but thanks for implying that I’m committed to a bigoted, government-sponsored regime of segregation, Randy! I was wondering how long someone would go from: “(A) Bobcat disagrees with Steve” to “(B) Therefore, Bobcat is racist

I wasn’t implying that you were racist. Rather, I was implying that you were using arguments which could be used, and were in fact used, in defense of “bigoted, government-sponsored regime[s] of segregation.”

There’s a notable difference between these two statements.

Interestingly, the point you raised isn’t brought up by the most vociferous opponents of gay marriage, who tend to favor a much more vague and nebulous argument about its supposed pernicious effects on straight marriages, or on the institution as a whole. Still, it’s true that the establishment of SSM would have ramifications for more people than the couples involved.

I was at a specialist today for a worrying medical condition. I paid her good money.

I should have just looked for a bunch of compassionate “volunteers”, instead, eh?

Not an argument that’s likely to budge the advocates of gay marriage, but it does make clear that it’s not entirely devoid of effects on other people.

Given the backdrop of the current political debate over gay marriage, it’s not a ridiculous analogy, because some people certainly feel as though their marriages are threatened by gay marriage, wrong though they may be. So if we’re going to use Steve’s principle—”it’s useless to even try to argue with someone who so easily slides from holding a quite controversial ethical opinion to holding that it’s fine and dandy to try to force those who disagree to comply”—then we’ll see that it’s useless to argue both with the advocate and with the opponent of gay marriage.

But whatever; if the analogy doesn’t cut the mustard with you, go back to the economic egalitarianism one. I haven’t yet seen anyone call that particular example, which I’ve used as a reductio against Steve’s point, evidence of my moral monstrosity and boneheadedness (but thanks for implying that I’m committed to a bigoted, government-sponsored regime of segregation, Randy! I was wondering how long someone would go from: “(A) Bobcat disagrees with Steve” to “(B) Therefore, Bobcat is racist”).

So if a state legislature doesn’t want to allow gay marriage, then the federal government should make them do so. AND the federal government should avoid intervening, because that’s controversial too.

Ah, Jim Crow.

But just for the record, Steve didn’t apologize to me, he apologized “To the CT crew”; I doubt I’m included.

As for “putting up” with gay marriage, let me remind you that, according to Steve, “it’s useless to even try to argue with someone who so easily slides from holding a quite controversial ethical opinion to holding that it’s fine and dandy to try to force those who disagree to comply”—it doesn’t even matter what the ethical opinion is! So if a state legislature doesn’t want to allow gay marriage, then the federal government should make them do so. AND the federal government should avoid intervening, because that’s controversial too. Similarly, redistribution of wealth is a contentious ethical opinion, so damn straight no law should be put in place to enforce it.

Gay marriage doesn’t have to be “put up with” by anyone except the two people involved. No one else is “forced” to do, or think, anything whatsoever as a result.

Steve, I don’t think your apology was warranted. “Nimrod” was too kind.

As the saying goes, if you believe abortion is wrong, don’t have one.

And some of you Republicans in Democrat clothing think the party should try to appeal to the likes of bobcat? What a joke.

See, by your reasoning, not only is it useless to argue with me, it’s useless to argue.

Which is why you DON’T compensate huge classes of people today for wrongs that occurred a long time ago to people who resembled them, at the cost of committing modern wrongs against innocent people who happen to resemble the long dead perpetrators. Because that’s the sort of activity that only seems to make sense if you ARE a racist, a believer in group rights and wrongs that over-ride individual guilt and innocence.

Of course, realistically, Democratic support for these activities today is probably more motivated by the need to keep blacks voting Democratic by huge margins, than any real belief that Jamacan immigrants need to be compensated for Jim Crow.

But it’s useless to even try to argue with someone who so easily slides from holding a quite controversial ethical opinion to holding that it’s fine and dandy to try to force those who disagree to comply. I’d suggest getting your own confusions sorted out before trying to persuade anyone else. Looks like that’ll be a tall order, too.

You wrote that “And those who knowingly set up the situation bear no responsibilty at all for it? That IS retarded.” So lemme get this straight: I make murder illegal. This means that people who just want to kill their rich mother-in-law to inherit her money will have to cover their tracks to do so. But if any of them mess up, and someone sees what they’re doing, well, they might be tempted to kill these witnesses. If only murder weren’t illegal! Then they wouldn’t have to kill those witnesses! But it is, because of the gov’mint. And now more innocent people have died who didn’t have to. And so the onus should fall on the gov’mint.

Kind of a ridiculous argument, no? And not one that you would have the least inclination in accepting, no? That’s why I put in the clause, “if the activity in question is bad enough”; because it if is bad enough, then the onus is on the person who commits it, not on the one who criminalizes it. But if it’s not bad—like smoking marajuiana—then the onus for the bad results of the policies should fall on those who make the policies, rather than on the perpetrators.