Spotted at NRO’s The Corner;
“The quickest way to reverse Kelo is to find some conservative town in Utah somewhere to shut down an abortion clinic in order to make room for a Wal-Mart.”
Spotted at NRO’s The Corner;
“The quickest way to reverse Kelo is to find some conservative town in Utah somewhere to shut down an abortion clinic in order to make room for a Wal-Mart.”
I was thinking Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s house but that’ll do.
What a brilliant idea. Could we somehow mangle that thought to apply to SSM and churches? hmmmm
The definition of a Church is two or more people gathered to worship in his Name. The Church, the Bride of Christ are all those that have been faithful to Him throughout time. The Church will never be replaced by Wal Mart. The Homosexual community will never destroy the Church either. If Rome couldn’t do, and China and all the dictatorships of the world can’t do it, then those who exalt and take pride in their sin never will. Persecute us at you own peril, we thrive in persecution.
Oh my god. My getting married – for property rights, inheritance rights, immigration standing, and recognition that I am a parent to my child, in no way persecutes another Christian.
It’s starting to sink in why the Conservatives cannot win an election in this country. I campaigned hard for Steven Harper in the last election – I didn’t sway one vote (very unusual for me, I can usually sway 50-75 votes on any issue) because of the fear of us becoming a radical theocracy like Iran. I know it’s stupid – but that fear is out there. Claiming that my getting equal rights damages your rights is not logical and adds fuel to the fear.
Individual rights, property rights, liberty, and protection of those rights are shared values between gays and conservatives. Many gays are conservative, but feel completely ostracised by conservatives such as Barb.
The USA now has to put forth a constitutional amendment (which will have to come from the people) to protect private property rights. Eminent Domain was not intended to be used by developers for profit.
On the issue of abortion – we need to make it very clear to people that the time to choose whether or not to have a baby is before they have sex. If you have sex without at least 2 forms of birth control – you are choosing to become parents.
Kyla are you threatened by Barb’s Christian beliefs?? Are homosexuals threatened by Barb’s Christian beliefs. I get it, you are not threatened if people like Barb would keep their beliefs to themselves. Its only the gay clique thats allowed to shout and scream about what they want but everyone else please shut up. And gays wont shut up until all churches acquiesce to their demands. But people like you dont see that.
Homosexuals already have those rights in Canada,as do common-law couples.
“The USA now has to put forth a constitutional amendment (which will have to come from the people)to protect private property rights.”
What, the little-used amending convention process? It’s only been used once. Amending the federal constitution is next to impossible, and rightly so.
If people want to expend time, resources and sweat on exercises in futility like that, fine. But the far more immediately effective route is at the state level, since unlike the “public use” portion of the federal Takings Clause (which has been practically a dead letter for decades), most state law on this subject has real teeth: that’s where the real battlefield on eminent domain lies, and it’s one where property-owners have mostly been winning. And changing state law, whether statute or a state constitution, is in almost all cases VASTLY easier.
“The Homosexual community will never destroy the Church either.”
Pardon me if this seems obtuse – but exactly how are gays trying to destroy the church? I missed that particular world domination manifesto. Desiring to have the same status / rights /priviledges etc as straights is hardly an attmept to destroy a centuries old tradition. I’d be more inclined to see it the other way – that some churches are intent on destroying the Homosexual community.
Gay activists are already calling for the tax exempt status of churches to be revoked.
BTW – there has never been a prohibition against gays getting married. Nor will there be one against heterosexual couples of the same sex marrying each other, under this law.
All that the SSM marriage bill accomplishes is to include same gender pairings of any sexual orientation – just as the previous law demanded opposite sex pairings of any sexual orientation.
That’s the kicker. It’s not about rights at all. It’s about attempting to change a word so that a minority of non-traditional couples can “feel better” about their relationship.
Which, I doubt will succeed.
“Gay activists are already calling for the tax exempt status of churches to be revoked.”
Me too. And I’m neither gay nor an activist. Just a dumb ass conservative / libertarian.
“It’s not about rights at all. It’s about attempting to change a word so that a minority of non-traditional couples can “feel better” about their relationship.”
I guess that summarizes the part of the disucssion I don’t get. Why is SSM a zero-sum argument for most who oppose it? Why does it matter to anyone else if these folks feel better about their relationships or not? Thing is, if they do, does it make any of us feel worse about ours? How? Because one side gains something in an argument doesn’t have to mean the other side loses. I’m not seeing how anyone is losing here, unless they are choosing to.
Axeman, if one-percent of the male population felt discriminated against and so in the interest of feeling better about themselves, insisted that as a society we redefine the word “mom” so that the term included men as well, would you take at face value their argument? Is someone’s complaint about not feeling good reason enough to demand that everyone else change the common usage of a word? How about if they needed “hand” to mean “foot” before they could feel good about themselves?
By accepting the argument that having parliament change the historically recognized use of a word is a legitimate action if it makes someone feel better, aren’t we being distracted from the important point, which is that their unions are already on equal footing in terms of tax law, etc.?
We live in a society where anyone is free at any time to coin any word or term they want. Demanding that everyone else change the meaning of a common word, for the sake of a small minority’s mood just seems like an excercise in self-dramatics. This is all about a single word, but as we can see by the battle going on, it’s not a trivial one.
I wouldn’t care one way or another about their Mom argument. I know what it means to me, I don’t care what it means to others.
It isn’t a government that defines the language, no matter how hard they try. It’s common usage. Either it happens or it doesn’t. So it isn’t the mere semantics that is infuriating people. It isn’t that “marriage” will make some people feel better about themselves. It’s because – and I honestly believe this, and have heard it over and over again in the dicussion – there are a bunch of people out there who feel there lives and relationships are somehow diminished by gays being married. I don’t see this diminishing, I think it is self imposed.
Consider physicians. If witch doctors, herbalists, aromatherapists and spectral healers were allowed to use the appellation “Physician” or “M.D.”, the actual diminishment of traditional medical doctors would not be self-imposed, but rather externally imposed. Although their lives and relationships would not be diminished, their right to be understood when they refer to themselves would be.
It’s quite useful having different words to refer to different things.
Axeman wrote:
“It’s because – and I honestly believe this, and have heard it over and over again in the dicussion – there are a bunch of people out there who feel there lives and relationships are somehow diminished by gays being married. I don’t see this diminishing, I think it is self imposed.”
Your point seems to be ‘it’s mere language manipulation which governments can’t pull off anyway, so why are SS”M” opponents so concerned?.
Two points:
1. If your position is that pulling off the language trick won’t change anything anyway, why are your further comments directed at SS”M” opponents, not the SS”M” proponents who are responsible for this divisive and collosal waste of time and resources. There are also “a bunch of people out there who feel there lives and relationships are somehow enriched or substantiated by gays being married”, which I suspect you also don’t see happening. Don’t you think SS”M” proponents, and not persons responding to their attempt to entrench their agenda, are the ones who should be held to account for this?
2. You are perhaps overlooking the political element that is now probably transcendent on this issue, i.e. the Lieberals are betting they will be able to spin conservative SS”M” opposition into yet another example of neandrathalism in spite of the fact a strong majority of Canadians oppose a pointless redefining of marriage. This seems to be the view of gayandright at the Shotgun, when he posts that, since SS”M” is inevitable, the CPC should now cut their losses and move on, thereby (presumably) reducing the strength of the Lieberal “what a bunch of holy-roller rednecks” attack. Yet such a strategy could also be painted as an abandonment by the CPC of an issue they allegedly hold near and dear and absolutely nothing will diminish the extent to which the Lieberals and their lapdogs in the MSM will portray conservatives as neandrathals anyway. So what would you do if you were a conservative leader, Axeman? Fight on to the last on principle or “move on” and thereby concede defeat?
“So what would you do if you were a conservative leader, Axeman?”
I’d tell my people to vote as they see fit – either their conscience, or how they want to represent their constituents. As I would for pretty much every other highly emotional, morally charges matter before them.
My issue was not that it is mere language manipulation – in fact I thought I was responding to that comment. What I thought I was saying was that if opponents think it is mere language manipulation, what’s the big deal? As to the oft repeated charge from others about SSM issues demonstrating the neanderthal additude of the right, I disagree completely with them. It isn’t a neanderthal attitude, it’s one that is grounded in some teachings and beliefs that I happen to disagree with at times, but recognize that others disagree wqith me, legitimately about them. But for me, I just don’t see why opponents are getting their dander up so much – I honestly don’t see the effect on them.
I went to the Weare, NH town directory (http://www.weare.nh.gov/contact_us.htm), home of Justice Souter and was about to e-mail members that I supported building the Lost Liberty Hotel in place of Justice Souter’s ‘private’ home and would be visiting.
But the town logo caught my eye… it says “Pine Tree Riot” which prompted me to find this story: http://www.nhptv.org/kn/nh/nhlp5a.htm about the riot. Interestingly it was about the government taking away the trees of land owners and the subsequent and well-deserved riot amounting to an embarrassed sherriff and his sheared pony.
I’d suggest the name for one of the hotel rooms, or maybe the delightful cafe might be “The Pine Tree Riot” to show us history does indeed repeat itself.
-Scott