It's a bit unfair to say Europe is immune to the hangups that America has when it comes to gay stuff. While America is way behind Europe when it comes to government recognition of gay relationships, I think this is due to America having such puritanical views when it comes to marriage in general, there still seems to be a rule that says that in America the only valid serious relationship type is marriage, whereas in Europe (and other parts of the developed world too), generally speaking other forms of relationship, such as unmarried/unregistered cohabitation and civil partnerships (like how in France almost as many straight people are having PACS civil partnerships as straight people are marrying). America's catching up, around a dozen or so states have civil unions or domestic partnership registries, some of which are open to straight couples too, but it's such a late development that the federal government hasn't yet made any provisions for recognising them (and probably won't for the foreseeable future), and almost no states anymore have legal recognition of unmarried "common law" couples, which puzzles me.
The second thing is that Europe is made up of individual countries that can vary widely in terms of how progressive they are in terms of gay rights and the same is true of America and its states. Even though more and more are doing it, only a small number of European countries have full marriage equality, some European countries even forbid same-sex marriage in their constitutions, although most European countries have some form of legal union for gay couples, a point which America isn't at yet.
Finally, and this point can't be understated, many European countries still have pretty regressive laws when it comes to adoption, IVF/surrogacy and legally recognising gay parents. If I'm not mistaken, Portugal has marriage equality but it also forbids gay couples from adopting kids, for example, and many countries that have civil partnerships do so on the basis that gay couples will have all the same rights as married straight couples except adoption. America on the other hand probably has the most liberalised adoption schemes in the developed world. In Europe you're much more likely to be allowed to marry or have a civil union but not have kids, in America you're much more likely to be allowed to have kids but not marry or have a civil union.
Make no mistake, Europe as a whole is ahead of the US on gay rights, but probably not by quite as big a gap as it might seem. What makes America more complicated is that there's a federal government that can interfere with state laws, something that Europe doesn't have. If gay couples in America in marriages or civil unions/domestic partnerships were recognised and granted benefits by the federal government, overnight America would bolt 10-20 years into the future and start looking like a much more gay-friendly place.
1. Bum Fun I don't know what's up with this one in America. One time I was at UCLA and there was a prop 98 rally and some girl was ranting on a microphone, of all things, about aztec deities, at least I think that's what she was yammering on about, and this was somehow related to her personal cultural list of concepts she identifies with, which was relevant to her sexuality, which was relevant to why she thought that it was not just to allow people to get married to members of the same gender or something. And she carried on for more than 30 seconds, and I've been criticized for carrying on for more than 30 seconds before, so I decided to criticize her, right there, on the spot, and I came up to the microphone and said "don't you think that there are more pressing political issues than whether men wear rings while they buttfuck each other in their bedrooms?" And this made the crowd rage at me, which was completely inadvertant, but I received several death threats, and I think it was because the people felt marginalized because they said that I was minimizing their issue or something. I did not think that I was making any kind of trenchant criticism, I thought that I was repeating something that somebody said on the internet.
I know some of us aren't really that scared of bum fun. I'm a little bit scared of it. There was a felon who I was hanging out with the other day who asked me a bunch of questions about my sexuality, kind of making fun of me and acting like it's not cool that I've experimented in the ways I've experimented, but then acting inordinately interested, and he made me give him my full name and he wrote it down and it kind of weirded me out, just because the way he went about it, but I was determined to adopt a tolerant and kind emotional posture towards him, and the situation was handled fine. But you see what I mean? I am constantly trying to act normal in my culture, trying to do things that are congruent enough with others expectations so that I don't arouse a threshold amount of nervous energy in another person or agitate that other person such that that person decides to form a sense of entitlement to go and try to get me locked up. It's like I have my guard up in my country because they've thrown me into hospitals 8 times, and I can usually get away with not being in a hospital so long as I shut up and don't bother anybody.
I think maybe the reason why America is so uptight about homosexuality is because many Americans never experimented and so they don't know who they are. Americans are all trying to be like other Americans, and copying the values of the people next to them in order to try to identify and get along. Lots of men are afraid that if they're perceived kissing a man or something, then that will affect their reputation adversely. People will make fun of them, they will be ridiculed, it will be a badge that's attached to them which is undesirable, like schizophrenia. It will make it more difficult for them to gain trust. People will think that they are going to hell. People will be prejudiced against them. I gotta go bbl. (I wrote the below stuff before I answered this question).
2. Family Values In America families are completely fucked up. Nobody has any empathy for each other. Everyone is in their own world. There is no tolerance or community. People are genuinely scared of each other. People are afraid to venture out of their rooms because other people might do something harmful to them. There are lots of people who do drugs, and instead of accepting these people's lifestyle choices families unify together to have interventions to try to make people change their ranked order series of preferences. And people try to cover up their lack of understanding or empathy or acceptance of each other by referring to a mythical set of nostalgic conditions under which things were cool and everybody was not stressed out because the economy sucks and they have to go to work and do lame things with their lives like serve hamburgurs to patrons in exchange for tiddlywinks. People don't have time to just kick it. People ain't tuning into each other, and families don't love each other. In fact they are very sad and insecure about it and blame it on things like the media during church and some more mature people understand some of the problems and either laugh or do not laugh about it, but anyways, the culture of individuality is strong, and I think there is this idea that families are part of the network that unites people into clans and tribes and cities and in small towns there is accountability based on families and I will discuss more of this later.
3. Klondike Bar In America, whenever you say Klondike Bar, people think about bars, and they think about the letter K, and they think about Kanye West, and they think about things like the expression "blonde dyke." This is because they are being culturally programmed by Rupert Murdoch & Co to hear the same lyrics over and over, for example, when they work out in the gym.
Glorious manwhore: Well, I'm going to start this off by asking a couple of honest questions about America, since I really, really, need the insight to your wonderful little culture pot, we call N-America.
1.Why are Americans scared of bum fun?
-Is it because the puritans came over from England to discriminate? But just in general, why do so many people in America consider it their business to butt in, in the bedroom? We've got rainbow oreos and people start flaming about that, we've got a group that goes to a chicken sandwich company to celebrate, "old family values", what on earth does a chicken sandwich have to do with being against gays and standing for family values?
2.Family values, what on earth do they mean?
-Since I thought that letting gays and lesbians and all those adopt therefore, creating families and they would be strong within the family "values" of being together as one.
3.What would you do for a Klondike bar?
-Never had one. Would probably punch a cow for it.
America is big place: 4th biggest country in size, 3rd biggest in population, made up of people who have immigrated from around the world. You are going to find every phobia represented in such a heterogeneous makeup. But it is rather a loaded question, when you define anything as something all Americans have in common.
It means forcing everyone to follow what you believe, even if you do not follow it. The term comes from this attitude being applied to how they run their own families (or at least how they would like to).
Cuz we fear if we tolerated that sorta thing, we'd all eventually end up emasculated, wearing tight clothes, and having fruity accents. You know, like in Europe.
twohundredpercent: Cuz we fear if we tolerated that sorta thing, we'd all eventually end up emasculated, wearing tight clothes, and having fruity accents. You know, like in Europe.
roflsk8ershahaha@phyfai.blogspot.com. Yes actually in America we fantasize that gays are secretly total cultural imperialists who would reshape the world to realign other peoples sexualities to conform to their love needs. We are paranoid that they would not be satisfied to only make love to gays, but in fact they would actively seek to convert people who are less than 23% gay by sticking their penises through holes in bathrooms, and so one of the things you would have to deal with in life if you tolerated gays was gays being gays.
And in fact there are gays who are like this, and there are gays who bitch that other gays give the gay community a bad rap by doing things like this, and anyways, I don't think you really even need a gay to be out there sticking his penis through bathroom stalls for people to imagine it. I think you can make people imagine it for chaos just by drilling a hole in a bathroom stall. It is trendy to do that at places like UCSC, which is in fact one fo the capitals of the world for a movement called umm what is it called I have heard so many weird names for it gosh i think it's called like anti-heteronormativity or something like that. It is some new kind of feminism. And these girls have been brainwashed to think that their mission in life is to cure men of their heteronormativity. After having an intimate conversation with one such girl who I was making out with in my car I decided to immediately check with my best gay friend who talks to me about his sexual fantasies compulsively and therefore owes me favors which I invoke whenever I need help doing things like figuring out if I should help someone who kicked methadone get her kid back or what. Or should I help the dad get the kid back. Or neither or both. Which is it, and what are the main considerations?
I figure if he can justify telling me all this crazy batshit fantasy stuff that I tolerate because he tells me smart shit, then I can also get him to understand that I need help with something and he will go the extra mile to help me, and I understand that I would not be able to abuse this exploit in the world if gay genes were not distributed in the dna pool. What is the probability that I am going to fuck him? I'd say something on the order of probability that I am going to fuck Katy Perry. Do I even like Katy Perry? Of course yes not only did she go to my dad's wife's church, so I have to like her, because she's like family, which isn't important, because she's probably so popular right now that she won't notice me for the rest of her life. But actually I like her the same reason Madonna liked her which is that we both like her "ur so gay and u don't even like boys" song.
One of the ways I used to roll my eyes at and ignore my sister was by singing an ATC song called around the world it goes around the world just lalalalalala and everybody's singing lalalallala the radio playin songs that i have never heard i don't know what you said oh lalalalal you're just nannanannaan it goes around the world and loop until she stops trying to send verbal signals to me using the soundwave. Well, you don't get to have a relationship like that with very many women, who will persistently try to help you do something better than, specifically she thought it was a waste of time to not try to talk me out of setting up an empire on darktide using a macro chain. The idea is that we would create infinite wealth using only 1 button. You just press 1 button and you make a string of characters that are worth dollars to people. Startup costs: About $500, if you wanted to be efficient. We planned this all out, and then my sister decided to try to kill herself to prove her point, or I don't really know what she was going through, because she's a girl, and I have never undnerstood girls.
I would say that I understand some things about girls better than 99% of the men in the world. For example I know exactly all about how men think of girls. Chuck Palanik also seems to know something. Have you read those scenes in Choke about the hypnosis? He has basically elicited info from the subconscious mind of the archetypical male psyche or shadow or whatever you want to call it, there's stuff down there underneath the portal in being john malkovich, and it's not all copies of john malkovich. Probably some of the only people I have gotten to talk with about this stuff at any length was when we were done with playing games and we had all established our credibility and we were legends and could say whatever we wanted at our feasts and banquets which I don't even want to devalue by saying that they were in valhalla or somewhere, because they were probably better than valhalla's feasts because the victory was sweeter because afaik valhalla was what, 4,000 years ago? And in scandanavia? We are still alive today, and we were right there with each other and the convo was "that about wraps it up for mmorpgs" and only people who beat mmorpgs were allowed in the club, and it was raelly basically nerf golem's club, and I was just popular enough and enough of a winner that i could be in the club even though nerf hated me for wrecking one fo the club's greatest secrets and bst exploits of all time in a game, a microsoft game, the best game of all time really, in terms of PvP. Not the most addicting game of all time, like everquest, but everquest's engine was crap compared to AC's, and so was the socializing. It's a pity that 40% of cloud gamers weren't women around the turn of the century, because I think I was propositioned by men who thought I was a woman more than I am propositioned by random people in Vegas and Hawaii and occasionally San Francisco.
Well I think that if I were going to do anything for the gays I would declare an international safe zone for gays. In this safe zone it would be specially bad to hurt, stab, molest, harass, annoy, well I don't know about harass/annoy, I think I would tolerate harassing and annoying, especially if it was tasteful, but I would not tolerate stabbings and such. Also I would not tolerate chemically castrating people like Alan Turing. I think that there is a 2% probability that sometime in the next millenia at least one billion people will die in an act of divine vengance for the stupidity that was inflicted on Mr. Turing. In fact I think it was part of Operation Paperclip or something that fuck you it's classified.
I think that Alan Turing is an example of a man who could probably seduce me if he wanted to. I am saying that because I know he was gay, and I think that if he approached me, no matter what his confidence, no matter what his stds, no matter anything, I think we could come to some kind of consensus and decide to be a part of each other's lives. And fuck you intolerant people, for not just appreciating him the way he was, fuck you a thousand camels fuck you smnoke cigarettes, humanity, and die of lung cancer!
twohundredpercent: Cuz we fear if we tolerated that sorta thing, we'd all eventually end up emasculated, wearing tight clothes, and having fruity accents. You know, like in Europe.
I just spent a good five minutes laughing after I read that, thank you.
ten.to.ten: It's a bit unfair to say Europe is immune to the hangups that America has when it comes to gay stuff. While America is way behind Europe when it comes to government recognition of gay relationships,
Are you sure you've compared them? Because Europe isn't far ahead in terms of Gay rights.
I think this is due to America having such puritanical views when it comes to marriage in general,
Um what? Are you referring to the Puritans? Because the states which they founded and colonized are the ones which have the most support for gay rights.
there still seems to be a rule that says that in America the only valid serious relationship type is marriage, whereas in Europe (and other parts of the developed world too), generally speaking other forms of relationship, such as unmarried/unregistered cohabitation and civil partnerships (like how in France almost as many straight people are having PACS civil partnerships as straight people are marrying).
No, it's the one which carries the symbolism that they're treated equally hence why LGBT wanted marriages and not civil partnerships. It's not a rule exclusive to America or anywhere it's just universal.
America's catching up, around a dozen or so states have civil unions or domestic partnership registries, some of which are open to straight couples too, but it's such a late development that the federal government hasn't yet made any provisions for recognising them (and probably won't for the foreseeable future), and almost no states anymore have legal recognition of unmarried "common law" couples, which puzzles me.
The Federal government didn't have any power in Marriage until 1996, and the DOMA then is now being considered to be overturned so it will probably go back to how things were where the Federal government has no power over marriage.
The second thing is that Europe is made up of individual countries that can vary widely in terms of how progressive they are in terms of gay rights and the same is true of America and its states. Even though more and more are doing it, only a small number of European countries have full marriage equality, some European countries even forbid same-sex marriage in their constitutions,
Why is America constantly compared with Europe? I mean half the continent was Communist for one, the countries have different political systems they have different cultures etc. etc. you don't have any of that in America.
Make no mistake, Europe as a whole is ahead of the US on gay rights, but probably not by quite as big a gap as it might seem. What makes America more complicated is that there's a federal government that can interfere with state laws, something that Europe doesn't have.
Nope. If the state and federal government powers overlap then a question of constitutionality arises.
Glorious manwhore: Well, I'm going to start this off by asking a couple of honest questions about America, since I really, really, need the insight to your wonderful little culture pot, we call N-America.
1.Why are Americans scared of bum fun?
-Is it because the puritans came over from England to discriminate? But just in general, why do so many people in America consider it their business to butt in, in the bedroom? We've got rainbow oreos and people start flaming about that, we've got a group that goes to a chicken sandwich company to celebrate, "old family values", what on earth does a chicken sandwich have to do with being against gays and standing for family values?
2.Family values, what on earth do they mean?
-Since I thought that letting gays and lesbians and all those adopt therefore, creating families and they would be strong within the family "values" of being together as one.
3.What would you do for a Klondike bar?
-Never had one. Would probably punch a cow for it.
Because the United States is one of the most oppressive Theocracies in the world. We have policies that make Saudi Arabia look religiously tolerant. The majority of people in this country still cling to the belief that the people who made this country were Christians trying to establish a Christian nation. Combined with the fear of non-religious people propogated during the McCarthy era in the 1950s, and you have a country that wouldn't be out of place in the Dark Ages.
Look at your map again. Every Western European country has approved civil unions or marriage except for Italy (for obvious reasons). I would say that they are LEAGUES ahead of the US, which isn't going to approve gay marriage for at least another 50 years.
renegade7: The Chick-Fil-A issue is largely due to the fact that so far they are the only large company to be run by people dim enough to openly bash gay people.
Doesn't approve of same sex marriage = bashing gay people? I would think bashing gay people = bashing gay people, but that's just me.
Approval is one thing. Funneling millions of dollars of company profits into recognized anti-Gay groups in another. A company saying that they don't don't like blacks would be one thing. Funneling money into the KKK would be another.
The American government loves to get involved in peoples lives because big brother knows best. Weather its conservatives dictating your social habits, or liberals taking away your cigarettes and 32oz sodas, it seems every breed of American politician knows whats best for you.
cthulhuspawn82: The American government loves to get involved in peoples lives because big brother knows best. Weather its conservatives dictating your social habits, or liberals taking away your cigarettes and 32oz sodas, it seems every breed of American politician knows whats best for you.
Except cigarettes are bad for you... I do not really understand why you decided to choose that as an example.
twohundredpercent: Cuz we fear if we tolerated that sorta thing, we'd all eventually end up emasculated, wearing tight clothes, and having fruity accents. You know, like in Europe.
But thanks to the massive homosexuality that is flowing through every Europeans veins, then we can at least know, that we shouldn't have a picture of a froufrou flower.
cthulhuspawn82: The American government loves to get involved in peoples lives because big brother knows best. Weather its conservatives dictating your social habits, or liberals taking away your cigarettes and 32oz sodas, it seems every breed of American politician knows whats best for you.
Except cigarettes are bad for you... I do not really understand why you decided to choose that as an example.
Because if I wanna abuse my own body, that's my business. And I'm saying that as a lifelong nonsmoker.
cthulhuspawn82: The American government loves to get involved in peoples lives because big brother knows best. Weather its conservatives dictating your social habits, or liberals taking away your cigarettes and 32oz sodas, it seems every breed of American politician knows whats best for you.
Except cigarettes are bad for you... I do not really understand why you decided to choose that as an example.
Because if I wanna abuse my own body, that's my business. And I'm saying that as a lifelong nonsmoker.
Sure that is your right. But since the society will pay for your bills (if you live in Sweden) if you get sick, then imo the government should be allowed to tax you for harming yourself and costing money for the whole society.
Or if you do not want to be taxed then you shouldn't be expected to get medical help for free (paid by taxes)for something that you did to yourself willingly
But since your in US so I guess that's a different situation.
Except cigarettes are bad for you... I do not really understand why you decided to choose that as an example.
Because if I wanna abuse my own body, that's my business. And I'm saying that as a lifelong nonsmoker.
Sure that is your right. But since the society will pay for your bills (if you live in Sweden) if you get sick, then imo the government should be allowed to tax you for harming yourself and costing money for the whole society.
Or if you do not want to be taxed then you shouldn't be expected to get medical help for free (paid by taxes)for something that you did to yourself willingly
But since your in US so I guess that's a different situation.
It's different for us, yes. Our system, for example, is much much worse.
But I agree. If I want to chop off my own finger because that's how i like to spend my Friday afternoons, I should be the one to foot the bill for the ambulance ride and the stay in the hospital. There's no sensible reason why everyone else should be on the hook because I'm being foolish and irresponsible, even though it's my right to be foolish and irresponsible about myself if I decide to be.
Cakes: Doesn't approve of same sex marriage = bashing gay people? I would think bashing gay people = bashing gay people, but that's just me.
I was going to post much the same thing.
I have zero problems with gay people. None. What I do have a massive problem with is the attitude of quite a few people in the gay rights crowd. These are the people that will sit there and preach open mindedness and tolerance ad nauseum but the second you disagree with them on so much as the smallest thing they can't label you a bigot fast enough. As a black person I have the same, if not bigger, issue with black people that blame racism for all of their problems.
Just because you happen to be a minority or a protected class doesn't mean that everyone that has the slightest disagreement with you on a given issue is a bigot of some kind. Seriously there are a whole load of minorities that need to crawl the fuck down off their crosses and realize that sometimes people just disagree and it has nothing at all to do with the fact you may be black, gay, jewish, etc.
Your argument would work if not for that fact that there isn't a single objective reason to oppose gay marriage and adoption.
If you oppose equal rights for no objective reason, I'd hat to say it but that is bigotry.
Thank you for proving my point. Everyone needs to be open minded and tolerant and by that you mean everyone must agree with you or be labeled a bigot. How open minded and tolerant of you.
Ninjamedic: No I'm saying that if you want to oppress the rights of a group of people for no objective reason, that is Bigotry.
I'm not going to argue gay marriage with you as I simply have more pressing and far less pointless matters than getting into an argument about gay marriage with a liberal. Suffice to say though there are plenty of arguments against it ranging from fiscal to religious to matters of states' rights. To say there are no objective reasons is purely and utterly untrue.
I'm open minded, that doesn't mean I have to put up with archaic, close-minded and backward thinking.
And by "archaiac, close-minded and backward thinking" you mean people with ideas that are in opposition of your own.
Seriously, if you can't see the irony of coming out and essentially saying "I'm as opened minded as the next fella but my opinion on this particular matter may as well be carved in stone because it simply doesn't get any more true than what I personally believe and anyone who thinks otherwise is not only wrong but a horrible person on top of it." then I really don't know what to say.
I'm not going to argue gay marriage with you as I simply have more pressing matters and far less pointless than getting into an argument about gay marriage with a liberal. Suffice to say though there are plenty of arguments against it ranging from fiscal to religious to matters of states' rights. To say there are no objective reasons is purely and utterly untrue.
-Uses "Liberal" as an insult. -Pretends to be aloof and acts condescending. -Claims that there are arguments against it, doesn't explain or justify them. -Thinks "States Rights" is an objective reason to oppress peoples rights. -Decides to leave to avoid having to actually defend his argument.
*Slow Clap*
Thanks for continuing to show why your credibility on these forums has plummeted.
And by "archaiac, close-minded and backward thinking" you mean people with ideas that are in opposition of your own.
No, I mean archaiac, close-minded and backward thinking, I should know, I wrote it.
Ninjamedic: No I'm saying that if you want to oppress the rights of a group of people for no objective reason, that is Bigotry.
I'm not going to argue gay marriage with you as I simply have more pressing and far less pointless matters than getting into an argument about gay marriage with a liberal. Suffice to say though there are plenty of arguments against it ranging from fiscal to religious to matters of states' rights. To say there are no objective reasons is purely and utterly untrue.
The fiscal issue is an argument in favor of it actually. Because not allowing gay couples to have the same fiscal advantages is discriminatory. The religious arguments are literally the most pointless one. The moment a state uses religion as a reason to do or not do something the State is being theocratic. A liberal democracy is/should be better than that. The only argument that might hold some ground is the one of the states' right. But since the rational and logical choice is for every state to allow gay marriage is it really a problem?
Glorious manwhore: Well, I'm going to start this off by asking a couple of honest questions about America, since I really, really, need the insight to your wonderful little culture pot, we call N-America.
1.Why are Americans scared of bum fun? ...
While there is a long history of persecution of minorities in every culture, and certainly N. American is no exception here, our persecution of "gays", as a matter of official government policy goes back to the early 1950's when it became known that several high-ranking British diplomats and spies were in fact long-time Soviet double agents.
Besides being double agents they were also homosexuals. They were also alcoholics who often drank heavily with their American counterparts, who were also alcoholics, but this fact was passed over. Instead, the US government, lead by the FBI and its long-time head, J Edger Hoover, ceased on the sexual deviance and equated it with subversion generally and communist agent or sympathizer specifically. The resulting fire-storm cumulated in a witch-hunt against anyone in any type of public employment who was homosexual. Thousands of innocent people had their lives ruined. The policy spilled over into the public consciousness and soon being gay meant the same as being unpatriotic. Gays were "Pinko, Commie, FAGS!" The policy has lasted, in one form or another, at least until Obama did away with "Don't ask, Don't Tell".
Ninjamedic: Thanks for continuing to show why your credibility on these forums has plummeted.
Have a seat. Let's talk just me and you. Andre and whatever the hell your name is. I'm going to let you in on a little secret. You can't tell anyone though because this isn't something I really want widely known. So let's keep this just between us. Got it? Good.
I'm not going to lose a lot of sleep over my credibility on these forums. I'm not saying that to be mean I'm saying that because if these forums leaned anymore to the left they'd be parallel to the fucking ground. Nobody here is really going to listen, or ultimately care about, what I have to say anyway because for the most part they are entrenched in their liberal beliefs. But I knew that going in so it's all good. No hard feelings and such. As I said in an earlier thread, I come here for my entertainment not anyone else's approval.
This isn't something I do to expend a great deal of effort. Shooting the shit on the forums is right up there with Angry Birds in the "Things I do to kill time" category. If I was looking to seriously debate important political issues I wouldn't be coming to forums that are kept in a dark corner of a gaming website and kept as far away as possible from the general population.
Well lookie here! I get copy and paste what I said in your thread!
I'm not saying that to be mean I'm saying that because if these forums leaned anymore to the left they'd be parallel to the fucking ground. Nobody here is really going to listen, or ultimately care about, what I have to say anyway because for the most part they are entrenched in their liberal beliefs
Here's the actual secret. There isn't a Liberal Bias here. At all. Do you honestly think if there was a Liberal Bias, Vornoff would have been banned?
You will see plenty of conservative posters here being treated with respect, because they actually back what they say. As people are free to express their opinions, so are people free to criticize what they disagree with.
The issue with the Republicans is simple, they cannot accept any questioning of their beliefs. Not opinions, views or ideology, beliefs.
The only issue self named "Republicans" have is that most debates they go into follow a pattern.
->Make assumption ->Asked for Sources ->Responds with Rhetoric ->Gets called out on it ->Convinces oneself is being attacked
And it loops from there.
And you should then know that until you actually bother to back your arguments with actual information that isn't anecdotal, you will be called out for it.
We do not have an anti-conservative bias here, only an anti-bullshit bias.
Ninjamedic: Here's the actual secret. There isn't a Liberal Bias here. At all. Do you honestly think if there was a Liberal Bias, Vornoff would have been banned?
I've never claimed the moderation is biased. The moderators do a top notch job. However the make up of the people here is largely liberal which is what you'll find in any website for gaming or popular culture aimed at a younger audience. People under a certain age tend to naturally skew towards the left. It's just the way of things.
As for Vornoff, well he was banned because he seemed to have a problem disagreeing with someone without lobbing personal attacks at them. Even if George Soros himself were moderating these forums Vornoff would have likely still ended up banned. He wasn't banned because he was a liberal he was banned because of his behavior.
I've never claimed the moderation is biased. The moderators do a top notch job. However the make up of the people here is largely liberal which is what you'll find in any website for gaming or popular culture aimed at a younger audience. People under a certain age tend to naturally skew towards the left. It's just the way of things.
Yeah, no. Sorry, R&P doesn't have a Liberal Bias. As I've pointed out, there are plenty of conservatives here who are retreated with respect. You just mean that they're not Republicans don't you?
You keep thinking that just because people find violating the 24th amendment abhorrent they are "Liberal", or that there is a bias because there hasn't been support for your own views.
Warforger: Are you sure you've compared them? Because Europe isn't far ahead in terms of Gay rights.
This is a subject close to my heart and one I've done a lot of research on. Even without DOMA, I'd say the US is still lagging behind many other developed countries on these issues, both in terms of gay relationship recognition and things like employment nondiscrimination laws and so on. It's not an easy thing to quantify, but to me it's pretty clear.
Warforger: Um what? Are you referring to the Puritans? Because the states which they founded and colonized are the ones which have the most support for gay rights.
I wasn't literally talking about the Puritans, puritanical can be used as an expression to describe conservative, moralistic behaviour usually influenced by religion, it doesn't necessarily have to refer to the early European settlers of America.
Warforger: No, it's the one which carries the symbolism that they're treated equally hence why LGBT wanted marriages and not civil partnerships. It's not a rule exclusive to America or anywhere it's just universal.
Universally marriage is regarded as the peak form of relationship between two romantic partners, I'm not arguing that, I'm just saying that it's seen to a much greater extent that way in America than in a lot of other developed countries where living together long term with no plans to marry is seen as a valid choice and not a weird thing to do.
Warforger: The Federal government didn't have any power in Marriage until 1996, and the DOMA then is now being considered to be overturned so it will probably go back to how things were where the Federal government has no power over marriage.
Let's hope so.
Warforger: Why is America constantly compared with Europe? I mean half the continent was Communist for one, the countries have different political systems they have different cultures etc. etc. you don't have any of that in America.
Well I didn't create the thread, I'm just participating. And one could definitely argue that there are cultural and political divides between the states of the US, they even went to war with each other once, though these days the cultural differences wouldn't be as great as they are in each European country.
Warforger: Not most, a couple, about as many as America
Considering that it's not uncommon for European countries to be smaller in size than US states, I don't think you can necessarily tell a whole lot from a map. The map also doesn't differentiate between civil partnership systems that are substantially the same as marriage and ones that are clearly legally inferior to marriage, which would indicate more of a difference still. Most importantly, since there is no US federal recognition of same-sex relationships whatsoever, no state in America is anywhere close to offering full equality, which I was saying before is the biggest problem and when it is solved with the repeal of DOMA, the US will be closer to being on equal footing with Europe.
Warforger: Nope. If the state and federal government powers overlap then a question of constitutionality arises.
And how well does this work in actuality? Specifically talking about gay relationship recognition, whether or not DOMA violates the Tenth Amendment is still to be decided by the US Supreme Court, and if it is found to be unconstitutional it's almost certainly not going to be because of the Tenth Amendment.
Xanthious: I was going to post much the same thing.
I have zero problems with gay people. None. What I do have a massive problem with is the attitude of quite a few people in the gay rights crowd. These are the people that will sit there and preach open mindedness and tolerance ad nauseum but the second you disagree with them on so much as the smallest thing they can't label you a bigot fast enough. As a black person I have the same, if not bigger, issue with black people that blame racism for all of their problems.
Just because you happen to be a minority or a protected class doesn't mean that everyone that has the slightest disagreement with you on a given issue is a bigot of some kind. Seriously there are a whole load of minorities that need to crawl the fuck down off their crosses and realize that sometimes people just disagree and it has nothing at all to do with the fact you may be black, gay, jewish, etc.
Gays aren't a protected class, that's the problem. If we were we wouldn't be complaining so much. Marriage is a significant barrier of legal protection in America, a straight married person pays less tax, doesn't have to worry about their foreign partner being deported, is automatically entitled to their partner's health insurance and pension, doesn't have to pay what can end up as hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax to keep living in their partner's home if their partner dies, doesn't have to fear losing custody of their partner's kids if the partner dies, and a whole slew of other things. And I wonder what possible reason someone would have for supporting the denial to gays of the same legal protections for their relationships that straight couples take for granted if it isn't bigotry.
thaluikhain: More generally, it's a way of telling people you're a homophobe without actually having to admit to being a homophobe. Nobody is going to say they are against families, so the term is useful to co-opt. It' also lets you define homosexuality as something strange and alien, as distince from things like families.
Eh, it's more complex than just homophobia. It also includes a disliking of divorce/single parenting/children born out of wedlock. The kind of people who passive-aggressively ask, "where's your husband?" to a mother they know isn't wearing a wedding ring, and will then go on about how they couldn't imagine life without their husband, and finally offering faux sympathy.
If anyone had tried something like that with my Mum I would have punched them in the cunt/cock until they were sterile. I honestly can't understand how such people manage to maintain this image as wholesome and reasonable people when they are such odious little shits all the time.
This is actually getting quite interesting, it's like a logical computer program that gets stuck and doesn't know how to respond except for looping the same routine over and over again.
twohundredpercent: Cuz we fear if we tolerated that sorta thing, we'd all eventually end up emasculated, wearing tight clothes, and having fruity accents. You know, like in Europe.
But thanks to the massive homosexuality that is flowing through every Europeans veins, then we can at least know, that we shouldn't have a picture of a froufrou flower.
See I'm a hard drinking, hard punchin' American so I don't know what you're talking about there son.
Bassik: This is actually getting quite interesting, it's like a logical computer program that gets stuck and doesn't know how to respond except for looping the same routine over and over again.
Bassik: This is actually getting quite interesting, it's like a logical computer program that gets stuck and doesn't know how to respond except for looping the same routine over and over again.
I hope you're not referring to me are you?
What the... This isn't even in the same thread I posted it in. What on Earth happened? I posted this in the thread Xant made about too many people voting and having an opinion and such, and it referred to him basicly not changing anything he says since the first page. How could this have happened, escapist?!
What the... This isn't even in the same thread I posted it in. What on Earth happened? I posted this in the thread Xant made about too many people voting and having an opinion and such, and it referred to him basicly not changing anything he says since the first page. How could this have happened, escapist?!
Sweet Jesus, the captchas have come alive and have attacked your browser!
It's a bit unfair to say Europe is immune to the hangups that America has when it comes to gay stuff. While America is way behind Europe when it comes to government recognition of gay relationships, I think this is due to America having such puritanical views when it comes to marriage in general, there still seems to be a rule that says that in America the only valid serious relationship type is marriage, whereas in Europe (and other parts of the developed world too), generally speaking other forms of relationship, such as unmarried/unregistered cohabitation and civil partnerships (like how in France almost as many straight people are having PACS civil partnerships as straight people are marrying). America's catching up, around a dozen or so states have civil unions or domestic partnership registries, some of which are open to straight couples too, but it's such a late development that the federal government hasn't yet made any provisions for recognising them (and probably won't for the foreseeable future), and almost no states anymore have legal recognition of unmarried "common law" couples, which puzzles me.
The second thing is that Europe is made up of individual countries that can vary widely in terms of how progressive they are in terms of gay rights and the same is true of America and its states. Even though more and more are doing it, only a small number of European countries have full marriage equality, some European countries even forbid same-sex marriage in their constitutions, although most European countries have some form of legal union for gay couples, a point which America isn't at yet.
Finally, and this point can't be understated, many European countries still have pretty regressive laws when it comes to adoption, IVF/surrogacy and legally recognising gay parents. If I'm not mistaken, Portugal has marriage equality but it also forbids gay couples from adopting kids, for example, and many countries that have civil partnerships do so on the basis that gay couples will have all the same rights as married straight couples except adoption. America on the other hand probably has the most liberalised adoption schemes in the developed world. In Europe you're much more likely to be allowed to marry or have a civil union but not have kids, in America you're much more likely to be allowed to have kids but not marry or have a civil union.
Make no mistake, Europe as a whole is ahead of the US on gay rights, but probably not by quite as big a gap as it might seem. What makes America more complicated is that there's a federal government that can interfere with state laws, something that Europe doesn't have. If gay couples in America in marriages or civil unions/domestic partnerships were recognised and granted benefits by the federal government, overnight America would bolt 10-20 years into the future and start looking like a much more gay-friendly place.