On 07/11/2006, at 11:18 PM, jdiebremse wrote:
They're not free to marry someone of the same orientation, so they're
being treated differently.
But that's only for a definition of marriage as a "partnership between
any two people", that's not true for a definition of marriage as "a
partnership between a man and a woman", or even as "a partnership
between three people."
The former of your definitions has only recently been added to
marriage law in Australia. The latter, well why not? *shrug* Provided
people make provision for the children of such unions (adopted,
fostered or biological), what business is it of anyone else.
You're also being obtuse. I have attempted
to have a wider discussion on gay marriage, and you're keeping it in
the narrowest scope, that of this particular ruling and state. Fair
enough, you don't want that wider discussion.
First, in fairness, I find you to be equally obtuse on this
issue. For
example, when you write:
Which you've said before, and I agreed that judicial activism is a
bad thing. But the "liberal vs conservative" thing is a waste of
time, John. The world doesn't divide that way in real life, because
some conservatives want judicial activism too (witness the post-Dover
furore where a conservative judge who showed due process was accused
of judicial activism by people who wanted him to be an activist
judge... *brain explodes*), and liberals who respect the role of the
courts and the role of the legislature in making law. Your paragraph
would have had exactly the same sense if you'd substituted "liberals"
and "conservatives" for "people", because there are a range of views
across the US political spectrum.
....it seems clear to me that you are wasting my time. Of course
there
is diversity within Party Labels and Ideological Labels, but these
labels nevertheless represent broad generalities about those groups
that
are useful. When people start arguing about not using labels to
discuss the views of broad groups of people, I generally get the sense
that they are not being serious about the discussion.
I'm being serious, I just think your characterisation of both
liberals and conservatives are straw men, and your generalisations
are vastly too broad. It's the whole "dems think they're smarter than
reps, reps think they're more moral than dems" thing, and that's not
true either. In my experience the label is rarely actually useful -
the sorts of people described as "liberal" in the States seem to me
to be a pretty broad bunch who actually think all sorts of things. It
doesn't seem to be a useful term any more at all.
As I said, the last lot of people I saw coming out in favour of an
activist judiciary were pro-IDers, who I'd be guessing would be
"conservative" by your measure as they were all for Judge Jones,
Republican appointee, before the trial. (He's a class act, by the
way, his recent talks on the need for an independent judiciary were
top notch).
Secondly, I've said twice now that I support civil unions. I don't
know what more you want.
Like I said, the server issues may have sent some of that thread into
the aether. But I've also asked why if you're in favour of civil
unions for gay people, you'd be against civil marriage for those same
people (as the mechanism is there). I fully respect the right of
churches to marry or refuse to marry anyone they choose, but I don't
see the point of inventing a new class of civil union when we've got
a perfectly good set of civil union laws already, in the form of a
marriage down the registry office or by a civil celebrant.
Charlie
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