Remember when I was critisized?

[albertGQ]

A couple of months ago there was a long and hard debate about legalizing gay marriages. Most posters here thought since this did not affect us we should just allow it. This thread is not another debate on that issue and in no way do I want to start one

One of my arguements was that if and when gay marriages get legalised, it would open up a new can of worms. People may want to marry their relatives or immediate family. Not many will choose this route, but it does take only one wacko couple for this to become front page of the news

The best arguement against that (obviously) is deformed babies. But there are many incidences where a deformed baby is impossible (eg. broher and brother wanting to get married, sister and sister etc). These types of unions do not result in any possibility of deformed births and since this union would not affect us, should we legalise it? My opinion is still no, but going by most posters reasoning for gay marriages, they should be in favour of it as well.

You may think this is just crazy talk and will never become an issue in society, but dont' forget centuries ago giving women equal rights was not even in the stratosphere of thinking and just a few decades ago, equal rights for homosexuals was viewed as an impossibility.


I am not the only one that thinks legalising gay marriages will open up a new can of worms. The Calgary Sun thought enough of it to print it as one of their letters today.

http://www.canoe.ca/CalgarySun/editorial.html

Now that gay and lesbians have their right to marriage (which was not something a few years ago they wanted, just equal rights), it will not be long before a father will fight to marry his daughter, or someone will want to marry their pet, or maybe, multiple wives or husbands. Welcome to Liberal Canada!

Derek Mason

(The times they are a-changin'.)

[Cowperson]

Printing a letter to the editor does not mean the Calgary SUN agrees with you.

It means "Derek Mason" agrees with you.

Cowperson

[albertGQ]

Originally posted by Cowperson@Dec 11 2004, 09:12 AM
Printing a letter to the editor does not mean the Calgary SUN agrees with you.

It means "Derek Mason" agrees with you.

Cowperson

I never said they agreed with me. I said they thought enough about the letter to print it and not just dismiss it as crazy talk

[calf]

Originally posted by albertGQ+Dec 11 2004, 09:14 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (albertGQ @ Dec 11 2004, 09:14 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-Cowperson@Dec 11 2004, 09:12 AM
Printing a letter to the editor does not mean the Calgary SUN agrees with you.

It means "Derek Mason" agrees with you.

Cowperson

I never said they agreed with me. I said they thought enough about the letter to print it and not just dismiss it as crazy talk [/b][/quote]
Have you ever read the Sun before? They print crazy talk all the time. Example: Ann Coulter is featured every Sunday.

[ricosuave]

the sun doesnt even deserve the name 'rag'

rico

[albertGQ]

Originally posted by ricosuave@Dec 11 2004, 09:31 AM
the sun doesnt even deserve the name 'rag'

rico

The Calgary Herald prints some "crazy" letters to the editor too

[Mike F]

Originally posted by albertGQ@Dec 11 2004, 07:56 AM

Now that gay and lesbians have their right to marriage (which was not something a few years ago they wanted, just equal rights), it will not be long before a father will fight to marry his daughter, or someone will want to marry their pet, or maybe, multiple wives or husbands. Welcome to Liberal Canada!

Derek Mason

(The times they are a-changin'.)

Irregardless of whether the Sun supported that view or not, it still doesn't lead to a conclusion that legalizing gay marriage is a threat to cause other changes.

The "slippery slope" argument is that if you allow people X, they you won't be able to deny them Y.

Even if the legalization of gay marriage lead to some people wanting to legalize other unions, it doesn't mean that we'll necessarily have to do so.

In the 1960's Trudeau repealed the law which made sodomy illegal, legalizing gay sex, but we still managed to keep the law against incest in force. And I don't even hear much of an outcry from people wanting it to be changed.

The slope doesn't seem so slippery to me.

[Cain]

Not legalizing something on the grounds that it 'might' open up new areas of contention is silly.

You legalize things one by one on the basis of whether or not it is just and fair. Then you deal with the remaining issues one by one.

Sure gay marriages might open up a whole new can of worms. So what? We'll deal with it as it comes.

[Captain Sensible]

Would anyone else not be surprised if albertGQ's real name is Derek Mason?

[Andrew]

Originally posted by Captain Sensible@Dec 11 2004, 12:11 PM
Would anyone else not be surprised if albertGQ's real name is Derek Mason?

[albertGQ]

Originally posted by Captain Sensible@Dec 11 2004, 11:11 AM
Would anyone else not be surprised if albertGQ's real name is Derek Mason?

Hhahaha. Thats a good one. But no, my real name is not Derek Mason. Funny though

[jonesy]

I agree with you AlbertGQ. It is naive to believe that the principle of gradualism will not apply to marriage definitions. There will be activists testing the waters, pushing the enevelope. At first they will be quite on the fringe and 'gradually' they will become 'normalized'.

[RougeUnderoos]

There was a time in my life when I was actually one of those people that decides what letters get in the paper (certainly not the Sun, but a couple post-secondary papers). Believe me, just because we printed something didn't mean we agreed with it. A couple letters got thrown in there because we thought they were funny.

The Sun probably agrees with this one though.

[Bertuzzied]

The debate ended as soon as AlbertGQ used incest as an example. You would make a good writer for the Sun. You and Eric Francis can kick his football around. B)

[jonesy]

Originally posted by Bertuzzied@Dec 11 2004, 06:26 PM
The debate ended as soon as AlbertGQ used incest as an example. You would make a good writer for the Sun. You and Eric Francis can kick his football around. B)

You do realize that there are some people out there who think incest is ok and their right? If you don't believe me, do a search on it. It is absolutely out there. Guess what, the same with animal 'lovers' I agree they are too far on the fringe to be clamouring for too many rights, but why is it so hard to believe that they might one day do so?

As an aside, there are secular historians that have studied the fall of the Roman Empire when ALL these things became the norm which contributed greatly to to the end of Rome's power.

[albertGQ]

Originally posted by jonesy@Dec 11 2004, 11:35 AM

You do realize that there are some people out there who think incest is ok and their right? If you don't believe me, do a search on it. It is absolutely out there. Guess what, the same with animal 'lovers' I agree they are too far on the fringe to be clamouring for too many rights, but why is it so hard to believe that they might one day do so?

Not to mention that homosexuality was viewed that way too. But now its been normalised

[Mike F]

Originally posted by jonesy@Dec 11 2004, 10:35 AM
I agree they are too far on the fringe to be clamouring for too many rights, but why is it so hard to believe that they might one day do so?

As I pointed out earlier, in the 40 years since gay sex was legalized there has been no call for a legalization of incest, so this fear-mongering argument is just baseless.

[jonesy]

I agree that in your opinion it is baseless. If you look as I suggested, you will find that there are groups calling for legalization of incest. It is not baseless.

[RougeUnderoos]

I'd rather not look for any group looking to legalize incest. Not only is it distasteful to me, it is irrelevant to the issue. I've looked high and low at the Supreme Court ruling and nowhere is incest mentioned.

Maybe some guy wants to marry his sister -- his best argument would probably begin with "they let men and women get married all the time", wouldn't it? What does two men getting married offer that guy? Nothing.

Say Mandy from down the street wants to make it official with her ferret -- what will her argument be? "I know two women who are married, so this is the same thing"? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Incest and bestiality have nothing to do with this. It's nothing but a diversion and an insult. And if we are so worried about the slippery slope let's just abolish marriage altogether. After all, if men and women are allowed...

[Mike F]

Originally posted by jonesy@Dec 11 2004, 11:07 AM
I agree that in your opinion it is baseless. If you look as I suggested, you will find that there are groups calling for legalization of incest. It is not baseless.

If you look there are also groups who wear tinfoil hats to prevent the government from remotely brainwashing them.

In the last 40 years there has been nothing remotely close to a meaningful social movement towards the legalization of incest arising from the normalization of homosexuality, so to continue to hold this opinion that legalization of gay marriage will somehow open the door for incest to become normalized is pretty much the definition of a paranoid delusion.

History shows there is absolutely no link between social norms towards homosexuality and social norms towards incest. The fact that there are supposedly groups calling for the legalization of incest has nothing to do with sodomy laws, marriage laws or anything related to homosexuality.