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Appeals court upholds laws against gay marriage in Michigan, 3 other states

Papa bull said:
That 10% is why I'm on the fence about domestic partnerships and would even be inclined to support a law that provides that. The fact that it's not a marriage doesn't mean that it's not a loving relationship or that there shouldn't be any sort of legal structure to support such an alternative lifestyle arrangement if the participants so desire it. But it's still something that only would apply to 1 in 100 and that frequency only if we consider that 10% of the population is homosexual and 10% of homosexuals marry and both of those statistics are actually on the high side.
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You don't own the word marriage or its meaning, so there is no reason for them to not call their relationships "marriages". Your being against their using the term doesn't matter two bits.
 
roguenuke said:
Many of the people released from mental institutions were either a) released because of money/financial concerns, or b) they didn't really belong there to begin with. None of it had to do with people saying they were merely "different"/"not normal".
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It arose from a shift in thinking about mental illness toward relativism. This is covered in the abnormal psychology chapter of most introductory psychology texts.
 
Taylor said:
Loving vs Virginia did not declare civil marriage a basic right. Civil marriage, like driving on public roads, requires a license and is more of a privilege than a right. You don't need a license to drive on private property, and you don't need a license to have a private marriage. You have the "right" to do these without government interference.
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A very odd interpretation given the case that they were dealing with.
 
Papa bull said:
Or as domestic partnerships would. For the purpose of legal protection and trust that you are arguing, there's no difference.
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1. Has there ever been a push by those that oppose Marriage Equality a serious effort to get civil unions/domestic partnerships recognized across state lines like Civil Marriages?

2. Has there ever been a push by those that oppose Marriage Equality a serious effort to get civil unions/domestic partnerships fully and equally recognized by the Federal government like Civil Marriages?

3. Has there ever been a push by those that oppose Marriage Equality a serious effort to get referendums on the ballot to remove civil unions/domestic partnerships BANS they they are the ones responsible for getting passed into State Constitutions in the first place and replace those bans with civil unions/domestic partnerships that are full and equal to Civil Marriage?



>>>>
 
Papa bull said:
That 10% is why I'm on the fence about domestic partnerships and would even be inclined to support a law that provides that. The fact that it's not a marriage doesn't mean that it's not a loving relationship or that there shouldn't be any sort of legal structure to support such an alternative lifestyle arrangement if the participants so desire it. But it's still something that only would apply to 1 in 100 and that frequency only if we consider that 10% of the population is homosexual and 10% of homosexuals marry and both of those statistics are actually on the high side.
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Does the number of people desiring to participate really influence a decision on individual liberty? I mean, not many people like to dress up and go to a Clown Convention but nobody would consider that to be an argument against making Clown Conventions legal.
 
Taylor said:
It arose from a shift in thinking about mental illness toward relativism. This is covered in the abnormal psychology chapter of most introductory psychology texts.
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It is because there were lots of people who believed (wrongly) that something like a woman who didn't want to do housework or who wanted to wear pants had a mental illness, something that wasn't true. I am taking introductory psychology courses now and there absolutely is nothing that says that people were released from mental institutions due to some "feel good philosophy" that ended up with the majority of those people ending up in jail after that release.

If you think differently, prove it. I know what you are trying to use, but that "research"/report does not say what you are claiming. The reason those people are ending up in jail is because they either haven't been treated/evaluated at all until after they end up in prison or jail or they were released and money issues meant they didn't get the proper treatment/support for them.
 
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roguenuke said:
It is because there were lots of people who believed (wrongly) that something like a woman who didn't want to do housework or who wanted to wear pants had a mental illness, something that wasn't true.
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Women were not committed to mental institutions for not doing housework, lol. These were people (mostly men) with schizophrenia and other psychoses. The hope was that they could give them a bottle of thorazine and they'd go on to live happy, productive lives. In the mid-60s, the field was significantly influenced by cultural relativism and the idea that what was normal was merely a cultural label; that what we call a delusional schizophrenic in the US might be considered a visionary shaman somewhere else. Eventually, a lot of these visionary shamen ended up homeless on the streets or in prison. If this wasn't covered in your intro class, it should be when/if you take a course in abnormal psych. There almost always is a section on ways to define or think about what it means to be abnormal.
 
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Taylor said:
Women were not committed to mental institutions for not doing housework, lol. These were people with schizophrenia and other psychoses. The hope was that they could give them a bottle of thorazine and they'd go on to live happy, productive lives. In the mid-60s, the field was significantly influenced by cultural relativism and the idea that what was normal was merely a cultural label; that what we call a delusional schizophrenic in the US might be considered a visionary shaman somewhere else. Eventually, a lot of these visionary shamen ended up homeless on the streets or in prison. If this wasn't covered in your intro class, it should be when/if you take a course in abnormal psych.
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Yes, they were around the early 1900s and earlier.

Involuntary Commitment

Husbands ridding themselves of wives via the psychiatric institution was still enough of a problem in the 1930s that the first woman in Maine's legislature, Gail Laughlin, authorized a bill penalizing husbands for bringing false testimony in the involuntary commitment hearings of their wives. I worked with a patient who in the 1960s had been brought to the hospital by her husband. The chief complaint listed on the admitting record was: "Patient does not do her housework."
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While this might not have been "common", it wasn't unheard of for many if any mental institutions in the past to have a husband basically drop off his wife at such a place and claim she didn't do something she was supposed to do or claim she did something that "went against social convention" to have her committed and he got rid of her.
 
roguenuke said:
Yes, they were around the early 1900s and earlier.

Involuntary Commitment



While this might not have been "common", it wasn't unheard of for many if any mental institutions in the past to have a husband basically drop off his wife at such a place and claim she didn't do something she was supposed to do or claim she did something that "went against social convention" to have her committed and he got rid of her.
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It also relies entirely on what they mean by "not doing her housework". Was she a horder living in appalling squalor?
 
roguenuke said:
Yes, they were around the early 1900s and earlier.

Involuntary Commitment



While this might not have been "common", it wasn't unheard of for many if any mental institutions in the past to have a husband basically drop off his wife at such a place and claim she didn't do something she was supposed to do or claim she did something that "went against social convention" to have her committed and he got rid of her.
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You left off:
I think she did actually have a recurrent depression, a symptom of which was her inability to care for herself and her home.
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So she wasn't committed for refusing to do housework, that was just the way the husband described the symptoms of what was a condition that made her unable to care for herself or perform everyday tasks.

It's probable that there were more egregious cases a century ago, but I was referring to the 1960's, which was when a lot of the deinstitutionalization occurred.
 
CanadaJohn said:
I don't want to get into a scientific discussion - I don't have the expertise - but what's to say that homosexuality isn't a form of natural selection, in all species, or a form of population control, in all species. As I said above, if something appears naturally, it's normal to me.
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Cancer appears naturally but, I'd hope it's not normal.
 
roguenuke said:
Whether something is normal or abnormal, natural or unnatural doesn't determine whether it is "good" or "bad", "right" or "wrong", "moral" or "immoral".
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Then who does decide that? A majority of voters? One guy or gal in a black robe? A legislative body?
 
jmotivator said:
It also relies entirely on what they mean by "not doing her housework". Was she a horder living in appalling squalor?
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No. This was simply the mentality back then. That a woman that was unwilling to do her housework must be mentally disabled, the same mentality that said that someone who wanted to be in relationships with people of the same sex must be mentally screwed up. So much was seen as a mental problem back then that was simply a person who deviated from social norms.
 
WCH said:
Then who does decide that? A majority of voters? One guy or gal in a black robe? A legislative body?
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Many people get a say in it, but the main say comes from the Constitution, the default of which is freedom for all. It should only be limited to further a state interest. That is what decides, and that is upheld by those people in black robes (in case you weren't aware, there are 9 of them), but they are kept in check by other things, such as the necessary process to get to them (which is many more people in black robes). The voters and the legislative bodies have a say as well.

Our rights are determined by what we are willing to fight for, especially in a case like this where people are trying to prevent others from doing something just because people feel they should be able to.
 
Taylor said:
You left off:
So she wasn't committed for refusing to do housework, that was just the way the husband described the symptoms of what was a condition that made her unable to care for herself or perform everyday tasks.

It's probable that there were more egregious cases a century ago, but I was referring to the 1960's, which was when a lot of the deinstitutionalization occurred.
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Yet her husband's chief complaint was "she isn't doing housework", not she isn't able to take care of herself. And she wasn't the only one.

And many of those people did not belong in mental institutions, but rather simply being taken care of by a mental health professional, getting the help they needed outside of a mental facility is possible, and much healthier for them.
 
roguenuke said:
Many people get a say in it, but the main say comes from the Constitution, the default of which is freedom for all. It should only be limited to further a state interest. That is what decides, and that is upheld by those people in black robes (in case you weren't aware, there are 9 of them), but they are kept in check by other things, such as the necessary process to get to them (which is many more people in black robes). The voters and the legislative bodies have a say as well.

Our rights are determined by what we are willing to fight for, especially in a case like this where people are trying to prevent others from doing something just because people feel they should be able to.
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So we need to decide if something is good or bad for the overall well being of society.
 
WCH said:
So we need to decide if something is good or bad for the overall well being of society.
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No. We decide what causes measurable harm to society and/or individuals, and that can be the basis for a restriction. But you need to show that it actually causes measurable harm (not simply a bunch of people believing it will) in order for it to be constitutional. The exception to this is if you can get a supermajority support in order to put it into the Constitution as an Amendment. The Constitution is there to limit the government, including state governments, not the people. It only limits the people when a supermajority is present to make an Amendment to do so (such as Prohibition, but look how well that went).
 
roguenuke said:
No. We decide what causes measurable harm to society and/or individuals, and that can be the basis for a restriction. But you need to show that it actually causes measurable harm (not simply a bunch of people believing it will) in order for it to be constitutional. The exception to this is if you can get a supermajority support in order to put it into the Constitution as an Amendment. The Constitution is there to limit the government, including state governments, not the people. It only limits the people when a supermajority is present to make an Amendment to do so (such as Prohibition, but look how well that went).
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A super majority as in....

Currently 37 states have passed laws which define marriage as limited to a union between one man and one woman: 33 state legislatures have passed statutes to that effect, and 4 states (Alaska, Hawaii, Nebraska and Nevada) have, by popular vote, passed Defense of Marriage Acts (DOMAs) as constitutional amendments
 
WCH said:
A super majority as in....

Currently 37 states have passed laws which define marriage as limited to a union between one man and one woman: 33 state legislatures have passed statutes to that effect, and 4 states (Alaska, Hawaii, Nebraska and Nevada) have, by popular vote, passed Defense of Marriage Acts (DOMAs) as constitutional amendments
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Nope. That is not a supermajority since despite being able to do that very few passed in their states with a "supermajority", and even fewer, if any, could currently pass with a supermajority vote. Plus, you know good and well I was referring to amending the Constitution, something that failed twice while Bush was President.

You don't seriously believe that all or really even most of those states would pass those same laws now do you?
 
roguenuke said:
Yet her husband's chief complaint was "she isn't doing housework", not she isn't able to take care of herself. And she wasn't the only one.
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We've gone from "there were lots of people who believed (wrongly) that something like a woman who didn't want to do housework or who wanted to wear pants had a mental illness, something that wasn't true" to a single case over the course of one mental health professional's career where the chief complaint was that the husband's chief complaint was that she wasn't doing her housework - despite that being a symptom of a real, underlying condition that made it impossible for this woman to care for herself or perform everyday tasks (like housework). Not a very compelling argument.
 
roguenuke said:
Nope. That is not a supermajority since despite being able to do that very few passed in their states with a "supermajority", and even fewer, if any, could currently pass with a supermajority vote. Plus, you know good and well I was referring to amending the Constitution, something that failed twice while Bush was President.

You don't seriously believe that all or really even most of those states would pass those same laws now do you?
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Yeah I do. Those polls are not accurate.
 
Taylor said:
We've gone from "there were lots of people who believed (wrongly) that something like a woman who didn't want to do housework or who wanted to wear pants had a mental illness, something that wasn't true" to a single case over the course of one mental health professional's career where the chief complaint was that the husband's chief complaint was that she wasn't doing her housework - despite that being a symptom of a real, underlying condition that made it impossible for this woman to care for herself or perform everyday tasks (like housework). Not a very compelling argument.
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That started from the premise that there were lots of mentally ill released that then ended up in prison because they shouldn't have been released to begin with but were due to a philosophy of "they aren't mentally ill" being common. This argument hasn't been supported at all. How do you know how much housework she was or wasn't doing? Being depressed or even bipolar does not require hospitalization for most people.
 
WCH said:
Yeah I do. Those polls are not accurate.
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You are kidding yourself. NCs ban didn't get a supermajority vote during a republican primary. The majority of those voting at the time were republicans. Four votes before that went to same sex marriage.
 
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roguenuke said:
You are kidding yourself. NCs ban didn't get a supermajority vote during a republican convention. The majority of those voting at the time were republicans. Four votes before that went to same sex marriage.
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That alone may have shifted with this last election.

In Texas, Voters passed the 2005 amendment banning gay marriage by better than 3-to-1.
 
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