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Gwaihirsbrother wrote:

The simple requirement that the parties getting married be a man and woman is easily, quickly verified and generally effectively targets those for whom the benefits were intended.

Unless of course there is a Trans woman marrying a "straight" man, or a trans man marrying a "straight" woman.... Verification becomes far more intrusive and probably violates even more amendments of the Constitution than you already want to.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:
[
-Ordained people can't be forced to preside over marriages that violate their religious beliefs
-If the Hitching Post had remained registered as a for profit business it would have been required to allow gay couples to rent it for marriage ceremonies but neither the Hitching Post, nor the municipal, state or federal authorities could force an ordained person from officiating the wedding in violation of that person's religious belief. Either the Hitching Post or the gay couple would have had to obtain the services of an officient that did not have a religious conflict with presiding over the wedding ceremony.

Regardless of the classification of the Hitching Post or the current municipal and state laws in Idaho ordained people still can't be forced to marry gay couples in violation of their religious beliefs.

-True
-Also True.


I think the issue then becomes, who has the legal obligation to seek out an "OK with the gay" officiant? I would kind of assume that it is up to the proprietors of the chapel to find an appropriate officiant, should they be so offended that they "cannot" perform the ceremony. This also leads to several issues that I would think open them up to litigation. I mean, if (hypothetically) you and I were gay, and went to this very chapel and said, "we want to be married on December 7th", and they said, "sure, we need a deposit for the facilities, and also because you're gay and our religious beliefs disallow us from officiating your ceremony we will have to find a new person" and we go ahead with that plan.... December 7th rolls around, the entire wedding party shows up, and are excited for a fabulous time, but are informed that "due to circumstances outside of our control, we were unable to find an officiant for your ceremony".... What then should happen??

IMO, this is where, as a registered for profit business, they MUST honor the agreement that was signed and paid for, suck it up and do the ceremony, or they'd face the risk of some pretty nasty litigation suits.

If the Hitching Post had a contractual agreement with a couple to provide an officient for their wedding then they'd be responsible for providing one since the couple paid for it. There's several different types of people who are qualified to preside over weddings in Idaho, including current municipal officials that would be unable to refuse to perform the ceremony. So while the couple might have a more limited choice of officients it shouldn't be impossible to find one.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 d-usa wrote:
I think there is also a difference between "not catering to certain people" and "refusing service to certain people".

If A white guy went to a black barber shop I would expect them to inform him "Hey, we really don't cut white hair here and black hair is a lot different. So without that experience your hair will probably look like crap when we are done, but it's up to you." That would be fine with me. "Get out of here whitey" wouldn't be.

I think that there might be a certain overlay between the "private business shouldn't have to serve everybody" crowd and the "I DID build this" crowd. In my opinion a private business gets money from everybody in the community. Gay tax money pays for the road in front of the business, gay taxes pay for the fire and police services, gay taxes pay for the water pipes and sewers. Gays don't get to send in their taxes and include a note saying "don't use any of that to fill the pothole in front of the business that won't marry us". If a business gets public money then they shouldn't get to discriminate.

I don't basing laws on the tax code. Not only is the US tax code a horrible mess of amateur social engineering and political pandering but it's also something that's beyond the control of citizens and most businesses. The govt decides which taxes to levy, how much those taxes are, who has to pay them, when they're paid, when they get spent and how they get spent. The govt shouldn't be allowed to control taxes and then use the collection and allocation of those taxes as justification to intrude into people's person lives and businesses.

Taxes are collected to fund the responsibilities that govt has to provide for the whole what the individuals cannot, ie military, infrastructure, public utilities, etc. I think of taxes as being like national CAM (Common Area Maintenance) fees. Every shopping mall people visit has a landlord that charges the tenants CAM fees to pay for security, parking, escalators, bathrooms etc. since all the tenants benefit all the tenants pay in. However, the fact that tenants pay CAM doesn't let the Landlord tell the tenants how to run their business. If the Landlord tried to mircomanage a tenant's business the tenant would protest and if the Landlord didn't have permission under the lease agreement to do it then they'd have to stop. We're citizens instead of tenants and we have a constitution instead of a lease and if the constitution doesn't give the govt authority to do something then they can't do it regardless of taxes.

I agree with you that bigotry is immoral, short sightedness and bad for society. I think govt and public institutions should be required by law to not discriminate against citizens. The smallest minority is the individual. All public services and servants should serve all members of the public without bias. Bigotry is just a state of mind, an idea, and the govt can't control what people think and can't defeat an idea. I'm vehemently opposed to the govt waging wars against ideas. I don't want a War on Bigotry or a War on Poverty or a War on Drugs or a War on Terror. Those are wars the govt can't win and shouldn't be trying to fight because all that is produced is collateral damage and unintended consequences that harm the citizenry the govt is allegedly trying to help.

Gwaihirsbrother wrote:

No, I have a different definition of what is and is not a natural right than you do. I do not think that there is a natural right to special state privleges to married persons.

A natural right exists regardless of law, the law merely enshrines the right. And yes, you do, you simply restrict that belief to certain heterosexual couples.

Gwaihirsbrother wrote:
If you remove all issues of sexuality and romantic connection from the relationship, you diffuse the social tension and it can become a non issue.

How do you remove all issues of sexuality from a necessarily sexual relationship?

Gwaihirsbrother wrote:

True, but just because there are are exeptions, doesn't mean that this was not the purpose. If the state were to only grant marriages to people who could or intended to breed it would need to establish a large bureaucracy to investigate fraud and regulate who is and is not able and willing to breed.

Or depend upon religions that already do exactly that.

 Ouze wrote:

Gwaihirsbrother wrote:
So unless I support pure anarchy or in the alternative slavish devotion to every dictate of government, I am contradicting myself?

This is what's called a "false choice". There are more options to this argument than what you put forward, one of which is that you are being inconsistent. You opened the box when arguing against the constitutional basis of the ordinance, and when presented with that basis you posited did not exist - the 14th amendment - simply discarded it, and instead started arguing that your fee-fees were what really mattered.

What you are doing here is intellectual Calvinball, and you deserve to be called out for it.

I agree it is a false choice, but I'm not the one who is invoking it. It is a concise summary of the arguments made against mine and I am objecting to those arguments because of it.

The reality is that the issue involves a complex interaction of federal, state, and local constitutional, statutory and decisional law with competing protected interests. It is not "intellectual Calvinball" to argue that some of those protected interests are more important than others and derserving of greater protections and that some of the laws involved are just and proper while others are not. If no one argues that law A is invalid, but there is a disagreement about law B, it is not a legitimate argument to say that since you support law A, you can't argue against law B.

You and d-usa are mischaracterizing my arguments and not addressing the substance of those arguments chosing instead to focus on the form of the arguments. Perhaps that is because you don't have much of an argument to present when it comes to substance.

Religious and intellectual liberty is something that I think is extremely important. Forcing someone to do something they believe to be wrong is a terrible invasion of their being and should not be done except in the most extreme situation. Preventing someone from engaging in any given business unless they act contrary to their conscience is again a terrible invasion and should be avoided as much as possible. The same is true when it comes to depriving someone of the free use of their property unless they use it in ways that are contrary to their beliefs. Saying you are free to practice your religion as long as you isolate yourself from society is depriving them of free exercise of their religion and is not right.

Certainly the practice of religion may need to be limited in some situations in order to preserve rights of others. A religion calling for human sacrifice is legitimately limited because the practice of the religion deprives someone of the most basic of human rights--life. But in that instance the practice takes from someone something that they already have, and legal limitation on the practice does not force someone to act in a way contrary to their beliefs, rather it restricts their ability to act. Generally speaking preventing someone from acting on their belief is more tolerable than forcing someone to act contrary to their belief.

I will accept that in some situations it may be necessary to force someone to act contrary to their beliefs, or prevent them from engaging in certain fields of employment if they refuse to act contrary to those beliefs. I have given examples of this previously. But, the situations where this is justified are limited. It is justified when we speak about the basic necessities of life: food, clothing, shelter and life/limb saving medical care for example. It is not justified when we speak about the luxeries in life like parties and celebrations. Another consideration is the availabilty of alternate sources for the service. If the service is readily available there is much less need and therefore much less justification for forcing someone to act in a manner contrary to their beliefs.

I despise racial prejudice and think the history of that form of prejudice has done terrible things to the way this nation functions, yet I am also very uncomfortable with laws that force people to give haircuts to someone they don't want to or to sell to someone they don't want to. Yet because racial discrimination was so prevalent and strong those laws are probably necessary and acceptable since without them basic goods and services as well as luxeries were in many ways completely unavailable.

The gay community despite only recently being generally accepted are not in the same plight as the decendants of African slaves. They tend to be very affluent and those who dare to suggest that their sexual activity is immoral are at greater risk of suffering economic consequences that the gays. The various services they wish to have access to are readily available. There simply is not an oppressive dynamic that prevents them from having numerous opportunities to do as they please. So when faced with a situation where a gay couple has numerous venues where they can celebrate their new legal status as a couple I think it is unjust to force someone to participate in that process that doesn't want to. Further I think the gay couple that would seek to punish someone for acting according to their conscience is a more despicable person than the one refusing them service and it has nothing to do with their sexual preference. It is really sick to make someone do something they don't want to especially when you can easily get what you want from other willing sources.

Relapse wrote:

However, a lot of what is going wrong in the U.S. is blamed on the disintigration of the family unit. If a family functions as it should, it cuts down on the need for social programs and the children are raised with strong sets of values and community, strengthening a good government.

What happens if those values are not consistent with those of the community, or the state? I mean, that discontinuity is basically the point of this thread.

 dogma wrote:

Gwaihirsbrother wrote:

No, I have a different definition of what is and is not a natural right than you do. I do not think that there is a natural right to special state privleges to married persons.

A natural right exists regardless of law, the law merely enshrines the right. And yes, you do, you simply restrict that belief to certain heterosexual couples.

If you want to know what your 'natural rights' are, go ask a starving bear. He will have the answer.

The only rights beyond the right to be food that we have are those we decide to give eachother.

 jasper76 wrote:

If you want to know what your 'natural rights' are, go ask a starving bear. He will have the answer.

I'm not homosexual.

I don't get what you're saying.

 dogma wrote:

Gwaihirsbrother wrote:

No, I have a different definition of what is and is not a natural right than you do. I do not think that there is a natural right to special state privleges to married persons.

A natural right exists regardless of law, the law merely enshrines the right. And yes, you do, you simply restrict that belief to certain heterosexual couples.

I know what a natural right is, but just because someone says something is a natural right doesn't make it so. Not everyone agrees about what is and is not a natural right.

I did not mispeak when I said that I don't believe there is a natural right to special stae privileges to married persons. Natural rights in my mind are not about what the state gives you, but instead are about what the state cannont take away from you. The natural right is to be free from state coersion or restriction in the selection of a mate.

Gwaihirsbrother wrote:
If you remove all issues of sexuality and romantic connection from the relationship, you diffuse the social tension and it can become a non issue.

How do you remove all issues of sexuality from a necessarily sexual relationship?

What I am saying is that if access to the secular privileges of marriage is going to be expanded it is none of the state's business whether two people have a sexual or romantic relationship and it is unnecessarily discriminatory to require that two people have a sexual or romantic relationship in order to benefit from those rights. Why should a brother and sister who share a home, but do not have a sexual relationship be denied the benefits of a marriage? Sure we don't want them having sex with each other becuase they may have offspring with faulty genetics, but marriage doesn't grant permission to have sex. It gives various other rights that have nothing to do with sex, so why require a sexual/romantic relationship to enter into a civil union? Calling the state sponsored core family unit a civil union or something else is preferrable to marriage because it removes a stigma that would prevent people from taking advantage of legal benefits they may otherwise wish to enjoy. With some imagination and thought it is easy to come up with a variety of situations where two people without a romantic relationship would still want to enter into a civil union to enjoy the benfits for a time. Since the permanence of the union is no longer seriously promoted/encouraged/required it matters not that some of these people would eventually end the partnership so they could enter another with a new person.

I'm trying to decide what he meant was distasteful, clever, or if I misinterpreted it.

 daedalus wrote:
I'm trying to decide what he meant was distasteful, clever, or if I misinterpreted it.

IIRC, I think the term 'bear' has some kind of slang meaning pertaining to homosexuals. I think it was meant as a joke maybe???

 jasper76 wrote:

 dogma wrote:

Gwaihirsbrother wrote:

No, I have a different definition of what is and is not a natural right than you do. I do not think that there is a natural right to special state privleges to married persons.

A natural right exists regardless of law, the law merely enshrines the right. And yes, you do, you simply restrict that belief to certain heterosexual couples.

If you want to know what your 'natural rights' are, go ask a starving bear. He will have the answer.

The only rights beyond the right to be food that we have are those we decide to give eachother.

You keep what you kill applies in the real world.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 dogma wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:

If you want to know what your 'natural rights' are, go ask a starving bear. He will have the answer.

I'm not homosexual.

Didn't you argue before that there weren't such things as natural rights?

It does, and I'm sure it was a joke, with "starving" as a word for "yearning". That was how I interpreted it.

OK, looks like I have to change my arbiter of our natural rights from a starving bear to a starving lion or some such.

And now I expect an education on the slang use of the word 'lion'

 jasper76 wrote:

 dogma wrote:

Gwaihirsbrother wrote:

No, I have a different definition of what is and is not a natural right than you do. I do not think that there is a natural right to special state privleges to married persons.

A natural right exists regardless of law, the law merely enshrines the right. And yes, you do, you simply restrict that belief to certain heterosexual couples.

If you want to know what your 'natural rights' are, go ask a starving bear. He will have the answer.

The only rights beyond the right to be food that we have are those we decide to give eachother.

We're all born with natural rights. Nobody can give them to us or take them away. If somebody else has the power to grant or remove your "rights" they aren't "rights" they're privileges.

Prestor Jon wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:

 dogma wrote:

Gwaihirsbrother wrote:

No, I have a different definition of what is and is not a natural right than you do. I do not think that there is a natural right to special state privleges to married persons.

A natural right exists regardless of law, the law merely enshrines the right. And yes, you do, you simply restrict that belief to certain heterosexual couples.

If you want to know what your 'natural rights' are, go ask a starving bear. He will have the answer.

The only rights beyond the right to be food that we have are those we decide to give eachother.

We're all born with natural rights. Nobody can give them to us or take them away. If somebody else has the power to grant or remove your "rights" they aren't "rights" they're privileges.

Please show me this list of rights that can't be taken away by someone else.

 Frazzled wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:

We're all born with natural rights. Nobody can give them to us or take them away. If somebody else has the power to grant or remove your "rights" they aren't "rights" they're privileges.

Please show me this list of rights that can't be taken away by someone else.

It might be nitpicking, but it seems that you can actually make the argument that natural rights can never be taken away. They can be violated and institutions can refuse to honor them, but the argument would be that the right itself still exist even though it is violated.

 jasper76 wrote:
OK, looks like I have to change my arbiter of our natural rights from a starving bear to a starving lion or some such.

And now I expect an education on the slang use of the word 'lion'

You should've said "cougar" instead.

 jasper76 wrote:
And now I expect an education on the slang use of the word 'lion'

Urban Dictionary wrote:A teen male who attracts older women typically in their late teens and 20's; a male cougar

To be fair, I'm cherrypicking here. That was, like, 9th on the list. I was kind of hoping for some really sick gak though.

#22 is another good one:

Urban Dictionary wrote:male genitals surrounded by an excessive amount of un-groomed pubic hair often resembling a mane like that of a lion.

 d-usa wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:

We're all born with natural rights. Nobody can give them to us or take them away. If somebody else has the power to grant or remove your "rights" they aren't "rights" they're privileges.

Please show me this list of rights that can't be taken away by someone else.

It might be nitpicking, but it seems that you can actually make the argument that natural rights can never be taken away. They can be violated and institutions can refuse to honor them, but the argument would be that the right itself still exist even though it is violated.

Point taken.

 Frazzled wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:

We're all born with natural rights. Nobody can give them to us or take them away. If somebody else has the power to grant or remove your "rights" they aren't "rights" they're privileges.

Please show me this list of rights that can't be taken away by someone else.

It might be nitpicking, but it seems that you can actually make the argument that natural rights can never be taken away. They can be violated and institutions can refuse to honor them, but the argument would be that the right itself still exist even though it is violated.

Point taken.

It's a little graphic to be talking about the violating of rights around here....tone it down guys.

Check you privilege!

 Frazzled wrote:
Check you privilege!

On login

Prestor Jon wrote:

We're all born with natural rights. Nobody can give them to us or take them away. If somebody else has the power to grant or remove your "rights" they aren't "rights" they're privileges.

In other words, we have no natural rights, since every single right we have that doesn't involve becoming food can be taken away.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Never mind, I saw your clarification ref rights existing but being violating.

I don't agree with you, but I understand the viewpoint.

 dogma wrote:

Relapse wrote:

However, a lot of what is going wrong in the U.S. is blamed on the disintigration of the family unit. If a family functions as it should, it cuts down on the need for social programs and the children are raised with strong sets of values and community, strengthening a good government.

What happens if those values are not consistent with those of the community, or the state? I mean, that discontinuity is basically the point of this thread.

A fast answer is to say find what the root cause(s) would be for the family values not being consistant with the state. I think we could get into enough consequences, some of which you already laid out to be worth a thread in it's own right

 Frazzled wrote:

Didn't you argue before that there weren't such things as natural rights?

No, I argued that natural rights turn on the beliefs of people; something which still renders them distinct from legal rights.

Relapse wrote:

A fast answer is to say find what the root cause(s) would be for the family values not being consistant with the state.

The root causes have been pretty well established. At this point the issue is one of cultural variance regarding religion, homosexuality, abortion, and the like; this thread being a solid indicator of the first two.

 jasper76 wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:

We're all born with natural rights. Nobody can give them to us or take them away. If somebody else has the power to grant or remove your "rights" they aren't "rights" they're privileges.

In other words, we have no natural rights, since every single right we have that doesn't involve becoming food can be taken away.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Never mind, I saw your clarification ref rights existing but being violating.

I don't agree with you, but I understand the viewpoint.

That wasn't my response that was somebody else's post.

We always have our natural rights, we're born with them, they are part of our humanity. The fact that we can be oppressed and have our rights violated by individuals or groupswhose actions we were unable or unwilling to stop does not mean we don't have rights. Our rights also don't depend on the outcome of a nudist interspecies fight club tournament.

Here's a quick rundown of natural rights.

You have a natural right to your life. Nobody has the right to murder you and take your life. Sure, people are physically capable of murdering you but they will always be in the wrong. We're all human beings with an equal right to our lives. Note the important distinction that murder is wrong, killing can be justifiable but murder is always unjustifiable. You can live in a society that enables murder, like having a "divine" ruler who can order the murder of anyone, any time for any reason, but that murder would always be objectively wrong even if it was condoned within that society.

You have a natural right to your person. Nobody has the right to do anything to or with your body against your will. Again, people can violate this right by committing crimes like rape or assault but that is always objectively wrong. This right also covers things like forced genital mutilation, scarring, tattooing etc. and the forcible prevention of your free choice to get a tattoo, piercing or body modification. It also include your right to conceive or not conceive with someone.

You have a natural right to self defense. Nobody has the right to take your life or harm your person so you have the right to defend yourself from those that try to do so. This includes your right to follow the escalation of force and use whatever level of force is neccessary to protect yourself up to and including lethal force. That also covers your right to protect your property.

You have a natural right to your property. Nobody has the right to take away from you what you've earned, what you've made, what you own. There are different societies with various interpretations and beliefs about ownership but we're all individually responsible for ourselves and nobody has the right to take from you what is yours.

You have a natural right to your labor and the fruits of your labor. Nobody has the right to force you to labor on their behalf, to bar you from freely choosing to enter into a contractual labor agreement of your choice or to seize from you the product(s) of your own labor. People can create societies wherein slavery is allowed but slavery is always objectively wrong and in violation of the natural rights of the enslaved.

You have a natural right to association. You can choose who you want to have relationships with, either platonic or romantic. You have the right to join or associate with a religion or group of your choice. Nobody has the right to force you to associate with people against your will or bar you from associating with those with whom you wish to be.

You have a natural right to your thoughts. You can hold whatever personal opinions and beliefs you wish. You do not have the right to force anyone else to comply or adhere to your beliefs and nobody else has the right to force you to believe what you do not wish to believe or bar you from believing what you choose to believe.

You have a natural right to free movement. You can choose to live where you want and travel where you want and nobody has the right to compel you to stay somewhere or forbid you from going somewhere.

We're all born equal and free with the natural right to enjoy and protect that equality and freedom. Individuals are free to choose to modify or give up some of those rights but no outside force, be it an individual, group, state or authority has the moral or legal right to violate your natural rights or forcibly take them from you.

As someone who is pan-sexual, I wouldn't want to be married in a church that doesn't believe in same sex unions. If i was getting married in a church it would have to be one that accepts the concept.
*shrugs*

I don't think you can force someone to perform the religious ceremony of marriage, because that's not actually making people accept us. It's just making them resent us more sadly.... =/ It's also stepping on the toes for freedom of religion witch is kinda a big issue.... So I would say that I don't want people to be forced to perform that ceremony.

BUT! I believe that no one has the right to refuse performing the legal process of being married, as part of their job as being a Marriage Commissioner.


To many people confuse the religious idea of marriage with the legal idea of marriage. Their are religions who believe in same sex marriage, and their is no reason why your religion is better then theirs to stop that from happening. Their is also no religious same sex couples who are just as much life partners as any cis-couples would, and have a legal right to have that love recognized.


People have a freedom of religion and I respect that, but their freedoms can't be so important that effects my own freedoms.

That's a new term for me. What the heck is pan - sexual?

Never mind, google was my friend.

They REALLY like skillets.