New York New York!

Lord how you love to get righteously indignant when it suits you edgar.

It's certainly not sick to suggest that someone is the equivalent of dog **** stuck on our shoe...now is it?

Pull your pants up over your navel and cover that bulging manifestation of sanctimony.

I've not accused anyone of anything. I'm asking what you should recognize is a sensible question.

Seventy years ago there were very few people arguing for gay rights.

This either means that very few people felt gays should have rights or very few people who felt they should have rights were willing to voice such an opinion.

In any case, tell the people of 1951 that NY, in 2011, would recognize gay marriages as legal and they would be flabbergasted, irrespective of what they though of the merits of the issue.

Unless you believe mankind has made an extraordinary evolutionary leap in the last 70 years it's quite possible that we might be flabbergasted upon learning of some event 70 years hence.

You might even have been alive 70 years ago, but if so were probably just a kid who had little to no understanding or opinion on homosexuality. The adults in your life did though, and my bet is that they didn't see a whole lot of daylight between two men marrying and an adult marrying a child.

Somewhere between then and now, people have come to believe there is a very clear distinction between the two, and, more importantly, that a one time taboo should be considered acceptible.

This is the essence of progressivism afterall: change is progress and progress is inherently good.

My bet, and I could be wrong, is that you mock the slippery slope argument against gay marriage, but what reason do any of its opponents have for believing it's not a step down the slippery slope?

Because you tell them?

Come on edgar, it's not so tough a question.

Is there another group the protection of whose rights is playing around the edges of your sensibility, but which you don't have the guts to come out for at this time in history? Surely there were folks, perhaps like you, in the 40's and 50's who wanted to come out for gay rights but were afraid.

Or can you say:

Er...no it didn't.

Does this mean that you will be engaged in the on-going Good Fight for the civil rights of any combination of adults who profess to have provided consent?

Prostitutes for example?

It's an odd credo considering that liberals find it so hard to believe that people can, on their own, decide what is and is not good for themselves.

Perhaps you're limited by your imagination, but surely you can imagine multiple consenting adults wishing to have their "marriage" sanctioned by the State. A group for whose rights you will someday argue with the full force of your sanctimony?

What happens if and when society evolves to a point where 15 year olds or 12 years old are argued to be possessed of adult reasoning and therefore consent?

Of course, this will never happen...right?

I think you are very outraged that gay people are being granted rights. This becomes evident when you equate supporters with perverts. The rest of your rants are apparent smoke screens.

Why is equal rights for homosexuals a Dem party line item? In the spirit of everything we seem to hear about small government conservative this and that with the role of government, it's very clear, and it has been for some time, that what has been preached by conservatives is actually being practiced here. That's not the Democratic party line, that's the GOP one supposedly. I think that the Republicans who voted for this deserve perhaps the most credit. They had the courage to practice what they preach. Cheers to them.

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Surely the snowball against injustice will continue in other states.

I know where I'd want to live when considerations of social and financial equity for loved ones is concerned.

Bipartisan support or conscience voting would be the clincher.

Somebody lend Finn a calculator. Seventy years ago was 1941. Errors of that kind are no surprise coming from someone who so routinely demonstrates an inability to comprehend simple things.

Fortunately, we needn't go over this ground in the case of New York, because New York introduced gay marriage through legislation, without being compelled by its Supreme Court. This is exacty the way judicial conservatives want gay marriage introduced. So why can't you just be happy for New York?

That depends. Can you confirm that gays, lesbians, and transgenders will be the last group whose civil rights the pro-discrimination lobby aims to suppress?


My own standard is: any group of consenting grown-ups has the liberty to have sex with each other, and anyone who can marry, can marry each other. That means I'm against donkey marriage, but I would support the legalization of prostitution, incest, and polygamy.

That "slippery slope" argument is predicated on an unstated assumption that some special favor is being granted, rather than that rights owing all responsible adults are being recognized. No one is going to support such an absudity as marriage to goats, because goats are not adult humans, and their consent to any relationship to any human cannot be demonstrated. Finn's just throwing up one of his typical bullshit smoke screens.

As Thomas notes, no one can say whose rights will need to be defended next--it's difficult to anticipate the "i've got mine, screw you" lobby.

Sir; we have entirely the wrong attitude about rights from both ends... First, to believe that a minortiy can be told by a majority what their rights are when rights exist to protect minorities (the weak) since majorities (the strong) can resort to force... Second: The ultimate judgement of what is a right is, is based upon life and what is needed to support that right because that is all that people will defend with the lives... In this instance, the issue is not marriage, but legal equality without which no one can claim equal treatment or protection from law... The issue for the gays is simple well being, which should be the object of all good government, but it is the majority which should defend their right to deny right because- if this is attack on rights is destructive of equality is also destructive of democracy... That sort should everywhere be on the defensive, and are overywhere on the offense...

The republicans did not do this out of the goodness of their hearts... They know a petition will put the issue before the voters during the next presidential election which will get out the religious, republican, anti-gay vote... This is all beside the point... For the individual to be free, each must be able to express what their rights are, what they feel they need to be.... If their rights actually injure others, or interfere with the rights of others, then what they claim as right cannot be right... This is often the case with the rights of press and religion, and those privilages as they are cause much social injury... Can a person use a position of privilage to attack all rights??? I don't think so... It is the religious right which should be put on the defense... It is the object of government to affirm rights what ever they are reasonably claimed to be rather than to deny them... If the government stands always with the majority what good is it since we are always in some subject with the minority???

Societies can be ruined by halves... Groups can be pushed into the minority and destroyed if the majority always holds the rights... It is the hard core believers who are in the minority... It is the rich who are in the minority... Only social respect and civility protects these people, but the respect must go both ways or we are done...

Idiot

Thank you.

I see that Rhode Island tonight passed legislation allowing same sex civil unions, but not marriages. This seems to allow same sex couples the same rights to certain benefits that married couples have, but without the contentious word "marriage."
Details on this will likely appear shortly.

Equate supporters with perverts?

Really? When?

"Smokesceen" is a pretty feeble explanation for not being able to form a cogent response.

But hey, you have Setanta in you corner.

Art it was you who argued they didn't vote a party line. I'll leave it to you to figure out which party is or isn't, should or shouldn't be involved...in terms of lines.

I didnt say anything on your June 27 post because I felt that you were trying a bit of literary dodgeball in order to support a point that stated , to wit: (I paraphrase)
"70 years ago homosexuality was equated with child sexual molestation . AND, you (finn) wondered why that should change ytoday (because you then used the same phrase to slap a backhand at liberals.) {which is quite typical of folks of your stripe, }

Yes you tried to slip one past the plate and now you deny that this equating of homosexuality with child sexual molestation was what you had in mind?

HMMMM, you have apparently been given a gift of not meaning what you say, you shall rise high in the GOP

You'rs so full of **** you stink on this one.

The "pro-discrimination lobby"

Who might they be?

Fans of discrimination for the sake of it?

Since you obviously have a much better understanding of this group than do i, I think you're better able to answer your question.

Maybe 10 years from now they decide on discriminating against conservatives. Who knows?

But you've answered my question: At least two of the next groups whose rights you will fight for are polygamists and Appalachians.

Yours is the perfect impetus for the slippery slope argument : First same sex marriages and then same family marriages.

Your opinion is your opinion, but it hardly makes someone a member of the pro-discrimination lobby to think that a father marrying his daughter is fundamentally wrong.

You're honest Thomas - l'll give you that.

It was jcboy.

I don't know why this matters--my summary remains valid: Nothing about equal rights for homosexuals should be antithetical to conservative philosophy. The criticism here is simply that the real philosophy in practice is one of pick and choose.


What does this even mean? I think the Republican senators who voted yes summarized it as well as it's ever going to be: They knew it was wrong, and could not bring themselves to vote "no." Such a conclusion requires no party line at all. That said, the GOP is very monolithic these days on social issues, so this is a very bold move by the GOP Senators. They deserve a great deal of credit (perhaps the most) for this bill passing.

In the end, it's not that these few Republicans broke with conservative principles, but rather that they outed their colleagues for not doing so.

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You're hilarious. I have never mentioned a smokescreen. I guess you thought you'd just take a random cheap shot and see if you couldn't suck someone else into your stupidity. Well, you do suck, that's for sure.