Home › Forums › Open Discussion › R-71 negative ads on radio
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October 23, 2009 at 2:29 am #680198
datamuseParticipantYou and me both, AlkiRagdoll. You and me both.
I’ve yet to encounter any such argument that holds water.
October 23, 2009 at 4:38 am #680199
dawsonctParticipantMpento, what line of business are you in anyway, that you need to know, and can legaly ask, about the sexual practices of prospective employees? Must make for a mighty uncomfortable interview.
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But seriously, how will another couple of people, who you most likely don’t even know, getting the same legal rights as commited partners that are available to heterosexual couples, possibly affect you and your relationships?
What damage could this possibly do to any marriage?
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE enlighten me, because I JUST DON’T GET IT.
October 23, 2009 at 4:40 am #680200
JoBParticipantmpento
“I would not want to define a relationship between two people of the same sex as being the same as a relationship between two people of different sex.”
my guess is that you don’t have sexual or romantic feelings towards people of your own sex.
If you did, you would find that sexual and romantic relationships between people of the same sex are as messy and unpredictable as relationships between people of opposite sexes and that a committed relationship is as challenging when your partner is the same sex.
You would find that same sex partners want the same things out of life that heterosexual partners want. They want someone to make a home and a life with.. a life that might include children. They want to grow old together and to die together… and they want to leave their loved ones as financially secure as possible.
No-one is asking for employers to offer more in exchange for employment than they already do. They are simply asking them not to exclude one group of employees from the benefits that are already part of their wage package.
They are asking hospitals to allow committed partners access to both medical information and to their loved one’s bedside.
They are asking funeral homes to stop interfering when partners try to arrange for funeral services for their loved ones.
They are asking that their partners have access to the pensions and benefits they earned through hard work.
If Referendum 71 is not ratified, they will be denied all of those basic rights and much more.
btw.. this big deal.. this fuss.. was not created by gay rights activists. Opponants of the domestic partners act brought this to our living room… with such slogans as the one you presented.. that allowing gay partners basic domestic rights would undermine the sanctity of marriage and would force good christian folk to condone homosexuality.
Approving Referendum 71 wouldn’t accomplish either of those goals… it wouldn’t even legalize gay marriage…
divorce continues to undermine the sanctity of marriage at an astounding rate…
and good Christian folk will still have the choice to attend churches that do not accept gay members.
But, they wouldn’t be able to employ a gay person without offering the same dependent and spousal benefits available to other employees…
pretty reasonable when you stick to the issues, isn’t it.
October 23, 2009 at 4:53 am #680201
AlkiRagdollParticipantI know that many feel very strong in support of both sides…. but please, lets not attack people for their beliefs (at least not based on my solicitation of information). I respect everyone’s beliefs. Maybe I’m being unrealistic in light of the emotional nature of this issue. If we can avoid the emotions, maybe we can have a serious exchange of information. Thanks.
October 23, 2009 at 5:35 am #680202
dawsonctParticipantI AM being serious; I really want someone to explain to me HOW any relationship between two loving people who may just be the same sex could possibly affect their marriage in any way.
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Unless the legal equalities obtained by same-sex couples suddenly allows them to come out of the closet and start a life with their true love, I really see no possible effect.
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Seems like a simple question, but I never get an answer.
October 23, 2009 at 6:25 am #680203
mpentoParticipantOne can say hey it apples or oranges, we are all fruit, its all the same. If its just about the rights of what two adults choose why is family being put into the mix? So its not just about apples and oranges, but also about apple trees and orange trees. Lets just put all the apple trees and orange trees into the same field and treat them the same? Lets suppose that I have a couple of children and circumstances transpire that I need to put them up for adoption. So someone comes to me with 5 folders and says OK here is a list of 5 possibilities who may adopt your children. Now pick one but wait we will not give you any information about them. All you need to know is they are all equally valid candidates. No, I would want details about each possibility. They may be equivalent but they are not equal. Yes maybe they are all perfectly valid but they are not equal. I would say a same sex couple should not be excluded from the possible adoptees but I don’t think them being a same sex couple is irrelevant. If you want to define marriage as being between two people I don’t think it makes marriage between two people of opposite sex any less valid but saying that they are equal does change things. The choices we make and what we do are not in isolation and that is why we end up with the legal system.
October 23, 2009 at 6:29 am #680204
dawsonctParticipantSo some Americans are less equal than you…
October 23, 2009 at 6:36 am #680205
mpentoParticipantYes when you put it in context. I might have a big afro haircut and someone else may be a skinhead. When we go to the barber/hair salon do we expected to get equal treatment? But does it mean that some Americans are less than me? I don’t think so
October 23, 2009 at 7:12 am #680206
dawsonctParticipantEquating basic human rights with a haircut is astoundingly ridiculous. Are you truly so completely without empathy for your fellow human beings!?
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You were born with a ‘difference’ from me, and most other people in the world, I guarantee it. It may be a difference I may dislike, a desire to do something that has never occurred to me and in fact may be totally antithetical to my sense of ethics or mores or self-preservation or intense desires. It may even be something that, if I CONSTANTLY dwell on it, “repulses” me to no end. BFD. My repulsion doesn’t give me any right to deny you your constitutional rights as an American. I simply have to suck it up and learn to live with my distaste because, like it or not, I don’t have the right to deny you your civil rights based on my own personal feelings.
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You want to help the heteros stay married? Sign on with this movement:
October 23, 2009 at 5:17 pm #680207
datamuseParticipantSo basically, still, the principal objection here is “I don’t like it, it makes me uncomfortable to give this arrangement equal legal treatment to that one, therefore it shouldn’t be so.”
“I don’t like it” is not a valid basis for law. Which is pretty much my main issue with the referendum process, come to think of it.
Based on the haircut comparison (seriously, wtf?), you also seem to think that “equal” means “exactly the same as”. It doesn’t. It means that people who are DIFFERENT receive EQUAL TREATMENT under the law.
You know, like how women are supposed to be treated equally to men. How people of different races are supposed to receive equal treatment. (They don’t, but that’s another discussion.) How things like this won’t happen because of legal protections in place; and when they do, those affected will have legal recourse.
It’s not about your personal comfort level, though if you vote based on that, that’s your right, I guess. It doesn’t strike me as a good way to make decisions about others’ rights, but it’s your ballot and your vote.
It’d be nice, though, if your argument showed some ability to differentiate between what you personally are comfortable with, and recognition that legal rights are not about comfort.
But as long as we’re talking about comfort and feelings, consider this.
October 23, 2009 at 5:32 pm #680208
GenHillOneParticipantapple trees and orange trees? mpento, WHAT are you talking about? I’m starting to think you aren’t for real, but if you are, feel free to butcher your own metaphors, just please don’t twist mine.
October 23, 2009 at 5:47 pm #680209
datamuseParticipantI’m starting to think that mpento’s arguments never met a fallacy they didn’t like.
Make a useful foil, though, even if they aren’t adequate answers to the original question.
October 23, 2009 at 5:59 pm #680210
KBearParticipantI hate bigots.
October 23, 2009 at 6:13 pm #680211
bluebirdMemberThese nonsensical analogies highlight the problem. When you allow people incapable of applying logic, to make decisions for others, we’re all in trouble.
October 23, 2009 at 6:22 pm #680212
BuddyParticipantmpento….good too see a different opinion. THAT is the center of a discussion or debate isn’t it? I posted on another discussion topic that I’d like to see an opinion from someone who may be a little more on the conservative side…Interesting thoughts you bring up.
I forgot to mention in my previous post though, be prepared!
Name calling is common..not very enlightening and ads nothing to the forum…
Debating is FUN…..name calling needs a “time out”
October 23, 2009 at 6:31 pm #680213
inactiveMemberHey Team – you all are doing a great job of dispatching mpento’s ignorance and prejudice. I would lose it trying to deal with this and it would just get deleted. I am in awe of your composure given the specious logic. For real. I suspect mpento is going to run out of baffling analogies any minute now. Those are HARD to come up with, don’t ‘cha know! ;)
Carry on!!
October 23, 2009 at 6:45 pm #680214
LaconiqueMemberAgree with westseattledood. I can’t believe how long y’all have kept up this one-sidedly rational debate! Like trying to nail jello to a tree. More power to you.
October 23, 2009 at 6:56 pm #680215
bluebirdMemberJello to a tree is a keeper! Thanks.
October 23, 2009 at 7:23 pm #680216
mpentoParticipantWell I find the analogies useful in expressing my opinion unfortunatley they can also be misunderstood because something might be implied that was not intended. However there are two possible responses to my analogies. That analogy does not make sense because there is a singnificant factor that the analogy ignores and so its not true. However I think an anology shows a possible truth NOT the whole truth. The other response is to say Oh don’t be silly people are not apples and oranges. That is just dumb. I’m not saying people are apples or oranges. I am only making a comparison. I also want to follow up on the “less equal” response. I think to say something or someone is less equal or more equal is incorrect. I think it is important for me to make the point that when I say a same sex couple is not equal to a different sex couple I am not implying or intending to imply that one group is “more equal” or “less equal” I think that is the thin edge of the wedge to making victims and bigotry. I think that unfortunately it can be very easy to slip into that terminology because there are people who have that belief and “knee jerk reaction” and usually they shout louder. I think it is valid to say yes there are so many aspects, hopes, fears, rights, mistakes good qualities and bad qualities that same sex or different sex couple share but they are not equal. I would disagree if you say they are equal. I think the challenge is to determine the significance of the difference. I think that most of the commenters here would say no the difference is not significant? I think it is a valid opinion to say hey wait maybe it does have some significance.
October 23, 2009 at 7:30 pm #680217
KBearParticipantLike nailing orange jello to an apple tree?
October 23, 2009 at 7:32 pm #680218
LaconiqueMemberI’m not directing this at anyone, but the whole conversation just reminds me of that classic of cinematic grace, Billy Madison.
“At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”
October 23, 2009 at 8:36 pm #680219
AlkiRagdollParticipantCan I return to my original question and ask for feedback that supports (so that I can understand it) the argument that gay marriage undermines “the santity of marriage”? So far I am only seeing opinions about lifestyles.
October 23, 2009 at 8:51 pm #680220
JoBParticipantmpento..
Gay people are not going to stop meeting one another and forming relationships and making families just because it makes you uncomfortable.
Isn’t denying them the same benefits and rights that other committed couples enjoy a form of punishing them for making you uncomfortable?
if you feel you have the right to decide that one group of people shouldn’t have access to the benefits and rights assigned to couples just because you don’t think they deserve it…
how do you feel about another group making similar decisions about You as a single person?
I am betting you make plenty of people uncomfortable…
i know i do:)
October 23, 2009 at 8:57 pm #680221
JanSParticipantAlkiragdoll…therein lies the problem. There is NO reason why that argument holds water, so people against R-71 have to use diversion tactics and bring up “lifestyle”, so they don’t look like complete bigots. (although often they still do)
October 23, 2009 at 9:24 pm #680222
datamuseParticipantThe problem with the analogies you’ve made so far, mpento, is that they don’t illustrate your point. You haven’t shown that the distinctions you claim in your analogies are also distinctions between straight and gay couples (or older and younger straight couples, lest we forget THAT dimension of the issue), and that renders your analogy false.
I suggest trying another line of argument, because your analogies are confusing people. If you want to persuade AlkiRagdoll (or anyone else), this doesn’t strike me as a good way to go about it.
I think it is important for me to make the point that when I say a same sex couple is not equal to a different sex couple I am not implying or intending to imply that one group is “more equal” or “less equal”
What on Earth else could such a statement possibly imply?
Again, you’re confusing equality with resemblance. Nobody is claiming that gay couples are exactly like straight couples. What supporters of Ref. 71 are saying is that both should be equal in the eyes of the law.
Equality is a LEGAL concept, here. If you were to say that right now, straight couples and gay couples aren’t equal in the eyes of the law, well, that’s true. Some of us think that’s not right and support the state legislature’s attempt to change it.
AlkiRagdoll: I’ve been sitting here trying to come up with an answer to your question–just to play devil’s advocate, you know–and I haven’t been able to come up with one that doesn’t basically boil down to a religious exception.
Buddy: this debate’s been pretty one-sided so far…I don’t claim to be especially good at it, but I’m still waiting for mpento to supply ANY support for his/her point beyond “I don’t like it”, which is not a valid argument, and “you’re trying to make different things the same”, which is a straw man.
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