Empty Heart of Hillary

Exactly and there are many conservatives who agree with the ruling -- just excepting those narrow-minded Medieval elitists (actually from both sides of the aisle). Individual freedom has to include the freedom to not follow religious doctrines to the letter (it was the Catholic-raised Justices who didn't like the ruling) but more modern philosophies that didn't stem out of the Spanish Inquisition. Scalia and the rest should be ushered aboard a time machine and sent back to that time where they belong.
Regressives, each and every one of them.

That's a good one, mamajuana!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/gayrights/story/0,12592,988154,00.html

mama<

The Margulies cartoon is a winner!


blatham<

Thanks for linking us to the Guardian in Great Britain.

This week's issue of Newsweek features a cover story on gay marriage. www.msnbc.newsweek.com

I am sure the 2004 election will include the rights of gays as a major issue. It's one that's only peeped out from behind the closet door in previous national elections.

While the hypocrites who claim they aren't hobophobic continue to declare that they have grounds to refuse equal rights for gays because they are demanding more rights than they deserve...

I haven't decided yet what I think about this latest SC decision, but I want to ask you a question...

Do you believe its possible for someone to oppose the sanction of Gay Marriage without being "homophobic"?

civil sanction-no
religious sanction-yes

snood

I know you've asked LW your question, but hope you don't mind if I toss in some thoughts.

I'm afraid I can't see any rationale for disallowing gay marriage other than where some negative notions exist regarding homosexuality, some idea that it is wrong or inferior or perverse or unnatural.

"Homophobia" will sometimes be defined as merely 'fear of', but where I've seen it so defined, it has universally been by those who want to escape the label of bigot, or to suggest they are not prejudiced. But that semantic move is a very shallow and unconvincing one.

dys

In terms of policy, that seems the way to go alright, and it is what we are likely to do here in Canada. No church will be forced by the state to perform the ceremony, but those churches who wish to, may.

So, in short your answer is no. But Blatham, no matter what "bigot" or "homophobe" label you put on a person, the fact remains that there are still people (I tend to vacillate) who do not believe homosexuality is a normal and/or moral state. Don't kill the messenger for saying it aloud.

normal and/or moral opens up another can of worms...midgets are abnormal to the 6 footer, married priests are immoral to the catholic church.

...there's varieties of worm cans for every preference - there's the one you named, there's the one about indignance that the gay "movement" co-opts the language and spirit of civil rights, and there are a couple others...

I have trouble with any law dictating a church must allow and/or perform gay marriages -- a difficult law to write for certain and I doubt we'll see anything of the sort anytime soon. But the states shouldn't be able to pass laws forbidding it either -- completely regressive and unfair. As far as being a recognized union in the public records I believe that is coming whether one likes it or not and rightly so. The Vermont law is a model. It's a moot point if a license is issue for such a union and the service is performed in a gay or gay friendly church. The Methodists are gay friendly in many parts of the country, for instance.

BTW, you can believe anything you want (I've said it before and I'll say it again that belief is what you wish to be true, not necessarily what is true) -- laws or lack of laws shouldn't be based on a minority's opinion about their feelings toward's gays (and all polls are showing the American public does not sanction discrimination based on sexual orientation, which is also so say that it is not a preference or a choice -- it is how someone is genetically wired).

there are still serious arguments about this - it is not unassailable "fact"

snood, Many of us disagree with the idea that homosexuals can change. That may be true for some, but there are too many humans that for some biological/mental attributes that suggest to me that that's how they are wired. Some have a need to change their sex, because they feel uncomfortable in their biological makeup. They must get psychiatric and surgical care to change their sex. That's the way they feel and live. Rather than demeaning such people, we should treat them with empathy and understanding, and allow them legal equality. They want to do it for themselves, and not to change your lifestyle. Some people just feel threatened, because they don't understand what these people go through. c.i.

snood

I'd be happy to discuss this via PM if more comfortable to you.

As to your suggestion above that there is still a vital on-going debate within the secular science community regarding a genetic/biological component, I think you no longer can make the claim. It's probably not a prudent position anyway, for if even you become convinced that the science here is correct (and there is a genetic determiner), you'll have to fall back to some other line of defence.

what is known is that there is no absolute genetic marker for gender determination, all peoples are varing degress of masculine/feminine in a common bell curve distribution.

Here are points on homophobia from the American Psychoanalytic Association:

Psychoanalytic Discussion Points on Homophobia
Despite an overall decrease in violent crimes, there was an 8% increase in bias-motivated incidents reported to the FBI in 1997 as compared to 1996.

A psychoanalytic frame of reference is very useful in trying to understand why it is difficult to achieve attitudinal changes. (People's attitudes towards themselves and towards other people depend not just on conscious factors-what they believe or don't believe-but also on unconscious factors like thoughts and feelings that are outside their conscious awareness.)

In some (perhaps many) people, homophobia derives, in part, from a heterosexual's fear and anxiety about his (it seems to be more common and most dangerous in young men) own sexuality. Such a person worries that he has homosexual desires.

Psychologically the homophobic activity actually represents the EXTERNALIZATION of the homophobe's self-hatred, of his hostility toward something that lies within himself.

An unwanted pass from a gay person has been used as a justification for a violent response. In fact, "crimes of passion" have been ever-present in human history (where a sexual pass at a man's girlfriend provokes a violent reaction by the spurned man against the other man).

Because it involves issues of sexual identity and sexual orientation-both issues involving the body-anti-gay bigotry may be a deeper phenomenon than either anti-Semitism or racism.

The most significant psychoanalytic approach is one in which there are no a priori assumptions about what a therapist or analyst should or should not do in treatment with regard to sexual orientation or any other aspect of life.

Therapists who do not take into consideration the impact on gay children (or children who will grow up gay) of social and familial hostility, do not understand how this hostility undermines gay children's self-esteem, and therefore their emotional and psychological functioning.


http://www.apsa-co.org/ctf/pubinfo/NewsRoom/newsreleases/hpoints.htm