.

[Robert]

Geez, are you guys still not over this?
It's like you're all one big married couple.

One day I'm going to put the words gay and marriage into the autosensor or ban the topic alltogether. Why are both sides not able to simply drop it?

The number of reports I get about this topic exceeds the number of spam-reports.
And yes, this message is posted in a moment of silly anger.

[bc1871]

A simple solution would be to have one thread, dedicated solely to the gay marriage debate. It would then stop a lot of the spam, and furthermore would contain the abuse and infighting to a single section of "OT".

[SlowwHand]

bc, if they argue about sex with a dead deer for days, don't underestimate how long this could go on.

[bc1871]

It seems like almost every thread, eventually devolves into rants about Ben, sodomy, pedophilia or disturbing insight into deviant acts that can be performed on corpses.

[BeBMan]

It's all human.

[Nikolai]

I for one have no problem with gays getting some legal institution to base their relationships on(that's what gay unions are right? I don't have access to a dictionary right now). What I do have a problem with, is same-sex marriage as done in Norway. Under the new law, all new marriages are the same, gay or hetero. But contrary to the constitution, the law applies back in time. And worse: Old marriages are forced to become the new kind of marriage, while the gay unions are voluntary to convert!

Since we now have one common marriage law, for everyone, and churches is the main place to marry, the churches are under great pressure to conform. That is really a problem for the religious freedom, a human right. In my opinion, the best solution would be to either go back to the old system of hetero marriage and gay unions, or perhaps better: Two distinct marriage laws: One for hetro people and one for gay people. That way everyone would get what they want and we avoid things like human rights violations and breaking of the constitution.

[Robert]

Nikolai: that's why churches should never perform acts that should be performed by the government.
Overhere in Holland the official wedding happens in the city hall (or in a fancy place, but always by a civil servant).
You can go to the church to ask God for a blessing, but the marriage is not happening in the church.
I never understood how modern nations like Norway and the USA let churches be the place where you can marry. What happened to the seperation of church and state?

So if the churches are under pressure now, then that's only their own fault because all those years they did something they should not have done anyway. The only solution is to give it back to the government and take the Dutch approach.

[SlowwHand]

1) That's your opinion.
2) Why do you come stomping into the thread with complaints and then feed it?