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Actively working to restrict the rights of a marginalized population goes beyond simply holding a personal belief. He is free to donate to whatever anti-gay cau

• gum_ina_package 13y ago
  Anti-gay? He's against gay marriage, hardly being anti-gay.
  • aaronbrethorst 13y ago
    Here's a thought experiment for you. Let's say that a black woman and a white man want to get married, but there's a law on the books that says that people of different ethnicities can't get married. Would you say that this is a racist law? Would you say that it violates the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment? Anti-miscegenation laws were deemed constitutional in the United States until 1967 when the SCOTUS ruled on the aptly named Loving v. Virginia. Today, this case is cited as precedent for overturning gay marriage bans across the United States. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia
    • humanrebar 13y ago
      Banning interracial marriage is ludicrous and bigoted. Also, it's not the same thing at all.
      • zanny 13y ago
        Banning gay marriage is ludicrous and bigoted. Also, it is the same thing at all.
        • humanrebar 13y ago
          Just because I'm succinct doesn't mean my assertions of fact are less valid than the rest of them. I'll gladly go into more detail when I feel like I'll be given a fair hearing.
          • aaronbrethorst 13y ago
            Just because I disagree wholeheartedly with you doesn't mean I'm not curious. Please go into more detail.
            • humanrebar 13y ago
              The gist of the argument is that it's a false equivalence. It's not a radical view -- it is supported by a majority of Californians (certainly a progressive state). Unfortunately, judging from the downvotes I'm getting, this forum isn't as inclusive as it would like to be.
              • aaronbrethorst 13y ago
                Regarding California: this is simply not true any longer. A poll conducted over a year ago found that over 60% of California RVs support legalizing gay marriage: http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/fivethirtyeight/2013/03/01/poll-finds-record-support-for-same-sex-marriage-in-california/ http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/fivethirtyeight/2013/03/01/p... Please explain why you believe that this is a false equivalence.
                • humanrebar 13y ago
                  Regardless of the precise numbers, a large chunk of one of the most progressive states in the U.S. thinks that it's not the same thing, so it's not a fringe position. The other states in the U.S, It's a false equivalence because being a black person in the civil-right-era South isn't the same as being gay in California. Maybe they're both unpleasant experiences, but they're different both in kind and degree. Furthermore, there's no analog to "race mixing" (the real "crime" in interracial marriage) in the debate about gay marriage. Lumping current proponents of traditional marriage in with the likes of George Wallace is akin to breaking Godwin's Law and only serves to inhibit understanding, not promote it. This only undermines the inclusive ideals that gay marriage supporters claim to advocate.
    • stefantalpalaru 13y ago
      Here's another one: let's say 10 men and 10 women want to get married, as a group, but there's a law forbidding that. Would you say that's an anti-human law? And another: a man and a simulated anime character want to get married, but there's a law forbidding it. Would you say that's against artificial intelligence, japanese animation or both?
      • TazeTSchnitzel 13y ago
        Well, we exclude 10 men and 10 women marriages equally.
      • MichaelGG 13y ago
        The issue is that marriage should be a simple tax/legal issue between N parties and nothing more. 10 people wanting to marry each other should certainly be given the same "benefits" as 2 people, adjusting to make sure there isn't some tax loophole. And your second example is obviously discriminatory and against AIs. I assume the only reason you'd write such a line is because a sentient AI doesn't exist yet?
    • hackinthebochs 13y ago
      I'm getting tired of seeing this interracial marriage argument here: they are in fact completely different. The movement against opposition to interracial marriage was an acceptance that there was no substantive difference between a black man/white man or black woman/white woman. One cannot say that there is "obviously" no substantive differences between a man and a woman, even if we restrict our consideration to the context of love. You can certainly argue that there aren't, but this conclusion does not follow from the conclusion regarding interracial marriage.
      • SimHacker 13y ago
        The reason you're getting tired of seeing this interracial marriage argument is because it demonstrates that your weak unconvincing arguments in support of bigotry against gays are the same as other people's weak unconvincing arguments in support of bigotry against mixed race couples. The reason you are tired is that you are wrong and on the wrong side of history, and you're wasting your energy fighting an uphill losing battle. So stop complaining that people arguing for marriage equality are making you tired by pointing out that you're no better than bigots who argue against mixed race marriage. People's right to marry the partner they love trumps your right not to be tired of making weak unconvincing arguments. You are not the victim here.
        • hackinthebochs 13y ago
          I made a very clear argument as to why an argument against banning interracial marriage says nothing regarding the question of same sex marriage. Instead of addressing my argument head on you respond with the usual emotional non-arguments. Also note that I never made an argument for or against gay marriage, I simply argued that your argument itself is faulty. People seem to be incapable of distinguishing between the two. Perhaps I'm a rare breed, but I will argue against bad arguments for a conclusion I agree with. You guys are losing people by attempting to hitch the gay rights wagon onto the civil rights wagon. One does not immediately follow from the other.
  • kenko 13y ago
    I'm not anti-gay, I just want gay people to be second-class citizens!
    • wpietri 13y ago
      Exactly. I have read a ton on this, and I have never found a rational argument from people that justifies denying gay people their civil rights. There are lots of things they will prop up as rational, but I've seen nothing that stands up. When there's a big group of people who are obviously anti-gay, and an intertwined group who claims that they aren't anti-gay at all, but instead just happen to have a shifting array of horseshit reasons for acting anti-gay, Occam starts whispering in my ear.
    • TallGuyShort 13y ago
      Or he's against laws that leave religious freedom ambiguous. For instance, I'm 100% in favor of allowing 2 people of the same gender to marry, but I'm also 100% against a law that would require (or leave the issue ambiguous) a religion to perform those marriages to receive 1st Amendment protections. So if I donated to support a law that violated the second principle, would that make me anti-gay? edit: To illustrate the relevance, the main criticism I heard from Prop 8's opponents was exactly this. It wasn't the usual references to Sodom & Gomorrah or that kind of thing.
      • masklinn 13y ago
        > For instance, I'm 100% in favor of allowing 2 people of the same gender to marry, but I'm also 100% against a law that would require (or leave the issue ambiguous) a religion to perform those marriages to receive 1st Amendment protections. I can't say I've ever seen such a proposal, the proposals I've seen[0] painstakingly carved a niche for exactly this[1]. It also has nothing to do with the case at hand, Prop 8 was not "specifically allow religious offices to not officiate in same-sex marriages if they don't want to", it was to add "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." to the state constitution following a mayor licensing purely civil same-sex marriage under the Equal Protection clause in defiance of Proposition 22 (the same as above as a law rather than a constitutional amendment). [0] for legalising same-sex marriage, rather than legal challenges to laws going the opposite way [1] and even if/when they don't, churches are allowed to discriminate in refusal of employment and services. They are specifically exempt from the Civil Rights Act 1964's Title VII for instance, and when the Gulnare Free Will Baptist Church voted to refuse service and recognition to mixed-race couples in 2011 it was completely legal.
  • eropple 13y ago
    There's literally no daylight between those stances and claims to the contrary are disingenuous. Worse yet, there isn't even a good reason to hold such a stance.
    • burntsushi 13y ago
      Of course there is. Being against State privileged marriage automatically makes you against State privilege gay marriage. I don't know if that's the case for Eich, but it is at least a counter-example to your claim.
      • eropple 13y ago
        "Nobody should have it, but especially they shouldn't" is what that functionally boils down to in the world of the real. That's a really bad position to hold, too.
        • burntsushi 13y ago
          > "Nobody should have it, but especially they shouldn't" The way you've phrased it specifically makes it look like the stance is targeting gays. That's disingenuous. Here's another phrasing: "Governments should not be involved in marriage. Increasing their involvement in marriage will only make matters worse." This is clearly not anti-gay. This is a sufficient counter-example to your claim even if you think it's a "bad position" to hold. (I don't think it's a great position to hold either. I don't think governments should be involved in marriage, but I'm pragmatic about it and think they should open the doors to whatever kind of cohabitation people want. This includes polyamory.) Basically what I'm saying is that being against State privileged gay marriage doesn't have to be anti-gay. It can be anti-State. I grant that most people who advocate from this position are hypocrites and are probably using it to mask more sinister motivations, but that doesn't make this reasoning invalid.
          • eropple 13y ago
            To be completely honest: I don't believe anyone has that position in good faith.
  • zethraeus 13y ago
    Serious question: how can you possibly fairly characterize any action to restrict a phenomenon as being anything by 'anti' that phenomenon?
    • sirkneeland 13y ago
      Typo detected: did you mean "as being anything but 'anti' that phenomenon"?
    • sirkneeland 13y ago
      Assuming that typo, I will suggest some possible ways in which restricting a phenomenon (let's say in this case "restricting" is taken to mean "advocating legislative means to restrict something)... A) Alcohol. Let's suppose I say that "people under 18|21 should not be allowed to purchase alcohol." This technically counts as restricting alcohol but it doesn't mean I am anti-alcohol. It just means I think that below a certain age threshold, the balance of costs/benefits for alcohol availability land in the negative. B) Patent laws. If I support laws restricting the ability of patent trolls to be their trolly selves, it doesn't mean I am opposed to patents as a whole. If anything I could value patents so much that I don't want this edge case of software patent trolling to fester and undermine the public's confidence in the patent system as a whole. Of course you are right that in many (if not most) cases, an attempt to restrict a phenomenon is just a more politically feasible step towards a total ban by someone who is 'anti'-that phenomenon. But it is at least logically possible for one to restrict [X] while not being wholly anti-[X] For the record I am 100% in favor of marriage equality and have been that way since I was old enough to hold my own opinions.
  • hft_throwaway 13y ago
    I think you'd have to be at least somewhat anti-gay to go out of your way to fund an anti-gay marriage measure specifically. Most people, even those who take a more traditional view on marriage, don't concern themselves with such things to that extent. However, it is not as bigoted as say, funding a measure against protecting gays from workplace discrimination. Marriage has a long history in our society as being between a man and a woman to provide a legal and social framework for raising biological children (generally speaking). They receive privileges in return for doing something socially beneficial. You could argue that gay marriages generally don't do the same and that it's not worth re-engineering society to make that change. Marriage is also heavily intertwined with our Judeo-Christian background as a country, so people feel as if changing the term violates their religious rights. The government really shouldn't be involved with religion, but people still feel this way nonetheless. Personally I see no trouble in letting two people who love one another and want to form a family unit from marrying. It's their own business. I do see a problem with trying to blacklist or shout down people who have political views that aren't socially acceptable. People who are against things like unchecked immigration or affirmative action are often tarred as bigots. Abortion is considered a human rights issue by people on both sides of the debate. As long as someone doesn't act in a discriminatory fashion at work, I'm not concerned with their personal political views so much.
  • wpietri 13y ago
    Really? Tell me more about how suppressing minorities you aren't part of isn't actually anti-minority. I'm fascinated.