scrappy

So does this mean you want the government out of the marriage business? Or do you want the government to sanction a broader definition of "marriage"? It seems like you're going to both extremes at once, each one canceling out the other. It has? How? What shift? Did I miss it? Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged You're wrong. I support legalizing same-sex civil unions. But I don't regard that kind of civil union a "marriage." It doesn't fit my definition of the term, and I don't see why it needs to be changed. None of the arguments put forward by gays is compelling. You're leaping to conclusions. I am a liberal untheist who would like to see a lot of changes in our laws. I would like to see pot legalized, prostitution legalized, even strip poker legailzed, but I still fail to see the need to legalize "gay marriage." This is not a problem for me to solve. I'm not responsible for what homosexuals choose to do. Why should I change my values to accommodate them? They haven't yet made a good case for themselves. Too bad, too, because the gays might actually succeed if they lost their self-righteous indignation and copped a few good arguments for why "gay marriage" would improve society, especially when many people like me already agree to legalizing gay DPs? How does denying gays access to legalized marriage do any mental or physical damage to them if they are allowed access to legalized domestic partnerships? Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged But that's a completely different issue, because that issue ALWAYs carried the accepted definition of "marriage": a CU between one man and one woman. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged But I still can't marry my sister, even if she's the one I love. And I can't marry a couple of other women I love, either, because the law says I can't. That damn law if really screwing up my life and my pursuit of happiness. And my dog, well, never mind, he's a male dog and I don't want to go there. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Why not three men or three women?

But that case always involved the true definition of "marriage": a CU between one man and one woman. Therefore, by way of your statement, you tacitly agree with the traditional terms of a marriage contract. Moo, I hope you see the contradiction in your argument. If homosexuality is no one's business then why should they care about getting legally married in the first place?

But that's exactly what the law does; it treats heterosexuals and homosexuals equally. The current marriage laws apply equally to both groups. Now, it's true that same sexes cannot get married under existing laws, but that condition applies equally to both heteros and homos. If it didn't it would be a blatant case of bigotry. But you're saying (I think) that a gay man doesn't want to marry a woman because she's not the person he loves. He wants to marry the man he loves. Well, in that respect he has a limitation under current laws. But a hetero man is not without a similar limitation: he can't marry his sister, even if she is the one he loves. Oh, and btw: Have you ever heard of a marriage between two brothers being denied on the basis of incest? Stretches the meaning of "incest" a bit doesn't it? (What would an incestuous child of two brothers look like, anyway?)

But wait! We're talking about people being allowed to marrying the ones they love, aren't we. Doesn't matter which sex, does it? Isn't that the universal principle that drives the "gay-marriage" argument? Not every heterosexual can marry the one he/she loves. There is no universal principle that allows for that. Why can't the GLBT crowd see that? If those folks are to succeed in gaining acceptability, and sincerely I hope they do, they are going to have to make as much compromise in their advocacy for change as they are demanding of the DOMA folks.

Yeah, you're right. The offspring of two brothers mating with each other could be even worse than the offspring of a brother and a sister mating. Besides, two mated brothers could only have male babies, because there would be no way to get a XX chromosome combination. So, it would discriminate against females, wouldn't it? Motherhood, too? You see how silly this is. Same-sex marriage is an awesome beast, but if I'm not mistaken earthworms seem to do o.k. with it, since an earthworm can be both sexes and go either AC or DC on its mate. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged jackson33, lots of good points in your post.

I predict that in the future a man will be able to marry his brother, but not his sister. The former marriage will be allowed for on same-sex marriage principles, while the latter will be disallowed on the principles of incest. Now, I ask you, is that fair?

This is ridiculous statement. The vast majority of Americans aren't even Catholic and don't give a shit about priests. Female priests? What? None of this has anything to do with my position on "gay mariage," because I'm an untheist.* *untheist, noun, one who believes it doesn't matter is there is or isn't a god. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged When the high court decides on the constitutionality of Prop. 8, it will do so by way of majority opinion. You can't escape it, not in a democracy. If you fear it it will defeat you. Better for you to get realistic on this issue and adapt to public opinion, because that's what will matter most in the end. No, we all don't know that. You keep making these kinds of unsupportable statements without any justification. Again, that's not a fact; it's just your opinion. For one who holds so many opinions on this matter, why are you opposed to a public opinion determined by a public vote?

Does Prop. 8 count for anything? But you haven’t made any points yet. Your biggest fear is majority opinion, and rightly so. Oh, come on. Do you really believe that any law addressing marriage was promulgated originally to include “same-sex marriage”? More original consideration was given to including polygamy. “Same-sex marriage” is an out-of-the-closet devise to celebrate homosexuality. It’s only a titular thing anyway, because I and many others do support legalizing domestic partnerships for gays. Is there anything other than opinions on this matter? Differing opinions can be settled by public vote, ya know. Why does that scare you? You can hold it if you like. Didn’t seem to be so irrelevant to the voters of Prop. 8. So much fuss and bother when many like me already agree to legalizing same-sex domestic partnerships. You seem a bit hysterical, as is evidenced by this statement: This is not a good argument for you to make. It defeats your position because any discrimination against blacks where marriage was concerned always embraced the true definition of the marriage contract: a civil union between one man and one woman. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Yes. They are perfectly welcomed to do that. Anything that would prohibit them from doing that would be a blatant act of bigotry.

Based on what principles? Who said I had to agree with the OP, anyway? It seems pretty clear to me that the American majority views marriage as a CU between one man and one woman. Why are they wrong? Their definition of marriage does not exclude any group: homosexuals have the same access to it as I do. I'm sure we've been all over this before.

No, I wouldn't, because same-sex civil unions do not fit my definition of "marriage." I favor legalizing them, but I don't see any reason to call them "marriages." Why should I? I don't see any good reason to call married men "wives" or married women "husbands," either. It's a titular thing, arising from tradition. What's wrong with that? Why should we change the meaning of "marriage" if gays are granted legalized domestic partnerships and get all of bennies enjoyed by heterosexuals? They can call their civil unions "marriages" if they like; it won't bother me a bit, as long as the government doesn't call them that. I pretty much agree with mooeypoo on this matter:

While I would like to see the government get out of the business of marriage, I don't believe that action will ever be practical or possible. I voted for the last option: keep the term and define it. The definition of marriage should be "a legalized civil union between one man and one woman." Now, what to do about gays? I say let them get their legalized civil unions, but don't call it "marriage" in any legal context. Call it a "domestic partnership" and let that be enough for them. If all of their domestic-partnerships rights are protected then it doesn't matter if the term "marriage" applies or not. If the gays want to call their civil unions "marriage," let 'em. Why should the straights care what they call their domestic partnerships, so long as the legal definition of 'marriage" is maintained? In Lake Erie you can go out and catch a walleye and call it a pickerel, even if it isn't. Nobody cares what you call your fish. Your fishing license makes a precise designation that will be useful if any law is violated.

The most likely explanation for a higher court to uphold Prop 8 will be the simple fact that no one in the GLBT community is being denied "marriage," if "marriage" is legally defined as a civil union between one man and one woman. The most likely explanation for a higher court to overturn Prop 8 will be...maybe that the traditional definition of "marriage" needs revision to accommodate the GLBT people. But even in California, I don't think there are enough GLBT people to influence the high court's decision. It will be in favor of Prop 8. But if it is overturned then what's to stop polygamists from demanding that the definition of "marriage" should be revised to accommodate Mormon people? And it won't end there.

I think you've captured it here. While I stand very far to the left on most political issues, I remain unconvinced that the accepted definition of marriage should be changed for the LGBT people. I think they should get their equal rights to state-sanctioned civil unions. But I also hold that marriage is strictly a civil union between one man and one woman. I see no reason to change that definition for the gays, especially if they could get civilly united legally (along with the polygamists, necrophiliacs, and other unorthodox groups).

This notion of evolutionary progress is often confused, I think, with evolutionary diversification, which requires only the random walk principle to explain. This graph suggests a macro-diversification of 3 marine families per million years over the past 250 millon years: (source) But this trend toward diversification is only a random function and not directed, which defeats any argument implying progress.

No, john, there is no mystery at all. Actually, Malthus had the answer even before Darwin got it: populations naturally produce more offspring than can be sustained by their habitats. Depending upon the shifty conditions imposed by a habitat, only the adaptable ones survive. Survival of a population, then, becomes a matter of descent with modification. That's all you need to know to solve your mystery.

Perhaps our biological existence is the box you're speaking of. And perhaps a virtual immortality will be the freedom we all desire. Our drive to survive is built in; we seek immortality as if it were a real thing. People believe in religions because they offer hope for afterlives—dancing virgins may or may not apply. Our drive to survive is so overwhelming that technological immortality is almost assured. It's only a mater of time (no pun intended). I'm holding out for eternal butterfly-ness, because caterpillars don't get to have sex. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged John, we still don't even know yet what consciousness is. Are you going to dismiss the possibility of virtual immortality before you understand the Big C? A good argument could be made that human consciousness is actually virtual, since it requires electromagnetism and memory storage. Maybe not so obvious. We are just getting stated on our quest for immortality, whatever that is or will be. I estimate that, historically, humans have spent more money, time, and effort seeking immortality than they have seeking land, food, and sex. What is our drive to survive if not a drive toward immortality?

But is a faux biological existence really what immortality will be like? Why is there a need to ape the physiological body to assure immortality? Why wouldn't virtual immortality be enough to accomplish everything we desire? If a lepidopteran larva insisted on being a caterpillar forever it could never become a butterfly.

The singularity is near, and when that happens watch out for emergent immortality via digital reduction (or quantum reduction) in some highly advanced computer. Today we are biological blobs of meat; tomorrow we''ll all be interactive files in the National Archive of Virtual Immortality. And those files will be guaranteed to last a billion times longer than your natural biological lifetime. I'm guessing all the people will abandon their churches in search of this high-tech immortality. (It'll be bigger than MSDOS.)

More like making a virtual you. It would be a digitized you without all the biological extras, except that viruses will still be hanging around to make trouble. Nevertheless, you, or the closest thing to it, will be preserved and interactive. If some one wanted to ask the virtual you a question about your biological life, that person would get a virtual response resembling what you would have said if you were alive. And the virtual person on the screen would look exactly like you. It goes on from there...

I’d be interested in learning just how the black people’s struggle for civil rights is NOT a genetic issue. They have absolutely no choice in the racial traits they inherit; all of them came by way of genes. Blacks did not gain their civil rights by kin selection, of course, or any other evolutionary principle. They gained their rights purely on genetic grounds in the context of being human beings. Since LGBT people cannot claim genetic grounds for their predicament they need to resort to other principles to gain acceptance. Why not kin selection? I consider black people to be equal to me in every way important to the laws we all must obey. And I consider LGBT people to be equal to me in every way important to the laws we all must obey. That is exactly why I have no objection whatsoever to LGBT people getting married, as long as everyone understands that marriage is a civil union between one man and one woman. It would be wrong and bigoted for me to say that LGBT people can’t get married in the proper context, just as it would be wrong and bigoted to say that interracial couples cannot get married in the same context. The LGBT people are doing themselves harm by insisting that marriage is something other than the commonly understood definition stated above. I believe their insistence on this matter is counterproductive to them. So, here’s an argument that might work: the LGBT people should be allowed to have civil unions that are not between one man and one woman, as the true definition of marriage requires. LGBT’s should be granted civil unions—not called “marriage” per se—on the social value of kin selection. (Two civilly united gay men, for example, might adopt an orphan that would otherwise go without a home. They could claim something like surrogate grandparenthood as a benefit to society, which is about the same thing as claiming the benefits of kin selection.)

I would rather see the LGBT people reframe their appear for social acceptability around the concept of kin selection. That would cast them in a more positive light. But for them to make those in-your-face claims that their persecution is somehow worse than everyone else's is not a productive path to take. Instead they should emphasize the benefits of having LGBT people round, I think.

As soon as the LGBT people get beyond their persecution complex they will get everything they deserve. It does them no good to blame the bad old bigots and other stupid people for their social vicissitudes. Every group I know of has social vicissitudes. Women get abused and murdered just for being women. Same's true for children and dogs. The most abused and murdered people in America are black heterosexual men. It helps to remember this when complaining too much about one's own vicissiudes.

I understand. It can't be easy for you to fell "dirty" because of life's circumstances you didn't choose. But I'll ask you a hard question here: Could your perceived circumstances go well beyond your naturally appointed sexuality? I ask this because I, too, often feel unacceptable by certain groups of people, which makes me ask myself: What? Am I dirty or something? And, buttacup, bear in mind that I'm a life-long hetero with too much testosterone for my own good. What's my point? Anybody can feel socially "dirty" if the individual lets that get under his or hers skin. The trick is to choose not to feel dirty.

With very little to go on, I'll assume you fit into the broad category of LGBT. Are you saying then that personal choice was a significant factor in your sexuality? Your chosen sexuality? Or are you saying that nature/nurture didn't allow for such a choice?

I wouldn’t know why a frozen Earth should affect its magnetic field. There is, of course, the Snowball Earth theory that alleges a entirely frozen planet about 600-700 million years ago. That theoretical episode of freezing and thawing preceded the Cambrian Explosion, which is alleged to have taken place about 550 million years ago. The connection between the two events is speculative, but, if proven correct, a frozen Earth could do a lot more than alter its magnetic polarity. It may have even stressed the biosphere enough to sort out animal body plans and establish durable phylogenies.