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My opinion is that LGBT rights shouldn't be considered a political position, but is simply an extension of human rights. Politicians should never be getting inv

My opinion is that LGBT rights shouldn't be considered a political position, but is simply an extension of human rights. Politicians should never be getting involved in people's private lives unless there are people being significantly harmed by it. It seems that it's largely "religious" people that seek to impose restrictions on how other people live their lives and that's been demonstrated by several wars between religions to be incompatible with multi-cultural societies. Obviously, I don't believe that there should be any intersection between religions and politics, or at least if religions get involved in politics, then they should lose any protections that other religions get and be taxed like other businesses.

Gibbon1 3y ago
I don't know what it is but authoritarians are really focus on imposing a system on people. Where women are chattel and any exhibition of sexual agency is severely punished. Men can have agency but any deviation from a very limited dominant sexuality is also punished severely. And men are required to jump through a bunch of hopes to prove themselves worthy of sex. One notes that communists, fascists, religious fundamentalists, and absolute monarchists, are all like that. So it's political in that regard.
edgyquant 3y ago
Okay but it is a political position. Gay marriage has only been around for ten years
- ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
  When politicians start messing around in people's private lives and try to outlaw such a basic human need for love and companionship, then it's clear that the politicians are not working on behalf of people, but are instead following a different, authoritarian agenda. Same sex marriage has been around for a lot longer than ten years. The first legal same sex marriage in the U.S. was 1971 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_same-sex_marriage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_same-sex_marriage > At least two of the Roman Emperors were in same-sex unions; and in fact, thirteen out of the first fourteen Roman Emperors held to be bisexual or exclusively homosexual. The first Roman emperor to have married a man was Nero, who is reported to have married two other men on different occasions. First with one of his freedmen, Pythagoras, to whom Nero took the role of the bride, and later as a groom Nero married a young boy, who resembled one of his concubines, named Sporus.
- flagrant_taco 3y ago
  Gay marriage is such an interesting one to me because by voting that through we effectively removed regulation rather than added it. I was such a big advocate for the push to legalize gay marriage because the government has absolutely no business telling people who they can and can't marry, and the legal distinction caused ridiculous ripple effects in everything from healthcare to taxes for anyone that wasn't allowed to marry their partner. At this point I guess the political debate would be that the government can, in fact, tell us who we're allowed to marry?
bad_user 3y ago
Religion, at least the Abrahamic kind, is a recipe for morality. Even more, the law in modern countries, at least in the West, is shaped by Roman law and Christianity. Liberalism itself is an ideology that's strongly influenced by Judeo-Christian values. If you think that you can separate politics from religion, I've got some news for you.
- crabrangoon 3y ago
  That's a stretch and regardless, what influenced the ideas of liberalism is a non-sequitur. No one has the right to use violence against someone for being gay or transgender. Whether being gay or transgender is immoral or not is a religious question and not something politics can adequately answer.
  - bad_user 3y ago
    Morality, as in the principles for distinguishing right from wrong, good from evil, is very relevant for politics. The naive would say, "just let science settle it", but that's not how society works. Just an example: is banning abortion an injustice to women, as they lose autonomy of their body, or is abortion a crime? Is an abortion 1 month before birth a crime? What about killing a baby 1 month after birth? I am radically pro-choice, BTW, due to seeing what happened in my (Warsaw-pact) country that banned abortions. But there are no good answers, which is why compromises need to be made. E.g., abortion on request in Europe is usually allowed until 12–14 weeks old. No one should have the right to "use violence" against someone for their sexual preferences, ethnicity, religion, or gender identity. We agree here. But what about free healthcare? Should transgender people have access to free, universal healthcare for their needs? I, for one, think they do, I think everyone should get free healthcare. But notice how we aren't talking of "violence", but about spending the state's resources, coming out of people's taxes. Bigots may think being gay or being trans is immoral. But they are, IMO, the minority. Moderates care about other topics that are not bigoted and that often are a question of morality. Another commenter said that religion is just a bunch of made up shit. That's a silly view of the world. Religion is tradition, religion is a codification of best practices, as a sort of learned knowledge that is passed between generations. Some of those practices are obsolete, or downright harmful in modern times, but some are as relevant as ever. If you let reasoning, for example, be the only guiding principle in politics, the problem is that politicians and the people are blinded by the fact that science is often biased, doesn't have all the answers, or that whatever findings we have are incomplete. And when nihilism takes over, you can easily arrive at the conclusion that certain groups of people need to be eliminated in order for society to thrive (e.g., the Jews, the handicapped, the bourgeoisie). I, for one, am not happy that one of Canada's answers to poverty appears to be assisted suicide. The belief that all human life is sacred, and that everyone needs to be free to live and to find their happiness, is ultimately a religious belief, much like liberalism in general. And that's good, actually.

Gibbon1 3y ago

I don't know what it is but authoritarians are really focus on imposing a system on people. Where women are chattel and any exhibition of sexual agency is severely punished. Men can have agency but any deviation from a very limited dominant sexuality is also punished severely. And men are required to jump through a bunch of hopes to prove themselves worthy of sex. One notes that communists, fascists, religious fundamentalists, and absolute monarchists, are all like that. So it's political in that regard.

edgyquant 3y ago

Okay but it is a political position. Gay marriage has only been around for ten years

ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
When politicians start messing around in people's private lives and try to outlaw such a basic human need for love and companionship, then it's clear that the politicians are not working on behalf of people, but are instead following a different, authoritarian agenda. Same sex marriage has been around for a lot longer than ten years. The first legal same sex marriage in the U.S. was 1971 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_same-sex_marriage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_same-sex_marriage > At least two of the Roman Emperors were in same-sex unions; and in fact, thirteen out of the first fourteen Roman Emperors held to be bisexual or exclusively homosexual. The first Roman emperor to have married a man was Nero, who is reported to have married two other men on different occasions. First with one of his freedmen, Pythagoras, to whom Nero took the role of the bride, and later as a groom Nero married a young boy, who resembled one of his concubines, named Sporus.
flagrant_taco 3y ago
Gay marriage is such an interesting one to me because by voting that through we effectively removed regulation rather than added it. I was such a big advocate for the push to legalize gay marriage because the government has absolutely no business telling people who they can and can't marry, and the legal distinction caused ridiculous ripple effects in everything from healthcare to taxes for anyone that wasn't allowed to marry their partner. At this point I guess the political debate would be that the government can, in fact, tell us who we're allowed to marry?

bad_user 3y ago

Religion, at least the Abrahamic kind, is a recipe for morality. Even more, the law in modern countries, at least in the West, is shaped by Roman law and Christianity. Liberalism itself is an ideology that's strongly influenced by Judeo-Christian values. If you think that you can separate politics from religion, I've got some news for you.

crabrangoon 3y ago
That's a stretch and regardless, what influenced the ideas of liberalism is a non-sequitur. No one has the right to use violence against someone for being gay or transgender. Whether being gay or transgender is immoral or not is a religious question and not something politics can adequately answer.
- bad_user 3y ago
  Morality, as in the principles for distinguishing right from wrong, good from evil, is very relevant for politics. The naive would say, "just let science settle it", but that's not how society works. Just an example: is banning abortion an injustice to women, as they lose autonomy of their body, or is abortion a crime? Is an abortion 1 month before birth a crime? What about killing a baby 1 month after birth? I am radically pro-choice, BTW, due to seeing what happened in my (Warsaw-pact) country that banned abortions. But there are no good answers, which is why compromises need to be made. E.g., abortion on request in Europe is usually allowed until 12–14 weeks old. No one should have the right to "use violence" against someone for their sexual preferences, ethnicity, religion, or gender identity. We agree here. But what about free healthcare? Should transgender people have access to free, universal healthcare for their needs? I, for one, think they do, I think everyone should get free healthcare. But notice how we aren't talking of "violence", but about spending the state's resources, coming out of people's taxes. Bigots may think being gay or being trans is immoral. But they are, IMO, the minority. Moderates care about other topics that are not bigoted and that often are a question of morality. Another commenter said that religion is just a bunch of made up shit. That's a silly view of the world. Religion is tradition, religion is a codification of best practices, as a sort of learned knowledge that is passed between generations. Some of those practices are obsolete, or downright harmful in modern times, but some are as relevant as ever. If you let reasoning, for example, be the only guiding principle in politics, the problem is that politicians and the people are blinded by the fact that science is often biased, doesn't have all the answers, or that whatever findings we have are incomplete. And when nihilism takes over, you can easily arrive at the conclusion that certain groups of people need to be eliminated in order for society to thrive (e.g., the Jews, the handicapped, the bourgeoisie). I, for one, am not happy that one of Canada's answers to poverty appears to be assisted suicide. The belief that all human life is sacred, and that everyone needs to be free to live and to find their happiness, is ultimately a religious belief, much like liberalism in general. And that's good, actually.