Mormon forum lights up over California gay change

[_dartagnan]

Jersey Girl,

Having said that, in your posts you mention adoption by same sex couples. Have you addressed biological children of same sex couples and how you think a child might be impacted in that situation?

No I haven't addressed that, nor have I given it much thought.

In that case, assuming (let's make it homosexual males) there is one female role model involved, with a gay couple (males) co-parenting the child, do you feel more confident in a good outcome for the child in that case?

Not necessarily. I think having both a father and a mother for both female and male children, is important for childhood development.

Schmo,

have a fan base? I had no idea.

Don't get too excited, I was being sarcastic.

See, that's one of many big differences between us:

Aside from the fact that I can comprehend what's been said while you can't...

my self-esteem is not dependant on what strangers think of me.

Now who is being unoriginal?

Your memory sucks.

Then prove it. Prove you're not just talking out of your ass as usual. Show my lack of "original thought" in my alleged mimicking of what you said.

You can't seem to remember what you write from one post to the next. And there doesn't seem to be any end to your simplistic outlook on things. Just because you would use a Happy Gilmore reference rather than something else is just window dressing intended to disguise what you're really saying in every post to me, which is essentially the same damn things I just said to you. I guess you're just so incredibly caught up in your own BS, you fail to see it.

Schmo I have always viewed you as a non-issue in every thread, even before you started attacking me months ago. Ever since I said I never really paid much attention to you, you have made it a point to go after me in any thread you can by trying to prove to the world and yourself that it is really you who doesn't take me seriously. Mimicking anyone? Bad memory Schmo? That is what I initially said to you. Lack of original thought, eh?

And if I were the only one you ever called an idiot or a moron on this board, you might have a point.

This comment only goes to show you do not understand what points are. You said I call everyone who disagrees with me an idiot. That is a demonstrable falsehood. You have said this on other occassions as well. It is a lie. But since you are one of those integrity-free posters whose interest has nothing to do with serious debate, you continue to spout it because it serves your own self-serving purposes. The number of people I have called idiot is relatively few. You're just pissed off because you're one of them. That's not my fault.

But again, you don't. Anyone who's been paying attention to your posting habits knows what I'm talking about it, your denials notwithstanding.

You're just pissed off for the same reasons you always get pissed off. People in a given thread begin to empathize or even express some sense of appreciation for what I have said, and this drives you completely bonkers because it undermines everything you have been saying about me. You did the same thing with tarski last month in another thread.

Now you're trying to claim people can only escape being called an idiot if they "appreciate or at least understand" what you say.

No, I didn't say that at all, which is why you really are an idiot for failing to comprehend simple sentences.

LOL... I understand it all too well.

All the "LOLs" and similar sarcasm won't hide your inability to go toe to toe with me on any issue. You don't understand simple rules of logic, let alone do you have a basic grasp of comprehension.

That's where your real problem lies with me...

I never had a real problem with you. You're just a flea that needs a scratch every once in a while. You're not important enough to focus too much attention on. I only respond to you if I am bored and you're the only one who has responded to something I said.

I see easily through your BS and enjoy calling you on it.

Calling me on what? All you do is yap from the sidelines and you're never on any solid ground. So far your contributions in this thread amount to an ignorant rant about homophobia, which you didn't even understand from the beginning. Does your memory suck? Then go read the earlier posts where you made a complete fool of yourself by proving you didn't even understand what the term meant.

I'm certainly not desperate to convince anyone that you're homophobic.

Right now you're desperate to justify your ignorant usage of the term. It is fun watching you stumble over your own ignorance.

I'm not the one writing pages in defense of moronic statements made earlier in the thread (now that seems desperate...)

Yes, you don't ever try to defend your moronic posts, that's true, and I guess you should be given some credit for that. But then again, you just move on with more nonsense while pretending you never said anything stupid to begin with.

[_guy sajer]

Now, as to your tyranny of the majority lack of knowledge. Please do explain why the founding fathers created the electoral college and were terrified of the masses? Go google and get back to me on that, would you know it all of poli-sci 101? I never wrote that the constitution was merely to protect the minority! It's a constant interplay between majority and minority -- yet, if the majority ruled (as in the case of racial integration, women's rights, homosexual rights, disability rights, etc...) and there was not the ability to go against the will of the people then it would be tyranny of the majority. Then try to get it through your skull that the only things that are deemed constitutional or unconstitutional are what the justices decide -- you don't decide that. They do!

Wrong. Justices do not get to decide what is constitutional or unconstitutional. The Constitution decides that, not judges. The federal judiciary and its judges were created to interpret the law, not make law or overturn the will of the people in areas well outside their constitutionally delimited function. If justices decide what is or is not constitutional, then we are living in a lawless oligarchy run by around 1,200 federal judges and nine supreme court justices and there personal ideological whims.

This constitutional reality here is simple: the California supreme court has no business deciding what the nature of homosexual relationships are or are not, or how open homosexuals shall be integrated into the larger community and culture. They have no business whatever ruling on what the nature of marriage shall be in western/American society. They have neither the competence to do so, or the legal mandate. That is for the people through deliberative democratic legislatures to decide, not unaccountable legal oligarchs.

The Supreme Court was never intended by the founders as the lasts appeal for special interest groups seeking legitimization they cannot achieve through the deliberative democratic process. That process is intended to protect both majorities and minorities from each other, which is why the Constitution makes government small and strictly limited in its scope, and reserves, in the 10th amendment, any thorny issues such as Gay marriage to the states and to the people to decide for themselves.

The Constitution is, at its core, one overarching protection of the people from government, and from those, such as the homosexual lobby, who would use government to impose by force their own values and cultural standards upon others and their children (the "majority").

And please stop throwing the term "rights" around so freely, as you clearly haven't thought very long or very hard regarding its meaning.

Notwithstanding the certainty with which you assert the above 'facts,' it appears that several important people and institutions, including the California Supreme Court, disagree with you.

I wonder how same sex marriage is forcing someone else's values on you. How, precisely, are you affected if two gay men marry? What's the exact source and type of imposition you suffer?

It seems to me that denying gays the right (or privilege, whatever you want to call it) to marry (due I suspect to religious beliefs), are you not in a much more tangible way imposing YOUR values on them?

So, in other words, the California Supreme Court has denied you, and those like you, the right to impose your religious values on others, and it really irks the hell out of you.

Too bad.

[_Trevor]

Wrong. Justices do not get to decide what is constitutional or unconstitutional. The Constitution decides that, not judges. The federal judiciary and its judges were created to interpret the law, not make law or overturn the will of the people in areas well outside their constitutionally delimited function. If justices decide what is or is not constitutional, then we are living in a lawless oligarchy run by around 1,200 federal judges and nine supreme court justices and there personal ideological whims.

Don't interpretation of the constitution and deciding what is constitutional essentially amount to the same thing? A document must be interpreted. It is functionally incapable of interpreting itself. We only live in a lawless oligarchy run by federal judges if there is no check on their power. Clearly we do not live in such a system, regardless of what the panicked minds of right-wing bozos like yourself think.

[Guest]

Wrong. Justices do not get to decide what is constitutional or unconstitutional. The Constitution decides that, not judges. The federal judiciary and its judges were created to interpret the law, not make law or overturn the will of the people in areas well outside their constitutionally delimited function. If justices decide what is or is not constitutional, then we are living in a lawless oligarchy run by around 1,200 federal judges and nine supreme court justices and there personal ideological whims.

Don't interpretation of the constitution and deciding what is constitutional essentially amount to the same thing? A document must be interpreted. It is functionally incapable of interpreting itself. We only live in a lawless oligarchy run by federal judges if there is no check on their power. Clearly we do not live in such a system, regardless of what the panicked minds of right-wing bozos like yourself think.

Oh, I barely read his posts anymore -- I didn't even notice he was quibbling over interpretation and decisions. The courts make rulings, opinions, or they can be called "DECISIONS" when they rule. Guffaw!

My bad for skimming. :)

Coggins, observe: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/supcrt/index.html
http://www.supremecourtus.gov/

[_Some Schmo]

Schmo,

have a fan base? I had no idea.

Don't get too excited, I was being sarcastic.

See, that's one of many big differences between us:

Aside from the fact that I can comprehend what's been said while you can't...

my self-esteem is not dependant on what strangers think of me.

Now who is being unoriginal?

Your memory sucks.

Then prove it. Prove you're not just talking out of your ass as usual. Show my lack of "original thought" in my alleged mimicking of what you said.

You can't seem to remember what you write from one post to the next. And there doesn't seem to be any end to your simplistic outlook on things. Just because you would use a Happy Gilmore reference rather than something else is just window dressing intended to disguise what you're really saying in every post to me, which is essentially the same damn things I just said to you. I guess you're just so incredibly caught up in your own BS, you fail to see it.

Schmo I have always viewed you as a non-issue in every thread, even before you started attacking me months ago. Ever since I said I never really paid much attention to you, you have made it a point to go after me in any thread you can by trying to prove to the world and yourself that it is really you who doesn't take me seriously. Mimicking anyone? Bad memory Schmo? That is what I initially said to you. Lack of original thought, eh?

And if I were the only one you ever called an idiot or a moron on this board, you might have a point.

This comment only goes to show you do not understand what points are. You said I call everyone who disagrees with me an idiot. That is a demonstrable falsehood. You have said this on other occassions as well. It is a lie. But since you are one of those integrity-free posters whose interest has nothing to do with serious debate, you continue to spout it because it serves your own self-serving purposes. The number of people I have called idiot is relatively few. You're just pissed off because you're one of them. That's not my fault.

But again, you don't. Anyone who's been paying attention to your posting habits knows what I'm talking about it, your denials notwithstanding.

You're just pissed off for the same reasons you always get pissed off. People in a given thread begin to empathize or even express some sense of appreciation for what I have said, and this drives you completely bonkers because it undermines everything you have been saying about me. You did the same thing with tarski last month in another thread.

Now you're trying to claim people can only escape being called an idiot if they "appreciate or at least understand" what you say.

No, I didn't say that at all, which is why you really are an idiot for failing to comprehend simple sentences.

LOL... I understand it all too well.

All the "LOLs" and similar sarcasm won't hide your inability to go toe to toe with me on any issue. You don't understand simple rules of logic, let alone do you have a basic grasp of comprehension.

That's where your real problem lies with me...

I never had a real problem with you. You're just a flea that needs a scratch every once in a while. You're not important enough to focus too much attention on. I only respond to you if I am bored and you're the only one who has responded to something I said.

I see easily through your BS and enjoy calling you on it.

Calling me on what? All you do is yap from the sidelines and you're never on any solid ground. So far your contributions in this thread amount to an ignorant rant about homophobia, which you didn't even understand from the beginning. Does your memory suck? Then go read the earlier posts where you made a complete fool of yourself by proving you didn't even understand what the term meant.

I'm certainly not desperate to convince anyone that you're homophobic.

Right now you're desperate to justify your ignorant usage of the term. It is fun watching you stumble over your own ignorance.

I'm not the one writing pages in defense of moronic statements made earlier in the thread (now that seems desperate...)

Yes, you don't ever try to defend your moronic posts, that's true, and I guess you should be given some credit for that. But then again, you just move on with more nonsense while pretending you never said anything stupid to begin with.

You're sooooo easy.

ROTFLMAO

[Alf'Omega]

Now that I've stopped laughing, I just have to say that the most hilarious feature of that last post was the number of thinly disguised times you said "I know you are but what am I?"

Yes darte, oh yes... you hardly give me any credit at all. That's why you spend so little time quoting me and providing what you think are cogent and snappy answers to every tiny little thing I say.

LMAO

EDIT: The other thing that continues to crack me about your posts to me darte is the number of times you tell me I'm pissed off. You actually think I'm pissed off about you somehow? Nothing could be further from the truth. I sense you're very pissed off at me given the effort you put into attempting to discredit me (incidentally, if I'm such a non-issue, why all the effort? Oh that's right, you're just bored - LOL... right). Here's a newsflash for ya: just because you're pissed off doesn't mean everyone else is.

I actually think your temper tantrums are kind of cute, like a little baby whose face is turning red.

[_Dr. Shades]

What Kevin refers to as "gender confusion" may just be an individual who really isn't clearly heterosexual OR homosexual, but somewhere in-between. There are plenty of people like that around. A young male who can experience sexual attraction and desire for another male is definitely not a "0" on the Kinsey scale.

So is that what's behind all the "man-crush" posts that have been made on this board?

[_asbestosman]

Just thought I'd bump my previous questions to Dartagnan.

Also, as an aside I wish people would quit focusing on whether Dart or Schmo or anyone else has "issues" and just focus on the whole gay marriage / adoption issue instead. I could hardly care less about trying to pin a label on Dart or Schmo or anyone else right now.

The issue is gender identity confusion among children, which is an avoidable stressor that children shouldn't have to be exposed to. A hetero kid might experiment with another male and then after realizing he is not gay, blame his actions on his parents.

Which "avoidable stressors" are significant enough that we should consider forbidding such parents from adopting? Obesity? Facial / other bodily deformities? How significant is "genter identity confusion"?

Do the homosexual children of heterosexual parents experience this and would it have been better if those children had homosexual parents? If not, why is the heterosexual child inherently worse off with homosexual parents than a homosexual child with heterosexual parents?


Lesbian parents can conceive their own children--they just need to head to a sperm bank. These parents do have their own uterises. Would the children of a lesbian parent be in worse shape than adipted children? If so, should we also look into banning lesbians from going to sperm banks? What of single women?

IVF children of heterosexual parents, are not conceived in the normal fashion. Does this place undue stress on the children which should be avoided?

Homosexual couples do have more choices than merely anal or oral. They can engage in manual stimulation as well as many other things (I do not intend to create a list or write a book on positions).

[_Droopy]

As I recall the President wasn't really directly elected until Jackson right? As I recall the electoral college voted their conscience as opposed to the winner take all system we have now where each candidate nominates a number of delegates who he is certain will support him within each state right? Thus the system was originally much more conservative and kept decisions to a much smaller group of people than today. But I might be wrong (Early US History after the Founding isn't my strong suit so I may be wrong).

The President is not directly elected in the United States, and in the constitution as originally written, neither were state Senators.

[Guest]

Did the Constitution outline many things legislatively that were later decided constitutional according to the justices, Coggins? I bet you love the Interstate Commerce Clause, eh?

I'm not a big fan of the Commerce Clause as its been used for much of the last century the justify ever more expansive congressional control over said commerce. I'm also not a big fan of the "right to privacy".

That there are families that currently raise children that get tax breaks, and other benefits from the federal and state governments because they are a family unit and that other families that only differ 'cause two of the parents are the same sex is clearly discrimination.

It may be, but all discrimination is not bad discrimination. People who have a good driving record or do not smoke receive cuts in their insurance premiums. Are you against this? The nuclear family is the basis of a free, civil society. Homosexual cohabitations are not. The government has a compelling interest in encouraging the success of those families that does not exist with either heterosexual or homosexual cohabitation.

That people who form stable, nuclear families in which children are present are given an extra economic incentive to do so, while easing the cost of raising those children once they appear on the scene, is a credible government policy (personally, I believe there should be one, low, fair tax rate upon all, and that all vestiges of tax progressivity be eliminated from the American tax system). Homosexuals can do what they please in this country, with the constitution's blessing, but reframing and altering the concept of family and its fundamental socio-cultural meaning to suit there own cultural predilections is not one of them

Your notion that families are only 2 parents of opposite sex and that they raise children and get all the benefits from the local and federal government where as others do not is not very well thought out. If the government wants to get rid of giving perks to all families I'm cool with that -- just be across the board with it.

See above, but I have no problem with the government giving traditional families in which children are present economic help in the form of lower taxes. Homosexuality involves no child bearing or rearing function, and is hence meaningless in a overall societal context relative to that society's commitment to future generations. Further, the homosexual sub-culture and its general sexual practices are wholly inimical to the moral, psychological, and, as the AIDS epidemic in the eighties showed, physical health and security its people. Homosexuality, especially as expressed as the "Gay" sub-culture and identity, is incompatible with a morally coherent society.

Obviously the California Supreme Court feels differently than you do -- go to law school, work your ass off and get appointed to a Supreme Court and then deal with it.

Which really has nothing to do with anything, because, in a very significant way, this entire issue really isn't about homosexual marriage at all, but about the usurpation of deliberative democracy by judicial oligarchy that is little different than living under the dictates of a monarch or a totalitarian politburo. As I said before, this issue had no business going before the court at all, any more than Roe had any business being decided by the judiciary. These are matters for the states and for the people within the framework of legislative democracy whose decisions are subject to the consent of the governed.

Or vote for representatives that will appoint judges that will rule according to your social conscience --

I do, but I'd much rather return to the constitution more fully and simply put this kind of divisive cultural warfare out of the reach of the judiciary and back to the legislatures where they belong.

yet, the idea that those things you disagree with are somehow unconstitutional just because you deem them so is not reality.

I'm making rational arguments about them based upon an educated knowlege of the issues. If you cannot do that, then exit the thread or rebut my points logically and evidentially.

Every time the court sneezes SOMEONE says it's unconstitutional -- nope! That the courts overturn earlier decisions shows how with the time and social conscience things change anyway.

Is this what you think passes for constitutional critique? I could care less about the judges "social conscience", as that has no relevance to the decisions they're supposed to be making. Social conscience is as social conscience does, and there different forms of it. I'm interested in the constitution as a legal document and the original intent of those who wrote it, not judge's ideological sentiments.

If you want to be a strict interpretor of the constitution then you need to stop receiving any federal aid from the college you attend. Send back all federal money that helped pay your children's way through school. The special education kids used to be kicked out of schools or those with disabilities. Oops, those darn justices somehow or another found a way to say that was unconstitutional even though it's not in the damn constitution.

In other words, either we dismantle the entire New Deal and Great Society today, or opposition to homosexual marriage and the homosexual rights agenda is, in some manner, hypocritical. I would, to be much more realistic, focus on one issue and one attack upon the constitution at a time, and not worry too much about perfect logical consistency, as such is impossible. Your prescription here is simple to let the political class and the courts take the country in whatever direction they desire without restraint, as any opposition on one issue or another while still benefiting from some government program (and I cannot for the life of me see the analogy between the compete redefinition of marriage and family and government subsidies to Beet farmers) can be labeled as hypocrisy. All of us are on welfare, of one form or another, including Social Security, from which one cannot opt out, so this leaves us a choice, according to you, of accepting everything the government or courts do a face value, or attack the most pressing issues first as they arise.

Stop pretending you live up to your conservative principles when you received a public education, attend a state college where you receive part of your tuition paid for by the state, and that you don't get tax breaks 'cause you're married. You just don't like it when other folks get the same breaks you already enjoy!

First of all, I pay for my education out of pocket. Any subsidies only kick in as classes are added beyond a normal full load. Secondly, my public education, after about 6th grade, was abysmal, and the American public education system is at the bottom of the industrialized world in all major subjects. I had to go to public school, there was no choice in the matter unless my parents wanted to put me in private school, which they chose not to do.

Secondly, my conservative principles exist in a body politic in which simply wanting things to be different accomplishes little. The hard work of social and political change is incremental and costly. Therefore, we will continue with our failing public school system until conservatives are finally able to force this system to compete in a vigorous market for k-12 education and the dead wood is weeded out. Until then, conservatives who can will home school or send their kids to private school, while most, because of economic realties, will continue in the less than sterling system. There is nothing hypocritical about this; we deal with what exists while working for change.

And again, your analogy with public education, or being partially subsidized by the state of SC as to my present education, with homosexual marriage imposed by judicial fiat by a tiny oligarchy of legal philosopher kings as logically empty. Whether or not education subsidies are a part of the constitution (and they are not), Gay marriage strikes at the very heart of western civilization and its Judeo/Christian moral framework, and needs to be resisted on that basis. The taxpayer money wasted in educational loans that will never be repaid so a number of kids can go to college who really shouldn't be there in the first place, and which has sent the costs of higher ed soaring, can be dealt with later, as can ethanol subsidies and any number of other things.

Now, perhaps you could try a serious, philosophically critical rebuttal to some of my positions.

by the way, Coggins were you cool with the U.S. Supreme Court striking down interracial marriage laws and deeming them unconstitutional in the late 60's??? The will of the people was overturned. Gasp! Horror!

I don't believe in interracial marriage laws. Whether the Supreme Court should have been the venue in which they were eliminated is entirely another question. The culture, at least outside the South, was already coming around to this in any case (the Boomer generation), and this is a quandary we see again and agian in the judicial wars: a tiny cadre of self anointed enlightened ones forcing change through fiat with the assumption that the benighted masses must be forced to conform to the enlightened one's "social conscience". The very idea that a tiny group of judges educated at Ivy League law schools are someone morally superior to the typical American citizen is an indication of raw hubris, not proper judicial temperament. As Robert Bork has long pointed out, we like many of the results of such decisions, but later we may be snared in the precedents their legal reasoning created.