Washington legislature has enough votes to legalize same-sex marriage

[Free Palestine]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/23/washington-gay-marriage_n_1224397.html?1327350011

Inb4 milhouse makes one of his stupid amazing posts.

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

I'm serious about the pretentious art gallery thing. There are quite a few in Northampton that I'm sure would be receptive.

[greenforest32]

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Theocrats = scum

[Marokai Backbeat]

I look forward to the hilarious and pathetic ads NOM will release throughout the struggle in the inevitable referendum campaign.

[Free Palestine]

Yeah, I fcking hate NOM.

As I said in the other thread, there's pretty much no sane argument against same-sex marriage.  All it boils down to is "OH NOES TEH GAYS."

[RI]

As I said in the other thread, there's pretty much no sane argument against same-sex marriage.  All it boils down to is "OH NOES TEH GAYS."

Couldn't you do that for any issue, really, if you wanted to be dismissive?

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

As I said in the other thread, there's pretty much no sane argument against same-sex marriage.  All it boils down to is "OH NOES TEH GAYS."

Couldn't you do that for any issue, really, if you wanted to be dismissive?

You could, but gay marriage is rather remarkable for the paucity of secular arguments against it that are liable to be held up as legally or sociologically convincing.

[Alcon]

As I said in the other thread, there's pretty much no sane argument against same-sex marriage.  All it boils down to is "OH NOES TEH GAYS."

Couldn't you do that for any issue, really, if you wanted to be dismissive?

You could, but gay marriage is rather remarkable for the paucity of secular arguments against it that are liable to be held up as legally or sociologically convincing.

I wouldn't have any interest in this issue -- it's not life or death, it's almost entirely irrelevant to me personally -- except you're 100% right:  There is no public policy argument against it that I don't find maddeningly bad.  I distinguish "public policy argument" here from "secular argument" because the religious public policy arguments are bad too.  Do people really want to have the government be picking which denomination's scriptural interpretations to endorse?  If I were a religious person, that seems like a terrifying prospect.  Tons of Americans belong to religious faiths that do not recognize their friends' marriages as religiously valid.  Do they want to bring those disagreements into civil marriage law too?  Yikes!

I don't mean to be dismissive.  There's wonderful people who disagree with gay marriage.  But the arguments against gay marriage as civil policy are just so weak...I can't respect the view.  I believe in the importance of good public policy.  I believe in the importance of equitable treatment.  Most of all, I believe in the importance of love.  I really hope I get to be proud of our state in November.

[Napoleon]

Shocked Mercer Island is still represented by a Republican.

[bgwah]

Shocked Mercer Island is still represented by a Republican.

It's only about 1/6th of the district, and he only barely won a special election in 2010 of all years. Still, he may be making the right move to get re-elected this year.

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

As I said in the other thread, there's pretty much no sane argument against same-sex marriage.  All it boils down to is "OH NOES TEH GAYS."

Couldn't you do that for any issue, really, if you wanted to be dismissive?

You could, but gay marriage is rather remarkable for the paucity of secular arguments against it that are liable to be held up as legally or sociologically convincing.

I wouldn't have any interest in this issue -- it's not life or death, it's almost entirely irrelevant to me personally -- except you're 100% right:  There is no public policy argument against it that I don't find maddeningly bad.  I distinguish "public policy argument" here from "secular argument" because the religious public policy arguments are bad too.  Do people really want to have the government be picking which denomination's scriptural interpretations to endorse?  If I were a religious person, that seems like a terrifying prospect.  Tons of Americans belong to religious faiths that do not recognize their friends' marriages as religiously valid.  Do they want to bring those disagreements into civil marriage law too?  Yikes!

This is a really good point. I belong to a church that doesn't consider remarriage after divorce valid unless there's a two-year waiting period and some religious or moral authority of at least some description says he or she is okay with it, but I certainly wouldn't want that imposed upon the country as a whole, ninety-eight to ninety-nine per cent of which is not Episcopalian.

[Jacobtm]

We are getting closer to the point where at least the states with the highest concentration of gay couples will legalize gay marriage.



Georgia might take some waiting though...

[All Along The Watchtower]

As I said in the other thread, there's pretty much no sane argument against same-sex marriage.  All it boils down to is "OH NOES TEH GAYS."

Couldn't you do that for any issue, really, if you wanted to be dismissive?

You could, but gay marriage is rather remarkable for the paucity of secular arguments against it that are liable to be held up as legally or sociologically convincing.

I wouldn't have any interest in this issue -- it's not life or death, it's almost entirely irrelevant to me personally -- except you're 100% right:  There is no public policy argument against it that I don't find maddeningly bad.  I distinguish "public policy argument" here from "secular argument" because the religious public policy arguments are bad too.  Do people really want to have the government be picking which denomination's scriptural interpretations to endorse?  If I were a religious person, that seems like a terrifying prospect.  Tons of Americans belong to religious faiths that do not recognize their friends' marriages as religiously valid.  Do they want to bring those disagreements into civil marriage law too?  Yikes!

I don't mean to be dismissive.  There's wonderful people who disagree with gay marriage.  But the arguments against gay marriage as civil policy are just so weak...I can't respect the view.  I believe in the importance of good public policy.  I believe in the importance of equitable treatment.  Most of all, I believe in the importance of love.  I really hope I get to be proud of our state in November.

I don't think they get that far in their thought processes. They just take it for granted that America is a nation of overwhelmingly good moral upstanding conservative Christian folk who are being oppressed by an elitist gay secular Muslim Jewish atheist liberal minority.

[Alcon]

I wouldn't have any interest in this issue -- it's not life or death, it's almost entirely irrelevant to me personally -- except you're 100% right:  There is no public policy argument against it that I don't find maddeningly bad.  I distinguish "public policy argument" here from "secular argument" because the religious public policy arguments are bad too.  Do people really want to have the government be picking which denomination's scriptural interpretations to endorse?  If I were a religious person, that seems like a terrifying prospect.  Tons of Americans belong to religious faiths that do not recognize their friends' marriages as religiously valid.  Do they want to bring those disagreements into civil marriage law too?  Yikes!

I don't mean to be dismissive.  There's wonderful people who disagree with gay marriage.  But the arguments against gay marriage as civil policy are just so weak...I can't respect the view.  I believe in the importance of good public policy.  I believe in the importance of equitable treatment.  Most of all, I believe in the importance of love.  I really hope I get to be proud of our state in November.

I don't think they get that far in their thought processes. They just take it for granted that America is a nation of overwhelmingly good moral upstanding conservative Christian folk who are being oppressed by an elitist gay secular Muslim Jewish atheist liberal minority.

I think you're right that they don't get that far, and that frustrates me even more.  Somehow, they manage to argue that gay civil marriage will have these absurd secondary effects -- some of them are truly creative thinking -- but they seem to selectively ignore the concrete philosophical issues that disallowing gay marriage brings up.  If they didn't argue to their conclusions on this issue, I genuinely believe many of them would realize their arguments against gay marriage (as a public policy, not private rite) actually don't hold up at all.

[Nation]

What Alcon said. Too often the media fails to put the pressure on gay marriage opponents for a solid, convincing argument, with evidence, of way gay marriage is bad public policy. The reality is that there are no convincing arguments, which is why we're rapidly seeing more states pass these types of bills. I suspect Washington will be successful in its endeavors, and hopefully be followed by other western states.

[The Mikado]

Yeah, the gay marriage issue, even though it is a bit of a sideshow in some terms, is one I like a lot because it's one of those issues where I have no doubt that my position (pro-legalization) is the right position and the pro-banning position is the wrong position.  I have doubts and conflicting opinions and problems with so many other issues that it's nice to have something like this where I know I'm on the side of the angels.

[Alcon]

For those curious and phobic of the WA thread, the State Senate just passed same-sex marriage legislation by a vote of 28-21.