The main difference being that cockroaches don’t have the ability to whine loudly about how you’re shining light on them.
John Scalzi glees over the fact that Proposition 8, the California initiative to destroy same-sex marriages will, quite accurately, be titled “Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry”. Since, you know, it actually takes a right that currently exists and will eliminate it. One of the spokesperson for a group that supports this amendment complains that the language is “inflammatory” and “unduly prejudicial”. (The latter phrase, by the way, is lawyer-speak for “would be bad for me.”) They want something completely uninformative and misleading, like “Marriage” or “Rules Regarding Marriage”, something that suggests a column in Ladies’ Home Journal rather than an effort to forcibly end existing marriages because they involve icky queer people.
If you think this is nuts, remember that the Prop 8 supporters are trying to pretend that kindergartners will have to be told that same-sex marriage is the same as ‘traditional marriage’. I imagine next they’ll argue that if Prop 8 doesn’t pass, it will be legal for gay people to drown adorable kittens.
There is some tedious debate going on in the Scalzi thread from people who insist it’s possible to be against same-sex marriage and not be a bigoted assjack. Well, yes, as lawyers say, anything’s possible. I can think of a couple of non-bigoted explanations: you’re an activist who feels that all marriage is wrong and should be abolished; or, you’re a complete brain-dead moron who hasn’t given enough thought to the issue to understand that bigotry is involved.
Outside of that, yep, you’re a bigoted assjack. No, a visceral reaction to gay anal sex, or the fact that your religion doesn’t recognize same-sex marriages, or some blather about “judicial activism” (dogwhistle for “result liberals like”) are not exemptions. Pretty soon, people with those opinions will be regarded the way civilized people regard those who thought of black/white marriages as “miscegenation”. Isn’t that a wonderful legacy?
Although I suppose cockroaches aren’t much concerned about their legacy. Just about getting back under that nice, dark rock.
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It’s a proven fact that straight people are a bigger threat to marriage than gay people. Most adultery is committed by people of the opposite sex.
Answer that one, anti-gay marriage crowd. Hmm?
Strictly speaking, isn’t “judicial activism” shorthand for ‘legal decisions I disagree with’?
I suppose the title is better than “Constitutionally vague amendment that will likely be overturned, thereby allowing us to use this issue again in the next election to mobilize our base”…
Yes, but only liberal decisions.
Jim, they’d probably happily send all the adulterers to burn in Hell too, unless they’re prominent Republican leaders, in which case all that forgiveness stuff &c.