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Just guessing."
Google's headquarters are in California, and the writer of the piece, Sergey Brin, lives in California, so his/their interest in the fight for marriage equality in this state is naturally more pressing than their interest in the marriage equality fight in other states.
Also, please note that one does not have to be homosexual, or have homosexual investors or employees, to favor marriage equality. I, personally, am not homosexual, and have no homosexual investors or employees, and yet I'm a very ardent opponent of Proposition 8, and a strong supporter of the right of each Californian to marry the man or woman whom he or she loves, and who loves him or her in return.
Patrick Meighan
Culver City, CA
I as a single man have as many rights as married people. I just don't have the same government "benefits" they do.
Marriage is a benefit and people have done it with or without government sanction for all time. Marriage is a covenant before God and sometimes government provides benefits and sometimes it doesn't ... marriage is not a "human right."
The benefits, Randy, are given to couples because they benefit society. And this may be a shock to your system, but couples don't just benefit the world with the children.
And Randy, why don't you run your logic all the way through. Because, really, if that's the case, it not just Gays that can't have a true marriage before God, but Muslims too. They don't worship the true God, correct? At the very least they reject God's Son as His Son. So they can't have a true marriage either. In fact, NO group who doesn't subscribe to your dogma could.
But I don't see Exodus or Focus on the Family or any other religious organization trying to protect marriage in that way.
And by the way, marriage is a right for all human's. Even if Jesus didn't exercise it.
Not every good thing is a right and to frame it as such is to reframe the debate in a way that isn't true.
If we take your logic to its ultimate conclusion--that marriage ought to be directed by personal proclivities--then polygamy will be the result. That our the abolition of marriage altogether. Lifelong, monogamous heterosexual marriage isn't a gay person's automatic orientation--but it isn't anyone else's, either.
And Michael, your attitude, which by the way paints your blog, is exactly what gives Christians a bad name. As if every non christian who doesn't need God to hand over morality is just some heathen in need of a baptism. It's pretty sickening,
And I really wonder why, Mike, you haven't done a blog on Palin's interview with Couic. Hmmm...
Gay adults can give consent, but again, following your logic to its ultimate end, so can polygamists, "swingers", etc. Marriage must have definite boundaries, or it doesn't exist.
And yes, I believe every person (including me) needs God to help them know and do what is right. If that sickens you, so be it.
As for marriage being a benefit and not a right...there are a lot of things in life that are "benefits" but still fall under the issue of equality and then under the common term of rights. Let's take driving for example...it's a privelege. However, it would be unconstitutional for us to deny the privelege to drive to gays, or Christians, or women, or any other legal adult. Using the internet would be similar. We don't have the right to either of these, but we do have the right to equality and freedom from discrimination, so essentially we do have the right to drive or use the internet. Just because something is a benefit or a privelege doesn't mean we can restrict it to certain groups of people.
The justification for gay marriage is that we ought to be allowed to marry according to our personal desires, regardless of sex, and if that offends others' standards of morality or propriety, so what?
But then if the gay community may challenge (and repeal) those standards which exclude the desires they find most natural, how can they impose their own set of standards upon others with different desires?
As for your justification of gay marriage...that's YOUR justification of gay marriage...a straw man if you will. It's an easy justification to knock down with a "sky is falling" type of argument.
The only problem is that's not my justification or the justification of most pro-gay marriage folks I know. My justification is that all people ought to be able to marry the person we love, just like straight people do. Not just anyone, not everyone, not the eight people we love, just the person we love. Adding on all of those extra cases is just a way to scare the populace.
If your problems are about all of the other possibilities that arise, you should take the issue up there, not with gay marriage. If gay marriage is wrong, then it's wrong on it's face...it can't simply be wrong because of what might happen next in some realm of fear. We would have never made any social progress if we let the "sky is falling" scare stop us, because it's always been out there.
The problem with the slippery slope argument is it really has no beginning or end. If we outlaw gay marriage because of what may happen next, then we should have outlawed interracial marriage for the same reason, because the definition of marriage in law in most states (if that's not definition, I don't know what is) was two people of the same race. We didn't let the slippery slope argument stop us then because the people finally knew what was right, and we should not let it stop us now.
And yes, I believe gay marriage is wrong all on its own, whether it leads to those other things or not. We could argue on and on about the why's but I'm sure we can each keep thinking up answers for each other. The bottom line is, the standard is set by Scripture--not me. For Heaven's sake, if it was about my personal preference we wouldn't be having this discussion.
Regardless, I'm actually more saddened by your sexual persuasion argument. Sexual orietnation is the not the same as a "sexual persuasion." I'm honestly sad that you think it is, or at the very least think it's ok to blindly mix the two.
Also, I'd like to know how you differentiate "sexual orientation" and "sexual persuasion" and why my take on them makes you sad.
Plus I want to see if we can get this thread to one-word-wide columns.
Just guessing."
Google's headquarters are in California, and the writer of the piece, Sergey Brin, lives in California, so his/their interest in the fight for marriage equality in this state is naturally more pressing than their interest in the marriage equality fight in other states.
Also, please note that one does not have to be homosexual, or have homosexual investors or employees, to favor marriage equality. I, personally, am not homosexual, and have no homosexual investors or employees, and yet I'm a very ardent opponent of Proposition 8, and a strong supporter of the right of each Californian to marry the man or woman whom he or she loves, and who loves him or her in return.
Patrick Meighan
Culver City, CA
If this was directed toward me, I don't think it is necessary because people don't really look to Google to have an opinion on anything with regard to social public policy. Which he alludes to in his message. I don't really believe anyone would have even noticed if they had not. Also, I don't think Google, who is not known to have any influence in this arena is really going to make any difference either. Doesn't mean they can't make a statement (obviously) it just didn't seem necessary.
If this was directed toward me, I don't think it is necessary because people don't really look to Google to have an opinion on anything with regard to social public policy. Which he alludes to in his message. I don't really believe anyone would have even noticed if they had not. Also, I don't think Google, who is not known to have any influence in this arena is really going to make any difference either. Doesn't mean they can't make a statement (obviously) it just didn't seem necessary.
Marriage is a benefit and people have done it with or without government sanction for all time. Marriage is a covenant and a benefit ... not a right.
The benefits, Randy, are given to couples because they benefit society. And this may be a shock to your system, but couples don't just benefit the world with the children.
And Randy, why don't you run your logic all the way through. Because, really, if that's the case, it not just Gays that can't have a true marriage before God, but Muslims too. They don't worship the true God, correct? At the very least they reject God's Son as His Son. So they can't have a true marriage either. In fact, NO group who doesn't subscribe to your dogma could.
But I don't see Exodus or Focus on the Family or any other religious organization trying to protect marriage in that way.
And by the way, marriage is a right for all human's. Even if Jesus didn't exercise it.
Not every good thing is a right and to frame it as such is to reframe the debate in a way that isn't true.
If we take your logic to its ultimate conclusion--that marriage ought to be directed by personal proclivities--then polygamy will be the result. That our the abolition of marriage altogether. Lifelong, monogamous heterosexual marriage isn't a gay person's automatic orientation--but it isn't anyone else's, either.
And Michael, your attitude, which by the way paints your blog, is exactly what gives Christians a bad name. As if every non christian who doesn't need God to hand over morality is just some heathen in need of a baptism. It's pretty sickening,
And I really wonder why, Mike, you haven't done a blog on Palin's interview with Couic. Hmmm...
Gay adults can give consent, but again, following your logic to its ultimate end, so can polygamists, "swingers", etc. Marriage must have definite boundaries, or it doesn't exist.
And yes, I believe every person (including me) needs God to help them know and do what is right. If that sickens you, so be it.
As for marriage being a benefit and not a right...there are a lot of things in life that are "benefits" but still fall under the issue of equality and then under the common term of rights. Let's take driving for example...it's a privelege. However, it would be unconstitutional for us to deny the privelege to drive to gays, or Christians, or women, or any other legal adult. Using the internet would be similar. We don't have the right to either of these, but we do have the right to equality and freedom from discrimination, so essentially we do have the right to drive or use the internet. Just because something is a benefit or a privelege doesn't mean we can restrict it to certain groups of people.
The justification for gay marriage is that we ought to be allowed to marry according to our personal desires, regardless of sex, and if that offends others' standards of morality or propriety, so what?
But then if the gay community may challenge (and repeal) those standards which exclude the desires they find most natural, how can they impose their own set of standards upon others with different desires?
As for your justification of gay marriage...that's YOUR justification of gay marriage...a straw man if you will. It's an easy justification to knock down with a "sky is falling" type of argument.
The only problem is that's not my justification or the justification of most pro-gay marriage folks I know. My justification is that all people ought to be able to marry the person we love, just like straight people do. Not just anyone, not everyone, not the eight people we love, just the person we love. Adding on all of those extra cases is just a way to scare the populace.
If your problems are about all of the other possibilities that arise, you should take the issue up there, not with gay marriage. If gay marriage is wrong, then it's wrong on it's face...it can't simply be wrong because of what might happen next in some realm of fear. We would have never made any social progress if we let the "sky is falling" scare stop us, because it's always been out there.
The problem with the slippery slope argument is it really has no beginning or end. If we outlaw gay marriage because of what may happen next, then we should have outlawed interracial marriage for the same reason, because the definition of marriage in law in most states (if that's not definition, I don't know what is) was two people of the same race. We didn't let the slippery slope argument stop us then because the people finally knew what was right, and we should not let it stop us now.
And yes, I believe gay marriage is wrong all on its own, whether it leads to those other things or not. We could argue on and on about the why's but I'm sure you we can each keep thinking up answers for each other. The bottom line is, the standard is set by Scripture--not me. For Heaven's sake, if it was about my personal preference we wouldn't be having this discussion.
Regardless, I'm actually more saddened by your sexual persuasion argument. Sexual orietnation is the not the same as a "sexual persuasion." I'm honestly sad that you think it is, or at the very least think it's ok to blindly mix the two.
Also, I'd like to know how you differentiate "sexual orientation" and "sexual persuasion" and why my take on them makes you sad.