Talk about being close-minded...

[darrelx]

Bovil recently bragged about his and his partner's marriage certificate on his LJ, and I asked a fairly innocuous question about his point of view of how this is different (In California) from a domestic partnership

Comments

[theresamather]

Darrel, dude....

There's nothing wrong with asking questions, but that wasn't the thread to do it on.

[darrelx]

Why? Because most of the viewers of that thread would misunderstand what I was asking? Because most of them would probably think that my post was gay-bashing?

Sorry... but political correctness is not the way I run, you know that.

I usually hope for intelligent discussion, ESPECIALLY from people who don't share my opinion. That's the best way to keep informed.

I very carefully worded my comment to Bovil's thread to avoid being misunderstood or being stereotyped into someone who was homophobic... but the response was a mis-applied "talking point" analogizing civil rights in the 50's and 60's that only applies if you think that domestic partners have any more or less rights than same-sex married couples...

But the law sees BOTH exactly the same, which is why I asked the question to someone who would (I thought) be able to answer it with first-hand knowledge.

[barry_short]

Because you walked into their party and pissed on the cake.

[esprix]

IAWTC.

I know you, D, and I like you, but why do you insist on picking fights with people all the time? There's a time and a place to play Devil's Advocate, and that wasn't it, and I think you should cop to it and, frankly, apologize to bovil. If you'd wanted a debate, you were free to start one in your own LJ (which you did), but not until you tried to pick an argument in his.

Poor form, old boy.

Re: Legalities.

[darrelx]

First, the focus of my question was specific to CALIFORNIA. In California, there is NO legal separation between Opposite-sex married couples and same-sex domestic partners

Re: Legalities.

[darrelx]

Thanks for keeping light-hearted about it.

BTW, my brother and his wife are opposite-sex domestic partners. They simply didn't bother with a marriage ceremony because neither of them are religious... but he calls her his "wife" and she calls him her "husband" regardless of the legal label placed on their relationship.

This is also how I know that the laws in CA have provided Domestic Partners with *everything* that California's married couples have.

I do have more than just a tangential point of view.

[buddykat]

You have ALL the same rights as opposite-sex couples, so where exactly is this alleged separation?

Quite frankly, the separation is the fact that a Domestic Partnership is called something different then marriage. Whether or not the rights are the same are irrelevant. Just like in Brown v. Topeka Board of Education, where the schools, the classes, the education received, etc., could have been identical; the inequality was the simple fact that they were separate at all.

Addressing the rights issues:
They may have all the same rights that the STATE can grant them WITHIN CALIFORNIA, but same-sex couples do NOT have all the same FEDERAL rights that automatically go along with marriage. A few examples of Federal rights that they STILL don't have, even though the state recognizes their marriage (this is by no means an exhaustive list):

• Domestic partnerships and same-sex marriages do not have to be recognized by other states


• The amount that an employer pays towards a domestic partner's health insurance is considered imputed income, and

You totally missed the point.

[darrelx]

But that's my point. Both the State-level and Federal level rules ARE THE SAME for domestic partners and same-sex married couples.

My question is what's different between domestic partnerships and same-sex couples at the state level, NOT whether or not either should be recognized at the federal level. That's a COMPLETELY different issue.

You missed the point... and frankly, Bovil probably did, too, which is why he locked me out.

Re: You totally missed the point.

[buddykat]

Actually, I didn't miss your point. But you seem to miss both Bovil's and my point: the difference IS the name.

Domestic Partnership =/= Marriage

And in CA, Domestiic Partnerships are not just for same-sex couples. Opposite sex couples can get them too, you just have to be living together and fill out the proper paperwork.

Re: You totally missed the point.

[buddykat]

what's different between domestic partnerships and same-sex couples at the state level

Ex-spouses are still required to pay alimony, even if the other party is in a registered domestic partnership. However, if the other party gets remarried, alimony automatically ends.

Same question, reversed

[lizetta]

Why have two things that mean the same thing? What's the point of Domestic Partnership when we already have something called Marriage?

Re: Same question, reversed

[darrelx]

Well, for one thing, no one disagrees with the definition of a Domestic Partnership... but messing with the definition of Marriage angers many.

Why go through the trouble of redefining an existing term when nothing is really gained, except increasing the animosity among factions with different points of view?

Re: Same question, reversed

[lizetta]

Wow. I'm pretty surprised to hear this from you.

First of, plenty of people disagree with the domestic partnership stuff, not as many, but there is a large group who think that being gay is wrong and should be fixed.

Every group that is held down by the status quo has had to fight to break out of it, no one's hands out rights for laying down and rolling over. Seperate but equal is wrong because as long as you're allowed to be kept seperate, you'll never be equal. The gain is in social acceptance, which has a history of needing to be force fed to people.

The majority has a lot of opinions about marriage that I disagree with, as do a lot of people I know. If I ever choose to do it again, I'd hate to have my marriage forced to conform towhat other people wanted it to be.

Hope this makes sense, I'm on my way out the door at work!

Re: Same question, reversed

[darrelx]

...but there is a large group who think that being gay is wrong and should be fixedAnd that group should not be allowed to attempt any fixing... however I don't feel that that group should be required to change their feelings, just restrict their acting on those feelings

[jubeloh]

Years ago, when I was a substitute teacher for the Grossmont Union High School District. One day, I ran into a teacher whom I knew from my time as a history grad student. I forget the context (this was 13 years ago), but he made the observation that liberals are the most closed minded, vindictive people you will ever encounter.

To extrapolate, this Bovil person clearly fits into this group. You dared to question The Mantra and rather than discuss in a rational manner, instead displayed the typical liberal reaction to instead silence and denigrate all but The Accepted points of view.

You will see quite a bit of this over the next few days as a result of the Supreme Court's ruling upholding the original intent of the Second Amendment.

[srmalloy]

Upholding part of the original intent, in my opinion; as I see it, the original intent of the Second Amendment was to protect from government encroachment the ability of citizens to arm themselves with weapons equivalent to what the average soldier carried, so that they would not be at a disadvantage if the citizenry found it necessary to rise up against a government grown tyrannical (irrespective of any arguments as to whether the actions of the Heimatsicherheitsdienst or the rest of Shrub's "it should be legal because I want to do it" administration are tyrannical). I consider the verdict in this case to undo some of the damage done in US v. Miller, where SCOTUS ruled that "in the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a 'shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length' at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument" (it should be

[darrelx]

But yesterday's SCOTUS ruling does, finally, directly answer the question about whether the 2nd amendment refers to individual citizens or only to recognized "militia"...

This landmark decision means that it can no longer be argued that the 2nd amendment only applies to guardsmen, police officers, etc., but rather that EVERY citizen (barring convicted felons, mentally disturbed, or other reasonable, locally defined exclusions) has a right to arm themselves.

It does not directly effect any existing or potential laws about possessing modified weapons or what constitutes an "Assault" weapon, nor does it have any effect on gun safety laws. It was specifically pointed out in Justice Scalia's 67-page ruling that this judgement would have no bearing on those issues, only on blanket bans of *all* weapons.

[barry_short]

It was a 5-4 decision - it will be argued and revisited many times in the future.

You may recall there are some people who think some prior SCOTUS rulings should be overturned. This one won't be any different.

BTW, the NRA has already begun arguing that, based on this decision, they disagree with Scalia's interpretation that states can still restrict sales to anyone, or that they can impose waiting periods. Round 2 awaits!