Evidence for Creationism and Against Evolution

[Blackheart]

"Why don't you ask the homosexual activists to stop pushing for laws that they, in all good conscience, think are best for the country? Why are the homosexual activists not called "intolerant" for merely having/voicing their view?

What's the difference? There is none."

Actually the difference is clear. In the first case, one group is calling for the suspension of activities of the second group, i.e. people don't want homosexuals to act in a homosexual manner.

In the second case, the group in question is asking to be free from undue regulation, i.e. homosexuals want to be left alone to live their lives the way they decide to.

The entire crux of the matter is that in the second case, homosexual activists are advocating for the right to their own private lives, free from regulation. I find it hard to comprehend how that can be construed as intolerant, since it affects no one except the individuals in question.

In the first case, there is a group of people who want to impose their will upon the second group. Even though it is none of their business, and it doesn't affect their private lives in the least. The reasons they want to impose their view of reality upon homosexuals is unclear, and has little to do with any empirical data, but stems from religious teachings, which by constitutional principle should be excluded from secular law. This could be construed as intolerant, rather easily.

Did I miss anything?

[Cirdan]

SSDD - Same, er... Stuff, Different Day

My last word on this topic.

There are gay parents that have adopted (even transplanted DNA, so as to have "biological" children, in vitro). I have known some. Should they have to explain to there children that they can't be married like other parents because some people think they are perverts?

It was probably the same for african-americans during segregation having to explain to their children why they couldn't drink from that water fountain.

Leave 'em alone. Live and let live, and let god decide, if he cares.

[Lizra]

Originally posted by Blackheart
"Why don't you ask the homosexual activists to stop pushing for laws that they, in all good conscience, think are best for the country? Why are the homosexual activists not called "intolerant" for merely having/voicing their view?

What's the difference? There is none."

Actually the difference is clear. In the first case, one group is calling for the suspension of activities of the second group, i.e. people don't want homosexuals to act in a homosexual manner.

In the second case, the group in question is asking to be free from undue regulation, i.e. homosexuals want to be left alone to live their lives the way they decide to.

The entire crux of the matter is that in the second case, homosexual activists are advocating for the right to their own private lives, free from regulation. I find it hard to comprehend how that can be construed as intolerant, since it affects no one except the individuals in question.

In the first case, there is a group of people who want to impose their will upon the second group. Even though it is none of their business, and it doesn't affect their private lives in the least. The reasons they want to impose their view of reality upon homosexuals is unclear, and has little to do with any empirical data, but stems from religious teachings, which by constitutional principle should be excluded from secular law. This could be construed as intolerant, rather easily.

Did I miss anything?

Yup, yup, yup! (I agree)

[Artanis]

Originally posted by Elfhelm
I won't be logging in for many days. And if I do, I will stay away from Gerenal Discussion. It is too disturbing. I really want to be able to respect people and seeing all sorts of viciousness just makes me want to be elsewhere.

*recognizes a familiar feeling*

[GrayMouser]

Have to agree with the flow here, Rian,

The point is that marriage entails certain rights in civil law that are not available to unmarried people. Therefore, if you say that certain people should not be entitled to avail themselves of these rights which are open to other freely consenting adults, you are being discriminatory.

No one is saying you have to approve, no one is saying that you have to address Jim and John as "Mr. and Mr. Jones"- only that you can't discriminate against them in the public realm.

Many people disapprove of interracial or interreligious marriage- that is their right. What is wrong is for them to try and impose their beliefs through the law.

No, you have no more moral right to use the law to punish or discriminate against those freely consenting adults whose sexual behaviour you disapprove of than you have to use the law to ban miscegnation.

And no, I'm not saying you support anti-race-mixing laws - any more than those of us who oppose legal discrimnation against homosexuals are in favour of child molesters.

[GrayMouser]

Amazingly enough, an on-topic post:

In 1859, in On the Origin of Species, Darwin broached what he regarded to be the most vexing problem facing his theory of evolution -- the lack of a rich fossil record predating the rise of shelly invertebrate animals that marks the beginning of the Cambrian Period of geologic time (~550 million years ago), an "inexplicable" absence that could be "truly urged as a valid argument" against his grand synthesis. For more than 100 years, the missing Precambrian history of life stood out as one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in natural science.
In recent decades, however, life's early history has finally begun to be unearthed as the documented fossil record has been extended to some 3,500 million years ago, an age more than three-quarters that of the planet itself. Much of this work has been carried out at UCLA, including development, during the past three years, of four new analytical techniques that hold promise to markedly increase understanding of Earth's early fossil record: (1) Ion microprobe mass spectrometry has been used to demonstrate the biologically characteristic carbon isotopic compositions of individual fossils in geologic units ~850- to ~3,500-Ma-old. (2) Atomic force microscopy has been used to visualize the biologically distinctive nanometer-scale structure of the organic components of single Precambrian microscopic fossils. (3) Laser-Raman imagery has been used to demonstrate the molecular structure of organic-walled fossils in 30 geologic units ranging from ~40 to ~3,500 Ma in age. And (4) Raman imagery has been used to construct micron-scale three-dimensional virtual "chemical maps" of ancient microscopic fossils that show the fine structural organization of their component cells.
After more than a century of unrewarded search, an immense early fossil record -- unknown and assumed unknowable -- has been uncovered to reveal an evolutionary progression dominated by microbes that stretches seven times farther into the geologic past than previously had been imagined.

http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/researc...3.htm#Abstract


I can hardly wait for AiG or ICR to come out with their "explanations" of why these four new techniques are totally worthless, and how the peole involved at UCLA don't know what they're talking about- even though they developed the techniques.

[GrayMouser]

And why it took so long to get going on the problem:

William Schopf, a paleobiologist of great distinction, gave a gripping talk at this Friday's Marschak Colloquium on the discovery of the pre-Cambrian fossil record.[*]. The story, as he told it, seemed to fit nicely with the work that Susanne Lohmann, has been doing on the problem of university management, and in particular the challenge created by the existence of separate disciplines covering related matters from different perspectives.[*]

Here's Schopf's story:

Half a century ago, almost a hundred years after the publication of On the Origin of Species, the earliest fossils dated no further back than 550 million years, with already highly-evolved organisms such as trilobites. As Darwin himself noted, this was a serious objection to the whole idea of evolution.

Since then, the fossil record has been pushed back to about 3.6 billion years, or about 90% of the way to the current estimate of the date when life originated on this planet. Some of that work -- the part to which Schopf himself has contributed most heavily -- has involved the use of a technique called Ramen scattering to perform spectroscopic analysis of biological material in a petrified state, thus allowing paleobiologists to photograph the microfossils of soft-bodied organisms, including single-celled organisms. That part seems to have proceded about as quickly as the development of laser technology allowed.

But the other part of the story is a more complicated one. The discovery that stromatoliths -- literally, "covered," or "layered," rocks -- were in fact fossilized remains of colonies of cyanobacteria (called blue-green algae when I was taking high school biology). That discovery, unlike the other, could have been made at any time after Darwin wrote.

Geologists knew stromatoliths and had named them. Some biologists who studied the algae in highly saline tidal pools knew of places where there were layered rock formations with a top layer of cyanobacteria, with an appearance very similar to that of the geologists' stromatoliths.[*] (According to Schopf, they exist today only in such places because, as soon as snail-like creatures evolved, they started eating the living cyanobacteria from the tops of growing stromatoliths, thus wiping them out except in places so salty that the snails can't live there.)

The problem was that people studied rocks in geology departments, fossils in departments of paleontology, and colonies of cyanobacteria in biology or oceanography departments. It was only by accident, when a geologist visited a saline tidal pool in Australia and thought the dome-like formations looked familiar, that someone put together the marine biology with the geology to give the paleontologists a birthday present.

So there's the puzzle for the university manager: the disciplinary structure that makes progress possible can also hold it back. Of course Lohmann, as a political scientist, might easily not know that Shopf had provided her with a perfect illustration of her point, though both are at UCLA.

http://markarkleiman.blogspot.com/

[Rían]

Originally posted by Cirdan
SSDD - Same, er... Stuff, Different Day

Thanks for the def, Cirdan

... Should they have to explain to there children that they can't be married like other parents because some people think they are perverts?

That's certainly a wrong reason, and if I heard anyone use that word for homosexuals in "real life", I pray I would have the guts (because I'm rather shy) to stand up and point out that it's hateful and hypocritical, IMO, to use that word. And I think I WOULD have the guts, because I think it's really wrong, and I value people very highly, and I think everyone should be treated with dignity and respect. But this does NOT include condoning behavior that I think is wrong - I would also disagree with someone that said lying is ok. As I have said over and over, we're all in the same boat, we just all have a different and unique set of sinful behavior.

Leave 'em alone. Live and let live, and let god decide, if he cares.

I can't "leave 'em alone", because they're not leaving me alone - they're trying to pass legislation that I think is harmful and that has HUGE (and harmful) implications for society, and I have a responsibility and a right to act acc'd to my conscience. And if your opinion is different, then YOU should act acc'd to YOUR conscience, right?

God DOES care, and He HAS decided - and a marriage is between one man and one woman. And this is best. And that is my opinion. Yours is different - good for you, I hope we can remain friends, and you go and do whatever you feel is right to support your opinion, because you are a PERSON, like me, that is very valuable and should be treated with respect and honor. And THAT is tolerance, IMO.

[Rían]

Originally posted by Blackheart
Did I miss anything?

Yes, just about everything , but I have to go pick up the kids now - I'll compose my answer on the road and post it later

[Blackheart]

"because they're not leaving me alone"

Really? I'm afraid I just do not see exactly how your civil rights are being infringed upon. Explain it to me carefully.

[Rían]

Originally posted by Blackheart
Really? I'm afraid I just do not see exactly how your civil rights are being infringed upon. Explain it to me carefully.

In the sentence FRAGMENT you quoted, I never mentioned my civil rights as the problem. Why do you ignore the rest of my sentence and bring up civil rights, when that was not my point?

Please don't quote parts of sentences unless you indicate that it is a sentence fragment, and ESPECIALLY if the meaning of the sentence is distorted if the whole sentence is not quoted. I write my sentences very carefully, so that they can stand on their own if they're quoted. Being, as you say, ancient and evil, perhaps it's tempting to distort what people say; however, you also seem to be intelligent, and it seems like you would not appreciate winning via the easy route of cheating. Perhaps in this case, though, you feel that your side is the weaker one, so you're resorting to unfair tactics to help yourself out a bit?

Speaking of civil rights, though, you appear to be asking me to give up my civil right to vote in the way my conscience guides me in this matter; is that right?

[Rían]

And to swing the discussion back to the meaning of tolerance, I would like to ask those involved in the discussion to please post their definition of tolerance.

Personally, I think the main purpose of the current use of the word "tolerance" is to support legislation supporting homosexual behavior, and I think this will become evident when people post their definitions. IOW, they will be unable to post a definition of tolerance without mentioning homosexual issues in some way; and if they do mention it, I will be able to point out where it is logically inconsistent. That's why I have a problem with the use of the word "tolerance" in this situation - it's hypocritical. If you disagree with me, fine, then just say so; but don't call me intolerant if the disagreement is in this one particular area.

I will post my def'n again, with a slight addition that I think improves it:

A description of tolerance : I have my opinions, and you have yours. In some areas we disagree, and that's fine. I hope we can be friends, even though we sincerely disagree in some areas. You go ahead and do whatever you feel is right to support your opinion, because you are a PERSON, like me, that is very valuable and should be treated with respect and honor. And I will do the same, and I should also be treated with respect and honor. If we are unable to be friends for any reason, I will continue, on my side, to always treat you with respect and honor, and to wish for your happiness and welfare.

[Rían]

Originally posted by GrayMouser
Have to agree with the flow here, Rian ...

I know I wish we agreed more, because I like you.

The point is that marriage entails certain rights in civil law that are not available to unmarried people.

Absolutely!! You're absolutely right on here, and that is the point that Blackheart seems to be missing when he says it doesn't affect me. I am part of my society; therefore, civil laws affect me. And my particular society says that I have the right to vote my conscience.

Therefore, if you say that certain people should not be entitled to avail themselves of these rights which are open to other freely consenting adults, you are being discriminatory.

And that's where you're wrong, GM, both IMO and also logically.

First of all, any man has the right to marry a woman, and any woman has the right to marry a man. That is the definition of marriage - the union of a man and a woman. Just as any woman with a certain minimum swimming speed has the right to try out for the Women's Olympic Swimming Team - but not any man - for that is the definition of the Women's Olympic Swimming Team.

But your logical error is that you are slipping in YOUR own personal standard ("freely consenting adults"). This is NOT a valid logical conclusion as to what makes me discriminatory! There is no logic here, just opinion. And many, MANY people worldwide disagree with your personal standard.

Many people disapprove of interracial or interreligious marriage- that is their right. What is wrong is for them to try and impose their beliefs through the law.

And many people believe that interracial or interreligious marriages are perfectly fine (and I'm in that category). When they were in the minority, was it wrong for THEM to try to impose THEIR beliefs, by trying to change laws, on the majority? What made it right for THEM to try to impose their beliefs through the law? The fact that their viewpoint agrees with your personal moral opinion on that subject?

Again, it's your logic that I'm objecting to, GM. I don't mind you saying that we have different opinions and standards, for that is true; what I DO mind you doing is saying that it's a valid LOGICAL conclusion, when it isn't - you are inserting a personal opinion.

No, you have no more moral right to use the law to punish or discriminate against those freely consenting adults whose sexual behaviour you disapprove of than you have to use the law to ban miscegnation.

See, you're putting in your OWN definition of what's fine in the sexual realm - "freely consenting adults". And I have a different definition of what's fine in the sexual realm. And frankly, I would say it's safe to say that the majority of the people in the world agree with me; wouldn't you? So do YOU have no moral right either? Personally, I think we should all carefully think our opinions through, and do what is right by our own morals.

And no, I'm not saying you support anti-race-mixing laws - any more than those of us who oppose legal discrimnation against homosexuals are in favour of child molesters.

Thank you for that note. Altho by your definition, you believe me to be harmful , I hope you don't think I'm intentionally malicious, because I'm not.

[Blackheart]

"In the sentence FRAGMENT you quoted, I never mentioned my civil rights as the problem. Why do you ignore the rest of my sentence and bring up civil rights, when that was not my point? "

That's just it. Civil rights are the issue under discussion. Do homosexuals have a civil right to engage in living contracts with their partner.

"Please don't quote parts of sentences unless you indicate that it is a sentence fragment, and ESPECIALLY if the meaning of the sentence is distorted if the whole sentence is not quoted. "

The fact that it's a sentence fragment has more to do with the fact that the illogical portion of your statement is what I am calling into question. However if you think that will confuse people, then here is the entire sentence. I doubt you were confused, so it's entirely for other people's benefit.

"I can't "leave 'em alone", because they're not leaving me alone - they're trying to pass legislation that I think is harmful and that has HUGE (and harmful) implications for society, and I have a responsibility and a right to act acc'd to my conscience."

How is it that people who are advocating for a civil right for themself infringes upon your civil rights?

The reason I asked about civil rights is the entire point of the quesiton. It's the difference between private and public. You can be irritated, annoyed, or outraged if you like, but unless your civil rights are being infringed upon, you don't actually have a legal leg to stand on.

If you have been following the gist of what I say, then you certainly have the legal right to speak your views. But certainly they do also. The issue however is what you are advocating for and even more importantly why.

If you are advocating that granting these people the civil rights they are seeking is harmful (which is the same as advocating to suppress said rights) to society for sound, rational, empirical reasons that is one thing. In that case we have to rely on our ethical principles to guide us between a choice of values, individual rights Vs. the good of society. Both are important and very near to what makes our society special.

But now we come to the why. I have yet to see any evidence that granting such rights would be harmful to society. No empirical evidence, no rational justification. I can oonly assume that the reaction is therefore rooted in dogma, fear, and ignorance. These are exactly the same sources that intolerance springs from.

If you cannot present a rational argument against granting civil rights to homosexuals, you might understand then that many people are going to suspect intolerance.

"Speaking of civil rights, though, you appear to be asking me to give up my civil right to vote in the way my conscience guides me in this matter; is that right?"

No. I am asking you to use your civil right to vote in a manner that is consistent with rational thought and human rights. It is of course your choice to vote however you wish.

This is a rather silly statement in fact, for at the root of it is the rather absurd idea that I can somehow force someone to change their mind by making statements. It hearkens back to the old censorship argument, that people cannot be allowed to speak their mind because such actions are subversive, and will pollute the minds of the citizen, or the faithful. I certainly hope that isn't what you mean when you say that they won't "leave you alone"...

[Blackheart]

"Personally, I think the main purpose of the current use of the word "tolerance" is to support legislation supporting homosexual behavior, and I think this will become evident when people post their definitions."

I won't bother to quote your definition. But from what I can tell, it doesn't seem quite congruent with what I understand tolerance to mean.

The most relevant definition in the dictionary (because I assume we aren't discussing measurement of electrical gateways or tissue acceptance) is:

The capacity for or the practice of recognizing and respecting the beliefs or practices of others.

I think the reason that people in opposition to cohabitaiton rights for homosexuals run the risk of being called intolerant, is that their viewpoint is one in which other people are labeled as an abominaiton against nature. This is not a tolerant view...

It's rather hard to respect such a viewpoint, so I suppose that there might well be some intolerance on the other side as well. Pity it's not a perfect world.

But regardless, both sides right to free speech is protected. Our society values free speech to the point where intolerant viewpoints, such as the Klan, have the right to present their viewpoint. I suppose that is about as tolerant as you can legally get. To allow someone to present their viewpoint, even if they are calling you a sub human...

[Rían]

Originally posted by Blackheart
That's just it. Civil rights are the issue under discussion.

I thought tolerance was the issue under discussion
Civil rights may be ONE of the issues under discussion, but not the only one, and I was not referring to civil rights in that particular sentence. I was referring to what I considered to be a v. important reason for my voting the way I intend to vote if this issue comes up on the ballot.

Thanks for re-quoting the entire sentence. You're right; I was (obviously) not the one confused; proper quoting is for the benefit of those that may not have read the original post (often a sentence is quoted many posts down the line from when it was posted). It's only fair and courteous to try to accurately represent someone if you quote what they say, IMO, because the goal here is intelligent, truthful discussion (also IMO).

more later... I'm still trying to catch up on the neglected paperwork that accumulated during surgery and post-op recovery

[Blackheart]

"Absolutely!! You're absolutely right on here, and that is the point that Blackheart seems to be missing when he says it doesn't affect me. I am part of my society; therefore, civil laws affect me. And my particular society says that I have the right to vote my conscience."

Again, I must point out that no one is disenfranchising you. No one is removing your right to free speech, or representation under the law. Or your right to cohabitation for that matter. The fact that you are advocating for an exclusionary protection of a civil right does make me leery however. Which leads me to:

Secondus, the fact that I have the right to engage in contracts diminishes your civil rights how? In order to show that granting such rights affects you, you will need to demonstrate HOW it affects you. Just stating that you are a part of society, and they pass a law giving people the right to kiss in public (for example) affects you how? Because you might have to look at it?
You civil rights do not extend to protection from being exposed to other people's actions and speech, unless such actions or speech is defined as obscene. And THAT, is an entirely different argument.

"First of all, any man has the right to marry a woman, and any woman has the right to marry a man. That is the definition of marriage - the union of a man and a woman."

On the face of it, it is not strictly true. Any Female consenting adult and Male consenting adult first off. We do not allow underage people to marry. Secondly there are incest laws. (Which happen to be laws based on taboos which might have an empirical grounding). Thirdly there are citizenship rights intermingled with civil marriage, which means that there are restictions and very important ramifications for how we treat marriage in the civil realm.

However, what you are implying as the definition of marriage, is NOT what Marriage is in a civil sense. You are confusing the secular use of the word with the religious use of the word. Which to me shows the absolute idiocy of mixing church and state.

Religious marriage is strictly regulated by DOGMA, and the regulations differ from religion to religion. By many religions qualifications, the MAJORITY of secular "marriages" would be disallowed, probably due to the neccesity of virginity, among other things.

Secular marriage on the other hand, should not be bound to the definitions imposed by religious dogma. (In fact, it shouldn't be called marriage either, but people have an unavoidable mental inertia). If the hanging point is merely that the definition of marriage is different, then by all means, lets change the definition of marriage or call it civil cohabitation. Will that erase your objection? I didn't think so...

"But your logical error is that you are slipping in YOUR own personal standard ("freely consenting adults"). This is NOT a valid logical conclusion as to what makes me discriminatory! There is no logic here, just opinion. And many, MANY people worldwide disagree with your personal standard."

Actually, he's right. Males and Females are granted equal protection under the law. The fact that they would be treated differently in any other situation would be discriminatory. Because it is considered dicrimination to treat someone differently due to gender. The fact that we treat two people of the same gender who wish to recieve civil benefits for secular cohabitation differently is in fact discrimination.

"And many people believe that interracial or interreligious marriages are perfectly fine (and I'm in that category). When they were in the minority, was it wrong for THEM to try to impose THEIR beliefs, by trying to change laws, on the majority? What made it right for THEM to try to impose their beliefs through the law?"

Actually, it was the 14th amendment if I recall correctly... And the rest came about due to people finally interpreting the law correctly. If you want to quibble, Advocates for cohabitation aren't trying to get a law passed. They are trying to block a constitutional amendment that would be aimed specifically at them. Which means that, yes, there is a minority trying to impose their will on a section of the public for arbitrary reasons. And no it's not right. Never was right.

continued

[Blackheart]

"See, you're putting in your OWN definition of what's fine in the sexual realm - "freely consenting adults". And I have a different definition of what's fine in the sexual realm. And frankly, I would say it's safe to say that the majority of the people in the world agree with me; wouldn't you? So do YOU have no moral right either? Personally, I think we should all carefully think our opinions through, and do what is right by our own morals."

Actually, the rest of the world doesn't matter, it's a national issue, so no, I wouldn't agree that most people agree with you. But even if they did, majority rule doesn't mean diddly in a constitutional republic. It's rule of law, not rule of majority. If you're going to think things through, ask yourself which value is more important: what people do in their sex life, or whether they recieve equal treatment under the law? I would say that the second is more important, but you of course may disagree.

Certainly you have the right to disagree. You have the right to choose for yourself. And I'd be one of the first to put on a uniform and defend your right to choose for yourself with my own blood. But your right to choose stops with yourself. It doesn't apply to others. That's why equal protection under the law is so important. It also protects you from people who would say that religious dialogue has no place in public life. (Not government but public life). The sort of people who would like to ban churches, and religious broadcasts, and set up a totilitarian government in a leftist motif.

The problem is, totilitarianism is far too easy to slip into, whether you are leaning towards theocracy or facism or bolshevism or some other -ism. If you don't allow people the same rights under the law, it undermines everyone's freedom.

[Rían]

Originally posted by Blackheart
If you are advocating that granting these people the civil rights they are seeking is harmful (which is the same as advocating to suppress said rights) to society for sound, rational, empirical reasons that is one thing.

I must point out another error here. Frankly, I don't know if this was on purpose (considering your claim to be evil ) or if it was an unintentional echoing of rhetoric without having thought it through, but please note that in the first part of the sentence, you are saying that "these people" are "seeking" some "civil rights" (meaning that they currently do NOT have them); then in the section in parenthesis, you are saying that my position is "the same as advocating to suppress said rights" (which means that they already have those rights). Would you please reword this, as you can't have it both ways! - first, you're saying that they're seeking rights; next, you're saying that they already HAVE those rights. Which is it?

What I'm fighting for in this discussion is a level playing field for the real discussion. What I commonly see on the side for homosexual marriage are two unfair tactics - one is that people that have a different viewpoint from homosexual activists on this matter are called names ("intolerant") implying that their viewpoint should be ignored; and the other is that an inherent right for homosexual marriage exists. Both of these are wrong; would you agree? And I don't even want to discuss my "sound, rational, empirical reasons" behind my opinion that homosexual marriage is harmful to society when the deck is stacked against me; why should I? It's not fair. If I roll over and accept those two unfair tactics, then I am fated to lose, and it will look as if I lost because my reasons were wrong, when in fact I will have "lost" because there was no way to win. I can't score a basket if I am denied possession of the ball. What I want is an acknowledgement that I have a legitimate right to have the ball for awhile. Every person should have this right; do you agree?

You've used both of these tactics, BTW, IIRC - again, perhaps unintentionally - and in the sentence I quoted at the beginning of the post, you're using the second - claiming (intentionally or otherwise) that my position suppresses existing rights. This is currently NOT true (in the US and in many, many other places), and many, MANY people feel that it should remain that way. In fact, I believe it is still the majority of people in the US that feel that way.

[Blackheart]

"you are saying that "these people" are "seeking" some "civil rights" (meaning that they currently do NOT have them); then in the section in parenthesis, you are saying that my position is "the same as advocating to suppress said rights" (which means that they already have those rights). Would you please reword this, as you can't have it both ways! - first, you're saying that they're seeking rights; next, you're saying that they already HAVE those rights. Which is it?"

MMmm… I thought it would have been clearer, but if you want it in plainer language, they are seeking legal recognition of their rights under the constitution, with the idea that they are entitled to the same rights as everyone else. Advocating to suppress legal recognition doesn't remove their rights, as perhaps you are pointing out, it merely continues to perpetuate a situation where they do not recieve equal legal treatment under the law.

"What I'm fighting for in this discussion is a level playing field for the real discussion."

Err. The "real" discussion? Pray tell, what would this real discussion entail? Are we having some kind of psychotic break here? I'm afraid I don't understand why you think the playing field isn't level. No one is suppressing your right to speak, or explain yourself. The only censorship that appears to be applicable is self-censorship.

"What I commonly see on the side for homosexual marriage are two unfair tactics - one is that people that have a different viewpoint from homosexual activists on this matter are called names ("intolerant") implying that their viewpoint should be ignored;"

Your implications are skewed. I would offer the fact that we are having a discussion at all as evidence that your viewpoint is not being ignored...

I also wonder why you think that pointing out the possibility of intolerance is an "unfair" tactic? What makes it unfair? Is it somehow removing your message of content? Is it some kind of dialogue atomic device that destroys communication? If you think so, you are far too sensitive to those morons who want everything to be nice and white-washed political correctness. Like people who call black people african-americans and white people anglo-americans, and worry about the fact that Columbus stole all that land from the aboriginal inhabitants...

If you think I'm coming at this from a P.C. viewpoint, you can think again. I'd lump those people into the very same group as Klansmen, they are aspiring thought-police, seeking to scrub all traces of individuality from people, and force them to think a certain way though political intimidation. **** 'em.

No, I generally try to apply rational thought form an enlightened self-interest point of view. I cherish my right to be intolerant and hate people's guts. But it's not in my best interests to promote unequal protection under the law.

"and the other is that an inherent right for homosexual marriage exists. Both of these are wrong; would you agree?"

Wow, we seem to be disagreeing a lot. Not to mention that marriage is a religious institution, and we're talking about civil cohabitation.

What if, for example, there was a religion that sanctioned homosexual marriage as a holy union. Would it deserve to be recognized by law? Separation of church and state you say? However the Judeo/Christian/Islamic interpretations of marriage are protected under the law. And that is exactly the problem with allowing religion and state to mix in a constitutional republic. Since you cannot play favorites (patently unconstitutional) you would be forced to recognize all religions. Which significantly waters down the spiritual integrity of all religions involved.

So lets not even bother to talk about marriage. It's a religious term, and using it is merely a hot-button tactic. Civil cohabitation is the secular legal term (IRC). A large percentage of the population gets "married" without ever setting foot in a Church, Synagogue, or Mosque. They go to the Judge, and get the license, affirm it, and bang, you're in a civil contract popularly referred to as marriage. That's all marriage is under the law. A contract. The fact that such a contract has other benefits and protections is no different than corporate contracts having benefits and protections.

Do citizens have the right to form legal contracts? Yes. Is it fair and equal that some citizens are able to form certain types of contracts, while others are excluded from them? No.

Continued, of course...