SCOTUS and Gay Marriage

[Notre Dame Joe]

 

 

You're looking at it bass-ackwards. Those laws don't exist because we decided out of the blue to give some people special treatment. Those laws exist because too many people were taking away the rights of a specific group of people.

 

Au contraire, they exist exactly because they formed a political faction and were embraced by the liberal moral guardians. There are priviliges, or protections if you prefer, for gays because they were angry enough to form a faction that won over the mainstream movers and shakers. There is no such privilege for fatties, they haven't held a march, protested, been embraced by said guardians, had tear jerker films made over how hard they have it. In fact it is still pretty much open season to taunt the overweight without fear of censure.

 

 

 

If people didn't discriminate against people with disabilities, the ADA(AA) wouldn't exist.

If people didn't discriminate against the elderly, the ADEA wouldn't exist.

 

If people were angels (the good kind) then we wouldn't need laws,

 

In every case, these laws are reactionary to existing discrimination.

 

As Ulty mentioned before, the most-common discrimination laws cover you to a great degree. You have:

 

A Race.

A Color.

A Religion (or no religion).

A Sex (gender).

A National Origin.

A Disability (or you can be perceived as disabled).

A Marital Status (either married or unmarried).

 

That's seven of the ten most common bases.

 

Most common? How could anyone measure that? I'm pretty sure that wealth is the #1 basis for getting favorable or poor treatment in real life, but I have no idea how you document that. Attractiveness is a close 2nd.

 

That's a minimum nine of the ten most-common bases under discrimination law that cover you, or will cover you, at some point in your life.

 

These aren't laws providing "privileges" to "some people," they're laws protecting just about every worker in the United States.

 

The most common discrimination charges aren't filed by gays, or non-Whites - they're filed by White women over the age of 40.

 

So let's think about a scenario here - you're 54. Whatever career you've spent your life doing has ended, and you're in the market for a new job. You find one that meets your interests, you're qualified, you apply, but they hire someone fresh out of college with no experience in a field you've been an expert at for years. That happens again, and again. Suddenly your nest egg is cut in half, you're looking at defaulting on your mortgage, and you're really needing to get that next career started. You apply for yet another job, you're qualified like nobody's business, and they hire someone in their 20s again. At what point do you start to think you're not being hired because of your age? At what point do you do something about that? Before you lose your house or after?

 

This scenario is not uncommon. It is not providing "special privileges" to those over 40, it's saying you can't take away privileges that they already have.

 

And that's just one example of how discrimination laws protect you, or will protect you. There are myriad examples.

 

I never said life was fair, just that enumerated classes is a stupid way of trying to force it to be fair. You can legislate equality for age, maritals, hair color, hair density, skin quality . . . and the newly minted BS sorority sister is still getting hired over the 55 year old bald guy who just got laid off.

 

Maybe 1 in 5000 guys sues and collects and some lawyers get rich, so the employer has to be more subtle about it. Outsiders would say that's an absurd system.

[Ulty]

 

Do they not teach US history, political science, or sociology at Notre Dame?

[BigRedBuster]

 

If people didn't discriminate against people with disabilities, the ADA(AA) wouldn't exist.

If people didn't discriminate against the elderly, the ADEA wouldn't exist.

 

If people were angels (the good kind) then we wouldn't need laws,

 

 

 

I think this is the only part of your post that actually made sense. If people were angels, we wouldn't need laws. The fact is, there are total jackasses out there that are racist, homophobic, sexist pigs.

[Notre Dame Joe]

 

Do they not teach US history, political science, or sociology at Notre Dame?

 

They also teach theology and philosophy, so we learn to ask Why is that just? even when everyone says it is.

 

Part of the problem is that you mostly believe in social engineering, that if something is good for the people then the government should legislate it.

 

Sometimes gov should but they don't need to. It's illegal to have a Whites Only sign outside a restaurant. If legal, it would still be a disastrous business decision as it would attract more protestors then customers, in fact a lot of people don't care would still avoid it.

 

That should be it, but the enraged social engineers outside are not content to win in the public square. They have an irresistible urge to demand that the law shut the place down so they won't have to know it exists.

[tschu]

Just stop before you dig your grave even deeper, Joe.

 

You're embarrassing.

[sd'sker]

corporations are the most liable of any sort of social engineering. i always get a chuckle out of that boogeyman.

 

yeah, smoking bans in restaurants are social engineering, not the barrage of cigarette advertisements.

[carlfense]

Sometimes gov should but they don't need to. It's illegal to have a Whites Only sign outside a restaurant. If legal, it would still be a disastrous business decision as it would attract more protestors then customers, in fact a lot of people don't care would still avoid it.

That would be illegal now.

 

That brings us back to what you learned about history.

[Notre Dame Joe]

corporations are the most liable of any sort of social engineering. i always get a chuckle out of that boogeyman.

 

yeah, smoking bans in restaurants are social engineering, not the barrage of cigarette advertisements.

 

Ads don't have the power of law.

 

Carlfense, you did see the If there right?

[carlfense]

Carlfense, you did see the If there right?

Again . . . that's true now. Do you think/did you learn that this was true when those signs were actually posted?

[sd'sker]

Ads don't have the power of law.

that is debatable. but i am wondering how the concept of social engineering fits into this conversation.

[Notre Dame Joe]

Ads don't have the power of law.

that is debatable. but i am wondering how the concept of social engineering fits into this conversation.

 

 

http://clashdaily.com/2013/09/gay-bakery-forced-serve-westboro-baptist-haters/ this should help.

[strigori]

 

Do they not teach US history, political science, or sociology at Notre Dame?

 

They also teach theology and philosophy, so we learn to ask Why is that just? even when everyone says it is.

 

Part of the problem is that you mostly believe in social engineering, that if something is good for the people then the government should legislate it.

 

Sometimes gov should but they don't need to. It's illegal to have a Whites Only sign outside a restaurant. If legal, it would still be a disastrous business decision as it would attract more protestors then customers, in fact a lot of people don't care would still avoid it.

 

That should be it, but the enraged social engineers outside are not content to win in the public square. They have an irresistible urge to demand that the law shut the place down so they won't have to know it exists.

Theology has no place a legal policy debates, as this is not a theocracy.

 

Talk about revisionist history. Do you really think that it would be 'disastrous' in some areas of the south? Or Fremont, for that matter. Odds are there would be a great deal of those types of signs popping up overnight if they were allowed. Thinking otherwise is just ignorant.

[Notre Dame Joe]

You need to lay off the creative writing.

[Junior]

This is pretty awesome:

 

http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2014/08/27/listen_to_judge_richard_posner_destroy_arguments_against_gay_marriage.html?wpsrc=fol_fb

 

 

 

On Tuesday, Posner put his judicial independence front and center during marriage equality oral arguments at the 7th Circuit. While lawyers for Wisconsin and Indiana attempted to defend their state’s marriage bans, Posner issued a series of withering bench slaps that unmasked anti-gay arguments as the silly nonsense that they are. Reading this string of brutal retorts is fun enough—but it’s even better to listen to them delivered in Posner’s own distinctive cadence. With the help of my Slate colleague Jeff Friedrich, I’ve collected the most exhilarating, satisfying, and hilarious of the bunch.

[carlfense]

Don't f*@!# with Posner.