Gays of course have the right to marry. The opposite sex.
Of course, that does not match their personal preference, but then again having your preferences catered to by the state isn’t something you can count on when you are a distinct minority.
I’d imagine you’re aware of the usual response to that, but I think it’s important enough that it bears repeating.
Whether or not being gay is a preference/choice or biologically determined is is irrelevant to the arguments in favor of gay marriage. Regardless of the cause of homosexuality, the government should not be in the business of regulating the behavior of consenting adults or discriminating based on said behavior.
In general, the argument for marriage only being valid for a man and a woman revolves around child-rearing. If that’s the case, it’s odd that so many of the legal and financial rights/privileges granted by marriage do not directly relate to child reading and, indeed, apply regardless of whether or not the married couple has children, ever plans to have children, or even can have children. For example, my mom is now past child-bearing age. Does that mean she shouldn’t be allowed to get (re)married?
So please don’t act like qualifying homosexuality as a preference and talking about the rights of gay men and women to marry people of the opposite sex as if it takes the wind out of the sails of gay marriage proponents. It doesn’t.
-R
PS – As a side note, part of a well-functioning government’s role is to protect minorities from tyranny of the majority [wikipedia.org]. So while you’re right, a minority population can’t count on the state’s protection, it’s not unreasonable to expect such protection in the (theoretical) ‘ideal’ state.
I’m a ‘bad Jew,’ in that I’m not a Zionist. (Also, I don’t believe in that ‘God’ fellow.) So seeing a prominent Jew not leaping to defend Israel is pretty great:
Just got back from the rally at Grant Park to watch President-Elect Obama delivery his victory speech.
Wow. It was just unreal. I don’t have any pictures, because I made the conscious choice not to bring my camera, but I’ll find some from elsewhere at some point and post or link to ‘em to give you an idea of what it was like.
I got there about 7PM with G and we probably got into the main staging area at about 8PM, after going through two ticket-and-ID check points and one metal detector security check point. The rally was held on the baseball diamonds directly south of Buckingham Fountain, for those of you who want to Google Maps it…the stage was on the east side, probably around a third of the way up all of the fields, facing north-west-ish. We were by the north-west entrance to the fields, on a slight hill.
When we got there the rally area was probably a third full, which meant we could have waded into the thick of things, but chose not to. First, being on a little hill meant we got to see better – from the middle of the crowd we never would have realistically seen Obama on stage well anyway. So, even though it was very far, we could see the stage clearly. It also meant we got to see the crowd, and boy what a crowd it was. I’m eager to hear how many people the police and papers are saying showed up, but I can’t even begin to try and figure it out. I just don’t have a frame of reference. But it was an amazing sight to see. (Note: As of writing this, Chicago Sun Times is saying “more than 100,000,” Chicago Tribune is saying 240,000, and NY Times is also saying 240,000, noting it’s a number from “city officials.”)
Earlier this week, I saw an ad from Obama encouraging people to take off work on November 4 to campaign. Now, I’d love to do that, but know I can’t. And, likewise, I’ve been saying for a while that I know I don’t have the time to go to a swing state or volunteer all day at a phone bank. But I discovered that the Obama site has a page which lists ways you can get involved, including making phone calls from home. They’ll provide you with names, numbers, and a calling script, and you report back how the call went (who they support, were they even home, etc).
Well, I’ve been doing that for the last hour and I’m beginning to wonder where all these so-called ‘voters’ are. Of the probably 40 phone calls I made (just checked my phone – 44 calls total) I had
About 25 wrong/disconnected/out-of-service numbers
About 10 answering machines where I left messages (hopefully at the right number…)
About 5 parents of students off at college
2 of whom said, “Don’t worry, we’ll be voting for Obama.”
1 of whom hung up when he heard “Obama”
1 (not “About 1,” just “1″) call where I reached the voter I was supposed to be calling, and she said “Oh, I appreciate what you’re doing, but we don’t vote that way.”
I’m still glad I took an hour to do that, and hope to find a few more hours before Tuesday (maybe I’ll call tomorrow on my lunch break) but it was a little frustrating! Phonebankers have my sympathy for having to do that all day, although at least they get paid for it…
Wanted to share some posts I’ve found interesting among (or, perhaps, amongst) the blogs I read regularly.
First, some politics. (Sorry, gotta get ‘em out of the way.)
Over at Feministe, the had a post about a nifty site that has presidential campaign commercials dating back to 1952. Some very interesting commercials, many of which are horribly creepy…
The Bilerico Project compares Palin to Pygmalion, noting “The talent of a George Bernard Shaw or the magic of Hollywood can turn a Cockney flower girl into a lady, depending upon the talent of the actress in the role, but there isn’t time enough to turn Sarah Palin into a serious candidate for the highest office in the country. Not believably, anyway.”
Graphjam has a helpful chart on who benefits from the $700 billion bailout. (Hint: It’s not you!)
A number of blogs noted Sarah Silverman’s new movement, The Great Schelp, encouraging Jews to get their lazy Florida grandparents to vote for Obama. Hilarious!
From tonight’s speech: “Al Qaeda terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America … he’s worried that someone won’t read them their rights?”
The best response I’ve heard is from a friend of mine: ” If they’re being read their rights, that would mean they’re being captured. Which, you know, the republicans have done… not so well with.”
From last night’s episode, on Michelle’s speech and news agencies saying she has to ‘prove her patriotism”:
“She’s a Democrat. Of course she has to prove she loves America. Unlike Republicans, who everyone knows loves America, they just hate half the people in it.”
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