In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas

> But it still stands that the core message of tolerance is that we should examine things for harm and accept those things that minimize it, not that we should accept all things mindlessly.

The recorder of that video has gone on to create a fundraiser with two goals: 1) to defame the man in the video, and 2) to seek general recompense from the public for her harm.

I'm sure you watched enough of the video to get the gist of what happened, and any common-sense person would immediately dismiss her claims of harm. But by giving her a benefit of the doubt, by choosing to "examine" that situation far beyond its merits, she is given the platform and the opportunity to play the victim and in so doing simultaneously cause direct harm to another person and personally benefit from it.

The undivided support of the state, which has a legitimate interest in helping make it possible for stable, settled families to produce new generations of citizens and thus to perpetuate itself. From the perspective of any system of rule, this is the purpose of marriage. Homosexual partnerships, which are incapable of producing children, thus are of no benefit to the state, and can only be an unproductive diversion of funds which otherwise would be allocated to the benefit of heterosexual marriages which can and often do produce children.

In the case where it's considered desirable to ensure that homosexual partners receive the same benefits of familial status (e.g. the commonly cited hospital visitation rights), without also including such partnerships in the financial benefits of heterosexual marriage, a federal civil union statute would easily suffice. Such things have been proposed many times, but invariably have been shot down from the left, rather than the right, as representative of "second-class citizen" status, just like "whites" and "coloreds" water fountains - a risible claim, especially in light of e.g. GLAD's explainer [1], in which, discounting the two already disposed of here, every reason cited in favor of "gay marriage", and against civil union, is at its base about money.

Such, at least, is the primary reason why I oppose the idea of "gay marriage", to say nothing of the Supreme Court's having recently discovered in the Constitution that there exists an inalienable right to same. This puts me in an apparently contradictory position, being that I am myself homosexual, but that contradiction exists only in the presence of an assumption that identity politics are the only valid sort.

Of course, to hear "gay rights" organizations tell it, that is precisely true, and we are not allowed to take a stance such as mine, or indeed any other that fails to correspond exactly with the current party line. To do so is derided [2] or pathologized [3] - or, of course, both. The possibility that we might have evaluated the cases for and against on their relative merit, and made our decisions accordingly, doesn't really enter into the discussion - and neither does the possibility that those who claim to speak and act on behalf of all homosexuals need not have their claims taken at face value by anyone, not even we whom they insist they defend.

[1] https://www.glad.org/uploads/docs/publications/cu-vs-marriag...

[2] http://www.out.com/news-opinion/2013/05/13/bret-easton-ellis...

[3] http://mashable.com/2014/06/25/internalized-homophobia-lgbt/...

The poor peoples campaign was one. They demanded an economic bill of rights. Martin Luther King was the founder of it, he believed that poverty the main issue in America at that time. A month later he was assassinated and the whole thing fell apart.

"The Poor People’s Campaign was motivated by a desire for economic justice: the idea that all people should have what they need to live. King and the SCLC shifted their focus to these issues after observing that gains in civil rights had not improved the material conditions of life for many African Americans. The Poor People’s Campaign was a multiracial effort—including African-Americans, whites, Mexican-Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Native Americans—aimed at alleviating poverty regardless of race."

His assassination (by government or business interests) is the only conspiracy I subscribe to. I believe we would live in a different world if he had a few more years on this earth.

I did: [1]

> The act required for an assault must be overt. Although words alone are insufficient, they might create an assault when coupled with some action that indicates the ability to carry out the threat.

Granted that that's not the definition in actual use everywhere - but, in that case, you need to specify which jurisdiction's code you're citing, because there is no general coverage of assault in the United States code, but only a few specific cases, mostly related to assault against federal officers and officials in the performance of their duties.

[1] http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/assault

Note that you've conceded that I didn't choose to "examine" that situation far beyond it's merits. That makes it a rather weak argument against the broader point I am making.

Yes, people will come to conclusions about their personal experiences that few others agree with. So what. Politely tell them that you aren't interested in discussing whatever their beef is and move on. I didn't say that tolerance was an absolute above, in fact I started from a place where I pushed back against that misunderstanding.