North Carolina Votes to make gay marriage unconstituational

[Vampyr]

In case you haven't heard Amendment 1 passed yesterday in North Carolina.

This was the language on the ballot, and reflects what will be added to the constitution:

Constitutional amendment to provide that marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this State.

So sad. And embarrassing. I feel bad for everyone who lives in North Carolina, to have something so riddled with hate and intolerance stamped onto their most important document as a reflection of what that state stands for.

This is why gay marriage shouldn't be left up to the states, because they'll actually go through with crap like this. The rights of a minority group should -never- be voted upon by the majority. It makes no sense, and it isn't fair.

[Typhoid]

This is why gay marriage shouldn't be left up to the states

I suppose that's part of the problem when you try to found a country on the idea that the states can still hold more power than those that run the states as a whole.


Wait, question though:

[I haven't done prodding, or any fact-things. I just think it has the potential for comedy from the top of my head, but I might be remembering like an idiot.]

So when California legalized pot, didn't your country-wide-government sort of step in and say "Hey, wait a minute. You can't vote on that shit. We're one country, here. Not 50 individual states. Pot is still illegal. You can't just change things like that. We're going to undo that law."

But when North Carolina makes gay marriage unconstitutional it's "Hey, they're allowed to if they vote for it. It's their state. We're 50 individual states, not 1 united country. They're totally allowed to change things like that. We can't undo that law."

I know one is drugs and the other is a dick in a butt - but I still find it humorous.

The rights of a minority group should -never- be voted upon by the majority. It makes no sense, and it isn't fair.

While I definitely agree with the how-fucking-unfair-that-is aspect, there isn't really any other way to hold a vote. You can't just let those people affected vote - because then everything would pass 100% of the time, unless you get some really confused people.
The problem is when those people are bigots or racists - Then they become the majority, which only makes the area more like that - because everyone negatively effected will move away, or die or something.

The ignorance that disgusts me with things like that is there are some who vote for things like that simply because they don't want it taking place in their area. "I don't hate gays/muslims. I just don't want to see fags/a mosque near my children, (because I'm afraid to let my child be influenced by anyone other than me and people like me)."



On the one hand that state is doing exactly what it's allowed to do. Make it's own laws. You're the United States of America. Not the United Country of America. While I agree that it's dumb, retarded and all of that - the only thing that will curb something like this happening is if you throw out the fact states are essentially allowed to be their own little nations in one Union, and form an "actual" country with unified civil rights that can't be overturned by states if the people of that state hold a vote.

I just mean for the sake of "rights" and all that; equality. Marriage is something that should be country-wide, and sexually-ambiguous.

[Vampyr]

The reason things are still done at the state level is because it would be enormously inefficient for the federal government to handle them, like building roads, or schools or managing local law enforcement.

I believe the California pot thing had to do with them creating a state law that violates an existing federal law. There's no existing federal law saying gay marriage is legal. But there should be - that's my point.

The supreme court can still fix this if they decide it's unconstitutional to make gay marriage illegal, which it is.

And my point was that no one should be voting on this. A persons civil rights should not be up for vote. The supreme court needs to up and say states can't do this, and a law should be passed making gay marriage legal nationwide.

States here are not a nation unto themselves. Federal laws and rulings trump state laws and rulings every time. If a state gets out of line, which in my opinion they have, the federal government can knock them back into place. It's happened before, and it can and will happen again.

[Typhoid]

I was agreeing with you.

[Vampyr]

Originally Posted by Typhoid

I was agreeing with you.

I know, I was just explaining that the states aren't quite as powerful as you make them out to be. We still have a very powerful central government. The Federalists won that battle.

[Professor S]

I personally disagree with the decision, but maintain that leaving the decision up to states is the best solution. The larger the institution that decides social policy the bigger the mess it creates. EX. Abortion. 30 years since Roe vs. Wade and it is still a complete political disaster because the people never felt they had a decision on how their society defines the issue. My fear/hope (I am conflicted, obviously) is that this will force a court decision with national consequences. I just hope it doesn't end with an abortion-type of decades long controversy.

In the end, people can vote with their feet and dollars. North Carolina will miss millions of dollars in revenue created by gay tourists and residents and the youth of the state will force eventual social change. An imperfect solution, but I think it would be the most efficient solution.

This sums up my personal opinion:

[Bond]

I strongly disagree with this nonsense.

[Bond]

I'd also like to add I think we would be very disappointed with the outcome if a gay marriage case went to the Surpeme Court in its current rendition.

[Typhoid]

The right to bear arms has nothing to do with "British Invasion".

Even though I only put that in there for a tongue-in-cheek lark; You needed the militia to defend yourself from the Redcoats because you didn't have a significant standing army at the time (compared to the British). The militia was your army. Now that your country has a massive professional army, and it's hundreds of years in the future, I think the militia thing is a little passe - unless you guys want to pick and choose other archaeic few-hundred-year-old things to live by. I haven't been to a good witch burning in a while. I also haven't stolen any land from any Indians lately - I could probably use a whole lot more of that in my life. I also believe this is a man's world, and we should take back the vote from those fucking dames. That's how the founders wanted it, damnit. If Jesus wanted it any other way he would have told them to found the country like that initially.

The civil war is over - The whole "The government can turn on the citizens, so we need a constant militia" thing is a pretty 3rd world outlook. You're not in Libya or Uzbekistan. There are no child soldiers; and if there are it's only because guns are legal and they stole them from their parents. Your army will not open fire on your people, unless you're a college student linking arms with other college students (too bad those kids didn't have guns!).

Plus I doubt many gays have weapons (Even thought they are Godless heathens, you'd think those Communist-pinkos would be all over having a shitload of guns)- I know they can openly serve in the military now; but I don't think they've got it in them to steal tanks and planes to start another civil war over the civil rights of a group of people; so I think you're good on the guns and militia thing.
I'm pretty sure your massive professional army is there to defend you - and if it did turn on you; I doubt a militia of people with hunting rifles, shotguns, and handguns could really compete with the biggest professional military on the planet, which has the most modern tanks, planes, drones, and nukes.

(That is joke, friend)


Seriously, I notice you didn't address the fact you were comparing gun ownership to the rights of a group of people. It's like comparing guns to suffrage, or slavery. Same shit, different era. And it will be equally as silly in retrospect. Like a "I can't believe my great grandfathers-ish generation was against women voting. That's fucking offensive" thing.

But many are not necessary, and are therefore bad law because an unnecessary law unnecessarily denies people their rights.

Well I can't not agree with that! Everyone will agree with that. Everyone's idea of a bad law is different though - and your country is so large, and vastly divided (you had a war between two parts of your country BECAUSE they are so different - most countries split up after that) that it's nearly impossible for your entire country to come to a majority decision on anything. (I even bet if you asked that to your people, half would say "we totally agree on a lot of things, you asshole *finds examples*", and the other half would say "That's totally true. We can never agree on anything. It really slows the progress of the country"

no one I've heard is talking about denying gay people rights related to their union such as tax benefits, etc. They're denying gay people the ability to define their union with a word they want to reserve only use for men and women. That's the sum total of their ridiculous exercise in semantics.

Even though I'm not gay or Republican, and my country already allows them to get normal-married - I assume it's not about tax benefits.
It's about the word.
One side is saying "What's the big deal? It's just a word. You're still treated pretty much the same" and the other is saying "Exactly. So let us just use that fucking word."

Anyways. I'm just entertaining myself. No need to break down my nonsensical paragraphs. So really, please don't.

[Professor S]

Typh, if you're going to take the time to write "nonsense", don't plead that people don't address it. If you don't want people to address it, DON'T POST IT. A message board is a conversation, and that takes two or more people. If you just want to get your "nonsense" off your chest, write a blog or better yet just talk to yourself in the car. Don't waste our time. But in any case, please stop your habit of writing paragraphs on serious subjects and then dismissing yourself as "having a lark". Take ownership of your opinion.

A few points:

You needed the militia to defend yourself from the Redcoats because you didn't have a significant standing army at the time (compared to the British). The militia was your army. Now that your country has a massive professional army, and it's hundreds of years in the future, I think the militia thing is a little passe - unless you guys want to pick and choose other archaeic few-hundred-year-old things to live by.

Ok, then I guess we can just ignore all of the Bill of Rights? They're all equally archaic, right? So freedom of speech and protection against unlawful search and seizure should be ignored as well? Of course not. "Archaic" has nothing to do with your opinion. You're entire standard of the law and people's rights are what YOU happen to agree or disagree with, regardless of the process or what individual rights you would deny others. You don't value gun rights, therefore EVERYONE should not be able to exercise them.

Watch the Penn and Teller video, and if you did watch it, watch it again. The militia = the military, it is not paramilitary or a bunch of jackasses running around in the woods on weekends. And if people disagree with the amendment protecting gun ownership, they can overturn it through the amendment process. It was done with prohibition, it can be done with gun ownership. You can't simply ignore it because a few people, or even many people, think it's archaic.

Well I can't not agree with that! Everyone will agree with that. Everyone's idea of a bad law is different though - and your country is so large, and vastly divided (you had a war between two parts of your country BECAUSE they are so different - most countries split up after that) that it's nearly impossible for your entire country to come to a majority decision on anything.

That's the ENTIRE POINT of the legislative and amendment process. If you can't gather a large majority of public opinion, you can't remove the rights of the individual, and this is especially true of those rights protected in the bill of rights. This is also why state's rights are important. So are federal rights, but one does not need to eliminate the other.

It's like comparing guns to suffrage, or slavery. Same shit, different era.

Even though I'm not gay or Republican, and my country already allows them to get normal-married - I assume it's not about tax benefits.
It's about the word.
One side is saying "What's the big deal? It's just a word. You're still treated pretty much the same" and the other is saying "Exactly. So let us just use that fucking word."

So slavery and women's suffrage movements are the same as arguing over semantics/the use of a word? Of course they aren't. This is why I favor a more natural, society based resolution to the gay marriage issue. In the end, this IS about the use of a word, and I don't think that argument (as anemic as it is) is worth the political and cultural strife it would cause to force a new cultural norm on a population that doesn't want it.

Again, we both agree on the heart of this issue, but forcing it could potentially cause violence and even murder in our more backward areas. Not only that, it could give enough political will to attempt an amendment defining marriage, and I think that would set the entire cause back for decades, potentially.

[Bond]

Okay, aren't all of us agreeing gay marriage is no big deal? I thought this was one issue everyone agreed on, haha.

[Combine 017]

Gay marriage is for fags.

[Typhoid]

The top half of this is me addressing you off-topic.
The bottom half is...still off-topic, but it's on topic of the off-topic, to those who want to save your eyes.
(I hope whoever starts reading this clears their weekend beforehand)

Take ownership of your opinion.

When I'm posting a legitimate opinion, I tend to not put 4 paragraphs of BS jokes in there. And if anything when I'm in the middle of writing a bit, or trying to fight my way out of it I'll use parenthesis or brackets to attempt to separate the flow to stick in "my own" comment that is typically more 'straight man', or even honest. (Even though it's technically all "my comment". <---Kinda like that) ; commenting on my own comments. I watched a lot of MST3000 as a kid.

Jokes do not always have to contain truth, personal bias or opinion. Just as drunk words are truly not sober thoughts. I can put some personal opinion into a joke, then fuck around with it - sure, but it warps the opinion to where it's not really my true opinion. Those posts were comedy. I have said it. I say that in all of my posts that I'm clearly and visibly turning into a bit, or one in which I know needs heavy clarification.

If I wanted (or was looking for) a response, I wouldn't have put "Don't waste your time. I'm joking." I wasn't trying to reel you in. I really didn't want you to waste your time trying to pick apart my post because I didn't intend it to be picked-apart. I simply intended it to be read. I even immediately feared what I was doing which is why I started it with "not to open a can of worms."

I try so so so hard to get across the point that I'm joking, or killing time.
Sometimes by saying "I'm joking", sometimes by saying "It's just a joke, friend/comrade/amigo/hombre", sometimes I say "Please don't respond to my nonsense, I'm only killing time".

Do you think I'm masking my 100% legitimate opinions in massive layers of jokes simply so when nobody replies (after I have pleaded with them to not even try, or tried to diffuse the situation before it even begins) I can shout from the roofs "I fucking won a fake argument on the internet because nobody responded to me after I had asked them not to!"?

(Not a half-bad idea)


By all means you're allowed to reply to whatever the fuck you want to. Just as I'm allowed to get bored within my own responses and try turn it into comedy, completely warping what I was initially going to say until I am no longer bored, but pleased with the entertainment value I have given myself in reading my own "script".
Not because I love my 'opinion', but because it's an act. I'm not going for a "That guy really made me think" type of thing, or a "hmm. I need to tell him how his view is flawed". I'm going for a "Reading/hearing that entertained me in some form, if even only for a second."

I'm trying to save your fingers, man. I've got a herniated disc in my back. I'm still in recovery, so I can't do much else than type on a message board. You've got a life outside of here. I'm simply trying to save you the time and frustration at something not-worthy of even addressing and attempting to draw a serious conversation from. You didn't need to double the amount of time you wasted - In essence you've quadrupled or quintupled it, if you factor this post, then replying to this post.

It's the difference between dissecting a bad stand up comedian at mic night, and a bad politician in a makeshift debate.
I started it with a base of personal opinion, yes. But I dick around with it so much that it goes beyond my opinion of "I don't think you need a militia" and turned into "I don't think gays will steal your tanks or planes, so I'm pretty sure you can put the guns away, because all the poor fags will be down here, and all the rich white straight folk will be on the moonbase with Overlord Gingrich"
Where would you be more likely to hear that comment [probably nowhere, because it was a bad bit]? Open mic night, or a debate? (I hope you thought 'open mic night', for the sake of your debates.)




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You don't value gun rights, therefore EVERYONE should not be able to exercise them.

The beauty of subjectivity, eh.
And to say I don't value gun rights is crazy. I totally value gun rights. I don't necessarily agree with your country's gun laws, or the love for them.
There is a certain point where a man only needs a gun because every other man has a gun (Mutually assured destruction). Take away all the guns, and you can have a way calmer conversation.

Keep in mind I live in another country where guns are illegal (and where I don't even vote "Democrat", to be honest), or at least highly restricted if for hunting purposes.
People have guns here, but it doesn't bother me.
If everyone had a gun, or was able to. I might think about it because then it goes from "I need to be safe" to "I don't want to be the only motherfucker without a gun, incase someone else who has a gun goes nuts."

But my country doesn't have 300 million people, and nearly constant civil disobedience from one group feeling completely shut down and hated by another. (Your entire countries history was essentially founded on civil disobedience at almost every stage! That's actually fascinating.)

That's the ENTIRE POINT of the legislative and amendment process. If you can't gather a large majority of public opinion, you can't remove the rights of the individual, and this is especially true of those rights protected in the bill of rights.

The fact that you guys can agree on anything is fucking astounding to me. You had a war because certain people wanted to own black humans as property.
After that you just had a big country-wide hug and brushed it under the rug, and shouted 'Murica! together. Water under the bridge. One nation. Two widely varying views on nearly everything since then (unless in retrospect).

Sometimes I think it would have been best for the civil war to actually divide you into two countries. Imagine how much easier it would be to run a country when the other half of the country doesn't always disagree with you on nearly everything all of the time.
In Canada our politicians and groups of people totally disagree. Of course; or else there would be no point to the process in the first place. (I didn't want to make it seem like I was oblivious to my own countries massive problems)

Countries that have half of a population disagreeing with the other half more often than not are usually failures of countries until they split up and can then become efficient, unless they get stuck with no resources and all the poor/dumb people and the other side gets all of the gold and scientists. Infighting over the differences between the cultures of a massive civilization doesn't help any country out, unless you can force those people do do cheap labour like in China or India.

Now I'm not saying it doesn't show something for social progress that it's a talking point in the US. Hell, it's not like it happened to long ago here, either.
But half of your country will not instantly accept it just because a law may pass.
For a nation that always tries to pride itself on Freedom - you've got some serious small-european-country-style-issues that divide you, and will probably not stop dividing you as a whole, ever. Passing a law won't remove the invisible line of division. Slavery was abolished, the slaves were deemed free people, treated as equals. Tell that to the hardcore white fanatics in the deep south.

So slavery and women's suffrage movements are the same as arguing over semantics/the use of a word? Of course they aren't.

Of course not. But I'm not the one who actually compared denying gay marriage to attempting to deny gun law.
But black people's freedom and a woman's right to vote are easily more important in my mind than the right to have a gun. Subjective? Of course. Everything is. Show me one thing that isn't subjective, I'll show you a guy that says you're wrong.

The reason I did choose to compare to slavery and suffrage was because they have to do with rights that affect the way people live, opposed to the things you can own. Unless you shoot someone every day that gun law doesn't change your Mon-Fri.
But being forced to pick cotton, being told your opinion doesn't matter, and being unable to call your spouse your husband/wife seemingly have to be more important things than "We're allowed to have guns." I'm not saying the gun thing is unimportant - but it's not like they're equal issues. At least I don't believe they should be.

Again, we both agree on the heart of this issue, but forcing it could potentially cause violence and even murder in our more backward areas. Not only that, it could give enough political will to attempt an amendment defining marriage, and I think that would set the entire cause back for decades, potentially.

I definitely agree that forcing it isn't the way to do it. But if put to a vote I don't think it would ever pass.
And if it did there would be some uprising because "The Bible defines it as between a man and a woman (and her dowry of goats)."

But Christian God doesn't overlook Buddhist ceremonies. They weren't married under the eyes of "God" (as defined by Christianity) - yet they're still allowed to say they're married because they are a "man and woman". It's just picking and choosing words to tack a loophole onto.
[After writing that paragraph out I'm actually surprised at least one hate-filled God-lovers hasn't loopholed Muslims out of marriage in your country because they weren't married under 'God'.]

I've been noticing more and more lately that a lot of Republicans (figureheads, not plebs) are referring to the US as a "Christian Nation". The old rhetoric by them used to be "We're not a Christian nation. We just have a lot of faith in Jesus [being magic]."
Your country seems to be religiously tightening it's asshole. In which I mean they're both doing it often, and using religion to do it.

I tried to put as few jokes and nonsense in there as possible.
Anyways. This is no longer on topic of what it was supposed to be. Let's try meander our way back.

[Professor S]

Originally Posted by Typhoid

I definitely agree that forcing it isn't the way to do it. But if put to a vote I don't think it would ever pass.

And this is why I said state's rights are so important, especially on social issues. Several states have already formally legalized gay marriage. More will in the near future, and even more after that. Not everything has to be done on a massive scale.

As for the rest of your post, you completely misunderstand me. My point was never about gun ownership. It was about preserving a legislative process that exists to preserve individual rights as much as possible regardless of whether or not you agree with those rights. "Your opinion, while appreciated, it not necessarily valid for everyone."