Gay Marriage Bill Passed in New York's State Government.

[PanzerJaeger]

"They can have their world and I can have mine". How much more respect could they ask for?

I didn't know you were such a multiculturist.

Again, I just don't see much incursion into your world by gay people. They're not trying to stop you from being able to marry.

In fact, one can only reason that your support for authoritarian intervention to stop their wishes reveals the opposite. I mean, you're the one attempting to shape public policy against the collective wishes of a group of people that have nothing to do with you on an issue that does not affect you.

Who is attempting to limit who in this situation? Who is trying to stop who? Which group is trying to force its way into the other's world and impose its world view on the other? Is this an issue of leftist utopia building or, as Newt would say, right wing social engineering?

That's the problem you take any sort of involvement in the public sphere and use it as an excuse to take away all their rights. That's why nobody can ever really escape.

Which rights have you lost? From what I can tell, you would prefer to be able to discriminate against them in the workplace. While there is some merit to that position in the abstract, it is really unseemly in application. Further, that battle was lost a long time ago, based very much on the tax argument. Why should you be able to benefit from infrastructure gay people help pay for if you discriminate against them?

Come visit the United States and I'll show the effects of real leftist utopia building - the broken school systems, the bankrupted businesses, and the abandoned cities. If you're feeling surrounded by gay marriage, it might give you a bit of perspective.

I can agree with the first, but not so much the second. I don't subscribe to the "why not?" theory of legislation, but the "why?". I can understand why homosexuals want civil marriage between members of the same sex, but I don't see why I should support it nor do I see an overall benefit to society at large.

I guess I'm more libertarian on social issues, but I do not think social change in the direction of more personal freedom necessitates a benefit to society at large. It only needs to be free of negative externalities, or at least very net positive when compared to the benefits.

For example, abortion should be illegal because the personal freedom it entails comes with an inordinately high cost. Speed limits should be enforced because the freedom to drive as fast as one wants is outweighed by the increase in traffic accidents and fatalities. In the '60s, the altruistic benefits of ending segregation were deemed worth the period of social disharmony it caused. On the other hand, the social cost/benefit analysis on drug legalization is a bit more murky. We as a society are currently reassessing whether the limits on personal freedom in that realm are worth the benefits.

Gay marriage is actually the only debated social issue of our time that I can think of that does not have an associated social cost.