Nice to know gays can be just as sanctimonious as any Christian.

I found it hilarious. It is rare you have someone who is so eloquent when using sarcasm.

I swear, really good snark is almost as satisfying as sex

"Nice to know gays can be just as sanctimonious as any Christian".

Or atheist. Let's not forget them.

What a bunch of pricks. This isn't sarcasm, it's hatred.

Ah, I love the smell of snark in the morning. That was full of win.

Hatred? They hate not having the right to marry and all that comes with. I would, too. Wouldn't you?

They're publicly gloating/mocking the self-inflicted destruction of their opponents' life. That's hatred. You think it's okay because the person involved had differing political views. Doesn't make it any less risible. Does the "gay and lesbian community" think this kind of thing will make folks more amenable to their cause?

I thought santimony was what Mrs. Claus got for dumping Santa's cheatin' ass.

"Does the "gay and lesbian community" think this kind of thing will make folks more amenable to their cause?"

Well, I'm undecided on gay marriage, but this letter sure does lean me more to their side. It really deflates the whole "sanctity of marriage" argument. I think a lot of people jump on the bandwagon against homosexuals so they can feel superior. They may be out cheating on their spouses, but at least they aren't like those filthy gays.

The gays have been threatening my marriage for years with their existence and demands for equal marriage rights. I've managed to stave off its destruction for now by treating my wife well and not sleeping with other women, but who knows how long that will last as long as they're out there.

Entirely legitimate when she is one of those who believes gay marriage will ruin straight marriage.

And emblematic of the rank hypocrisy of the left, endlessly crying about tolerance and civility while practicing none.

I think it's important to note that Koch was one of the state's leaders to amend the Minnesota Constitution to define marriage as one man, one woman... hence the letter.

I read the whole thing and this was the salient paragraph:

It is now clear to us that if we were not so self-focused and myopic, we would have been able to see that the time you wasted diligently writing legislation that would forever seal the definition of marriage as being between one man and one woman, could have been more usefully spent reshaping the legal definition of “adultery.”

I live in a state that chose to redo its Constitution in this fashion. The state also passed a "covenant marriage" law to strengthen traditional marriages (about all it does it make it slightly more difficult to get divorced). The covenant option is taken by less than one percent of those getting married, which I find strange because it seems a more pro-active way to strengthen traditional marriage, but it seems no one wants it.

And who said we're part of the left?

I'm guessing the most common moniker that could be generally applied to the greatest number of Amy's commneters would be 'cynical assholes'

I didn't accuse anyone here of being of the left, I was referring to the authors of the letter in the OP, and the left in general, who have somehow painted themselves as the party of tolerance, civility and openmindedness while practicing anything but.

So gay automatically equals left?

So what do you consider a gay guy who votes republican because of fiscal issues?

If one more person claims that the party of tolerance has none, I'm going to scream. What does tolerance mean to you? Letting you trample on others rights while hiding behind religion and/or freedom of speech? Don't confuse tolerance with apathy.

This type of bullying behavior is why (for the first time in twenty years)i find myself less and less willing to support gay rights.

Do you support gay marriage? Great, this is a democratic republic...get to work and achieve your goals - working through the system. But how you attempt to achieve those goals says all i need to know about you and your cause. And you are chasing folks like me away.

Who is next?
All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing...

PS- Still not a fan of the MN rethuglicans...

> Do you not get that it's sarcasm, not
> sanctimony?

Yes, sarcasm is a big force in the lives of people disposed to screech about this... Another indication that this is about teenage energies, not adult ones.

That thar was pretty funny, no matter what you think about gay marriage.

Yeah?

I appreciate snark as much as anyone else, but in such a case, it makes you look 15 years old. It may be amusing to go in for the kill on such a rich target, but you betray yourself in doing so.

When an opponent is imploding, you want to rise above it, so that it doesn't touch you. Ideally showing a little class and grace brings people to your side. Really, you wouldn't say anything, because that silence would be speaking volumes.

If you were EXTREMELY cynical you might really go in for the kill... rather than the taunts of a 15 year old 'nany-nany-boo-boo' You could try to be devastatingly elegant and say something like "As Proponents of Marriage, we are sorry to hear that X is having difficulties in hers, and we would suggest that what the parties need is privacy, and best wishes [or prayers]." And say not one more word about it.

Indy's like me with no horse in the race will give face value the benefit of the doubt... thinking that just maybe the gay marriage people had some clue, and the traditional marriage people look like hypocrites, because they cheat, giving the lie to the supposed sanctity of marriage.

Instead the writer looks like a petulant child, delighting in schadenfreude. 'Course that Karma often bites you in the ass when you get married somewhere that allows it, and then 5 years later have a very ugly and public divorce.

Meh, prolly just too old to be hip like that.

"I'm guessing the most common moniker that could be generally applied to the greatest number of Amy's commneters would be 'cynical assholes'"

I resemble that remark! OK, I get the snark, and pointing out reason-free hypocrisy is always a good thing in my book. On the other hand, snark is the kind of weapon you have to be careful with, because it tends to create unanticipated collateral damage in the future. Gays have affairs too sometimes.

It's when you use the word "Rights" that most people start having a problem. If the government were uninvolved in marriage, ANY MARRIAGE, there would BE no argument.

It doesn't NEED to be made into a "Right", because it's between individuals, the government has nothing to do with that part.

The have something to do with criminally sexual relations.

Everything else is a civil matter between individuals, and should be treated as such.

That doesn't stop the religious from getting married as is their tradition, UNLESS there is a criminal issue.
That doesn't stop Atheists from proclaiming themselves married. Or Gays, or Jedi's

The community may care, but the government shouldn't.

That way you don't re-define in LAW the word marriage, it's up to an individual to decide. Why should the 90% to redefine such a law?

You sidestep by not making it about law.

Rights are about holding the government back... they are not required if the govt. isn't involved.

huh, using greater than and less than signs seems to confuse things...

"Why should the less than 10% force the greater than 90% to redefine such a law?

You sidestep all that by not making it about law."

I usually hate group apologies made for the sake of PR, but this is funny.

I am against the government being involved in marriage, but as long as the government is, and rights are being granted to married people, gays and lesbians should be allowed to marry the partner they love and be recognized by the government in the same ways straight people are.

Posted by: Amy Alkon Author Profile Page at December 23, 2011 3:15 PM

Fair enough Amy. I'll care about gay marriage rights when they don't support laws that help destroy marriage (aka modern divorce/child support laws). I used to think the whole deal was silly and supported gay marriage. Gay marriage isn't killing straight marriage, no-fault only divorce laws and crazy biased courts are. But many gay marriage supporters seem to be all about making modern marriage laws anything but equal. They want the government out of their bedrooms via dumb sodomy laws and then invite it back in with marriage laws that make the government a direct third party. There are no two people only marriages anymore.

While I agree that this former legislator is a hypocrite, the snark doesn't help.

I quite frankly don't care what consenting adults do with each other. If you look at the U.S. Constitution the word marriage is not mentioned once.

The issue is that the government made itself into an arbiter of morals, values, and right and wrong.

You get credits on your tax return for:

• Marital Status
• Disablity
• Health Costs
• Farming expenses
• Business Expenses
• Being blind

Those are the ones I can think of off-hand.

When you can explain any of these credits to me without using the words "God" -- get back to r.

Sio, gays arent inviting the govermnet into thdeir bedroom over marraige

They simply want the same government protections to see their sick and dying loved ones without having to fight bigoted hospital workers, or to inhehert communal property without having to fight their partners familly who disinherted him or her 30yrs ago and have now popped up to cliam the estate

Things which happen quite frequently despite many gay couple going to the trouble of paying a lawyer thousands of dollars to draw up various power of attornyee docs which herteros get automatically for next to nothing given how cheap the government sells marriage licences for

Santa is not cheating on Mrs. Claus! I HATE it when Santa gets depicted as some vulgar perv. Santa is sweet and innocent and faithful. Leave him alone!

Well, he does wander around calling everyone a Ho

The internet would be much better if we had an accepted, standardized sarcasm font.

"I am against the government being involved in marriage" Amy

Then why don't you FIGHT for that? It is the most likely approach to win...

Because it has NOTHING to do with the definition of marriage. In this way you are not asking for 6000+ years of traditional definition of marriage to be changed by legal mandate.

You are simply taking that mandate away. How is anyone really going to argue with that? The libertarians will be on board regardless how they think about gay marriage, because the government shouldn't be involved. Discrimination law is satisfied because there is no longer a govt. definition that would be discriminatory. DOMA can be repealed, not because it's right or wrong, but because it is NOT required.

You transfer the rights and responsibilities to a Civil Partnership Contract.

Then the whole thing is over, because the Government does not give a rats ass about LOVE. It doesn't TODAY, and it won't TOMORROW.

The only thing it needs to care about is property rights, and inheritance. Medical decisions and such about your partner actually derive from those rights.

If it was framed correctly this question would be long since over... The more you make this about changing the Traditional definition of Marriage, the more traditionalists will resist, and they have the whole of civilization on their side. The longer people argue the immaterial, the longer it will take.

But it IS possible to sidestep now, and to get Govt. OUT of the bedroom. It just takes thinking about the important part of the question, who actually cares about, what thing?

The government doesn't care about who you shack up with and it doesn't care about love, it cares about who will pay the taxes. Wouldn't it be worth it to remind them of that?

Gays and lesbians deserve the same rights as the rest of us. And feel free at any time to work on other issues, like divorce/child support laws. You seem to be blaming gays and lesbians for them. Weird.

Posted by: Amy Alkon Author Profile Page at December 23, 2011 10:36 PM

I don't blame gays for those laws exclusively, that is bullshit but many gays support those types of laws and can't seem to see the inherent hypocrisy in that. They want their equal rights so much and then they turn around and vote in a government that runs everyone's life. When those gay rights folks see eye to eye with me on the family court stuff etc., I'll vote again for gay marriage. Bah, SwissArmyD says it better than I have above.

lujlp:
"They simply want the same government protections to see their sick and dying loved ones without having to fight bigoted hospital workers, or to inhehert communal property without having to fight their partners familly who disinherted him or her 30yrs ago and have now popped up to claim the estate"

Bah. If my father and his live in girlfriend in CA made it work fine with powers of attorney and trusts, it can work and should work for gay couples. All without getting into the definition of marriage. But instead, lets get the government out of the marriage business. They won't though because the government,women, and lawyers would lose power and money.

We apologize that our selfish requests to marry those we love has cheapened and degraded traditional marriage so much that we caused you to stray from your own holy union for something more cheap and tawdry.

Good stuff.

The notion put forth by conservatives opposed to same-sex marriage, that they are "protecting" or "defending" marriage, is, of course, a sham. They are doing nothing of the sort. Same-sex marriage is not a threat to marriage.

It's just that they aren't willing to be honest and admit: "We think gays and lesbians are disgusting so we want to prevent them from getting married."

JDThompson: They're publicly gloating/mocking the self-inflicted destruction of their opponents' life. That's hatred. You think it's okay because the person involved had differing political views.

So if a white person hates black people because he thinks they're subhuman and, in return, a black person hates that white person because of his racist views of black people, then both types of hatred are equivalent?

JDThompson (again): And emblematic of the rank hypocrisy of the left, endlessly crying about tolerance and civility while practicing none.

A bunch of kids are at a playground with their mothers. Some of the white kids are not willing to tolerate black kids being on the slides and swings so their mothers step in and stop the black kids from sliding and swinging.

Appalled at this intolerance by the white kids and their mothers, the black mothers then step in and stop those white mothers from stopping black kids from swinging and sliding.

And JDThompson says that the black mothers are hypocrites. JDThompson says that if the black mothers believe in tolerance then they should have tolerated the white mothers being intolerant of black kids.

Thanks, Amy. This is one issue where we see eye-to-eye.

Entirely legitimate when she is one of those who believes gay marriage will ruin straight marriage...

I agree with you that criticism of Koch is legitimate but, as I noted above, I don't think Koch or any other conservatives opposed to same-sex marriage truly believe the line they put forth: that same-sex marriage is a threat to marriage. They just know that pretending to "defend" or "protect" something looks much better than admitting what they're really doing: attacking gays and lesbians and trying to deny equal rights to them because they find them disgusting.

...you don't think government-granted rights should be determined by people's evidence-free belief in The Imaginary Friend, and all the Biblically driven prejudice that goes with.

Well said, Amy. I think we've been tolerant of, and deferential to, that Bibically-driven prejudice for far too long in this country.

Bah. If my father and his live in girlfriend in CA made it work fine with powers of attorney and trusts, it can work and should work for gay couples.

Here you go Sio,

http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2011/12/21/why_did_i_have.html#comments

Note the womans partner of nearly 20 yrs and her children (with all the leagal document you and other claim are 'good enough') were ignored until after the woman was all but dead, but when the ladys sister showed up with nothing more than an out of state drivers licence she was ushered right in and given all sorts of info on her sister condition

You still want to say its good enough?

Damn, wrong link, sot sure how that happaned

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/19/health/19well.html