2008 US Presidential elections

[davee123]

The interesting thing in California right now, as a result of Prop 8's passage - d a p p e r marriage was originally declared legal because the California Constitution states that the law can't make legal discriminations based on, among other things, gender, and that no law can contravene that basic right.

That's what I hate about our democracy. The idea of the Constitution is to defend people's rights, regardless of whether or not the majority agrees with people's use of those rights. Allowing people to overrule the law just because the majority disapproves of something invalidates the law. It would be akin to disallowing militant Muslims the right to protest-- I can imagine that the majority might wish to disallow such activities, but the right to free speech is protected by the Constitution.

Anyway, it annoys me that people even have the power to vote on such things at all. As I've said before, I wish there were a way of ensuring that only intelligent and/or objective people could vote. Or, simply make other people's votes count considerably less.

The problem with Prop 8, which just passed, is that it doesn't do anything to change the California Bill of Rights - gender equality requirements under the law are exactly the same as they were before.

Hm. I guess it's arguable. I'm disappointed in the extreme brevity of the amendment, which reads in full:

"Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."

Effectively, it makes no point of the discrimination that you mentioned, which is what I would have expected it to do. Something like inserting "except in the case of marriage". As it stands, it would appear to invalidate any out-of-state same-sex marriage, as well as any same-sex marriage previously enacted in California. But it doesn't appear to have any implications to the effect of preventing heterosexual marriage. Well, not to me, at least.

Here's a question, though. What do you have to do in order to legally switch your gender? Do you HAVE to have an operation in order to get your legally recorded gender changed? Could I just say "ok, I'm a woman now", fill out the paperwork, and get married to whatever man I want?

DaveE

[Tuefish]

so, who won?

[OneEye589]

'Bama.

EDIT: By a landslide.

[ahp77]

'Bama.

EDIT: By a landslide.

Electoral landslide, not popular vote landslide tho.

[OneEye589]

'Bama.

EDIT: By a landslide.

Electoral landslide, not popular vote landslide tho.

Enough to popularly vote punch McCain in the face.

One thing that upset me about Obama's acceptance speech that night compared to McCain's conceding speech:

I watched McCain's first the morning after on a news site. I'm not sure which one came first or if they were at the same time. McCain said something along the lines of "I congradulate President Barack Obama on a great campaign and I look forward to seeing him as my new president in January". The entire crowd boo-ed! McCain held his hands up, obviously upset that they boo-ed and said something else like "I know he will be a great preisdent and I look forward to working alongside Preident-Elect Obama" and they did it AGAIN! That made me so angry.

Especially after I watched Obama's acceptance speech and he said that McCain had a great campaign as well and that he had called to congradulate him. He also said that he looked forward to working with McCain in the future and Obama's crowd, what did they do? Cheer. They clapped and cheered for McCain.

I was appalled by McCain's audience.

[IVhorseman]

Here's a question, though. What do you have to do in order to legally switch your gender? Do you HAVE to have an operation in order to get your legally recorded gender changed? Could I just say "ok, I'm a woman now", fill out the paperwork, and get married to whatever man I want?

DaveE

Honestly, that's not even really how being d a p p e r works. It's not like "oh i'm going to act like a woman now cause i like boys" as much as "I'm just a regular dude, i just happen to like dudes". Let's say hypothetically that I was as queer as a seven dollar bill. Even if i was the less-dominant one in the relationship, I'd still consider myself a man, and would be appalled if someone asked "so which one of you is the girl?"

Well, there's a paragraph I never thought I'd have to write.

EDIT: FUN FACT! McCain is actually a pretty cool guy (he loses elections and doesn't afraid of anything). On his own, his policies aren't bad, and he votes with politicians a lot and is pretty liberal for a politician. However, the politician party basically molded him to become another bush for the election, and now that he hasn't won the presidency, he can go back to being Good Ol' Johnny.

[Dr. X]

I was appalled by McCain's audience.

Agreed. At least he tried to stop them..

[davee123]

Honestly, that's not even really how being d a p p e r works. It's not like "oh i'm going to act like a woman now cause i like boys" as much as "I'm just a regular dude, i just happen to like dudes". Let's say hypothetically that I was as queer as a seven dollar bill. Even if i was the less-dominant one in the relationship, I'd still consider myself a man, and would be appalled if someone asked "so which one of you is the girl?"

Oh, sorry, that wasn't really the point. I was more theorizing on how to "stick-it-to-The-Man"! (Wow. I SO did not intend that.) Anyway, the amendment pretty clearly states to me that marriages between same-sex parties are null and void in California-- so I was just playing around with how to dodge the mandate.

Obviously, one way of getting around it might be to legally change your gender. If it's a matter of submitting a form and changing your driver's license, that might be an acceptable trade-off for some, considering some of the legal benefits bestowed by marriage. But that's up to the individuals, and how much they want to fight the system or abide by the spirit of the law.

However, if it were legally required to provide some sort of "proof" of gender change, including perhaps an operation or some other extreme unpleasantness, I imagine that would be an unacceptable alternative for virtually anyone who wouldn't already have been considering the procedure.

But regardless, it's a less than ideal situation. By all rights, homeschooled marriages should be allowed without a need to cheat the letter of the law by changing gender.

DaveE

[OneEye589]

Honestly, that's not even really how being d a p p e r works. It's not like "oh i'm going to act like a woman now cause i like boys" as much as "I'm just a regular dude, i just happen to like dudes". Let's say hypothetically that I was as queer as a seven dollar bill. Even if i was the less-dominant one in the relationship, I'd still consider myself a man, and would be appalled if someone asked "so which one of you is the girl?"

Oh, sorry, that wasn't really the point. I was more theorizing on how to "stick-it-to-The-Man"! (Wow. I SO did not intend that.) Anyway, the amendment pretty clearly states to me that marriages between same-sex parties are null and void in California-- so I was just playing around with how to dodge the mandate.

Obviously, one way of getting around it might be to legally change your gender. If it's a matter of submitting a form and changing your driver's license, that might be an acceptable trade-off for some, considering some of the legal benefits bestowed by marriage. But that's up to the individuals, and how much they want to fight the system or abide by the spirit of the law.

However, if it were legally required to provide some sort of "proof" of gender change, including perhaps an operation or some other extreme unpleasantness, I imagine that would be an unacceptable alternative for virtually anyone who wouldn't already have been considering the procedure.

But regardless, it's a less than ideal situation. By all rights, homeschooled marriages should be allowed without a need to cheat the letter of the law by changing gender.

DaveE

If you could legally change your gender without changing your downstairs do you know how many men would do it just so they wouldn't have to sign up for the draft? Or how about women getting legally changed to a man so on their resumes if they don't have a personal interview the person thinks they are getting a male for the job?

[Dr. X]

Lol, you can't change your gender that easily. Maybe not at all, I wouldn't know.

I wonder if it's possible to change your gender to 'other'...

[davee123]

If you could legally change your gender without changing your downstairs do you know how many men would do it just so they wouldn't have to sign up for the draft? Or how about women getting legally changed to a man so on their resumes if they don't have a personal interview the person thinks they are getting a male for the job?

I dunno-- according to Wikipedia, this has been attempted already in a few states (gender change to allow marriage, that is), and was allowed in Kansas and New Jersey (and disallowed in Texas, Ohio, and New York). Dunno if they were post-op gender changes, though. Certainly, the requirements vary by state, and only a scant few disallow legal gender changes all together.

After delving a bit further, it does look like California requires a physician's declaration of a gender change in order to submit the request, which specifies surgery. So hormonal treatments are apparently insufficient!

DaveE

[pesgores]

Lol, you can't change your gender that easily. Maybe not at all, I wouldn't know.

I wonder if it's possible to change your gender to 'other'...

Why would someone change to "Other" anyway?

[OneEye589]

Lol, you can't change your gender that easily. Maybe not at all, I wouldn't know.

I wonder if it's possible to change your gender to 'other'...

Why would someone change to "Other" anyway?

I think the real question is "Why haven't we all changed to other yet?"

...

[Dr. X]

Well, if everyone was legally the same gender, there wouldn't be any d a p p e r Marriage propositions!

"We're all 'other', half of us just have boobs!"

[The Wizard]

Political corectness has sculpted our world into something sick. Nowadays it is preached that we are all the same, blah blah blah, difference is bad.

This is horrible. It's easy to see that an asian is not an african nor a caucasian. Why try to make them the same? People are proud of their origins. and their genders.

Also, chew on this, atheists. If you think the Bible means nothing and homeschooling is a 'natural thing' and is okay, then do you believe in evolution? If so, you understand that the process of evolution is change for survival. It is against the theory of evolution that homeschooling is natural, as homeschooling is a trait which would lead to population decline and thus extinction.