Landmark gay marriage trial starts today in California

Dennis Hollingsworth, the Intervenor-Defendant in the case, says it is his mission to "save marriage in California".So, boys and girls, can you guess which of the Ten Commandments he's broken?Yes, that's right. The one about adultery. Apparently he feels that marriage is sacred bond between a man and any number of women, and that if he can't be monogamous no-one else should be.

Well I don't see that this is particularly a problem, since why on earth would any gay couple want to be married by a homophobe? Especially since even if he's compelled to marry them, he is still free to add: "You may now kiss the .. other groom ... oh, and by the way, in God's eyes you're not really married and you'll burn in Hell".Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Spouses have visitation rights, and count as next-of-kin for the purposes of making medical decisions for next-of-kin. Unmarried partners don't.So if gay people are allowed to marry, tragedies like this would be averted: That would make Baby Jesus cry.Now, some people unduly biased by facts and logic might say that Obama's directive of April 15th 2010 makes the whole point moot, since it will make hospitals extend the same courtesies to unmarried partners. But not so the Family Research Council: as senior FRC fellow Peter S. Sprigg explained, Obama's memorandum "undermines the definition of marriage", adding, "Yeah, the whole separate but equal thing was just a big con --- let's admit it, we just hate faggots".I made that last bit up, obviously. Imagine one of them being honest.

This is addressed in point 62 of Judge Walker's findings of fact: Any couple foolish enough to want to compel a ceremony from an unwilling pastor would have an uphill legal battle, since that would involve challenging a (rather crucial, IMHO) finding of fact in the very decision that acknowledged their right to marry in the first place. Legally, they'd be sawing off the leg they were standing on.

But is there an human right to be married by whoever you want? I don't think there is. Lots of people are qualified to conduct marriages, but that doesn't mean that you can compel any particular one of them to perform a marriage at a time or a place or for a couple of your choosing.The issue is not without its parallels. A lawyer is in the law business, and everyone has a right to employ counsel, but this doesn't mean that you can compel any particular person qualified as a lawyer to take your case if he thinks you're in the wrong --- or if he's busy, or retired, or you don't have enough money, or if he doesn't like your face, or any other reason that seems sufficient to him.---And I would point out that liberty of conscience is also a human rights issue. You don't pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger, and you don't mess around with the Free Exercise Clause.

And? And the same should apply to state employees whose business it is to perform marriages, issue licenses, or whatever. But so far as I know, there is nothing compelling a Roman Catholic priest (for example) to perform any secular marriages at all, whether for Adam and Eve or Adam and Steve. He is allowed to say that marriage is a religious sacrament of his church and that's that. I have no problem with religion becoming unfashionable.

I think he actually wants to combat racism and bigotry with satire, sarcasm, and irony.

Couldn't we just deport all the jerks irrespective of race or origin?You may ask: where to? Well, Antarctica's nice big and mostly empty.On the other hand, penguins are part-black and some of them are gay, so there could be the seeds of a conflict there.My money's on the penguins.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Apparently the parents agree with you, which is why they are: "giving their child hormone blockers that delay the onset of puberty, so that he can have more time to decide if he wants to change his gender."

Only if he wants to be a lesbian ...

Ah, well, if you meant that 11 years old was too young to delay the onset of puberty, I would point out that if they waited till he was 18 this would kind of defeat the object.But how can one be too young for this treatment? One can only be too old for it. If someone gave, say, a 5 year old, hormones to prevent him from reaching puberty, then how could one object? --- it would make no difference. A 10 year old? No problem, 10 is in fact too young to reach puberty. A 15 year old? Now you're entering into ethically dubious territory. Because that is too old not to reach puberty. But no-one can be too young not to reach puberty. That makes no sense whatsoever.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

The rationale of the decision is interesting. In essence, they point out that gay couples in a "civil union" or whatever it's called have exactly the same rights as a married couple. It doesn't matter in practical terms whether they are "married" or not.And for that very reason, they say, it is evident that the only reason to deny them the word "marriage" is to discriminate against them. The state can have no legitimate reason for stopping them from getting married, because it allows them to do something which is the same in all its practical effects.

May I take it, though, that you don't want actual murder and assault, just a bit more name-calling? So, to summarize. You want them to say (even more) hateful and bigoted things, so that people will recoil in shock. But you feel that they're inhibited from doing so by the knowledge that if they ever do so, the "liberal commie political correctness police crowd" ... will in fact recoil in shock. The "lcpcpc" should be privately, inwardly shocked, without outwardly recoiling or even flinching, so that the bigots will go on shocking them unaware of the bad impression that they're making.Well, look, if people are shocked, then at least one of them is going to mention it. To almost quote Benjamin Franklin: "100,000,000 people can keep a secret, if 99,999,998 of them are dead." Except that liberals did just repeal DADT, despite all those "politically correct words" from the right, and despite liberals' alleged unwillingness to give offense. Taz, meet Taz. Either the words matter, or they don't. The liberals have had their heads down doing actual stuff like repealing DADT. You have apparently been worrying about whether liberals are somehow (seemingly by their very existence rather than by any actual overt action they've taken) inhibiting Rick Santorum from using the word "faggot" in public. But if the words are unimportant, then how does it mater if they do so?---Finally, I would point out that politicians sanitizing their words is nothing new and dates to well before the invention of that vacuous term "political correctness". You will remember, perhaps, that a while back we were discussing the reasons for the Civil War. I therefore had occasion to read the speeches of a number of politicians advocating secession. Somehow they all managed to do it without using the term "nigger". Or, for that matter, "damyankee".Possibly the same was true of politicians defending segregation, I don't know. I dare say I could look it up.I do know that liberals won both those fights despite objecting to the word "nigger". Just as they repealed DADT while objecting to the word "faggot". Perhaps it is not, after all, their linguistic preferences that stand in the way of progress.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Well, I checked. Here's the text of Wallace's infamous "segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation for ever" speech. He manages to get through it without once using the word "nigger". What a southern gentleman he was, to be sure! In fact, he's positively brimming over with love for Alabama's "negro citizens". As he explains: Aw, what a nice man.The fact is that pretty much every politician who runs on a platform of being a hate-filled bigot has tried to disguise this fact from himself and from his followers, who would prefer to believe that they are actually motivated by something other than hate and bigotry. It doesn't take the "liberal commie blah blah whatever" (I forget the exact absurd phrase you used) to make him do that, he does it all by himself. Politically correct communists were probably quite thin on the ground among the Alabama electorate in the early 1960s, but even without their help Wallace struggled through his entire inane speech without once saying: "Let's face it, we just hate niggers, don't we?"And yet somehow the Civil Rights Movement prevailed, segregation was abolished, and Wallace's place in the history books is as a paleolithic boogeyman. Who'da thought it?

Maryland.So there.