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Some, some. Just maybe not some of the ones that made him uniquely Jeffersonian.

Trotsky makes my point here. You are right that such a thing would not be allowed. Or not today at least. But let us look back many years, and sitting in the front of the bus was definitely not a right long enjoyed by blacks. And I’m sure you will agree that the community would indeed have decided that blacks must sit in the back of the bus. That community may never have decided otherwise if it weren’t for an ammendment and a Supreme Court ruling. But to put it simply, we cannot simply allow the community to make a decision that revokes equality from any group of people simply because the majority wills it. America does hold the rights of the individual to be extremely important, and the community should not be able to decide that one individual cannot have rights simply because some people don’t want them to have those rights.

So when you say that the community has the right to decide these things, I whole-heartedly disagree. The community has no right to create a law that prevents freedom or equality. And if a law against gay marriage is one of these laws, how can we allow the community to decide whether this will be allowed?

I don’t. I think, as it stands, that communities have the right to decide for themselves. If an amendment were passed, that position would change. And I don’t know if I think either is necessarily better than the other, as I support giving homosexuals the freedom to marry.

Well, I too think that the communities should, in theory, currently be able to decide on the issue for themselves. But my point is that this is not a good thing, and we do need an ammendment or other form of law passed that restricts them from banning gay marriage.

I’m just going to state my own completely biased and politically bated opinion out here with no basis in any existing law:

Gays have the right to marry and deserve many of the same benefits that normal marriages receive, but they don’t have the right to force me to acknowledge their marriages as any more sacred or special than how I think marriages are now.

I do not believe anyone, no matter how addled, has proposed this. Have fun with your fantasy world where gays are trying to force something on you.

I never said they did. But when it gets to that point, enough.

They can have it, but they don’t have to be in my face about it.

Like I said, have fun. Report back when it rains bacon, and I might join you in your delusion.

Mmm, bacon.

And you think the right to use contraception is one of them? My response: guh. I know very few conservatives who would approve of a law against contraception, but that’s not the same as inventing a constitutional right.

Which flip-flop? I see no severe differences between the GOP of 1860 and the GOP of 2003. What in the world are you talking about?

Also, Pipian is crazy. What in the world would it be like if a homosexual couple tried to “push” its marriage on someone? Is that even a coherent thought?

I have never once disputed this fact. I merely find it absurd that you continually claim that everyone has all these rights that are enumerated nowhere and then claim that we should have constitutional amendments enumerating them. For Christ’s sake, pick a side and stay on it. Either these rights exist or they don’t.

For one bit of it, how about going from opposing states’ rights to supporting them? I say nothing of the nonsense that goes along with states’ rights, since you’d probably deny that any Republicans espouse it.

Well, the right to use contraception is certainly a right long-enjoyed by the people. I’m surpised you are against this ruling. And yes, I believe that any time rights are taken away from people for no real reason, we have a problem. In this case, birth control doesn’t hurt anyone, doesn’t degrade society in any way, children are not harmed, and it does not infringe on the rights of anyone else. So what is the reasoning behind removing the right to use birth control? There is none as far as I can tell, save the belief of some Christians that it is against God’s will. Of course we should not be removing the rights of anyone for that reason alone.

Fine, but don’t assume that, just because there have been racist conservatives at some point in history, all conservatives now are racist. That’s just stupid.

And they defended this great and fantastic idea on the basis of state’s rights to choose, which is where I have my problem. Because any person should be able to live in any part of this country that they choose, and be free of state sponsered racism and prejudice (there’s no controlling the yokels who think they’s better cuz they’s got the white skin). A black family shouldn’t have to leave a town in the South simply because their schools suck, transportation treats them like steerage, and they can’t sit at a lunch counter…no matter what the typically conservative based ‘states rights’ argument may be. It’s just silly.

Exactly when are we having this discussion? It’s not 1820 and Missouri is already a state. No one in the United States believes that the rights of the states extend to denying basic liberties to their citizens on the basis of skin color. In fact, even if they did (which they don’t), the Constitution specifically doesn’t allow it.

And talk about the Supreme Court fucking things up: how about seperate but equal? Wow! GOOD IDEA!

Separate has been ruled inherently unequal (though the justification for such a claim is based on an empirical survey of separate facilities rather than the fact that separate somehow implies unequal). Again, what discussion are we having here?

Because, you know, a drinking fountain is a drinking fountain (even if the Negro one is broken, rusting, and spits out warm brown water), and a school is a school (even if the Negro school is 50 miles away from someone’s house, doesn’t teach modern science, and is funded solely through community bake sales).

Umm… how is that equal?

I’m quite certain that no founding member of the GOP opposed the notion that states have rights. What they specifically opposed was that states have the right to secede from the Union or to hold slaves. Which Republicans hold the opposite view?

I just want to re-state that as soon as gays get marriages, they’d better quit having those stupid ass parades.

I mean, (sane) women don’t have a parade celebrating the day they got to vote! You can’t have your cake and eat it, fags!

Do you have evidence for this? The Supreme Court certainly did not make this claim in its ruling in Glucksberg and I don’t think it’s true either. Communities have long prevented the use of contraception, both legally and socially. In fact, the law in question in Griswold was an extremely old law, which almost certainly guarantees that this right was not long enjoyed.

I’m surpised you are against this ruling.

I see no reason why you should be surprised. I may be politically libertarian, but I’m judicially very right wing.

And yes, I believe that any time rights are taken away from people for no real reason, we have a problem.

Umm… clearly… where is this going?

In this case, birth control doesn’t hurt anyone, doesn’t degrade society in any way, children are not harmed, and it does not infringe on the rights of anyone else.

And that grants people the right to use contraception how? I think I need to clarify a difference between us at this point: you are under the impression that there are rights independent of the state (natural rights, if you will), whereas I think that position is nonsense. There are no rights outside the condition of ordered liberty, though there are rights that are necessary for that condition. The right to use contraception, however, is not one of those, so I require a specific addendum to the Constitution before recognizing such a right.

So what is the reasoning behind removing the right to use birth control?

No one removed a right. They removed a freedom. And I suspect their reasons were religious. These are bad reasons, but they are not unconstitutional reasons.

Pride parades are the most counterproductive thing ever. Who in the world can take seriously the claim that homosexuals are not fundamentally less sinful than heterosexuals when so many of them run about in leather simulating sex acts in public?

Well, I do not mean to claim that these rights are spelled out in the Constitution, and perhaps I take it for granted that people derive the rights we should allow based on the concepts of freedom, equality, happiness, and rights of the individual.

Now although the Constitution does not specifically state that we cannot create laws that restrict freedom, it is a value that I personally think should be enforced, and I think you feel the same way.

So I don’t think I wrote well what I am trying to say. My goal here is not to explain how the Constitution prevents states from making these decisions about the rights of people; my goal is to explain why the Constitution should prevent it. I am trying to convince you that currently the community does have the right to restrict people’s sexual activity, but maybe it shouldn’t have that right.

EDIT: I wanted to sort out my argument here… My goal is to show why an amendment should be added allowing gay marriage. I am confused about your side of the issue because you seem to support gay marriage so much that you consider anything less an insult, however you give the communities the option to disallow or allow gay marriage than add an ammendment to give everyone gay marriage.

I used the back of the bus issue as an example. If we had allowed communities to make the decision whether blacks sat in the back of the bus, they might still be sitting there. You argued that this would never happen because they have the 14th ammendment to protect them. But that is exactly my point. We do not allow the communities to decide on this issue. We saw that some communities would force blacks to sit in the back of the bus and we added an ammendment to prevent them from deciding that. Again, we see that some communities, given the choice, would never allow gay marriage, and we don’t think that is good. So it would seem that again the best course of action is to add an ammendment allowing freedom of marriage.

The entire debate about the Supreme Court cases was sort of a side-topic about your statement that the Supreme Court is using their power to further liberalism, not to uphold the Constitution. I said that two of the cases you used as examples of this do not necessarily support your claim.

Exactly. Being gay has nothing to do with it, it’s just the basic human need to dress up goofy and act like a jackass. See also: Frat parties.

The worst part is that, obviouly, giving gays their own parade is like when they give the autistic kid in class a ‘special assignment’ of pulling the curtain for the other kids in the play. It’s not that far from segregation, becauses it ‘forces’ gays to stand out like a sore cock.

Hmm, I do think that gay parades aren’t making gays look the greatest in the eyes of many. However, the goal of a gay parade is not to dress up like a jack-ass, and in fact, the large majority of the people in a gay parade do not dress up like a jack-ass. In fact, as far as I know, these are usually supposed to be less of a parade than a protest. The ones I’ve heard about seem to often be marches on state capitals. Of course it is the most outrageous people that we see.

The one around here starts at the Capitol and then flees. I enjoy it, because it provides me with excellent quotes like “Yay, Jewism!”