Gay marriage in Utah put on hold

[8]

So this very topic just hit me here at work. I have an associate who is lesbian, in a long-term committed relationship (20 years+). Her partner had a heart attack over christmas that caused massive damage, and the doctors told her there is nothing they can do. So she took some time off this week to arrange for hospice for her and get some legal things taken care of, such as power of attorney. In the meantime, we had her apply for FMLA since she would undoubtedly be missing work, and that would ensure her job was protected and she had the time she needs, even though I knew the outcome of the request. My company allows the associates to choose to use their vacation time if they want, or to take unpaid time, when using their FMLA, and this would also protect her from burning through all of her vacation taking care of a loved one so she doesn't get fired later in the year due to attendance issues. But, of course, since they cannot be legally married (even though they had the ceremony performed at one point, it ain't legal), her FMLA was denied. Now I have a very solid associate with a devastating life situation that runs a real risk of losing her job, all because she chose to love and be loyal, for over 2 decades, to someone of the same sex.

Of course, I am bucking the trend, and flipped HR the bird, and we are granting her intermittent leave as needed to take care of this situation, but that decision isn't popular because it sets a precedent. But it is the right thing to do.

That's brutal.

For all we know they could have the strongest emotional bond in human history. Meanwhile, the guy who has beaten his wife for thirty years will have no problems getting leave under the circumstances. Obviously, these are the most extreme scenarios, but even if all things are equal it's still dumb.

 

[PearlWatson]

No they don't. They cannot get an officially recognized marriage now, with all of the inherent benefits. No company is required to recognize their partner as a "spouse" for legal purposes. Insurance plans are not required to allow a partner to be listed as a spousal beneficiary or dependent. They also do not receive the same tax benefits of married couples. So the "freedom" in this case is the freedom to choose who they want to be "committed" to and not be forced to forfeit benefits as a result of that choice.

In California homosexuals had all these "benefits" under civil unions, minus the stay-at-home-mom federal tax benefit, and yet they still demanded their union be called marriage.

We all do this every single day. Insurance companies have very highly-paid individuals whose jobs are to assess risk, and make life and death decisions based on their assessment before the fact. We all use imperfect data to make decisions every single day. We take what evidence we have and either present that as valid reasoning for a decision, or use it to speculate on a course of action. Why is it unreasonable to ask for someone's assessment of future risk of allowing gay marriage, and the evidence behind it, and then debate that assessment?

They can do risk assessment of things that have already occurred, but we have never had homosexual marriage to assess the effects of...until very recently.

This is a good time to ask your assessment of this phrase in the Mormon Family Proclamation (I assume you still are a Mormon):

"Further, we warn that the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets."

What are the calamities foretold? I assume they are sociological/moral calamities that would greatly effect souls, no?

Do you consider the health and well-being of children and the disintegration of the legal and moral framework of our country as "valid?"

While still debatable, this is probably the best footing for the anti-gay marriage stance. The function of the family unit in society. I believe that a child would be best served by a loving father and a loving mother. Even in nature we see that the genders take cues and learn from other members of the pack or herd how to behave and maintain the standards of their societies, such as they are. But then we get into the weeds of what makes a fit parent to begin with? And is it better to have 2 loving fathers, or a loving mother and an absentee father, or worse, abusive father? Again, where is the evidence that a stable gay-parenting household is automatically worse than ANY other alternative? Because we certainly allow bad parents to marry and raise kids right now.

The beef I have with homosexuals and parenting is when they purposely bring a baby into the world and deprive that child of a mother or father. The rest is just "weeds" as you say.

Was slavery "right" before the majority was willing to vote it down? In other words, since 30 years before Lincoln any kind of vote on the topic of slavery would have been overwhelmingly pro, does that mean it was right, and suddenly, when the majority decided they didn't like it anymore, it suddenly became "wrong"?

The only relevance Lincoln has to this conversation is his signing of the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act.

Denying a certain group of the population basic rights based on an arbitrary and ultimately insignificant difference from the majority with no real reason to do so is just not defensible. And fighting the fight drains resources that could go to much more important endeavors. Ergo, fighting an imaginary evil with real resources creates a real detriment to society, and "fixes" only imagined ills.

Of course I take exception to your use of "basic rights," "arbitrary," "insignificant," "real reason," and "real resources" so the last paragraph was not quite as persuasive as you might have hoped.

 

[PearlWatson]

Banning gay marriage.

For the LDS (or other religious people) posters: How do you square away banning gay marriage with free agency? If all the behaviors that are sins are banned what's the point? Isn't that the whole reason the war in heaven was fought? (rhetorical).

You could replace gay marriage with cigarettes, booze, weed, fornication, polygamy...are we not supposed to have the right to choose? I am aiming at the religious side of the argument. Not the secular side.

The behavior that is a sin is homosexual relations and that ain't against the law and happens before homosexuals tried to redefine the meaning and purpose of marriage, so this "free agency" b.s. can be put to rest.

 

[LogGrad98]

The behavior that is a sin is homosexual relations and that ain't against the law and happens before homosexuals tried to redefine the meaning and purpose of marriage, so this "free agency" b.s. can be put to rest.

So what are the detriments of allowing gay marriage? How will it damage society, even if it is just speculation?

 

[PearlWatson]

I don't get your point. Gay sex isn't illegal. Cigarettes aren't illegal. Booze isn't illegal. Fornication isn't illegal. Polygamous living isn't illegal. Can you clarify what you mean?

edit: sorry, I skipped over weed. Weed is illegal in most states, that's true.

Tell that to the Sister Wives.

 

[TroutBum]

Log asked you a question, Dumb *** Watson. I know you've made a career out of running your mouth like an incessant fool, hiding when confronted, and then ignoring any/all facts that are presented to you, but come on, just this once, answer the Gods damned question, you chicken **** bag of dump.

"So what are the detriments of allowing gay marriage? How will it damage society, even if it is just speculation?"

 

[PearlWatson]

So what are the detriments of allowing gay marriage? How will it damage society, even if it is just speculation?

I've already mentioned some, but what do my speculations matter when I'm simply answering the call of Mormon prophets I thought you were a follower of :

"WE CALL UPON responsible citizens and officers of government everywhere to promote those measures designed to maintain and strengthen the family as the fundamental unit of society."

Legally:
If you legally degrade the states/people's power to continue this restriction on marriage you degrade their power to continue other restrictions...# of marriages, age of marriages
Homosexuals will further abuse their new found legal status as a battering ram against the religious rights and livelihoods of Christians.
Homosexuals will not be satisfied with state sanctioned homosexual "marriage" and will demand religions recognize their "legal" marriages or lose their ability to perform marriages. This is about total moral acceptance, an anti-Christian movement.

Morally:
Legal status will empower government schools to teach homosexuality as morally acceptable to children from Christian families.
This is why I ain't a libertarian: "We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. . . . Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
We already have a hard enough time convincing young males of the value of marriage and of providing for and raising children, this degradation of the purpose and meaning of marriage will only make the civilizing of males that much harder.

 

[PearlWatson]

I know too many men, and too many women, who are counter-examples to believe this. We train boys to like blowing things up and girls to dislike it, but it is not innate.

Oh really? How many female homicide-bombers are you friends with? You would have to be swimming in burka chick mobs to counter the overwhelming and obvious evidence that human males are inherently the most dangerous creatures on the planet.

 

[cowhide]

I've already mentioned some, but what do my speculations matter when I'm simply answering the call of Mormon prophets I thought you were a follower of :

"WE CALL UPON responsible citizens and officers of government everywhere to promote those measures designed to maintain and strengthen the family as the fundamental unit of society."

Legally:
If you legally degrade the states/people's power to continue this restriction on marriage you degrade their power to continue other restrictions...# of marriages, age of marriages
Homosexuals will further abuse their new found legal status as a battering ram against the religious rights and livelihoods of Christians.
Homosexuals will not be satisfied with state sanctioned homosexual "marriage" and will demand religions recognize their "legal" marriages or lose their ability to perform marriages. This is about total moral acceptance, an anti-Christian movement.

Morally:
Legal status will empower government schools to teach homosexuality as morally acceptable to children from Christian families.
This is why I ain't a libertarian: "We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. . . . Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
We already have a hard enough time convincing young males of the value of marriage and of providing for and raising children, this degradation of the purpose and meaning of marriage will only make the civilizing of males that much harder.

Actually the founding fathers were outstanding individuals but very flawed human beings they owned slaves. The USA has done many immoral things and christians have been behind many of these immoral things. The problem with making laws based upon morals is wrong because the constitution protects people's rights regardless of their morality (even criminals have rights under the constitution). Any gov't who tries to force their moral culture on the population is setting themselves up for failure because not everyone shares the same religious or moral beliefs. The founding fathers understood this and that is why they decided to put this protection in the constitution. However, many religious people have a history of trying to shove their particular beliefs down other people's throats while they continually cry about how they are the one's being attacked.

You cannot have morality when a group of people are being oppressed and not allowed to have the same rights as another group. The reason why the Supreme Court will ultimately decide that Utah and other states cannot keep Lesbian/Gay people from marrying is because it is violation of the 14th amendment. So waving the morality flag will fail like it should because the Founding fathers were smart enough to know based on their own experiences that allowing one religion to dominate would lead to the failure of this newly found country they were trying to keep united. You can't cry about your religious freedoms being taken away from you (which they are not) and then turn around using your moral judgments to take away another person's right to be who they are. This is why there is conflict in the world. Your argument is weak because the only argument most anti-gay people have is it is immoral and it makes them uncomfortable. Same excuses used against interracial marriage and women working and the reason why the anti-gay crowd will lose another Supreme court decision.

The idea that gays are making it more difficult to convince males to marry is ridiculous and only demonstrates how weak your argument is against gay marriage. Perhaps if there is an actual crisis regarding marriage instead of blaming gays/lesbians how about using some of that personal responsibility stuff and look in the mirror to find the culprit regarding the bad state of heterosexual marriage. The so-called protectors of marriage should stop spending time and money "protecting" marriage and work on being better partners in their own marriage. With a divorce rate of over 50 percent, adultery, incest, molestations etc the family unit seems to be "under attack" by the same protectors who profess the gays are the problem.

 

[cowhide]

Some weirdos don't get that. Jim Green, a tea party nut job from Heber City writes weekly into the Dnews and SLTrib about how Utah is a sovereign state. Apparently he still feels as if we are under the AoC and not the Constitution.

But I think most have issue with the 14th amendment. The 14th amendment was written in reference to slaves. Many feel that activist judges have now stretched the 14th amendment to cover "lifestyles" (since mormons/Christians believe homosexuality is a choice).

Similar to Citizens United. Is money a form of speech? Ummmm no. But I guess an activist judge could make a case for it. Is marriage a right? I guess one could make an argument that loving v Virignia was an activist ruling. As was ruling that a gay marriage ban violates the 14th amendment, which was written in regards to ones race and not lifestyle choice.

The issue that we have here is that Christians don't believe gays are born that way. They believe that hey are choosing a lifestyle of homosexuality. If it isn't a choice then it isn't a sin. If it isn't a sin then Apostle Paul and other religious doctrine is wrong.

It really doesn't matter what Christians think, they can think it is a sin or a choice the problem is what they believe should never be included in the decision about the law. While the constitution -14th amendment was addressing the rights of slaves it doesn't mean that it cannot be used as a protection for any person being discriminated against. A major reason for the court is to settle constitutional disputes due to the many interpretations of the constitution. You can't throw out the 14th amendment based upon what you (not you personally) think was the intention of the founding fathers. If this were the case then the 2nd and 1st amendments would be more restrictive.

The most disturbing part of this argument is how religious people complain about being attacked for their beliefs(complete bs) and then turn around and attack people for having different beliefs.

 

[cowhide]

Many Mormon voters in Utah are probably some of the worst informed (politically) voters out there. Many are sheltered and tend to mix religion with politics too often. I remember a kind neighbor of mind, a wonderful relief society member, commenting on how "nice" it was to have a President in the WH who prayed. This was in reference to Bush just after he signed his ruinous tax cuts and invaded Iraq. She clearly had no idea about his policies. All that mattered was his appearance/level of religiousosity.


As a result, I think many Utah voters fear that if gay marriage continues in Utah then the government may force the church to seal homosexual couples.

I think many believe that homosexuality is a sin. By legalizing it, it gives the appearance as an acceptable lifestyle... Which may or may not lead children to believe that it's acceptable/appealing. Heck, they may even lose the belief that homosexuality is a sin!

I think many are paranoid about the federal government and feel like this is another case of the federal government overstepping.

We as a state could benefits from hearing from other parties, political voices, and religions. Our culture is too one sided

Man, it sounds like you live next to my mother.

 

[cowhide]

Do you think the gay rights people would be satisfied with civil unions that aren't called marriages, but which are otherwise equivalent? I certainly don't think they would be, and I think that's been shown. So this does seem--on both sides!--to be at least in part about the integrity of what the word "marriage" means.

Why should they have to be satisfied with calling it civil unions? Marriage is a word and the state has always had the power to marry people. It is religious people who get their panties all scrunched up when gay people want the SAME rights as they do. Marriage only became scared in the eyes of religious people because the church started marrying people.