Ted said “It was a mandate then because racial rights is a civil rights issue. Sexual preference is not.” It rubbed me the wrong way when he said it, but after reading this, I saw what he was talking about. Unfortunately for gay people, there are going to be people that are “gay by choice” and hence,cause major setbacks for the movement…

I just know what my sil’s tell me they want: To have their union recognized in a death and dying situation(recognized as family or spouse) and to be able to leave pensions, estate etc., to each other just as her brother and I are able to do…I really think that is not too much to ask but I can see it not happening anytime soon. Why? Well let’s start with What’s the legacy of right-wing populism kids?
…you might want to read the original post again..this isn’t just the rightwing that is stopping this..states are passing these admendments by large majorities, it isn’t divided along political lines…

28.You have not shown us a case to use in a gay marriage case or a gay benefits case.

I wasn’t claiming too. My point was that none of these rulings (with which we presumably all agree) were decided by a “grassroots” popular vote. Ergo, in the case of gay rights struggles, we shouldn’t look to a populace that is all too often made up of small-minded bigots who can’t get over the “ick” factor of dudes kissing.

What’s the legacy of right-wing populism kids?

Rulings from the SCOTUS are not activist judges, they are interputations of the COTUS. We have yet to see a case go before the court don’t we? It isn’t because they are refusing them either:Sexual preference is a mitigating factor in the case, therefore one can not say “The question of rights afforded regardless of sexual preference would, then, be a civil rights issue even if it is not yet recognized as a civil right.”

I’m not sure what you’re saying here. There seem to be some glitches with pronoun antecedents (honestly, I’m not trying to be cute). If it’s my definition of civil rights that you’re disagreeing with, could you provide your own definition? I’m at least confident in the historical grounding of my own.

Indeed I have a home in a very metropolitan place where many of my neighgors
are black and when we bought here I (foolishly and naively) believed that
my partner and I would enjoy immediate inclusion because of similar minority
status. Not so. For the first five years we were nearly shunned.

Neighbors are under no obligation to talk to you, let alone like you… Maybe they just don’t like you…it may have nothing to do with your sexuality.

I don’t give a rat’s ass how ‘approves’ of gay people. But you do and rightfully so…you have alot riding on it…

Yes we come in all sizes and colors (hence our rainbow emblem) and it’s waaaaaaaaaaay overdue that the religionists and haters among us stopped “Bible-abusing”to justify mass marginalization and hatred.

“Oh Ellen’s fine. She keeps still about it: but OH THAT NASTY OLD ROSIE! She mentions her partner! KILL KILL KILL”

Are you just ignorant? I can’t stand her because of her ignorance and hypocicy on a multitude of issues. Can you show us where we said Ellen is fine because she doesn’t meantion her partner? Nope, you can’t. What was said is that Ellen is intelligent and gay..gay is not the driving force in her being..she has so much more going for her..big difference.

With the free flow of homophobia and outright bigotry you allow at this site it’s a study in futility to attempt to teach the unteachable. Plus I’ve better and more productive things to do with my time than up your posting history:

So I should only allow one side of the debate? How about your attacks on religion..are those okay to keep or should I edit those?

Your arrogance is obnoxious, condescending, and speaks to a basic flaw in your ability to treat all peoples the same .. ergo I’m brighter than you are so the rest of you can decide your OWN reality and leave mine the fuck alone.

Being able to back up statements isn’t arrogance, it is intelligence..try it sometime

I’ll be happily blowing my boyfriend and making love to the MAN in my life.
Do you swallow?

It’s ‘presumtion’ that I expect equal benefits under the law since I am a law-abiding American who happens to be gay?

I don’t give a rat’s ass how ‘approves’ of gay people. That’s their issue (and apparently YOURS too). Any and all of you who don’t approve of my sexuality can go shit in your hats. I think you’re subhuman if you believe that way and you’re part of what divides this country rather than unites it.

The only ‘presumption’ Peejz is that you’d fail to see the direct parallels between blacks and gays in their struggle for equality. Guess you kind of have to be one to know the struggle huh? What’s it threaten your reality to realize the Bible condone FAR MORE OFTEN the owning (enslavement) of people than it does mention homosexuality.

The abolitionists in the North combatted your kind of thinking when the Rebels tried to apply Bible rhetoric to the justification for enslaving those they deemed “lesser”.

I happen to think homosexuals are more evolved and if this site is any indication I’m convinced of it.

Do not presume to instruct my reality we’ll be fine.

Yes we come in all sizes and colors (hence our rainbow emblem) and it’s waaaaaaaaaaay overdue that the religionists and haters among us stopped “Bible-abusing” to justify mass marginalization and hatred.

You’re nothing but a thinly-veiled hater yourself.

“Oh Ellen’s fine. She keeps still about it… but OH THAT NASTY OLD ROSIE! She mentions her partner! KILL KILL KILL”

What the fuck threatens you people about homosexuality anyway? Is it something you recognize in yourselves or are you simply feeble-minded and unable to reason logically? Hell if I know.:roll:

With the free flow of homophobia and outright bigotry you allow at this site it’s a study in futility to attempt to teach the unteachable. Plus I’ve better and more productive things to do with my time than up your posting history…:roll::roll:

Your arrogance is obnoxious, condescending, and speaks to a basic flaw in your ability to treat all peoples the same .. ergo I’m brighter than you are so the rest of you can decide your OWN reality and leave mine the fuck alone.

No more playing nice from us queers… I’m all done trying to placate you bigots.

You argue it ’til the cows come home. I’ll be happily blowing my boyfriend and making love to the MAN in my life.

There. Done.

Truman desegregated the military? In addition to being POTUS, he was the Commander in Chief of the armed services.

Plessy v Ferguson argued the “separate but equal” doctrine. Although nowhere in the opinion can the phrase “separate but equal” be found, the Court’s rulings approved legally enforced segregation as long as the law did not make facilities for blacks inferior to those of whites.

Fast forward to Brown v Board of Education, as case brought before the court because the schools for the blacks were inferior to those of the whites. This is in direct violation of the COTUS.

Chief Justice Earl Warren:

In the first cases in this Court construing the Fourteenth Amendment, decided shortly after its adoption, the Court interpreted it as [prohibiting1 all state-imposed discriminations against the Negro race. The doctrine of "separate but equal" did not make its appearance in this Court until 1896 in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson. involving not education but transportation. American courts have since labored with the doctrine for over half a century [Ed.'s italics]. In this Court, there have been six cases involving the “separate but equal’ doctrine in the field of public education. 
In Cumming v. County Board of Education, and Gong Lum v Rice, the validity of the doctrine itself was not challenged. In more recent cases, all on the graduate school level, inequality was found in that specific benefits enjoyed by white students were denied to Negro students of the same educational qualifications. In none of these eases was it necessary to re-examine the doctrine to grant relief to the Negro plaintiff. And in Sweatt v. Painter; the Court expressly reserved decision on the question whether Plessy v. Ferguson should be held inapplicable to public education.
In [these] cases, that question is directly presented. Here, unlike Sweatt v. Painter; there are findings [in lower State and Federal Courts] that the Negro and white schools involved have been equalized, or are being equalized, with respect to buildings, curricula, qualifications and salaries of teachers, and other “tangible”‘ factors. Our decision, therefore, cannot turn on merely a comparison of these tangible factors in the Negro and white schools involved in each of the cases. We must look instead to the effect of segregation itself on public education.
In approaching this problem, we cannot turn the clock back to 1868 when the Amendment was adopted, or even to 1896 when Plessy v. Ferguson was written.
We must consider public education in the light of its full development and its present place in American life throughout the Nation. Only in this way can it be determined if segregation in public schools deprives these plaintiffs of the equal protection of the laws.

LOVING v. VIRGINIA, 388 U.S. 1 (1967) :There is patently no legitimate overriding purpose independent of invidious racial discrimination which justifies this classification. The fact that Virginia prohibits only interracial marriages involving white persons demonstrates that the racial classifications must stand on their own justification, as measures designed to maintain White Supremacy. 11 We have consistently denied [388 U.S. 1, 12]   the constitutionality of measures which restrict the rights of citizens on account of race. There can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely because of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the Equal Protection Clause.

The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act of 1975?  What SCOTUS case are you referring to?  Yes we had an act, but do you have court cases supporting your claim?

You have cited cases that are examples of the SCOTUS following the COTUS.  You have not shown us a case to use in a gay marriage case or a gay benefits case. 

 

 

There isn’t one, yet. If there were, then we’d have a “mandate from on high.” We don’t, and I’m saying that it would be good if we did. I’m still not sure how you’ve actually argued against a mandate, though, except to say that there isn’t one. Before there was a mandate in the area of racial civil rights, there wasn’t one. Now there is and I think that we’re better for it. Understand?

24. It was a mandate then because racial rights is a civil rights issue. Sexual preference is not.

Ted, I’m not sure how you’re using “civil rights”here. As I understand the term, it arose in 17th and 18th century natural law theory (Hobbes, Grotius, Pufendorf, Locke, etc.) and was originally to be distinguished from “basic human rights.” While the latter are those that all individuals share by the basic fact of being human (or being created by God, depending on your dogma), the former refer to those rights afforded citizens by the nation that they live in. Among these would be any sort of right to equal protection under the law. The term has gotten a bit more technical in the last 50 years or so with the intervention of political philosophers like Rawls and Nozick, but the core meaning (the distinction I noted above) remains pretty constant.

The question of rights afforded regardless of sexual preference would, then, be a civil rights issue even if it is not yet recognized as a civil right. We’d need something like a SCOTUS decision for the latter. What we have now is a struggle for civil rights, just like we had until the nation in which we reside recognized right to equal protection regardless of race as a civil right.

26. DO I have to once again explain that Mandates coming down from on high will NEVER result in gay marriage being accepted in this country?

Why not? Mandates from on high were successful when Truman desegregated the military in 1948. They were successful in 1954 when Brown v Board of Education reversed Plessy v Ferguson. In 1967, Loving v Virginia was a success. The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act of 1975 was a success. None of these were the product of a popular vote, and in the first three cases they were fought by those they affected every step of the way. Nonetheless, they improved the situation almost immediately and now we take them for granted. Why should gay rights be any different?

Your argument about cosmetics is great, but the side opposed to gay marriage doesn’t seem tremendously logical (another similarity to the legal cases I noted above).

Want to hear an actual argument that does make the whole gay marriage argument a Constitutional law case? Here’s one I brought up to a lesbian I know who has been with her partner for years. Here’s an argument that noone has tried yet. Everyone claims that you are supposed to fall in love based on the person inside, not based on the physical appearance, correct? What determines a person’s sex? Their DNA. Seeing as a person’s DNA determines their sex, why is it that a person who has had gender reassignment surgery may marry a member of their original gender? While the 8th amendment of the Constitution prohibits the use of cruel and unusual punishment for people who commit even the most heinous of violent crimes, why would it not prohibit the requirement that someone undergo painful mutilation of their sex organs (gender reassignment surgery) just so that they could marry the person that they had fallen in love with, simply because they both been born the same gender? THAT folks is the argument to take to the streets with. Don’t be overly militant, simply state that you don’t think it’s right that you have to undergo painful cosmetic surgery just to marry the person that you love. Really want to turn the screws a bit tighter? Liken it to requiring Liposuction, breast augmentation, or rhinoplasty for those who are fat, flat chested or big nosed before allowing them to marry. The sheer ludicrous nature of the anti same sex marriage argument will be on full display. If a person’s gender can be changed by plastic surgery, and their marriage be thereby legitimized, why shouldn’t there be a requirement that fat, flat chested or ugly people have to have cosmetic surgery to fix their cosmetic physical problems as well? Get the people on your side and you’ll get the Gay marriage legislation you want. Get 9 judges in black robes on your side and you’ll get nothing but problems.

It was a mandate then because racial rights is a civil rights issue. Sexual preference is not.

I was born. I live. I contribute to society. I am an American citzen. I pay my taxes.

There.”

No, not “there”. That provides no arguement that it is a civil rights issue.

“It’s called hyperbole.”

It was a poor place to use it then, if at all.

“And as far as the “vested interest”thing goes with what I’m seeing of the rampant homophobia being sanctioned in American schools and homes I’m not all that tickled my tax dollar is going to YOUR investment.

Keep it zipped up please.”

Yes- there are several instances where tax payers do not like the way their tax dollars are used. There are several ways that I don’t like how tax dollars are used either, but that has no bearing that as long as you live in the district your tax dollars will be used for said schools. You’ve said nothing to argue against the fact that schools are a vested interest in the community that they are in.