Charlie Rose

NeilMacCallister  08/10/2010 10:11 PM Report

elohel? ..if "Marriage is a fundamental right", ..then why am I still single? ..whom should I sue?

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I agree with the judge that not all couples pledge to each other with the objective of having children, ..but that is what the common law version of "marriage" is!

Did you ever hear of some farmer marching the female lover of his lesbian daughter down to the courthouse at the point of a shotgun to get married? ..No! ..of course not!

But why did that sometimes happen if her lover was male?

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Marriage is not so much a right, as it is a responsibility.

Kids are often a distinct possibility, ..and securities must be promised for the benefits of those foreseeable children!

The expression of love is a wonderful sidelight of a marriage, ..but it is hardly as great an issue as the over-riding concern that the needs of any coming children being met.

Did a Chinese town-council ever set up an arranged marriage between two men? No! ..for that could never produce the children that the council was setting the groundwork for!

We can take our social focus off the primary needs of children if we choose, ..but that will not be in the best interest of our nation's children.

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Love between adults is great, ..but engendering children is an entirely distinct responsibility, and should remain so legally.

robdverity  08/07/2010 02:44 PM Report

Monsanto! It's all Monsanto's fault. Too much poison in the eco-system: fertilizer, pesticides, fungicides, cidicides, yadda, yadda. Scrambling our chromosones. Yuk, yuk.

If the human animal experiences it isn't it ipso facto human - thus (ipso facto) natural?

elohel  08/07/2010 02:10 PM Report

TO REEVERO:

"Gay people should neither be attacked nor encouraged, but helped and prayed for" ??

Being gay is not a disorder nor is it "unnatural". Our depiction of "natural" has been influenced by society that once thought being a person of color was unnatural. Marriage is a fundamental right that should be given to anyone based on their race, gender, and sexuality.

NeilMacCallister  08/07/2010 02:19 AM Report

Said here tonight:

CHARLIE ROSE: It used to be said that cultural issues and lifestyle issues could have a huge impact. Is it less true today?

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Is that really an issue? ..Whether "cultural issues and lifestyle issues could have a huge impact"?

Just yesterday, Mr. Rose was discussing America's recent drop by more than 10 positions in the ranking of countries with regards to their population's percentage of college graduates.

America is said to currently be in an "obesity epidemic", ..a Pacific "gyre" has accumulated enough plastic bottles to fill the state of Texas, ..and manufacturing excesses are now causing climate changes.

Of course cultural and social changes have impacts!!!

Now, just make sure that you get the impacts you are looking for!

doodah  08/06/2010 04:52 PM Report

Love is totally a subjective thing, because it can mean practically anything to anybody. That's why whoever wants to marry whoever (or whatever) may do so by whoever wants to marry them, and the marriage can be recognized by anyone who wants to do so. And those who don't want to recognize it can't be forced to do so; ALL within the domain of 'subjectivity'(within the mind).

But as a social function, 'love' has to be defined as 'dependency', because that is the objective resulting actions observed by it's declaration and or it's natural manifestation, as in the case of a child's love of their parent; is a natural dependency for survival instilled in mammals. The male and female human mammals (like many other species) bond together (marry.?.?.) when they have babies together. They are both dependent on each other to protect their offspring (who are dependent on them for survival). So there is a big circle of dependency (Love) (Family). Since the human brain has higher thinking than the other species, so part of their social evolution invented 'the marriage', as a way for the society as a whole to give a help (at it's most basic level), to facilitate the raising of children; pure and simple. Over the years, because of the increased subjective nature of 'love', marriage has come to mean other different things. But it's predominant real function and benefit to society is to facilitate the raising of children.

That's not a religious or legal explanation. Like it or hate it, it's just reality.

I don't think the government has the right to force people to recognize somebody else's 'subjectivity'. Especially when it's totally unnecessary. For what purpose, to appease another liberal blood sucking lie.

Estevan  08/06/2010 03:55 PM Report

" ...and there is also an equality saying that the there cannot be an invidious distinction in between gay people and straight people and that the distinction between gay and straight marriage was such an invidious distinction." You know whats really an invidious distinction? The distinction between single and married people as recognized by the government. The government gives tax breaks to married couples for no reason other than to encourage people to get married, which is redundant because they already give tax breaks for each person claimed as a dependent. This is utterly ridiculous. Married couples typically live in the same house, so they can split the property tax between themselves, whereas a single person has to bear the whole burden. Additionally, when a person marries, they are essentially waiving their right to own property, since it becomes distributed in the instance of divorce by a judge. Any government recognized marriage is unconstitutional, as the government should not be discriminating against single people. If the government recognized institution of marriage was abolished, there would be no issue of equality, since everyone would be equal on tax day.

After deciding I want to make relationship permanent, I can just have a wedding ceremony, tell people I'm married, and not have the government involved in any way. Gay people can do that, but they're angry that the government doesn't "recognize" it, aka pay less taxes, because the government recognizes other people's relationships, where I believe it shouldn't.

reevero  08/06/2010 01:36 PM Report

And to those who ask, what is natural - "If it doesn't fit, you have to quit."

reevero  08/06/2010 01:32 PM Report

My family have long been Democrats, but in recent years the open-minded party I have long been proud to be a part of has gone extreme with the push on gay marriage. Many of us are middle-road Democrats that believe this is going too far. The other day I posted a comment on The Huffington Post and to my astonishment they took down my comment. My words were neither offensive nor in bad taste in anyway. Needless to say, I have cancelled my subscription to the site.

Here is what I wrote that got me censored for the first time in my life:

When anyone is vocal against gay marriage and homosexuality, supporters of gay rights like to label them as intolerant, prejudice and ignorant. I don’t consider myself any of the three. I was taught that we are all part of the human race and, therefore, no one is better than anyone else, regardless of race, class or religion. I feel I have always been on the right side, fighting for the poor, the minority, etc. But being gay is a desire and not a right.

Whatever people do in the privacy of their homes is their business. It is not anyone’s place on this earth to judge others’ actions and desires. I know people who are gay, and I treat them no differently, than I do anybody else. Everyone should be free from ridicule and attack, but to go so far as to give rights to an abnormal desire that contradicts nature since the beginning of time is wrong and can only lead to an untested and precarious road. You don’t have to be religious or a moralist to know that what isn’t natural shouldn’t be. Gay people should neither be attacked nor encouraged, but helped and prayed for. This ruling is misguided because the law has no place in sanctioning unnatural and defective desires and acts.

REMant  08/06/2010 01:10 PM Report

Marriages are indeed many things and have been, but families are unquestionably the origin of communities and nations. They are not contractual as is assumed in this country, having been taken from establishments of religion and made into an arm of govt. Nor are nations not even this one. Covenantal, perhaps, but not contractual. If that were the case they would not be able to exercise any police power. They are betwixt and between as Hobbes and Locke and Madison knew. Likewise, I think marriage cannot be considered merely contractual and I am not sure an American state has any role to play in their institution, nor the Federal govt to discriminate based on marital status, whether in the Constitution or not. This is like the question religious disestablishment raised. On the one hand, it meant the end of theocracy, but on the other it opened a greater role for religion. Likewise, marriage is not a matter of oaths, jewelry and certificates, but of love (or more accurately to avoid the imputation of sentimentality, of caritas or the love of God), and it ought to remain that way, which ought to satisfy both theocrats and republicans, for this kind of love, as both St Paul and Montesquieu wrote, is the only possible foundation of a true republic, not loyalty or fear, rewards or honors. To put it another way, in order to love another person, it is necessary to love oneself, and in order to love oneself, it is necessary to love God. So I would say that not only does the Federal govt have no place in the question, but also that the states do not, and that in the interest of good government they should not. To even put their imprimatur on them is, itself, hypocritical. It can be argued further that the First Amendment bars activity of this type, and states have adopted a similar stance. The churches may, but without any legal standing. Legal issues raised in conjunction with marriage can easily be handled by common law without recourse to contracts, too, and these are often at odds with principles of law and equity anyway.