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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dale Baker who wrote (561)	6/9/2005 9:10:24 AM
From: Dale Baker	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 541583

Just found a wealth of data on gay marriage issues - the most interesting fact is, just like most causes, the opponents of gay rights don't have a 60%+ majority on virtually any question asked (though they used to). With public opinion now pretty much split, this is an issue where a determined band of centrists could steadily make the pragmatic equal rights case for better gay rights. It wouldn't be easy or popular but it could prove worth doing in the long run. JMHO. pollingreport.com

To: Dale Baker who wrote (561)	6/9/2005 11:12:30 AM
From: Suma	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541583

Dale, that was truly a beautiful post. Oh that more people on this planet were as tolerant and compassionate about other's rights as you are. I agree with what you think and have in my lifetime tried to fight for equality for all. I learned in my first camping experience where there were black counselors.. BACK before most of you were born... the forties... that once I worked around people of color I ceased to see color. That Black counselor was just Val... or another just counselor. I became color blind.. This WASP reared in a small own with parents who were prejudiced... changed.. On a day off I had loaded up my car with counselors who also had off and were asking to go into town with me. I was called into the Director's quarters and told the following. Do you know you are taking 3 Blacks with you tomorrow. You had better go into the restaurant in Newburgh New York and see whether they accept Blacks.. as you would not want them to be embarrassed. I did this. They did and we had a grand time. The word then however was Negroes.. It was only later that the term Blacks evolved and then African Americans... When I was director of a camp in later years, I went to the South and recruited from Spellman and Clark colleges First professional blacks in a YWCA camp. Up until that time blacks were only in the kitchen or driving the camp car. In later years, one of the counselors who was on the staff, wrote to me that that summer with Whites and outside her Atlanta Ghetto.. had emboldened her to be the first Black woman to be admitted to graduate school. She had to withstand rotten eggs and oaths hurled at her but she persevered.. Each little step toward tolerance, each little inroad to having fewer divisive actions and more Human and so called Christian actions are a step toward a better world. IMO

To: Dale Baker who wrote (561)	6/9/2005 12:57:48 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541583

You can say that my not accepting intolerance is paradoxical and maybe hypocritical. You won't hear that from me because I'm the same way. The move by some cities and states to formalize gay marriage was a good example of what you outlined It is. If it's a case where there are majorities in favor of pragmatic measures like work benefits for gay partners, civil unions, etc. that would be the starting point. It would be. And things were going fine, seems to me. Acceptance of work benefits was spreading and civil unions were getting some traction. Until the movement overreached. If you get in people's faces, if you get up on a moral high horse, if you make a federal case out of it, you get a backlash. You get proposals for a constitutional amendment to stop it. And the momentum has been lost. So much for your human right. The school clubs being victimized in that article are another great example of local initiative that shouldn't be knocked down by folks who are prejudiced. I agree with you, but you have to pick your fights if you want to win.

To: Dale Baker who wrote (561)	6/9/2005 3:23:31 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 541583

If it's a case where there are majorities in favor of pragmatic measures like work benefits for gay partners, civil unions, etc. that would be the starting point. Such benefits might be simple and pragmatic. Some might consider them to be moderate, esp. if a majority is in favor of them. But a national requirement for such benefits, esp. one created by a federal court, would be sweeping, revolutionary, radical... not moderate. I don't think my pet causes will be easy or popular to implement tomorrow (legalizing soft drugs and prostitution and full rights for gay individuals and couples). I agree with you on the first, and don't know about the second. "Full rights for X" can mean a million different things for any particular "X". The term "rights" is often is used to include equal treatment but I would not use the term that way. I normally use the term rights to mean "negative rights" (the right to not have someone do something to you, or punish you for doing something). I wouldn't extend it to "positive rights" (the "right" to have someone provide some benefit to you, or some recognition or support for your decisions, opinions, or status). I don't recognize "positive rights" as really being rights (except that they can be "legal rights" (what you are entitled to or entitled to do, under the law). If I just say the word "rights" without any modifier, I am talking about "natural rights", and I don't recognize "positive natural rights". Tim