Comments on: Prop 8, Gay Marriage And The Spread Of Islamofascism

By: The Glittering Eye » Blog Archive » Eye on the Watcher’s Council

The Glittering Eye » Blog Archive » Eye on the Watcher’s Council — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 17:17:50 +0000

[...] Cheat-Seeking Missiles, “Prop 8, Gay Marriage and the Spread of Islamofascism” [...]

By: Soccer Dad

Soccer Dad — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 10:42:38 +0000

Submitted 11/06/08…

Watcher’s Council submissions for this week are now up! If ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise – Bookworm Room looks at the bright side of the election of President-elect Obama. National Security Rears It’s Ugly Head – Joshuapundit is worried…

By: Watcher of Weasels » Submissions in a Time of Change

Watcher of Weasels » Submissions in a Time of Change — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 12:29:17 +0000

[...] Cheat-Seeking Missiles – Prop 8, Gay Marriage and the Spread of Islamofascism [...]

By: dg

dg — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 19:27:50 +0000

Hyrum, defense of marriage from what? How do gay marriages infringe on straight ones? Why can’t you let your church define them one way and another church define it another way, while letting the state just grant people civil unions with equal rights to all? And if you and other Mormons are for equal legal rights, then why doesn’t Prop 8 provide for those instead of merely taking away the rights of some to protect an institution not under attack? Unless you or someone can name the potential harm to marriage or show how your Prop 8 is providing equal rights some other way, you are not a proponent of individual freedom and free will but an instrument of tyranny and inequality. Everyone pays lip service to equal rights but few actually step up and put their vote and money where their mouth is. Good thing our soldiers don’t defend freedom the way conservatives (including Mormons) do…

By: Hyrum

Hyrum — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 13:02:08 +0000

Mormons have come out in strong support of proposition 8. There are also a few that have come out against it. However, the main stream Mormon church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS), is one of the largest proponents of strong families and family values. I am a Mormon, and support proposition 8. I am against redefining the legal definition of marriage, as between 1 man and 1 woman. However, I am not opposed to people living in same sex relationships to have similar type of legal recognition and civil rights as married couples; just don’t define it as “marriage”. That’s what proposition 8 is about. It’s not an attack on gays; it’s a defense on traditional marriage.
So, it’s obvious that there is no covert plan to legalize polygamy by using gay marriage to get there. That being said, polygamy is not in and of itself evil. However, it is very delicate and susceptible to abuse and oppression.
As a conservative and active proponent for individual freedom, I do not like being thrown into the mix with our enemy. I am opposed to the communist and Islamic revolution.
You will find that members of the LDS church are on the right side of this battle. After all, we believe and understand that the battle against free agency began before this world was created; that we existed before this life and at that time made a conscious decision for free agency; a choice that Christ himself presented to us then and again in this life on Earth. After all, charity, Christ explained, is the greatest commandment. Charity requires a free society where individual liberty is protected. If one is robbed of his substance or compelled to behave in certain ways, then one has his free will restricted and cannot fully develop charity.

By: dg

dg — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 23:57:24 +0000

Laer, have you seen Michael Jackson’s before and after pictures?!?

By: Laer

Laer — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 20:22:24 +0000

You're beating the same horse. Just because you're saying homosexuality is genetic to the degree that race is does not make it so.

I'm a busy man. Do your own research on parenting, or just apply the logic of the ages.

By: dg

dg — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 16:53:31 +0000

Laer, interracial marriage and gay marriage are similar in the legally important respect that gender and sexual orientation are genetically determined and thus denying marriage and the rights that go with it is an unConstitutional denial of equal legal protection to a suspect class. If you are for the same laws for all people, then you would be for granting civil unions to everyone and making marriage something done voluntarily in churches based upon church rather than governmetn law. Is this your position? Your linkage of gay marriage to Islam is clear enough: we cannot accommodate gays in marriage because then we need to grant those rights to polygamists; others have extended the slippery slope argument to marrying your dog or daughter. The argument is specious because polygamy (obviously, not to mention bestiality and incest) is illegal in the US and has withstood legal challenge on the grounds of discrimination, violation of the Equal Protection Clause, etc. largely because you choose your religion (and lifestyle within it) but you do not choose your race, gender or sexual orientation. Hence, your linkage is a false one. Finally, if you would, please give me links to these studies showing measurably better outcomes for straight adoptive parents rather than gay ones, since the studies I’ve seen cited by conservatives in the past have been soundly disproven and I want to make sure that you are not citing those debunked claims. Thanks much!

By: Laer

Laer — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 15:18:07 +0000

I said I support civil unions; by that I meant that the civil rights of marriage could go to anyone, so i fail to see why you’re on the attack. You have to surmount the mass of studies about gay parenting vs. straight parenting because the good of the child, not the wants of the couple, always must come first in adoption. You say they have been discredited, but I have no faith in your statement. You know, when my daughter goes off on a terror about the latest chemical threat – recently it’s been drinking water from plastic cups – I answer by asking her why, if there are so many threats to our well-being in the environment, does our health expectancy keep rising. It’s the same with adoption. You have thousands of years of kids being raised healthily enough by straight couple to ensure the continuation of the species versus the studies of some recent agenda-driven social scientists. Color me skeptical. (I know a lot of gay people; I was raised around them, they’ve been a positive to neutral force in my life all my life and I currently am a close friend to a couple gay men. I’m not sure about gay couples with children; none come to mind, but I’m sure I know some. I just don’t ask a lot about acquaintance’s sex status.)

Your slippery slope argument is easily countered by real-life experience in which radical Islam is exploiting our system of laws and benefits for their own purposes, including securing welfare payments for multiple wives. Look what radical Islam is doing in Europe. I cited this in my original post; go back and re-read it. I find that nice logic, which you do a good job of offering, is often no replacement for real world examples. My original post had nothing to do with the rights of gays; it had all to do with looking at the unintended consequences in a population that (unlike America, unlike the supporters of Prop hang gays from gallows.

Inter-racial marriage is between a man and a woman so it is inherently different from gay marriage. As for your “overwhelming” studies, how about the “overwhelming” studies that show social/environmental impacts as the root cause? Say what you well, they are similarly overwhelming. Again, have your 100 rights, have your cake, have your photographer; just keep holy, sacred marriage between a man and a woman separate but apart.

By: dg

dg — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 05:50:43 +0000

Laer, first, you are right that I do not know you but I am not making ad-hominem arguments, since I am criticizing your arguments, which I find grossly un-American, but I am not criticizing you personally (the definition of ad-hominem argument). Second, where is your call and solution to rectify the denial of over 100 legal rights to gay people? You say you are in favor of these rights but offer no solution to provide them. I have provided one: make all marriages from a legal point of view civil unions and then let churches do what they want. While you seem to say you are for equal rights for gays, you clearly want to deny them some rights (like adoption, except for unadoptable kids), so you contradict yourself. Separate but equal has always turned into separate but unequal (see South African apartheid and the US South before the Civil Rights Movement). Third, you raise a straw man by referring to totalitarianism, since you need not be for totalitarianism to be socialist; you are the latter when you say that you will have a legal system treat a minority differently for the interest of the state. Fourth, your slippery slope argument (the basis of your alleged harm) is weak; calling for lower taxes doesn’t risk them going to zero or negative, so why should calling for equal rights for people born gay necessarily lead to equivalent demands for people who choose to have multiple wives or choose to marry their sister…or their dog? Note the difference between denying a legal right that isn’t there (i.e., marrying two people) with one that is there (i.e., equal protection under the law–the Equal Protection Clause in the Constitution). Fifth, if the slippery slope argument is bogus, then what is the harm of allowing gays the same rights as non-gays? Where is the evidence that granting gay rights causes straights to question their marriages? Sixth, show me the ample evidence that children do better in homes with straight parents; much of the alleged evidence has been roundly refuted but continues to be cited by partisans, so please share your sources. (And by the way, how many gay parents do you actually know???) Seventh, you misunderstood my use of the term “canard”; it is not that marriage is a canard, but that gay marriage or gay rights harms marriage is a canard (see the fifth argument above). Finally, please explain how interracial marriage and gay marriage are different as the scientific evidence is overwhelmingly showing that skin color and sexual orientation are both genetically determined? I maintain that it is un-American to deny someone equal status for something they cannot voluntarily control, but your argument implies that you have no problem with hereditary classes; I thought our founding fathers were escaping such backward thinking…