AstroProdigy

http://www.politicalcomp!@#$%^&*.org/ ...and don't turn this into an argument

I already told you what the universal right and wrong is. It is do onto others as you would have them do onto you. Of course, people have different opinions of this, but if you take the basic concepts that most people agree on, sane people, then you get a moral code right there. Now get back on topic here. This is a religious test not a !@#$%^&* argument.

Actually, there is a right and wrong. It's called do onto others as you would have them do onto you.

No, but the Catholic Church shuns you for divorce. They don't point out the consequences to some forms of indulgence. They tell you to suffer your whole life and have no indulgence and send the money you save to them. How do they get you to do this? They say if you don't you go to !@#$%^&*. Don't forget the Catholic Church is not democratic and never has been. They support a brutal dictator who tortures his own people as long as they go to church every sunday over a democratic government where they get to think for themselves. I'm not anti religion. I am anti bull!@#$%^&* people who want to control you.

Yes, there is a shortage of white babies. That's what most people want because most of the adoptive parents are white. What about the minority babies or all the kids who aren't cute little 6 month olds. People only want to adopt babies. Kids have personality problems because they don't feel loved because they got bounced around from foster home to foster home. Don't forget there are huge numbers are babies you can adopt outside the US and bring them here.

I think it's important to consider the choices. Do you prefer a gay couple to adopt a child or do you prefer a child to bounce around from foster home to foster home until they're 18, when they're kicked out to survive on their own?

It's as if you aren't listening to what we are actually saying, but instead hearing what you want to hear. THIS IS NOT NOR HAS THIS EVER BEEN AN ISSUE OF EITHER ONLY HETEROSEXUAL MARRIAGE OR ONLY HOMOSEXUAL MARRIAGE IS LEGAL AS YOU ARE INFERING. Stop being obsessed with technicalities of the dictionary and start looking at the real issues here. Monte and I have asked you several times HOW allowing a form of civil union for homosexuals would affect straight families and you have yet to have listed any. Your argument seems to have been changing throughout your posts. At the beginning you said that there are no rights whatsoever gained by marriage and therefore there is absolutely no reason to allow civil union for homosexuals to what your argument seems to be now as there should be some sort of ability to have a civil union between two homosexuals, but just not calling it marriage. Fine, don't call it marriage. The word "marriage" is basically just a word to the government if the actual "civil unions" offer the same rights. A gay couple could say they are married since this is freedom of speech, but they actually have a civil union, which is basically what heterosexual couples have except their civil union is recognized by some sort of religious ins!@#$%^&*ution. Therefore, what is the argument you are making? Unless you think homosexual spouses shouldn't get any of those civil union rights then we are arguing about agreeing. Then why are we debating this issue? Looks to me like some more powerful forces are pitting Americans against Americans on an issue they agree on, but have been brought to think of it in different words. That's what is so wrong about even the prospect of making a cons!@#$%^&*utional amendment banning gay marriage, because the vast majority actually seem to support the right of civil union for homosexual couples, but they are being duked into thinking their opinions are the same of the extreme right that opposes both gay marriage and homosexuals in general.

You scored as agnosticism. You are an agnostic. Though it is generally taken that agnostics neither believe nor disbelieve in God, it is possible to be a theist or atheist in addition to an agnostic. Agnostics don't believe it is possible to prove the existence of God (nor lack thereof). Agnosticism is a philosophy that God's existence cannot be proven. Some say it is possible to be agnostic and follow a religion; however, one cannot be a devout believer if he or she does not truly believe. agnosticism 100% Islam 67% Judaism 63% atheism 54% Christianity 54% Paganism 50% Satanism 46% Hinduism 38% Buddhism 38% I didn't know I was so Islamic.

The homosexual partner has no legal power over the decision because they are not considered a spouse under the current laws. Therefore, the family of the person are the only ones that can decide. This excludes massachusetts, of course. This is just one of the many rights that marriage or some sort of legal union brings. Let me repeat the link of all the rights involved with civil union: http://scribbling.net/1049-federal-rights-...-marital-status

Are you kidding me with this women haven't been considered property since before the Roman Empire? Other groups don't need us to change the rules for them because the rules are already set up to include them. This "marriage must be between a man and a woman" emphasis is meant to exclude homosexual couples. You say that it would change the entire fabric of marriage, but you have yet to explain HOW it would affect heterosexual families. No Aileron, it is not the opinion of the majority that matters when the oppression they are enforcing on a minority has no basis and has no affect on the majority. Let me put the last thing you said in the basis of 100 years ago and replace gay marriage with interracial marriage: "Secondly, if you do want to change society, there should be a very good reason. Black people are not the-other-white-groups. How would having interracial couples enrich our family structure? How would interracial couples enrich our communities? Why do such couples require a marriage certificate to do this? Answers to these questions may exist, but I for one would like them written down before we go turning society upside down." You need to realize that this is just another social ennigma that will change in the future and future generations will think "How could our grandparents have thought something this unjust?"

Yeah, what Monte said.

I'd post a rebuttle, but Monte has pretty much done it for me. Thanks for saving me time Monte ! Maybe now I can get a social life.

Not if the apes practiced polygamy. You haven't really made any case proving gay marriage is related to polygamy other than that certain aspects of them are relatively recent. By the way, polygamy was considered wrong for a long time, not just with the womens' rights movement, so you're only taking a very secific aspect and your picking and choosing small parts that sort of match simply because they're recent. That makes them similar? You do understand that making the claim that the modern nuclear family existed in ancient society doesn't mean that was all the marriages involved. The Ancient Greeks and the Roman Empire also practiced bisexual and homosexual lifestyles. Picking and choosing again to claim "That's how it's always been" isn't proving your argument. So you say you somehow "proved" that your argument is ancient while mine is untested, yet you only look at the history that supports your claim. The history that refutes your argument doesn't exist because it's not conveniant? There is still a lot we don't understand about our past. The traditional definition of marriage means until death do us part. You cannot defend the traditional definition of marriage unless you are prepared to ban divorce. It also means the wife must obey her husband. Let's just get rid of women's rights too then. The traditional definition of marriage is dead. It is no longer in use, so why is that still the issue? Homosexuality isn't a new issue. It's always been around, but christian societies chose to destroy most of the records that it existed because it went against old Judao-Christian beliefs of marriage. I'm trying to compare the issues in common between interracial marriage and gay marriage and you're trying to pick small time periods and say that they are different so the comparison somehow doesn't exist? Why is pieces of the time interval of the issues that you picked to support your argument so important and the actual issues don't matter?

Thanks Monte :-). I say you don't have to agree with gay marriage. I never said I like gay marriage, but I suppport the right, as it is a right I would like to have if I were in the same position.

Marriage hasn't been around for millions of years and the definition of marriage being between a man and a woman is only post christian. Therefore the government should not legally be able to define marriage as between a man and a woman because this is a religious belief and there is SUPPOSED to be a seperation between church and state. Everyone in the country doesn't have to recognize gay marriage and it could still be legal. Plenty of people still don't recognize interracial marriage and it is legal now. You don't have to change everyone's minds in order to get things done. Marriage gives a lot more rights to the couple actually. Guess how many rights a married couple gets. (1049 rights) http://scribbling.net/1049-federal-rights-...-marital-status You complain that I compare the gay rights movement with the civil rights movement, yet you compare gay marriage to polygamy. In fact, the gay rights movement is part of the civil rights movement. The civil rights movement isn't just a racial movement. It's a movement for any group that doesn't have all the rights as other group(s). On the other had, I don't even see the relation between gay marriage and polygamy other than they're both illegal. Gay marriage is a union between only 2 spouses just like straight marriage which, unlike polygamy, prevents from major inequality. I would say that polygamy is more closely related to straight marriage because both have to deal with sexism and oppression of women. Of course straight marriage doesn't do this normally, but there are plenty of situations to make this comparison valid. Quote from that link: "Most people who disagree with gay marriage can't even seem to realize how much the same straight and gay relationships are. The only real difference is the lack of reproductive possibility between the 2 partners. And quite a few straight couples don't do a very good job of raising their children anymore, especially since so many of them don't live together anymore." Many important issues were brought up in that link. For example, if the ins!@#$%^&*ution of marriage is so sacred then why don't we make a cons!@#$%^&*utional amendment banning divorce. I would think morales would be defined as do to others as you would have them do to you, but apparently morales are about controlling peoples' lives and oppressing minorities for the fears of the majority in this country. I thought that was what our cons!@#$%^&*ution was trying to prevent against. Are we really going to make a cons!@#$%^&*utional amendment setting in stone that we are no longer going to be a progressive society?

Churches don't have to marry gay couples. The issue is whether the state should marry them. The state cannot seperate itself from marriage unless it seperates itself from all the rights a married couple is given. Incase you forgot a past issue, interracial marriage used to not be recognized by the government because they believed it fostered a society of "muts" and "inbreeds" and feared that interracial marriage would ruin the ins!@#$%^&*ution of marriage and open the gates for all kinds of crazy unions. Funny how some things never change. Monte I'm curious why you think gay couples shouldn't be able to adopt children.

Who here supports a cons!@#$%^&*utional amendment banning gay marriage?

That's a matter of opinion if Muslums are gradually turning against terrorists. I say the world is going more and more bakwards as of late. Also, I would think most Muslums are against terrorists anyway. Terrorists don't need to make strategic advances; it's not a onventional war. The Viet Cong weren't making strategic advances and look what happened. War cannot last forever, but it can last a !@#$%^&* of a long time. "D: No end in sight? We we leave when the insurgency ends...we just don't know when that is." That means there is no end in SIGHT. That doesn't mean there is no end. The US did have French support, but the major fighting and the beginning of the Revolutionary War, they just needed French help to completely remove the British. Iraq wasn't really topelling Saddam at all without our help. As for Michael Moore, he is extreme liberal. I don't think it's our business to invade Saudi Arabia. I just think we shouldn't take a role as a "protector of freedom" unless we want to seriously take on the job, not just pick and choose based on our own interests. I88gerbils, maybe life is in color? I myself like blue. Speaking of colors and greys. The terror alert levels are interesting because they warn the people of a possible attack, but the people can't really do anything about it other than panic. Bush should have raised the terror alert level to red after Hurricane Katrina. That would have made people forget about the fact that all the preparation the administration claims to have taken in case of a disaster was just for show. Putting everything in one Department of Homeland Security just makes all the different parts unable to function without the extra red tape. I heard that FEMA couldn't function properly because they had to contend with all the other parts of the Department of Homeland Security and get through all of the red tape and they were, therefore, very slow. Thank god no one has started cursing someone else out on this thread for a while.

I didn't even notice the post until then, lol. I was talking for spin.

a) The death toll after the Iraq War due to the insurgency is nearing the death toll under Saddam's regime due to his regime and it is continuing to rise at an unabashed level. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1028-08.htm How do you know the situation will eventually stop. It doesn't look like much progress is being made nor is the death toll starting to decline. c) All of them dying? Where did you ever get that information? Saddam Hussein was going to exterminate the entire population of Iraq if we didn't invade now? Get your information straight. d) Of course we can't please everyone, but the people of Iraq aren't frustrated that we toppled Saddam's regime; they are frustrated because it doesn't seem like an end of the US occupation of Iraq is in sight. e) Of course there is a right and wrong. There are certain things that most people in the world agree are right and wrong. That's all that matters. f) We let nations advance on their own rate at theend of the twentieth century? You mean under the Clinton administration; because that's the only period we did that and we interfered in other countries' development then too, just not to as large a scale. g) If we let them topple their own regimes, the effect would be dramatically different. Think of the countries that achieved democracy on their own. France, the US, Britain, etc. They are a very proud people and are proud of what they have achieved. h) "You act as if Hussein was the justly elected and benevolent ruler of a people that loved him." No one acts like that. Where has anyone posted that? i) It is a known fact that the United States prefers a pro US dictatorship over an anti US democracy. If you look at the history of the Cold War, the US often supported a dictatorship over a democracy if it was in our best interest. Example two; Saudi Arabia. We have no intent of replacing the pro US monarchy with an anti US peoples' republic. That would be a stupid thing for us to do in our own interests.

That little "trap" you set doesn't really work because i don't think people were thinking about your imaginary civilization or cared to look it up. They took your word for it.

Center. That's something that can take me to the original topic of my thread. It burns me that people say to try to think of things in a center view, but they believe that their own opnions are the mainstream and other peoples' are extremist. Liberal and conservative biased sources are neither center nor mainstream as people try to act like they are. The only difference is when one takes an extreme point on an issue, they tend to be more passionate about it. Erego, a larger percentage of them vote than centrists vote and the centrist view is likely the best view.

Then don't waste your time. It's a free country.

Lol. That's a great way to lose an argument Hackysack. Say you are not going to bother looking at his sources before discrediting them, comparing it to something completely different, saying that proves he is wrong and that you will not post anymore.

Hackysack...the way you use insults to try to shut spin up is exactly what I am talking about. Can we get back to the topic of the thread rather than this insult fest. Please, be civil.