Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler OT: politics

OK, time to steer things in a completely different direction (not that I haven't enjoyed the recent posts).

By now I'm sure you all heard about the recently heightened terror alert level and that it was based on information that pre-dated 9/11.

Ladies(?) and gentlemen, it's time to talk about The Boy Who Cried Wolf. I present you with exhibit A, Tom Ridge:



The Terror Alert system is completely counter-productive to its intended goals. Instead of encouraging U.S. citizens to prepare for possible attacks, it is slowly but surely desensitizing us to possible threats. Each time the terror alert level is raised and lowered, we go through a period of inconvenience and eye-rolling -- just yesterday, someone in my office building called security about a possile bomb because we had left a box outside our office for FedEx to pick up -- before returning to our regular lives.

The alert system is the single-most Orwellian device ever to come from the U.S. Govt.

Discuss.

BigJohn...what do you think of the idea of all couples...regardless of sexual orientation getting "civil union" licenses from the State, and being "married" only by a church? Does that protect your definition of the word "marriage". Or does your definition include the fact that Men and Women are "married" by the State? Curious.

i dont know craig, i never really thought of it like that. i reckon i wouldnt have any problem with it like how you are saying.. although, it still kinda goes back to what i was saying.. that would would still be a change made to accomodiate a small group.

i think for me, it becomes a bigger issue of the greater america having to change to accomidtate small interest groups. its happening everywhere, and it is dividing this country. everyone is forced, if you want to or not, to take a side and decide which side of the line you are gonna stand on.. republican or democrat, pro-choice or pro-life, church or state, paper or plastic, de-caf or regular.. ?? we are forced to make decisions that can be extremely mundane to overly complex, that defines what category you will be placed in.. bottom line is, i DONT wanna be in a category. i DONT wanna change what i do and say to appease a very small group that in the long run, will have no bearing on how the rest of my life will play out.

i aint trying to get up on a pedastel here, just stating my general discontent with the way our nation is going.. but, to get back to your original question.. i WOULD be willing to make the change to 'civil unions' and marriages being separate, if it would make it to where gay couples could receive the same benefits that my spouse and i get. OK.. ?

bigjohn

In reply to:

---

i think for me, it becomes a bigger issue of the greater america having to change to accomidtate small interest groups.

---

You mean like the civil rights movement in the 1960's? In some states as late as 1967 blacks and whites weren't allowed to marry.

Here's an interesting article regarding the changes in marriage...

"To opponents of same-sex marriage, it seems so simple. Let's just preserve marriage the way it has always been.

"OK,'' says feminist biblical scholar Mary Ann Tolbert. "What is that?''

The fact is from issues of divorce, race, religion and the role and rights of the partners, the concept of marriage has always been in play. And it continues to be today, including in this country.

Many would be surprised to know that as recently as 1967 in many states it was illegal for a mixed race couple to be granted a marriage license. An even bigger surprise, given current debate over same sex marriages, is that when the U. S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of interracial marriage, Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote that the "freedom to marry or not marry a person of another race resides in that individual.'' Note that Warren wrote "person,'' and refers to "persons'' -- not man or woman -- throughout the opinion.

So, when President Bush said yesterday that the country needed a constitutional amendment to beat back attempts to redefine marriage in this country, at least some legal experts suggested he was far too late. The institution of marriage has changed and morphed constantly through the years, and almost always to a hue and cry from those who worry about the structure of traditional marriage.

As the Massachusetts Supreme Court said in last year's ruling to allow same-sex marriage in that state, "alarms about the erosion of the 'natural order of marriage' were sounded over the demise of anti-miscegenation (mixed race marriage) laws, the expansion of rights of married women and the introduction of no-fault divorce.''

Or perhaps you would be safer going with the strict biblical definition. That gets a little tricky too.

"It is really much more complex in religious perspective than you might think,'' says Tolbert, the George Atkinson Professor for Biblical Studies at the Pacific School of Religion. "What the Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament) suggests as a general model for marriage is polygamy. You look at someone like Solomon who had 200 wives and 600-and-some concubines. Or Abraham, who had his first child by his wife's slave. It sounds as if it was quite normal.''

Tolbert, who is also the executive director for the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry, points out that marriage didn't even become a sacrament of the church "until the 12th century. For the first 1,200 years (A.D.) in Europe there were civil unions by town or village government.''

Nor does the New Testament offer much help. In fact, by some selective readings it sounds as if the Bible has mixed views of marriage. As Tolbert says, Jesus says very little about marriage, and both he and Paul were single men. And Paul, at least, recommended chastity.

"Marriage is not a sin,'' says Paul in First Corinthians, "but it is better to be unmarried.''

"The Bible is an incredibly important sacred icon in our culture,'' says Tolbert. "But I just think a lot of people don't read it.''

Although same-sex marriage will be the subject of sermons and a source of debate in churches, the real battle as the president has framed it will be in the courts. His point, he says, is that "local authorities are presuming to change the most fundamental institution of civilization.''

If so, it won't be the first time.

The roles of the people in a civil union have changed dramatically over history, including the recent history of the United States. It begins in the 1700s and 1800s, when married woman actually lost many of their legal rights when they agreed to get married. After marriage, they were not allowed to own property, pay taxes or sign a contract. Any money women earned outside the home was to be turned over to their husbands.

"You go back to the early years of this country,'' says Joan Hollinger, a professor at Boalt Hall School of Law at UC Berkeley specializing in child welfare and family law, "and you find that the wife became a kind of possession of the husband." It was not until the latter half of the 19th century, she said, that married women reacquired the rights they had when they were single.

As recently as 1920, the states of Arizona, Florida, Louisiana and New Mexico hadn't changed their laws.

A far greater change in marriage law came in 1948, when California was the first state to make it legal for a couple of mixed race to be married. It took another 19 years for the U.S. Supreme Court to make the same ruling. So until 1967, in many states, a couple of mixed race could not get a marriage license, and if they went to another state and were married, when they returned home they could be arrested.

"When I tell my students that was in 1967,'' said Hollinger, "they sort of gasp.''

And if you think the commotion over at City Hall is something, Hollinger says you should have been in the South when attempts were being made to overturn the anti-miscegenation laws.

"I hear Gov. Schwarzenegger talking about riots,'' she says. "I was in Mississippi in 1964. Compared to that, this is a lovefest.'

In reply to:

---

You mean like the civil rights movement in the 1960's?

---

OK, now wait.. lets not get overly dramatic here.. i would hardly call the civil rights movement a small interest group. thats kind of a stretch there craig.

thats not what i mean at all.. BLAH, man i just cant type out some big ole post about this subject. it would sound vague, and random. its not a specific thing i can put my finger on, but its there, and i think everyone feels it a bit.

its why that judge in georgia had to remove the plaque of the 10 commandements from the county courthouse.

its why the state of alabama had to remove the confederate colors from its state flag.

its why there has to be a warning on a cup of coffee that says "warning, coffee is hot".. DUH!!

its why we dont pray at texas high school football games anymore.

its why teachers, when assigining detention, have to assign the detention around the students schedule.

its why ross perot was ever considered for president?

its why we pay $2.25 a gallon for gas, when we have 800 billion gallons of it under an iceburg in alaska.

its why a rancher cant shoot a wild coyote while watching it attack his herd of sheep.

there is a huge range of stuff i am talking about, and trying to fit it on a single post is impossible.

craig, i believe that gay/lesbian life mates should have the same rights and benefits as a typical heterosexual married couple has. i am not arguing that point with you.

bigjohn

I understand your point, but I'd hardly call the GLBT community a small interest group either. We a good 5-10% of the population.

to be honest with you, i would love to get a real, accurate breakdown of exactly what the percentage of gay/lesbians there are in america. i think 10% would be a very high guesstimate.. i think 5% is a lot closer.. but, you also have to think.. everyone of those gay/lesbian citizens has moms,dads,sisters,brothers, nieces,nephews, friends, etc.. that are supporters of their cause. so i sgree, to call it a "small interest group" might have been a little off base on my part also.

bigjohn

pmbuko, did you read the whole article? or just scan the top as the anti-US folks at Reuters hope?

Of course attacks are planned years in advance. The article also states that there was NEW info recived very recently.

Yeah, the threat level thing is stupid, but I would hardly consider it a threat to personal freedom. It's just a silly stupid thing to make the silly stupid people feel like the gov't has a handle on things.

bigjohn, if you're gonna be a liberal you gotta learn the party line. It sounds like you don't like the ACLU, PETA, SPCA, NAACP or any of the other special interest groups who wield power disproportionate to their numbers.

spiffnme, I think bigjohn, you and I have common ground here re gay "marriage". John and I think the same thing: civil unions OK, reserve "marriage" for the traditional union between a man and a woman. Wouldn't that be enough? Why does the term marriage need to be redefined? The article you quoted even stated that marriage as a religous ceremony is 800 years old. That seems like a lot of tradition to throw out the window. Atheist here, BTW.

IMO, for the gay and lesbian community to seek more than equal rights under the law shows that their real agenda is not equality, but to wave the homosexual banner. The civil union idea gives everybody the same rights without flaunting homosexuality in the faces of religous conservatives - or is that the point?