DOMA and Prop 8. Both History.

[eppie]

Don't be envious. But don't hate them because their passion put them in a position where they are wealthy and famous. That isn't their fault. It's the society within which they live.

Shoju, you keep using the same flaw in your arguments against me.

I say I don't respect people just because they are a good athlete are musician.
I don't say I surely disrespect an athlete or musician.

The fact that I am biased against musicians and professional athlete just means it takes me longer to start respecting them (say, longer than a politician or whatever) but it doesn't mean I will never respect them.

I say, just being good in sports or music for me is not enough to respect someone.

(and this is really the last thing I say about this)

It's not a flaw in my logic. It's me taking what you said at face value.

1You said you'd never heard his music.
2You then said that you were biased against musicians.
3You then went on to say that you didn't have respect for people just because they were good at something.
4And then you went so far as to say that we (artists) are a self centered bunch of people, at least more so than the rest of the world.

5And I'm telling you, that is a load of bullshit. You have automatically decided that this group of people have to go out of their way to make an impression on you because you don't like something about them.

6That's.... just racism, applied to a different set of standards. Instead of being biased against someone because of their race, or because of their nationality, you have decided to bias yourself against a group of people because they have artistic talent.

Seriously? That's about the most batshit insane line of reasoning I've heard.

OK last comment.
You really seem to do this not understanding me on purpose.
I put numbers in your text and I will comment on them.

1 correct (but I saw his face in the crappy internet newspaper I also read almost daily)

2 correct and also against professional athletes. Not because I don't like sports or music or because I can't appreciate a great song or athletic performance but more because of the fact that (apart from how much I can enjoy what they do) it is not the same as a doctor or a scientist and that is my bias as a socialist that I find it not correct that people who do these type of things get filthy rich.

3 correct...did you read the word JUST?? If you don't agree with that sentence it means you respect every artist or prof sportsman just becausäthey do that......and I guess you don't.

4 I think I explained myself pretty clearly the first time. You HAVE to be pretty self centered to 'make it' in these businesses. You have to have a drive that people who are self centered have. Anyway, I also said that being self centered is much more present in these groups. I know my English is not great but I think that meant that not everybody is like that. When (take the musci example) we take teen idols that sing crappy popsongs probably this percentage is even a bit higher.
But seriously...who do you respect more Hendrix or say, the Stones who are still performing while being in their seventies?? (yes the good answer should be Hendrix)

5 What are you talking about? I just say that just having a song in the hit parade is not enough for me to respect you....so what??

6 No. I am biased to them because (see before). MAking crappy cheap shit and making millions in the process (Britney SPears anyone??). And yes that means i am biased against Bieber and not against the Boss.

[Mavfin]

If a group wished to set up a polyandry, a polygyny, or even a group marriage then as long as all participants do so of their own free will, I see no reason why it should be banned.

I suspect I could win most threads even now, by just copy/pasting from an archive of Pete's posts.

-Jester

Another thing Pete got right.

As I get older, I think more and more 'consensual crimes' shouldn't be crimes at all; i.e. things involving two consenting adults that aren't hurting anyone else. If someone's being coerced into it, then they're not consenting, by my definition, and there are already laws about coercion, etc.

[Bolty]

It's cool. It's nice seeing LGBT presence on the forum. I remember back in the day things were vaguely LGBT-tolerant and much less LGBT-positive...I remember gay rights threads ending complacently with "Well, we're just not ready for that yet" instead of "Even if we don't expect change tomorrow, it's never too early to make people aware." And then there were the blatantly discriminatory arguments that I didn't even want to deal with. It's nice to see times change though.

As I read this, I thought "that's pretty much a microcosm of the gay-rights movement in American culture over the time the Lounge was in existence (1999-today)." While the LL has international participation, I think the majority of the posters here are US/Canada, so you're seeing a direct reflection of those changing times archived right here at the site. Back in 1999, coming out on an online gaming forum would have most likely gotten you shunned by at least half the readership.

[eppie]

[quote='Jester' pid='207099' dateline='1373643179']
Your post inspired a little bit of a walk down memory lane. Pete, from 2003:

[quote]If a group wished to set up a polyandry, a polygyny, or even a group marriage then as long as all participants do so of their own free will, I see no reason why it should be banned.[
[/quote]

Of course this is true. But it is a completely theoretical case. It is the same as death penalty. I agree that there are many people who deserve the death penalty and for which case it would be much better for society if that person was eliminated from it.

But this is a completely different thing than actually practically having a death penalty because it has so much added consequences and uncertainties.

The marriage between cousins that is happening a lot between Morrocon immigrants in western-Europe is something we are trying to ban or to discourage. I am sure if you ask them, 99% of the women who get married like that will TELL you it is consensual but everybody knows the pressure and threats of family members play an important role. So who are you to know it is really consensual?

You have to see these issues through the eyes of people with a different background, who have no chance to get a reasonable education and who have serious cultural difficulties. It is also a task of a state to protect its citizens, and especially the weaker groups in society (at least that is my opinion).

[Jester]

So who are you to know it is really consensual?

This is the key phrase.

Who am I to know if it is? I don't have to. We don't start from totalitarianism, and work backwards, slowly granting people the freedom to do ordinary things. The assumption is that everyone should be, by default, free to do as they please. The burden is on those who would ban a thing. You have to show that it causes serious harm to others, and also that a ban is the least harmful solution.

The marriage between cousins that is happening a lot between Morrocon immigrants in western-Europe is something we are trying to ban or to discourage. I am sure if you ask them, 99% of the women who get married like that will TELL you it is consensual but everybody knows the pressure and threats of family members play an important role.

I am not a paternalist. People will make bad choices for a thousand different reasons - and choices that you see as bad, but they see as good, or better than the alternatives. I do not feel it is my right to stop them, whereas it is their right to live a free life. I do not see the need to tell people that their education was not "reasonable," or that they have "serious cultural difficulties." I don't feel the need to tell Moroccan immigrants that they can't marry their cousins. And I certainly don't feel the need to pass laws to that effect. If a marriage is coerced, or fraudulent, then there is already legal redress for that - and I'm all for making sure Moroccan people have full and safe access to the law. But I don't assume people are being coerced, and I certainly don't ban everything on the off chance they might be.

-Jester

[kandrathe]

So who are you to know it is really consensual?

This is the key phrase.

Who am I to know if it is? I don't have to. We don't start from totalitarianism, and work backwards, slowly granting people the freedom to do ordinary things. The assumption is that everyone should be, by default, free to do as they please. The burden is on those who would ban a thing. You have to show that it causes serious harm to others, and also that a ban is the least harmful solution.

More than assumption. In the US, the gist of Constitutional law is that freedom (civil rights) is innate, where no person or government can bar your from the freedom (which is yours, and not bestowed upon you by any government, or person).

If a contract is entered into through coercion it is found to be null and void by a court of law when the petitioner claims and proves the contract to be thus invalid.

In most ceremonies, the vows are pretty high level summation of the implied contract, and a requirement of the ceremony is usually that both parties are entering the contract of their own free will.

The marriage between cousins that is happening a lot between Morrocon immigrants in western-Europe is something we are trying to ban or to discourage. I am sure if you ask them, 99% of the women who get married like that will TELL you it is consensual but everybody knows the pressure and threats of family members play an important role.

I am not a paternalist. People will make bad choices for a thousand different reasons - and choices that you see as bad, but they see as good, or better than the alternatives. I do not feel it is my right to stop them, whereas it is their right to live a free life. I do not see the need to tell people that their education was not "reasonable," or that they have "serious cultural difficulties." I don't feel the need to tell Moroccan immigrants that they can't marry their cousins. And I certainly don't feel the need to pass laws to that effect. If a marriage is coerced, or fraudulent, then there is already legal redress for that - and I'm all for making sure Moroccan people have full and safe access to the law. But I don't assume people are being coerced, and I certainly don't ban everything on the off chance they might be.

Also, I would make the distinction between the sex, and the marriage contract. We've (mostly) determined as a society that young people (mostly less than 18) are too young to make both the consensual sexual and contract decisions.

But, marriage (and its advocates) confuse the sexual decisions with the contractual decisions. Once consensual sex is unbundled from marriage, what remains to marriage is the contractual obligations. No one, barring the fundamentalists, are attempting to squeeze that genii back into the bottle. Addressing who is proscribed legally from entering into a sexual relationship (for their own protection), resolves any issues that might arise in a marriage contract.

If you don't approve of 1st cousins, siblings or underage persons to marry then work to change your laws. For example, in the Netherlands, incest is legal between adults -- are they allowed to marry? I know in Britain, and the US there is usually some restrictions on marriage due to consanguinity. But, this has nothing to do with Moroccans, right? they are just taking advantage of the freedoms your society has granted.

[eppie]

So who are you to know it is really consensual?

This is the key phrase.

Who am I to know if it is? I don't have to. We don't start from totalitarianism, and work backwards, slowly granting people the freedom to do ordinary things. The assumption is that everyone should be, by default, free to do as they please. The burden is on those who would ban a thing. You have to show that it causes serious harm to others, and also that a ban is the least harmful solution.

The marriage between cousins that is happening a lot between Morrocon immigrants in western-Europe is something we are trying to ban or to discourage. I am sure if you ask them, 99% of the women who get married like that will TELL you it is consensual but everybody knows the pressure and threats of family members play an important role.

I am not a paternalist. People will make bad choices for a thousand different reasons - and choices that you see as bad, but they see as good, or better than the alternatives. I do not feel it is my right to stop them, whereas it is their right to live a free life. I do not see the need to tell people that their education was not "reasonable," or that they have "serious cultural difficulties." I don't feel the need to tell Moroccan immigrants that they can't marry their cousins. And I certainly don't feel the need to pass laws to that effect. If a marriage is coerced, or fraudulent, then there is already legal redress for that - and I'm all for making sure Moroccan people have full and safe access to the law. But I don't assume people are being coerced, and I certainly don't ban everything on the off chance they might be.

-Jester

Jester, you keep just using liberal theory as arguments although I have often stated that I agree with that theory but that the real world is very different, much more complicated.

We know that there is a high percentage of arranged marriages under Morrocon people where the family goes to Morroco in the holiday period and they come back with a wife for the son.

It is true, it still is allowed for cousins to get married. This has never bee changed because there were no real issues in the past. And because (yes you get it) we also have very liberal opinions we didnot want to ban it.

Now we see that 1 on 4 Morrocon and Turkish immigrants marries a cousin. Which has several issues. First, the percentage of handicapped babies among these groups is much higher than avarage, and second most of these marriages are arranged.

So yes you have the issue of giving people the freedom until it is PROVEN that something is off or to try and protect women, and children.

And for me it is much wiser to make a sensible decision instead of keep repeating the liberal mantra. To understand that society isn't equal and that in parts women are seen as 2nd class citizens.

[Jester]

We know that there is a high percentage of arranged marriages under Morrocon people where the family goes to Morroco in the holiday period and they come back with a wife for the son.

It is true, it still is allowed for cousins to get married. This has never bee changed because there were no real issues in the past. And because (yes you get it) we also have very liberal opinions we didnot want to ban it.

Now we see that 1 on 4 Morrocon and Turkish immigrants marries a cousin. Which has several issues. First, the percentage of handicapped babies among these groups is much higher than avarage, and second most of these marriages are arranged.

So yes you have the issue of giving people the freedom until it is PROVEN that something is off or to try and protect women, and children.

It sounds to me like your problem is with Moroccan and Turkish culture, not polygamy. These marriages are monogamous. And you insist you're not looking to ban monogamy, so...?

As for the tolerance of cultural practices we find odious, that's a tricky issue, but it is surely not one that is best addressed by just making everything illegal. If we banned every kind of transaction where the weak might be exploited, we would have to ban all transactions - contracts, marriages, mortgages, employment, everything. People should have protections against being exploited by the law, and resources to help them if they're in a bad situation. I'm all for generous, vigorous programs to help women get out of situations where they feel coerced by their partners or family. They shouldn't be forbidden from doing things "for their own good".

-Jester

Afterthought: I assume family intermarriage is also a pretty effective way to get another family member into the Netherlands?

[eppie]

Jester, yes your last sentence is absolutely correct.
The rest..... Have you been reading my posts, say the last 10 years???
You know i always defend minorities, when people say stupid thinsg about them. Here I was just explaining what is going on in the Netherlands and what out government thinsg about it.
The high percentage of handicapped kids, and the arranged nature of these marriages are facts, they are not my opinion.

[LavCat]

The sample is small, but the only woman I know married to a Moroccan man is Bolivian.

[LemmingofGlory]

As I read this, I thought "that's pretty much a microcosm of the gay-rights movement in American culture over the time the Lounge was in existence (1999-today)." While the LL has international participation, I think the majority of the posters here are US/Canada, so you're seeing a direct reflection of those changing times archived right here at the site. Back in 1999, coming out on an online gaming forum would have most likely gotten you shunned by at least half the readership.

That fact certainly didn't escape me. It's fascinating, but it's a little sad in some ways. One of the things in gaming that I felt gave it great strength is that gaming united players of very different backgrounds. You might know a player's nationality (important for timezone) and gender (important for pronouns), but political alignment and ethnic background and other elements were just unimportant. My very early impression of online gamers was that gamers were a really open bunch because they were generally blind to anything but abject idiocy.

As far as LGBT gamers go, I was not really aware of anyone until '05 when "Virgil Tibbs" aka Joslyn came out as trans on the DSF Community board. Coming out trans is particularly important as it directly relates to gender (pronouns). Coming out LGB generally seemed less important, and the big life milestones "I'm getting married!" or "I'm having a baby!" were extremely unlikely announcements. So, that could have contributed to LGB invisibility. There was also a prevailing attitude at the time of "Why do queers have to flaunt their private business in everyone's faces?" which provided disincentive to even casually mention having a non-heterosexual orientation. That attitude has definitely changed, but even if being out on a forum was risky, it never seemed to matter to individual friendships. Gamers were my only friend group for a long time and gaming buds were the first people I was ever out to. Those friendships have lasted in ways RL ones haven't.

The shift in attitudes IRL has been really interesting too, and not just in how the tide of public opinion has shifted. One place where change was very pronounced was in the gay-straight alliance I was in. Usually, support groups (like GSAs) tend to draw people who are very isolated and needing to make friends and need help dealing with life, but there has been a huge shift in that demographic. It really seems to be marked by a line in the sand separating folks born before the 1990 and folks born after 1990. Queers born in the '80s generally had a lot more trouble with rejection by family, friends, and community and they were at least moderately activist. Queers born in the '90s have so little gayngst and they're most interested in just making a big group of friends. GSA participation also exploded (at least five times as many attendees) when those '90s kids showed up. That being said, these still tend to be people who have nothing to lose at being seen at such a meeting ("unaffiliated weirdos"). You don't see usually the folks who easily fit in with other social groups: frat boys, sorority girls, athletes. I don't know if it's okay to be "one of them" and also be queer, but from what I understand of bro shooters, it ain't okay to be Takei.

To contrast with LGBT acceptance, I've heard female gamers see a lot of misogyny from male gamers. I don't remember seeing those kinds of attitudes in gaming communities I was in (although I could have just been unobservant), so I don't know if this is a trend on the rise of it's just being talked about now.

-Lem

[Bolty]

To contrast with LGBT acceptance, I've heard female gamers see a lot of misogyny from male gamers. I don't remember seeing those kinds of attitudes in gaming communities I was in (although I could have just been unobservant), so I don't know if this is a trend on the rise of it's just being talked about now.

This has always been around and I don't really see it declining. It continues to be socially unacceptable for girls to be hardcore gamers, so any of them who are go through a lot of crap both from the boys online and the girls they know. The gaming communities you participate in tend to be more mature, so you don't notice it as much.

In World of Warcraft hardcore raiding guilds, there is a general perception that any female raider:

1) Is bad at the game, and thus
2) Flirts with the male raiders to get a spot

If a female gamer turns out to violate those two assumptions, they are frequently attacked/ridiculed. Then those same males doing the attacking will wonder why there are "no good girl raiders." I mean, duh. A big part of that is that male gamers tend to feel threatened by any female gamer that is as good/better than them.

Many high-end WoW guilds simply ban females, ironically using the same excuses used by some in the military: "it breaks comraderie" or is "bad for the unit." Now, often those rules are a result of a female raider's actions leading to guild breakups/drama; perhaps you've heard of the horror stories of the Female Raider Who Sleeps with the Guild Master for Perks. Those stories, however, ALWAYS blame the female and never the male, as in "that wench seduced our GM and broke up the guild." Takes two to tango.

That said, the guild I'm in now has some strong female raiders who do quite well. It all depends on the environment of the guild, which is set by the leadership.

Humans are hardwired to label people, place them into groups, and respond to them according to that group. (Communist scum! Liberal dirtbag! Republican! Democrat!) It takes force of will, and lots of effort, to evaluate each person as an individual. Such is life, and I don't see how that can ever change.

As far as the Lounge goes, when I think of LemmingofGlory, I think "mature, well-written Diablo 1 fanatic with nicely thought-out posts" more than I think "gay gamer." As you said, with gamers, social backgrounds tend not to matter since it's the games that bring us here. Then we stay for all the political bickering anyway.

[Jester]

You know i always defend minorities, when people say stupid thinsg about them. Here I was just explaining what is going on in the Netherlands and what out government thinsg about it.
The high percentage of handicapped kids, and the arranged nature of these marriages are facts, they are not my opinion.

Oh, you're just explaining what the Dutch policy position was? Here I was, reading this as your argument, that it's okay to ban certain types of marriages, on the basis that they can be abused. Was I wrong about that?

-Jester

[eppie]

You know i always defend minorities, when people say stupid thinsg about them. Here I was just explaining what is going on in the Netherlands and what out government thinsg about it.
The high percentage of handicapped kids, and the arranged nature of these marriages are facts, they are not my opinion.

Oh, you're just explaining what the Dutch policy position was? Here I was, reading this as your argument, that it's okay to ban certain types of marriages, on the basis that they can be abused. Was I wrong about that?

-Jester

I am explaining that I think you should mix theory and practice when you come up with arguments in a discussion like this.
If a as a government you know that say (and I am just estimating some numbers here) every year 5 couples of cousins want to get married out of love and 3000 couples have cousin marriages arranged by their parents while the cousins have actually not seen each other more than 1 week in their whole life and many of the marriages end up in abuse, largely because of the power position of the husband who marries a girl who doesn't speak the language and is not allowed to go to language classes etc. etc. etc., you can decide to act on this.

It is very easy just to use your liberal mindset in a discussion like this and just turn away your face.

Personally I have slightly less rigid ideas about this compared to my government, but I clearly see the issue and think something needs to be done. My biggest issue here is that in almost every problem involving immigrants the anti-muslim politicians just want to ban everything all of the time so the discussion becomes a bit of a foul one usually.

[Jester]

I am explaining that I think you should mix theory and practice when you come up with arguments in a discussion like this.

Fair enough.

If a as a government you know that say (and I am just estimating some numbers here) every year 5 couples of cousins want to get married out of love and 3000 couples have cousin marriages arranged by their parents while the cousins have actually not seen each other more than 1 week in their whole life and many of the marriages end up in abuse, largely because of the power position of the husband who marries a girl who doesn't speak the language and is not allowed to go to language classes etc. etc. etc., you can decide to act on this.

Yes. But you can decide to act on it in a way that increases liberty, or decreases it. You can improve immigration laws, so there is no longer a very strong incentive for family "chains" to migrate via inter-family marriages. You can improve integration via access to education, and to legal remedies. You can set up shelters and support groups, so that people in a bad situation have outside options.

Banning cousin marriage would not help much. Families would still be in control, and they could still find other people - more distant cousins, family friends, or just cousins they lie about - to marry their daughters to. The incentive is to get an extra passport. The problem is that migrants have poor support networks outside of their own migrant communities, and so can be coerced. That's not a problem with cousin marriage, that's a problem with immigration and integration policy.

It is very easy just to use your liberal mindset in a discussion like this and just turn away your face.

And it's very easy to be a liberal right up until something you don't like happens. The hard part is what happens after.

Personally I have slightly less rigid ideas about this compared to my government, but I clearly see the issue and think something needs to be done. My biggest issue here is that in almost every problem involving immigrants the anti-muslim politicians just want to ban everything all of the time so the discussion becomes a bit of a foul one usually.

And so your suggestion is what?

-Jester

[eppie]

Yes. But you can decide to act on it in a way that increases liberty, or decreases it. You can improve immigration laws, so there is no longer a very strong incentive for family "chains" to migrate via inter-family marriages. You can improve integration via access to education, and to legal remedies. You can set up shelters and support groups, so that people in a bad situation have outside options.

Banning cousin marriage would not help much. Families would still be in control, and they could still find other people - more distant cousins, family friends, or just cousins they lie about - to marry their daughters to. The incentive is to get an extra passport. The problem is that migrants have poor support networks outside of their own migrant communities, and so can be coerced. That's not a problem with cousin marriage, that's a problem with immigration and integration policy.

-Jester

I fully agree with this in general.
The issue with this example is of course (I mentioned this earlier) that we were actually generally against marriage between cousins but because it never happened anyway there was no reason to ban it.
Now that we have a part of the population for who this is more normal (and the fact that science taught us the risks when reproducing) this has become a political issue. Mainly pushed by the far right of course, and although, as you correctly state banning decreases liberty, it is for sure easier and quicker.

(I never thought I ended up defending Geert Wilders.....I think it is even a step further than defending Bieber )

[Jester]

(I never thought I ended up defending Geert Wilders.....I think it is even a step further than defending Bieber )

Quite a few steps further!

So, er, why are you defending Geert Wilders? I assume your opinion of him is not much more positive than mine, so...

-Jester

[eppie]

(I never thought I ended up defending Geert Wilders.....I think it is even a step further than defending Bieber )

Quite a few steps further!

So, er, why are you defending Geert Wilders? I assume your opinion of him is not much more positive than mine, so...

-Jester

No it was a joke. It is just that his party always comes with ideas like banning the marriage between cousins for example....of course because they know it is a thing common under muslims, and that is exactly what they are always focusing on.

[Jester]

No it was a joke. It is just that his party always comes with ideas like banning the marriage between cousins for example....of course because they know it is a thing common under muslims, and that is exactly what they are always focusing on.

So, to come full circle, I guess:

I am not much like Geert Wilders. My disagreements with him are many, but I think the essence of it comes down to Robert Nozick's arguments about patterned vs. unpatterned goals. Mr. Wilders seems to have an idea of what a good society "looks like" - specifically, it looks like the modern Netherlands. One of the (many) virtues of this society is that it is, relatively speaking, free. But the point of Mr. Wilders' philosophy is not to preserve the freedom, but to preserve the society that looks like the modern Netherlands. If freedom has to be thrown overboard to keep things looking the way they're "supposed to," so be it. Restrict immigration. Restrict "non-Dutch" cultural and religious practices. Reinforce family values. Surpress "non-western" influences. Put all political power directly in the hands of the current cultural, ethnic, and religious majority via populist government.

I take the opposite view. I do not have a pattern that I want society to "look like," but rather, a series of rules about liberty. If the Netherlands in 2100 looks nothing like the Netherlands in 2013, I have no inherent issue with that, so long as it was the result of people interacting freely. The family values could be very different. The religious and ethnic mix could be very different. Culture could have changed almost entirely. (There might even be food that isn't bland!) This would not be an inherently bad thing, and even if I didn't like the result, I don't see it as any of my business to prevent it by using state power.

And so. I am a liberal, and Mr. Wilders is not. I believe people should be able to do what they want, unless they're harming others. I believe polygamy should be legal. If anyone is coerced into it, then that should be dealt with using the existing laws against coersion, combined with social support for the disadvantaged and the powerless. This might lead to families and social structures that are unfamiliar to us. We might not like everything that people do with their liberties. But is not a problem to me.

-Jester

[kandrathe]

Marriage isn't really the issue then. It's that these married cousins are procreating and having higher rates of offspring with defects. If they didn't have offspring, then it wouldn't be an issue. Rather than try to control marriage, or intercourse, why not change your immigration rules?

I read about similar issues in other European nations, where the same consanguinity problems (increase in birth defects) are arising due to immigration policy and the immigrants social norms. The public policy issue you've raised is the health care burden upon the Dutch society, rather than any sense of moral outrage. I suspect however, that for some people, like Mr. Wilders, there is also an anti-immigrant (nationalistic) sentiment permeating their call to action. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3419292/

So, how about changing the rules so that a naturalized immigrant cannot confer citizenship upon their spouse. The immigrant spouse must pursue naturalization like any other immigrant. A natural born citizen would be able to confer the short cut to naturalization.

But then again, this may also lead to other unintended consequences, where people have many natural born "Dutch" children and marry them off at a young age to older relatives to get them into the country. Such is the nature of law, it makes people adapt their behaviors.