That’s why many journalists have a hard time giving much voice to those opposed to gay marriage. They see people opposed to gay rights today as cousins, perhaps distant cousins, of people in the 1950s and 1960s who, citing God and the Bible, opposed black people sitting in the bus seat, or dining at the lunch counter, of their choosing.Says Patrick B. Pexton, the Washington Post ombudsman.
February 24, 2013
"Alongside that do-gooder instinct is a strong desire for fairness because, being out in the world, reporters encounter a great deal of unfairness."
"We want to expose that and even rub your noses in it. In a way, we’re shouting, through our stories: 'This is unfair! Somebody do something!' Conservative and liberal journalists alike feel this way...."
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They see people opposed to gay rights today as cousins, perhaps distant cousins, of people in the 1950s and 1960s who, citing God and the Bible, opposed black people sitting in the bus seat, or dining at the lunch counter, of their choosing.
My, they're stupid.
They see people opposed to gay rights today as cousins, perhaps distant cousins, of people in the 1950s and 1960s who, citing God and the Bible, opposed black people sitting in the bus seat, or dining at the lunch counter, of their choosing.
Upside down and inside out.
No. A corrupt system built on racial and sexual preferences is now in place that owes its existence to the discrimination and bigotry con game.
A new "minority" has to be constantly discovered to feed this corrupt system. Gays are the latest, but a new one will be trotted out as soon as that avenue is exhausted. "Bigots" are the "enemies of the people" in this system.
Ok, can I cry?
Sorry. This makes me sad, knowing I being protrayed this way.
Here's why the bigotry and discrimination con game is, to this point, impenetrable.
Althouse can see the folly of it in every instance, except when it works in her favor.
Then, she wants to play the game, too. I.e., gay marriage, a completely irrelevant and pointless controversy manufactured for no other reason that to perpetuate the con game.
Gay marriage = a destructive solution to a non-existent problem.
Althouse is coming along slowly, but she can't get past the discrimination and bigotry con game when she thinks it serves her self-interest.
I sincerely hope all those "pro gay marriage" supporters hire gay nannies for their children, who promptly molest and rape their kids.
If gays have the right to marry will they also be accused of immaturity, selfishness, and being commitment-phobic if they choose not to. If not, they will still not be equal, and the struggle will continue.
All us selfish children must unite to beat back the oppression and discrimination of the evil ring bearers. They oppress us with their over-sized pizzas.
"Still, just as I have written that The Post should do a better job of covering and understanding the anti-abortion movement, The Post should do a better job of understanding and conveying to readers, with detachment and objectivity, the beliefs and the fears of social conservatives."
- Washington Post ombudsman
Tell me again, Althouse:
1. What's the gay crisis?
I haven't noticed it. The great "persecution" was just a media myth. Gays died en masse from AIDS not persecution. I was there. You can 't fool me.
2. What problem is gay marriage supposed to solve?
So far, all you've been able to come up with is benefit and inheritance issues, which can clearly be resolved by other means. In fact, every corporation I worked for in the past three decades solved the benefits problem internally. The inheritance issue can be resolve by gays by visiting a lawyer and drawing up a will.
The interesting thing there is that he considers Wapo reporters "out in the world" as oppose to being some one of the most insular and cosseted group of professionals to inflict their opinions on others.
The Washington Post.
The best high school Newspaper in the country.
Hubris of the type exalted in here does almost always make one ignorant and stupid, as well as prone to disingenuous strawman making.
Meanwhile, those who are not so incredibly good and smart as they can readily see that X is not Y, and that it is not unfair to treat X as X and Y as Y.
ST,
There is an argument, even a moral one, to create an unique and new legal form of kinship that is not related marriage public policy. I can sympathize with gay couple and other relationships with life long connections who may actually need a specific type of legal status to meet their needs.
I stand by the defense of marriage for practical reasons in the best interest of children, mothers, and fathers. The state has a good reason to protect and promote the natural family as something significantly different and public policy should reflect that.
Now we are to recognize a diversity of relationships, but why is it needed to call everything the same thing and treat differing relationships with differing reprecussions the same thing.
Everybody on every side of every issue claims to be in favor of "fairness." This argument proves too much.
Your huge Diversity department at UW has to be fed, with $150,000 salaries to Diversity Czars who can command gangs of students to attack the enemies of the people, Althouse.
Multiply this corrupt system by the thousands of Diversity racketeers in every university and every HR department in the country, and you've got the reason for the gay marriage hysteria.
It's a feeding frenzy for apparatchiks. The "bigots" or "enemies of the people" must be constant hunted down and denounced lest the feeding frenzy be threatened.
We don't have news or journaism - we have opinion masquerading as news.
It's mostly agenda and unprofessional bias.
Wow, I'm much more impressed with reporters now. I was so mistaken about their reasons for being.
It must be great to think that way. It solves that pesky humility problem.
Consigning one side of a national debate to the memory hole is just what you do when you care that much about fairness.
If journalists were fair, they would get beyond the skin color thing to some of the deep genetic issues of our time. I, for instance, have the asshole gene. I got it from my Mom, who got it from her dad. A couple of my sisters have the asshole gene too.
But all these reporters care about is skin color. When will they allow assholes to attain the same levels as others? Yes, we assholes tend to piss off other people, make it harder to work with them. But why should WE conform? Non-assholes are happier, and, might I add, are lucky.
Reporters should unite around this important issue, rather than focusing on skin deep issues.
...most journalists have a problem with religionists telling people what they can and cannot do
"Religionists"? Is this loaded term now de rigueur among our betters?
The problem that the Post has is one of urban hubris.
City people tend to not realize that when they leave the city and go to the country, or visit a foreign country, they are just as much an ignorant rube as the hicks from Toad Suck, Arkansas staring up at the sky scrapers while visiting NYC.
And because our profession lives and dies on the First Amendment — one of the libertarian cornerstones of the Constitution — most journalists have a problem with religionists telling people what they can and cannot do.
If I were in a profession that lives or dies on the First Amendment, I might go to the trouble of finding out what the thing actually says.
religionists telling people what they can and cannot do
As usual, that is getting it exactly backwards. Those "religionists" could care less if two guys declare themselves to be "married." The problem arises when those guys and the Post start telling everyone else what they have to do, that is, that they have to recognize those two men as "married."
"That’s why many journalists have a hard time giving much voice to those opposed to gay marriage."
Why limit it to gay marriage? Your journalists, sir, set out to rub everything in conservative noses.
And because our profession lives and dies on the First Amendment —
---LMAO.
If the reporters thought they lived and died with the 1st Amendment, Obama shredding it when he arrested Nakoula Nakoula would have been all over the news.
Instead, it went right down the memory hole.
Reporers believe they live and die with whatever Obama allows them to say. And they are happy about it. They are nothing more than Squealers. House propagandists. Pieces of shit that should be flushed.
Permanently.
I care little about gay marriage one way or the other. But it makes me slightly nauseous to see it compared, even "distantly", to racism. I reflexively take the contrary position when I hear that.
As a severe racist, throwing the haters of fag-marriage in the same camp as me is disheartening.
"people opposed to gay rights today as cousins, perhaps distant cousins..."
Cousins, perhaps distant cousins. Or perhaps second cousins, or the offspring of cousin-cousin inbreeding, or more likely father-daughter or sibling incest, people who really would prefer having their way with farm animals, the vile subhuman gap-toothed hillbillies.
@Paco:
more likely father-daughter or sibling incest
---Now, now, stop talking about the black community. It's racist to point out the massive inbreeding and incest going on there.
WaPo publishes Gay Friendly articles because it fits their business model. Whether or not that business model is sustainable is another question. I suspect a new "crisis" of "fairness" will be discovered just about the time all the Gays are happy with their lot.
End of Story.
You'd think the t would be silent in bigot. It looks French.
"being out in the world, reporters encounter a great deal of unfairness. We want to expose that..."
That's nice, but the problem is that in practice, modern reporters are too fucking ignorant to understand the background and nuances of the issues that they get all worked up about. The gatekeepers of "journalism" are smug, ignorant children. (The blinkered sanctimony that radiates from the reporter's e-mails in the linked exchange is gob-smacking.)
BS. Gays and lesbians have the right to marry as they always did, if they can find a clergyman (clergyist?) to perform the ceremony.
However, the state has no interest in recognizing such "marriages" for tax purposes, or any other civil benefits aimed at encouraging procreation and the raising of children.
The most that can be said is that while the state has an interest in encouraging stable heterosexual marriages, it should not actively harry homosexuals that mind their own business without disturbing others.
They see people opposed to gay rights today as cousins, perhaps distant cousins, of people in the 1950s and 1960s who, citing God and the Bible, opposed black people sitting in the bus seat, or dining at the lunch counter, of their choosing.
Fuck you journalists. IT was abolitionists citing God and the Bible that said we can't treat blacks as subhumans.
That’s why many journalists have a hard time giving much voice to those opposed to gay marriage. They see people opposed to gay rights today as cousins, perhaps distant cousins, of people in the 1950s and 1960s who, citing God and the Bible, opposed black people sitting in the bus seat, or dining at the lunch counter, of their choosing. Says Patrick B. Pexton, the Washington Post ombudsman.
Traditional marriage has been the default position on marriage since the founding of htis country you asshole. Its not some fringe position held by crackers.
You are the ones trying to force change on something that has never been viewed as anti homosexual until you suddenly discovered it, and now anyone who hold the NORMATIVE view is lumped in with racits.
There is an argument, even a moral one, to create an unique and new legal form of kinship that is not related marriage public policy.
In other words, we're supposed to prove we "like gay people."
Really that's the only substantive argument I've heard. The kinship forms are not new. They've been around as long as humanity has existed.
The next and inevitable step, once the gay marriage thing is worked out, is an all out attack on religious freedom from the Diversity apparatchiks. This is not conjecture. It's already reality in Britain and Canada, where religious groups are persecuted for dissenting from the Diversity agenda, clerics are arrested for preaching their Biblical beliefs and freedom of association is prohibited.
In other words, gay marriage needs to be defeated to protect the rights of the majority. There is no other way.
Journalists don't know about instability.
Unstable and fair won't work.
Christ Almighty, I just wish the people who did "The Bullwinkle Show" were still around.
At least Boris and Natasha were smart enough to know what Central Control and Fearless Leader were handing them was a crock.
These morons wake up one day and, because the Democrat Party decides it can get a few more votes by appealing to urban homosexuals because they bloc vote, buy the line without an instant's reflection.
"We want to expose that and even rub your noses in it."
How to win friends and influence people.
"And because our profession lives and dies on the First Amendment — one of the libertarian cornerstones of the Constitution — most journalists have a problem with religionists telling people what they can and cannot do."
But they have no problem with them doing it.
And it's the religion that sets the standards of right and wrong, so they really don't care that much about the First Amendment anyway.
Bender said...
The problem arises when those guys and the Post start telling everyone else what they have to do, that is, that they have to recognize those two men as "married."
Actually, the "equality" thing is a blind to shield the intent to direct how people's lives are lived down to the last detail.
Witness Mayor Bloomie.
1. Life is inherently unfair. Sorry, but it just is. Most attempts to 'correct' unfairness usually just create new and different inequities.
2. Journalists are not as smart or insightful as they think they are.
...on the other hand, it is a refreshing change of pace when a big éminence grise of the establishment press comes out and says, "Yeah, we're biased against the conservative position. So?"
SSM aside, the concept of fairness these pea brains seem to hold is one of equal outcomes. Athletic contests are conducted according to a set of rules applied equally and fairly to all. But, no one wants a tie for the outcome.
Liberal journalists want to apply the rules unequally and unfairly to ensure the "fair" outcome they desire.
What is this "fairness" of which you speak?
Perhaps they became journalists because they believe rather naively in this idea of fairness.
They dedicate themselves to being mouthpieces and advocates to Fairness.
I suppose we could call them religionists because they participate in the faith life of an institution.
Their rags keep teaching the doctrine of original sin, but they'll be the last to discover its truth.
Cousins, perhaps distant cousins. Or perhaps second cousins, or the offspring of cousin-cousin inbreeding, or more likely father-daughter or sibling incest, people who really would prefer having their way with farm animals, the vile subhuman gap-toothed hillbillies.
I see a marriage in there somewhere that is being denied. Does the Washington Post feel that those opposing such a marriage are perhaps distant cousins of those who opposed black people sitting in the bus seat or dining at the lunch counter of their choosing.
Operative word - of their choosing. THat's the linkage to the civil rights movement. Anti gay marriage is anti freedom. Well so is cousin marriage.
And yet here we;ll have the usual crowd jump out and scream red herring or irrelevant. But no, absolutely relevant.
Don't promote a freedom agenda if you have no problem restricting marraige for people you think should have marriage restricted for.
They see people opposed to gay rights today as cousins, perhaps distant cousins, of people in the 1950s and 1960s who, citing God and the Bible, opposed black people sitting in the bus seat, or dining at the lunch counter, of their choosing
HA HA HA HA
HA HA HA HA
HA HA HA HA
HA HA HA HA
HA HA HA HA
HA HA HA HA
The whole position of "gay rights as civil rights" depends on the idea that being gay is an identity.
I have no idea what an identity is. I have no idea what are the causes of homosexuality are, and how whatever those causes may be can fit into an "identity".
It's not like I think that a gay identity is an impossibility. It's just that it's a complex topic with lots of people making lots of unwarranted assumptions that I'm supposed to swallow hook, line & sinker that bugs me.
It's really aggravating to deal with any opponent who refuses, like the WaPo reporter, to see that many of his foundational assumptions are, well, just assumptions.
OK, as I read Pexton, the people who do not support same-sex marriage are definitionally bigots. Obama was definitionally a bigot himself until last year, when he changed his mind (again) about gay marriage. Everyone who voted in the 2008 Presidential election (barring perhaps the tiny fraction voting for third parties whose platforms I don't know) voted for someone who the WP ombudsman would characterize as a professed bigot.
Does anyone else find that state of affairs odd? Would Pexton himself, presumably a confirmed bigot-supporter (I'm assuming he voted in 2008, and for either McCain or Obama) find it odd?
ST,
It is not about liking or disliking people. It is about recognizing a need. Those needs differ. People argue 'slippery slope', but we've been sliding before I was even born. Gay marriage is the ending result.
The idea that I advocate against fatherlessness in my community is being equated to being a member of the KKK is wrong. But I don't have the money for the politicians pocket, so I do what I can.
Does anyone else find that state of affairs odd?
No, the manufacture of "bigots" is essential to keeping the apparatchiks of the Diversity racket fed.
Besides Obama is black and a Democrat, which places him in a whole 'nother category, somewhat superior to Jesus.
It is about recognizing a need.
I don't see the need. It doesn't exist.
Don't have any hostility either. In fact, I'll be getting paid to play at several gay weddings this summer.
Maybe these "do gooders" can ask themselves what benefit to society subsidizing gay behavior has?
Or would that be like way, way too complicated?
Still, just as I have written that The Post should do a better job of covering and understanding the anti-abortion movement, The Post should do a better job of understanding and conveying to readers, with detachment and objectivity, the beliefs and the fears of social conservatives.
And if that isn't the most condescending, paternalistic, "Oooh, let's look at the primitive natives with their quaint tribal customs!" statement I've seen in a major newspaper in, oh, a couple of weeks, I don't know what is.
I mean, specifically:
among men who have sex with men (MSM), there are higher rates of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), tobacco and drug use, and depression compared to other men
Since gay sex has no societal value, why should we encourage it and give it a marriage subsidy?
YoungHegelian,
It's really aggravating to deal with any opponent who refuses, like the WaPo reporter, to see that many of his foundational assumptions are, well, just assumptions.
Well, as they say, when you make an assumption, you make an ass of u and mption :-)
What Paco said at 3:18. And, also, what a bunch of the rest of you said.
Hm. Where in the First Amendment does it say you get to tell everyone what they can and cannot do if and only if you are an atheist? Where in the First Amendment does it say that the religious can't proselytize or use their belief to inform their opinions on secular matters?
Is that what Freedom of Religion means to Democrats?
Jay, that's just silly. We have every interest in encouraging long-term, monogamous gay partnerships. It's the absence of such a model that is the cause of the spread of HIV and other STDs.
most journalists have a problem with religionists telling people what they can and cannot do
But they have no problem with Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi telling people they have to by health insurance.
How many of these "journalists" are opposed to Mayor Bloomberg's soda ban, again?
@MDT,
Yeah, that damn Mption, always butting in where he doesn't belong!
Fuck him & the horse he rode in on, I say!
And if that isn't the most condescending, paternalistic, "Oooh, let's look at the primitive natives with their quaint tribal customs!" statement I've seen in a major newspaper in, oh, a couple of weeks, I don't know what is.
The media can't win with the permanently aggrieved wing of social conservatism (did I repeat myself?). If they don't cover you, they're ignoring you. If they are covering you and you don't like it, it's bias. And if they say they should do a better job, it's condescension.
All resentment, all victimization, all of the time.
It's the absence of such a model that is the cause of the spread of HIV and other STDs.
Sorry, but this is incorrect, Michelle.
The genesis of AIDS was a specific moment in time, the late 60s and 70s, and a particular belief system.
Gays had been living the promiscuous, urban life for eons before that.
The "coming out of the closet" and the "liberation" things caused the AIDS epidemic.
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...
Jay, that's just silly. We have every interest in encouraging long-term, monogamous gay partnerships. It's the absence of such a model that is the cause of the spread of HIV and other STDs.
Gays have no interest in monogamy.
For example:
A study to be released next month is offering a rare glimpse inside gay relationships and reveals that monogamy is not a central feature for many. Some gay men and lesbians argue that, as a result, they have stronger, longer-lasting and more honest relationships. And while that may sound counterintuitive, some experts say boundary-challenging gay relationships represent an evolution in marriage — one that might point the way for the survival of the institution.
Note this nugget:
None of this is news in the gay community, but few will speak publicly about it. Of the dozen people in open relationships contacted for this column, no one would agree to use his or her full name, citing privacy concerns. They also worried that discussing the subject could undermine the legal fight for same-sex marriage.
Isn't that nice?
YoungHegelian,
Yeah, that damn Mption, always butting in where he doesn't belong!
Fuck him & the horse he rode in on, I say!
OK for Mption, so long as s/he's over age and it's consensual, but I think the law is different wrt the horse.
Says Patrick B. Pexton ....
They see people opposed to gay rights today as cousins, perhaps distant cousins, of people in the 1950s and 1960s who, citing God and the Bible, opposed black people sitting in the bus seat, or dining at the lunch counter, of their choosing.
The unmitigated gall for Pexton to manufacture a rationale, laid to others no less, by conflating gay rights with the civil rights tribulations, of African Americans, of the 50 & 60's is astounding.
I grew up in the 40's, 50's and 60's and if I were to confront this sniveling dickwad Pexton I would spit in his face. If I were black I might feel to beat his ass.
Little Pexton bitch is an imbecile: nothing, absolutely NOTHING in the LBGT "rights" movement bears even the slightest similarity to the trials and tribulations endured in the African American civil rights movement...not in chronic severity nor general maliciousness.
Everything is NOT the frigging same...is that something journalists never learn?
Shouting Thomas said...
Does anyone else find that state of affairs odd?
No, the manufacture of "bigots" is essential to keeping the apparatchiks of the Diversity racket fed.
See Goldstein, Emmanuel; also Final Solution.
Note that several of the trolls try to focus their ire on one particular individual here at any given time. (note also that, since the commentariat turned on them, rather than whichever Goldstein was their focus at the time, we haven't seen much of them the last few days).
Don't have any hostility either. In fact, I'll be getting paid to play at several gay weddings this summer
Keep your dates open. I hear the divorce lawyers are doing a land-office business.
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...
Jay, that's just silly. We have every interest in encouraging long-term, monogamous gay partnerships. It's the absence of such a model that is the cause of the spread of HIV and other STDs.
Too bad the people pushing all of this don't.
Look into the souls of the people all around you.
Look at the personal pain they feel.
Look at their inner conflicts and split passions.
Look at the lack of peace they exhibit.
Look at how many "drugs" they have to take to get through the week. (And by drugs I mean external substances or activities that cause a physical temporary respite.)
Look at the endless wellspring of emotional pain that wells up seemingly from their very tissues.
And trace that pain right back to their upbringings and families.
And calculate the social costs of two generations of people who weren't raised in stable and loving environments, but who were told to buck up and learn how to feel secure on a fractured foundation and lots of shuttling back and forth.
My gosh, you idiot superiors of ours - can you see nothing?
Do you think you'll ever be able to pay for enough "crisis counselors" or "therapists" or build enough jails or hire enough prison guards to remedy or manage the negative social effects of cobbled together family arrangements.
The most devastating sexist argument made in our society has been two gay men claiming that their child doesn't need a female to help for character.
The feminist insisted that if they were in power that wars would end. Then they snoozed through a complete repudiation of that argument as gay men said "no thanks."
Who has eyes to see? You're not looking in the right place!
Jay is a absolute expert when it comes to knowledge of the gay world. That can only come from years of undercover research.
Michelle Dulak Thomson,
Note this:
Monogamish relationships are not about wild promiscuity or even Swingtown-style polyamory, two things the term nonmonogamy connotes. “It suggests a degree of promiscuity that isn’t true for most nonmonogamous gay couples I’ve known,” says Savage, who wants to promote qualities that make for an enduring union. “People primarily want stable, long-lasting partner bonds. They want safety.”
They also want to fuck other people, whether a relationship is open or closed
Every study ever conducted on this issue, going back 50 years, shows gays have no interest in monogamy.
Also see this:
ATLANTA - Three-quarters of Canadian gay men in relationships lasting longer than one year are not monogamous, according to a limited study presented during the American Sociological Association conference held in Atlanta this week.
Jay,
Isn't that nice?
For a lot of people I know, it isn't true. I know several gay couples (male and female) that have been together for decades, which is more than one could say for a majority of heterosexual marriages.
somefeller said...
And if that isn't the most condescending, paternalistic, "Oooh, let's look at the primitive natives with their quaint tribal customs!" statement I've seen in a major newspaper in, oh, a couple of weeks, I don't know what is.
The media can't win with the permanently aggrieved wing of social conservatism (did I repeat myself?). If they don't cover you, they're ignoring you. If they are covering you and you don't like it, it's bias. And if they say they should do a better job, it's condescension.
All resentment, all victimization, all of the time.
By George, I think he's got it.
But, then, clock, stopped, you know the drill.
(I'm just surprised he dissed his people like that)
The Male Couple: How Relationships Develop (1984)
In a study of 156 males in guy relationships lasting from one to thirty-seven years: Only seven couples have a totally exclusive sexual relationship...
Here is another:
the modal range for number of sexual partners ever [of homosexuals] was 101--500." In addition, 10.2 percent to 15.7 percent had between 501 and 1000 partners. A further 10.2 percent to 15.7 percent reported having had more than 1000 lifetime sexual partners.
Michelle Dulak Thomson,
I don't think it a good idea to base public policy on the gay couple you know when decades of research says the opposite.
garage mahal said...
Jay is a absolute expert when it comes to knowledge of the gay world. That can only come from years of undercover research.
I love it when you Democrats go all homophobe.
Of course with your high school education, that's about all you're capable of.
That can only come from years of undercover research.
With an emphasis on "undercover," I presume.
Jay, I didn't mean to interrupt you there. You seem very stimulated and excited citing your extensive research.
Jay,
Every study ever conducted on this issue, going back 50 years, shows gays have no interest in monogamy.
Oh, sure they don't. The women Florence King called the "doggy ladies," two women living together in the South with dogs -- they never, ever existed? Two scholarly bachelors living apart, but devoted to each other -- they don't exist? A couple of gay musicians who have lived together for at least 20 years -- they don't exist? A couple of elderly scholars thinly disguised as "sisters" and living together for many decades -- they don't exist?
There are monogamous gay couples. There are a lot of them. Do try to wrap your head around that fact.
For many, being monogamous means having a sexual relationship with one partner. Typically, the story unfolds as follows: man meets woman, they fall in love, they marry, and they have sex exclusively with one another for the rest of their lives. Researchers from City University in London, however, propose that the story unfolds differently for many gay male couples and therefore their relationships should be evaluated using a different set of norms. Otherwise, gay couples may find their relationships and sexual behaviors either pathologized or disregarded altogether.
If gays had any interest in conforming to marriage norms, I'd listen to them.
They don't.
So I don't listen.
All participants perceived fidelity as emotional monogamy. Thus, forming an emotional bond with an outside partner constituted cheating.” Sexual encounters with others didn’t count as “cheating” as long as it was “compartmentaliz[ed], which they defined as the process of separating sex from emotion and was key to most participants’ ability to manage sex outside the relationship.”
Do the people at the Washington Post have the slightest bit of intellectual curiosity?
Michelle Dulak Thomson,
I never said no gay couples who are monogamous don't exist.
Monogamy in gay relationships, for a majority of gays, is not the norm.
Wrap your head around that fact.
A couple of gay musicians who have lived together for at least 20 years -- they don't exist?
Nobody said this.
You citing exceptions has little relevance to the rule.
Do gooders once again steal the glory from the hysterics, busybodies and handwringers.
garage mahal said...
Jay, I didn't mean to interrupt you there.
Since gay sex has no societal value, why should we encourage it and give it a marriage subsidy?
Michelle, while we can concede there are homosexual pairings that last, homosexual relationships on the whole are notoriously unstable.
the argument that gay "marriage" will benefit both society and gays, or even just either one, is the same thought process that resulted in the South Pacific Cargo Cult.
The notion is that if you give a group all the superficial markers of a desired state, they will acquire the substance of the desired state.
Most recently, the exact same thinking caused the financial crisis and is causing the education bubble, as the liberals believed fervently that if you gave the poor all the markers of middle class, they would become middle class.
So those who can't figure out how gay marriage can hurt straight marriage, consider how giving mortgages to those who couldn't afford them hurt those who could. Because none of the people pushing that social engineering scheme could think anything could possibly go wrong, either.
So for those of you pushing the assertion that opposing gay marriage is like opposing interracial marriages, and that SSM can be very similar to heterosexual marriage, why don't you start by first listing and explaining the differences.
I know why you won't, though: if you listed the differences, it would destroy your argument. And if you pretended you couldn't think of any difference, you'd look like an idiot and a fool, and someone would supply the list of differences anyway.
There's something wrong when a law professor refuses to examine the original premises.
(Cue: "and you! A law professor!")
But ST has it right: our host has a huge blind spot in her logic to the benefit of SSM.
"The Post should do a better job of understanding and conveying to readers, with detachment and objectivity, the beliefs and the fears of social conservatives. - Washington Post ombudsman
So he announces up front that he just can't admit that there are any reasoned arguments against the positions he espouses, he's going to address only what he terms his opposition's "beliefs" (irrational) and "fears" (irrational and emotional). Oh yeah, this ought to be really edifying.
So he announces up front that he just can't admit that there are any reasoned arguments against the positions he espouses, he's going to address only what he terms his opposition's "beliefs" (irrational) and "fears" (irrational and emotional). Oh yeah, this ought to be really edifying.
What you want everyone to buy your worse fears and prejudices as well?
Jay asked ...
Do the people at the Washington Post have the slightest bit of intellectual curiosity?
Answer: NO.
In the WaPo world of unicorn bullshit, every state south of the Mason-Dixon Line, east to west, even some north of the line, had signs every where restricting gay access to restaurants, drinking fountains, bus seating, schools, colleges, and a gay or lesbian person could be arrested, and beaten, for violating any of the restrictions.
Everybody knows this...why we've barely gotten to where LBGT folk don't have to step off the sidewalk curb if a heterosexual was passing by....
Give - Me - A - fucking - Break
Since gay sex has no societal value, why should we encourage it and give it a marriage subsidy?
I beg to disagree. If certain people engaged in gay sex, or any kind of sex with other consenting adults, they might leave the rest of us alone because they'd be busy or too tired. The next time someone or a group gives you grief about SSM, tell them to literally go fuck themselves, and/or each other.
"What you want everyone to buy your worse fears and prejudices as well?"
And they are?. . . oh great know-it-all?
The reason gay marriage rights have nothing to do with the Civil Rights movement, is the latter was attempting to rectify the problem that, regardless of their behavior, they were being treated as totally different and often as less than human on the basis of a merely superficial appearance marker. The gay marriage movement is an attempt to secure benefits that, regardless if your outward appearance, are a consequence of significantly different behavior than homosexuals demonstrate.
You have to ignore all sorts of significant details about human physiology and psychology to insist that SSM share any substance with traditional marriage.
30 + years of public education and tens of billions spent on this "epidemic" and here is what we get:
In 2010, the estimated number of new HIV infections among MSM was 29,800, a significant 12% increase from the 26,700 new infections among MSM in 2008.
Although MSM represent about 4% of the male population in the United States,4 in 2010, MSM accounted for 78% of new HIV infections among males and 63% of all new infections.
We should no more be encouraging gay behavior than we should be encouraging smoking, drunk driving, and obesity.
You know, perhaps there's no coincidence that MSM stands for Main Stream Media and Men who have Sex with Men.
You know, perhaps there's no coincidence that MSM stands for Main Stream Media and Men who have Sex with Men.
That's a good one. Get it? The lame stream media are full of queers. Yuk yuk.
Remember the promotional merchandise (buttons, T shirts, posters, coffee mugs, single serving lube packets) that had the pink triangle logo and:
Silence = Death
? I proudly sported a brown button that mocked this, that said:
Anal receptive sex = Death
My fag friends laughed the hardest at this. Unsurprisingly, most of them are dead now. They were unwrapped and whoring it up big time and then oopsie that weird gay disease started happening. Wildfire.
Although MSM represent about 4% of the male population in the United States,4 in 2010, MSM accounted for 78% of new HIV infections among males and 63% of all new infections.
Frankly, I'm surprised the percentages are that low.
All journalists and progressives resent having been deprived of their latent heroism by virtue of being born too late for the civil rights movement, the real one of fifty years ago. Half a century. So every opportunity to discover and decry real or imagined racism or to create an injustice that can be conflated with civil rights, real civil rights, is an opportunity taken. This is a particularly appealing crusade because it involves no danger, no effort greater than a fierce umbrage at perceived slights and a placid enemy.
@Jay/MDT on gay monogamy,
While I tend to side more with Jay than MDT on the data, it is really a moot point once SSM passes.
Once SSM couples come before family courts for divorces & other family matters such as child care & custody, they will discover that their ideas of familiar love will hit the same unyielding brick wall that are the courts as have far too many straight couples.
Are the extramarital peccadilloes that Jay described going to used as ammunition in divorce & custody proceedings? You bet, just like they are in family courts now. The realities of the gay life, whatever they may be, are going to be dragged out into the light by lawyers & judges and used as ammunition.
In Jeb Boswell's book Christianity, Homsexuality & Social Tolerance, he describes how Roman & Greek upper class males pursued gay relationships since these relationships produced no offspring, and thus were free of the suffocating inter-family politics that infected upper class marriages. Gay men, especially, are going to discover that divorce court is the modern equivalent of those inter-family politics, and that they have traded their freedom for a mess of pottage.
Actually, it's about 1.3% of the population, but who's counting?
Nathan Alexander said...
But ST has it right: our host has a huge blind spot in her logic to the benefit of SSM.
It's called mutterliebe, and I don't think we can fight it.
When I was in college, I spent a year working for an NBC News reporter.
He kept referring to "sources" in his stories. "Sources say...." "Diplomats here believe..."
One day I said to him, "Bob, I never see you calling anyone on the phone, nor do I ever see you going out to interview people. Who are these sources?"
He looked around, as if hoping to suddenly spot "a source." Then he leaned towards me, putting a finger to his lips as if to say "I know you'll keep this secret."
Smiling, he pointed to his chest.
That's all you need to know about the profession of journalism.
The same people who support every intrusive health care regulation under the sun, every bullshit EPA rule, smoking bans, soda bans, trans fat bans, say this:
most journalists have a problem with religionists telling people what they can and cannot do.
Without a touch of irony.
You can't make that level of stupid up, folks.
If Michelle or anyone else has ideas to encourage gay monogamy, I'm all for it.
I just don't see how marriage will exactly do that, however.
Are the extramarital peccadilloes that Jay described going to used as ammunition in divorce & custody proceedings? You bet, just like they are in family courts now. The realities of the gay life, whatever they may be, are going to be dragged out into the light by lawyers & judges and used as ammunition.
Yep.
Which, in my humble opinion, is why they are already laying the ground work to redefine marriage away from monogamy.
The Dems are going to be in a real conundrum on this one in about 20 years...
Michael:
"All journalists and progressives resent having been deprived of their latent heroism by virtue of being born too late for the civil rights movement, the real one of fifty years ago."
Linked article:
"The reason that legitimate media outlets routinely cover gays is because it is the civil rights issue of our time."
I guess the idea that maybe there isn't a civil rights issue "of our time" is simply unthinkable. Or maybe it's still the same 'civil rights issue' as before, but it's less fashionable for some reason.
@jay,
Which, in my humble opinion, is why they are already laying the ground work to redefine marriage away from monogamy.
Never gonna happen. You think straight women want to lighten up on legal monogamy obligations?
You think some straight judge is going to lenient on some gay stud who thinks that because he's gay he gets to screw everything that moves, while the judge is legally bound to boinking the same old hen night after night, or else he gets taken for 50% plus child support?
No fucking way, dude.
"Any story on African-Americans wouldn’t be wholly accurate without the opinion of a racist, right?"
Well, as it presently works, only when the African-American is a conservative.
That's all you need to know about the profession of journalism.
I'm sure it was like that.
Jay said...
If Michelle or anyone else has ideas to encourage gay monogamy, I'm all for it.
I just don't see how marriage will exactly do that, however.
The Dan Savages think it's a joke, after all.
Everything is NOT the frigging same...is that something journalists never learn?
Journolists are quite well aware things aren't always he same, hence identity politics.
The problem is the journolists and PCists get to decide when things are the same, and when they are different. When you are allowed to think of things as the same, and when as different.
And other bloggers, like The Anchoress, wonder why social conservatives tend to stay out of mainstream media comment boxes. I may comment, but never stay for a conversation. It's a real drain.
Even if a gay couple may not be sexually monogamous, they maybe emotionally/financially monogamous.
In my late teens/early 20s, I felt if we had gay marriage. Gay people wouldn't have to hide and with protections promote monogamy for the sake of reducing STDs.
I live outside Boston.... I wish gay marriage did bring down the # of sexual partners. But I was thinking like it was 1999....
Straight people need to be monogamous. Sorry. Unless it is a fault base divorce, work out the marriage for the sake of the children. Divorce affects children, and confuses them.
The whole gay rights movement began with the Stonewall riots and agitation in New York . Next it got a martyr in Harvey Milk, then the AIDS epidemic gave it a crisis. The fact remains that gays are a tiny minority who wield excess power because of their financial wherewithal and the AIDS epidemic.
Gay marriage is a fad stemming from the epidemic and an attempt to reduce the natural tendency of gay males to promiscuity. It will fade with time but the damage to society will be permanent.
No fault divorce began the decline but it will be long term and probably permanent. It is no coincidence that studies by serious sociologists show that high income elites practice traditional virtues while advocating practices they don't adopt in their own lives.
"They see people opposed to gay rights today as..."
They are "journalists" and yet haven't got a clue what people's objections to gay marriage are all about. Don't they know any individuals who are from the (about) half the country that oppose gay marriage?
What is the difference between the relationships that create the next generation and the relationships that don't - in terms of civil society? One is called marriage and the rest aren't. And what is the difference between the relationships that work on raising the next generation and the relationships that don't - in terms of civil society? One is called "marriage" and the rest aren't. And why should relationships between men and men or women and women or men and dolls or women and dogs be called "marriage" in civil society? Where is the similarity? Religious arguments are another issue - note that the supporters of gay marriage start by saying that they don't want to hear any religious arguments. Well, there is a civil argument - that marriage, creating and raising children, is supremely important to the survival of society. If the supporters of "gay marriage" offered to take on the burdens of parenthood to commit to helping a poor family with 20,000 a year and hours of work every day - then I would believe they wanted to be married.
YoungHegelian said...
No fucking way, dude.
I remember when you could smoke in a movie theater, drink & drive (literally), parents smacked their children (in front of people), butter, salt, eggs, and bacon were daily dietary staples.
I totally get what you're saying, but I wish I could share your optimism.
Since the notion of childbearing and rearing always comes up when SSM vs traditional marriage is discussed, it probably should be highlighted that a SSM can raise children only through the destruction of a biological family.
I don't know how anyone can argue that's a good thing.
The fairness question is an interesting one because it shows the extent to which the people at a supposedly national newspaper have categorized a goodly share of the nation they serve as incomprehensible bigots. What we should do with this knowledge, however, is to remind ourselves that journalists are just people scribbling in their journals. Their diaries may get more readership than many other people's, but at bottom they're just chronicling the world as they see it. And we should read accordingly. Your uncle Fred may be a good guy, but you know when he gets started on immigrants it's best to offer him a beer and hope it distracts him into changing the subject. Likewise, when the press starts ranting about certain things, it's best to turn the page or change the channel. Better, put the damn paper down and shut off the noisy box. If enough of us do this, they'll go belly up if they don't shape up.
As for marriage, I think it ought to be civil unions all around. Confronted with society and the government, I do think you ought be allowed a person you can stand with against the law, the taxman and the rest of the world. I think the civil union, with the benefits conferred by marriage today, ought be the only thing. Want to make the union with your sister to shield your inheritance? Your boyfriend because he's the best? The woman you married in a church because your prepared to share your worldly goods as well as committing your heart? I don't care. Have your union with whomever you want and if you want to get "married" too, find a church to do it. In this way, we can assure that committed gay partners have equal status before the law when it comes to things like inheritance or joint filing for taxes but it's society that has to decide about messing with the institution of marriage and the idea of a union that is sacred, not just legally protected.
Well straight people were doing it first with sperm/egg donor/surrogacy industry. Not that it is right... most people today have no ethical concerns with sperm/egg donation.
I've joked that the problem with gay marriage will be gay divorce. We've seen enough lurid scandals in the gossip pages covering heterosexual divorces; I expect gay divorces to be worse. Frankly, the only one I want to see covered stars Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.
So, what would Hildy Johnson do?
Jay wrote:
Since gay sex has no societal value, why should we encourage it and give it a marriage subsidy?
I suppose some would say that we would in effect be domesticating gays so they arent' out being promiscuous. The same way that marriage domesticates heterosexuals.
But that assumes that the idea of fidelity in marriage is not something to be negotiated or reimagined or redefined just like marriage would be. In other words, women can be the breadwinners and the mom at the same time, so too can the gay person be married and commited and also out on the scene. I mean, the idea of an open marriage is bandied about by heterosexual couples.
I also know a few couples who were together, long term, before gay marriage became a hot topic (Friends of my mom when I was young). They were very nice people, but even though comitted to one another, it was more like a friendship. One of them was out every weekend hooking up with other dudes (and eventually died of Aids). If they were married, the dynamic would not be a couple based around fidelity to one another.
Granted, a few couples is anecdotal and is not true for all gays. But I think it may be truer than many gays like to let on.
We seem to have gotten off the topic of the Pexton article.
The topic wasn't whether same-sex marriage is right or wrong, good or bad per se.
The topic was whether reporters should cover both sides of the issue.
And evidently the reporters Pexton knows--as well as the liberals posting comments to the article--believe that opposition to same-sex marriage is just bigotry and should not be reported.
That's a non sequitur.
The idea that ideas one finds hateful should not be reported, is both inimical to the spirit of the First Amendment and is shortchanging one's readers.
How can anyone understand how controversial an issue this is, if they don't understand the passions driving it?
Consider a historian writing about Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. Suppose he said "Anti-semitism is so hateful and so horrible, I won't even mention it." Then his account of Nazi Germany is going to be missing some important points. Things like the Holocaust and even the invasion of Russia will lose much of their significance. That's why even Jewish historians writing about the Holocaust have to explain anti-Semitism and its history, rather than ignoring it.
The historian can despise anti-
Semitism. But he still has to talk about it.
The idea that the views of racists or those opposed to same-sex marriage should just be flushed down the memory hole is political correctness run amok. It leaves the reader baffled as to what the controversy is all about, if there's only one side to the issue!
"Renee said...
Well straight people were doing it first with sperm/egg donor/surrogacy industry. Not that it is right... most people today have no ethical concerns with sperm/egg donation."
Ummmm.... If you talk to enough people, and tell them about a sperm donor with over 300 kids, you'll find a LOT of ethical concerns about the practice.
In some cases of old, before the anonymous spem donor area and DNA tests, if it were established that the male half was infertile (default assumption was the female), the husband might go away for a weekend, and Cousin Bob would be called to help with an emergency fix in the house that can't wait. Voila, a few weeks later, wife is miraculously pregnant! Keep it the family...
Sort of like abortion. Recently had a talk with a young lady (27 to me is young) and described partial birth abortion to her. She was horrified, but told me it couldn't really happen, because third trimester abortions could only occur for medical reasons to save the mother. She was equally horrified to find out that medical reason could include, "Well, menatlly, I just think I can't handle a kid right now." Big loophole there...
There's a lot of ignorance out there about social issues. A lot. A whole lot.
Do they support all forms of coupling, no matter how unproductive or transitory? Do they support extending benefits and consideration for couplings between young and old, between more than one man and more than one woman, between brother and sister, between parent and child, between human and animal? Why restrict their good intentions to normalize homosexual behavior? Surely the "intelligent" people at Washington Post are capable of discerning the relevant criteria between rejecting, tolerating, and normalizing a behavior.
I find it amusing when people embrace evolution, but reject its principles as inconvenient. It leads me to believe that their interest is exclusively in an article of faith with which they enjoy beating their competing interests over the head and marginalizing their influence in society.
However, not nearly as amusing as when people raise their voice for civil and human rights, while simultaneously supporting the premeditated murder of boys and girls without names, without voices to protest, and without Arms to challenge their premature termination.
As for men and women who choose a homosexual behavior, it can be tolerated to a point. As can other behaviors which do not strictly violate the rights of others, and only become a concern when they reach a critical threshold in a society, where dysfunction behaviors become overwhelming (not necessarily a democratic majority).
As for men and women who are pro-abortion and pro-choice, the critical threshold for premeditated murder is assigned at the first boy or girl who is murdered by a hired assassin or their own mother.
Anyway, it seems that nominally heterosexual men and women have discovered a convenient alliance with homosexual men and women. They hope to raise their voices together and offer common defense to their dysfunctional behaviors.
Jay said ...
[implying they are not] ... butter, salt, eggs, and bacon were daily dietary staples.
Whot!? When did they become NOT staples? Every modern breakfast should include the ingredients of Jimmy Dean's Meat-lovers Breakfast Bowls. Yeah...that'd be potatoes, salt, bacon, sausage, eggs, and butter, plus cheese.
I fix mine with extra cheese and butter, plus I add Better Made's cheese sause on top of it all....as well as add a cold fresh orange or pear on the side. Uhm, uhm, guuuud. No bowls to clean up c;eam up, just recycle.
Kashi is fer goats and rodents.
Gbarto said: I do think you ought be allowed a person you can stand with against the law, the taxman and the rest of the world. I think the civil union, with the benefits conferred by marriage today, ought be the only thing.
See now I consider that a very strong argument - in a way."... you ought be allowed a person you can stand with against the law, the taxman and the rest of the world". But then note that this has to be "with the benefits conferred by marriage today". Those benefits exist because of the great benefits marriage and the family confer on society. So to get those benefits, I think you have to agree to make an equal contribution. And I don't think anyone expects the gay community to accept as a matter of law and obligation that gay married couples have to make a contribution similar to that of married couples at the present.
Oooops, I'm sorry....I got off the gay marriage track. See what happens when you just don't give a shit?
Pexton, his point is pointless. But I would favor signs specifically excluding just him from restrooms, hotels, anything but the back seats of buses, drinking fountains, restaurants, and requiring him to step off the curb when anyone else on earth walks by....just to give the little weenie boy a taste of what he alludes to in his drivel.
And I still wouldn't give a shit.
Renee,
There are two problems with drawing the line from homosexual destruction of biological ties to heterosexual destruction of biological ties.
First, for heterosexuals, it is the exception, not the norm; for homosexuals, it is inherent and unavoidable. There are many things which make you healthier when taken in trace amounts that will kill you when done to excess.
Second, it is a mistake and an obscurantism to try to make it a bilateral divide based on orientation. The true divide is between those whose normal principles are committed to the preservation of the biological family on one side (conservatives) and those who are apathetic toward the importance of biological family at best, and downright hostile toward the traditional family at worst (liberals).
It is liberals who pushed no-fault divorce that increased the divorce rate, it is feminists who pressure women into having a career before having children so that more and more women delay pregnancy until they are at the age that fertility is a problem and need surrogacy and sperm donation. It is liberals who push the idea that two dads or two moms is as good or better than the biological father and mother married and together in the children's lives, it is liberals that developed welfare in disregard for how it has destroyed the family for black society (dooming them to multi-generational poverty and dependence on big govt politicians).
So gay marriage is just another facet if the same program that, inadvertently or not, is destroying traditional family, stability, and wealth in the US.
By their fruits you shall know them. There is no reason to trust liberals on anything they push for, it all ends in poverty, unemployment, euthanasia, abortion, and higher taxes to funnel money to cronies.
As part of widespread ignorance about social issues, there's the idea that opposition to SSM stems soley from religious beliefs. I'm against it, without a single religious reason for being so.
To start with, the idea is silly. And I mean that sincerely, it is just silly. There is zero benefit to society from recognizing SSM. None. Benefits perhaps to the "couples", but none to society. When society sanctions a behavior, it should be one that benefits society.
Which is the same reason I oppose AFDC as it is currently set up- it sanctions and subsidizes single parenthood, most often, motherhood, something which statistically is very bad for society. Take a look at the percentage of inmates that come from single parent families- it is a lot larger then the percentage of single parent households.
Second, there are 7 continents, 6 with human society, and history of those humans dating back thousands of years. All kinds of relationships have been tried, in all kinds of experimentation, though it wasn't called experimentation. Only two types of marriage have led to successful society reproduction during that time. Monogamous opposite sex marriages, and 1 man multiple female marriages. There are multiple examples here in the U.S. of group marriage communities. The Oneida Community is the first that comes to mind. They all have one thing in common- failure. None have survived a single generation past the death of the strong personality cult leader figure who founded the community. And I will further mention here that taking a goofd hard look at the polygamous societies in the world today give a really good reason to support monogamy.
If SSM was such a great idea, then somewhere in human history there would be an example of where it was tried and worked, at least for a little while. There isn't such an example.
And for those citing the Roman Empire and the acceptance or homosexual relationships oftimes outside of marriage as an example- perhaps you want to rethink this. Without looking, I'm pretty sure this "acceptance" came at the late, decadent stages of the Roman Empire. You know, that era that occurred just before the Roman Empire fell to barbarians. Which leads to the inescapable conclusion that widespread acceptance of homosexual behavior leads to societal collapse, not strengthening.
It's hard to posit a self-sustaining society that encourages same sex relationships. Because self-sustaining requires children. I read a lot of science fiction. The only treatment I've seen of a stable homosexual society iss "Ethan of Athos" by Bujold. Required the development of uterine replicators and the utter rejection of females... Interesting read. Absolutely certain I wouldn't want to live on Athos.
Renee - and liberals also caused Nathan's toe fungus and the crabgrass in his yard! They are very dastardly and cause all bad things. Don't forget that.
That’s why many journalists have a hard time giving much voice to those opposed to gay marriage. They see people opposed to gay rights today as cousins, perhaps distant cousins, of people in the 1950s and 1960s who, citing God and the Bible, opposed black people sitting in the bus seat, or dining at the lunch counter, of their choosing.
It amuses me when people disparage the mores and values of a past era while urgently trying to usher them back. I suspect that the writer wishes us to return to a 50's economy and tax rates as well.
Judges have been caught boinking every thing that moves as well, or at least trying to. It's in the Bible. Check out first Samuel and the Apocrypha. There was no king in Israel and everyone did as was right in his own eyes.
Isn't the taboo against incest based on the genetic risks of in-breeding, and therefore, wouldn't it be OK for gays to marry close relatives, since the DNA exchange is strictly incidental?
That's it, somafeller. Ignore facts and take comfort in sarcasm.
That's the liberal way.
I prefer to use the term progressive over liberal. When I held these types of ideals in my late teens, I wouldn't describe myself as liberal. maybe back then, people still used the word liberal in the classical sense. Rather I would describe myself as progressive, but really I was in the closet being pro-life and as a theist (that's correct I believed in God, how not cool).
But today progressives aren't progressives, too narcissistic or lazy. Wear a bracelet for a cause and a Facebook like, and that's all is needed.
Many Gays wanting to get married are hypocrites.
Why? Because they want to limit marriage to two people.
When I've asking some 'how can you limited marriage to just two people?' they respond by saying that 'marriage is just for two people.'
So while they think it's ok for two men or two women to 'marry' they draw the line at three people marrying.
They don't have the strength of their convictions.
But today progressives aren't progressives, too narcissistic or lazy. Wear a bracelet for a cause and a Facebook like, and that's all is needed.
And yet, according to your comments above, interacting with progressives drains you and reading what they think about you makes you cry. Sounds like you're the one who is being narcissistic and lazy! Or is your depression and fatigue a medical condition? If so, you should be able to get some help thanks to Obamacare.
Most progressives in the comment section are my age or older. They're old, but completely abandoned things like the fight against genetically modified foods.
I guess I'm talking from when I was a young adult compared to young adults today.
Most progressives in the comment section are my age or older. They're old, but completely abandoned things like the fight against genetically modified foods.
Yes, because the fight against genetically modified foods was one of the top issues for progressives over the past 20 years. Hugely important, right up there with health insurance reform. And those hypocrites totally abandoned it! Such progressives aren't progressive.
Actually we did not talk about health care reform... we did talk a lot about preventative medicine and the environment.
Health care reform deals a lot with health insurance companies and costs. Remember it was Republican Mitt Romney who is a co-founder of health care reform. Massachusetts health-care reform is NOT Obamacare. Even local progressives are critical of Obama.
In Massachusetts people had access medical care, including the ability to buy health insurance through their employer. The problem was employees took the risk and didn't buy any health insurance, then they walked into the ER looking for care with no ability to pay. Screwing over the hospitals.
In Massachusetts, yes you have to take your employer's health insurance, unless you want to find your own. If you really don't have an option through the employer/self employed, the state has a venue to buy private insurance. It's not MassHealth. It's not public.
The penalties only really hit anyone, if they're making well over 100k as a family.
Aridog said...
Jay said ...
[implying they are not] ... butter, salt, eggs, and bacon were daily dietary staples.
Whot!? When did they become NOT staples? Every modern breakfast should include the ingredients of Jimmy Dean's Meat-lovers Breakfast Bowls. Yeah...that'd be potatoes, salt, bacon, sausage, eggs, and butter, plus cheese.
I'm surprised Mayor Bloomberg hasn't followed you to the grocery store and had you arrested!
I'm no longer allowed to comment at the Washington Post.
Apparently I made fun of the slow kids on their staff.
Well. That and the whole concept that the Washington Post is some kind of news organization for grown ups.
Which it totally isn't.
Jay said ...
I'm surprised Mayor Bloomberg hasn't followed you to the grocery store and had you arrested!
That runty little cracker would not be welcome here in Detroit...nor in Dearborn where we like our "smoothies" big and cold, and our confections ultra sweet, packed with nuts, drenched with honey. Without his entourage of well armed body guards little motor mouth Bloomie would be downright funny to watch here...before he vanished.
Rusty said...
I'm no longer allowed to comment at the Washington Post.
Damn! Some people have all the luck!
The interesting thing there is that he considers Wapo reporters "out in the world" as oppose to being some one of the most insular and cosseted group of professionals to inflict their opinions on others.
Reporters, please get over yourself. You ask important people questions and write down what they say. You're an overly-schooled stenographer.
And news organizations don't have the cash to do investigative reporting any more, which is why you haven't been outside the beltway in years. "Out in the world", you know, where the rest of us are.
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