Victory - Same-Sex Power to Marry

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I read a cute thought today.

The number of gay divorces is now going to skyrocket.

The leading cause of divorce is marriage.

Michael

[moralist]

Incest and polyamory are disgusting to most people personally, but to outlaw them, Greg, would be to worship government as the safeguard over our culture -- which does not sound like you.

It's up to individuals to refrain from these things, not the government to outlaw them.

I totally agree.

The laws passed by government do not create morality. They only indicate morality. This is because its the people who create the government in their own image... and not the other way around.

And to be clear... the proper solution had already existed.

Homosexual civil unions with all of the same legal rights as marriage is the solution because it is a lawful agreement solely between leftists and the government they created in their own image. That purely secular amoral civil legal agreement has nothing to do with either God or morality.

But it's worth noting that was not enough. This is the order the left demands to be obeyed.

First recognize... then tolerate... then accept... then celebrate.

For thousands of years marriage was established as being a sacred moral commitment between a man and a woman and God. So to violate that requires first to substitute government in the place of God... then once liberal government is the god of the people, anything goes.

Greg

[moralist]

I think the decision is wrong. The Constitution leaves issues of marriage to the individual states. If the 14th amendment mandated same sex marriage it would never have passed.

What bothers me most is this decision in light of the increasingly aggressive homosexual movement. Obviously there is a fair segment of the homosexual movement that won't be happy until everyone has to bake a cake for homosexual weddings, etc.

You're absolutely right, Neil.

And those who do not obey are now punished, as militant leftist homosexual aggression continues to pervade society.

Greg

[william.scherk]

What bothers me most is this decision in light of the increasingly aggressive homosexual movement. Obviously there is a fair segment of the homosexual movement that won't be happy until everyone has to bake a cake for homosexual weddings, etc.

Moving on from the aborted 'race realism' discussion, we now take on the aggressive homosexual movement.

Will you bake a cake for Stephen's marriage, Neil? Will you express good wishes for him, and congratulate him when he solemnizes his enduring love and commitment to his spouse?

Stephen, I am feeling a happiness for you that is hard to describe. Gay marriage is such a non-thing in Canada since 2005. People get on with their lives. Skies remain in the sky. Sometimes it rains, sometimes the sun shines, sometimes the snow falls. Life dances on, mutual love and respect remains steady.

Greg, here is your chance to take on a real, living, "militant leftist homosexual" aggressor who is "pervading" the society of Objectivist Living. It would be interesting for you to stop being a coward and stand up and be a man, and speak to Stephen, man to man, American to American, believer in freedom to believer in freedom.

Since you are a graceless clod, I expect nothing.

However, you might want to check the Canadian state of affairs -- to see if the aggressors are seeking to fuck you over, to see if incest-marriages are currently clamored for, to see if Man Marries Dog is a sought-after "right." You might even get to know that no church or synagogue or temple has been compelled to offer a religious marriage to a gay couple. You might find that Civil Marriage continues on, people are happy, and few folks get their snouts in other peoples crotches ... in order to make them conform to a mystical ideal.

Since you are an intellectual dwarf with the curiosity of a shoe, I expect nothing.

Edited June 27, 2015 by william.scherk

[Guyau]

.

About those wedding cakes: "The law has no cure for trifles." --says Judge Stephen

(i.e., go down the block or bake your own.)

But you got me thinking, William. As if I needed to be reminded of cake.

Seriously, William, thank you!

~~~~~~~

PS

No real rains, no mutterings with further moment, just their fiddling with their old pieces on the board after their king-peice was lain down.

[Brant Gaede]

it was principally founded on the proposition that marriage is an individual right and therefore cannot be denied to any class of citizens.

That leaves "marriage" wide open for the polygamist, incest, man/boy, and bestial citizen classes.

It's anything goes now!

Greg

Real individual rights are not created by law, only protected. State sanction of heterosexual marriage has led to the same state sanction of homosexual marriage. The others you mention each requires additional state sanction which can be denied by the not giving of it. Each sanction will result in each different type of marriage thrown into the already created legal matrix of marriage. There should be no such matrix to begin with, but since it exists gays are entitled to it and were powerful enough to get it. Those other groups don't have and never will get enough oomph for that and it's not possible they'd want it except maybe between first cousins. Marriage is a form of legal welfare. Take that away and you've got voluntary contracts enforceable by private arbitration. All civil matters should be private just like the anarchical libertarians want. Criminal law? No anarchy should be allowed. You get the rights' protecting philosophy right then stick it to the rights' violators through objective law. If the philosophy is wrong you change the philosophy, then the law. If the philosophy can't be changed revolution may be justified. The revolution if successful will then create a better legal monopoly if the revolutionaries know what the fuck they are really doing and are true moral agents of political change. Bloodshed requires major insult or such a war is not justifiable.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

I think the decision is wrong. The Constitution leaves issues of marriage to the individual states. If the 14th amendment mandated same sex marriage it would never have passed.

What bothers me most is this decision in light of the increasingly aggressive homosexual movement. Obviously there is a fair segment of the homosexual movement that won't be happy until everyone has to bake a cake for homosexual weddings, etc.

You're absolutely right, Neil.

And those who do not obey are now punished, as militant leftist homosexual aggression continues to pervade society.

Greg

If "homosexual aggression" doesn't involve the initiation of physical force you are only being rhetorical.

If I run a bakery and you want me to bake you a gay wedding cake I'm entitled not to bake it. If it's in the case you can buy it. In trade it's voluntary for both sides or it's not voluntary. In the case we're referencing the gays were wrong; the baker was right. Gays, however, tend to be liberals for they cannot stand conservative heterosexual bigots. Sometimes their own parents. Some of those bigots engage in bestiality and incest and outright rape. You know, they like a little variety and sis is oh so cute. I suppose cows are okay for boys. I mean, that's heterosexual, right? The farm boy, though, better leave the goats alone; that's queer. Go get a sheep.

--Brant

oh, yes, write your congressman: once it's okay for a guy to marry a sheep then why not goats? (The "aggressive homosexuals" are sure to pick up on that angle if they're into bestiality too. All gays do is imitate straight behavior, not the other way around. Right?)

[william.scherk]

Poor Greg. He is unable to counter the leftist aggression of gay marriage. Sob sniffle whinge.

This will cheer him up, no doubt. Christian marriage to the nth power. The only sad thing is nobody got cake.

[merjet]

The next minority group to be favored for obtaining federal contracts?

[Brant Gaede]

Stephen: "By the time of this photo, Walter and I had gotten matching rings, which we wear on that finger to this day. Well, there’s a story about that I hope not too intimate to tell. In the first months of our relationship, Walter would come over to my apartment after my work hours. When the time came, he would often tell me to go and get whatever was in such and such pocket of his jacket. I would bring it and then try to figure out what on earth such an item was for. One evening he told me to go to such and such pocket and bring the two items from it, and be sure there were two. Well, I found only one item, but there sounded the clearest ringing tone from a small thing that had fallen to the floor. It was a gold ring. I brought it with me, and told him he had left his ring in his pocket. He said “It’s yours if you want it.” I was struck stone still for a long time. I tried it on. It fit, and I said “If the ring fits, wear it.” He explained that we would get matching rings, and this one from his marriage to Lynn, I would give back to him."

______________________________

If the glove ring don't fit you can't convict get hitched?

--Brant

stop me!--I can't help myself!

[Jules Troy]

Greg freedom does not give a person the right "not to be offended". Suck it up buttercup.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I used to really like Charles Krauthammer, but recently, I am becoming more and more disenchanted with him.
 

 
Here's the problem with his pronouncement. According to Glenn Beck, the government originally got into marriage to keep blacks from marrying whites. I don't have the time to look and source where he got this from, but generally Beck is well-sourced. So for now I believe him.
 
Krauthammer believes the equal right to marriage is a constitutional fiction, but I don't recall him ever having any such concerns about the constitution providing grounds for the government (state governments) to hold power over marriage. Or him ever complaining about any historical bans on interracial marriage.

 

To him, a right to gay marriage was not (to quote him) "something that had been hidden in the constitution for over 100 years and that nobody had ever discerned." Aw shucks. He's right. The constitution never mentioned gay marriage. However, for him, government power over marriage was apparently there all along--so long as it enforced one man-one woman unions. 

 

Does anyone see a problem with this thinking? I do.
 
I am totally against government involvement in marriage, but qua law, equal treatment under the law--even boneheaded law--has to take precedence over tradition.
 
There is an argument floating around that if the right to gay marriage had been included in the 14th amendment, it would never have passed. That argument is correct, but it also indicates one of the beautiful things about committing a principle to written law. As tradition gives way to younger generations, any logical inconsistencies between a tradition and the written principle become glaring and it gets corrected--by legal means or otherwise (like civil war).

 
(As an aside, that is a two-edged sword that cuts against liberty, too. But that is beside my point here. It is for a different discussion.)
 
This process is illustrated brilliantly by a quote referencing Ice-T from The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined by Steven Pinker (p. 161). 
 

“The forms of democracy that were tried out in the 18th century were what you might expect of the 1.0 release of a complex new technology. The English implementation was weak tea, the French implementation an unmitigated disaster, and the American implementation had a flaw that is best captured in the actor Ice-T’s impression of Thomas Jefferson reviewing a draft of the Constitution: "Let’s see: freedom of speech; freedom of religion; freedom of the press; you can own niggers . . . Looks good to me!"

 
As the younger generations could not square freedom for all men with slavery, this blew up into a civil war and slavery was finally abolished. In other words, regardless of whether some folks believe the civil war was fought over slavery, after slavery was abolished, the freedom principle on paper finally became consistent with other parts of the document and with reality. That could not have happened so long as slavery existed.

 

This is that "something that had been hidden in the constitution" that Krauthammer so condescendingly snarked about: logical consistency with reality instead of logical consistency with tradition. That is what is hidden in the constitution.

 

I don't believe that thought would please Krauthammer. I didn't use to believe that about him, but I am starting to. I am starting to think he is against the gay marriage ruling because gay marriage is repugnant to him, not because of any thoughts about law or rights. And, if that is so, that makes him a big honking hypocrite trying to use a rhetorical smokescreen.

 

Back to the issue. In practical terms, according to my values, the next step is to get the government out of marriage so there can be true freedom for all, including religious freedom.

 

The idiots who tried to protect their religious freedom up to now by using the government to curb the freedoms of others are going to get a backlash. I predict activist groups will start targeting churches to force them to marry gays and this is going to become a legal nightmare (in more ways than one). I admit to feeling a bit of schadenfreude with this prospect because I love it when a bully gets smacked by his own club.

 

But ultimately, I come down on the side of freedom of religion. It would be a freedom disaster for the government to start dictating ideology. When power is validated by a society, the people wielding it generally try to grow it against freedom (except for the freedom of their in-crowd).

 

The right of conscience and to peaceably group with like-minded people is sacred to me, even when my conscience is different.

 

So just as church has to legally stay out of government, the government has to legally stay out of church.

 

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Poor Greg. He is unable to counter the leftist aggression of gay marriage. Sob sniffle whinge.

This will cheer him up, no doubt. Christian marriage to the nth power. The only sad thing is nobody got cake.

Whatever happened to the Rev. Mung?

--Brant

did he own a wedding dress shop--tux rental?

[moralist]

Real individual rights are not created by law, only protected. State sanction of heterosexual marriage has led to the same state sanction of homosexual marriage.

...except marriage predated the US government by a longshot!

And just to further clarify my view...

I have absolutely no power to set governmental public policy. That is under the complete control of the political majority for whom liberal government is their god. So this purely amoral legal agreement between leftists and their god has nothing to do with me. Nor does it have anything to do with morality or with God for that matter.

I'm simply stating my own subjective view of what I personally believe this to mean as well as the reality of its consequences. America was shocked in 911 becasue it lost its physical protection. it was shocked again in 2008 because it lost its financial protection... and this year it will be shocked again...

...as each successive shock continues to be more violent than the last.

Greg

[moralist]

I used to really like Charles Krauthammer, but recently, I am becoming more and more disenchanted with him.

You're not alone, Michael. No one agrees with everything that someone else says.

However, Charles is correct about the reformation process being removed from the public arena. Homosexual "marriage" was clearly voted down by Californians. but then the voice of the people was nullified by a feminized liberal judiciary which effectively removed the issue from the public arena.

Greg

[william.scherk]

I will note for my American friends and foes that at least one legal battle of Aggressive Leftist Yadda Yadda against Lord Jesus Saviour was settled in favour of Jesus.

In a nutshell, the British Columbia association that accredits teachers tried to deny accreditation for teacher-graduates of a Christian university, because of behavioural codes imposed on the student body by the university's Christian policies (ie, no homosex, yadda yadda blah screech blah).

Our Supreme Court ruled eight to one for Jesus. So that's that.

On the religious marriage freedom front, skipping past extremely boring Canadian legal history, it was our national Parliament that instantiated the legality of gay marriage. This is an excerpt of the law on civil marriage. Bolded are the phrases that establish religious freedom exceptions to 'forced marriage oh my god' ...

Marriage - certain aspects of capacity

2. Marriage, for civil purposes, is the lawful union of two persons to the exclusion of all others.

Religious officials

3. It is recognized that officials of religious groups are free to refuse to perform marriages that are not in accordance with their religious beliefs.

Freedom of conscience and religion and expression of beliefs

3.1 For greater certainty, no person or organization shall be deprived of any benefit, or be subject to any obligation or sanction, under any law of the Parliament of Canada solely by reason of their exercise, in respect of marriage between persons of the same sex, of the freedom of conscience and religion guaranteed under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms or the expression of their beliefs in respect of marriage as the union of a man and woman to the exclusion of all others based on that guaranteed freedom.

Bif Bam Boom. That is that. How many religious orders or officials have been brought to court for refusing to perform same-sex marriages since the act became law?

Zero (0) Nada, bupkiss, none, less than one, blah blah.

So, ten years after the passage of the act defining civil marriage, what horrible effects has the law had on religion in Canada? Ten years ahead of the USA, has our country tumbled down Greg's stupid slippery slope of bestiality, child-marriage, legal incest, blah blah?

Nope.

(as in the USA, plural marriage or polygamy is kind of partially tolerated, though not legal. If the weird-ass Mormon fundamentalists in BC and elsewhere have yet to gain legal cover for their patriarchal whoopee, it is not for want of trying. This is the only interesting/disquieting/horrible grey area in law and practice as pertains to your country, America -- I have no real knowledge of what legal whoopee is being tried down there).

On the Canadian legal front, our provincial powers-that-be are nearing the endpoint of a struggle to try in court criminal charges against polygamist leaders in BC. The following excerpt is from the latest court dealings in the news -- from Thursday of this week. Emphasis added.

The leader of a British Columbia polygamous sect has lost his attempt in the province's Supreme Court to have the polygamy charge against him quashed, his lawyer has confirmed.

Winston Blackmore asked the court earlier this month to dismiss the 2014 criminal charge against him, arguing it must be thrown out on a legal technicality.

His lawyer Joe Arvay argued that the provincial government doesn't have the right to criminally charge his client — or any resident of the Bountiful commune — for historical acts of polygamy, because he wasn't given "fair notice."

The cutoff point, said Arvay, should be a 2011 decision by the B.C. Supreme Court that Canada's polygamy laws did not violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That decision provided constitutional clarity to Canadians involved in the controversial practice.

So, there you go, Greg -- looking ten years down the slippery slope towards bestiality and your smutty obsession with other people's crotches, your fears are fully realized.

Not.

I expect you to say nothing whatsoever in reaction to the facts I have laid out. I believe you are too craven and mentally constipated to assemble a coherent response.

Surprise us, Greg.

Edited June 27, 2015 by william.scherk

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Homosexual "marriage" was clearly voted down by Californians. but then the voice of the people was nullified by a feminized liberal judiciary which effectively removed the issue from the public arena.

Greg,

There is an assumption here I believe you disagree with. The assumption is that the government--by majority vote--is the sole authority that determines the nature of marriage.

In my understanding, the very fact that California voted on this showed that the issue of marriage was already removed from the public arena.

The vote was over who the government would permit to marry and prohibit from marrying, not over the nature of marriage per se. People yelled at each other over the nature of marriage, but they voted about government power.

That vote showed clearly that the government was accepted by everyone as the sole authority to rule over marriage. The vote was merely about how the government would exercise its authority.

Krauthammer did a bait-and-switch argument. He said issue of marriage was removed from the public arena, when in reality, local government prohibition of marriage was removed from the public arena for voting on.

The issue of marriage was a goner and delivered lock-stock-and-barrel to the government long before this ruling. The Supreme Court merely made it a federal issue instead of state.

If people want to change this, they need to convince everyone to elect federal lawmakers who will change the federal law and explicitly define marriage rights or explicitly say this is not a government issue. Then the Supreme Court's ruling will no longer apply. In my understanding, Krauthammer's wise proclamations notwithstanding, that is in the public arena. It always will be.

Michael

[Selene]

The issue of marriage was a goner and delivered lock-stock-and-barrel to the government long before this ruling. The Supreme Court merely made it a federal issue instead of state.

If people want to change this, they need to convince everyone to elect federal lawmakers who will change the federal law and explicitly define marriage rights or explicitly say this is not a government issue. Then the Supreme Court's ruling will no longer apply. In my understanding, Krauthammer's wise proclamations notwithstanding, that is in the public arena. It always will be.

Michael

I understand your argument Michael.

The Constitutional issue is that this is a State's right under Domestic Relations law in all 50 states and US territories.

These principles of Federalism and "comity" were violated for a socio-political agenda and not as an individual citizens right.

The question of what constitutes the "state of marriage" in a secular meaning has been decided. It has been "acquired" by the Federal jurisdiction.

http://www.scotusblog.com/2015/01/symposium-supreme-court-should-address-the-domestic-relations-exception-to-federal-jurisdiction-in-its-marriage-case-decision/

This regards the Domestic Relations Exception to Federal jurisdiction.

I will get back to this later, just wanted yourself and others to have the basic info.

It terms of the secular effect of the decision, I am happy for folks who were deprived of the equal opportunity to marry in 14 states.

However, that could have been dealt with in each of those states.

Moreover, a simple application of the full faith and credit clause would have done that by itself.

A...

P.S. I have not read the entire decision fully, so I do not know if the domestic relations exception was addressed as per the amicus brief.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

This is the exact spirit of where I am at--and notice that both traditional sides are represented:

Michael

[Selene]

This is the exact spirit of where I am at--and notice that both traditional sides are represented:

Michael

Ah and what a nice society that would be for us.

[moralist]

Greg,

There is an assumption here I believe you disagree with. The assumption is that the government--by majority vote--is the sole authority that determines the nature of marriage.

Gee... how did you know?

My sole concern in this is the deceit of calling homosexual relationships marriage when they obviously aren't. But this is what leftist homosexual activists have really been after all along. Many states already had legal civil unions with all of the same legal rights as marriage. As far as I'm concerned, that was actually the best solution because it's even handed under the law while retaining a distinction.

The issue of marriage was a goner and delivered lock-stock-and-barrel to the government long before this ruling. The Supreme Court merely made it a federal issue instead of state.

If people want to change this, they need to convince everyone to elect federal lawmakers who will change the federal law and explicitly define marriage rights or explicitly say this is not a government issue.

Not a chance, Michael... there are no longer enough Americans in America to make that happen.

Greg

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Greg,

Irrespective of how each of us thinks, this ruling was the end of the road for one of the best marketing and propaganda campaigns I have ever witnessed.

And I don't say that in a negative manner. I am talking about the sheer competence that was engineered and deployed.

You might be interested in part of a post I made a couple of years ago about this. Here it is for your reading pleasure :

A while back, I was watching an interview with Victoria Jackson, a former comedian on SNL, who is a conservative with some VERY conservative views (for as strange as that might appear). As she was discussing her religion, etc., she got on the gay marriage issue. To partially explain why she was against it, she mentioned she read about marketing evil by David Kupelian.

Say what?

Marketing evil?

My antenna wiggled.

I loved the concept (from a marketing angle), so looked Kupelian up on YouTube. I saw some of his videos and saw that he knows his stuff. The full name of his book is:

The Marketing of Evil: How Radicals, Elitists, and Pseudo-Experts Sell Us Corruption Disguised As Freedom by David Kupelian

btw - Kupelian has another book called:

How Evil Works: Understanding and Overcoming the Destructive Forces That Are Transforming America

I bought these books and only skimmed them so far. They are primers on propaganda--and good primers, too.

My problem reading them is I don't share Kupelian's deeply Christian perspective (in fact, his own Christian propaganda in the book causes him to shoot himself in the foot) and I am very uncomfortable calling homosexuality evil or corruption.

But, I have learned, if I want good marketing and propaganda information, I have to look in places that do it and analyze it well, often places that make me uncomfortable due to their excesses.

(Alex Jones is a great example of someone who comes up with great stuff, but has an exaggerated paranoid side that makes me grit my teeth and want to tell him to just shut up at times.)

So I look at a lot of stuff. Like I said, Kupelian knows what he is talking about marketing-wise.

One part of his theory is that (1) there was a formalized propaganda effort (also called public relations and marketing) back in the 1990's to sell the gay agenda in America, (2) that the plan was laid out in a book, and (3) that this book was followed to a "T." He claimed that the current surge and success of the gay marriage issue was due to this.

I found the book and he is right. The odd thing is you cannot buy it new anymore (except for a few copies from old inventory or collector's items where the price is through the roof). At the time I started looking, it was really hard to find, even on Amazon. Now, you can find a few used copies for sale, but they still go for about 50 bucks a pop.

After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the 90's by Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen

I got this because it was so difficult to find and I couldn't stand not having it. (This is a persuasion urge: we all want what nobody else has, and I'm just as much a sucker for this urge as anyone. )

I have only skimmed this one, too, but the marketing of the gay agenda?

It's all there.

All of it.

How to talk about homosexuality on all the different media types. How to frame homosexuals as victims instead of aggressors. How to communicate in all kinds of situations. This book is a treasure trove of very specific marketing and propaganda tactics. Just on the skim I have done so far, I recognize things I see in the culture as stemming from that book. It is a motherlode of how-to propaganda like no other I have seen so far. And the guiding premise is that to drive a wedge into the culture, you have to drive in the thin side first.

btw - I don't want to convey the impression that I am against this book. I am all for it. I wish it were reprinted and made into a formal object of study in schools. It's not often we get to see a single book appear that is this powerful in cultural impact.

Also, the way a campaign like this works is that the general public does not need to read the book (although it did have a bestseller run back in the 90's). The interested media and advocacy people do--the ones who concoct and convey public messages.

Here is the Table of Contents so you know what I mean:

INTRODUCTION: THE PERMANENT CRISIS OF AMERICAN HOMOSEXUALITY


PART I: PROBLEMS: THE STRAIGHT AND NARROW

1 - A FIELD TRIP TO STRAIGHT AMERICA

Up Against It

What Straights Think of Gays
- They don't
- "There aren't many homosexuals in America"
- "All gays are easy to spot: there are telltale signs!"
- "Why gays are gay: sin, insanity and seduction"
- "Gays are kinky loathsome sex addicts"
- "Gays are unproductive and untrustworthy members of society"
- "Gays are suicidally unhappy because they're gay"

How Straights Treat Gays: Three Classes of Behavior
- Class 1: Preventing homosexual behavior
- Class 2: Denying gays their fundamental civil rights
- Class 3: Venting public disapproval of gays

Our Field Trip Concludes: An Agenda for Change

2 - THE ROOTS OF HOMOPHOBIA AND HOMOHATRED

Prejudice: Why It Exists in Social Mammals

The Intellectual Baboon: How Homohatred Arises in Man
- Bending the twig: How the mechanism of prejudice develops in the child
- Blueprinting the gearbox: How the "engine of homohatred" functions in the adult

Pushing the Wrong Buttons: Senseless Attempts to Derail the "Engine of Prejudice"
- Argument
- Fighting
- Shock tactics

Pushing the Right Buttons: Halting, Derailing, or Reversing the "Engine of Prejudice"
- Desensitization
- Jamming
- Conversion

But Can It Be Done?


PART II: SOLUTIONS: DRIVING THE WEDGE

3 - STRATEGY: PERSUASION, NOT INVASION

Good Propaganda: The Idea Behind "Waging Peace"

Outreach Strategies of the Past: Why Only a Media Campaign will do

Eight Practical Principles for the Persuasion of Straights
- Don't just express yourself: communicate!
- Appeal to the skeptics
- Keep talking
- Portray gays as victims of circumstance & oppression
- Give potential protectors a just cause
- Make gays look good
- Make victimizers look bad

4 - TACTICS FOR EATING THE MEDIA ALIVE: A SOUND-BITE HERE, A SOUND-BITE THERE

Making News in Improving Public Relations

Advertising Tactics for the Campaign

The Big Five Media: Which Are Right For Us?

Getting Into The Major Media: Can't Get There From Here

The Gloves Come Off: A Portfolio of Pro-Gay Ads

5 - GETTING OUR ACT(IVISTS) TOGETHER: UNITY, ORGANIZATION, FUNDRAISING

Why the Gay Kingdom is Disorganized

Paying our Dues: Why Nobody does it

Fundraising for the Media Campaign: The Buck Starts Here


PART III: NOT IN OUR STARS, BUT IN OURSELVES

6 - THE STATE OF OUR COMMUNITY: GAY PRIDE GO WITH BEFORE A FALL

Our Purpose in Writing This Unpleasant Chapter

Reading You the Riot Act: How Gays Misbehave
- Lies, lies, all lies!
- The rejection of morality
- Narcissism and self-centered behavior
- Self-indulgence, self-destruction
- Indulging our privates in public
- Misbehavior in bars
- Misbehavior in relationships
- Emotional blockage and anesthesia
- Reality-denial, nonsensical thinking, and mythomania
- Gay political fascism and the oppression of P.C.

Cleaning Up Our Act
- A social code
- Back to Plato: A modest proposal to resurrect the "traditional gay family"

Coda: Rights and Responsibilities

Jumping to Conclusions

The whole purpose of quoting this is to highlight the fact that a media campaign has been the source of the change in public policy regarding gays, not a change on a deeper level with the mainstream public.

People became more tolerant, but that does not mean they suddenly adopted the vision of the gay community. A media campaign alone cannot do that. The tolerance became more like, "Live and let live," added to "We don't want to hurt anyone's feelings."

And that has been enough to neutralize a long-standing effort to hold legal inconsistency in place in order to preserve tradition.

My point is that people who agree with you have done a very poor job of marketing their views. They got comfortable and lazy from being on the power side of the law.

There is an Apocalyptic strain among conservative religious people who believe God will ultimately punish mankind for this ruling (and for abortions) with some form of major annihilation (like the flood of antiquity), but, if I were a conservative religions person, I wouldn't sit around waiting on it to happen as a strategy. That's not a very good plan of action.

I'm actually hopeful the religious folks learn a bit more about marketing. I wish they would. I am very uncomfortable with the overwhelming success of this gay rights campaign--not because of the subject, though. I am more than pleased that one level of hypocrisy has been eliminated from the law and that people I care about no longer have to suffer from differentiated treatment under the law.

(Unlike you, I am indifferent to the issue of marriage in society or how it is defined in religion as I think this should be solely a personal matter. But we can disagree and still be friends. )

My worry is that since this campaign worked so well, what else are puppet-masters doing? I can think of some really vicious stuff coming down the pike.

The only way I know of to dilute the effect of toxic propaganda and marketing is if everybody learns it. Or if other sides learn it and go on their own campaigns. Thus all these conflicting efforts will send mixed signals to the mainstream.

I believe that would be a good thing. I prefer people being forced to think through certain issues with their conscious awareness rather than leaning on the parts of their minds that can be easily and covertly manipulated.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

All right, all right, to lighten up a bit, this has been going around:

All marriages are same sex marriages. First you get married, then every night you get the same sex.

Michael

[studiodekadent]

My sole concern in this is the deceit of calling homosexual relationships marriage when they obviously aren't. But this is what leftist homosexual activists have really been after all along. Many states already had legal civil unions with all of the same legal rights as marriage. As far as I'm concerned, that was actually the best solution because it's even handed under the law while retaining a distinction.

Do you seriously expect anyone to believe your only concern in this is linguistic?

Remember that we're talking about Civil Marriage here, not religious marriage (which is defined by each religion on its own basis). What legally relevant reason is there to have two legally identical (by your own admission) institutions that differ only in name (i.e. marriages and legally-identical civil unions)?

"Proper concept formation" is not legally relevant. So why give the same thing (legally speaking) different names? It seems to me that there's no legal reason for doing so, so why not just call it the same thing? It would be more efficient and less wasteful, no? By analogy, zoosadism (torturing animals) is illegal in our society; do we have separate names for the torture of kittens and the torture of puppies? No, we don't, they are legally considered the same thing, but I don't see you manning the barricades and bellowing "BUT CATS AND DOGS ARE DIFFERENT!"

The fact is that Scalia was right about one thing; "preserving the traditional definition of marriage" is nothing more than a politer way of morally devaluing same-sex relationships.

There is no platonic form of marriage; marriage for romantic love is a modern ideal that's barely three generations old in the Western world. Arranged marriages are still common in India, Africa and Asia. Marriages purely for social convenience, out of social convention, or the like were common amongst the aristocracies of Europe and still are. Polygamy was common in the ancient world and many Biblical figures practiced it. The idea of one man and one woman meeting and falling in "true love" and marrying each other and practicing lifelong monogamy and raising children in a house of their own is a very, very novel concept historically speaking.

Perhaps you'd argue it should've been left to democratic decision making, but isn't establishing and defining one's own relationships an individual right? Individual rights must be protected from the collective. The Supreme Court didn't "take away a State's rights" or "take away the people's rights," it recognized that marriage is a right of the individual, and thus prohibited anyone from taking that right away from others.

Personally, I'd rather there be no civil marriage contracts as I believe individuals should be free to experiment with a very wide variety of associative relationships and see what works best for them on an individual level; as Hayek wrote, "It is always from a minority acting in ways different from what the majority would prescribe that the majority in the end learns to do better." But since the government has legally institutionalized marriage and attached policy significance to it, it is bound to do so in a manner which does not exclude any (consenting adult) citizen from participation within it.

As for your classification of "leftist homosexual activists," please remember that not all same-sex marriage supporters are leftists (or non-heterosexual themselves). In addition, not all homosexuals (or non-heterosexuals more broadly) are leftists. Furthermore, same-sex marriage was actually once rejected by the gay left (and it still often is, at least in Europe and amongst the real radicals Stateside) as being "assimilationist" and "integrationist" and therefore destroying the distinctiveness of gay culture. Finally, the arguments which actually won the debate for gay marriage were all libertarian/classical liberal/individualist arguments - equal treatment before the law, individual self-determination and the pursuit of happiness, the right to privacy, the idea that one should be able to do whatever one wants as long as no one else is infringed upon, etc.

[moralist]

Greg,

Irrespective of how each of us thinks, this ruling was the end of the road for one of the best marketing and propaganda campaigns I have ever witnessed.

And I don't say that in a negative manner. I am talking about the sheer competence that was engineered and deployed.

You might be interested in part of a post I made a couple of years ago about this. Here it is for your reading pleasure :

Thanks, Michael.

I'm familiar with David and have read his excellent book "How Evil Works".

I share your awe at how effectively the left has been able to package and market sexual perversion. They are truly master manipulators who have totally succeeded in their Recognize-Tolerate-Accept-Celebrate strategy through precise nazi propaganda-esque word control of the media narrative.

People are now deemed to be bigots by the left for not celebrating homosexuality.

But this is not one sided...

The left's cunning manipulations appeal to a largely secular leftist population with a broken moral compass. So all they needed to do was to point South and call it North!