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meoraeAccording to dictionary.com and my own paper dictionary, a dialogue is considered a conversation between two or more people. It can also be a conversation in which there are conflicting opinions, but it doesn't have to be. So the day of dialogue this year, will actually be a day of dialogue, as there will be conversations between each of the freshmen classes and their teachers and also between our gsa and the other schools' gsas.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-24 05:43 pm (UTC)Because the GSA is as fucking opressive as the people they claim with their empty and incendiary rhetoric are opressing gay people. In this fucking state when they can get married against the will of the people. Last I checked we still pretended to be a democracy, unless it's a gay rights issue.
And you guys refuse to tolerate people who speak against you, homosexuality, or rights for the homosexual life style while demanding (and sometimes in the name of) toleration!
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Date: 2005-09-24 07:07 pm (UTC)I won't deny that we don't allow disagreement. But think about any rights issue. After there were enough people agreeing that african americans and then that women should have the same rights as everyone else, those people refused to tolerate anyone who spoke against africans and women. You're called racist if you call someone a nigger. You're called sexist if you call women weak. So now you're called homophobic if you say something against homosexuality. By giving a certain group rights, you end up oppressing the groups that are against giving that group rights. You can't make everyone happy.
And since when has gay marriage in massachusetts been against the will of the people? It was voted on by the state and as the majority voted yes, gay marriage is legal here. Do you think that people in the rest of the country should be able to tell us what laws we should have? From what I've heard, so far the decision to allow or not allow gay marriage is the decision of the state, as the amendment to the constitution hasn't been passed by congress.
Plus, we aren't a democracy and we aren't pretending to be one. We're a republic.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-24 07:58 pm (UTC)As for marriage: we never voted on it. It was dictated without popular consent by judges. An attempt to put it to a vote on the ballot was rejected by certain people as "homophobic" and the president of the Senate refused to allow a vote on the first proposed amendment to the constitution, which would have granted civil unions. This one, which likely will get a vote, has no such provision. It wasn't even voted on by the Legislature. And every poll that I've seen says that the majority of registered voters in the state is against gay marriage. Government never has the right to impose laws like that upon the people, and in the history of our country it never has.
Marrage as it is traditionally defined isn't discrimination. Everyone, gay or not, has the right to marry one person of the opposite gender who isn't closely related to them at a time. Everybody can do that. The fact that some people don't want to isn't really the business of the government. If there is a legal right to marrage, unenumerated in any constitution in the history of all jurisprudence, then can I marry my underage sister? or a goat? or an 8 year old boy? or all three? I'm not saying there is moral equivalence, but either marriage is a right open to anything that might loosely be defined as marriage, or we go by the only definition that has existed in 5000+ years.
We are pretending to be one. We are a republic. Either way, this decision was made by people without direct accountability to the people, without their consent, and without their legally and legitimately elected representatives. If pro-gay measures are enacted in a way which bypasses our laws, how will that foster tolerance among the people?
no subject
Date: 2005-09-25 05:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-25 07:38 pm (UTC)And second, marriage isn't a constitutional right. Black students have the right to the equal protection of the laws under the 14th amendment. Gay couples do not have that right because they are not denied the same rights as stright people. We are all obligated to the same marriage laws. The fact that they don't like the marriage laws as they stand now would make marriage an issue for the legislature and not the courts. The 14th amendment doesn't cover "but I don't want the law to say that, I want it to say this." We are equally protecting gay people. In fact, we are unequally protecting them, since beating up a gay person for being gay is a greater crime in Massachusetts than beating up a stright person for being stright.
And you know what? I think that if the people of Kansas want to keep the schools segregated, there isn't anything we can do about it other than try to change their minds. That's what republicanism is about. That's what our society is about. We don't impose, we convince. We can refuse federal money, we can lobby their representatives, we can have any kind of campaign we want, but if they want to be stubborn racists, they get to be stubborn racists, because if they don't then soon there will be nothing to stop the federal government from forcing the Catholic Church in the United States to change the rubrics of the Liturgy of the Roman Missal and its doctrine to be more inclusive, and that is unacceptable. Either people can think what they want, or government is perminantly involved in our lives. Part of that is that if everyone votes for a racist agenda, a racist agenda passes until everyone votes against it. You live in a pluralist, capitalist republic, cope.
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Date: 2005-09-26 02:52 pm (UTC)About the government forcing the Catholic church to change: the whole point is that the government DOESN'T interfere with religion and religion, in return, doesn't interfere with the government. Simple human morals that everyone shares – which can be summed up in the phrase "Don't hurt anyone" - are what dictate our laws. Gay people getting married are not hurting anyone else by getting married, they are consenting adults doing something that will make them very happy and will not negatively impact anyone else's life except to make certain homophobes squeamish when they see them walking down the street, which is not a basis for legislation.
Part of that is that if everyone votes for a racist agenda, a racist agenda passes until everyone votes against it.
Not true. The whole reason I posted the "Brown v. Board of Education" thing was that a large part of the reason we have the Supreme Court is in order to keep the rights of minorities from being trampled by the majority. Brown v. (The) Board of Education (of Topeka, Kansas et al.) is a prime example. Tell me honestly you think people have the democratic right to segregate schools. You can't, right? Right? O_o
And no, we are not equally protecting gay people. Social security, hospital visitation - you KNOW all this, right? You HAVE been following the marriage debate, right? Without the right to civil marriage, gays are denied these rights.
Please. I know you're not a scary racist. You're coming off as one. Should whites and blacks still be forbidden to marry because the majority said so way back when? Hell no. That's why we need the courts to push this through. People will adjust.
... I love a good debate in the morning. *stretches*
no subject
Date: 2005-09-26 02:56 pm (UTC)However, we may try to bring someone who doesn't support gay marriage, as long as they aren't a psycho... Katherine? About that?
no subject
Date: 2005-09-26 03:06 pm (UTC)The thing EJ's saying is that we say gays have the right to marry and blah blah blah, but then if anyone disagrees with us, we call them homophobes. EJ's saying that he is against the whole you must agree with us or we'll call you homophobic. He thinks that we shouldn't just stop everyone from disagreeing by using labels, we should win the people over to our side with the merits of our case. Which we haven't been doing.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-26 03:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-26 03:34 pm (UTC)Basically, you'll let people talk as long as they are sufficiently amenable to your point of view to keep you comfortable. To refuse to talk about these issues in a truly open forum where you defend your position against those who disagree is cowardly. You cannot achieve the true goal of the gay rights movement - a social shift toward accepting homosexual lifestyles - if you won't try and actually convince people. All you do is preach, and in that sense the gay lobby is no different than pat robertson or any of the other protestant wackjobs.
You should be required to bring a bigot to a diversity conference, or at least someone who doesn't believe in the inherent value of multiculturalism. Everyone should daily have to confront the thought of those who oppose them and convince everyone they are right. Labels, supression, and refusal to meet critics are tactics popular with two-bit petty despots, and aren't becoming of anyone, especially people as bright as you.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-26 03:28 pm (UTC)Do you know on what basis the Supremes decided Brown? Do you know on what basis the SJC decided this case? Let's hear how that's the same.
We are protecting them. The law doesn't protect stright people who live together and fuck either. You have to be married, and marriage has a specific definition and has without exception in the history of the world for 5000 years. If it needs to be changed, the legislature must be the agent of that change, not the judiciary.-
Blacks and whites can marry now because there is no majority that thinks it should be otherwise - societal preferences change, and only once they change should new laws be enacted. The SJC made up a law that never existed and waved its hands to force it to apply. The people do not want this, and the people hold soverign authority. To argue that judges have the right to legislate is antithetical to the foundation of American society, and it is for that reason alone that the gay agenda threatens America: they want to bypass our laws. They want to ignore our way of life. That isn't acceptable, I don't care what your cause is.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-25 09:56 am (UTC)