I understand the temptation to say "tough titty" to some backwards moron who doesn't like you for some superficial reason, nobody likes that, but it sets a precedent that I would like far less when it reaches it's logical conclusion. People on some level need to have the right to say "no" to things they object to, at least in what effects them most personally.
There is an equally bad precedent (I would argue far worse, I suppose that is what separates us) that all people arent entitled to equal protection under the law. It may start with "We wont let black people live in our neighborhood" or "we wont hire Native Americans", but that can (and has) quickly spiraled out of control. It becomes things like "Why should LGBTQ people be allowed to get married?" (I wont cite more extreme historical since people dismiss those as fear mongering since things like Eugenics are hard to defend). I remind you, it was only 5 years that this basic protection was affirmed, and less than 20 since a president suggested we should amend the constitution to prevent it from ever happening.
- and not for nothing, but it's easy for us Cis Straight White Men to be comfortable with the institutionalization of discrimination. We know it will never affect us.
Because, in a Christian society, Marriage is a religious term. It is a sacrament. It was a mistake to not have that separation of church and state when all beneficial marriage laws were being written.
I personally think the term marriage should have stayed religious (separation of religion and state) and another term, like civil union be put in its place. Marriage would be considered a civil union, but so to would couples getting a certificate from a judge or law clerk to get all the benefits a marriage certificate can receive.
Do I think a church should be forced to allow a gay couple in their church? Hell to the no (even if this is counter to my personal spiritual beliefs that everyone is equal under the eye of god). If a person is not a regular patron to the church, Or believe in the words that they preach, I do not believe the church needs to open their doors to everyone looking to get married.
Throughout the course of history, in various cultures that include Christian society, marriage has often been a political/socio-economic construct, and its connection to religious values has often been tenuous at best. Since Christian churches have sanctioned polygamous arrangements and arranged/forced marriages in the past, I personally don't think that they're in position to claim moral high ground or religious exemption when it comes to this topic.
As to the term marriage itself... Language is malleable, and the meaning of words often changes and expends. This should be (and is) one of those instances where that holds true.
Arranged marriages still happen. I had a friend just last year move to Australia (from Canada) because she was arranged to marry a guy she had met once or twice. That doesn’t make her union any less special than those that fall in love and decide to spend the rest of their life together (or until they can legally get a divorce and split all they own in messy court procedures).
It should be noted that marrying for love is the new concept.
It also doesn’t remove marriage as it is known between a man and a woman as a Sacrament and people need to realize that most of the pushback comes from that. It’s understanding the other side and not just dismissing them. What is wrong with a broad term like ”civil union”?
And just to be clear. I am all for same sex marriage, and will use that term because it is the norm. My point, is that the word marriage, should never have been the norm.
Civil partnerships have been available for gay couples in the UK since 2004. That option was a huge advance towards equality, but it didn't resolve all issues. The status of marriage and civil partnership in law was close, but not identical and there were certainly plenty of people who still resented being asked to accept a 'second-class' situation. Some of those anomalies have now been addressed by more recent legislation.
On the other side there were also people who felt uncomfortable with the historical and patriarchal associations of marriage and felt that civil partnerships should be available to everyone (and not just gay couples). From tomorrow that will be the case. I think that should mean the status of civil partnerships will become much more widely accepted as equal to marriage in future - and make it easier for marriage to be left for those who value its religious and historical significance.
Make both available to any two people who want them. The arguments against it in 2019 are antiquated nonsense. In America from 2000-2008, we were literally told on a weekly basis how gay marriage, two people who had likely already been living together for years, being granted legal protections, would lead to the collapse of civil society. Then Senator Rick Santorum (who still shows up on CNN multiple times a week for reasons beyond understanding) said it would lead to men marrying their dogs, an explicit way of comparing gay sex to beastiality. In the almost 20 years I have been following this issue, not a single person has offered a cogent argument as to how a gay couple getting married affects a straight, Christian couple in any way that isn't a figment of their imagination.
I understand the temptation to say "tough titty" to some backwards moron who doesn't like you for some superficial reason, nobody likes that, but it sets a precedent that I would like far less when it reaches it's logical conclusion. People on some level need to have the right to say "no" to things they object to, at least in what effects them most personally.
There is an equally bad precedent (I would argue far worse, I suppose that is what separates us) that all people arent entitled to equal protection under the law. It may start with "We wont let black people live in our neighborhood" or "we wont hire Native Americans", but that can (and has) quickly spiraled out of control. It becomes things like "Why should LGBTQ people be allowed to get married?" (I wont cite more extreme historical since people dismiss those as fear mongering since things like Eugenics are hard to defend). I remind you, it was only 5 years that this basic protection was affirmed, and less than 20 since a president suggested we should amend the constitution to prevent it from ever happening.
- and not for nothing, but it's easy for us Cis Straight White Men to be comfortable with the institutionalization of discrimination. We know it will never affect us.
Because, in a Christian society, Marriage is a religious term. It is a sacrament. It was a mistake to not have that separation of church and state when all beneficial marriage laws were being written.
I personally think the term marriage should have stayed religious (separation of religion and state) and another term, like civil union be put in its place. Marriage would be considered a civil union, but so to would couples getting a certificate from a judge or law clerk to get all the benefits a marriage certificate can receive.
Do I think a church should be forced to allow a gay couple in their church? Hell to the no (even if this is counter to my personal spiritual beliefs that everyone is equal under the eye of god). If a person is not a regular patron to the church, Or believe in the words that they preach, I do not believe the church needs to open their doors to everyone looking to get married.
Throughout the course of history, in various cultures that include Christian society, marriage has often been a political/socio-economic construct, and its connection to religious values has often been tenuous at best. Since Christian churches have sanctioned polygamous arrangements and arranged/forced marriages in the past, I personally don't think that they're in position to claim moral high ground or religious exemption when it comes to this topic.
As to the term marriage itself... Language is malleable, and the meaning of words often changes and expends. This should be (and is) one of those instances where that holds true.
Arranged marriages still happen. I had a friend just last year move to Australia (from Canada) because she was arranged to marry a guy she had met once or twice. That doesn’t make her union any less special than those that fall in love and decide to spend the rest of their life together (or until they can legally get a divorce and split all they own in messy court procedures).
It should be noted that marrying for love is the new concept.
It also doesn’t remove marriage as it is known between a man and a woman as a Sacrament and people need to realize that most of the pushback comes from that. It’s understanding the other side and not just dismissing them. What is wrong with a broad term like ”civil union”?
And just to be clear. I am all for same sex marriage, and will use that term because it is the norm. My point, is that the word marriage, should never have been the norm.
Civil partnerships have been available for gay couples in the UK since 2004. That option was a huge advance towards equality, but it didn't resolve all issues. The status of marriage and civil partnership in law was close, but not identical and there were certainly plenty of people who still resented being asked to accept a 'second-class' situation. Some of those anomalies have now been addressed by more recent legislation.
On the other side there were also people who felt uncomfortable with the historical and patriarchal associations of marriage and felt that civil partnerships should be available to everyone (and not just gay couples). From tomorrow that will be the case. I think that should mean the status of civil partnerships will become much more widely accepted as equal to marriage in future - and make it easier for marriage to be left for those who value its religious and historical significance.
My caveat with this is that I am proclaiming the opposite.
Civil Unions is the broader term and should have more advantages than the term marriage. It’s not going to change with a snap of a finger, and as you pointed out, there will always be hiccups as things get missed, and then addressed.
As to the church allowing gays to get married, it’s a fear of creep, which is real. It may not be advocated yet, but it takes one or two ignorant people to question “why not can two people who are in love marry in the church that they met?” Peer and social pressure comes forth without anyone asking the question knowing what the sacrament of marriage actually means and the conservative religious types get type cast as the homophobic cultist if they don’t agree.
It's been almost five years since Obergefell and there has been no creep. There hasn't been any push for creep. It's a straw-man. The only thing that HAS happened is we had an elected government official in Kentucky who refused to hand out marriage licenses after the decision. Of course, she was made into a martyr by the entire right-wing media apparatus. If this had been a pastor refusing to perform a marriage ceremony, they'd have a point. But once again it had to do with the STATE recognizing the law and another example of someone using their religion as an excuse not to do their job. I am zero tolerance on this job thing. You are WELL aware of what your responsibilities will be in most cases when you take a job. If you can't handle the duties because of your personal beliefs, then shape up or ship out, as my mother used to tell me.
As for the social pressure.....look. Churches have marginalized themselves. Their most visible leaders are grifting charlatans. The Catholic Church could at this point accurately be described as a cover-up operation for an international pedophilia ring. It's not some kind of mystery why less and less people are religious.
And evangelicals are making themselves even more a laughingstock by putting Trump up on the cross as their divine idol. The idiot doesn't know the first thing about the Bible or Christianity. He's a lifelong criminal businessman shameless self promoter. That's their hero - the divorced adulterer charity & university scam artist guy that said grab em by the hooha.
I also love that the hypothetical LGBT enclave here is what is being referred to as the "snowflakes" when we are literally getting suggestions that the feelings of racists or homophobes are SO important that we should actually enact local statutes that bar certain people from living in certain places. The cognitive dissonance to make that statement in the light of this discussion is simply ASTOUNDING.
I simply happen to view all people as equals and do not discriminate between feelings of e.g. racists and LGBT. Astounding, isn't it?
The idea that it's the "left" that is overly sensitive given what your "side" of this divide is admitting isn't even just laughable, it's deranged.
My side? You mean liberals? No, I can't think of anything like that
In case it wasn't obvious, it is beyond doubt to me that the American far left is no less totalitarian and bigotric than its far right, both equally far from liberal ideas.
Looks like Black Domestic Terrorism is on the rise in the U.S. The Jersey shooting couple weeks ago, last night at a Hanukkah celebration and today at a predominantly White church in Texas.
2020 is gonna be a hell of a year.
Shooter in the Texas Church was white.
One of the victims of that particular shooting was black, though.
Looks like Black Domestic Terrorism is on the rise in the U.S. The Jersey shooting couple weeks ago, last night at a Hanukkah celebration and today at a predominantly White church in Texas.
2020 is gonna be a hell of a year.
Shooter in the Texas Church was white.
Incidentally, the suspect in the stabbing case is being charged with a hate crime. Proof positive that the statute applies to everyone and is not used selectively.
On the one side, we have people maybe asking that you not call them a f****t or n****r in public and some people thinking that is the highest form of oppression imaginable. And on the other the idea that's it's perfectly reasonable to segregate communities to make sure straight white people are 110% comfortable with EVERYTHING around them for the entirety of their lives. I mean, seriously, holy hell. The idea that it's the "left" that is overly sensitive given what your "side" of this divide is admitting isn't even just laughable, it's deranged.
The Reactionary Mind by Corey Robin goes into this tendency in great detail. It's a rather amazing breakdown of how reactionary politics are structured in the mode of doing the thing while accusing other people of doing the thing.
In case it wasn't obvious, it is beyond doubt to me that the American far left is no less totalitarian and bigotric than its far right, both equally far from liberal ideas.
This is demonstrably false. Sure, point to a couple of tankies to prove your point but overall, the left is far too diverse to slot into a single box like this, and certainly not this BS horseshoe theory nonsense that the far left and the far right are comparable to this degree.
Fishhook theory is the real thing, though.
I had to come back: Just imagine looking at the "subsidized health care for everyone, poverty should be eliminated, everyone should have housing, everyone should have enough to eat" left and the "we need to remove anyone who isn't cisgender, straight, white, and able-bodied from society" right and thinking "Yes, these are exactly the same.
Just how many churches have the far left shot up in the past few years, exactly?
The core of the Democratic primary vote is African-Americans. What these numbers tell me is 3 things:
1.) They trust Joe Biden more than Bernie. I think the promises Bernie is making ring hollow with them. They, more than anyone, know things don't change like he is insinuating.
2.) Obama is still an incredibly popular figure, in the public at large, but especially among Dem primary voters. Biden's loyalty and friendship with him has real coattails.
3.) The Democratic primary electorate may simply be far more centrist than I anticipated, and certainly nowhere NEAR as far left as the Republican base is far right. There is simply no argument to be made that Biden isn't a moderate candiate.
Point being, his numbers aren't going anywhere. Kamala Harris' support seems to have mostly shifted to him (which isn't entirely surprising). I would have expected his numbers to plummet. They haven't. And, for better or worse, he is essentially taking a "Trumpian" approach on the campaign trail, basically getting into verbal fistfights with tough questioners. I don't know. Maybe this is what people want.
The core of the Democratic primary vote is African-Americans. What these numbers tell me is 3 things:
1.) They trust Joe Biden more than Bernie. I think the promises Bernie is making ring hollow with them. They, more than anyone, know things don't change like he is insinuating.
2.) Obama is still an incredibly popular figure, in the public at large, but especially among Dem primary voters. Biden's loyalty and friendship with him has real coattails.
3.) The Democratic primary electorate may simply be far more centrist than I anticipated, and certainly nowhere NEAR as far left as the Republican base is far right. There is simply no argument to be made that Biden isn't a moderate candiate.
Point being, his numbers aren't going anywhere. Kamala Harris' support seems to have mostly shifted to him (which isn't entirely surprising). I would have expected his numbers to plummet. They haven't. And, for better or worse, he is essentially taking a "Trumpian" approach on the campaign trail, basically getting into verbal fistfights with tough questioners. I don't know. Maybe this is what people want.
I dont think it's really all that surprising. Hillary Clinton beat Sanders last time around rather convincingly, and the majority of her voters arent onboard with Bernie Sanders. So his best bet to win is to win with the fraction of voters from last time that werent with her. That's less than half, and he's now splitting it once again with Warren who is his ideological rival and Biden/Buttigieg who are both white men.
I think perhaps one of the more interesting things about the democratic nomination is that Sanders won something like 42% of the votes cast last time, and is struggling to stay at 20% in this field. It goes to show that something like half of his support were anti-Clinton rather than super pro-Bernie. I think this was probably a miscalculation made by his campaign, and has hamstrung him somewhat.
The core of the Democratic primary vote is African-Americans. What these numbers tell me is 3 things:
1.) They trust Joe Biden more than Bernie. I think the promises Bernie is making ring hollow with them. They, more than anyone, know things don't change like he is insinuating.
2.) Obama is still an incredibly popular figure, in the public at large, but especially among Dem primary voters. Biden's loyalty and friendship with him has real coattails.
3.) The Democratic primary electorate may simply be far more centrist than I anticipated, and certainly nowhere NEAR as far left as the Republican base is far right. There is simply no argument to be made that Biden isn't a moderate candiate.
Point being, his numbers aren't going anywhere. Kamala Harris' support seems to have mostly shifted to him (which isn't entirely surprising). I would have expected his numbers to plummet. They haven't. And, for better or worse, he is essentially taking a "Trumpian" approach on the campaign trail, basically getting into verbal fistfights with tough questioners. I don't know. Maybe this is what people want.
I dont think it's really all that surprising. Hillary Clinton beat Sanders last time around rather convincingly, and the majority of her voters arent onboard with Bernie Sanders. So his best bet to win is to win with the fraction of voters from last time that werent with her. That's less than half, and he's now splitting it once again with Warren who is his ideological rival and Biden/Buttigieg who are both white men.
I think perhaps one of the more interesting things about the democratic nomination is that Sanders won something like 42% of the votes cast last time, and is struggling to stay at 20% in this field. It goes to show that something like half of his support were anti-Clinton rather than super pro-Bernie. I think this was probably a miscalculation made by his campaign, and has hamstrung him somewhat.
I couldn't tell you who is running Biden or Warren's campaign. But I can name about 3 or 4 people who are running Bernie's. Because they are on Twitter ever day throwing hay-makers at every opportunity. And at a certain point, it doesn't just seem like you are aiming them at the candidates. It seems like you are aiming it at their supporters. I mean, they aren't really running a campaign. They think they have a movement. And, to an extent, they do. But the amount of people who need to get on board the revolution train have......not done so. Not enough of them at this juncture.
Hillary beat Sanders convincingly? Well I'm unconvinced because she had the whole Democratic party establishment rigging things for her. The DNC was a fundraising arm of the Clinton campaign. Donna Brazille fed Hillary debate questions. Superdelegates rigged votes.
In the 2016 Democratic primary in West Virginia, Bernie Sanders won all 55 counties— yes, all of them; yet the Democratic Party and the Democratic National Committee made it so Clinton ended up with more West Virginian delegates than Sanders. And in Fahrenheit 11/9 Michael Moore points out that West Virginia was not the only state where this kind of disenfranchisement occurred.
Biden says he'd consider a Republican VP pick. At first glance this might sound good as a unity ticket.
But Biden, who would be 78 when he started as President, would be one "accident" away from handing the Presidency back to Republicans. You know Republican cultists would love to see that happen and would be all too willing to help things along considering the right wing's propensity for violence.
And if the House goes back to Republicans they'd impeach him at the drop of a hat to get their boy back into the top job.
And even without those two things, he'd be giving the potential tie breaking vote in the Senate to the Republican party.
Imagine having to be the campaign staffer tasked with trying to change old Joe's mind things and then watching him go back out there and say more dumb stuff that he obviously has not thought through.
Biden says he'd consider a Republican VP pick. At first glance this might sound good as a unity ticket.
But Biden, who would be 78 when he started as President, would be one "accident" away from handing the Presidency back to Republicans. You know Republican cultists would love to see that happen and would be all too willing to help things along considering the right wing's propensity for violence.
And if the House goes back to Republicans they'd impeach him at the drop of a hat to get their boy back into the top job.
And even without those two things, he'd be giving the potential tie breaking vote in the Senate to the Republican party.
Imagine having to be the campaign staffer tasked with trying to change old Joe's mind things and then watching him go back out there and say more dumb stuff that he obviously has not thought through.
Hillary beat Sanders convincingly? Well I'm unconvinced because she had the whole Democratic party establishment rigging things for her. The DNC was a fundraising arm of the Clinton campaign. Donna Brazille fed Hillary debate questions. Superdelegates rigged votes.
In the 2016 Democratic primary in West Virginia, Bernie Sanders won all 55 counties— yes, all of them; yet the Democratic Party and the Democratic National Committee made it so Clinton ended up with more West Virginian delegates than Sanders. And in Fahrenheit 11/9 Michael Moore points out that West Virginia was not the only state where this kind of disenfranchisement occurred.
She won by 12% of all votes. That’s an absolute landslide of a victory. Citing conspiracy theories doesn’t advance your case.
Sanders won 43% of all votes cast in the 2016 primary and is currently only getting a little under 20ish percent. You should be far more concerned with that than trying to hand wave his loss to Clinton.
I don't think anyone seriously thinks Biden would actually do this. It's just bipartisan catnip.
This. He gets to look like he’s willing to compromise without actually having to do it. You may not like him, but it’s saying things like this that make him infinitely more likely to win back the senate in 2020 than anyone else in the field.
The rumor from the beginning if Biden gets the nomination is he would choose Stacy Abrams (you know, the legitimate Governor of Georgia) as his running mate. Frankly, if he did so and her portfolio as VP was focusing on stopping the GOP's endless, nation-wide crusade to strip voting rights from every minority they can get away with, I'd move from tepid support to enthusiastic.
I'm not voting for Biden in the primary and will be disappointed if people pick him as the nominee.
But in the general election, ANY Democratic candidate is better than Trump's hateful self-dealing ass. He's spent nearly a third of his Presidency at Trump properties pumping tax dollars into his own pockets and has spent more on golf in 3 years (at his own courses) than Obama did in 8. He runs foreign policy to help himself, not the country, and Republicans are too cucked afraid of a mean tweet to stand up to him. It's totally pathetic.
Even Tulsi is better, though there's zero chance she'd be the Democratic nominee.
We should just be staying the hell out of the Middle East at this point. We have spent all possible moral authority we once had in the past decades and our reputation is unrecoverable for at least a generation. We tortured people under Bush and then under Obama we were just straight up killing American citizens and little kids on his say-so alone. Trump still has that power and uses it. It's no wonder so many hate us.
Does nobody cares out foriegn policy or civil liberties anymore? The entire discourse around the Trump era has been about the most irrelevant, tangential subjects. It really just blows my mind, in general, that the practice of extrajudicial murder doesn't get more attention, but then I remember, it doesn't fit the self-righteous narrative.
This post is about the recent embassy attack, in case nobody brought it up yet.
Looking at the poll numbers, Bernie may be competitive against Biden if Warren were to drop out, assuming most Warren voters would default to Bernie, an assumption I think is safe. Biden can beat Trump though, I think, in the best case. He has that everyday person vibe most other Dem nominees lack and has the legacy of the sainted Obama era to boot.
Warren comes off to me as a calculated liar, whereas Bernie seems sincere. It's a shame he never got his break. I think, were he more combative with his own side, he would have gone further.
Looking at the poll numbers, Bernie may be competitive against Biden if Warren were to drop out, assuming most Warren voters would default to Bernie, an assumption I think is safe. Biden can beat Trump though, I think, in the best case. He has that everyday person vibe most other Dem nominees lack and has the legacy of the sainted Obama era to boot.
Warren comes off to me as a calculated liar, whereas Bernie seems sincere. It's a shame he never got his break. I think, were he more combative with his own side, he would have gone further.
A - Polling that we have doesnt really agree with the assessment that Warren voters would pivot to Bernie. A large share of Warren's supporters are well educated white women, and those were the sort of voters that preferred Clinton over Bernie. It stands to reason that a significant number of them (probably about half) would move to Biden or Buttigieg.
B - I personally disagree about her being a calculated liar. Of course, that concept is utterly irrelevant considering who her opponent would be.
Make both available to any two people who want them. The arguments against it in 2019 are antiquated nonsense.
That may be so, but with the way public opinion is changing among young people, we may be having that debate yet again. Now it is a minority among the young who are comfortable with it, a drop of nearly 20% in recent years.
Looking at the poll numbers, Bernie may be competitive against Biden if Warren were to drop out, assuming most Warren voters would default to Bernie, an assumption I think is safe. Biden can beat Trump though, I think, in the best case. He has that everyday person vibe most other Dem nominees lack and has the legacy of the sainted Obama era to boot.
Warren comes off to me as a calculated liar, whereas Bernie seems sincere. It's a shame he never got his break. I think, were he more combative with his own side, he would have gone further.
A - Polling that we have doesnt really agree with the assessment that Warren voters would pivot to Bernie. A large share of Warren's supporters are well educated white women, and those were the sort of voters that preferred Clinton over Bernie. It stands to reason that a significant number of them (probably about half) would move to Biden or Buttigieg.
B - I personally disagree about her being a calculated liar. Of course, that concept is utterly irrelevant considering who her opponent would be.
I don't know the details about the polling, really. I haven't followed the race that well. That was just my gut impression.
That may be so, but with the way public opinion is changing among young people, we may be having that debate yet again. Now it is a minority among the young who are comfortable with it, a drop of nearly 20% in recent years.
LGBTQ acceptance is still are essentially the best place it has ever been. You can see a dip in the graphs, but when compared with the context of the past 20 years...
I dont foresee a significant backlash, especially since the root of the majority of hostility towards LGBTQ communities is religious in nature, and religious attendance is declining.
I don't know the details about the polling, really. I haven't followed the race that well. That was just my gut impression.
That's fair. I'm going off the whole "Who would your second choice be?" thing in polls, which is admittedly somewhat bad information. More often than not, the next highest person in the polls is the second choice just because he or she is perceived as a potential winner.
I don't think this is a religious objection. I say that because while LGBT acceptance has gone down, so had religious affiliation. You would expect the two to go hand in hand. This is something different. I would really like to know why the sudden shift, didn't see it in the study but I'm not done reading, but I have my theories.
Looking at the poll numbers, Bernie may be competitive against Biden if Warren were to drop out, assuming most Warren voters would default to Bernie, an assumption I think is safe. Biden can beat Trump though, I think, in the best case. He has that everyday person vibe most other Dem nominees lack and has the legacy of the sainted Obama era to boot.
Warren comes off to me as a calculated liar, whereas Bernie seems sincere. It's a shame he never got his break. I think, were he more combative with his own side, he would have gone further.
I personally can’t wait for the 12 hour investigational hearing regarding the said attack.
For the US to actually pull out of the Middle East, they have to make a strong commitment to peace with Iran. It’s too bad the current administration completely ruined any possible plans of that happening soon after the strives the previous administration made.
We can pull out anytime we want to. No preconditions neccesary. Neither Assad nor Hassan nor the boogieman of the moment is going to attack us, and I am sure they would be just fine seeing us go. Because the government, in bipartisan fashion, wants permanent war and occupation, they will always put us in a position to be obligated until we insist that enough is enough.
Comments
Make both available to any two people who want them. The arguments against it in 2019 are antiquated nonsense. In America from 2000-2008, we were literally told on a weekly basis how gay marriage, two people who had likely already been living together for years, being granted legal protections, would lead to the collapse of civil society. Then Senator Rick Santorum (who still shows up on CNN multiple times a week for reasons beyond understanding) said it would lead to men marrying their dogs, an explicit way of comparing gay sex to beastiality. In the almost 20 years I have been following this issue, not a single person has offered a cogent argument as to how a gay couple getting married affects a straight, Christian couple in any way that isn't a figment of their imagination.
My caveat with this is that I am proclaiming the opposite.
Civil Unions is the broader term and should have more advantages than the term marriage. It’s not going to change with a snap of a finger, and as you pointed out, there will always be hiccups as things get missed, and then addressed.
As to the church allowing gays to get married, it’s a fear of creep, which is real. It may not be advocated yet, but it takes one or two ignorant people to question “why not can two people who are in love marry in the church that they met?” Peer and social pressure comes forth without anyone asking the question knowing what the sacrament of marriage actually means and the conservative religious types get type cast as the homophobic cultist if they don’t agree.
As for the social pressure.....look. Churches have marginalized themselves. Their most visible leaders are grifting charlatans. The Catholic Church could at this point accurately be described as a cover-up operation for an international pedophilia ring. It's not some kind of mystery why less and less people are religious.
I simply happen to view all people as equals and do not discriminate between feelings of e.g. racists and LGBT. Astounding, isn't it?
My side? You mean liberals? No, I can't think of anything like that
In case it wasn't obvious, it is beyond doubt to me that the American far left is no less totalitarian and bigotric than its far right, both equally far from liberal ideas.
Shooter in the Texas Church was white.
One of the victims of that particular shooting was black, though.
Incidentally, the suspect in the stabbing case is being charged with a hate crime. Proof positive that the statute applies to everyone and is not used selectively.
The Reactionary Mind by Corey Robin goes into this tendency in great detail. It's a rather amazing breakdown of how reactionary politics are structured in the mode of doing the thing while accusing other people of doing the thing.
This is demonstrably false. Sure, point to a couple of tankies to prove your point but overall, the left is far too diverse to slot into a single box like this, and certainly not this BS horseshoe theory nonsense that the far left and the far right are comparable to this degree.
Fishhook theory is the real thing, though.
I had to come back: Just imagine looking at the "subsidized health care for everyone, poverty should be eliminated, everyone should have housing, everyone should have enough to eat" left and the "we need to remove anyone who isn't cisgender, straight, white, and able-bodied from society" right and thinking "Yes, these are exactly the same.
Just how many churches have the far left shot up in the past few years, exactly?
0
And as has been pointed out before every single extremist murder last year was right wing.
https://www.adl.org/news/press-releases/right-wing-extremism-linked-to-every-2018-extremist-murder-in-the-us-adl-finds
Not the same at all, do your research.
The core of the Democratic primary vote is African-Americans. What these numbers tell me is 3 things:
1.) They trust Joe Biden more than Bernie. I think the promises Bernie is making ring hollow with them. They, more than anyone, know things don't change like he is insinuating.
2.) Obama is still an incredibly popular figure, in the public at large, but especially among Dem primary voters. Biden's loyalty and friendship with him has real coattails.
3.) The Democratic primary electorate may simply be far more centrist than I anticipated, and certainly nowhere NEAR as far left as the Republican base is far right. There is simply no argument to be made that Biden isn't a moderate candiate.
Point being, his numbers aren't going anywhere. Kamala Harris' support seems to have mostly shifted to him (which isn't entirely surprising). I would have expected his numbers to plummet. They haven't. And, for better or worse, he is essentially taking a "Trumpian" approach on the campaign trail, basically getting into verbal fistfights with tough questioners. I don't know. Maybe this is what people want.
I dont think it's really all that surprising. Hillary Clinton beat Sanders last time around rather convincingly, and the majority of her voters arent onboard with Bernie Sanders. So his best bet to win is to win with the fraction of voters from last time that werent with her. That's less than half, and he's now splitting it once again with Warren who is his ideological rival and Biden/Buttigieg who are both white men.
I think perhaps one of the more interesting things about the democratic nomination is that Sanders won something like 42% of the votes cast last time, and is struggling to stay at 20% in this field. It goes to show that something like half of his support were anti-Clinton rather than super pro-Bernie. I think this was probably a miscalculation made by his campaign, and has hamstrung him somewhat.
I couldn't tell you who is running Biden or Warren's campaign. But I can name about 3 or 4 people who are running Bernie's. Because they are on Twitter ever day throwing hay-makers at every opportunity. And at a certain point, it doesn't just seem like you are aiming them at the candidates. It seems like you are aiming it at their supporters. I mean, they aren't really running a campaign. They think they have a movement. And, to an extent, they do. But the amount of people who need to get on board the revolution train have......not done so. Not enough of them at this juncture.
In the 2016 Democratic primary in West Virginia, Bernie Sanders won all 55 counties— yes, all of them; yet the Democratic Party and the Democratic National Committee made it so Clinton ended up with more West Virginian delegates than Sanders. And in Fahrenheit 11/9 Michael Moore points out that West Virginia was not the only state where this kind of disenfranchisement occurred.
But Biden, who would be 78 when he started as President, would be one "accident" away from handing the Presidency back to Republicans. You know Republican cultists would love to see that happen and would be all too willing to help things along considering the right wing's propensity for violence.
And if the House goes back to Republicans they'd impeach him at the drop of a hat to get their boy back into the top job.
And even without those two things, he'd be giving the potential tie breaking vote in the Senate to the Republican party.
Imagine having to be the campaign staffer tasked with trying to change old Joe's mind things and then watching him go back out there and say more dumb stuff that he obviously has not thought through.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-biden-idUSKBN1YZ025
I don't think anyone seriously thinks Biden would actually do this. It's just bipartisan catnip.
"He said, "This team responded quickly and within six seconds, the shooting was over.""
https://www.foxnews.com/us/texas-church-shooting-texas-injured-active
She won by 12% of all votes. That’s an absolute landslide of a victory. Citing conspiracy theories doesn’t advance your case.
Sanders won 43% of all votes cast in the 2016 primary and is currently only getting a little under 20ish percent. You should be far more concerned with that than trying to hand wave his loss to Clinton.
This. He gets to look like he’s willing to compromise without actually having to do it. You may not like him, but it’s saying things like this that make him infinitely more likely to win back the senate in 2020 than anyone else in the field.
Disappointing he's likely one of the better chances to oust Trump.
But in the general election, ANY Democratic candidate is better than Trump's hateful self-dealing ass. He's spent nearly a third of his Presidency at Trump properties pumping tax dollars into his own pockets and has spent more on golf in 3 years (at his own courses) than Obama did in 8. He runs foreign policy to help himself, not the country, and Republicans are too cucked afraid of a mean tweet to stand up to him. It's totally pathetic.
Even Tulsi is better, though there's zero chance she'd be the Democratic nominee.
Does nobody cares out foriegn policy or civil liberties anymore? The entire discourse around the Trump era has been about the most irrelevant, tangential subjects. It really just blows my mind, in general, that the practice of extrajudicial murder doesn't get more attention, but then I remember, it doesn't fit the self-righteous narrative.
This post is about the recent embassy attack, in case nobody brought it up yet.
Warren comes off to me as a calculated liar, whereas Bernie seems sincere. It's a shame he never got his break. I think, were he more combative with his own side, he would have gone further.
A - Polling that we have doesnt really agree with the assessment that Warren voters would pivot to Bernie. A large share of Warren's supporters are well educated white women, and those were the sort of voters that preferred Clinton over Bernie. It stands to reason that a significant number of them (probably about half) would move to Biden or Buttigieg.
B - I personally disagree about her being a calculated liar. Of course, that concept is utterly irrelevant considering who her opponent would be.
That may be so, but with the way public opinion is changing among young people, we may be having that debate yet again. Now it is a minority among the young who are comfortable with it, a drop of nearly 20% in recent years.
I have no answers as to why this may be.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/06/24/lgbtq-acceptance-millennials-decline-glaad-survey/1503758001/
I don't know the details about the polling, really. I haven't followed the race that well. That was just my gut impression.
LGBTQ acceptance is still are essentially the best place it has ever been. You can see a dip in the graphs, but when compared with the context of the past 20 years...
https://news.gallup.com/poll/1651/gay-lesbian-rights.aspx
I dont foresee a significant backlash, especially since the root of the majority of hostility towards LGBTQ communities is religious in nature, and religious attendance is declining.
That's fair. I'm going off the whole "Who would your second choice be?" thing in polls, which is admittedly somewhat bad information. More often than not, the next highest person in the polls is the second choice just because he or she is perceived as a potential winner.
https://www.pewforum.org/2019/10/17/in-u-s-decline-of-christianity-continues-at-rapid-pace/
I personally can’t wait for the 12 hour investigational hearing regarding the said attack.
For the US to actually pull out of the Middle East, they have to make a strong commitment to peace with Iran. It’s too bad the current administration completely ruined any possible plans of that happening soon after the strives the previous administration made.