Landmark gay marriage trial starts today in California

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Because of the permanency. Its different than, say, my parents raising me to be Catholic because I could easily just leave it.

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But it isn't permanent, is it ? It's just delaying the onset of puberty.Now, I have my doubts about whether it is really appropriate but there's no doubt that it is motivated by concern for their child and that it's a whole lot better than rushing through gender assignment surgery.Or, for instance, following a child's wish to go for quack cancer treatment instead of conventional therapies which have a high chance of working (Abraham Cherrix).Or chemically castrating autistic children as a "treatment" for their condition. (The Geiers offer Lupron for this purpose)Or denying children effective medical treatment because of a religious belief. (e.g. Jehovah's Witnesses ban on blood transfusions).Add the concerns about your focus on the parent's sexuality and it really seems that the main point of your post is attacking them because they happen to be lesbians.

Of course the ACLU supports civil liberties, just as the name suggests, and will defend the rights of groups it disagrees with. If you are against that then you're against liberty, the U.S. constitution and any civilisation worthy of the name.

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Right, there's no way to make a case here that "liberty" cannot possibly apply to criminal and sociopathic behavior, is there?

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In other words advocating views that you dislike should be considered "criminal and sociopathic" in itself. That really says it all doesn't it ? You'd complain if your views were categorised like that - even though there is certainly cause to. In fact the far Right in the U.S. is constantly claiming that that's going to happen - and it never does. And if it did the ACLU - who you hate - would be there to fight your corner.Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.

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The logic is breathtaking. "Views that I dislike" is how murderous Nazism is categorized, and child molestation and kidnap-torture-rape, just "views" I "dislike." If I call them criminal and sociopathic that somehow makes ME the criminal and sociopath.

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Of course you have to rely on misrepresentation. The ACLU does NOT defend Naziism, or child molestation or kidnap-murder-rape. It DOES defend freedom of speech even for people who advocate abhorrent things. Which is a legitimate and principled position.And quite frankly if you think that an Orwellian tyranny based on hate and lies is "good" I have to say that it is your morality that is quite thoroughly inverted.

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Well, of course you would, that's what I've been saying you do. You would also commit the fallacy of poisoning the well by misdefining my views as Orwellian tyranny etc. etc. You've said only what I've been saying you all say, why bother to repeat it? Oh I know why: if you just keep saying it you'll get everybody to believe it.

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Excuse me, but you are the one who reacted to a mention of the ACLU with hate and lies. And it's hard to see your objection as based on anything other than the fact that the ACLU defends freedoms that you don't like, despite the Constitutional guarantees. And you have certainly talked of feeling that you have a duty to suppress views that you don't like.

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My point of course is there is no right to "free speech" of a criminal and sociopathic sort except in the revisionist mindset you all share, and the idea that such freedoms were ever intended to apply to "people who advocate abhorrent things" is a perfect example of that revisionist mindset that the ACLU pursues, against any sane understanding of the Constitutional freedoms that prevailed until really quite recently. I guess it all started with the insane idea that pornography is freedom of speech. Bring down civilization, that's exactly what they want to do.

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Since to the best pf my knowledge the ACLU acted within the legal system in all the cases that you mentioned, I suggest that your problem is with the courts - although I guess that you are also arguing that even legal representation should be denied ? And if you aren't then why object to the ACLU providing legal representation?

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There never was any "right to speak" for people who advocate the stuff NAMBLA advocates. And how nave of you all to think that supporting the right to advocacy of abhorrent things is somehow not to support the doing of those abhorrent things.

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Here you assume that protecting the right to free speech is not a valid objective in itself. But why ? And why attack the ACLU when it "supports" views like yours to the same extent ?

Lots of inversion, lots of projection, very little truth there. But since it's off topic I'll stop at that.

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And just to answer the nonsense about how a couple calling themselves married doesn't affect the rest of us, our individual marriages and all that craziness, that's not the point and has never been the point.

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If you start making absurd claims about a "threat" to marriage I think pointing out that there is no real threat there at all is very relevant. Heterosexual marriage will NOT BE CHANGED AT ALL by gay marriage.

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The point is how a whole society defines marriage and that's what changes.

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And marriage HAS changed. It has changed in ways that make the legal recognition of gay marriage the just and fair thing to do. You may not approve of those changes but just pretending that they haven't happened is not a good basis for argument.Let's be perfectly honest. The only real change that gay marriage will make is that bigots will find it harder to discriminate against gay couples. That sounds like a good thing to me.

Can I ask, why isn't ENCOURAGING monogamous relationships a good answer to the spread of STDs ?And if spreading STDs makes a group unfit to marry can I also ask why you don't apply the same rule to heterosexuals ?

But you haven't shown that there is any threat we should worry about at all.

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I do apply the same rule to heterosexuals.

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Do you really believe that the spread of STDs is a reason why heterosexuals should not be allowed to marry ? I very much doubt it.

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"Encouraging monogamy" is ridiculous when it comes to homosexuality, however. That's either the mindset of the people involved or it's not,

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Wouldn't a societal endorsement of monogamous relationships act as an encouragement ? And it isn't black and white either - surely the seriousness of the marital commitment would be enough to tip the balance some time for some people.In other words the whole STD issue is a massive red herring. There's no rational argument there at all.

In other words you have no clear understanding of what this imagined threat is.

In other words you were just engaged in poisoning the well. And until somebody seriously makes fertility a requirement for marriage I will continue to view THAT argument as another irrelevant distraction, too.

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Where did I say "FERTILITY" was the qualification for marriage? I said the potential to have children. Gays do not have that potential

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An infertile individual does not have the potential to have children. By definition.

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And if you don't see this as intuitively obviously implied in the history of marriage in all cultures there's something wrong with your head

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And yet, while producing heirs was a common function of marriage it is already considered far less important in society at large (not to mention the technological developments which allow infertile couples to have children, some of them perfectly applicable to gays and lesbians). Again, the legal recognition of gay marriage is NOT a huge chance in social attitudes - it is a consequence of the changes in social attitudes that have already happened. That is why is is happening, and why it enjoys a good deal of public support.

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It is Politically Correct craziness to deny that AIDS is a homosexual disease.

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I think that it is more accurate to call it an African disease.

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It started among the gays in the bath houses of the sixties and seventies, took thousands of lives among that group of people.

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That's where it started to spread in the U.S. It STARTED in Africa.The majority of those infected with HIV live in Sub-Saharan Africa.According to the statistics I've seen it seems that worldwide transmission is more often by heterosexual contact (it's different different in the U.S.)So it seems far more reasonable to call it an African disease. Oddly I don't see you calling for an end to marriage in sub-Saharan Africa. Oh, but then HIV infection isn't even a relevant point is it ? So why keep going on about it ?

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It's the principle of the thing, fact that men and women together can make babies unless they aren't fertile.

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In other words, people who CAN'T have children ARE permitted to marry. People can marry and CHOOSE not to have children and yet remain legally married even when they get to the point where they can't.So there is NO principle saying that having children - or even the potential to have children is a legal or social requirement for a marriage.ANd of course we all know that. It's impossible to say whether you were knowingly repeating a lie or were to prejudiced to think about it (but when you started trying to divide fertility from the potential to have children you should have figured it out).So let's be honest - the only PRINCIPLE you're following is that you object to gay sex and THEREFORE you think that gays should be treated as second-class citizens.That's not a principle worth following.