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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kevin Rose who wrote (133494)	3/26/2001 12:56:50 AM
From: Little Joe	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

Kevin: “With my most Libertarian-sounding voice, I say "the rights of the people". This should be the backbone of our law-making process. I do not believe, incidentally, that this is purely a Libertarian concept. The quantity of the laws is nothing; the quality is everything. If it takes one or ten thousand laws to protect the rights of the people, then that is the right number.” Wow. Kevin what are the rights of the people and where do they come from. Are you able to define them. Also, I thought you are a democrat which is definitely not a liberterian philosophy, so I am surprised that you are claiming liberterian rights. I am not sure what liberterian philosophy is furthered by gay marriage. Surely, if two people want to enter into a relationship they can do so without an institution called gay marriage. They can do this in the most liberterian of ways i.e. prepare a contract that both freely and voluntarily enter into that defines their relationship. This would be enforced in a court of law and their rights would be protected. “So, these groups have the right to advocate their viewpoints, whether heavenly or earthly inspired. My point is that the overriding 'judgement' as to the 'correctness' of the law should be the rights of ALL the people, not the beliefs of any individual group of people. “ Do you mean rights of all of the people or do you welfare of all of the people there is a significant difference between the two. Again, I fail to see where the lack of gay marriage laws interferes with any one’s rights. “On the issue of gay marriage, the issue is clear: either allow it, or don't. If you allow it, then the rights of gay couples are protected. “ In what way? “If you don't, what is the 'penalty' to the religious groups? They claim that allowing gay marriage is clearly against God's will. Just as clearly, that shouldn't amount to a hill of beans in the decision making process, as we have a secular government. They claim that it contributes to the moral decay of America; again, that is their religious interpretation.” I agree that their interpretation of God’s will is not relevant, but most religious proscriptions have a practical reason behind them. In the case of gay marriage the secular argument against it I think would go like this. It is a well known and documented fact that the sexual practices that gay men engage in are very unhealthy. Even if you forget about aids. Read “and the band played on” which was written by a gay jounalist, if you need to understand the role that gay male sex played in destroying the lives of so many gay men. Of course a true liberterian would say that gays knew the risks and if they chose to take them so be it. But our society is not liberterian. We have traditionally involved the government in public health from the delivery of services, to education, to legislation. In our society we do not say you knowingly chose to endanger your health so the hell with you. We don’t say this to people who overeat, eat the wrong things, smoke, and we don’t so this to people who choose to live the gay lifestyle. On the other hand if government is ultimately responsible to pay for the health risks that all of us take in one way or another, it also has the right to try to modify unhealthy behavior. So, we make people wear seat belts, we make them wear helmets. We make them put warnings on cigarette packages and regulate advertising of cigarettes in opposition to liberterian principles. We have sex education in school, and health classes and information published by the government and public service announcements paid for by the governemnt. My party, the dems, is a proponent of this type of legislation. However, when it comes to the gay life style, at least among gay males, for reasons that are beyond my understanding, we don’t even talk about the health risks involved. In fact we are moving to approval of a highly dangerous lifestyle. Another issue is that propagation of the human race is of great importance to our society and our government and of course this is the real historical basis for our marriage laws which are admittedly becoming archaic. So it is easy to argue that we ought not formalize gay marriage by having the State recognize them for this reason. “As I've said before, the gay relationships I've seen are paragons of commitment and love.” I have known gays who seem to be living together as happily as heterosexual couples, and I have seen some truly pathological relationships and behavior in the gay community. (I don’t profess to be an expert). But so what. Gays are not bad people for being gay, but neither are people who don’t wear seat belts , or people who over eat or smoke. But we still don’t say o.k. you are a nice person so ride without your helmet. . Kevin, I enjoy debating with you. Please let me hear your response to my thoughts. I am going to retire in a few minutes, so I won’t reply until tomorrow. Little joe