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California’s top court legalizes gay marriage

Hat Tip to Wesley Elsberry’s message board for homozygous church burnin’ ebola boys After the Bar Closes.

Comments
I think allowing Gay marriage is a good thing. It should help civilize the Gay culture and cut down on AIDs. Marriage has civilized men for millenia and the Gay subculture with it's bars and toilet stalls has been lacking the civilizing nature of commited, monogamous and loving relationships.benign
May 17, 2008
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...it is now a right to redefine traditional words to suit an aggrieved minority’s perception of sleight - even though they enjoyed the legal benefits of marriage in everything but name. Everyone already enjoyed the legal benefits of marriage no matter what their sexual desires were or if they chose to self-define by their sexual desires. Marriage between a man and a woman is pretty simple and it can be defined on basic biological facts, attempts to define "marriages" based self identification or sexual desires won't last. A group of men could just as easily identify with each other based on a desire to be promiscuous, form a community and come to the legal system as another minority but all they'd really be doing would be working to change the definition of marriage to suit their sexual desires.mynym
May 16, 2008
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todd said (#14) --
Why wasn’t the DPA good enough?
I can't understand why gays are not satisfied with civil unions and domestic partnerships. Gays are risking a big backlash by pushing this gay marriage thing. The California Supreme Court's decision is based on the California Constitution, not the US Constitution, and so is not reviewable by the US Supreme Court. So all that has been accomplished is that the benefits of California domestic partnerships are now available under the name "marriage." I don't see why gays are so jubilant about this ruling. They could just be in the eye of a hurricane -- an impending ballot proposition could overturn the ruling. Also, I really get ticked off when a spouse in a gay marriage is called "his husband." Why not just "spouse" or "partner"?Larry Fafarman
May 16, 2008
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Todd: Why wasn’t the DPA good enough? Why disturbed what appeared to be a workable compromise? Why make the perfect the enemy of the pretty damn good? I agree. What is the matter with different, but equal?poachy
May 16, 2008
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The California Supremes didn't legalize gay marriage - the legislature effectively did that with a Domestic Partnership Act. What the court did was tell the voters their referendum to preserve the traditional definition of the word 'marriage' was unconstitutional because, apparently it is now a right to redefine traditional words to suit an aggrieved minority's perception of sleight - even though they enjoyed the legal benefits of marriage in everything but name. Why wasn't the DPA good enough? Why disturbed what appeared to be a workable compromise? Why make the perfect the enemy of the pretty damn good?todd
May 16, 2008
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...deriving a moral prescription from a scientific description is both fallacious and deeply pernicious. That seems to be an irrational idea which tends to set the objective and the subjective against each other when in fact they ought to be complementary patterns of knowledge which inform each other, like the ancient idea of basic knowledge being united with wisdom. After all, prescriptions that are not based on sound descriptions may well be deadly poisons while supposedly hard and "pure" objective descriptions which do not admit to a subject/person as the subjective observer are always hubris. What did you derive your view about what ought to be viewed as "pernicious" from other than an intro book on ethics? It seems to me that such a book would only give you the philosophy of its time. At this time it gives you the fact/value split, an irrational view which cannot be adhered to consistently if one values facts.mynym
May 16, 2008
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BiPed: I don't know about Provine, but Dawkins has repeatedly said he wants society and morality to be as non-Darwinian as possible. It's not that difficult to understand that a description of the universe ('bodies are gravitationally attracted to each other') is not the same as a moral guide ('you should push people out of buildings because they're supposed to be falling'). I'm really amazed it keeps getting brought up. Does anyone really believe that evolution proponents follow The Origin of Species like a Bible? Why on Earth would they? I had an argument with the Edinburgh Creation Group about this, after they insisted that evolution leads to racism, genocide, sexual disease, etc. Because I'm quite disgusted with people playing the race card on others, when those being accused are the ones who KNOW the difference between science and morality! Speaking of genocide, I hear there's a film out which claims the scientific theory of evolution was morally responsible for genocide. Uh, no. It says that if you wipe out specific genes, you can increase the proportion of other genes. It does not say 'Hitler, you should go and kill the Jews' any more than Newton said 'You should go and drop bombs on Dresden'.Venus Mousetrap
May 16, 2008
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Allen: "Any good intro ethics text will show you that deriving a moral prescription from a scientific description is both fallacious and deeply pernicious." Once again Allen show his backside. I can't even believe you said this. Please tell me again about Provine and Dawkins and correct this base level stupid ass comment. Allen?Upright BiPed
May 16, 2008
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Allen Someone who understood the profound fundamental differences between ethics, science, and theology would know that. Actually we can connect them all without profound differences depending on how we define our ethics, theology, and science. The first two are completely arbitrary!DaveScot
May 15, 2008
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Allen, Would you say most biologists who use evolution use macro evolution or micro evolution as a tool?William Wallace
May 15, 2008
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Hat Tip to Wesley Elsberry’s message board for homozygous church burnin’ ebola boys
Hey, leave me out of that one. I'm haploid.Bob O'H
May 15, 2008
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I think the *idea* that scientists and others merely look at data is good in theory, however I am not so convinced it works out in the real world. As an example, US Supreme Court justices all look at the same data, namely the constitution, and listen to the arguments from both sides. How then, can a Ruth B. Ginsberg be so opposed to a Clarence Thomas in their opinions? In the book Thomas wrote, "My Grandfather's Son", he describes the beginning of his "conservative" philosophy. One of the things that really stands out is how he describes how hard his family had to work to be successful. The very idea, he says, that the government can confiscate your hard earned waelth at their leisure to give to those whom they deem "needy", horrifies Thomas. Yet, he admits, that is just what the governemnt does. Clearly, as he states, his ideas about taxes and redistribution of wealth are embedded in his life's experiences-apart from the "data". I have never read anything about Ginsberg's life, but I wonder if it was a hardscrabble existence? My guess is not. My contention here is that data is never *just* data. I can relate a few more examples that might further illustrate what I am trying to say. My biology teacher at a California Jr. college I attended, after my presentation, stated, "I am a Catholic, and thus I believe that God used evolution as his creative mechanism...". Really? Where in the data does it say "God"? Anyone? Clearly, although she was a biologist who dealt with the data, she *could not* seperate herself from her religion. Am I really to beleive that PZ Myers is objective about biology and creationsm, when just a few weeks ago he stated on his blog; "F*** the national day of prayer"? And after class is over he immediately heads off to deliver a lecture at the Secular Student Alliance??? On a personal note, having been born and raised in the Deep South, directly in the path of Sherman's "March to the Sea" (his troops burnt my grandafthers church to the ground), I didn't realize until I atttended college out of state and later became a teacher how much my biases impmpacted my view of the data.. But they did.gleaner63
May 15, 2008
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Russ has a point. Assent to any proposition is the same as belief in that proposition, so it is perfectly reasonable to say one 'believes' in this or that type of evolutionary process. The rest of Allen's comment looks correct to me.crandaddy
May 15, 2008
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Allen MacNeill:
Besides, most scientists don’t “believe” in “Darwinism”, they simply use evolutionary theory as a tool for investigating nature. “Belief” is what religious people (including religious evolutionary biologists, like Ken Miller and Theodosious Dobzhansky) did and do, and it has nothing to do with their science.
What do you call the phenomenon whereby Steven J. Gould held to punctuated equilibrium, while most evolutionary biologists held to a gradual process? Neither side could be said to "know" what happened, so why would it not be correct to say that they "believed" that evolution occured in this way or that? Scientists and theologians examine different kinds of historical evidence, but don't they both face lots of unknowns and choose to "believe" one explanation over another?russ
May 15, 2008
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William Wallace asked:
"If you believe in Darwinism and environmentalism, doesn’t that lead to thinking we should limit the amount of precious natural resources homosexuals consume? Or something like that?"
Only if you can't tell the difference between an "is" statement and an "ought" statement. I recommend reading about G. E. Moore and the "naturalistic fallacy", and then brushing up on some basic ethical theory. Any good intro ethics text will show you that deriving a moral prescription from a scientific description is both fallacious and deeply pernicious. Besides, most scientists don't "believe" in "Darwinism", they simply use evolutionary theory as a tool for investigating nature. "Belief" is what religious people (including religious evolutionary biologists, like Ken Miller and Theodosious Dobzhansky) did and do, and it has nothing to do with their science. Someone who understood the profound fundamental differences between ethics, science, and theology would know that.Allen_MacNeill
May 15, 2008
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Gay Marriage legal. Homeschooling illegal. So glad I moved away from the Peoples’ Republic of California 20 years ago.
Why do polygamists get such a bad wrap? At least they can make a convincing argument--unlike gay couples--that their relationships are the product of a Darwinian process that produces offspring.russ
May 15, 2008
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Gay Marriage legal. Homeschooling illegal. So glad I moved away from the Peoples' Republic of California 20 years ago.mike1962
May 15, 2008
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Be careful Dave, Rich has a man crush on you.specs
May 15, 2008
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