One may choose whether or not to act on the predilection, but one does not choose the predilection itself.

Whenever you defend an institution, you also defend the people participating in that institution. By defending same-sex marriage you defend a disproportionately high number of man-haters.

Let’s assume that your second sentence is true (a big assumption, considering that it comes from a statistical sample with a variation approaching 100%).

Are you suggesting, then, that man-haters (or woman-haters) should not have equal status and protection under the law? Should they be counted as “unpersons” because of their alleged thoughtcrimes?

When one defends the principle that everyone should be equal before the law, one must necessarily include the good and the bad, the just and the unjust in that principle. Otherwise, it’s not “everyone,” is it?

You’re thinking about queer theorists and Foucauldian liberationists, I suspect. They used to form the bedrock of the Gay activist community (and they still run wild in academia), but over the past two decades mainstream Gays have slowly pushed these radicals to the margins where they belong — and, I might add, where they seem happiest. Nowadays, Gay activists are likely to be corporate, buttoned-down types — fiscally conservative, socially moderate, and even a bit prudish. (Frisco is an exception.)

Del and Phyllis are strictly of the old guard. They may be revered as founders of the first Lesbian organization in the US, but no one has actually listened to them for years.

BTW, libertarianism as “moral adolescence”? Since when is it irresponsible, or immoral, to insist that if people are to be virtuous, they must choose it for themselves, and not have it imposed upon them by coercive government? Book X of Plato’s Republic (the “Myth of Er”) insists on this point, by the way.

I like the dinosaur theory. However, in regards to children seeing gay marriage as an alternative, that assumes that people choose who they are attracted to. I don’t know about you, but no amount of convincing or acceptance of gays is going to make ME attracted to a man.

To make and analogy- I love steak and hate seafood. I find seafood disgusting actually. However, they are both options on a menu at a restaurant. Now, my personal tastes will make me NEVER choose seafood, but I don’t begrudge people who enjoy seafood the option. And if they hate steak, they will simply not want it.

Hey maybe this is why the dinorsaurs are extinct… they all decided to marry the same sex instead of what was intended naturally. Hey! I could be onto something!

Several days ago Drudge posted a picture of two lesbians…

Roach said “Gay activists are quite open and adament about their desire to transform the culture and the concept of marriage” This is true. And what the activists are trying to do is redefine what pro-traditional marriage people already consider normal. Who’s right and who’s wrong? What IS considered normal and/or exceptable? How does this end?

This is one of those stories that the Internet community loves to unearth; unfortunately, it might very well run too counter to the storylines that many of the big names like to promote. You’ve seen the picture of the first…

The point (the important one, that is) is that these women have done no one any harm by seeking and attaining a marriage license. I dare you to show how allowing them to do so constitutes an endorsement of all their ideas any more than allowing them to eat at the restaurant of their choice or rent the apartment of their choice or simply to live for that matter do! I agree that one has to consider all the pros and cons of any public policy, but what con has been reflected by the revelation of these women’s agenda? That something good happened to two people with ridiculous ideas? BFD!!!!

corquando,

I couldn’t tell which side you were taking, but you’re correct that when someone defends the rights of Stalinists or Nazis to speak, one is defending the rights of all to speak. And likewise, in defending the rights of man-haters to marry, one is defending the rights of all competent consensual adults to marry.

In my last post, I did not intend the word “ideally” to refer to democracy in general. I was refering to the ideal of our current so-called democratic republic here in the United States.

The way I look at democracy is like this:

Democracy is based on the assumption that a people deserve what a majority of them ask for.

Iâ??m not suggesting I think that is utopia.

Anyway thanks for the comment.

How did “RULE OF THUMB” originate? This is now going to bother me for the rest of the day.

Big sigh.

If “we the people” get to decide collectively what is good and what is bad, then where is the bar, where is the standard? Has anyone noticed that decade after decade the bar gets lowered, the standard drops? If this decline continues I don’t want to be around in 50 years, much less, God forbid, my children and grand-children and so-on.

Sephiroth’s question is undeniable. Who is the determinor of good and bad? There has to be a standard or our society as we know it will no longer be (eventually).

â??Who is to be this determiner of “good and bad” which you need in order to make your political philosophy work? Is it going to be a conservative Christian, a libertine anarchist, or a radical leftist who wants us to return to the golden age of hunter-gatherer subsistence? There is nowhere near as much consensus as you think on these issuesâ?

This response of your’s compels me to ask two questions of you:

1. What, exactly, was it I said that made you think I believe there is a consensus on this issue? I recall making no such statement.

2. Why are you changing the subject of this thread from â??is same sex marriage good for our societyâ? to â??letâ??s debate about who should make decisions in our societyâ?? Maybe I made the mistake in presuming you belived as I, that ideally, the people decide what is good and what is bad for society through forums exactly like this, by discussing the various advantages and disadvantages of the issues. Apparently you believe something different.

Did they want to get married to affirm their love for each other? That hardly seems important after 51 years of cohabitation.

This isn’t bigotry, dear, it’s research.

My theory, based on my reading of their published work and what I’ve been told by people who’ve known them for years, is that they wanted get married in order to crap on the institution of marriage.