Heaneyland!

Hey, I've got a cheerful burbling daughter, and I just want to tell her "You're screwed! You and all your little kindergarten friends, you'll be living like Mad Max in twenty years! Don't you get it?"

Oh, I need a nap.

                      ,
-V.

Posted by: Vardibidian at November 3, 2004 01:30 PM

This is why L and I are not having children until they can make robotic children who will survive a nuclear war and be powered by dirt. Dirt will be our only resource left after Bush hands everything over to his cronies.

Posted by: Doug at November 3, 2004 04:09 PM

You said:

Once again people prove that they would rather impose their beliefs on others than vote in their own economic benefit.

Umm, the election process is all about the majority attempting to impose its beliefs (moral or otherwise) on the minority. As I recall, you had no beef with the state of Massachusetts imposing the opposing belief on others, so your disgruntlement here comes across to me as a little self-serving.

Let's be honest: your issue here is that your fellow Americans don't see this particular issue the same way you do. You have a right to your opinions, as do the people you're complaing about here. So why not be respectful, and say something useful about the subject, instead of complaining about the election process functioning precisely as it was designed to?

(An aside: As for voting in their own economic benefit, why wouldn't a presumed selfish voter vote for perceived personal economic benefit (say, tax cuts) over than perceived national economic benefits? Which one is the surest thing?)

Posted by: Craig at November 4, 2004 12:41 AM

Craig says: "As I recall, you had no beef with the state of Massachusetts imposing the opposing belief on others, so your disgruntlement here comes across to me as a little self-serving."

I would hope that you can see that there is a massive difference in philosophy between thinking that allowing gay marriage is a good thing and thinking that banning gay marriage is a good thing. Gay marriage is something that two consenting adults agree to. It has absolutely no tangible effect on anyone's lives except the two people who get married. Being in favor of gay marriage is right up there with being in favor of civil rights.

People voting to ban something that does not affect them and that no one will ever force them to do is, frankly, immoral. America was founded on the belief that we all have our own beliefs, and we should not force our religious beliefs on others. Opposition to gay marriage is a position based entirely on religion, and positions based entirely on religion have no business being written into law.

Anyway, my beef is not merely that homophobes are blinkered throwbacks, but that it's absolutely ridiculous that instead of being able to recognize that Bush has done absolutely nothing to help them economically, done nothing to help their children's education, done nothing to ensure their health care, done nothing to make our country safer from terrorism, that these people would rather base their vote on their homophobia.

(And an aside to your aside: Bush has given the middle class a tiny tax cut and the wealthy a huge tax cut. Kerry said he'd keep the tax cut for the middle class but get rid of the tax cut for the wealthy, while Bush said no such thing. When the bill for Bush's out-of-control spending comes due, who do you expect is going to pay for it first?)

Posted by: Francis at November 4, 2004 01:02 AM

Ah, actual discourse. Thank you.

I need to make sure I'm not late for work, so I'll respond more fully here later, but for now...

You said:

"Gay marriage is something that two consenting adults agree to. It has absolutely no tangible effect on anyone's lives except the two people who get married. Being in favor of gay marriage is right up there with being in favor of civil rights."

(Points out here that both Kerry and Bush are in favor of "civil unions", as per a recent AP story. The real underlying question here is whether or not homosexeual civil unions should be considered the same thing as heterosexual civil unions or something more on the order of "equal but distinct." This has effectively been lost in the gay marriage debate a long time ago, unfortunately.)

"People voting to ban something that does not affect them and that no one will ever force them to do is, frankly, immoral. America was founded on the belief that we all have our own beliefs, and we should not force our religious beliefs on others. Opposition to gay marriage is a position based entirely on religion, and positions based entirely on religion have no business being written into law."

I think one of the things that is mobilizing religious people that otherwise are relatively content to live and let live, is the fear that once civil unions are institutionalized as marriage, it will be come incumbent on churches to perform them whether or not it is line with the religious beliefs of the church.

Craig

("Religious person" nonetheless in favor of federal recognition of civil unions but leery of amalgamating them into the traditional definition of marriage)

Posted by: Craig at November 4, 2004 08:45 AM

"I think one of the things that is mobilizing religious people that otherwise are relatively content to live and let live, is the fear that once civil unions are institutionalized as marriage, it will be come incumbent on churches to perform them whether or not it is line with the religious beliefs of the church."

Perhaps that is something that is motivating religious people -- although that belief is paranoid and ridiculous, mind you. Churches have always been able to decide who they marry. Sometimes they make exceptions, but no one is forcing them to. Marriage is currently a legal right for hets like me, but I am not inherently entitled to a church marriage unless I can convince a church to perform the ceremony (which I happen to not have been interested in anyway, so that was fine). Some churches -- the Unitarians, I expect, for instance -- will end up allowing gay marriages if they are legalized, and perhaps some parishioners will leave their church over it, but there is simply never going to be a situation where churches are forced to perform marriages they don't want to perform. And that is because of a magic thing we like to call "separation of church and state".

This is another thing which aggravates me about the way fundamentalists are trying to break down that wall between church and state: Other religious Americans should be trying to stop them. Separation of church and state is meant to protect religion. Break down that wall, and you're in danger of ending up with a de facto state religion, which might not be yours.

So, yes, I object to fundamentalist Christians impeding my right to worship as a secular humanist.

Regarding civil unions being amalgamated into the traditional definition of marriage: If a civil union has all the legal benefits of marriage, I guess I don't care what we call it. But it's essentially self-delusion to tell yourself it's not marriage. I mean, if it makes people feel better to call a gay marriage a civil union...whatever. But calling a rose a kangaroo won't make it hop.

Posted by: Francis at November 4, 2004 11:06 AM