YankAbroad

Ginsburg isn't awful, just not really worth celebrating or detracting.

Muslim women who are being beaten should report the abuse to the police, have charges pressed against the beaters, and file for divorce from their abusive spouses. Protecting oneself requires one's own involvement. I tire of this expectation from the neoconservatives and socialists alike that the role of government is to "rescue" people from themselves. If you're being regularly beaten or abused as a citizen of a western country, and you don't report the abuse to the police and exercise your other democratic freedoms, then you're an idiot who might as well be beating yourself.

Regent "University" is a "Bible college" (which was recently bailed out by the Moonies). Lots of different reasons. Some think that gays should avoid marriage and monogamy because those are heterosexual institutions. Others think that marriage is for procreation (i.e. they'd agree with those who say gays are too perverted or sick to get married). Others want to see the issue "delayed indefinitely" in order to advance their own political agenda. They don't represent a majority per se, but they are a significant piece of the community, which is why arguments that there's some monolithic "agenda" which we all subscribe to are so retarded.

What's the purpose of a government registered ceremony in the first place?

At the end of the day, countries survive because they can defend themselves as bona fide entities. Canada doesn't do itself any favours by huffing and puffing, isolating its allies, and then pretending it can go up against the Russians, Americans, and Danes with an armed forces smaller than the police force of New York City. It's realpoliticks and should be dealt with in that way. Oh, I completely agree. Then again, Canada has never let democracy get in the way of its desires either. Nor has any other country.

It's the language which bothers me. When someone says that my participation in an institution "defames," "debases," or "ruins" it, funnily enough I don't take super kindly to it. As for the arguments regarding tradition, they're patently incorrect as has been demonstrated a million times already. I don't believe government should be in the marriage business to begin with. If I choose to define my relationship as a marriage, or you choose to define yours as a marriage, that's your business, not the business of the state.

Not even that. There are plenty of people in major groups in both countries who argue against lobbying for marriage.

So your position is essentially the same as the position of the KKK in the American south in the 1950s and 1960s vis-a-vis black people. It's revealing that you hate gays so much that you would characterise their involvement in an institution or legal process as "defaming" it. They say that history repeats itself -- we're seeing that process here, today.

Betsy, art history sites and "news" links from anti-gay web sites aren't "credible evidences" (sic). They're silliness. The fact that you don't even know the name of a single major gay lobby, let alone the three largest ones, tells me that you don't even have the minimum knowledge necessary to discuss this issue in a substantive or even semi-informed fashion. But then again, you're not interested in discussing it, you're just interested in tarring gay people. Quelle surprise!

All it says to me is that the average Palestinian voter is more concerned about killing Jews and expressing his "rage" than about getting a country for himself.

She's most likely referring to Chalabi. Although, after the invasion of Syria to find the "missing WMDs," we'll naturally learn that the Syrians sent them by train to Iran, then the Iranians sent them by truck to France, then the French sent them by helicopter to the Democratic Party HQ. . .

Well, looking at the US conservative party these days, all I see is blame, blame, blame. My third marriage broke up not because I was an insensitive turd who starved my family of attention, but because two little old ladies in Massachusetts got married to each other. My kids are horrible little delinquent monsters not because I didn't raise them, but because television has beamed horrible thoughts into their heads. I cannot get a job not because I'm too lazy to get the proper qualifications or am demanding too much money for the value of my services, it's because of immigration. In government it's taken a big turn towards blame as well. Is there any calamity which this government has not been quick to blame on the prior administration, the minority party, or some other branch of government? If Truman's sign said "the buck stops here," the present administration's sign says "what's a buck?" I agree that the values you talk about are conservative ones from a traditional perspective, but conservatives have abandoned those values for a brave new world of blame and power.

I'm not from a socialist society, and I don't see the problems he's advocating. Then again, my country has a constitution which lays out the rights of all people. It also has a criminal president trying to circumvent those rights, but I think overall that such a document resolves every single one of the concerns which Steyn is trying to raise. Of course, neoconservatives don't like the idea of universal human rights either -- if they're afforded to people they don't like. Which is why the idea is so good -- everyone is equally happy and empowered, and equally unhappy that they cannot make THEIR way the ONLY way.

During the height of the cold war, there were more US submarines under the North Pole than there were Canadian naval officers around the world!

Actually, it probably already will. I've had people from the US consulates in Canada and the UK both ask me why I "haven't moved back home." I explain that I don't find the freedoms I need back home to live a happy life, and it's a bit surprising to them. The world has made itself a decent place to earn an economic mercenary's living, but not one which facilitates building a stable home life. The economic pressures will eventually get to them. . . the US policy on civil unions/DOMA/etc. has already cost it about $500,000 in income taxes from me over the last six to eight years. And there are several hundred thousand others like me.

Canada and the US don't fight wars with guns and bombs. We fight wars with "musicians."

I reported two of the three attacks, the third time was in Iowa and I doubt the police would have been sympathetic. In several cases, especially in the midwest and south, it's the police doing the attacking! Several years ago, a couple of police beat the shit out of some Canadian kids on the San Antonio riverwalk because they thought they were gay, and then arrested them for "resisting arrest." Someone called and asked "what charge were you arresting them for where they were resisting arrest?" and the head cop basically said "Don't get all technical and legalistic on me." If I lived in San Antonio, I wouldn't report being attacked to the police. I would carry a weapon.

Of course they won't. The other bizarre tactic is finding some "link" between NAMBLA and some group nobody's ever heard of, and then claiming it "proves" that the former is a backbone of the "GRM" (again, whatever that is). I still have yet to have these educated social conservatives explain to me what the "agenda" of the "GRM" is, too. Seeing that I used to sit on the board of a major gay rights group and rarely saw agreement on any issue, I'm at a loss as to figuring out what it means!

What about immigration? I cannot get my partner in the UK a visa to return to the USA with me if I decide to go home. That's just one of the thousands of big and little things that the moral majority brigade have attached to government licensed "marriage."

I agree with most of what you've said, moderate, except this bit: Conservatives are quick to blame their problems on others as well. Just look at their rhetoric on the media, immigration, gays, etc. if you want evidence of this. Or the bits between their legs, etc. I completely agree.

It's a little dodgy to claim all the water between two landmasses as yours though. . . The other problem being that if Canada doesn't have the military power to keep those waterways clear of vessels they don't want there, then they lose their de-facto claim over them anyway. And only one country in this hemisphere has the ability to assist Canada in this task. . .

It's not elitism to insist that mob rule shouldn't be paramount. Respect for the rights of the individual over collectivism isn't elitism -- in fact, the idea that others in a majority know better about how you can live your own life than you is pretty bloody elitist!

I've been attacked for being gay three times -- all in the USA -- but don't think that makes "most Americans homophobic." And I think homophobia is far more common than racism in the USA.

Not everything is in a nice tight file on the internet. I'm a gay man. I'm actually living the gay rights phenomenon which you're prattling on about. For you to not mention a single real gay rights lobby or even show basic knowledge of them, whilst screaming on about NAMBLA -- and then demanding I substantiate my position based on experience -- really shows chutzpah on your part. Arrogance plus homophobia = unintential comedy.

Pure democracy is little more than mob rule -- two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.