I was specifically referring to PokerGuy's holier than thou stance that he was supporting them specifically because they were voicing an opinion that was not politically correct. That's pure bullshit. He's supporting them because they are voicing an opinion he agrees with. I don't think you have to agree with a company to purchase their products; there have been cries that Rockstar Energy Drink and Celestial Seasonings Tea had ties to homophobic agendas, but it didn't stop my patronage of those items. I just think that getting high and mighty when the leader of a company says something that you agree with and attacking anyone who responds as being against free speech is hypocritical.
It's certainly easier for each of us to support free speech when we agree with the speech, but I'll take PokerGuy at his word. Although personally, I think anyone is free to disagree without being opposed to free speech.
You think it is economically advantageous to have single mother, grow up in the ghetto, get a crappy fraudulent state education, turn into a gang banger and end up going to prison for the rest of your life?
I think what you meant is that government makes it possible to live in perpetual poverty because they provide you with just enough to survive without having to work at all. It is like taking away the first rung on the ladder.
Right. Except people WOULD chose to view it that way over time. Just like inner city blacks. It took a couple decades to get to the point we are at today.
The problem with your argument is that those types of marriages are still marriages. They are still unions between men and women whom produce children. Gay marriage is a fundamental change to the definition of marriage. If you can alter the definition of marriage to include gays, there is logically no reason why it can't extend to polygamy or other weird stuff.
No, it's disaster for the children. When you correct for having a single mother, there are no significant differences between blacks and whites in rates of arrests and convictions. But for the mothers, even though long term it's a dead end, in the short term it's economically advantageous to not get married. Even worse, our social safety net makes it practical for young girls to have their own apartments without a man, so initially it isn't even a question of whether or not to get married. However, once on the welfare, government makes it disadvantageous to get married; live together on the sly and you have his income (if any) plus your check.
I take your point and I'll extend the analogy. Here's a ladder by which you can pull yourself up, but it takes hard work, job skills and a work ethic which you probably haven't been taught, and years of effort, and it's entirely possible to slip down the ladder, even crashing all the way to the bottom. Here's the new, improved government ladder; the first rung is very wide, padded, and furnished with life's basic necessities plus some amenities, so you can stay there as long as you wish and probably live better than half the world. The only downside? There are no other rungs.
Regarding gay marriage being a fundamental change in the institution of marriage, I agree. Marriage has been defined as one man, one woman (albeit with notable exceptions that persist even today) for 2,500+ years, and the changes tend to be tightening rather than loosening that definition by such things as increasing penalties for bigamy and more protection of minors. But no institution can serve its society forever without changes, else it changes from a uniform defining the society to a straitjacket confining the society. Even religions, which should be the most constant of all institutions, exhibit real and continual change. That people may choose to view marriage as debased if gays are allowed to marry is really no different from some people choosing to view Judaism as debased because of Reform Judaism, or Islam as debased because of Shia or Sunni sects, or Christianity as debased because most of us no longer stone adulterers or worship on the Sabbath. It's a personal choice and should not be an excuse for government to treat one group of individuals differently from another.
I have no major problem with polygamous/polyandrous marriages, but it's unarguable that these present potential problems that gay marriages simply don't present. Is a gay marriage really THAT much different from a marriage with a house husband and a bread-earning wife, where at least some of the prominent roles within a marriage are reversed? Is a gay couple with adopted or artificially inseminated children really THAT much different from a hetero marriage with adopted or artificially inseminated children, or a childless gay marriage that much different from a childless hetero marriage. I suspect that once gay marriage has been with us a decade or two, very few people will even notice it. Just within my lifetime, in my high school, homosexuality and/or bisexuality has gone from the worst imaginable slur - something I frankly didn't really believe existed until I began to go to some freaky places at 15 and 16 - to something that's really no big deal. Traditions are great and important, but society is remarkably flexible in adapting to changes.
Just as much as capitalism and Judeo-Christian philosophy, Western civilization has been about extending and expanding individual liberty. When our society was very intolerant of homosexuals, gay marriage wasn't really a concern because almost everyone able to take advantage of gay marriage was already in the position of not needing the societal benefits conferred by marriage. Also, homosexuality just wasn't done, so much like Iran today, homosexuality was limited to those individuals for whom a sexual bond with the opposite sex just wasn't an option. Even for those individuals, most simply stayed single and celibate; the costs of doing otherwise were just too high for most. Today it's different; homosexuals are pretty mainstreamed and accepted, so any government limitations are felt sharply. Black slaves weren't concerned about fighting for their right of freedom of religion because they had much more serious problems; same with most homosexuals and gay marriage. But just as the USSR discovered when it tried to be not quite so evil, freed blacks and homosexuals allowed to be openly gay want ALL their rights. Fully integrating homosexuals will luckily for us be a LOT less painful, as homosexuals have not been systematically denied a decent education and the better jobs. I really don't expect a lot of society pain from allowing gays to marry.
However, even if I did, I'd still support gay marriage. Constraining the minority's rights for the benefit of the majority is in my opinion an evil thing.
Yep. My gay lawyer is even against all the CFA hate. He thinks the reaction is doing more harm than good because it has all the lefty libs spewing hate and looking like maniacs as they flip shit about old news.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/08/0...-christine-quinn-asks-nyu-to-evict-chick-fil/
NYC council speaker sends letter to NYU (on official letterhead) telling them to kick out CFA for being gay haters. The other council members are pissed.
I suspect this will be the most common result. And frankly, that's a damn shame. We run a real risk of going from supporting a good, decent organization with one wrong view, to supporting the wrong view because we don't like the attack. People can be total dicks and still sometimes be morally right.