Why on earth is Fred Phelps and his twisted congregation free to protest the funerals of soldiers and homosexuals?
It's not as if I find the extreme-Left, America-hating, anti-war loonies any less despicable than I always have. But, I think there's someone who could just possibly be even worse. His name? Fred Phelps.…
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Article comments
226 - NR Davis
"NR, you want superiority for formerly oppressed people."
Again, you are wrong, Mr. Marsh. As was I to think there might be a heart and brain lurking deep within you that could get beyond your delusion that only you deserve the word "marriage" and that I should be happy to deal with the inequality for your side's sake. After seeing your (deliberate? stupid?) mischaracterization of my views, I realized there is no benefit in reading your words.
Peace.
227 - Margaret Romao Toigo
Nancy asks, "Why did gay/lesbian rights get inserted into this discussion?"
Everybody agreeing that protesting at soldiers' funerals is in extremely poor taste and that Fred Phelps is "a moral skank" wouldn't have been much of a discussion.
There are over 200 comments here and, thus far, nobody has come to Fred Phelps's defense (though some of us did defend his First Amendment rights), so there was no opportunity to engage in such a discussion and, even if such a discussion took place, I doubt very much that it would have been worth reading, anyway.
Hardly anybody supports extremists or their causes, but these radical, one-percenters do serve a purpose -- whether they want to or not -- because they help the mainstream to find some sort of common ground on contentious issues such as gay rights.
228 - Michael J. West
You know Fred Phelps actually picketed Mister Rogers's funeral? Mister Rogers? The world's most wholesome human being, perhaps the most beloved and effective family-values representative since the advent of the Mass Media?
Forgive me if this seems naive, but there is simply no vestige of human decency in a person or group of people who would protest the funeral of Mister Rogers.
229 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
This all gets a bit tiring.
Let's analyze the issue for just a bit - dispassionately.
Two homosexuals living together can have almost the same relationship as a man and a woman. What is different? The two of them together cannot produce a child. They can adopt a child, they can raise one that is from a former heterosexual union, they can even use technology (if they are women) to bear a child - but no matter how much they dance and sing, a homosexual union, in and of itself, cannot produce a child.
The point of marriage has been traditionally to produce children who, by the dint of the efforts of the two parents, would have enough to eat, and survive - to produce in their turn, more children. People have woven business, romance, friendship, relieving loneliness or even statecraft into the marital union, and use various extramarital means (religious or state authority) to legitimize it and give it more stability, but at bottom, the point of marriage was to produce children who would survive.
Thus there can be no such thing as a homosexual "marriage". Biology just doesn't allow for it. This is not an issue of what one thinks of homosexual matings versus heterosexual matings or homosexual relationships versus heterosexual relationships. I'm not rendering judgment here. I'm simply rleating the facts of biology.
Heterosexual unions produce (one should say "can produce") children; homosexual unions can't. This is the intrinsic difference between them.
From the point of view of what goes into making a relationship work, this is a minor difference, alomst an irrelevant issue; from the point of view of continuing the race, it is all the difference in the world.
I'd argue that societal interest in continuing the race is pretty strong, at least strong enough to guarantee that women have a replacement fertility rate of 2.1 children on average to maintain the population of whatever jursidiction we're talking about. Societal interests usually get represented by the tribe, or its extension, the state, or by religion.
The issue of whether homosexual unions should get "equality" with marriage balances two vectors. The happiness of individuals on the one hand, an the need to continue the race on the other.
Notice that in this analysis, I have not mentioned right or wrong, fairness or unfairness or even good or evil. I have simply mentioned the survival of the race and the happiness of its members.
Can a solution be reached that maximizes both?
In the States, "marriage" has been bundled with benefits by the state to encourage people to marry and thus produce children. The continuance of the race has been put far above the happiness of the the members of the race.
The solution I've suggested at comment #87 and comment #104 attempts a slightly different balance - one that puts the happiness of the members of the race a little higher than heretofore.
230 - Jet in Columbus
Wrong Ruvy wrong wrong wrong
A lesbian donates and egg, which is fertilized by donor sperm. the egg is then implanted in the OTHER lesbian, making them BOTH the mother!
231 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Quoting myself, Jet:
"...they can even use technology (if they are women) to bear a child..."
That is what you gave an example of. Donor sperm - donor egg - that's technology. What's wrong here?
232 - Jet in Columbus
Relax I was just checking to see if you were awake.
Two men can also do it using a donor egg, but having the egg's DNA removed and replaced with half of one man's and half of another effectivly making both men the fathers and the child wouldn't be related to the birth mother.
233 - Mark Edward Manning
NR: "Again, you are wrong, Mr. Marsh ..."
NR "Read what is on the page, damn it!" Davis, Andy Marsh did not write comment #224. I did. Looks like you need to start taking your own advice about reading what's on the page.