This blows us away. In Massachusetts, the only state in which same-sex marriage is legal, a contingent of homophobic asshats has gathered up 170,000 signatures aimed at getting the issue put on the ballot of the next election. The state legislature voted to recess without taking up the matter, and — predictably — the asshats are quite pissed off. What amazes us is how they are couching their dissatisfaction:

The legislators' inaction irked Kris Mineau of the Massachusetts Family Institute, who complained that the Legislature was "thumbing its nose" at the Constitution.

"We might be able to take it into a federal court, who knows? Certainly this denies due process of the people," Mineau said. "The people's right to free speech is being throttled. The people's right to vote is being throttled."

Republican Gov. Mitt Romney, an opponent of gay marriage who decided not to seek re-election as he considers running for president, said there's little he could do to force legislators to vote.

"If people want same-sex marriage, then take a vote. But don't allow the constitution and rule of law not to work," he said.

Are these people fucking kidding? They are pushing for a vote to strip away the equal rights that are guaranteed to all people in the Constitution, and they are accusing the lawmakers who won't back their play of thumbing their noses at the Constitution?

"Don't allow the Constitution not to work"? You mean like by denying equal rights on the basis of sexual orientation, or any other factor? Does it get any more fucking hypocritical than this?

All of the arguments against same-sex marriage that we've ever heard boil down to two basic categories — either religious, or just plain homophobic (though usually it's a little from column A and a little from column B). Since religion is nothing but a bunch of unsubstantiated beliefs with very little bearing on reality, and homophobia is nothing but bigotry and selfish discomfort, it seems pretty clear that neither of these "arguments" should be allowed to have any impact on the legislation of an secular, egalitarian nation. So with lots of compelling reasons why same-sex marriage should be legal, and not one compelling argument why it should not be, why the fuck should the state legislature take up the issue and agree to put it on the ballot?

It isn't always the function of lawmakers to represent "the will of the people." Sometimes, in cases in which the people are demonstrably wrong in a legal sense, it is the function of lawmakers to obstruct the will of the people, for the benefit of all people. Every minority group that has been discriminated against by the law and who is now explicitly legally protected from such discrimination should understand that. Just because a majority of people in a given area think that a certain group merits less rights or representation than they themselves enjoy doesn't make it so, and it's up to the lawmakers and the judges to ensure that wrong-headed mob mentality doesn't prevail. If 170,000 signatures supported the right to beat interracial couples with lacrosse sticks, would the legislature be expected to vote on that illegal measure? Or would it be their job — their duty — to set that aside rather than dignifying it with a vote?

This one really pissed us off:

"I'm probably 3,000 feet to the right of Attila the Hun. But the gracious people, the socially conscious people, the liberal people, you're the ones who always want everyone to be heard. What about these 170,000 people?" said Democratic Rep. Marie Parente.

Let's be clear — everyone should be heard, including the bigots and homophobes who support banning gay marriage. That's what free speech is all about. But does that right to be heard extend to the right to put a clearly unconstitutional measure on the ballot? Fuck, no. These 170,000 people have been heard. And someday, either they or, at the very least, their children or grandchildren will be incredibly embarrassed by the message they endorsed, and they'll wish that maybe they hadn't been heard quite so clearly. But for now they need to hear — and listen to — what the Massachusetts legislators have said to them: "We heard you...you're wrong...go away."

Now, who was it who said "The role of the government is to protect the minorities from a tyranny of the majority," or something along those lines? It's quite applicable here, just wish I could source it.

"We heard you...you're wrong...go away."

As a Bay Stater, I couldn't have said it better myself!

N.Y. state is getting around all this by getting people to be able to change their own sex on their birth certificates, It shows you can do anything with rhetoric and Socratic arguments, even arguing oneself to death as did Socrates.
On another note, "Science" is merely the new replacement for "Religion." It might work on the mechanical level, and put a guy on the moon (supposedly- who knows for sure), or make an atom bomb for sure, but there may be deeper, more subtle, higher, non-mechanical levels which may be where we really want to go to lead us to intelligence, intuition, revalation, enlightenment, and art, and a new paradigm to get us out of Plato's platonic mechanical cave, where as William Blake said (paraphrase) "The Church, State, Military, Industrial, Educational, Media, Crime, Pseudo-Crime fighting systems replace our innate visionary ability, with the single eyed vision of Newton's (the old paradigm) sleep." Let's wake up, see with our own at least three eyes, and smell some thing beyond coffee, meat, alcohol, tobacco, firearms and faith in worthless paper with the WORD (which was obviously not the "beginning") "God" printed on it, accompanied with Newton's single watchful eye on top of a frigin' pyramid in which we all must live, going thru middle-men and being middle-men, paying taxes (which J.J. Rousseau said was worse than slavery, as our life=funds are used to kill our brothers who we love). The recent election was only the beginning. Let's move (as Buddah the Bud said) swiftly on and be FREE.

and put a guy on the moon (supposedly- who knows for sure)

This is a joke, right? I mean, you breathe through your nose sometimes, right? 'cause the rest of your comment was kinda gibberish no offense and I have trouble picking up irony when done badly...

rr- Ad hominem...
Any trouble with this?
"Much madness is divinist sense- To a discerning eye;- Much sense the starkest madness.- Tis' the majority- In this as all prevails- Assent, and you are sane;- Demur,---you're straight away dangerous- And handled with a chain." (Emily Dickenson.)"

I sum these arguments up as "How dare you infringe upon my right to tell you what to do?"

rr- Ad hominem...
Any trouble with this?
"Much madness is divinist sense- To a discerning eye;- Much sense the starkest madness.- Tis' the majority- In this as all prevails- Assent, and you are sane;- Demur,---you're straight away dangerous- And handled with a chain." (Emily Dickenson.)"

How do you manage a double post an hour apart?

rr- Ad hominem

An "ad hominem" attack is when I attack you and not your argument to defend my own position. I was trying to see where you stand. Just thought you'd like to know.

We now return these comments to their regular state of debauchery.

rr- "gibberish" and "debauchery," are ad hominem unless you site specific examples.

fred, you need to chill out a bit, here. Nobody was quite certain what to make of your original comment — "gibberish" was actually a rather kind way of describing it. Run-on sentences and veiled references to conspiracy theories and kooky mythological precepts aren't the best way to make your point in a forum like this, and Rockstar was perfectly within his rights to challenge the coherence of your comment.

For the record, Rockstar asked if you were messing around, because he was as bewildered by your comment as we were. Also for the record, an ad hominem attack is one that asserts the failure of an argument based on the totally irrelevant personal traits of the proponent. Rockstar's comment clearly doesn't qualify.

The first sentence in your initial comment has some bearing on this Rant; the rest of your barely lucid ramblings do not. Your responses since have been nonsensical at best. As a note, if you're going to cite Emily Dickenson as an authority on sanity, you might want to provide her neuroscience credentials first. Ah, wait...she doesn't have any. Poetry, while interesting and often beautiful, has very little bearing on a discussion of reality. (Come on, she thinks "discerning eye" rhymes with "majority" — who does she think she is, William Blake? Oh, that's right, you're a fan of his, too.)

You come on our site spouting gibberish, and then demand citations ("sitations"?) when someone calls it gibberish. Did you happen to notice that you didn't provide citations for any of your outlandish ideas in the first place? Vague, unsubstantiated, and mostly irrelevant references to Plato, Rousseau, Blake and Buddha don't cut it, man.

And yes, we'll admit, you already got on our bad side by equating science with religion. No, fred, it doesn't work that way. Anyone who approaches science in the same way that religiosos approach religion — unquestioning, undemanding, unsubstantiated — is not a very good scientist. It is absolutely true that science is not the be-all, end-all of the human experience. Since not all questions are empirical in nature, the scientific method can't always be applied. That doesn't mean that there is anything supernatural out there, nor does it imply that there is any better tool than science to address the empirical questions. It just means that opinions, emotions, and philosophical masturbation are outside of the realm of science. Just because a pair of scissors doesn't make a very good screwdriver doesn't mean that they can't do what scissors do. We match the tool to the job, fred.

If you don't have anything particularly substantive to add to the discussion (false accusations of ad hom and flowery poetry don't count), please refrain from posting. One relevant sentence before an entirely irrelevant diatribe won't fool us into not transporting your comments to our Urinal. Engage your brain before engaging your keyboard.

As of Aug '06 only Massachusetts, cesspool of extreme liberal diarrhea, has actually recognized gay marriage. New Mexico still has not defined marriage yet. 5 states were expected to uphold a gay marriage ban, and 4 states were awaiting rulings. ALL THE REST do not permit it still. If the majority votes no then accept it. You chose to be gay. (Not "born gay", another lie propagated by the liberal establishment) Maybe one chooses to marry his horse or a 9 year old girl. They would be clearly in the minority, and can't expect that if they so chose this deviant lifestyle that they can proceed to have it legislated into law so as to ease the guilt of having chose to be a sick perverted fuck.

Bill - If you are going to make claims like "You chose to be gay" you need to back it up with facts or at least a citation. Most of the current studies into sexual partner selection indicate that there is a biological basis eg
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&rendertype=abstract&artid=1129091
which if you don't want to bother reading the abstract discusses how the brain response differences between homo and hetero men (and hetero women). Take a look at pub med sometime.

Next time Bill, get your head out of your own arse before you start worrying about someone being up someone else's.

And, ah...Bill? Just so you know — we're not gay. By pure happenstance, not a single member of the Two Percent Company is homosexual. (Wait...no. No, we just did a poll. Still no gays. Though somebody did mention that Heath Ledger looks good in tight jeans. What a sick, perverted fuck, huh?)

We suppose it's hard for someone so mired in intolerance, bigotry and hatred (your own words, parelleling homosexuality with bestiality or pedophilia, were: "sick perverted fuck") to understand when those who are not gay support the rights of those who are gay. See, we support the rights of anyone who's different from us, because — unlike you, clearly — we recognize that once you take rights away from one arbitrary group (and it doesn't get much more arbitrary than sexual orientation), there's no logical reason for it to stop there...everybody's rights are at risk. We also support universal egalitarian rights because, well, frankly, we seem to be much nicer than you. And coming from a crew of foul-mouthed, satirical insult artists, that's really saying something.

Your argument that the current prevalence of anti-gay sentiment and legislation somehow "justifies" itself is exceedingly silly. (Do you also happen to believe that the bible proves the existence of god because it is the word of god? Wow — "Bootstrap Bill"!) We wonder if you will still hold firm to the "majority decision equals correct decision" concept when the majority of states finally do grant homosexuals their legitimate rights (don't be surprised, Bill, but that should be within the next couple of generations). Truthfully, we're pretty confident that you'll change your tune quickly, shouting "state-sponsored evil gay oppression" or some such nonsense. That is the way of sick, perverted fucks who think anyone else's relationship is any of their business, after all.

Belinda — thanks for the link. Unfortunately, the one person here who hasn't read and won't read it — that'd be good old Bill — is the one person who needs most to understand its content. Too bad.

To "The Two Percent Company:"

Excellent posting! While I am not gay, I fully support their cause and the cause of all minorities in their efforts to be considered "equal."

Carpe diem!

Mahlo,
chet

Holy shit..... I haven't enjoyed an article this much in months.... and I stumbled on to it by accident..... I cant wait to send this link to every douchebag, bible thumping, Glen Beck loving stalker I know..... And The fucking comments are just as entertaining.... I think I just found my new favorite website.... Thank you for this gift.

( yeah I know I use "..." alot.... its like a crack habit that I just cant quit)