In case you overlook, I posted a few topics in today's Leopard's Limb. Whether they are comment worthy remains to be seen.
Bucky, are you ready for the LTE's?
Same-sex marriage
Some, if not many, will be offended by this, but it needs to be said.
Since this battle over same-sex marriage seems to stem from religion, whatever happened to the separation of church and state? Those who use the Bible as their sword in this battle seem to forget that it states in the Bible that adultery is morally wrong. I propose another amendment: If a man or a woman commits adultery, they shall have their marital rights banned.
As long as we are on the subject of religion, I'm pretty sure that agnostics and Buddhist-practicing citizens are allowed to marry at any time they choose and nobody bats an eye. They marry because they love someone and are willing to enter a binding bond that comes with rights and responsibilities. We can't pick and choose who gets equal rights.
We have bigger issues than two consenting adults who want to make a loving and legally binding commitment to each other.
WENDY RASH
Winston-Salem
Add the context
ELLEN S. YARBOROUGH
Winston-Salem
Best argument
JANE MOTSINGER
State Road
Two issues
It seems that the far-right politicians are focused on just two issues: The sanctity of marriage by one man and one woman, and a woman's right to choose.
Making laws to prevent a same-sex marriage is still discrimination, just as it was against interracial marriage in the past. I thought we had finally gotten over this black mark against our country. They claim same-sex marriage hurts traditional marriage. My husband and I are in our 67th year of marriage, and we still haven't noticed the hurt. I would think they should be more concerned with the high percentage of divorces in our country, and the extramarital affairs and multi-marriages of some of these same politicians.
These supposed "Christians" should look back at the first commandment: "Love your neighbor as yourself." This surely means wanting the same thing for others that you want for yourself.
NAOMI J. DAVIS
Winston Salem
Some, if not many, will be offended by this, but it needs to be said.
Since this battle over same-sex marriage seems to stem from religion, whatever happened to the separation of church and state? Those who use the Bible as their sword in this battle seem to forget that it states in the Bible that adultery is morally wrong. I propose another amendment: If a man or a woman commits adultery, they shall have their marital rights banned.
As long as we are on the subject of religion, I'm pretty sure that agnostics and Buddhist-practicing citizens are allowed to marry at any time they choose and nobody bats an eye. They marry because they love someone and are willing to enter a binding bond that comes with rights and responsibilities. We can't pick and choose who gets equal rights.
Interestingly enough, on the same page as the Journal's article "House GOP leaders push marriage vote" (Aug. 31), "Trial over purported Edwards sex tape delayed" showed a smiling John Edwards in an article about the trial surrounding a sex tape allegedly made while he was still married. It seems to me that the John Edwardses, Anthony Weiners and Arnold Schwarzeneggers of the world are a bigger threat to marriage than anyone else.
WENDY RASH
Winston-Salem
Add the context
When I heard on the radio the quotation from his memorial, my first thought was how unlike Martin Luther King Jr. the "I" statement sounded. Maya Angelou is absolutely correct that the context should be added ("Angelou calls for King's quote to be changed," Sept. 1). It is disrespectful to King and unfair to those who visit the memorial if it is left as it is.
When some mistakes are discovered, the proper response is, "Get over it," but in this case the proper response is, "Correct it, ASAP!"
ELLEN S. YARBOROUGH
Winston-Salem
Best argument
In his Aug. 30 guest column, "The people's decision," Rep. Dale Folwell writes eloquently about marriage, and in doing so presents the best argument I have seen against House Bill 777, the very bill he co-sponsored. He wrote, "Marriage is the foundation of our society. It is the most personal relationship and provides the support structure for life and death decisions, family relationships, tax policy, and a stable and growing economy. Because of its importance in everyone's life, the people of North Carolina should be trusted to decide its definition in our state's constitution."
He says that marriage and its associated benefits are important to everyone's life, and by that I assume he means it is important to gays and lesbians as well as heterosexuals. Yet HB 777 seeks to use our state constitution to deny the rights and benefits of the marriage relationship to partners of the same sex.
I disagree with Rep. Folwell. I do not think anyone in our state, either legislator or private citizen, has the right to vote to amend our constitution to deny equal rights to a minority of citizens of North Carolina because of who God created them to be. Our state constitution should promote, preserve and protect the civil rights of all our citizens.
JANE MOTSINGER
State Road
Two issues
It seems that the far-right politicians are focused on just two issues: The sanctity of marriage by one man and one woman, and a woman's right to choose.
Making laws to prevent a same-sex marriage is still discrimination, just as it was against interracial marriage in the past. I thought we had finally gotten over this black mark against our country. They claim same-sex marriage hurts traditional marriage. My husband and I are in our 67th year of marriage, and we still haven't noticed the hurt. I would think they should be more concerned with the high percentage of divorces in our country, and the extramarital affairs and multi-marriages of some of these same politicians.
Their other dominant focus is abortion. The very people who are against having an abortion, regardless of circumstance or a woman's health, are the same people, who when the baby is born, want to take away everything that would give the child a better life. They want to eliminate health care, food stamps, welfare, Head Start, preschool, Planned Parenthood, etc.
NAOMI J. DAVIS
Winston Salem
Well, what the hell?
ReplyDeleteSo many letters about my favorite subject? It's interesting that all of them on the subject seem to support gay and lesbian marriage. I'm sure the gay and lesbian activists in here will scoff at the following comment, but I think it just goes to show that the majority of the people that write into the Journal are left-wing liberals. If not, why are liberal Democrat N.C. legislators so deafly afraid of putting the issue on the ballot for the voters of N.C. to decide?
Again, I support civil marriages for gay and lesbians. However, I do not support gay and lesbian marriages, because, in my view, those marriages would not be commensurate with heterosexual marriages. Why? Because they would go against the laws of nature.
The whole push for gay and lesbian marriage, particularly by the gay community, is an attempt to place homosexual unions in a light that is viewed as 'normal'. They are not, and will not be viewed in that fashion no matter what the law is changed to.
Marriage is a union between a man and a woman. No matter what happens, our cultures and societies will carry that concept and perception forward.
Correction: I support civil unions, not marriages.
ReplyDeletenoted
ReplyDelete"However, I do not support gay and lesbian marriages, because, in my view, those marriages would not be commensurate with heterosexual marriages. Why? Because they would go against the laws of nature."
ReplyDeleteWhat laws of nature? A law of nature is a statement of observed, proven fact, not an opinion. An example is that the speed of electromagnetic radiation (light, radio waves, UV, etc.) in a vacuum is 299,792,458 meters/second, never changes, is part of the fabric of the universe. That is proven beyond all dispute. Having a contrary opinion is irrelevant.
Your basing your opposition to marriages between other than heterosexuals because of some supposed set of natural laws is invalid because those "laws" do not exist.
Tell that to Charles Darwin.
ReplyDeleteThe laws of nature don't exist, but evolution does?
ReplyDeleteI always get a kick out people that make statements that contradict their own beliefs.
I do not see your point. Evolution is a theory, extremely well validated, but a theory, not a law.
ReplyDeleteHere's a law: a body of mass at sea level on Earth accelerates toward the center of the Earth at a rate of 9.8 meters/second ^2 (minus air resistance). That is a fact, a natural law. The reason that is so is explained by Einstein's General Relativity, a theory, also very well proven, never has failed experimental test.
A theory explains why a natural law is so.
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/4319
ReplyDeleteDarwin May Have Missed Something
This says it better than I can
Hi Bob!
ReplyDeleteI read the article. There is no "natural law" against gay marriage. Citing intimate gay activity as "unnatural" is no more logical that citing birth control as natural.
Good afternoon folks!
ReplyDeleteLTE 1: Outside of tradition, I've yet to see a secular reson put forth for the amendment. In total agreement with the last statement.
LTE 2: Given a massive, expensive and time consuming project such as this, you'd think they would have had the design viewed, reviewed and signed off by everyone involved and not proceed until it was signed off by everyone including Ms. Angelou. Sounds like there was a last minute change of plans on where the quotes went after the monument had already been completed. Someone should have said it was too late to make the change.
LTE 3 & 4: Two more who don't want to see discrimination written into the state constitution. I've also noticed the same hypocrisy as Ms. Davis regarding those who promote every possible govt intervention for seeing that a fetus makes it to conception, yet promote that all govt. programs that give that child a chance at a life after birth are done away with. If they don't care what happens to the child after it's born, why should it matter to them if the fetus makes it to conception?
I support civil unions, but not same-sex marriage. Here's a post I made on the Journal site
ReplyDeleteTom, to an extent I agree with you and disagree with those who say that allowing gay couples to marry has any effect on heterosexual marriages. It certainly will have no effect on mine. I do, however, have a problem with redefining words that have long-established meanings. Your side belittles the slippery slope argument, but once the definition is diluted, it is hard to rationally oppose further changes to its meaning.
A good example of the problem, interestingly, is the word "gay." Gay had an understood meaning, unrelated to a person's sexuality, for a very long time. Before the change in definition, to call someone "gay" was to describe their happy and carefree demeanor. This definition today is all but abandoned. To call someone "gay" today is entirely different, of course. This doesn't mean that people can longer be happy and carefree; it only means that you can no longer use the word gay to describe them. Lately, gay people have become upset at the recent redefinition of the word "gay" to mean stupid or weak. Gay people are offended by this usurpation of a word they claim describes them. Applying this new definition of "gay" doesn't change their sexuality or make them stupid or weak, but gay people oppose this use of the word nonetheless.
in response to an editorial on the issue:
A scientific law is used to describe a proven and verified mathematical model or a cause / effect relationship. A scientific theory is used to described a proven and verified process that lacks a mathematical model or a cause / effect relationship. Gravity has both a law and a theory component.
ReplyDeleteGot a good chuckle on Yahoo's page where they had a link on how to view a supernova beneath the picture of a galaxy.
Hi dotnet and Bo!
ReplyDeleteBo, the word "gay" has had sexual connotations for hundreds of years. As far back as 1637, the "Oxford English Dictionary" listed one of the word's definitions as, "Addicted to social pleasures and dissipations. Often euphemistically: Of loose and immoral life."
In the late 1800s, the word was associated with prostitutes (female), and to "gay it" was to get it on with a prostitute. Starting in the 1930s, the term became associated with homosexuality, and was pretty well entrenched by mid-50s.
Bo, :), "gay people have become upset," "Gay people are offended," " gay people oppose" since when did you start speaking for gay people and with such broad sweeping generalizations?
ReplyDeleteIn an early NYC rally, a group of gay rights activists chanted 'We're here, we're queer, get used to it'. Now they don't want to be called 'queer'.
ReplyDeleteThe NAACP stands for National Associated and Advancement of Colored People. Now black people dare people to call them colored.
More recently, Nancy Pelosi has said that she doesn't want Obama's new plan to be called a 'stimulus'.
It's all word speak to liberal Democrats. What meant one thing yesterday, means another today. Welcome to the politically correct world they invented.
Word meanings change, a la "gay," discussed above, and are indeed manipulated and massaged.
ReplyDeleteAs a elementary student, I was presented with both "gay" and "queer" as standard words for elementary vocabulary. "Gay" meant "festive." "Queer" meant "odd." I wasn't aware of the secondary (now primary) meaning of gay for quite some time. I was aware that "queer" had a secondary meaning by late elementary school or early junior high (that's "middle school" to those born after the dinosaurs went extinct).
"Queer" was such a bland word that sometime in the last century the British-Indian scientist J.B.S. Haldane was quoted as saying, "My own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose." This is frequently cited, but with "queer" changed to "strange." Interesting, Haldane was a geneticist, not a cosmologist or astronomer.
I was sourly amused during the fall of the Soviet Union that the unbiased press called Communists resisting changes "conservative" and "right-wing." Later, of course, Republican states became "red" states, while Democratic states became "blue." Of course, red is associated with the left, not the right. "What a world! What a world!" exclaimed my heroine, the Wicked Witch.
Stab...I doubt you were alive back in 1637, and neither were most of us. Bo is speaking from his own personal knowledge in his lifetime. I, for one, agree with what he said.
ReplyDeleteHaven't checked that one in a while, WW :) Sounds like "social justice" in action. Will check.
ReplyDeleteBucky, you can call me queer, I don't care, you can call me stimulus, you can even call me queer stimulus, oh please, even the terms Democrat and Republican don't mean the same things they used to
ReplyDeleteas far as words, definitions,and meanings are concerned, over time and throughout history, there are so many examples of it, Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.
And guess what, you can deny evolution, deny the science of global warming, and still understand the study of etymology and the ever changing meanings and definitions of words.
Read it. The ILO will disavow any part in the so-called wildcat strikes and violence. I doubt any of the thugs will be prosecuted, Washington being a union haven. Your average longshoreman is basically an overpaid, underworked scumbag.
ReplyDelete1637, those were fun times to be Protestant and Catholic.
ReplyDelete"Ooooohhhhhh, my name is R J Johnson, Junior. You can call me Ray. You can call me Jay. You can me Sonny. You can call me Junie. You can call me RJ. You can call me RJJ Junior, but you doesn't have to call me Mr. Johnson."
ReplyDeleteStab...have you got two windows open? It looks like you are typing in the wrong window from your posts.
ReplyDelete"1637, those were fun times to be Protestant and Catholic"
ReplyDeleteIndeed. My German ancestors were impoverished by the 30 years war...they eventually immigrated to the colonies in the 18th century to find a better life.
Stab, I can overlook your libel of the working people of Washington state, but there's no need to bring up Ray Jay Johnson. That's beyond the pale.
That would've been like year 19 of the 30 years war and Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden is dead and Cardinal Richelieu and the French have entervened.
ReplyDeleteVive Le Roi.
ReplyDeleteThe defenestration(s) of Prague are some of my favorite historical stories.
Yes, that RJ bit was a bit inhumane.
ReplyDeleteAs for the longshoremen, they are unrepresentative of working folks in general, even union folks. The crimes in WA are representative of longshoremen. We saw similar in LA when the hoodlums went on strike there, in my CA days.
Yes, my German ancestors from Schonborn and Biebern, Lutherans, came to Philadelphis in 1743 on the Loyal Judith and received a grant of 100 acres in Stokes County in 1779.
ReplyDeleteHey Bucky. Yes, I did have 2 windows open. Have closed one. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteRe not being alive in 1637: My not being extant then is irrelevant. What is relevant is that the 1637 edition of the OED lists that definition of gay, and that edition still exists to show that.
Obamacare was upheld by a federal appeals court today. What a surprise. All three judges where appointed by Democrats. One by Clinton, and two by Obama.
ReplyDeleteIt just like the ruling on gay marriage in California. A gay judge declared Prop 8 uncontitutional. What would you expect?
Our system of justice is corrupted.
Stab...normally your jibberish makes a little sense.
ReplyDeleteNo kidding. Mine first arrived in PA as well, but ended up settling in the Shenandoah Valley.
ReplyDeleteI and my jibberish thank you, Bucky.
ReplyDelete:D
The word on Capitol Hill is that President Obama's jobs plan will be over $400B.
ReplyDeleteHey, Stab, this makes a great desktop for the computer:
ReplyDeletehttp://news.yahoo.com/blogs/technology-blog/nasa-cassini-orbiter-snaps-unbelievable-picture-saturn-144133480.html
Prop 8 in California is still alive.
ReplyDeleteA suit by supporters of Prop 8 is before the CA Supreme Ct. The court is trying to decide if the planiffs have standing to sue. This is going nowhere, after all most all of the judiciary members in CA are left wing radicals, and a good number are gay. So the deck is stacked.
It's much like having a group of ex-murderers decide the fate of a murderer currently on trial.
There is no such thing as an "ex-murderer". Once you commit a murder, you are always ever after a murderer. You cannot change career fields or retire from being a murderer.
ReplyDeleteYou can be an ex-policeman, or an ex-football player or an ex-teacher...you can even become an ex-fool if you quit acting like one for long enough, but don't count on it.
Bob, I read the article on Darwin, apparently written by a Bryn Mawr student. Bryn Mawr is on the Philadelphia Main Line and is closely associated with two other nearby colleges, Haverford and Swarthmore, all of which are among the best colleges in the USA.
ReplyDeleteSo I was a bit disappointed in her grammar and syntax, but the content is excellent. I don't think that Darwin would have been surprised by any of this, nor do I think that it undercuts any of his work.
His point was that for all living beings, including plants, that there are two overriding driving forces, the first being survival and the second being reproduction.
Once that is taken care of, all bets are off. As the student points out, other sexual behaviors having nothing to do with reproduction have been around in many species since those species first developed.
And none of this has anything to do with marriage. Marriage is first and foremost about legal matters. And I know of many kinds of marriages that have taken place between a man and a woman that certainly have nothing to do with reproduction, including deliberately celibate marriages. All could be loosely grouped under the category "marriages of convenience".
The main thing to keep in mind is that in NC and most of the western world, the legal process is described as marriage. To try to differentiate by calling it a civil union is trivial and just stupid.
Which brings me to Bo's false analogy, in which he makes a desperate attempt to make an essay about the changing meanings of the word gay somehow connect with the subject of gay marriage and fails miserably.
I have seen top lawyers go into court and, using brilliant logic, shred a supposedly open and shut case. I doubt if Bo has ever done that, or ever will.
Where were you at this morning Kitty Kat? I didn't see your flabby buttocks out pounding the pavement.
ReplyDeleteGet on some psychotropic drugs and get some exercise. You might be able to turn your life around.
Hey Arthur.....check this website and case out. It may come in handy one day.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nlrb.gov/news/administrative-law-judge-finds-new-york-nonprofit-unlawfully-discharged-employees-following-fac
"Pass this bill right away!" President Obama
ReplyDeleteUmmmm.....sir, we did that with the healthcare bill, and it's wrecking our economy, and it hasn't even been implemented yet. Jeez, it never stops.
Hi Bucky. No we didn't pass HCR right away. It took months, was a cobbled-up Marshall Plan for the SEIU at first presentation, ended up as a cobbled-up mess on being deemed to have passed. And has become cobbled-uppier and messier with each of the hundred waivers granted subsequent to passage.
ReplyDeleteWouldn't it be nice if we could figure out a way to do real health care reform? It is desperately needed.
ReplyDeleteMy friends in Scandanavia, the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Germany, even the Czech Republic and Bulgaria, for christ's sake, are asking embarrassing questions. Are all American's insane, they want to know.
We obviously passed it too fast even if it took months, because it's a screwed up law. If it stands, the government will soon be able to tell us to buy a car, or a condom, or something else.
ReplyDeleteYou kinda fell flat today on your arguments on various issues. Isn't it your bedtime?
Kitty Kat...they probably ask those questions because they probably only know you.
ReplyDeleteI see that Senor Buckbean prefers to continue projecting a level of ignorance as vast as the universe itself.
ReplyDeleteEtymology for buckbean:
1. Buck bean is a perennial water plant; flowers are 5-parted, petals have fuzzy beards; bloom April to July. Found on the shorelines, bogs, shallow water, in the DITCHES and marshy meadows of Pacific North America, Canada, Alaska, and Eurasia.
In large doses it is a purgative. Externally, buck bean can be used for ulcerous sores, and for herpes. Expels worms.
Sounds like our boy.
2. The BuckBean Brewery is located in Reno, Nevada. They produce a number of seasonal brews plus three standards:
Black Noddy, a Bohemian style black lager.
Orange Blossom Ale
Tule Duck Red Ale
None of this sounds anything like our boy. I suspect that Bud Light, or perhaps even Milwaukee's Best Light, would be far too strong for him.
Since I really like Bohemian black lagers, I was delighted to find Black Noddy at City Beverage last week. It comes in a 4-pack of 16 ounce cans and is a bit steep pricewise at nearly $10, but is excellent.
Look forward to trying the other BuckBean products.