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icon3.gif Intelligent Discourse From CBS News  [message #67609] Sun, 24 March 2013 17:23 Go to next message
Brody Levesque is currently offline  Brody Levesque

Really getting into it
Location: US/Canada
Registered: September 2009
Messages: 733



WASHINGTON

March 24, 2013

As the U.S. Supreme Court readies to hear oral arguments Tuesday & Wednesday in the landmark legal cases that will decide the course of same-sex marriage in the United States, this morning on the CBS News programme, 'Face The Nation,' a group of political pundits and columnists gathered to discuss the court's actions and its impact.

Although longish at 16 minutes, it is time well spent as this group lays out the case for why, at long last, giving the LGBTQ community its equality is so important.

Note: Tim told me that Embed codes for other than YouTube videos don't work so please visit Jeremy Hooper's Good As You blog-site link below to watch.

WATCH:
http://www.goodasyou.org/good_as_you/2013/03/video-evan-wolf son-wins-cbs-news-marriage-debate-handily.html

[Updated on: Sun, 24 March 2013 17:28]

Re: Intelligent Discourse From CBS News  [message #67610 is a reply to message #67609] Sun, 24 March 2013 19:41 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Kitzyma is currently offline  Kitzyma

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The only argument for gay marriage that has much weight for me is that of equality. I accept the basic principle that there can't be equality unless all things are equally available. However, I don't really understand why gay marriage should have become such a focus in the equality argument instead of other things (eg adoption rights) because, in my view, the state/religiuous institution of marriage is a bad thing.

I can't understand why any couple would want to hand over the regulation of their private relationship to a religion or state. Indeed, judging from the large and increasing proportion of children born in the UK to unmarried but cohabiting parents, it seems that heterosexual couples are beginning to think the same as I do about the negative aspects of allowing state and religion to regulate their private lives.

To me, gay people campaigning fot equal state/religious marriage is comparable to Christians campaigning for a religious circumcision ceremony just so they can be equal with Muslims and Jews. Of course, every Christian adult should have an equal right to circumcision if he wishes, but why campaign for a Christian religious circumcision ceremony just so he can claim equal rights with other religions?

Re: Intelligent Discourse From CBS News  [message #67611 is a reply to message #67610] Sun, 24 March 2013 19:59 Go to previous messageGo to next message
NW is currently offline  NW

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Location: Worcester, England
Registered: January 2005
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I'm lucky enough to live somewhere that gay adoption, protection against workplace discrimination, harrassment and other hate crimes has been achieved. Well, perhaps not entirely due only to luck - I've been fairly active in pushing for equality over the last 30+ years, and it's the efforts of thousands like me that have helped achieve this result.

However, I do think that marriage is a really important equality, even though I very much doubt I'll ever get married myself. Marriage is about a social recognition of a relationship, in a way that Civil Partnership has not (yet) achieved - and that's important. Far more important, IMO, is that, for many people, marriage has a special religious or spiritual component, and I think that while marriage between people of the same sex is disallowed, it gives the religious right serious ammunition to peddle the lie that it's "against the Bible", "abhorrent to God", and similar claptrap. I firmly believe that allowing religious groups that wish to do so to celebrate the marriages of LGB people is an essential step to reducing the influence these people have.

And, for those who do have a religious belief, arguing in favour of equal marriage is a testimony that some feel obliged to offer, regardless of their own sexuality. Here in the UK, the Quakers (a group I feel at home with), the Unitarians, and Liberal Judaism have all be instrumental in campaigning for their right to follow their consciences and celebrate marriage equally. And, of course, it would be nonsense to have religious marriages that had no civil effect - which means civil marriages are also needed.

Honestly, when the limited decriminalisatiion of homosexuality in England and Wales was passed in 1967, I never thought I'd live to see the day when equal marriage was possible anywhere. Several countries already practice it, the UK seems certain to permit it shortly, and I'd welcome the USA as a whole joining the growing number who do so.



"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
Re: Intelligent Discourse From CBS News  [message #67612 is a reply to message #67611] Sun, 24 March 2013 20:29 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Kitzyma is currently offline  Kitzyma

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"NW wrote on Sun, 24 March 2013 19:59"

Far more important, IMO, is that, for many people, marriage has a special religious or spiritual component, and I think that while marriage between people of the same sex is disallowed, it gives the religious right serious ammunition to peddle the lie that it's "against the Bible", "abhorrent to God", and similar claptrap. I firmly believe that allowing religious groups that wish to do so to celebrate the marriages of LGB people is an essential step to reducing the influence these people have.


--

I'm not comfortable with that argument because it seems to imply that the best way to combat the intolerance of religions is to join with them (e.g. marriage) on their own terms. That is a tacit acknowledgent that it's okay for them to use their mythological deities and human-invented 'holy' scriptures to oppress minorities that their superstitious beliefs regard as 'sinful'. What we should be doing is pointing out that although they are entitled to believe whatever irrational superstitions make them happy, they have no right to use those beliefs to tell others how to live their lives.

Re: Intelligent Discourse From CBS News  [message #67613 is a reply to message #67612] Sun, 24 March 2013 22:59 Go to previous messageGo to next message
NW is currently offline  NW

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For those who - like me - do have some kind of "religious" orientation, it's obviously essential to stress that many forms of most religions do seriously stress that we should not seek to impose whatever beliefs and views we hold on others.

I think it's a great pity that we can't work together to eliminate intolerance of diversity of belief, sexuality, ethnicity, cultures and ages, because so many of those who do not have religious beliefs often seem more interested in debates about the validity or otherwise of "religion" (often described, inaccurately, as "superstition") than they are in working jointly to counter homophobia, racism and sexism.



"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
Re: Intelligent Discourse From CBS News  [message #67614 is a reply to message #67613] Mon, 25 March 2013 05:43 Go to previous messageGo to next message
dgt224 is currently offline  dgt224

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Location: USA
Registered: May 2011
Messages: 81



"NW wrote on Sun, 24 March 2013 18:59"
... so many of those who do not have religious beliefs often seem more interested in debates about the validity or otherwise of "religion" (often described, inaccurately, as "superstition") than they are in working jointly to counter homophobia, racism and sexism.

--
I gave up religious belief ages ago, and I see the same thing. I suspect that it is in part a response to seeing a lot more hostility than support from organized religion when it comes matters such as equal treatment of gay relationships. The churches that are opposed to, for example, gay marriage seem to shout a lot more about their position and how it should be the shared value of everyone. (This may have something to do with the Christian Right shouting while the more liberal Christians are quietly saying,
"That's not what we believe." The ones doing the shouting get noticed the most.)

On top of that, here in the U.S.A. we see Christians with significant political power trying to use it to teach their beliefs (supposedly based on a "literal reading" of the Bible) concerning matters such as evolution and cosmology in the public schools. (The paediatrician who was until recently the member of the House of Representatives from my district once described evolution and embryology as "lies from the pit of Hell".) For those of us with a background in the sciences, that makes it really hard to see their beliefs as anything other than superstition. And of course, they tend to get all the press, so it's all too easy to paint religion in general with that brush. Not terribly productive, but easy to do.
Re: Intelligent Discourse From CBS News  [message #67615 is a reply to message #67613] Mon, 25 March 2013 11:48 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Kitzyma is currently offline  Kitzyma

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"NW wrote on Sun, 24 March 2013 22:59"


so many of those who do not have religious beliefs often seem more interested in debates about the validity or otherwise of "religion" (often described, inaccurately, as "superstition") than they are in working jointly to counter homophobia, racism and sexism.

--

Perhaps the reason for this is that religions, especially those that revere the Biblical Old Testament (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam), are often the root cause of most homophobia, racism and sexism. Even when religion is not the root cause, religion is often used as justification for most homophobia, racism and sexism. Thus it seems that it would be better to tackle the disease (religion) rather than just the symptoms (homophobia, racism and sexism). As long as the disease of irrationality continues, the symptoms will just keep coming back.

If most religious people were like you, NW, in not wishing to push thiose religious beliefs on others then religion wouldn't be such a virulent disease. Unfortunately, most are not like you. The major religions (e.g. Christianity and Islam) became major religions by converting others, often by force, and then using their power to enforce their view of 'correcrt behaviour' on others. If religions stopped trying to impose their beliefs on others then we could start working jointly to counter what remaining homophobia, racism and sexism remained.


Somewhat peculiar  [message #67616 is a reply to message #67609] Mon, 25 March 2013 21:29 Go to previous messageGo to next message
timmy

Has no life at all
Location: UK, in Devon
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Messages: 13739



Watching the video is a mixture of tedious and interesting. Socially, I see a remarkably (by my expectations) erudite biracial sportsman. That's interesting in itself. Perkins appears urbane and reasonable, so do the others. The discussion is very gentlemanly. There are no pieces of string rhetoric and Perkins is given the last word.

In the end it was somewhat of a pointless exercise. What I don't understand is the headline: "Video: Evan Wolfson wins CBS News marriage debate; handily" because he did not. Nor did he lose. He was simply present.

I'm much more interested in the sportsman. We have few of his ilk in the UK in what we laughing call our "National Game". Most can hardly string two grunts together.



Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
Re: Somewhat peculiar  [message #67618 is a reply to message #67616] Tue, 26 March 2013 12:59 Go to previous message
Kitzyma is currently offline  Kitzyma

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Setting aside my opinion of marriage in general, I should point out that I think it's a tremendous achievement that gay marriage is now being seriously discussed.

There are people alive today who fought and campaigned hard, possibly risking or even sacrificing much, to get homosexual acts decriminalised. When they were striving so hard toward that goal, I wonder how many of them thought that within fifty years there would not only be serious discussions on gay marriage in the UK but also a realistic possibility that it might happen.

I'm very grateful for the benefits that their efforts have brought.

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