Oklahoma's domino has fallen

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

GRRRR. This is the verydefinition of judicial activism. By what right does an appointed-for-life judge veto the religious beliefs of an entire state?

Religious beliefs are irrelevant to Oklahoma's marriage laws, because in this country an 'entire state' isn't deemed properly capable of having religious beliefs (unlike, apparently, closely held corporations, but I digress). Whether or not you think that that is a good thing is up to you, but answering no would not be very American of you.

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Which is why the Supreme Court has been more cautious on this issue. United States v. Windsor was clearly a prelude to nationwide legalization of gay marriage. The reason it was not, itself, nationwide legalization of gay marriage is precisely this.

Furthermore, it's only fair to remind conservatives of Loving v. Virginia and the way that's become uncontroversial over the years despite a greater proportion of the country opposing it at the time than Roe v. Wade.

Still furthermore, most sane people recognize that abortion is a much more morally fraught issue than gay marriage because it's literally a matter of (how one defines) life and death.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

How is that any more fraught then how we define the means of producing life, that is to say relations between a man and a woman?

If it's not already intuitive to you how why that's a specious equivalency then I'm not sure I can explain it to you.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I sincerely hope you intend that to mean a tendency rather than a universal outcome, because--I know the plural of anecdote is not data but if you're claiming a universal outcome then this is still relevant--I've met and in some cases been personally close to more than a few very well-adjusted celibate people, who wouldn't be offended so much as confused to be told that their emotional state is 'far worse than herpes'. More to the point, I don't think and am frankly baffled by the suggestion that my emotional state is 'far worse than herpes', though it's admittedly not that great either.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Well, gee golly gosh, Nathan, but I do intend to say a herpes outbreak once every blue moon is preferable to being an asexual trans victimologist every single day.

What are you, like, twelve?

Maybe if you weren't so condescending and snide I'd do you the courtesy of assuming you developed this opinion in good faith, but, oh well.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I preferred your original response. But I think even you could see being the kind of guy who wrote that post was definitely worse than herpes.

Stop it. Your opinion is ridiculous and your manner of expressing it is inexcusable. My body and my psyche are my own experience, and your commentary on that experience—particularly the way you doubled down on it after I pointed out that this isn’t just about an abstraction that doesn’t occur in reality or an excuse to take pot-shots at Catholic holy orders, it’s about real people with real inner lives that you’ve unilaterally declared worse than an STD (granted, a mild STD)—is unneeded, unhelpful, unappreciated, and unwelcome.

I'd be interested to see that.

Oh! All right. As I recall, the first sentence was something along the lines of 'In that case, I don't agree with your opinion, and I can't even take it seriously'. The second sentence was the same as it is in the existing response, except I called King 'Your Majesty' at the end. I changed it because I recognized that it was supercilious and self-indulgent (I can't agree with King's opinion, I can't take it seriously...well of course I can't!), whereas questioning King's emotional maturity was, to my mind, just confused and kind of dismissive, which was closer to what I was going for. (It was still unkind, of course, but in my defense I was originally trying to be measured and temperate and he responded by being downright insulting.)

So are we rating other people's happiness now?

Apparently. Antonio! You seem unhappy because you're French! Go move to Germany or something!

Things that might make living my life arguably worse than having a properly treated case of herpes, for the record: Financial problems. Trouble dealing with uncertainty about the future. Fallings-out with friends. People like King making unfounded, judgmental pronouncements about the lives of people like me, then insulting and talking down to me for daring to disagree with them. Things that make my life stabler, more self-contained, and easier to manage: Not having sex.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Glad to see some sort of emotion in your posts for once. Maybe there's a few hormones in that body of yours after all.

Why would it be so much worse if there weren't? Are you really that unwilling to just apologize for insulting me because I had the temerity to point out that you were phrasing a somewhat grandiose generalization as some sort of universal psychological fact? Does that really offend your sensibilities so God-damn much?

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Whatever. I hope your nonexistent country becomes a republic.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

No reason for me to apologize. I said celibates are emotionally off-kilter and your responses to me certainly don't have me second guessing that assertion.

How was I supposed to respond? Laugh and pretend to agree? Disagree but not say anything? Make my original, studiously unemotive response, and then ignore your subsequent personal attacks? You haven't, incidentally, given any indication as to how you think I'm 'emotionally off-kilter', other than, apparently, taking it personally when I'm repeatedly insulted by somebody who's never met me. I have no idea what the acceptable range of emotion or emotional expression in King-verse even is, except that sexual activity (or just desire for sexual activity? What is the minimum amount of sex necessary to be well-adjusted in your worldview?--Rhetorical question; I have no interest in knowing the answer to this) is absolutely mandatory for some reason.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Like I said in my last post I have no clear notion of what precisely the idea in question is exactly and don't really care to find out so I'd prefer to just disengage at this point if that's all right with my, uh, interlocutor.