Look at this skanky *** ho



Get the **** off my local radio stations

Stop running for office you sluey

Go away

**** you

I wouldn't mind having touch with her.

I could have unregulated emissions in her anytime

Could you?

...this is private

Probably not tbh

Well there you have it.

She looks like a weird lovechild between Heather Graham and Gary Busey, and not in a good way.

How could a lovechild and Gary Busey ever be a good thing?

Heather Graham, Man.

Heather Graham.

**** you

I'm voting for her

i may likely also end up voting for her.

You're voting for a bigot, good job

I always find funny the progression of the same views historically from a position of respect for good values and morals into values associated with bigotry and hate. After all (i'm just going off a brief google search, I had no idea who she was) she said she supported civil unions, but not marriage, right? I never understood the problem with this. Presumably (judging just from this) she does not oppose gays, nor does she oppose gay unions...just the changing of her definition of the concept of "marriage".

PS like I always say..this is why the government should not support religious institutions.

Civil unions don't provide the same legal benefits as marriage.

Separate but equal. **** that.

I didn't know that about civil unions...so I can understand the problem with that (although why not just make civil unions legally equivalent?)

I DO however have a problem with the constant "separate but equal is wrong" argument. I mean, sure it's wrong for some things, but it's not a hard and fast rule. No one has a problem with separate but equal policies for men and women. The honest truth is that gay marriage IS by most definitions separate. It's a separate concept. Just because you WANT it to NOT be separate doesn't mean it magically is so.

I just think everyone is way too caught up in the semantics here, and it's all a lot of posturing. Why don't we just have legal unions that are equal, marriage can not be recognized by the state except as this standard legal union, and then everyone can get to the real meat of arguing over what the requirements for that is...on a state by state basis. None of this "definition of marriage" and "separate but equal" crap.

Yes, and I propose that these definitions are incorrect.


Yeah, but it should be.

I don't care what it gets called, but same sex couples have every right to the same benefits under law as different sex couples.

I guess I basically agree with you, then, that they should have legal rights to a union equal to the rights that a "married couple" (heterosexual union) would recieve. However, I know everyone here thinks I'm a real terrible person for it, but I don't agree with nor like the idea of homosexuality. Sort of like how I think tricked out sports cars are really lame and I don't like them..but I know people DO like that, and I respect that, because I drive a jeep, and I like to modify it, too. I'm digressing...and I forgot what my point was. I guess...don't try to call a jeep and a sports car the same thing, but let 'em both on the road. I am so sorry for this post, I got really lost.

Edit: Out of curiousity, what is the difference between civil unions and marriages, as far as legal rights goes?

I think no matter what you call it, if its a same sex couple they don't get the same rights/benefits at a federal level? Isn't that what the story with the defense of marriage act was.

At a state level I suspect it varies, but as I understood it civil unions were suppose to be the same.

Most homosexuals don't like the idea of close-minded rednecks, either.

Well then I'm glad me and gay people can agree on some things then.

Edit: For yet another analogy, one of my best friends likes basketball, and I don't like basketball. I don't like playing it, and I don't like watching it, and I think it's a silly game. So what? Does that mean I think he is a bad person for liking it, or for playing it? No...he's just different, like we all are. Maybe he doesn't like football...but I like football. People who try to force everyone to like everything they themselves like are the closed-minded ones. God forbid we all be different, individual people with our own individual views and lives.

Stop making lame ****ing analogies. Try to think about why exactly you don't like homosexuals. Then think about someone's genetically predisposed sexuality and all the intolerance and abuse that comes with it, and how you're equating that with your sports and cars and slotting "i don't like gays!" amongst your other lameass hobbies.

Look at this map,


The bright red areas are states that ban same-sex marriage. The dark red areas are states that ban same-sex marriage and civil unions. Only the dark blue areas are those that allow same-sex marriage, and the light blue are those that allow civil unions.

What are the benefits a married heterosexual couple has that is denied to homosexuals? Well, here's a few..

1. Joint parental rights of children
2. Joint adoption
3. Status as "next-of-kin" for hospital visits and medical decisions
4. Right to make a decision about the disposal of loved ones remains
5. Immigration and residency for partners from other countries
6. Crime victims recovery benefits
7. Domestic violence protection orders
8. Judicial protections and immunity
9. Automatic inheritance in the absence of a will
10. Public safety officers death benefits
11. Spousal veterans benefits
12. Social Security
13. Medicare
14. Joint filing of tax returns
15. Wrongful death benefits for surviving partner and children
16. Bereavement or sick leave to care for partner or children
17. Child support
18. Joint Insurance Plans
19. Tax credits including: Child tax credit, Hope and lifetime learning credits
20. Deferred Compensation for pension and IRAs
21. Estate and gift tax benefits
22. Welfare and public assistance
23. Joint housing for elderly
24. Credit protection
25. Medical care for survivors and dependents of certain veterans

And that's just a taster. In 1997, the US General Accounting Office produced a list of 1,049 benefits that heterosexual married couples have that are denied to homosexuals. In 2004, this list was updated and found 1,138 benefits.

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04353r.pdf

Even ****ing Nepal recognises same-sex marriages.

(And yes, it did actually find exactly 1,138. The THX reference is not lost on me!)

I, personally, support the removal of government from the issue of marriage altogether - allow two people to be civilly united with equal benefits regardless of sexual orientation. Going before a priest/pastor/imam/rabbi and getting married should be considered equivalent to going before a judge (and, thus, marriages are recognized as legal civil unions and receive the same benefits).

This has multiple benefits:

• Gets the government out of religion
• Gets the religion out of government
• Allows for a church to determine whether or not to marry two people. A flipside to this whole thing is that banning same-sex marriage oppresses a religion's right to practice its belief in same-sex marriage.
• Semantically, it eliminates any argument of a violation of the sanctity of marriage. It won't satisfy the hard-core fundamentalists, but it'd satisfy the libertarians and more centrist conversatives. Can't make everyone happy.

look at this point i dont give a good god damn about gay mirrage or abortion ar many other "social" issues in respect to california government. two men want to get married? fine! as long as it makes them happy, go for it! and inversely i dont care too much about the next governors views on the subject either. about the only thing i give a crap about this time around is what they plan to do financially with the state. and from what i have heard from the candidates so far, she has the most ideas that i can get behind from a financial stand point.

Seconded.

This something I am on board with.

Learn to read. Nowhere did I say I didn't like homosexuals. Nowhere did I say "I don't like gays!" Maybe if you'd read the damn analogy and comprehended it, you'd actually know what I'm saying. I said I don't like homosexuality. That says nothing about how I feel about gay people. I have no problem with gay people, and I fully support equal rights for them, as I have previously stated. I have a blind friend, he was born blind. I don't like blindness...I would never wish for myself or anyone I know to become blind, but I don't have a problem with him, and I certainly want him to have all the rights I have. This country is about accepting people who are different.

I'd say get it out of your system while you can, but I'm sure gay-bashing will still be accepted in Oklahoma for a few generations to come. It's good you can still openly say you hate them, though. If you want to say you hate blacks and not be ostracized by society you have to say you're strongly against crime. If you want to hate on Hispanics you have to say that you think we should put tighter restrictions on immigration. If you want to hate on Arabs and Indians you can question whether Islam is compatible with American values.

You're free to believe whatever you want. But don't attempt to justify it as anything more than a baseless fear and hatred for an entire set of people.

Well, simply separating government and marriage is not at all a trivial task. There's hundreds of different sorts of tax breaks and legal benefits that married couples enjoy, so you'd have to get rid of all of that legislation - and all of the benefits. If you believe marriage is purely a religious institution, then I guess that makes sense as it would separate church from government (both at a federal and state level). It makes sense at an ideological level, and it would have a great unifying effect as no-one would like it, neither heterosexual or homosexual couples.

At the moment, marriage is conducted at a state level but all states recognise (heterosexual) marriages conducted in other states. This would further decentralise marriage, which I agree is ideologically a 'good thing', but would mean that a marriage conducted in one church, in one city, won't necessarily be recognised by a different church in a different city. This would cause all sorts of problems if your spouse is hospitalised in a different city to the one you were married in, and you could be denied visiting rights because your marriage isn't recognised in that city.

All this prospect would do is take the legal difficulties married homosexuals have and extend those problems to everyone.

A much simpler prospect is just to accept that marriage is a cultural agreement, and no religion can claim monopoly over it. Christianity certainly did not invent marriage, and Christians have no right to define it. In all societies in history, marriage has been a legal contract between two parties entailing a variety of different things. Because our society is represented by government, this legal contract has to be recognised by government. If this society does not wish to discriminate on the grounds of sexuality, then this legal contract should not either.

Unfortunately, there are many people like Meg Whitman that do wish to discriminate on the grounds of sexuality. The people that agree with her may not make up a majority, but there are many more people, like Darth_Alran, that are happy to tolerate discrimination.

All Wolfy is saying is that is that as far as the government is concerned, any two adults would be able to get a civil union, which would confer all the current rights that marriage offers. "Marriage" on the other hand, would be something churches would offer.

The moral values of a particular time period are obviously going to be widely-accepted within that time period. This isn't an especially profound observation.

Your core argument is bad: You begin with the assumption that opinions we today consider 'historically from a position of respect for good values and morals' were held in such high esteem in whatever nebulous time period you're referring to.

Maybe you're talking about the Romans. Middle Romans accepted homosexuality. Lex Scantinia condemned homosexual people to death. Which is closer to what you're talking about? Is Native American berdache more respectful for good values and morals than the Conquistadors' efforts to stop it? Homosexual special interest groups existed in Germany prior to the Nazi Party. Are homosexual groups more respectful for good values and morals than homosexual death camps?

Obviously I don't know for sure, since you didn't specify, but it's easy to assume you are referring to the modern American conservative fictional golden age of the mid-20th century. The problem here is that the 'Leave it to Beaver' days would be a terrible aberration in any greater historical context if it indeed existed. This is the problem with argumentum ad antiquitatem: there are examples and counter-examples for everything you can think of. Moral correctness can't be argued this way.

I do.

Forest for the trees.

Back in the early days of industrialization, labor conditions and education were so bad that an entire subclass of people popped up: people who were so poor they could not even participate in the economy. Ultimately we recognized that the social benefits of public education and right-to-work were greater than the benefits of 'laissez-faire' economics.

The problem isn't semantic, it's cultural. Our society emphasizes that a state-recognized marriage is a normal thing to have. By prohibiting gay marriage, homosexuals are being alienated from the cultural and moral values that actually are important. 'Laissez-faire' heteronormativity works out very well for you, of course, because you end up with much more social capital than a gay man does.

You appear to be under the impression that homosexuality is a choice. Why would anybody ever choose to be gay? Gay people are orders of magnitudes more likely to contract an STD, more likely to be lynched and beaten for no good reason and are generally second-class citizens (please oh please I hope you dispute this point).

The overwhelming consensus among researchers is that homosexuality has a biological basis (which, as I pointed out, was something the Native Americans understood well.) The only 'choice' here is whether or not you will choose to act on your biological impulses, but the fact that you statistically did not lose your virginity to your wife I don't feel it necessary for us to kick that particular dead horse.

Discriminatory Language Game.

...you don't hate Jewish people, you just hate the fact that they're Jewish?

You know, I'd be happier with that as long as "marriage" becomes something not recognized in any legal sense at all, and that for a couple to be legally declared together they would also have to get a civil union.

Still, it's about time these religions remembered that they have changed their policies many many times in the past to suit the changes of the communities values and needs, and that this is another time for change.

Though hasn't this change already started happening with one of the major religions? Was it catholicism?

Parts of the Anglican Church.

This does essentially come down to semantics, but I'm uneasy about just letting religion have 'marriage' and leaving us to create something secular with legal significance. Marriage has always been a legal contract, that's the fundamental point of it, the sharing of land and property rights. Christianity just absorbed this legal contract and gave it 'moral' significance. They have no right to a monopoly on marriage, and no right to define it.

If Christians are unhappy about homosexuals getting married because it devalues their interpretation of 'marriage', they should come up with their own ****ing thing. Have their own magical 'Christian marriage', and we give that **** the same legal rights as all other marriages.

But yeah, it does reduce to the same sort of thing. Have a central 'marriage' that has all the legal implications that any couple can enjoy, and then diversify into 'Christian marriage' or whatever that has purely cultural significance and nothing else.

I'm sorry but that is wrong. I'm sure Jon will explain it better.

I agree with you there, it should be the religions that make their own version of marriage.
Marriage doesn't belong to the Christians, or any religion for that matter.
And yes, it is primarily semantics, but to say that gays can have "unions" and straights can have "marriage" is kind of insulting.
I think south park parodied it best when someone came forth and said "Gays can get together too, we'll just call them... 'butt buddies', we will have husband and wife, you will be... 'butt buddies'"
It just seems like more labelling, semantics can be a powerful thing y'know.

You seem to be using South Park in anecdote a lot recently.

I thought I already did.


It is absolutely ****ing terrifying how many of you people think this is a semantic issue, like gay people enjoy the aesthetic of the word 'marriage' or something. Yeah, change the name of straight Christian marriage to something else. And we can get around this whole Civil Rights movement too by calling the back of the bus the "black front." Brilliant.