gay marriage

[allmy$to930]

ggw, I took no issue with the unemployment rate...thanks for the stats.
 
 I simply thought shifting fast food jobs into the manufacturing sector was pathetic.
 
 I think we need to come to terms with higher unemployment rates...that is the cost of efficiency. The talk of pushing the retirement age back will only add to the problem.

[ggw]

Originally posted by allmy$to930:
 I simply thought shifting fast food jobs into the manufacturing sector was pathetic.
 

It is kind of pathetic.  But the Democrats have made manufacturing job loss under Bush a campaign platform, conveniently ignoring the fact that manufacturing jobs have been declining steadily since the late-1960s.  We just aren't a manufacturing nation anymore, we are a service economy.  
 
 Over the long term, productivity in manufacturing has increased at a consistently strong pace, so sales would have needed to expand even faster for employment to show any gains. But the growth in demand for manufactured goods has not kept pace with the growth in productivity, as consumers continue to devote more of their spending to services instead of goods. In addition, U.S. manufacturers have faced competition from countries where businesses face lower compensation costs. Finally, the downward trend is in part a statistical artifact: manufacturers are increasingly using contract and temporary labor, which provides jobs that, in the past, would have shown up in the statistics as manufacturing employment but now do not.
 
 Unfortunately, politicians do pathetic things like reclassifying workers so that everything fits into neat little soundbites and nobody has to think about the more complicated issues underlying.

[Venerable Bede]

Originally posted by allmy$to930:
  I think we need to come to terms with higher unemployment rates...that is the cost of efficiency. The talk of pushing the retirement age back will only add to the problem.

actually, unemployment rates are staid or slightly higher precisely because of efficiency.  i believe that productivity rates are consistently high and/or increasing despite the lack of job growth throughout the employment sectors.  that's why there's been all this talk about the jobless recovery. . .the current workforce has been able to handle the increased workload in the same amount of time before, due to efficiencies in the work place.

[godsshoeshine]

as a nonchristian, its really hard for me to vote for a republican due to the national party's pandering to these groups. i may be a hardcore civil libertarian, but i am much more open to fiscal policy. i would have voted for mccain over gore (still say johnny would have trounced al) though.

[kosmo vinyl]

the equal rights amendment didn't get passed, so lets just exclude more people while were at it.

[RatBastard]

Sorry if it offends anyone but I voted against gay mariage.  While I have friends and family members who live alternative lifestyles, I do not think that marriage is the correct avenue.  What this really boils down to is that people either 1) just want the title or 2) really are fighting for the rights that come along with marriage.  If it is the former then the discussion is not even worth the trouble.  This leaves the later.
 
 I do believe that anyone who is not married gets the short end of the stick in many situatuions and that this should be addressed.  For example in most hospitals, a patient in intensive care can only be visited by immedaite family.  Not thats about stupid.  The rule should be something like limiting the vistor list to three poeple of the patients choice.  It should not be tied to mariage.  This is just an example, but most (if not all) of the 'rights' that non-marrieds get shorted on that in turn should be afforded to others can and should be addressed by changing how those rights are granted.  They have nothing to do with marriage at all.  (Thats the VERY VERY short version of my point of view.)
 
 Bottom line is that I do agree that many folks including gays get shorted.  I dont think though that marriage is the way to eliminate the shortings.  I think we ought to address the areas where these issue really rest and take care of them there.  I don't think that marriage in and of itself is one of those issues.
 
 Thanks for allowing me to speak my side.  As I said up front it was not intended to piss anyone off.  Just wanted to give my take on things.
 
 BTW I am not a member of any political party or group of any sort.  I do not vote based on the label next to a candidates name...
 
 
 DB

[Bags]

Originally posted by god's shoeshine:
  as a nonchristian, its really hard for me to vote for a republican due to the national party's pandering to these groups.

You'll love this, shoeshine:
 
 Feb. 24, 2004  |  George Bush's proposed 2005 budget cuts funding for veterans' healthcare and public housing. It freezes funding for after-school programs and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families grants. It provides less than one-sixth of the increase needed to close the budget shortfall in the AIDS Drug Assistance Program, which helps low-income HIV patients access medical care and lifesaving drugs. It cuts state Medicaid funding by $1.5 billion.
 
 Yet when it comes to abstinence education, money seems to be no object. Bush's budget recommends $270 million for programs that try to dissuade teenagers from having sex, double the amount spent last year.  Much of that money would be given in grants to Christian organizations such as Youth for Christ and to anti-abortion groups operating so-called crisis pregnancy centers, outfits that masquerade as women's health clinics but deliver a strongly anti-abortion message and often medically inaccurate information.
 
 Federally funded abstinence education has been around since 1996, when Clinton's welfare reform bill provided grants to states to teach abstinence. Under Bush, though, it has expanded dramatically, from $97.5 million when he took office to $270 million next year. Bush has also retooled abstinence-only funding so that most of it is given directly to private groups, several of them evangelical religious organizations, and he has put it under the same agency that runs his faith-based initiatives.
 
  Salon magazine

[flawd101]

why should we care. let he butt fuckers get married!! it wont hurt you.  the gov just wants more tax money.
 
 "dman, it's Hansel, He's so hot right now"
          -my new DVD, ZOOLANDER
 even though it is not a  Tenacious as the last Dvd i bought...  

[Bags]

Originally posted by RatBastard:
  Sorry if it offends anyone but I voted against gay mariage.  While I have friends and family members who live alternative lifestyles, I do not think that marriage is the correct avenue.  What this really boils down to is that people either 1) just want the title or 2) really are fighting for the rights that come along with marriage.  If it is the former then the discussion is not even worth the trouble.  This leaves the later.
 

RB, I am happy to see your thoughts on this --they're straightfoward and well stated, allowing for discussion of the issue.  Never anything wrong with that!
 
 It is the later of your two options, I believe, that gay marriage proponents seek -- the rights that come with marriage.  And in fact, most of my gay friends whom I talk with about this don't care if there's gay marriage or not as long as civil unions come with those rights.  
 
 However, I don't think those things are what this debate is *really* about.  My objection is to the pro-active attack of gay marriage by the right, as if 'traditional' marriage is the sacrosant bedrock upon which our nation is built (hey, doesn't 'traditional marriage' mean it's not allowed between races?).  If that's the case, I want every divorced or twice-married congressperson and politician out of office NOW.  Because they do not honor or abide by the sanctity of the institution of marriage.
 
 Further, it is through the *exclusion* of gays that I believe the amendment-proponents are painting homosexuals into a special class.  And this burns me up, because this is their VERY argument against any kind of civil rights or protection laws for gays -- that they don't need "special laws" because they are not a special or protected class.
 
 Hmmmm, hypocrisy?  CAN'T BE.
 
 So the debate, for me, is about the loaded intentions at the heart of the amendment and the debate's complete unmasking of hyprocrisy upon hypocrisy by the "traditional marriage stalwarts."

42

[nkotb]

Rat, what is the difference in your opinion between straight couples just wanting the title of marriage and gay couples wanting it?  Just curious...

[Charlie Nakatestes, Japanese Golfer]

Unless you're married yourself, I don't think you're really qualified to define what marriage is and what marriage isn't.

[godsshoeshine]

Originally posted by Rutherford J. Balls:
  Unless you're married yourself, I don't think you're really qualified to define what marriage is and what marriage isn't.

then how is one supposed to decide whether to get married in the first place?

[ggw]

Originally posted by god's shoeshine:
  then how is one supposed to decide whether to get married in the first place?

Don't feed the trolls

[Venerable Bede]

Originally posted by Bags:
 
 
 However, I don't think those things are what this debate is *really* about.  My objection is to the pro-active attack of gay marriage by the right, as if 'traditional' marriage is the sacrosant bedrock upon which our nation is built (hey, doesn't 'traditional marriage' mean it's not allowed between races?).  If that's the case, I want every divorced or twice-married congressperson and politician out of office NOW.  Because they do not honor or abide by the sanctity of the institution of marriage.
 
 Further, it is through the *exclusion* of gays that I believe the amendment-proponents are painting homosexuals into a special class.  And this burns me up, because this is their VERY argument against any kind of civil rights or protection laws for gays -- that they don't need "special laws" because they are not a special or protected class.
 

divorce is a red herring.  there are set rules for divorce, both civil and religious. . .with catholic divorce being the most rigorous.  presumably, those rules were followed to the satisfaction of the courts and/or respective church.  but marriage is, initially, a religious institution, and secondly, a civil institution.  since the religious option is unavailable, the civil option is the only way to go.  
 
 this is a state matter that the federal government should not step into.  however, bush, as leader of the country, should be allowed to voice his opinion on the matter.  even kerry and edwards don't support gay marriage.  his support for a constitutional amendment though is nonsense.  people throw out this constitutional amendment thing every so often to show how much they really support something, but everyone knows that it won't happen. . ever.