So why not just use the real people to whom these things happened? Because all opponents to gay marriage are fat and unappealing, that's why. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
No seriously, I'm sorry you had to tolerate people you despise. I know it violates your freedoms. Hey, if all men were created equal, don't you think the founding fathers would have made a note of that or something?
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
Actors Telling Stories Based On Real Incidents
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Just a wild thought here, but maybe the people portrayed don't want their faces and names splattered all over the place. After all, it's not like there are examples of people whose lives have been disrupted by those who don't see things the same way (see anti-Prop 8 supporters, Joe the Plumber).
...Cindy Sheehan, Joe Wilson, anyone who's ever gotten on the wrong side of Michelle Malkin...
Really? Those peopl you mentioned had their privacy invaded and publicized by members of the opposing Party (joe the plumber), or had their employees picketed and places of business suffer financially (anti-prop 8 supporters)?
Malkin has been known to publish the phone numbers and addresses of her enemies. Joe Wilson's wife had her whole career destroyed, and I'm certain without even looking it up that my examples got about the same amount of death threats as your examples.
I'll admit that Cindy Sheehan seems to have been asking for it. And probably none of my examples had their employees picketed because they didn't have any employees.
I take your main point, that it's become dangerous in this country to call someone inferior or not deserving of the rights the rest of us have. Why even HAVE free speech if you can't be protected from the groups you're spreading hate about?
If I was just a regular Joe, I SURE as heck wouldn't want my REAL name and face splashed on the web so that the gay mafia could come destroy my property, harass my friends and possibly harm my children! That has become their MO, after all. Find a Prop 8 supporter and do their best to destroy their lives for DARING to have a political opinion in America. That is the gay mafia for ya. Reeeeeal "tolerant."
To be clear, the political opinion they're expressing is the rights of gay people should be limited.
Right now there are people sending tea bags to their government representatives (from the outside, the envelopes could contain anthrax; how do you know?) just because they feel as if a few years from now there is a possibility that their taxes may some day have to be increased. A kid went nets, killed a bunch of people and himself, because he believed some of the crazier rhetoric of your people.
People don't react well when they feel threatened. If you're actively trying to pass a law against people, you can expect some blowback.
Piker, that's why we have elections, and vote on issues.
If a majority of voters agree on something, it passes.
Clearly, the Prop 8 crowd didn't do a good enough job furthering their cause with voters. Instead of regrouping, and looking at a different way of trying to convince voters to vote in their favor next time, they went nuts.
We can argue on if it is their "right" to marry or not all day, but the FACT remains that a majority of voters disagreed with them. Their actions since then are harming their own cause.
If we allowed majority rule on everything, all the Enron Executives would have been executed by now. Plus blacks would never have had the right to vote. Women either, most likely, even though they ARE a majority, because neither would have been allowed to weigh in. Oh, and Al Gore would have been President for the last eight years.
Prop Eight was a bill which specifically contravened preexisting constitutional law, which is why it's still in the courts now. Constitutions are documents that shuldn't be amended just you decide some men maybe aren't created so equal.
I'm not advocating threats against people you disagree with, BTW. I advocate arguments like this. But at the same time, one would be crazy not to expect threats. Hence actors portraying real people. Doesn't make what the real people did in the first place right.
Actually, you are wrong.
Imagine that.
If a majority of voters wanted the option to execute Enron executives, all they had to do was convince a majority of people to elect a majority of politicians that would write new legislation to make fraud on a high level to be a death penalty offense.
And if I'm not mistaken, blacks and women now have the right to vote because elected officials made that legislation possible.
All the Prop 8 crowd has to do to get their way, is to get enough legislators (you know, a majority of them) to make it happen.
Is it easy? No. But that is how our system works. Does it have flaws? Of course. But it beats having judges legislate from the bench.
I respect your passion for this issue, but I wonder if you would feel the same way if the issue was different.
What if Prop 8 dealt with concealed weapons? If a majority of voters felt that concealed weapons weren't what the voters wanted, and a panel of judges felt that the Second Amendment applies to the right to carry a handgun under ones clothes, would you support that judgement as well?
First of all, regarding integration: BROWN VS. BOARD OF EDUCATION. It was a court decision that was fought tooth and nail by voters in the south.
I'm not sure you believe this populist position you're taking. The majority of Americans favor abortion rights ("right to choose" rates even higher) and yet the Republicans have built one of the planks of their platform on dismantling that. Voters have literally chosen Al Franken in Minnesota yet Norm Coleman and the RNC are using the courts to delay the inevitable as long as possible.
Unless your for Senator Franken and putting the abortion debate to rest, you'll have to find another argument.
Funny, I thought your position was on the right for blacks and women to VOTE. I guess since you realized my point(s) were valid, you changed your topic to EDUCATION.
Also, no comment on my concealed weapons argument, which is an answer all to itself, isn't it?
As to your Franken/Coleman issue, both Franken and Coleman are using/have used tools available to them to iron out questions in the voting process. Coleman initially had more votes, but the low margin of victory triggered a recount. Franken used methods to allow more votes to be counted that favored him. Coleman is using the same methods to plead his case on which votes should and shouldn't be counted. The courts won't make the decision on who is the winner, but merely who made the better argument on which votes in question are allowed to be counted under the law.
But you already knew that, didn't you?
Blacks have the right to vote, if my quick research now is correct, because the Slaughter/House supreme court decision superceded the earlier Dred Scott/Sanford decision. No one voted to allow black people to vote.
Sorry I didn't address the concealed weapons thing: I don't have a problem with 'em so it simply doesn't help the argument. Plus, I can't say the rights of guns to allow themselves to be concealed is analagous here. The question you COULD ask me is, suppose the majority of people decided that Atheists are a threat to society and must be interred? How would you react then? Because I am an Atheist, and it means something to me.
Speaking of not addressing something, abortion rights anyone?
Really? No one voted to give blacks the right to vote?
What does the 15th Amendment do again? And how does an Amendment get ratified?
I'll give you hint: it takes a number of States that are more than 1/2.
Guess what?
The States vote on behalf of their residents on if they agree with the Amendment or not.
I think I'd call that "voting".
As to abortion, I'm not opposed to it, but hope that it never has to be used. If it does, I'd rather it happen in a clinical setting rather than a back alley office. What I am opposed o is having my tax dollars fund the procedure.
And to conclude, the Atheist issue is like the others. Majority rules in this Country, with the exception of the Electoral College.
Okay, for "Atheists" substitute "Jews."
There are currently laws on the books (protecting Jews, defining illegal behavior, etc). Any law (provided it isn't unconstitutional) can be changed/eliminated if enough people vote in favor of it. Constitutional laws (or Amendments) can be changed by creating a new Amendment, by getting enough States/voters to approve.
Is it likely that an Amendment or law would be passed to target a certain group? No. But there is a process in place to make the effort.
Just the same, there exists a process for gay marriage to be recognized as legal. To date, those who support that have not made a compelling argument to enough voters.
See, here's the thing: courts actually had decided that allowing gay people to marry was a right already granted to them by the constitution, so the amendment was specifically passed to target that group. So how unlikely is it?
Where in the Constitution does it say two men (or two women) can marry?
Maybe Piker is referring to SCOTUS Justice Ginsberg, where she thinks we should refer to other countries constitution's and court ruling's and make them our own.
Maybe it was another country's constitution he read that part of gay marriage in, MD.
Actually it's right next to the part of the constitution which guarantees the right of a man and a woman to marry.
The Bill Of Rights, however, mentions something about all men being created equal and the right to pursue happiness. Not that THAT'S relevant.
Actually, there is nothing in the Constitution that allows a man and woman to marry.
That is a legal definition that was put in place by the States.
As I recall, when the Constitution was ratified, there was a rather large group of men that weren't created equal. Thomas Jefferson had a few of them "living" on his property. He may have even had a "relationship" with one as well.
Just like that wrong was righted, gay men and women have a processto get their voices heard. And to date they haven't made a compelling enough argument.
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