Re: Do you support legalizing gay marriage?
The Heritage Foundation is a notorious extreme right wing organization that has no credibility in a legitimate discussion. Therefore, anything they say is irrelevant.
Is there any "conservative" think tank that you feel is credible? I am neither agreeing nor disagreeing with your assessment of Heritage, but I have noted that there are many people who dismiss this think tank or that one purely on the basis of being liberal or conservative. Are there any conservative ones out there, that while you may disagree with their conclusions and/or premises, you hold as honest in their methods?
Good. I'm not debating this for my purposes either, but to make sure that any unsuspecting person who wanders in this thread recognizes just how invalid anything you say actually is, so they won't fall under the same non-credible (religious) belief system that you are professing.
In that same vein, are there any religious belief systems that you hold to be credible?
And if you don't like my public nudity analogy, feel free to substitute adult incest, bigamy, bestiality, or any of the other acts Justice Scalia mentioned in his Lawrence dissent.
Bestiality is an automatic for comparison to the others. Unless you can prove a non-human with equal or superior intelligence and sentience to human, then you run afoul of the consent issue in the same manner that you run afoul of the consent issue with pedophilia. Of those that remain only adult incest has active laws against it (I exclude bigamy since bigamy is specifically about legal marriages and not about an act in and of itself). SSM, polygamy and interracial marriage can all be practiced without involvement of the law. They will simply not receive all the legal benefits and protections. These acts and even incest, can all be looked at comparably alongside public nudity. Bestiality cannot even come close. I would also put forth the argument that should we discover a non-human sentient creature that is effectively our equal, then the label of bestiality would not apply should one desire to have sex with a member of that species/race.
After more than two hundred years during which, in every state of this country, continuously, it was assumed that promoting the moral convictions of a majority was a legitimate government interest--and during which two hundred years the Supreme Court never even suggested anything to the contrary--that Court has arbitrarily decreed that it is not.
When did this arbitrary period start? With interracial marriage? Women's suffrage?
What you don't want to admit is that the only reason for laws that make a number of sex-related acts crimes is that the majorities that made those laws believe those acts are immoral and unacceptable. If promoting that belief through laws is no longer a legitimate government interest, I'd like to know just what constitutional grounds those laws--thousands of them, in every state--rest on. Please tell us that.
As a counter question what is the constitutional grounds for the laws that forbid the practice of witchcraft? Law that are still on the books in many states and local city/county governments. There is a relation here.
But if most people in your state think there should be no laws against masturbating on the street in broad daylight, or buggering your dog in front of city hall, or entering into an incestuous homosexual marriage with your son, or God knows what else, that's your lookout. As you seem to suggest (for the most part, at least--your remark about "need to demonstrate a legit govt interest" is confused) those things are just not constitutional issues.
I find this list of examples to be rather disingenuous. You've taken two sex acts, masturbation and bestiality, and not addressed them per se', but specifically placed them in public view and then tried to compare them to general incest, homosexuality and SSM (in one shot no less!). The argument against masturbation is not the same as the one against masturbating in public. To be comparable, you would have to compare SSM with simple masturbation in and of itself. Same with bestiality.
There is no constitutional reason to prevent it or require it or anything else, because it is simply not a constitutional issue. And it is not same-sex marriage that needs to serve a legitimate government purpose. That is part of the standard ordinary state laws have to meet in order to survive a Fourteenth Amendment due process or equal protection challenge. A garden-variety state law has to be rationally related to furthering a legitimate government interest.
Loving vs Virgina. If SCOTUS ruled that there is no legitimate basis for a state to prevent interracial marriages and has over multiple cases noted that marriage is a basic fundamental right, then what basis does a state have for preventing SSM?
Why does any personal freedom that harms no one need to demonstrate a legit govt interest? Does skateboarding? That's a freaking nuisance. Causes alot of harm to those individuals. How about motorcycles? How about pot? Prostitution?
Skateboarding does hold a legitimate concern of government, but only insofar as restriction of where it is allowed, or more specifically, certain areas where it is not allowed. Similar to bicycles and scooters. The introduction of these to various pedestrian and/or vehicular throughways can be dangerous both the the rider and to others.
Anything for which there is NOT any legitimate govt or social harm should be legal. Period. And let's face it....things like cigarettes and alcohol DO cause social harm. Increase public health costs.
Social harm is a highly subjective term. We can demonstrate physical harm from alcohol and pot when used and then a motor vehicle is operated and other similar situations. So that indeed does argue for laws restricting activity while under the influence of such substances, while not arguing for the absolute restriction of the substance itself. As to tobacco, there are many other activities that we do not restrict or prohibit that have higher potential health risks than smoking or chew or other products. So the only legitimate restriction of tobacco would be for public area due to the imposition of those who do not wish to be exposed to such substances. The issue of whether or not a business is public or private is for another thread.
On the nudity front, you could show a potential health issue of unconsented exposure with the surface transfer issue. So a restriction of not being allowed on public siting surfaces with no bottoms would be a legitimate law.
You ignore one sin but go after another. Pretty Hypocritical.
This is pretty close to personal attack. Within this thread he is attacking what the subject of this thread is about. Can you show that he is not tackling these other sins, either in other thread about those "sins" or outside of DP altogether. I might be willing to call him seemingly hypocritical, but not as an absolute.