Here's the podcast of my appearance on St. Kermit, which went live on Worcester televisions.
Mike joined myself and Luc Shuster (Co-Chair of the Green-Rainbow Party and member of the Cambridge School Committee) on the show. As always, Jim Henderson did a great job hosting.
Listen to the audio to check out me getting grilled on why I think Grace should become a Democrat, on how I think Deval's going to win and even some discussion on old favorites like Clean Elections and Gay Marriage. It was a great discussion.
If the video gets posted on the Worcester TV website, I'll let everyone know.
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11 comments:
Ryan
Basically you say gay marriage is OK because it's your right to have that relationship. Consenting adults etc. Then I assume you would also approve of polygamy between consenting adults ?
Do you guys really think bringing up polygamy is a brilliant argument?
How is two gay people getting married any different from two straight people getting married? How does it differ in any significant way?
Except that the gay people are probably more likely to have 10 kids since they haven't been legally able to get married--aren't you guys always talking about how damaging it is for kids if their parents aren't married? And here you are not wanting to let them get married.
If they don't have that "right to have that relationship," then why do you? How come the voters or the public or the legislature don't get to tell you if you can get married or who you can marry or that you can't marry Alice, we've all gotten together and decided we'd like to see you with Joan?
We never got to vote on whether it was okay for you to get married, that was all decided by activist judges, like in Loving v. Virginia where the Court ruled that it was okay for an interracial couple to marry even though the people and their representatives had refused to allow it. So is your marriage really legit without everyone else's approval?
The concept of legally recognized marriage is based on consenting adults. Take that away and nobody has a leg to stand on.
There are benefits that arise from marriage. Do you think it's fair that gays have to pay taxes and contribute to the economic system basically to subsidize you, when they can't get a lot of the same benefits? That sounds like discrimination.
How would you feel if you were in the minority and nobody could leave you alone and just let you have the same rights and freedoms as everybody else, AND they expected you to prop up their lifestyles?
I'm not talking about polygamy, I'm talking about gay marriage. Let's stay on focus. Should two consenting adults who love each other be allowed to wed? Why not?
Marriage is partnership. I'm not talking about polygamy, but there are some differences if you just have to go there.
Polygamy is an inherently unequal system: many women, one guy. Are the women all treated equally? Even if they recieve the same income, same housing, etc. etc. etc. do they get the same treatment and affection? Unlikely.
Gay marriage consists of two consenting adults who love each other, just like any other marriage. In twenty years, most of America is going to scratch it's collective head and wonder "what the hell happened to us all those years ago to be so closed-minded."
I seriously brought up the polygamy, it's a recognized social norm in many parts of the world. I'm for abolishing all state control of "marriage" replacing it with economically binding civil contracts, and then business only has to cover it's employees.
Well, in the interest of fairness, if you believe gay people should have the same economic rights, then you should favor gay marraige/equality. If you then think it should extend beyond that, then that's your perogative, but let's not hold up all progress because you aren't happy with the way things are. Either gay people deserve equal rights or they don't.
I'm afraid that after the gays get what they want, they'll forget the polygamists. Let's fix it at the basic level and get it right the first revision. If you look at some of the gay marriage activists postings, they've begun to bring those types of basic lawsuits into the courts. Minn. I think.
Um, they're not going to "forget" the polygamists because they never remembered them in the first place.
Sure, keep suggesting that there's some big alliance between gays and polygamists and they're on the same side. Consenting adults doesn't extend to the 8 year old child prisoner of the polygamous sect forced to marry her uncle. Nice try.
You forgot to mention how gays are leaving behind their other allies, the beasiality advocates.
lol
I never said anything about children, you injected that. I mentioned consenting adults. And by the way there are parts of India where there is matriachal polygamy.
Which would still be inherently unequal...
The Slippery Slope argument does NOT work in this case.
What you have to ask is "should gay people have equal rights?" If you don't, you're a homophobic asshole. If you do, you should be in favor of equal rights and walk the walk.
Which would be polyandry. And even in the (rare) cases where that's practiced, it's generally a case where two male relatives inherit a piece of land and can't afford to/don't want to divide it, so they share a wife. And it usually doesn't work out so well for the wife, either, since she's one person who has to essentially tend to two households and has to care for all the children and all of the power in the family resides with the men, still (oh and having lots of children isn't necessarily the most healthy thing to do to one's body, either, it tends to wear a person down). Doesn't sound too appealing to me.
The point is, polygamy in this country is much more complicated than a bunch of wealthy people deciding to shack up and share a Volvo like on HBO. It's mostly small religious sects that kept themselves going by forcing the children into it. The "wives" and the children tend to be prisoners who are terrorized and prevented from leaving. It has nothing whatsoever to do with gay marriage.
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