Steve King: "I don’t expect to meet [gays] should I make it to heaven."

[AggregateDemand]

The good ol' country club theory of heaven. Churches say stuff like this about everyone who doesn't attend their church.

[AggregateDemand]

In case anyone wonders why I am for gay and lesbian rights, the creep depicted in the video makes my point. A warning: the perpetrator uses some dreadful language and, worse, a kick to the groin.   

Law and order is the first of all human rights, without which the others are cant. The perp made the mistake of showing off his infantile morality at DFW Airport, a place teeming with police. Cops win, gay-basher likely gets a stiff prison term instead of a stiff drink.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/10/24/1339028/-Watch-good-Samaritans-tackle-violent-gay-basher-at-Dallas-airport#comments

The dregs of our society are irrelevant, not stars to determine political orientation. If you focus on the exceptional occurrences, you'll never see the real problems.

The government pits the traditional heterosexual marriage demographics against the single alternative-relationship or homosexual demographics. Gays are just the single people who are tired of being discriminated against. The rest of the single world has been taught that there is something wrong with them, and they generally accept the socio-economic punishment handed down by the government.

Gay rights and SSM are the most small-minded solutions I can possibly imagine to our current problems.

[AggregateDemand]

Given that it's gay couples who wish to get married, how on earth using any reasoning, can you categorise gay couples as 'single people'?

Is your exposure to our legal system so limited that you don't understand how unmarried couples could be classified as single?

[AggregateDemand]

Imagine a culture where children are often betrothed, and they are married by the time they reach sexual maturity, and society expects them to use their sexuality, in a manner that is exclusively useful to their spouse, and indirectly beneficial for society as a whole. Do you think there is any room for homosexual behavior? Do you think the people who created this system are inherently bigoted?

The world is full of people who lack understanding. The Judeo-Christian world refuses to acknowledge their departure from the Old Testament system of betrothal and teen marriage, which is the genesis of most anti-homosexual cultural rules. The anti-theist movement is largely unsympathetic to the plight of ancient people, who were merely trying to reproduce and survive. They suppose, instead, malice aforethought, as if ancient people could have foreseen modern existential crises.

Society is also largely ignorant of sexual practices of ancient people, who were not necessarily opposed to behaviors like incest, bestiality, adultery, rape, polygamy, sexual slavery, prostitution, sex with minors/children, etc. The triumph of Judeo-Christian sexual propriety is not problematic in the grand scheme, and pretending otherwise is a pointless waste of time. The people who drifted away from a strict interpretation of anti-homosexuality scripture did not do so under duress, and it is as silly to think that change-averse religious doctrines will evolve under duress as it is ridiculous/immoral to imagine that religious pressure can change someone's sexual orientation.

[AggregateDemand]

Marriage equality affects everyone. The United States hasn't been living up to the Equal Protection Clause of the  Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. So, it may not personally interest you; but, then again, the LGBT community isn't interesting in waiting for you to become possibly supportive. So, giving LGBT persons their due equal rights for legal marriage, as experienced by heterosexual persons, is the solution to that particular issue. Other "current problems" are just more topics. This one does not take a back seat, at this time in our history, because you emotionally want to deflect its importance by telling us that you have more pressing concerns. That's not how this country, or any other country, operates. The issues come up, maybe they even get solved, whenever they do.

If you're using Equal Protection to have a pointless argument about the correct definition of marriage, you're wasting our time. If you compare the legal privileges of a married individual to those of an unmarried individual, you will find evidence of inequality, regardless of sexual orientation. The socioeconomic discrimination between married and unmarried individuals is the source of our problems.

For many decades, the government has been content to ignore Equal Protection as it pertains to marriage, but as women have entered the workforce, inequality has become more acute. We are actively subsidizing a lifestyle decision, which carries inherent socioeconomic benefits to the individuals who partake.

The SSM debate is just the canary in the coal mine.

[AggregateDemand]

You find such inequities between all sorts of groups. Homeowners and renters. Parents and non-parents. Investors and wage-earners. Why is this particular dichotomy one that you beat on about so much?

Because married vs. single is systemic, not legislation-specific. The promotion of inequality between home owners and renters can be addressed with revised rules for mortgage interest deduction. Inequality and ability-to-pay between parents and non-parents can be addressed with the child tax credit rules. Inequality between investors and wage earners can be addressed by creating more brackets based upon the holding period of the investment, rather than simplistic short-term or long-term designations.

Socioeconomic inequality between married and single goes all the way to the core of the tax system, specifically graduated income tax brackets and filing status regulations. Unfortunately, many people believe that graduated rates are the key to equality, when, in fact, they are the source of economic inequality and social decay. Therefore, I harp on this particular issue.

You can't build a system of social equality and goodwill, upon a foundation of economic rot. The rot will always infect the social contract, whether it's SSM or health insurance or whatever.

[AggregateDemand]

What?

How is this not legislation-specific? You object to the legislation that introduced and codified the tax code to which you object, but that doesn't mean it's not specific to legislation. This is incoherent.

I should have said issue-specific. Systemic problems can't be overcome with issue-specific fixes.

That's what you are supposed to learn from the SSM cultural upheaval. Our system is ludicrously unfair, and far too many social/economic privileges key off of federal/state recognition of marriage. The discrimination gays claim regarding SSM is actually discrimination against all single people.

[AggregateDemand]

If only gay people had known that the reason they've felt discriminated against all this time wasn't that they were gay, but that they were single! Thanks for straight-splaining that, Aggy!

If Democrats would learn the power of populism, rather than protecting the minority/victim status of their factions, perhaps they wouldn't have to feign outrage all the time. Perhaps homosexuals wouldn't be in their current predicament.

Furthermore, I offered no opinion as to how homosexuals should feel about the SSM situation.

[AggregateDemand]

Human rights are not counter to each other. They do not imply an exclusive choice as it is for middle-income budgets with respect to buying a Ford or Chevrolet automobile. One might be able to buy one, but buying one precludes buying the other. There is no limiting budget for human rights. The civil rights struggle for Southern blacks was not contrary to the right to union representation, to environmental protection, to the rights of the handicapped, or to women's rights.  If it is simply a matter of a right offending a special interest or a personal sensibility with no other merit, then tough.

Personal license may be a different matter, as when "gun rights" imply a severe compromise of the assumption that we have a right to safety from gun violence.

Political capital is like a budget. You cannot buy everything, and if you spend/invest your capital in the wrong places, you end up fixing nothing and spreading misery.

A majority of the discrimination against same-sex couples is not derived from the narrow definition of marriage, but from the federal/state legislation that arbitrarily or inadvertently rewards people for being married.

[AggregateDemand]

AggregateDemand,

Yes—I referred to the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution!

Spin yourself around and around all you will.

You are the one who is wasting everyone's time, here in this thread, with your stupid rationalizations.


You are a homophobe!


And you want discrimination against LGBT persons.

I realize that the idea of common good and mutually-beneficial populism between gay and straight people is an alarming concept for a Democrat, but you don't need to resort to bolded 10pt font.

I understand your political impulses. They are as predictable as a child demanding more snacks during break time at preschool. If you look at the big socioeconomic picture, you may eventually see the situation in a different light.

Because we have abandoned the notion of Equal Protection and populism, we are trying to choose between the lesser of two evils, which is a false dichotomy. If you fix the blatant disregard for the Constitution, the situation is disarmed, and we can pursue whatever existential end we desire without without oppression looming over the populace.

This is just a retread of the suffrage movements in the late 19th century. African Americans and women had the same political ambition, but by cleaving the demographic with artificial distinctions, like amount of melanin or gender, Congress was able to split their efforts and undermine their populist power. You are the modern day equivalent of the people who divided and conquered the suffrage movement.

Fly your flag high.

[AggregateDemand]

Are you honestly saying that gender and racial distinctions are artificial distinctions? You can't believe that.

When it comes to voting, do you feel otherwise?

[AggregateDemand]

WTF?

When it comes to voting, do you really believe that gender and skin color are legitimate differentiations?

[AggregateDemand]

Not the WTF part. The part where you're hinting about my death?

I sometimes forget that you are incapable of understanding figurative speech and rhetorical tropes so I edited accordingly.

Regarding the matter at hand, do you believe that skin color and gender are legitimate personal traits that warrant modification of voting privileges?

[AggregateDemand]

What was the rhetorical trope of telling me you had a hangman's noose ready for me?

I was referencing the lynch mob mentality in the court of public opinion. You made a rhetorical misstep, and someone could have implied that you believed race and gender were integral parts of establishing suffrage privileges.

I shouldn't have allowed you to clarify, I should merely have branded you a racist, sexist bigot; reported your post and then hit the ignore button <---------sarcasm <-------meta sarcasm.

[AggregateDemand]

Figs, you seem like a reasonable guy, so I'll give some advice: Don't try speaking anything approaching rationalism to Arrogant Demand. He lives in some bizarre bubble world filled up with snatches of statistics and libertarian screeds, and literally can't comprehend it when we ignorant plebes don't grasp his brilliant yet obvious analysis of the world.

Good show trying though! Trust me, you'll learn there are some people on this Forum you can't begin to have a two-way communication with. The best you'll get is some verbal sparing practice.

Ooh! There's this friend of mine named Phil you should meet.....

Why is it a bad idea to balance the social/economic privileges of the married and the unmarried? Besides fulfilling a Constitutional mandate, we would also take the power of discrimination away from the definition of marriage crowd, which includes churches like King's. 9/10ths of the problem would be solved without needless political bloodletting, and the benefits would be spread to far more Americans than just same-sex couples.

I have no desire to participate in your silly bikeshedding arguments. I am interested in the political/bureaucratic malfeasance that created the situation.