Power and Control: A Really Interesting Discussion

Sunday, November 23, 2008

A Really Interesting Discussion

There is a really interesting discussion going on between Kelly and Edgar in the comments at Sanctification. May I suggest a read?

4 comments:

RavingDave said...: It's not really interesting. It's mostly just several people talking past each other.

David; Monday, November 24, 2008 at 4:46:00 PM UTC
M. Simon said...: It clarified my thoughts enough so that I wrote:

The Government IS The Devil; Monday, November 24, 2008 at 5:13:00 PM UTC
kurt9 said...: I have several questions for you guys:

1) My first question is for the advocates of gay marriage. Why do gays want to get married in the first place? When I lived in SoCal in the late 80's (before I moved to Japan) I knew many gay people. To put it charitably, monogamy and fidelity were alien concepts to these people. I simply cannot fathom why they want the option to get married.

I CAN understand why lesbians want the marriage option. I have a cousin who is lesbian, and as is common for lesbians, has been in a long-term monogamous relationship for nearly 15 years. So again, given the promiscuous nature of gay men, why do they want the option of marriage anyways?

2) My second question is for the social conservatives. I agree (and both anecdotal and statistical evidence backs me up on this) that stable two-parent families are essential for raising kids. Given that gays make up 2% of the male population and lesbians make up about 0.7% of the female population, how exactly is gay marriage a threat to heterosexual marriage? I fail to see how the actions of 2% of the population can have such a profound impact on the remaining 98%, especially when most of that 98% population (who has kids) has little or no daily contact with that 2%.

Most everyone I know personally who has kids is married and considers their marriage to be essential to the well being of their kids. Also, the annual divorce rate has declined year after year since peaking in 1981. This means that people are marrying later, but are forming more stable relationships than they did in the 60's and 70's. This suggests that if the gays are able to get married, that it is unlikely to have any effect on how heterosexual people get and stay married. So again, I ask why gay marriage is such a problem?; Monday, November 24, 2008 at 10:48:00 PM UTC
RavingDave said...: For some it is a religous thing. For others, it's the "in your face thing."

For some proponents, it's to show how "tolerant" they are, like voting for a black guy just cause he's black.

That's my quick and dirty assesment. It's deeper than that, but those are some simple answers.

I have long thought about writting a short story substituting "Vampires" for homosexuals, and the debate about Vampire Marriage. I can see some of the dialogue.

" But they're BLOOD SUCKING KILLERS !!! Can't you see that this is all a big ploy to convert people into VAMPIRES ! "

"Now Calm down. If people want to marry vampires, they have a right to do so. "

"But people aren't doing this willingly! The vampires BITE them, then THEY become vampires !!!"

" But people say they agreed to it willingly. "

"That's AFTER they've been BITTEN ! "

"You're just being rude and unreasonable. You must be one of those Nosferatuphobes ! "

"Yeah, I'M the unreasonable one! You people are taking this tolerance stuff too far. "

"You're just afraid of people who are different. They're really very charming people. If you had a Vampire friend you would feel differently. I'm going to introduce you to my friend Mike. We'll arrange for you to talk to him someplace quietly so ..."

"NO ! You aren't going to leave me alone with one of them !! "

"Don't be absurd, there's nothing to worry about. Mike would never bite anyone without their consent."

Later that day our hero emerges from his meeting with Mike, two rivlets of blood running down his neck...

"I've changed My mind. Vampires really are such NICE people. If I had only known, I never would have been so intolerant ! See, i've even let mike bite me in the neck. You people were right all along..."

And so on. Could be funny if handled right.

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David; Monday, November 24, 2008 at 11:41:00 PM UTC