Political Crossfire Forums

[Creamxec]

Skeptical Mystic wrote: Creamxec wrote: skeptical...u told me not to compare them yet u are saying its a valid comparison?
I didn't say you couldn't compare them. I probably said I considered such a comparison unwise.

What I did say was not to misconstrue my comparison as being one of race vs. homosexuality or the struggle for racial equality vs. the fight for gay rights.

What I did say was that it is valid to compare the methods used against one group with those used against the other. The reason being that the enemies of equality and fair treatment for either group use many of the same tactics and susbscribe to many of the same ideologies.

Now, if you still can't see the difference, I'm afraid I can't do much else to help you.

i never compared the struggle i was comparing the methods. skeptical all of ur posts have no proposals, just complaints u never give any ideas

[F'losrix]

Creamxec wrote: i never compared the struggle i was comparing the methods. skeptical all of ur posts have no proposals, just complaints u never give any ideas
Sorry, I don't see where you actually made a comparison of anything. Can you elucidate, please?

As for saying I never have anything but complaints and no ideas, I can only conclude that you've not read very many of my posts, then.

My proposal is this:

1) Get the government out of marriage as much as possible. Restrict their role to settling disputes that have to do with the contractual nature of it (divorce, child custody, estate settlement) - without prejudice based on gender of the parties.

2) Since the government is unlikely to end its involvement in marriage, my secondary proposal is twofold:

a) Stop using the word 'marriage' for the government's recognition of it - convert all references to what it really is: a civilly recognized contract of union, or 'civil union' for short. This is aimed at ending the confusion with the religious institution of marriage regulated by churches.

b) End licensing restrictions based on gender and grant gay couples equal civil recognition of their unions and all of the benefits & protections that come with them - at both the state and federal levels.

Problems: Since several states have already banned not only recognition of gay marriages but also ANY form of recognition for gay couples, we're already deep into the states' rigths issue of self-determination on this topic. I would argue that it's a matter of equal protection, but that gets us into deeper arguments over procedural due process vs. substantive due process. In other words, should gay couples be denied recognition simply because the law is written in a way that is procedurally prejudiced against them (one man/one woman); or would it be a greater measure of fairness to recognize that the procedural prejudice of the law violates the substance of their right to enter into a contractual union?

I believe it should be the latter. In which case I have to call for those amendments banning all forms of recognition for gay couples to be rescinded. Which is of course, just as unlikely to happen as the rest of what I've proposed.

So, on then to reality. It's pretty bleak, frankly. We're stuck with accepting whatever crumbs society throws us. So far it's in the form of marriage in Massachussetts (which is only at the state level - no federal recognition of gay marriages, period - it's a matter of law, thanks to the Defense of Marriage Act.) civil unions (Vermont, Connecticut) or some form of domestic partnership (California, New Jersey, Maine) - most of which don't quite offer the full protections that marriage recognition provides. And none of them provide for any federal recognition. All are in some level of danger from challenges to their existance by right-wing extremists.

In other words, we're expected to trash our careers and leave family & friends behind to move clear across the country for a second-class form of recognition that might disappear if the right has their way in the matter. Nice.

Nice as I think it would be to see civil unions offered on a wider basis, I know it's not likely to happen anytime soon - not when the trend is in the opposite direction - that of banning them right along with gay marriage.

Do you understand now why I complain instead of offering up proposals? Compromise necessarily requires both sides to give up their most extreme demands in order to get something acceptable to both sides for the short term. We want marriage, they want us to have nothing whatsoever.

The compromise ought to be to give us at least a part of what we want. But their counterproposal on that score is to tell us we can get some of the protections we want by entering into other existing legal arrangements - which they already know may be found to conflict with their broad bans on recognition of gay unions. And they're burdensome - who wants to carry around legal documents with them literally everwhere they go just in case they have an accident and need proof of their partner's power of attorney on their behalf? Not to mention the added expense - why should we have to go to additional expense and become legal experts in order to get a smidgeon of what they enjoy just for getting married? It leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Or they propose incremental legislation to grant us a benefit here and there. Sorry, that's not enough to be considered a true compromise - seriously, it's not. Great that we're getting something, but don't expect us to be appeased.

Or worse, they tell us that heterosexual marriage is what there is, take it or leave it. That's not a compromise, that's stonewalling.

We want access to health benefits - they want to take them away in the places where they were being offered before the bans went into effect.

There is no compromise because the middle ground of civil unions has already largely been taken away. The right won't even entertain the idea because they know it's a stepping stone to full marriage recognition. We have to fight mightily for every tiny benefit we get, but there's no relaxing when it's done - we then have to keep a vigilant battle to keep them from taking them away from us again.

No more proposals. I'm tired of being shot down. Instead I will content myself with being a thorn in their side until they figure out that the only way to stop the pain is to come to the table with some honest proposals or find a way to silence us completely by means of force. So far the prospects are lousy and now I'm even more depressed than I was when I started writing this.

[Creamxec]

Skeptical Mystic wrote: Creamxec wrote: i never compared the struggle i was comparing the methods. skeptical all of ur posts have no proposals, just complaints u never give any ideas
Sorry, I don't see where you actually made a comparison of anything. Can you elucidate, please?

As for saying I never have anything but complaints and no ideas, I can only conclude that you've not read very many of my posts, then.

My proposal is this:

1) Get the government out of marriage as much as possible. Restrict their role to settling disputes that have to do with the contractual nature of it (divorce, child custody, estate settlement) - without prejudice based on gender of the parties.

2) Since the government is unlikely to end its involvement in marriage, my secondary proposal is twofold:

a) Stop using the word 'marriage' for the government's recognition of it - convert all references to what it really is: a civilly recognized contract of union, or 'civil union' for short. This is aimed at ending the confusion with the religious institution of marriage regulated by churches.

b) End licensing restrictions based on gender and grant gay couples equal civil recognition of their unions and all of the benefits & protections that come with them - at both the state and federal levels.

Problems: Since several states have already banned not only recognition of gay marriages but also ANY form of recognition for gay couples, we're already deep into the states' rigths issue of self-determination on this topic. I would argue that it's a matter of equal protection, but that gets us into deeper arguments over procedural due process vs. substantive due process. In other words, should gay couples be denied recognition simply because the law is written in a way that is procedurally prejudiced against them (one man/one woman); or would it be a greater measure of fairness to recognize that the procedural prejudice of the law violates the substance of their right to enter into a contractual union?

I believe it should be the latter. In which case I have to call for those amendments banning all forms of recognition for gay couples to be rescinded. Which is of course, just as unlikely to happen as the rest of what I've proposed.

So, on then to reality. It's pretty bleak, frankly. We're stuck with accepting whatever crumbs society throws us. So far it's in the form of marriage in Massachussetts (which is only at the state level - no federal recognition of gay marriages, period - it's a matter of law, thanks to the Defense of Marriage Act.) civil unions (Vermont, Connecticut) or some form of domestic partnership (California, New Jersey, Maine) - most of which don't quite offer the full protections that marriage recognition provides. And none of them provide for any federal recognition. All are in some level of danger from challenges to their existance by right-wing extremists.

In other words, we're expected to trash our careers and leave family & friends behind to move clear across the country for a second-class form of recognition that might disappear if the right has their way in the matter. Nice.

Nice as I think it would be to see civil unions offered on a wider basis, I know it's not likely to happen anytime soon - not when the trend is in the opposite direction - that of banning them right along with gay marriage.

Do you understand now why I complain instead of offering up proposals? Compromise necessarily requires both sides to give up their most extreme demands in order to get something acceptable to both sides for the short term. We want marriage, they want us to have nothing whatsoever.

The compromise ought to be to give us at least a part of what we want. But their counterproposal on that score is to tell us we can get some of the protections we want by entering into other existing legal arrangements - which they already know may be found to conflict with their broad bans on recognition of gay unions.

Or they propose incremental legislation to grant us a benefit here and there. Sorry, that's not enough to be considered a true compromise - seriously, it's not. Great that we're getting something, but don't expect us to be appeased.

Or worse, they tell us that heterosexual marriage is what there is, take it or leave it. That's not a compromise, that's stonewalling.

We want access to health benefits - they want to take them away in the places where they were being offered before the bans went into effect.

There is no compromise because the middle ground of civil unions has already largely been taken away. The right won't even entertain the idea because they know it's a stepping stone to full marriage recognition. We have to fight mightily for every tiny benefit we get, but there's no relaxing when it's done - we then have to keep a vigilant battle to keep them from taking them away from us again.

No more proposals. I'm tired of being shot down. Instead I will content myself with being a thorn in their side until they figure out that the only way to stop the pain is to come to the table with some honest proposals or find a way to silence us completely by means of force. So far the prospects are lousy and now I'm even more depressed than I was when I started writing this.

first time ive seen u put up and idea....listen i think gays and lesbians shood be married equally as well, but apparently there are people who think otherwise and perhaps we should compare this issue to others that have ended up working

[F'losrix]

Creamxec wrote: first time ive seen u put up and idea....listen i think gays and lesbians shood be married equally as well, but apparently there are people who think otherwise and perhaps we should compare this issue to others that have ended up working
Like what? Sorry if I appear bitter and cynical, but.....well......quite frankly I am. I can't think of another issue to which marriage compares. And it's not that we wouldn't compromise if there were honest proposals on the table that show a respect for our place in society - there simply aren't. Instead it's like we're dogs, begging for scraps. It sickens me, it really does.

[Jaxian]

Skeptical Mystic wrote: Creamxec wrote: first time ive seen u put up and idea....listen i think gays and lesbians shood be married equally as well, but apparently there are people who think otherwise and perhaps we should compare this issue to others that have ended up working
Like what? Sorry if I appear bitter and cynical, but.....well......quite frankly I am. I can't think of another issue to which marriage compares. And it's not that we wouldn't compromise if there were honest proposals on the table that show a respect for our place in society - there simply aren't. Instead it's like we're dogs, begging for scraps. It sickens me, it really does.

I think he meant to say that we should compare it to segregation of the races, which happened prior to complete equality.

But it is also important to consider that minority races did not stop fighting for complete equality while there was segregation. It was simply all they could get. In the same light, I will accept civil unions for gay people, should they be introduced, and I will be pleased with them. But I will never propose anything other than complete equality.

A compromise isn't usually the right answer: usually one side is right and the other is wrong. But some people, especially politicians, pride themselves on their ability to compromise: to please both groups. People who don't care one way or another on a debate tend to view the debate as a bitter dispute that could be worked out if only both sides could agree to a compromise. It tends to make people feel rational to support a compromise, and make them view people on either side of the debate as stubborn. So what is likely to happen if gay rights supporters start asking for civil unions instead of complete equality? They aren't likely to get civil unions, they're likely to get another compromise: something between civil unions and nothing.

If we are to get anywhere, we must continually support complete equality. Besides, complete equality is the only opinion that can actually be defended logically. How are we supposed to argue that civil unions are the correct choice?

[F'losrix]

Jaxian wrote: In the same light, I will accept civil unions for gay people, should they be introduced, and I will be pleased with them. But I will never propose anything other than complete equality.

A compromise isn't usually the right answer: usually one side is right and the other is wrong. But some people, especially politicians, pride themselves on their ability to compromise: to please both groups. People who don't care one way or another on a debate tend to view the debate as a bitter dispute that could be worked out if only both sides could agree to a compromise. It tends to make people feel rational to support a compromise, and make them view people on either side of the debate as stubborn. So what is likely to happen if gay rights supporters start asking for civil unions instead of complete equality? They aren't likely to get civil unions, they're likely to get another compromise: something between civil unions and nothing.

If we are to get anywhere, we must continually support complete equality. Besides, complete equality is the only opinion that can actually be defended logically. How are we supposed to argue that civil unions are the correct choice?
They're only the correct choice if it's done in a way that provides complete equality, and we only get there by all recognition, gay or straight, being converted to 'civil unions', as I proposed. You've more or less found a shorter way of saying what I was trying to get at in my long-winded way. We'll accept compromises for the short term because it's probably all we can get. But I have to say that I view the situation in the U.S. as mostly hopeless.

We're basically waiting to see if the state is going to formally void our domestic partnership to take away our benefits and whether they pass a conscientious objector law for doctors. I'm pretty convinced it's just a matter of time on both scores. We sincerely feel that most of our fellow citizens don't give a damn about our rights and that a significant number rejoice at the idea of gay people leaving the state. I'm in no hurry to go but I don't really see much point in sticking around to be hated and reviled for another 50 years, either. With there being no stability anyplace in the U.S. surrounding our rights, we find ourselves forced to give serious consideration to the idea of emigrating. If I really thought we had a chance of winning the fight for equality in the U.S. I'd stay but the prospects right now are pretty grim, IMO.

[ridenrodeo]

The one thing i don't understand is why is it ok for str8 people to get married and be happy and turn around and tell gay people thay can not. There comes a time when people need to but out of other peoples lives. This is not a matter for the government to get involved in. We all have the right to presue happines, not some but ALL. the thing is throughout history this has never been a problem untell the curch got involved and like everything elese thay have touched is has seperated our country. This debate has put families at one another for no good reason. It should be legal and everyone should worry about there own lives insted of prying into others :!:

[Robin Hood]

I want to introduce a new line to this debate: rather than people arguing that homosexuality is not choice and thus is ok, in other words compromising with bigots by implying that it is immoral and if people could choose then making the homosexual choice would be wrong.

I suggest that homosexuality may well be a choice, but who cares? Poeple should be free to choose who they sleep or who they do not sleep with.