LintLass's Comments (2464)

“I like 'The Naughty Aughties' (heard on BBC) or......

"The Decade That Dare Not Speak Its Name."”

“Let's put it this way, Mr. Olmstead.

If some people want to claim this is just about a 'word' and we should 'settle' for civil unions, then the time to make that argument is *after they pony up with the civil unions,* not while they use the notion to justify denying us everything.”

“The simple fact is, my relationship is what it is. Allowing some to try and break us up with legalized hostility doesn't change that marriage. Or the commitments involved. You don't get to sit on the sidelines and 'tell us the odds.'

Like that has anything to do with *us.* We're not 'people looking for some magic capacities.'

We're looking to be able to share our lives and property... As we do, and not have everything taken away by the nearest hostile straight relative, When, as must happen eventually, hopefully a long time from now, one of us passes on.

We're looking for the freedom to *build a life together.* For each other. And not have it all taken away by the next idiot that can say 'I disagree with your 'lifestyle.'”

“Frankly, the 'ballot box' didn't 'trump' anything. Our Constitutional protections should, and can eventually, mean that you can't vote to do an Unconstitutional thing. People who don't like us spent a *lot* of money to deceive the electorate in both California and Maine about *what they were voting for.* That's not what democracy is for, and a day will come, I think, when the courts strike such things down as the breaches of our American democratic process they are.

I don't care if you think 'Marriage is a bad bet cause straights have a high divorce rate. ' The divorce rate is *higher,* the *more* they try to restrict marriage rights, not when there are more options.

It's not to say that other models can't be pursued, but trying to claim there's some choice between 'being right' and 'having rights' is a false one.

How can we have rights by not claiming to deserve them?”

“It seems your problem there is with the fact that *health care* isn't something everyone can have unconditionally. Not with the practicalities of actual committed relationships.”

“Do you understand, Mr. Olmstead, that the attacking our right to marry is their way of trying to make official what was once social? The idea that they have a religious right to declare people second-class citizens under the law?

Yes, all manner of other things are needed, particularly for the youth. We all remember what that age was like. But allowing the Right to take away those kids' *dreams for a future* is not going to help the suicide or homeless rate.”

“Well, no, LBGT people are not the aggressors, here. When the Religious Right started attacking the possibility of us *ever* being legally married, it certainly galvanized the community to stop saying 'someday' about it.

They've been trying to take away our 'Someday.'

It did have the benefit of completely undercutting the claims of our inherent promiscuity.”

“Also, the question of whether or not 'we' abandon the 'm-word' is as misleading from you as from the anti-gay crowd. The *courts* have to rule that separate but equal is Unconstitutional, and that denying us equal marriage rights at *all* is unconstitutional.

Now, popular support for civil unions is there, and that's a good goal from the *political* end.

But when the Right claims that it's just about the 'definition of marriage' and if only 'we' would 'stop trying to take their definition' we could 'settle for civil unions' ...and that they wouldn't and don't fight *those* tooth and nail as well...

Guess what. They aren't telling the truth.

The funny thing is, of course, what actually gets *called* a marriage out there in society is one thing the law can't contrl to begin with. On the political end, pushing for civil unions laws certainly makes sense, but there's a whole other venue about this in the courts. There, the law demands full equality.”

“Now, there's nothing wrong with exploring other models of family and living, (And many do) but that's not an argument against marriage. Philosophically, I might like to be in a committed poly thing, that doesn't change the realities of being in a couple. In fact, while SSM won't suddenly cause poly things to spring up, as the anti-gay crowd insists: if you can't have a legal union between or involving people of the same sex at all, , that certainly is a barrier to such things.

In fact, the anti-gay crowd are attacking the rights of *anyone* to enter into 'marriage-like' contracts, just to get at us.

A couple, or a group, isn't just a bunch of individuals. There's an interdependence there which is both good for individuals and for society at large. There's enough forces out there trying to keep us all isolated and on our own as it is.”

“It's pretty simple: marriage, for these purposes, is a civil contract. Equal protection under the law relates to what kind of people can enter into that contract, not to any claims people within that contract cannot enjoy any benefit from it, compared to not having entered that contract.

There are other advantages to being a single person, certainly. Being a couple means you're obligated to each other, whether the government punishes you for who is in it or not.

But the fact is, LBGT people are married, whether treated equally under the law for it or not. . The sour grapes angle is something I haven't heard in a long time. So you don't want to be in a couple. People used to say it was the nature of LBGT people to never *want to* be monogamous: that we aren't capable of it. I guess some people thought that was fun, and that's fine.

But a lot of people also just think that some of us were living down to stereotypes, thinking a committed relationship was just something they couldn't *have.*

We're expecting more out of life, now, those of us who find we're the 'marrying kind.'”

“Frankly, I think it's just trying to create as much blind and irrational division to divert from the disasters of the past administration that we're still recovering from. Gay people are being scapegoated. To make the Religious Right seem powerful about something, no doubt.”

“Actually, by the way, Obama did not halt cost of living increases, the formula by which the COLA increases rise automatically came up with zero due to certain falling consumer prices which are involved in how those increases are calculated. So Obama in fact *gave* the seniors something to compensate.”

“Ok, if you're not even going to take this seriously, go back to right wing radio. :)”

“Time to get over the idea that people who try to divide us over the *word* marriage really intend to stop there. They're anti-gay and intellectually-dishonest. When they ask 'Why don't you settle for civil unions' ...as if we *had* them, they're... basically lying. The same people who try to make the 'definition' an issue ask people to vote for laws that don't stop at the definition of a word, but in fact outlaw the same civil unions, separate but equal, not equal, or whatever.

People don't read the laws and referenda when the anti-gay crowd gets their votes with deceptions and says 'the people have spoken'.

It's very simple: the courts have to rule equal protection for all, including the word.

Civil unions by legislative measures ...equal in all but name, I think would be a reasonable step. There is in fact support for this, but watch the same propaganda organs start going after that whenever it's propose. Look at the content of the Constitutional amendments they claim are merely about protecting a 'definiton' from uppity LBGT families.

Look who's telling the *truth* and who's fearmongering.”

“Err, no, it's not 'like'that.

LBGT Americans *are* citizens, for the most part.”

“Give up what, being lied about? There's nothing to give up because the churches *made this fear up and promoted it.*”

“Like... A .... Birth certificate?”

“While it's certainly true that it's wrong to be voting to deny civil rights and equality to Americans, ir really just does -not- follow that it's somehow 'worse' to vote to defeat such an initiative.

No, it shouldn't be necessary, but there we are.”

“Err, the hate crimes law extends to all orientations, not just LBGT people. It's not our fault if straight people don't get bashed, so.

Being LBGT isn't a 'belief,' ....if it was, then it'd fall under freedom of religion.

No belief allows one to violate another's unalienable rights, in America.”

“Gay people don't make empires fall. Falling empires freak out about gay people so they can continue to drive their societies into bridge abutments.”

“And has anyone noticed how the whole 'Conservative tough on crime' thing *evaporates* when the LBGT community is targeted?”

“Well, it's done, so you don't have to put yourself out about how 'unnecessary' it was, anymore.”

“Details, details. It's only what they want to rule the world with, that Bible. Now you want them to read it?

Oh, right, they're changing the translation again.”

“This won't be an effect of the law, though you raise an interesting point.

Some preachers seem to be incapable of working without hate-speech against LBGT people... It's not prosecuteable, but now I'm just wondering if they * could.*”

“Cause LBGT people are American and some violently hate our freedom?”