I never meant to imply that all gay marriage opponents are gay, I was merely referencing a study that suggests homophobia is psychologically connected to unexpressed homosexual feelings, so it wouldn't be unreasonable to suspect that a supporter of the Amendment has some gay tendencies.

The resulting misinterpretations and flame wars led to my closing of it.

Scott, as much as I consider you a thoughtful and intelligent poster in general, you should tone down your rhetoric towards those who for some reasons do not support gay marriage.
Constantly implying that people who are against gay marrage are gay themselves, calling them all "bigots" or making equations such as being against gay marriage = being against interracial marriage or pro-slavery does not help your cause. Well, it may help you on this forum because that's the general attitude here, but I think you are intellectually able to argue for your point of view by using more respectful and more appropriate words.

Well given what we know about the spectrum of human sexuality; knowing both what it is and most importantly what it isn't denying us the right to marry; the right to financial security with the people we love and the inheritance, next of kin, property, seperation and other such rights that straights can get through signing a bit of paper is to me bigoted.

It pains me to think all I want to do is to be able to have the right to marry, yet flick through newspapers and see divorces, forced marriages, passport scam marriages, moral preachers marrying for the 6th time and some two penny tart getting married yet again just so she can appear in the front page of magazine. Gays aren't responsible for running marriage into the ground, so what other 'damage' do you think we can do to something thats already been cheapened?

Why should it be bigoted to take an approach to the definition of the term "marriage" that differs from that of gay marriage supporters? Throwing around the term "bigot" against those who dare to have another opinion and define "marriage" in a way that does not contain the union between people of the same sex is intellectually lazy.
You see, whatever definition of "marriage" you come up with, you will run into problems in terms of discrimination. The way many gay marriage supporters approach this topic seems to be the following: Men and women can marry, and so should men and men and women and women be able to marry. But what about brothers and sisters (or brothers and brothers and sisters and sisters)? What about the marriage of one man and ten women, i.e. polygamy? However you define the marriage laws of a state, you will discriminate against a certain form of marriage. That's in the nature of things or in the nature of marriage laws, I should say. Hence, it is plausible that one draws the conclusion that solely the standard (= by far most frequent) form of marriage should be legally acknowledged in order to keep the law relatively simple and straightforward.

Clarence: You answered your own question in the OP.

ZuWo: Slaveowners also thought abolitionists should have been calling them "property rights defenders". It would have been a mistake to let them set the terms of discussion.


EDIT: No, I am not comparing gay marriage to slavery. Don't even try it.

There's a reason I addressed Scott in my post and not you. Indeed, I believe that Scott is a poster who is in general genuinely interested in respectful debates of controversial issues, while you aren't. I think these words by Alcon actually sum up your forum activities very well:

"counterproductive and juvenile"

I never meant to imply that all gay marriage opponents are gay, I was merely referencing a study that suggests homophobia is psychologically connected to unexpressed homosexual feelings, so it wouldn't be unreasonable to suspect that a supporter of the Amendment has some gay tendencies.

The resulting misinterpretations and flame wars led to my closing of it.

Scott, as much as I consider you a thoughtful and intelligent poster in general, you should tone down your rhetoric towards those who for some reasons do not support gay marriage.
Constantly implying that people who are against gay marrage are gay themselves, calling them all "bigots" or making equations such as being against gay marriage = being against interracial marriage or pro-slavery does not help your cause. Well, it may help you on this forum because that's the general attitude here, but I think you are intellectually able to argue for your point of view by using more respectful and more appropriate words.

Is there any further debate on this?

Yes, I'd like some input on my last post, which will possibly result in an amendment to improve the points shua mentioned.

Rooney
Liberal Party
Iowa

LiberalJunkie
Washington
Liberal Party

This will make for an interesting economic platform of the Liberal Party, I guess.

Would it help if we limited food inspections to, for example, maximally two times a year in the same food establishment?
We could also define the procedure of an appeal: If the owner of a food establishment is not content with the findings of the food inspectors, he/she may appeal to an independent court, and the owner of that particular food establishment only has to bear the costs of the appeal if the court agrees with the findings of the food inspectors.

Swiss result:

Sarkozy - 32'995 (62.29%)
Hollande - 19'978 (37.71%)

Most votes were cast in the French-speaking part of Switzerland.

http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/fr/IMG/pdf/Tableau_de_recensement_-_2nd_Tour_cle8dd39a.pdf

The poll runs for 3 days!

I should run just to be an idiot and see how many votes I'd get. to offer the Mideast electorate a choice because this game is about entertaining elections.

Yeah, Haut-Rhin finally confirmed at 63,3 for Sarkozy.

Breakable record for the Right/Far-Right tonight?

I see that the level of sanity among the French increases the closer we move to the Swiss border.

You may want to expell the Swiss areas bordering Belfort, then.

This territory seems like an anomaly anyway.

Yeah, Haut-Rhin finally confirmed at 63,3 for Sarkozy.

Breakable record for the Right/Far-Right tonight?

I see that the level of sanity among the French increases the closer we move to the Swiss border.

^weird, their map is similar to google's but the numbers are very different

It seems the "Public Senat" page already displays the results for "Haut-Rhin", which has a large population and went heavily for Sarkozy (63-37%)

Spoiler alert! Do not click if you want to wait for official numbers!!!

http://www.tdg.ch/monde/francois-hollande-obtiendrait-53-suffrages-nicolas-sarkozy/story/15086944

[ScottSurveys reveals: 87% of Atlasians have a positive opinion of Clarence]

ScottSurveys reveals: 87% of Atlasians have a positive opinion of Clarence

Recent polling by ScottSurveys shows that Clarence is an extremely well-liked candidate as nearly 90% of the Atlasian electorate views him favorably on a personal level.

ZuWo, Clarence's campaign manager, stated: "High personal favorability ratings don't win an election, but this poll clearly shows Clarence is on the right track. Some people may disagree with Clarence politically, but they apparently think he has his heart in the right place."

Link to the poll: http://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=152975.0

A judgement on the "afleitch vs. Mideast Assembly" case (or whatever you like to call that case).

http://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=140045.15

[infighting on the Left]

PS: I agree with Napoleon that infighting on the Left would be a very move electorally - if there'd been a decent transfer pact last year Ben or I would have won on the strength of left-wing votes - this time around I think all left-of-center candidates can agree that we should all give high preferences to each other.

Does that mean the Oakvale/Cincinnatus ticket can be considered a ticket of the left?

I will be voting for progress, activity and accomplishment.

Yes, voting for Clarence/Yelnoc is a great decision!

The next elections for Assembly and Governor are less than two weeks away. I encourage my fellow Mideast citizens to ask questions about my candidacy if they have any.

In the next days I will release a platform with my plans for this region, which I shall dub Vision October 2012.

ZuWo in every case except against shua. Sorry

shua is indeed the opponent I would fear most.

I've read that the polls after the debate showed that while Hollande was considered slightly more convincing than Sarkozy in the presidential debate overall, a majority of Bayrou and Le Pen voters thought Sarkozy did better on that front. This may explain why Sarkozy appears to be gaining votes both among Bayrou and Le Pen voters.

A donation of $ 10,000 to Survey Atlasia has been made.

$ 10,000 for a (favorable) poll of the ME gubernatorial race.

next? 
Did someone drop out already?

Ben dropped out since he is now a Senator.

Ladies and Gentleman,

It has always been a dream of mine to serve as a Senator.  Because I desire to continue serving in the Senate, I have decided to drop out of the Presidential race.  I thank you all for your support, and I thank Duke for agreeing to run with me.

That is all

Hollande 51.3
Sarkozy 48.7

With my return to the site I might as well return to Atlasia:

HappyWarrior
Maryland
Independent

Hurray! Our Supreme Court Judge returns!

Brent & Harrow has reached 100% of the vote counted on the website twice only to be changed back to 99% or 98%.

That's because they discovered boxes of votes they apparently forgot to count.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/local-elections/9244994/London-Mayor-election-and-local-election-results-2012-live.html#disqus_thread