Text 11220, 78 rader
Skriven 2007-01-31 20:32:42 av Vorlonagent (14657.babylon5)
     Kommentar till en text av rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated
Ärende: Re: My Presidential Pick for 2006
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"Angelika Tobisch" <kamyra@arcor.de> wrote in message 
news:45c0613d$0$27622$9b4e6d93@newsspool2.arcor-online.net...
> Vorlonagent schrieb:
>
>>> If you don't consider it good, then why do you consider it right? I
>>> don't get it.
>>
>> I don't say the government IS right to restrict marriage.  I say it HAS 
>> the right.
>>
>> Big difference.
>
> Not to me. Ideally, the government shouldn't have the right to do
> something that's not right and if it does then that should be changed.

We live an a world where a government with enough leeway to do good also has 
enough leeway to do bad.  Especially when such things are to some degree in 
the eye of the beholder.  Your "good" is someone else's "bad".

I find it helpful to recognize the state of affiars before I start thinking 
about what to do about it.  In this case, it's helpful to recognize that the 
US and individual state governments *do* have control over marriage such 
that they can deny or allow gays to marry.  It saves on useless efforts like 
San Francisco's decision to simply start issuing marriage licenses to gays 
despite a pre-existing man-woman-only initiative statute on the CA books. 
Any reasonable respect for the rule of law would require those licenses (and 
therefore the marriages that resulted) be declared void.  And that's just 
what Arnie did.

You want to marry a same-sex partner in CA, first thing you have to 
recognize is that there's an initiative on the books that says you 
can't--and start by changing that.  Ending-around that step carries a large 
chance of the whole thing imploding in front of you.  IIRC, the MASS state 
legislature very reluctantly held a vote on a man-woman initiative last 
year.  I'm pretty sure it passed and was put on the 2008 ballot, but not 
100% sure.  My google searches keep running across sites on HOW to get 
married in MASS not current deveopments in the law.


> My point being, it doesn't matter whether the government does or doesn't
> have that right, it's either right or wrong and that's what people
> should argue about, not legal semantics. The law should be formed
> according to our beliefs, not the other way round.

That's the problem with being a minority.  When the law is formed around 
"our beliefs", i.e. those of the majority, you could very well end up on the 
losing end of things.  Then what do you do?

You convince enough people to your POV that you're in the majority.  That's 
what you do.  With a rising number of man-woman marriage statutes on state 
books and MASS facing backlash from its court-imposed legalization of gay 
marriage, I'd say your POV is in a definite minority.


> For the last time, and I mean the last time: while Gay Pride Parades
> themselves can to some extent be considered tactics, the behavior you're
> criticizing is not. Therefore changing it would not equal changing
> tactics, as you keep calling it, but changing who they are for the sake
> of tactics, a behavior commonly known as hiding.

Suit yourself.


-- 
John Trauger,
Vorlonagent

"Methane martini.
Shaken, not stirred."

"Spirituality without science has no mind.

Science without spirituality has no heart."

-Methuselah Jones
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