Hey AJ-

Sorry that was just one sentence from
A post I made that got erased when I posted from my iPhone. I shouldn't try and post from here cause it never works out. That why I deleted it but Toughy hit something inside me and there I went! I will come back and answer when I get home. My apologies.

I'm not sure why you think my comments about civil marriage have anything to do with religious freedom or religious marriage. However, I am always wary of the religious freedom meme. Religious freedom is used as a reason to perform genital mutilation on girls all over the world. One could even make the case of male circumcision being mutilation and it's roots are in religion. Religion is what is driving much of the sexism and homophobia is this country (and other countries). Religions can do good for society and they can do harm for society. When religion is harmful, it should held accountable. Religion is not particularly sacrosanct for me.

There are many ways to deal with how contracts are drawn up without using a lawyer. You don't need a lawyer to have a medical or legal power of attorney done. You can do a will and testament without a lawyer. There are standard forms available for just about any legal agreement. There are also free legal clinics across the country.

The real issue has to do with how the US democracy is ordered. Ours is not the best model out there. There are plenty of other ways to do democracy and have it work for everyone. Our social safety net needs a ton of work because it's not a safety net, particularly if we continue to punish those less fortunate. Giving corporations welfare is far more important than taking care of people.

I did not compare marriage and slavery, although marriage certainly was a form of slavery in the past and still is in some places today. I used slavery as an example of what was considered the normal paradigm and that paradigm shifted.

Dismantling systems takes time and will generate problems that can be dealt with. Digging in and saying it can't work just stifles growth and the opportunity to create a better society.

You mentioned in an earlier post that in your vision, Benny Hinn would not be on TV. How would that work, exactly? It seems to me that the only way to stop the Benny Hinns of the world from doing what they do is to make their religion illegal.

Abuses do happen within the context of some religions, but that doesn't mean that ending the religion would end the abuse. Those abuses would happen whether a religion were involved or not, the people doing the abusing would just come up with a different excuse if they didn't have religion to fall back on. Abuse is wrong regardless of context. Blaming the context does nothing to stop the abuse.

Have you ever been to one of those free legal clinics? I have. Hours and hours of waiting to spend five minutes talking to a lawyer who doesn't really have the time or the inclination to tell you anything beyond "you need to hire a lawyer" or "you have no legal standing, hiring a lawyer won't help you." And I was just looking for help with a simple name change. That system isn't capable of picking up all the slack that would result from the end of marriage while people still want or need to blend their lives with their partner's. Yes, legal forms are available. They're also difficult to understand, especially for those who don't have a lot of education. Filing fees can run into the hundreds of dollars. Just because it's possible to do it without a lawyer doesn't make it feasible for a large percentage of the population.

On this we agree.

Similarly, demanding equal consideration for every rainbows-and-unicorns, pie-in-the-sky fantasy that someone can dream up does the same thing. The fact is, some things really, truly can't work. Maybe they could if we were working with some species other than humans, but we're not. Religious freedom may not mean much to you, but it does mean a whole lot to the vast majority of the population. Do you have any kind of plan for how to make religion stop mattering to humans who've been practicing religion in some form for millions of years? Are you advocating outlawing religion? If so, how do you think that should be enforced. If Benny Hinn did get on TV in your world, should there be a punishment of some kind for him?

I'm gonna make this short.

Don't twist what I said. I never have said anything about eliminating religious marriage. It's not the same thing as civil marriage. I never said religion should be gone. I said I wanted the hate mongers gone. I said when religion does harm it should be held accountable. It never has been held accountable for mass murder and war. I am done talking about religion.

I am not alone in my view that civil marriage needs to be re-thought. Lots of folks feel the same way. It's just not a popular position here on the Planet.

and by the way........I was in a spiritually bonded relationship for 16 yrs. I generally say I was married. Dissolving that bond was not near as easy as getting a divorce in a civil marriage (no children were involved).

If you interpret someone trying to understand your position as "twisting" it, then maybe you should consider ways you could communicate more clearly. I'm not twisting anything, I'm trying to understand what you said. If my interpretation of your statements was not what you intended, then you're welcome to clarify. So far, all I've seen is you making vague, problematic statements and then refusing to talk about the parts of your statements that are uncomfortable.

I am also of the opinion that government should not be in the marriage business. Marriage should fall exclusively within the domain of the culture, community, or faith of those who are entering into the marriage. Government should care about households and not concern itself with the precise nature of the relationships of those living in the household. It should concern itself with the social benefits that family units and households of any structure create.

I know someone who has lived for well over a decade with her old college roommate. They are not gay. Theirs is not a sexual or romantic relationship. My friend wanted a child but not a husband. Her old roommate has medical issues that limit her ability to work. Together they have maintained a highly functional and supportive household that generates just as much social good as a married household. They should have access to the benefits that are currently reserved for married couples.

--Slater

this is what I'm saying. if there is domestic partnerships for everyone regardless of sex of the people involved, then you can have domestic partnership and marriage and it's up to the individuals to choose which one they want and marriage does *not* have to be erased to bring equality.

I think that should be extended to multi-adult (more than two) households, but one step at a time.

Toughy:

I'm sorry but I have to beg to differ with you. The highlighted passage above does not say ANYTHING about holding religion accountable nor does it say anything about wanting the hate mongers gone. What you said is that WHEN Benny Hinn is no longer no TV--without any explanation as to why he is no longer on TV--then and only then can queer people be considered to have been accepted by society. You said that WHEN Oral Roberts and Liberty and Bob Jones are no longer able to stay open for lack of enrollment THEN and only then can queer people be considered to be accepted by society.

You did not qualify your comments nor did you explain what you meant so in the absence of your explaining how, precisely, we get rid of those universities or that preacher (or any like them) it is *entirely* reasonable to interpret the above to mean that religion--or at least the religion you disapprove of--has to go. I see Secret Agent Ma'am's interpretation as being a rather straightforward reading of your words in the absence of explanation or qualification. And given that, at present, approximately a third of the *species* practices some variant of Christianity that means it is likely to be around in some form for a very, very long time.

As far as the relative popularity of various positions here or elsewhere, so what? I keep going back to how do you get people who might not agree with your vision of how society *should* be to go along with it? Again, I do not necessarily disagree with you that perhaps government should get out of business of designating certain types of households as being significant. Perhaps that is the case but as Citybutch pointed out a couple of pages back, getting rid of marriage would undo hundreds of years of Western common law.

I don't think that we should overturn a legal tradition *simply* because someone thinks we should. There are reforms I would like to see but complete overhauls require a great deal of consideration because there are *always* unintended consequences. I am not, in fact, making an argument in favor of marriage as it is currently understood. I'm trying to understand how you expect to convince people to go along with your scheme.

I have yet to hear a particularly compelling argument, even a hypothetical argument, put forth as to how you convince people who may not share your particular political or religious world view to uproot and overhaul an entire social system. That may seem like being a wet blanket but as I've said a couple of times now, history is littered with the bodies of people who were broken on the altar of this or that utopian vision espoused by some group of people who said to the rest of society "Civilization. You're going it wrong." I've even gone so far as to stipulate that your vision of how human beings should organize themselves is the correct one so we don't get lost in the weeds but you've still to explain how you get buy-in from the rest of society.

Or is that just not a particularly important question and I think that it is because I am tied up in some old-fashioned idea about the consent of the majority to be governed counting for something.


Cheers
Aj

I do not have any idea of any other way to say that hate speech under the guise of religion is wrong. That is not a 'get rid of religion' or 'anti-religion' statement.

There are reasonable hate speech laws across the world. Canada has them, France, Germany etc. We do not have to let those hate mongers preach on TV or anywhere else. We can stop them and we should. Everyone knows what hate speech sounds like. Blaming queers (or blacks or brown or red or immigrants or ______) for 9/11, lack of jobs, a crappy economy, crime, the recent earthquakes and every other frigging disaster is hate speech and incites violence against queers and/or whomever is the flavor of the day. It should be illegal. Fines and/or jail time should be imposed. Religion should not be a free pass for hate speech. Free speech is not limitless....you can't yell 'fire' in a theater. Universities policies that enforce hate and hate speech towards anyone should not be allowed to do that......whether they be public, private or religious. I repeat one more time, hate speech under the guise of religion should not get a free pass.

Beating or killing someone while you yell 'faggot' or 'dyke' is considered a hate crime. It looks like hate speech to me. Why should hate speech be different when it comes out of a preacher's mouth?

We should not allow so-called therapists to get away with reparative therapy. It is utter bullshit. Queerness is not a disease or a mental illness and should not be treated as such. Since the medical profession has a damn hard time policing it's own, perhaps malpractice or criminal charges should be considered. Why is the government paying for reparative therapy through medicaid/medicare? It's not a legitimate therapy and is not based on good science.

This country is also about protecting the rights of the minority from the tyranny of the majority.

One of the things I learned from years of negotiating and advocating with big pharma and with our government is to put everything you want on the table. Go for the gold.....you will probably end up with the bronze or maybe the 4th place ribbon.

I actually believe most folks in this country are kind, caring and compassionate. Obama would not be POTUS if we weren't. I think most religion does good things. I think most folks in this country believe in live and let live. I think most folks at least tolerate us, as long as we look and act like them. I think, over time, most folks will accept us queers (in all our colors) as just another version of the human spectrum. Sometimes I am incredibly impatient....probably because I am in the last third (maybe a little more) of my life. It would be nice to see acceptance before I die. Tolerance is wearing thin at times.

It seems to me we keep settling for and arguing for the current limitations, rather than imagining what can be and fighting for that. That is probably because I do not believe in assimilation.

I would settle for this arrangement as long as domestic partnership has ALL the same rights, responsibilities and benefits as civil marriage. I also think we should include poly arrangements in the same household as well as multi-households.

I do not disagree with the premise of what you say here, however, I think it is a slippery slope to start criminalizing free speech.

Who decides what hate speech is?

I mean haven't we, for years, allowed hate groups like the KKK to hold there marches and rallies, no matter how distasteful and offensive we found them to preserve "free speech"?

There is no Utopian answer, the reality is societal change takes time and tolerance and this issue is no exception. I am a firm believer that if tolerance is what we seek, so we must also be prepared to give it.

I'm not convinced this is true. I don't think most of my neighbors would consider reparative therapy to be hate speech. I don't think they would consider preachers decrying the sinfulness of homosexuality to be hate speech. I think they would mostly say everyone is entitled to their own opinion. And I don't live in an especially homophobic place. I've never felt the need to be closeted here (here being a small Navy town just outside of Seattle). My point is I actually think you would find pretty far-ranging ideas about what constitutes hate speech, and that makes what you are proposing extremely risky.

Having said that, I do think that how we define incition to violence could bear a closer examination, or perhaps more rigorous enforcement if laws are already in place. Personally I wouldn't include stuff like blaming queers for earthquakes because no reasonable person is going to take that seriously and you can't really build laws like this based on the perceptions of unreasonable people. On the other hand, I think it would not be a bad thing if someone who publicly said something like "I don't believe in homosexuality. I think they should be elminated. I'd wipe them all out," had a law enforcement officer knocking on their door.


To me this is not an accurate parallel. The crime in the first example is the beating/killing. The hate crime aspect does look at motive, but motive is a factor in how many crimes are prosecuted and punished. So to me that seems not be able hate speech but rather the motive for a crime.

I absolutely agree that hate speech is wrong. In your previous post, however, you didn't mention hate speech. You said you wanted Benny Hinn and his ilk off the air, completely. You said you wanted religious universities shut down. Are you suggesting that everything that comes out of these people and institutions is always hate speech, no matter what?

There is a difference between loudly and publicly not liking a person or group of people and hate speech. If some TV preacher thinks homosexuality is a sin, well, he has a right to think that. He even has a right to preach it to his congregation. I don't believe it becomes hate speech until that preacher begins to incite violence against the group he thinks is sinning. I'll grant you that it's a very, very fine line, but I think the line has to be there. If it isn't, then it's not really stretch for people on their side to claim that everything negative we say about Christians is hate speech. Where does that end?

Seems to me that the sentence "hate speech under the guise of religion is wrong" is a more accurate way of stating it than the statement I quoted in your prior post where you expressed a desire that Benny Hinn not be able to broadcast his bile. I won't belabor the point, however.

I'm not sure that everyone does. I have heard a lot of people make statements that I'm reasonably certain they would go to their graves denying was hate speech. Listen to Afrocentrists talk about homosexuals for a few moments and you will hear some of the most virulently hateful speech. Yet, I doubt that these Afrocentric bigots would say that they are operating out of hate, rather they would say they were operating out of 'love for African peoples'. I'm not saying we should not revisit the question of what constitutes incitement to violence. That is a conversation worth having. But that's a far cry from saying that everyone knows or agrees on what hate speech sounds like.

No one is saying it should, Toughy. Go back through the thread from first word to last and you will find not a single post that could be read, in even the most generous *possible* interpretation, as saying that religion should get a free pass. Toughy have you *ever* heard me make a statement that is even in the same ballpark as "religion should get a free pass" for *anything*? Me?

Beating or killing someone, well, it violates their bodily integrity or it takes their life or both. Speech does not violate your bodily integrity (you have NO right to have your ears never be polluted by speech you do not care for) and it doesn't take your life.

It is the difference between:

Zoroastrians practice an outmoded, barbaric bronze age religion with as much claim to truth as a Bugs Bunny cartoon.

and

Zoroastrians practice an outmoded, barbaric bronze age religion that offends society. Let us be done with Zoroastrians once and for all time by offering them the choice of conversion or death. Hey, there's some over there right now. Let's go get them!


Yes. You will note that not a *single* major professional organization that has any reason to be taken seriously on the matter states that reparative therapy has any efficacy what-so-ever. The American Psychological Association hasn't. The AMA doesn't. The National Academy of Science condemns it as does the National Science Foundation. The situation with the mental health and social work professional organizations, as well as any part of the evidence-based medicine community, is so arrayed against the Christian mental health community that the latter has had to form their *OWN* organizations and create their OWN journals so that they can say that articles have been published showing that reparative therapy works. But one must note that not a *single* peer-reviewed journal has published an article favorable to reparative therapy in recent memory. RT has as much cache as Intelligent Design within the mainstream, consensus body of science and evidence-based medicine. This being, none at all.

I don't know why the government is doing that. The government will *also* pay for all manner of New Age therapies that are no more effective than RT. Several leap to mind but I won't belabor the point.

Yes, Toughy, and that is my point PRECISELY! For the first time you are acknowledging--tacitly but nevertheless acknowledgement--that there are trade-offs. There are *costs* and that is what you have studiously ignored up to this point. Yes, democratic republics must be responsive to the will of the majority--up to a point--but at that line then the priority must switch from the will of the majority to the rights of the minority. Now, here is where the tension comes in. We either have to argue that society should change itself because we are in the minority and our rights are being violated (this is, essentially, the reform path) OR we have to build a majority that believes as you do (in which case you now have the opposite problem of protecting the rights of the minority). But there's a cost no matter what you do.

So the question then becomes about what kind of process costs are you willing to countenance.

Understand, I'm not saying that what revolution has costs while reform has no costs. I'm saying that while reform makes costs part of the equation, my reading of history and my own experience in Marxist, Trotskyite and anarchist circles has taught me that revolutionaries never really count the costs. Their vision is SO pure and so self-evidently true and beautiful that there can be no costs worth considering. Except that there are *always* costs, Toughy. There's no escaping it. The saying that there's no such thing as a free lunch applies as much to societies as it does to individuals.

See, Toughy, I DO believe in assimilation. I believe in it because I watched it work. I see the difference between the lives my parent's built and the lives that less assimilated blacks built. One of those lives led to a course that when both my parents were dead, they were able to leave my sister and I property. The other led to a rather different outcome. You met me *because* I am assimilated. I have the job I do *because* I am assimilated. I grew up in the neighborhood I did, went to the schools I did from Kindergarten to college *because* my parents assimilated and they taught my sister and I their ways. Whatever good reputation I have here in this community is because of how I communicate and that is a *direct result* of my assimilating. Even when I was in the Army, I was where I was because I was assimilated. You may not believe in assimilation. You may not think it works. You may not think that people should *have* to assimilate but if you think that, I will say to you what I say to libertarians; great idea, wrong species. To live in a society, to live in a community, IS to be subject to community mores and norms. That is part of their function is to train people in ways so that they are able to get along more easily. If we were more like orangutans and less like chimpanzees then the idea of assimilation wouldn't be so intuitively obvious and there would be far less social pressure to do so. If I interact with another of my species once every few months, perhaps, and the rest of the time we all pretty much go our separate ways then it really doesn't matter HOW any one of us behaves because contact is minimal and the need for cooperation is equally minimal.

On the other hand, if you live in close proximity of others of your species AND there is a high degree of need for cooperation then norms and mores become important and society then ups the ante for certain types of non-conformity. That is where we find ourselves, Toughy. So no matter WHAT kind of society one builds, there will ALWAYS be a need to assimilate to it. Even a society that claims that there's no need to assimilate at all will find, inexorably, that anyone who believes that there are, for instance, right ways of behaving and wrong ways of behaving, better or worse ways of doing things, is pushed to the margins of society if only because the presence of someone constantly saying "you say everyone can do as they please, but that's not true because *I* can't" spoils the collective illusion of harmony.


Cheers
Aj

*puts up hand*

I'm happily getting married, for the second time too! :winky:

I wish this conversation was happening on my deck with all the flowers and a nice bowl, fruit, cheese bread and the little fire pit...........and that includes you SecretMa'am and Aj and Slater and HoneyB and Heart and anyone else who wants to have a conversation about imagining a perfect world.

Your post brings me to the concept of liberty, which I think all in a society ought to be able to exercise- even those I disagree with.

There are many people with views I would love to see restricted from media, yet, there is that "free speech" concept to consider. And it applies to all, even the most vile bigots of our time.

It is easy for me to go off on generalizations about fundamentalist Christians, yet, I do try to step back and remember that not all of my assumptions are based upon fact. Just as what those very people assume about me in general, is not true.

Frankly, there are many aspects of assimilation (Aj has pointed out some) that are very positive forces for people to actually effect change in society from a personal perspective. And it does NOT have to take away one's individual integrity or ties to racial or ethnic, sexual orienhtation, or gender identity at all. My history as a mid-century Italian and Latin American follows a course much like Aj's. Although, I find it very difficult to discuss this as the racialiazation of Italian immigrants is just not of much interest today in the US that has little sense of US immigration and race outside of African American and Latin American (mainly the plight of mexican Americans) concerns. However, I see the necessity for this (just not the lack of knowledge) because both continue to have levels of structural racism that effect just about every aspect of their economic and social conditions in negative ways. I wonder about the lack of discussion of Native American inequities are not part of discussions, however.

There is a process of positive augmentation of what an outsider brings to the assmilation equation that changes the assimilated whole. Therefore, what has been "mainstream" is changed or the variations of more diverse 'cogs" on the societal wheel is increased.

I have been reading this thread and it got me to thinking about the ways that I have changed over time. I am sure that my own personal evolution is not unique and if I can be moved to think in different ways so can others.

I used to believe that revolution was the only way to achieve the kind of world I wanted to live in. Tear it all down and start again. I had a favorite fantasy in which oppressed people everywhere would rise up together, throw off their yokes and wrest power from their oppressors. Of course not only is that extremely unlikely to ever happen, but even if by some miracle it did, without some fundamental change in human behavior, before you could say plus ça change, there would be more yokes, and necks aplenty to put them on.

Over time I have come to believe it is possible to invoke change by working toward encouraging small shifts in the ways that people think about a particular issue. If you can change the way that the majority of people think about one thing, for example that marriage should only be between one man and one woman, then I believe you have the beginning of cultural change that will translate to systemic change. Though when it comes to human rights it often seems the laws change and then people adjust themselves over time. But I think the perception of majority sentiment needs to be there before the legislature can succeed.

Cultural or societal change often happens accidentally or naturally because of a need, an invention, or a discovery, but it certainly can happen by design. Change does not have to depend on awe inspiring acts of bravery or greatness, although often these are the catalysts and it is small numbers of focused and dedicated individuals or even one great leader who plant the seeds of change. But once the idea is planted, I think cultural growth happens over time as a result of the way we choose to live our lives.

Living bravely and honorably as we are confronted with challenges and choices in our daily lives, measuring the cost of each choice and its worth, engaging in respectful disagreements (emphasis on respectful) with those who hold ideologically opposing points of view and focusing on common ground rather than differences are all ways I think we can move toward the changes we seek.

What am I willing to give up, what will I compromise to achieve my goal? First off I have to figure out exactly what is my goal. Mostly it is that I would like to see a global mind shift to where human life becomes of the ultimate importance. Laws should not be made based on values formed from specific belief systems that are placed above human life. There is nothing of greater value and dignity than human life. If that became a universal belief, I think most everything else would fall into place. It would be like an invisible revolution. Such a transformation of thought would have to result in phenomenal change. What am I willing to give up to get this? A lot.

I will relinquish any belief in Utopia, or change through revolution, or violence.

I will give up my naïve expectation that if one’s motives are pure the result will be perfect.

I will understand that the end will never justify the means and the means must be just whether or not the end is ever reached.

I will stop being seduced by the idea that all those who think, believe and act like me are inherently good, and conversely that all those who think, believe, and act differently are inherently evil.

I will refuse to accept that it is important to be right at any cost.

I will settle for less than I want.

I will understand that if I hold out for everything and end up with nothing I may as well go work for the other side.

I will put myself in the place of the other and to the best of my ability look at things from that perspective.

I will let that vision from the perspective of the other lead me to understanding.

And I will allow that understanding to dictate the compromises I need to make.

I will use that insight from other perspectives to temper my ideals with compassion.

I will try to live so that the truth that there is nothing of greater value and dignity than human life, any and all human life, will be self evident.

I used to think one had to live out a 60’s sort of existence, be a radical activist, a revolutionary on the front lines in order to feel that you were working toward changing the world. But now I think it’s as much, if not more, about how I live my life that matters. It is the simple act of living well, of trying to show compassion and kindness to fellow human beings that will create the needed changes in society. I think sometimes revolution can be a solitary inward experience. I think many of us live lives of quiet revolution.

I have to applaud you Toughy for not taking a defensive position. You had a lot of people who (at least in part) were offering up a contrary position, it would have been easy to get defensive. Thanks for not going down that road.

I touched on this a couple of pages back but this moved me to revisit the issue. Like you, I believed that revolution was THE way to achieve a better world. Even after I no longer believed that (and my revolutionary ideas didn't survive contact with my 30s) I kept my mouth largely shut because I did not have a language to talk about what I saw was problematic. Then I spent the last 18 months reading up on totalitarian movements in the 20th century and I had an epiphany that these movements WERE what happened when you got a revolution.

The October Revolution of 1917 started out with the best of intentions. They were going to achieve True Socialism in their time. Not only did they fail to do so but in the process that created a regime of stunning, mind-numbing brutality. The Nazis started out with the best of intentions (although, unlike the Russians, there was a core of evil ideology already present) and in 12 short years turned THE jewel of Western Europe into rubble and brought Europe generally to the very brink of barbarism. In the aftermath of the Japanese occupation, the North Koreans started out not trying to make a truly insane totalitarian state. Rather, Kim Il Song started out trying to rebuild what had been the glory of Korea on a socialist principles. Now North Korea is a state so Orwellian that one who might not know better would be forgiven for believing that 1984 was written *about* that nation.

The lesson I took away from that reading is that come the revolution, what you end up with is another government that has to, just temporarily mind you, suspend freedoms and put off the promised egalitarian paradise. Meet the old boss, same as the new boss has resonance for a reason.

Your observation about human rights is spot on. I don't know if the majority sentiment has to be there. I would certainly say that my own observation of the United States from the 1940s until the 1970s was that, essentially, the Federal government, in the form of (in order of importance to the effort) the SCOTUS, the POTUS and the Congress, dragged America kicking and screaming into a more integrated nation. When Truman desegregated the military the military did NOT want to go. Brown v. Board shoved integration in schools down America's throat whether they liked it or not. Loving v. Virginia did much the same for anti-miscegenation laws. The Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts were done after Brown but before Loving. But Loving was almost a mop-up operation, a sort of "one more thing as long as we've got the house torn up anyway..." action.

I would have *preferred* that it had all happened through legislation but it couldn't so it happened the way it did.


In part, that is why I started this thread. I think we need a discussion along the lines of clarifying what it is we're after.

Sam Harris (who I don't always agree with) in his book 'The Moral Landscape' talks about morality being something we can look at, without appeal to supernatural entities or cosmic consciousnesses by focusing ourselves on events in the world and how that has effects on states of the human brain. It is a profoundly *human* centered moral vision--or, more accurately, framework for discussing morals.

[lots of really fantastic stuff regretfully snipped]

Cheers
Aj