By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - General - Gay Rights - Why is this an issue?

appolose on 19 January 2009
akuma587 said:
appolose said:

 

See my post on the first page; I was referring to my reasoning that morality today depends on the number of supporters.

You are throwing around the word morality like there should be a consensus on what is and is not moral.  Isn't that as much a personal issue as it is a social issue?  Why should everyone believe that everything has the same moral consequences when there is reasonable grounds for disagreeing whether or not something is even immoral at all?

Too many people assume that Judeo-Christian morality is the type of morality everyone should have.  That is fundamentally against what this country was founded on.

 

No, I'm not saying morality needs consensus, I'm saying that is what it effectively is depending on for the nonreligious.  See my response to fkusumot.

 



Okami

To lavish praise upon this title, the assumption of a common plateau between player and game must be made.  I won't open my unworthy mouth.

Christian (+50).  Arminian(+20). AG adherent(+20). YEC(+20). Pre-tribulation Pre-milleniumist (+10).  Republican (+15) Capitalist (+15).  Pro-Nintendo (+5).  Misc. stances (+30).  TOTAL SCORE: 195
  http://quizfarm.com/test.php?q_id=43870 <---- Fun theology quiz
Around the Network
Kasz216 on 19 January 2009
akuma587 said:
rocketpig said:
d21lewis said:
I say we forget our illogical biases (sexual orientation, sexual preferences, race, etc.) and create some new totally outlandish reasons to discriminate.

Humanity has already been doing that for years. All one has to do is look at what the Belgians did in Rwanda with the creation of the Tutsi caste to see an example of illogical biases at work.

I doubt I will ever understand why people care so much about what others do in their free time or in their bedroom. Today, it's gay people. Tomorrow, who knows? Could be me.

One thing I do respect though is the church's ability to protest gay unions. While I don't agree with it, any infringement on church rights should be respected when (not if) homosexuals are granted the same rights as the rest of us. No church should be forced to accept something they believe to be fundamentally wrong (no matter how fiercely I disagree with them on it).

This is too often a red herring issue is the problem.  You don't have cases of gay people showing up to churches demanding to be married.  If a church wants to do that, it is fine.  But the government has in no cases forced a church to do so.  Besides, gay people have an alternate venue through the state which is just as good.

Not to mention churches have pissed off gay people a long time ago, so its not like very many gay people are religious to begin with.

I hear this cited pretty frequently as a reason to be against gay marriage when it is just an illusory issue.

 

Although it is an issue to why there is no gay rights ammendment.

People are afraid if passed christian bookstores and the like will be forced to hire gay people.

Which makes me wonder if christian bookstores are forced to hire muslims and jews.

 

 



rocketpig on 19 January 2009
akuma587 said:
rocketpig said:
d21lewis said:
I say we forget our illogical biases (sexual orientation, sexual preferences, race, etc.) and create some new totally outlandish reasons to discriminate.

Humanity has already been doing that for years. All one has to do is look at what the Belgians did in Rwanda with the creation of the Tutsi caste to see an example of illogical biases at work.

I doubt I will ever understand why people care so much about what others do in their free time or in their bedroom. Today, it's gay people. Tomorrow, who knows? Could be me.

One thing I do respect though is the church's ability to protest gay unions. While I don't agree with it, any infringement on church rights should be respected when (not if) homosexuals are granted the same rights as the rest of us. No church should be forced to accept something they believe to be fundamentally wrong (no matter how fiercely I disagree with them on it).

This is too often a red herring issue is the problem.  You don't have cases of gay people showing up to churches demanding to be married.  If a church wants to do that, it is fine.  But the government has in no cases forced a church to do so.  Besides, gay people have an alternate venue through the state which is just as good.

Not to mention churches have pissed off gay people a long time ago, so its not like very many gay people are religious to begin with.

I hear this cited pretty frequently as a reason to be against gay marriage when it is just an illusory issue.

Obviously, I'm not in the group of "let's keep gay marriage illegal because then churches will be forced to marry gays" camp. On the other side of the coin, I'm not above expecting people to, at some point, demand some church concession on the subject, which I think is equally wrong.

It's not unheard of. Roughly thirty years ago, the IRS was threatening to remove the Mormon Church's tax exemption due to their "institutionalized racism".

Who's to say that in 20 years the government won't try the same thing if, say, the Lutheran Church doesn't allow gay marriage or gay ministers?

It's not a red herring. It's a real concern. Both sides deserve to have their rights protected.

 




Or check out my new webcomic: http://selfcentent.com/

akuma587 on 19 January 2009

Why should a Christian bookstore be able to discriminate against gay people? Why should they be able to discriminate against a woman who is a single mother? Why should they be able to discriminate against a person who is in an interracial marriage? What is the difference? Should we allow them to discriminate against some lifestyles and not others?

That is completely arbitrary. You could use the shield that "our church doesn't agree with their lifestyle" on just about anything. Hell, if they didn't go to church every week you could say that it went against what the church stood for. Its a standard that could be completely abused.

A business and a church are two completely different things.



We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.  The only thing that really worried me was the ether.  There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke

It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...."  Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson

Moongoddess256 on 19 January 2009
Kasz216 said:
akuma587 said:
rocketpig said:
d21lewis said:
I say we forget our illogical biases (sexual orientation, sexual preferences, race, etc.) and create some new totally outlandish reasons to discriminate.

Humanity has already been doing that for years. All one has to do is look at what the Belgians did in Rwanda with the creation of the Tutsi caste to see an example of illogical biases at work.

I doubt I will ever understand why people care so much about what others do in their free time or in their bedroom. Today, it's gay people. Tomorrow, who knows? Could be me.

One thing I do respect though is the church's ability to protest gay unions. While I don't agree with it, any infringement on church rights should be respected when (not if) homosexuals are granted the same rights as the rest of us. No church should be forced to accept something they believe to be fundamentally wrong (no matter how fiercely I disagree with them on it).

This is too often a red herring issue is the problem. You don't have cases of gay people showing up to churches demanding to be married. If a church wants to do that, it is fine. But the government has in no cases forced a church to do so. Besides, gay people have an alternate venue through the state which is just as good.

Not to mention churches have pissed off gay people a long time ago, so its not like very many gay people are religious to begin with.

I hear this cited pretty frequently as a reason to be against gay marriage when it is just an illusory issue.

 

Although it is an issue to why there is no gay rights ammendment.

People are afraid if passed christian bookstores and the like will be forced to hire gay people.

Which makes me wonder if christian bookstores are forced to hire muslims and jews.

 

 

 

When someone fills out an application, does it really ask for their orientation and religion?

If they hire someone that they decide they don't want for not so legit reasons such as orientation and religion... its quite easy to fire them for some stupid made up reason as long as they don't say the real reason. Happened to me once (not for orientation or religion though), government job even, but without a witness to their remarks I wasn't able to fight it.



[2:08:58 am] Moongoddess256: being asian makes you naturally good at ddr
[2:09:22 am] gnizmo: its a weird genetic thing
[2:09:30 am] gnizmo: goes back to hunting giant crabs in feudal Japan

Around the Network
The_vagabond7 on 19 January 2009

@appolose,

if I'm not mistaken isn't that Jesus riding the ass in your avatar? If so I would assume you're a christian, which is why I find it strange that you'd use nihilism as a defense of denying gay rights. Not too many nihilistic anti-gay rights christians.

As a largely nihilistic person myself I certainly won't argue about intrinsic moral value. The protection of civilization is not inherently a good thing, the preservation of human life is only good because our replicating genes demand it and isn't in any universally way preferable to the ending of all life. So when I look at social/political/whatever the hell kind of problems I look at it much in the way I'd look at a rubiks' cube, merely a puzzle to be solved. It's not that the colors intrinsically are better off all on one side, but the guy that made the rubik's cube obviously intended that to be the goal.

Civilization as a whole is attempting at moving in a direction that preserves the liberties of each individual without encroaching on the rights of others. The goal of man at present seems to be the equality of all with harm to none. Is that intrinsically better than anarchy, rape, pillaging, goat sex and snail worship? No, but man as a species sees equality and liberty as the best means of replicating genes and preserving itself as a species, which intrinsically right or not certainly seems to be the goal.

So when I say "gays deserve to get married and be treated just like any one else" it is not because I think that is fundementally a "good" thing seeing as how I don't think "good" exists. But I think it is getting all of the red squares on one side as per the goal intended. Your slippery slope argument of "Next is pedophelia" is lame and I think that you know that, you don't seem dumb enough to assume that if you give a person gay rights next is viking attacks or some other disjointed absurdity. But I do get that pedophelia isn't inherently right or wrong and is merely an arbitrary value judgement. However pedophelia goes against the goal of man's civilizations which is to preserve liberty and prevent harm to the individual. As such that would be putting a blue square with the red, and nobody wants that.

So you can argue against objective morality all you want, because I find it really quite irrelevant.



You can find me on facebook as Markus Van Rijn, if you friend me just mention you're from VGchartz and who you are here.

appolose on 19 January 2009
The_vagabond7 said:

@appolose,

if I'm not mistaken isn't that Jesus riding the ass in your avatar? If so I would assume you're a christian, which is why I find it strange that you'd use nihilism as a defense of denying gay rights. Not too many nihilistic anti-gay rights christians.

As a largely nihilistic person myself I certainly won't argue about intrinsic moral value. The protection of civilization is not inherently a good thing, the preservation of human life is only good because our replicating genes demand it and isn't in any universally way preferable to the ending of all life. So when I look at social/political/whatever the hell kind of problems I look at it much in the way I'd look at a rubiks' cube, merely a puzzle to be solved. It's not that the colors intrinsically are better off all on one side, but the guy that made the rubik's cube obviously intended that to be the goal.

Civilization as a whole is attempting at moving in a direction that preserves the liberties of each individual without encroaching on the rights of others. The goal of man at present seems to be the equality of all with harm to none. Is that intrinsically better than anarchy, rape, pillaging, goat sex and snail worship? No, but man as a species sees equality and liberty as the best means of replicating genes and preserving itself as a species, which intrinsically right or not certainly seems to be the goal.

So when I say "gays deserve to get married and be treated just like any one else" it is not because I think that is fundementally a "good" thing seeing as how I don't think "good" exists. But I think it is getting all of the red squares on one side as per the goal intended. Your slippery slope argument of "Next is pedophelia" is lame and I think that you know that, you don't seem dumb enough to assume that if you give a person gay rights next is viking attacks or some other disjointed absurdity. But I do get that pedophelia isn't inherently right or wrong and is merely an arbitrary value judgement. However pedophelia goes against the goal of man's civilizations which is to preserve liberty and prevent harm to the individual. As such that would be putting a blue square with the red, and nobody wants that.

So you can argue against objective morality all you want, because I find it really quite irrelevant.

Oh, I'm not arguing against an objective morality (I believe in it), I'm saying that the criticisms made against relgious moral enforcement can be made for the nonreligious moral enforcement.  Perhaps even better.

Now, your assement of general mankind hearkens back to what I had been saying earlier; the majority is the "moral" decider (moral being, in this case, an arbitrary preference).  I would agree that most of mankind, at the moment, seems to want to preserve itself via rights and liberty, but, then again, that's just most of mankind.  On the other parts of humanity, this standard is forced, and that is where I see the hypocricy arise: the Christian is criticized for barring gay marriage, while the critic goes along and forbids whatever he prefers.  Hence my point that the standards of the nonreligous are those that have the most enforcers.  The reason why I brought up paedophilia was to show that this method thus allows it (I'm not (I think) using the slippery slope argument).  If you're going to hold paedophilia as wrong and always wrong, you're going to have to drop this methodology.

Incidentally, he's riding a raptor :)

 



Okami

To lavish praise upon this title, the assumption of a common plateau between player and game must be made.  I won't open my unworthy mouth.

Christian (+50).  Arminian(+20). AG adherent(+20). YEC(+20). Pre-tribulation Pre-milleniumist (+10).  Republican (+15) Capitalist (+15).  Pro-Nintendo (+5).  Misc. stances (+30).  TOTAL SCORE: 195
  http://quizfarm.com/test.php?q_id=43870 <---- Fun theology quiz
The_vagabond7 on 19 January 2009

lol, sweet I love raptor Jesus.

on topic though.

I can see what you're saying. I think it was Kant that said all rationalism leads to nihilism (and then advocated abandoning rationalism in favor of revelation and faith), but I just think that's silly for any number of reasons. But for the intents of this discussion I will say that not all that don't agree with objective faith based dogma morality necessarily ascribe to nihilism either. Their rationalistic morality deems that liberty and protection are the moral zeitgeist to be followed rather than that of Christianity that uses biblical dogma that has evolved over time to be the moral zeitgeist to be followed.

It leads to a sort of reductio ad absurdum in the same way being anti-bigot does (being prejudiced against all prejudiced people). However a certain common sense kicks in when you believe in something like anti-bigotry even if it is a bizarre circular self damning concept. If the belief is "Liberty and protection for all" then that doesn't mean "Let's throw in pedophiles and goat sodomy too!" even though the reductio ad absurdum may lead to that end. The argument for gay marriage isn't an argument against moral objectivity as you seem to propose. It's an argument in favor of a different kind of objective morality that you personally don't ascribe too.



You can find me on facebook as Markus Van Rijn, if you friend me just mention you're from VGchartz and who you are here.

Sylvain316 on 19 January 2009

Because they're doing dirty and wrong things and Jesus don't like that



akuma587 on 19 January 2009
appolose said:

Oh, I'm not arguing against an objective morality (I believe in it), I'm saying that the criticisms made against relgious moral enforcement can be made for the nonreligious moral enforcement.  Perhaps even better.

Now, your assement of general mankind hearkens back to what I had been saying earlier; the majority is the "moral" decider (moral being, in this case, an arbitrary preference).  I would agree that most of mankind, at the moment, seems to want to preserve itself via rights and liberty, but, then again, that's just most of mankind.  On the other parts of humanity, this standard is forced, and that is where I see the hypocricy arise: the Christian is criticized for barring gay marriage, while the critic goes along and forbids whatever he prefers.  Hence my point that the standards of the nonreligous are those that have the most enforcers.  The reason why I brought up paedophilia was to show that this method thus allows it (I'm not (I think) using the slippery slope argument).  If you're going to hold paedophilia as wrong and always wrong, you're going to have to drop this methodology.

Incidentally, he's riding a raptor :)

 

No one is forcing anything on you if we allow gay people to get married.  We aren't trying to make you marry a gay person.  We aren't forcing your church to marry gay people, we aren't forcing you to invite gay couples to your house.  What are we forcing you to do?  Sacrifice your religious beliefs?  That's absurd, you are still entitled to not allow gay people to get married in your church and to believe that it is morally wrong for gay people to marry.  Allowing someone else to do something that has no tangible impact on your life is not depriving you of a right.  And even if that is a right, its not a right society has an interest in protecting.

By your same logic, we are infringing on people's rights who are offended by interracial marriages and who are racists when we make them eat in the same restaurant as those people.  What you are talking about is a right to determine how other people run their lives even though their choice has no tangible impact on your life other than a perceived impact.  Its different than us allowing people to murder others in society.  That can tangibly impact your life.  Gay marriage will only impact your life if you allow it to.  Its like a person being offended by interracial couples eating in a restaurant.

The right you are discussing is a right that society has no interest in protecting, since it conflicts with another person's right to live life in a way they choose when that choice does not impact society in a negative way.  You can argue that allowing gay people to marry would impact people in a negative way, but that argument has about as much support for it as saying that allowing interracial marriage will have a negative impact on society.

Show me scientific studies or documented evidence that gay marriage has a negative impact on society, and then we can talk.  You aren't basing your reasons for being against gay marriage on anything tangible or anything empirical.  Without hard evidence that it will impact society in a negative way (pretty easy to do with something like allowing murder), then your argument is weak at best.



We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.  The only thing that really worried me was the ether.  There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke

It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...."  Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson