Ronda

So can a brother and sister. But they cannot marry. That's the point. This conversation always has to wind back up at whether or not gayness, in and of itself is good or bad. It doesn't matter for our purposes. The point is that marriage is discriminatory. It discriminates based on sex, age and relation to name a few. Marriages have to be consummated by sexual intercourse between the couple and are voidable if impotency is discovered. Traditional marriages are given some recognition because of the dynamics between a husband and wife and because they are typically the ideal household to breed children into. And yes, I know gay ppl can have kids from a previous relationship (apparently one's 'orientation' is not as set in stone as it's made out to be) or through adoption but that doesn't change the fact that barring abusive situations, the ideal situation is to have a child with their natural parents. No one is telling gay people they cannot have relationships. They can do whatever they bloody well please. However, marriage law states you must marry someone of the opposite sex, someone you are not related to, someone who is not currently married, someone over the age of __, etc. It is not explicitly discriminating against "gays"!

Bull. That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Because the government asks if ppl are married, that makes it a "right"? There's a stigma attached to NOT being married now?? Tell that to the plethora of singles out there. Hetero and homo. Quick, go out and get married before someone.... what, eggs your house? Strings you up? Why don't you re-read my example about the university diploma. Either we all have them or we all don't. And again, since it's not getting into your head for some reason... gays CAN marry. Nobody is saying that "class" of people may not marry. They can marry someone of the opposite sex who is not related to them and is of age etc. etc. Just like you. So, guess what, Pellaken, if your "true love" is your sister or your aunt, tough crap for you. You can't marry her. Travesty, isn't it.

Pellaken. You are not talking about individual freedom. You are talking about social engineering. Do you really not understand that "re-writing marriage" and stripping society of anything that is religious in its roots is being more of a control freak than you're claiming "religious fundamentalists" are? Nobody is telling gay people or siblings or adult partners of any stripe that they may not live together, raise kids together, etc.etc. There is no freedom trampling. Wanting recognition for something you aren't doing, ie. getting married isn't the same as having a basic individual right. Calling your relationship that which it isn't does not involve securing an individual freedom. If that's the case, I was unable to attend university and I don't want to because I don't like what they're teaching but I notice that those with university education get better jobs and have a higher social standing than myself. This is discrimination. I'm intelligent and have done quite a lot of individual learning. Why should I not have the benefits of someone with a stupid piece of paper? After all, some uni grads are dumb as rocks anyway. I want my diploma. Now.

Sidenote: And why not? It's a theory. I am not particularly religious, I certainly do not follow dogma and I see many holes in the theory. Why is it taught as fact? Complete with made up "illustrations" etc? I think more people should oppose that teaching, not less.

You're entitled to that opinion but if you ask a Muslim, Jew, or Christian you are not likely to find that viewpoint supported and generally firm believers understand the distinct differences better than others.

I'm not really interested in this discussion but all religions are NOT all the same. That is an extremely naive viewpoint, in my opinion. Wicca, Satanism, Judaism, Christianity, Muslim, Buddhism, Raelian cult... etc. etc. All the same??! Not likely. Some ARE *better* than others too.

quote What's the difference if a woman depends on gov't handouts or a man? If a woman "needs" the gov't to force businesses to pay her more simply because she's a woman, what's the point? You can deny biology till you're blue in the face but the fact is women have babies. Lots of women actually like it. This is why women appear to earn less than men. Less women work and women tend to take a year or more off to stay home and look after children. As far as your assertion that it's preposterous to suggest when a woman should have children... take it up with God or whoever else you believe created women. All Hugo was saying is that it's a FACT that women are in the prime childbearing years in their 20s. Choose to have children in your mid-late 30s (as many career women do) and the only problem is decreased fertility and FAR greater likelihood of complications for mother and baby.

quote Oh, so you're not sexist or anything? And how would you go about your sex selection? Backwards Chinese style? Unbelievable. Yes, men are pigs, men are scum... don't worry - hold out for cloning, then you won't have to defile yourself through any kind of male contact whatsoever for your later in life girl baby. Ah, feminism, the voice of reason and equality. quote Do you even have a source for this claim? Do you really hold that the reasons women *may* earn less than men are due to an unfair system? That they have nothing to do with different lifestyles or biological functions (ie. child rearing)? I've never worked for a company that paid my male co-workers more than me or paid my female supervisor less than the male. "Those who oppose pay equity do not rely exclusively on economic arguments. Some argue that the principle behind pay equity is condescending to women. "Radical feminists," says Meredith Munger-Leyva, a female executive with a Washington, D.C. firm, "are telling women that they are not capable of competing with men... they are telling women that the government will take care of them... Instead of telling women about the trade-offs in life we make and giving women the educational tools to consider who to deal with these trade-offs, special interest groups are telling women that they are not responsible for taking charge of their careers". Pay equity is, from this perspective, part of an ideology of gender victimology that also is used to defend affirmative action measures." Quote from: http://www.policy.ca/PDF/20010126.pdf

That's pretty much what I said.

Hi again, Ned. quote Can you please clarify this? It seems to be pretty close to a worldwide welfare program to me. Force corporations (read: wealth) from successful nations to set up shop in third world countries. Sounds nice until *your* job gets flushed down the toilet. I actually work for a company that serves Americans. The reason I'm employed is that Canadians do the work cheaper than Americans. Just wait till American companies, courtesy of Kyoto, are banned from operating in Canada. Then again, we could always ignore it and just reap the good publicity. Like Iraq, Afghanistan, China etc. did with CEDAW.

I think trying to reign in an organisation that is capitalising on people's ignorance about climate qualifies as trying to "make it [the country] even better". Why was there an Ice Age? Did the dinosaurs drive SUVs? Trying to not litter, recycling, reducing dependance on oil are all worthy causes. Getting together a global committee that is allocated billions and billions annually and forcing a stake through the heart of industry for a *possible* negligable effect on the global climate is absurd. Especially when their primary concern seems to actually be keeping themselves employed and the general public afraid of life without them.

quote Ok, forgive me, I don't remember that. I have asked you numerous times what that "solution" would be and you told me that I wasn't interested since I was basically, too much of a hawk to care. I also pointed out on another thread why anti-war seems anti-American and got no reply from you. I was not calling Lost a commie, either. My original point was that I didn't think the analogy about "economic weapons" used against US citizens was well placed against "being gassed". Then you brought up Marxist theory and how you were empathetic towards it for the very reason that capitalism is "warfare against the working class" so I responded to that. As I've said before, it really seems to me that you are the one who writes off everyone on this board (except lost and maybe mod) as being "stridently pro-war", not to mention ignorant, bloodthirsty, closed-minded and miles below yourself intellectually. It seems to me that every time I, or anyone else for that matter, disagrees with you, you respond with condescension or insults. Just because someone disagrees with you (for the nth time) doesn't mean they're ignorant, stupid, closed-minded or of course, excited to watch other people get killed.

quote 1) Have you ever driven in any urbanized area of any country in the world and NOT seen the poor, huddled masses? 2) The US of A also spends more on foreign aid than the rest of the world combined. 3) The actual dollar figure that the US spends on military is not terribly relevant because it also has the largest economy to draw from. 4) Just a note that in almost every other country in the world, the standard of living is lower and the percentage of "starving" poor people is higher. The capitalist system is not perfect but it seems to be doing better than the alternatives. It was eventually evident that "the Worker's paradise" was anything but. As a wise man once said, "Da proof is da proof..." I do understand your little dig but I've always thought that the idea that a capitalist system wages a war on poor people (as if they're a race unto themselves or something?) was ridiculous. It becomes much more so when you're comparing a capitalist government to a paranoid dictator who routinely murders critics in cold blood.

Again, Bill thinks we've all missed the brilliant metaphor when in reality we just think it's bunk. Yes, dear, we've all heard of Marx - thanks, though. Capitalist gov't is to poor people as Saddam Hussein is to gassed Kurds... is about as relevant as Augusta National Golf Club is to American women as the Taliban is to Afghan women. Do you understand the parallel I'm making and how it points out the main flaw of the original point that you so admire? I hate to be so condescending, Bill, but, hey... when in Rome. quote Oh, it sure is... but it's still bunk. Did you notice that when the Berlin wall came down, the traffic was all one way?

I really doubt that the US and/or Britain (or Canada) is letting its children starve to death. Show me some examples. You also cite drug use as being a killer in the US/Britain/Canada. Where's personal responsibility??? You're completely off the mark if you equate a government failing to stop someone from (by their own free will) overdosing on crack to someone being rounded up and gassed by their government. You need a vacation to Iraq if you think those things are even in the same league.

Rita, I'm sure it'd be a new thread and that's not my intent, but I don't believe that women are universally "oppressed" (or have been at one time or another) because of males overpowering the weaker sex, so to speak. The reasons that women were "out of the loop" with public life and work and politics and still are in many countries seems more to do with biology to me. Women have children and because they are more naturally bonded to them, tend to want to stay home to look after them. This cuts them out of public life. That's why so many women who now enter the workforce because of feminists telling them that they're supposed to or they'll be irrelevent end up feeling so guilty for leaving their children. It's not really in our nature to have babies and then leave them for 8 hours (or more) a day. But hey, no one else is having the kids - until Planned Parenthood or NOW works out a way for a machine to do it for us Secondly, CEDAW is not ratified by the US because pretty much everything in there already exists in the US. It has been ratified by Afghanistan and Iraq as well as a host of other countries though. Where would you rather live? The US has Condi Rice and Hillary Clinton. I don't think there's a women's rights problem there. I think CEDAWs main agenda was to legally enforce unrestricted abortion rights around the world. In case you hadn't noticed, George Bush isn't a big fan of abortion. But anyway.. like anything the UN does, it's useless anyway in case you didn't get the REAL irony that the US has not ratified CEDAW but Afghanistan and Iraq have. UN advocates, note that good and evil are not defined by whether or not a state subscribes to the UN's unenforced paper-tiger laws.