The Atlantic - Latest Comments in Awse

Re: Awse

Guest — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:45:12 -0000

I’m sorry, that actually sounds rather painful.

You…..you aren’t going to try and sue me like that McDonald’s coffee lady, are you?

Re: Awse

Omero — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:05:25 -0000

Actually, I'm not sure I get the joke. What is it, exactly? I understand that Maine has a very small black population -- but what, exactly, is funny about that in this context? I swear I'm not trying to be obtuse or humorless, and certainly the knee-jerk reaction of white gays in response to the perception that California blacks were primarily (or even exclusively) responsible for Prop. 8 is comment-worthy (and much commented on). But what joke is being made here, at whose expense, and why? (All of this said in as non-confrontational a tone as possible.)

Re: Awse

MAJeff — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:53:34 -0000

Responding to black yank

I'd defer to the other two discussions (been away from the computer).

It's related to the issue of strict gender roles in a hierarchical arrangement favoring masculinity. I'd also suggest that it's not only about that, but about seeing the issue of gender itself in homophobia--there's often an aspect of doing gender "wrong" in attacks on lesbians and gay men. The whole "who's the wife" or "why do lesbians want to look like men" or "Gay men are all effeminate" types of things.

Re: Awse

PhoenixRising — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:43:37 -0000

Been tried. Failed.

Hint as to why: Civil unions don't exist anymore, hardly. The three states that passed them without a court mandate have opened marriage to all couples, and everywhere else they have been impossible to pass. NJ still has them, but likely not for long.

The practical answer to 'settle for the rights' is, What does that get me in Florida? In Oklahoma? It's not pragmatic to tell folks that they can't leave their home state and still be married.

Also, what are the child custody and spousal support provisions for ending a CU? All over the place.

I refer to CUs and DP as 'gay marriage'--it's better than nothing for those who die in their beds at the end of a long life together, but for the rest of us, it's far from pragmatic. And that's leaving aside the ethical problem of accepting a lesser form of family relationship, which is not a civil right like marriage is.

Re: Awse

Juba — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:22:10 -0000

People who would support civil unions have too strong a set of cultural and religious attachments to...

Should read

but not gay marriage have too strong a set of cultural and religious attachments to...

Re: Awse

Juba — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:20:57 -0000

OK so I did a bit of quick research and it seems like the issue is that civil unions are not as strong a set of protections and privileges as marriages are under the laws of our country.

Seems to me then the key would be to strengthen civil unions, not to reject them as a compromise. People who would support civil unions have too strong a set of cultural and religious attachments to the concept of marriage, and theyre not being dispassionate about the issue. Change the argument to a legal one and not a cultural / religious one and maybe this issue can be put to bed (pardon the pun) once and for all.

Re: Awse

Juba — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:16:40 -0000

Hm, I was under the impression that it did, more or less, though I dont profess that impression to be a rock-solid one. I'll do as you suggest.

Re: Awse

Juba — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:12:58 -0000

Dunno, I wonder whether they should reconsider treating civil unions as an unacceptable compromise. I feel like, why throw away a compromise that would offer most if not all the legal privileges and rights of marriage just because its considered a demeaning denial of full humanity?

Truth be told I dont think the state has any right to even engage a religious ceremony, which is what marriage is, and I wish everyone would have to settle for civil unions and choose their religious ceremony on their own time.

To me that would be the ideal end game for this issue. But I wont hold my breath.

Re: Awse

Byrk — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:54:27 -0000

Doesn't that seem hopelessly complicated to everyone, when a single change in the state code would do the same thing.

Re: Awse

Juba — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:50:44 -0000

Can you believe how the pine tree and lobster communities have stabbed Savage and Sullivan in the back after all they did to support the environmental rights movements? Homophobic ingrate flora and fauna!!!

Re: Awse

tricstmr — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:35:20 -0000

Agreed. 100%

Re: Awse

funkasmellic — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:21:16 -0000

Naw, they're probably just calling for boycotts of pine trees and lobster.

Re: Awse

funkasmellic — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:14:58 -0000

@Lemmy Caution

Well said about conservatives like Cheney and Sullivan. It's not so much hypocrisy than it is willful blindness to any issue that only affects "others"--you know, those formless swarming masses of inconsequential people--that really defines their ideology. But when it's an issue they can relate to personally, then they become compassionate crusaders for justice--on that issue only. Everyone else can still go to hell.

You might as well add the Reagan family to this, as they famously bucked the GOP line about stem-cell research during the 2004 election campaign. It's what Ronnie would have wanted. Unless, of course, he never could have needed any benefit from it.

Re: Awse

Guest — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:54:16 -0000

Goddammit, Nuada. It's because of people like you that I can't drink coffee or anything else while reading here. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, do you know what coffee snorted through the nose can do to a laptop??

Re: Awse

Alisa — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:18:03 -0000

blackyank,

It's easier if we think of "the domination of women" rather than "the hatred of women." Some feminists have argued that the domination of women relies on very strict gender roles that are based on heterosexual relations. In order for men to effectively dominate women, women can't be lesbians because that makes them less emotionally and financially dependent on men. Men can't be gay, because 1) they are not dominating women (at least in the private sphere) and 2) they are having romantic/sexual relationships with other men which makes them feminized, which undermines the project of male/masculine power. That is, "real men" don't have sex with other men because sex is an act of gender domination and "real men" are supposed to sexually dominate women.

I recommend Suzanne Pharr's book, Homophobia: A Weapon of Sexism.

Re: Awse

farmgirl — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:12:11 -0000

@black yank -- others may have a clearer answer, but my understanding is it comes down to attachment to "traditional" gender roles where women are never equal partners to men. People who are really hung up on man=dominant, woman=submissive paradigms can't wrap their brains around same-sex partnerships, particularly ones involving 2 men, because it goes against the "natural order" of how a relationship is supposed to be.

Re: Awse

Alisa — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:59:51 -0000

Obama opposes DOMA.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/17/obama-administration-doma_n_260969.html

Re: Awse

Alisa — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:57:18 -0000

Obama opposes DOMA.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/17/obama-administration-doma_n_260969.html

Re: Awse

black yank — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 04:35:05 -0000

MAJeff and Stacy,

In all seriousness, how does most homophobia come down to misogyny? I don't understand.

Re: Awse

Katherine — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 02:51:04 -0000

In Washington it does, now. The referendum edits 200+ sections of the state code, in every instance giving same-sex partnerships *exactly* the same rights as male-female partnerships. It's marriage in everything but name.

(Or at least everything within the state's jurisdiction. The federal issue remains, of course.)

Re: Awse

Lemmy Caution — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:47:05 -0000

Anyone who says that marriages bestow the same rights as "civil unions" has a lot to learn. Start with Googling the phrase "love exiles."

Re: Awse

AhYup — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:37:36 -0000

Deleted. This isn't Andrew Sullivan's blog. Do not post comments intended for him in this space.

Re: Awse

PhoenixRising — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:00:20 -0000

Yeah, the only place to go next time is an ad campaign with the mug shots of priests and Mormon deacons, displaying their very unpleasant habit of sexually abusing members of their churches of all ages and genders.

Sadly, even that wouldn't work because then we'd be causing a conflict. Oh wait, we're already causing a lot of conflict by Familying While Gay. At what point do the mushy middle figure out that the way to never hear about our family problems again is to stand up to the fools who persist in attacking us?

Re: Awse

PhoenixRising — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:54:06 -0000

Aw, Dave. I was laughing myself silly, but now I'm getting vaguely annoyed.

What does it say to you that the Supreme Court found marriage to be a right, in a case involving a state refusing a marriage license to a convicted murderer? While he was sitting in jail? This injustice was reversed, in language that refers to the most intimate of free-association exercise being...civil marriage.

Felons can't vote in twenty-some states, they aren't free to walk up to the lunch counter and order the 50 cent cheeseburger-- but the right to choose one's next of kin is considered so fundamental that even prisoners have it.

As long as they want to marry someone of the opposite sex.

A right that is (albeit grudgingly) extended to a guy sitting on Death Row, that I can't exercise in 44 states because neither my wife nor I can write her name in the snow?

That's so irrational, the Supreme Court of Iowa outlawed it.

Civil marriage, like voting, requires the direct cooperation of the state. Giving that cooperation to some citizens and denying it to others based on their personal characteristics is an act of prejudice. It's that simple.

Re: Awse

Lemmy Caution — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:39:11 -0000

DiH, when was that not the case? When people decline to extend a right, it is always by claiming it is never a right; those who supported anti-miscegenation laws didn't think they were denying a civil right, either.