RE: Majority of Americans support gay rights over religious freedom bills
April 17, 2015 at 2:11 pm
(April 16, 2015 at 11:51 pm)Kitan Wrote: Straight people can marry.
If gay people can legally marry, what is being taken away from straight people?
Unsure if this was addressed to me. However you'll notice I do support gay marriage. And access to contraceptives or abortions. And other permissive laws as a general rule.
However, I don't support very many proscriptive measures such as the "hate crimes" legislation recently enacted by the federal government and some states. This is because hate crimes usually break existing laws against assault, robbery, making threats, vandalism, and murder. Parole boards can and do consider motive when they evaluate offenders for early release. Matthew Shepard's killers will likely never leave the Wyoming State Penitentiary even though no hate charges were brought in their case. Hate crimes laws directly penalize an offender's thoughts alongside the deeds we've always believed worthy of punishment. I don't know. I think I once read a book called 1984 by a guy called George Orwell. It had a funny word in it, "thoughtcrime." No. I don't want to go there.
Hate crimes laws aren't about equality to begin with. They are about revenge. In fact they create a new inequality by assigning prejudiced criminals to a separate class from others committing the same crimes.
(April 16, 2015 at 11:54 pm)Rhythm Wrote: We -have- laws that ostensibly apply to all citizens. If they were working...
Which they do. At least most of them, most of the time. And pushing for enforcement of a law when regulators or courts have gotten lax is legitimate. Problem is, the lawmaking process in a democratic society resembles the feeding trough at a pork farm in Iowa. All the animals nuzzle up and gobble as much as they can. The weaker critters who can't get their nose up to the trough starve. Our various laws catering to identity groups tend to leave out those unfortunate souls who can't find a lobby to champion for them. If a gay person is going to be able to sue a boss who fires them in an arbitrary or petty manner, then I want to have the right to press a similar suit without having to belong to an identity group.
Not that I think the EEOC or the discrimination attorneys actually help that many victims: Few have the time and money to pursue claims which are hard to prove, so they just take their lumps and move on if they can. But to me, this proliferation of new discrimination and special rights laws and "health insurance for domestic partners while singles be damned" is a symptom of a deeper illness afflicting our society: Namely, a growing unwillingness to share and share alike in our commonwealth. We need the serious national parley we're refusing to have, turning instead to a spiteful rush to "get ours while the getting's good." I feel that spirit will ultimately ruin our republic.
(April 17, 2015 at 1:17 am)Heywood Wrote: It is one of his troll tactics. I would just ignore it...
Yet we love our trolls and consider their care and feeding a matter of utmost importance. Why, this site's proprietors have thoughtfully stocked a zoo for us...
