Black Dog

Oh yeah: we're in a tizzy all right. Why if I got any more excited about this I'd...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Whoops. Sorry. Dozed off there. Are you a compulsive liar? Must be all the exposure to FoxNews. But hey, keep it coming, you're doing wonders for my insomnia.

You're just wrong. The reason the Alberta Government did not use the notwithstanding clause was because of political considerations. Premier Klein has been pretty liberal on the issue of gay rights and probably didn't want to reinfocre Alberta's image as a haven for intolerant rednecks. In any case though, you never answered my earlier question: have you ever eaten shrimp or lobster? Because if you have, you are no better in the eyes of your god than homosexuals. See you in hell!

Deterrence and rogues: a realist's perspective

I get what you're saying but, with all due respect, think the priorities are a little misplaced. If I wante dto ensure strong families I'd go after poverty, which rends apart more families than anything. I think you're placing the symbolism of the mother+father dynamic above its practical purposes, which is to provide material and emotional support for kids, etc etc. In that sense, gays and lesbians can succeed and provide the same environment as the htero mother/father unit. And its should go without saying that many traditional families are failures at their duties. I guess my point is, we should judge people by their actions and not whether they fit in arbitrarily assigned roles.

Why not? few people would argue that homosexuality is anything but a biological imperative and an immuttable characteristic, much like race or sex. Indeed. The "ideal family" model varies greatly depending on cultural factors. The nuclear family, "Leave it To Beaver" model is a western, middle class, Judeo-Christian construct.

Willy, that can of worms was opened and emptied with the advent of divorce. Divorce was a far more fundamental change to the meaning of marriag ethan gay unions. Before divorce, peopel were more or less obligated to spend their lives with another person regardless of wheter or not the relationship was a good one. Divorce put an end to that permenance and irrevocably changed a fundamental aspect of marriage (permenancy). It's not about gender. It's about good parents. Nothing precludes same sex couples from being good parents or providing a stable environment, and nothing guarantees a "traditional" couple would make good parents or provide a stable environment. So I reject the idea that a male/female parent dynamic is the ideal. Rather, parents and a family unit that cosnsitently provides a good, nurtuing caring environemnt for kids is the ideal.

All but five: as of 2003 India, Pakistan, Israel, Iran and North Korea were the only non-NPT nations with intermediate-range or long-range ballistic missile development programs.

If true, this is totally irrelevant to the discussion at hand. You can't prove it, so you're mentioning it is, as I said before, a plea to authority. That marriage is between a man and a woman is not a self-evident truth. Has that been the case in practice? Yes, but tradition is no defense and you certainly haven't offered up any arguments as to wht that single element (the gender of the participants) is the most important defining characteristic of marriage. You've simply stated "that's the way it is", which is no sound foundation for an argument. This leads me to believe you don't have one. As for why I bring up the issue of women's rights, I do so because the logic you're applying was the same as was used to deny women the status of persons under the law. It's called "definitional exclusion". Ah, since you can't actually answer my main question, you've opted to shift the burden of proof onto me. That dog doesn't bark, friend. Don't confuse your refusal to accept logic with any alleged inability on my part to make a case. But not necessarily so. But the meaning of amrriage varies from person to person. That's the point: it's a highly personal choice and there's no "higher meaning" of marriage. I mean a coupel taht gets married in a civil ceremony by a J.P will probably have a very different idea of what marriage means than the couple who opts for a union sanctified by the church. There's many gays who opoose SSM. thee's many gays who oppose marriage, period. But that's not a sound basis for which to exclude them from it. When SSM finally becomes legal, any gay who doesn't want to get married can freely choose not to, which is far more in line with the ideals of a free society than simply allowing the state or the majority to deny them the right altogether. Finally, I've been around the mulberry bush here enough. I certainly never expected to change any minds, but simply wanted to see if there were any arguments against SSM that were not demonstratably fallacious. Based on what I've seen so far, there are none.

Why is that the "relevant" portion? Because you said so? It's safe to say (and court decisions such as Vreind vs. Alberta support this) that the rights and freedoms covered by the equality provision extend to all and not just those specifically mentioned in the second section. You know what? I agree. Let's do it, if for no other reason than to close off that particular line of defense from society's bigots.

Yet that doesn't stop you from clininging to logical fallacies like a drowning man. As for intolerance, I'll give you this much credit: the only real intolerance you've displayed is towards well-structured, reasoned arguments. That said, if you're comfortable sharing a position with bigots like B. Max, don't bitch when you get tarred with the same brush. Because, rather than put froward an argument and then defend that argument, you've essentially staked out a position and then stuck your fingers in your ears while saying "La la! I'm not listening!" Your position is marriage is between a man and a woman because it always has been between a man and a woman. Of course, you've not bothered to answer WHY that is and why such a dynamic is essential to marriage being marriage. It's a fallacy to assume something is right simply because that's the way it's always been done. Let's use the same logic in a different context: Traditionally and legally, women have not been considered persons. A person is definied as "someone who is not a woman; a man". Therefore, woman cannot be persons because, by definition, a person is not a woman. Change a few words, and you have your position on gay marriagen in a nutshell. It is, of course, unteneble. So what's the difference? How? What affect will the legalization of gay marriage have on existing unions. If you're going to make statements like this, back them up with examples or something. So we're expected to accept your arguments (which have consisted largely of contradictions and unsubstansiated declarations such as "(SSM) affects those already married and those who will be in the future.") based on the unprovable assertion that you once argued a case in court? This despite your admitted lack of legal training? Come on. This is a ploy, a lame plea to some unverifiable authority you purport to hold and certainly no substitute for a real argument. That's interesting, because I read back and I see arguments for same sex marriage based on historical and legal precedents, on the common law interpretation of the Constitution, on ideals of equality and on common sense. I see arguments against based on bigotry and stubborn repetition of unsubstansiated positions. I'll ask you one last time: please detail why the gender of the participants in a marriage is the single most important definitional characteristic of marriage?

On thi stopic, I'll invoke Occam's Razor. Bush probably isn't insane. A intellectually incurious individual with a short temper and shorter attention span and a dash of meglomaniacal messanic delusions, sure. But not crazy.

Iraq: purple or black and blue?

It's funny, but I can just cast my mind back a couple of thousand years and hear the same line being used in another place.... "What is ironic to me is that through all of the finger pointing, blame and fault finding, indignant opinions for leadership of the Roman Empire and its policies, I don't see anyone pointing out the ethical shortcomings of barbarian tribes that engage in human sacrifices, cannibalism or the like with the same finger..." For me it comes down to the simple fact that it's possible to recognize and condemn atrocious behaviour no matter its origin. So your argument would only hold water if you can catch someone who is vociferously denouncing the U.S. also defending, say Osama Bin Laden. The idea that people should be held accountable and their opinions judged based on what they are not saying is pretty self-serving and allows one to make all kinds of judgments that may not be supportable. The United States is the most powerful country in the world. Its reach is global and, as such, it can be expected to attract a proportional share of criticism. What's more, the U.S. self-identifies so heavily with concepts of freedom and democracy that when an Abu Ghirab or a Pinochet manifest themselves, the hypocrisy becomes apparent. No one expects great things from a third world military dictatorship, but the U.S., by its own rhetoric, sets the bar higher for itself. Basically, I don’t think getting defensive when someone draws attention to the U.S.’s shortcomings is a productive way to go. Instead of denying these realities or deflecting attention elsewhere, perhaps Americans should own up and say: “Yeah, we’re not perfect, but we need to set an example for the world to follow.” Prevaricating about the realities of 21st Century America only reinforces the negative attitudes so many have towards the United States, its government and, to some extent, its people. (Not to mention how grating the effluent of jingoism and self-aggrandizement is to outsiders.)

I'd be more inclined to take your opinion seriously if it was supported by something other than endless repetition of singular, circular point, like a mantra. "Marriage is marriage". Only it's not. The customs, laws and taboos around marriage have been subject to constant change throughout history. Elements once thought of as being as essential to the union, such the superiority of the husband and his ownership of the wife, have been discarded as society has evolved. The simple fact that marriage has been traditionally regarded as being between one man and one woman in no way restricts that definiton from being expanded. Civil marriage has nothing to do with religion or "religious attitudes". Hence the distinction.

Round and round and round it goes... Let me break it down The choice to marry is extremely personal, and the reasons for doing so vary between individuals. Ultimately that decision rests with the individuals involved, not society."Traditional" marriages will not be affected by the decison to extend the right to civil marriage to gay couples. Heterosexual unions will not cease to exist, existing marriages will not dissolve or be rendered meaningless. Therefore the wishes of the majority (and I would contest that the majority does indeed oppose SSM) are irrelevant, much as the gender of the participants is irrelevant to making a marriage a marriage.

But, given that the Charter already guarantees freedom from discrimination for everyone, what's wrong with the interpretation which reads in sexual orientation (not "preference", please; I have a preference for lattes and I like to thnk my choice of mate is a little deeper than that) as protected grounds? I don't think that could be interpreted as "it's okay to discriminate against anyone not explicitly mentioned here."

Legally, yes. Sort of. Lower courts ruled the old definition prohibiting gay couples from marrying was unconstitutional and violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. There's a distcinction between marriage as a colloquial term or marriage as a legal term. Take the example of women's rights. Did the legal definition of "persons", which, for centuries, excluded women therefore make women non-persons? Did changing their legal status suddenly elevate women to personhood? No. Women were always persons, in spite of legal definitions to the contrary. So, legal definitions are not fixed. This was addressed in the SC's reference to same sex marriage. Furthe rto a previous example, the framers of the Constitution Act of 1867 did not intend or imagine a nation where women could be recognized as "persons" with the right to vote or hold office. They probably would have considered the notion of expanding the traditional definition of personhood a "flavour-of-the- month, social engineering project." If we are to believe that legal concepts cannot change and evolve with the times, what kind of society would we have?

Why? Again: if marriage is a contract between individuals denoting a certain set of roles and responsibilities, why is the gender of the individuals an issue? If two people wanted to, for example, start a business partnership, it wouldn't matter. Nor does it matter in marriage which, as I pointed out, is merely a legal, consensual, and contractual relationship between two persons. Gender doesn't matter when it somes to paying the bills, doing the housework, maintaining a bank account, filing a tax return, cooking dinner, shopping for groceries, or many other of the day-to-day activities that make a marriage a marriage. Stable, monogamous, same sex couples are the same in almost every respect to their married, hetero counterparts (something everyone who's taken the civil union line agrees on). So why not call it a marriage? Because the answers are legally and logically unsound. Because they are related and there exists a vast number of reasons why incest is a criminal offense. Stubbornly asserting a logically flawed point is not the same as presenting evidence or making a case for why you believe something to be true. As near as I can tell, the only arguments for why marriage is between a man and a woman are: "Just because." But hey, perhaps I'll start using that in other discussions. "Fox News is biased because it is biased." "George W. Bush is the antiChrist because the is the antiChrist." Wow, this is easy. If you lie down with dogs, don't complain if you get fleas.

That's a bullshit analogy because its easy enough to prove that mayo, by definition, includes eggs. You can successfully argue that mayo made without eggs is not mayo, but something else all together simply because eggs are demonstrably essential to the flavour, consitency, colour and texture of mayo. However, I've yet to see (and not for want of asking) a reason why the gender of the participants is integral or even relevant to the marriage contract. Why is the legal, consensual, and contractual relationship between two persons of the same sex fundamentally different from a legal, consensual, and contractual relationship between two persons of the opposite sex? No, it's been rejected because it's bad logic.

It's fallacious because because simply assuming that the conclusion is true in the premises does not constitute evidence for that conclusion. I don't think this is too difficult a concept to get one's head around, but for the life of me I can't figure out why you'd cling to this assertion. The same reasoning has been used in legal arguments (such as by the Attorney General of Canada's appeal of the Ontario gay marriage ruling) and has been rejected.

Any evidence that he's recanted?

No I say this because you willfully excuse hyopocrisy when ity comes from people on "your" side of the spectrum. So you disagree with Rush that "if people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up"?

But your initial premise, in spite of your protests to the contrary, is a fallacy. It's not a matter of opinion, but of commonly accepted principles of logic. You cannot just say "marriage is between a man and a woman because that's what marriage is" and not expect to have such an absolutist and logically unsound statement challenged. You need to provide a "why".

You are a dupe. You have exhibited a steadfast refusal to question your orthodoxies (and please if you can produce any evidence to discredit Chomsky or his views, please do so: you'd be the first) and now are showing a clear double standard when it comes to issues of media bias. So typically unprincipled. Rush, after making sweeping, blanket condemnations about drugs, gets hooked on drugs and turns to the illegal market to feed his addiction. Yet he gets the benefit of the doubt. Tell me, would a junkie from the ghetto get the same treatment? Why is "back pain" a better excuse for drug use than, say, poverty, alienation, lack of education? You are a perfect example of why neocons are thouroughly unqualified to make judgements on moral matters: you have no principles. Your moral compass shifts wildly depending on the status of the person being judged. Conservatives have sacrificed principles in the service of their blind worship of wealth and power.

But it says right there: But you see, people like B. Max consider places where gays, fornicators and adulterers get put to death model societies.