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House of Lords debates pardon for Alan Turing

bbc.co.uk

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Re: House of Lords debates pardon for Alan Turing

#141

Post by dragonwriter »

eeky wrote: post #125
thejsjunky wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem arises that the legality of marriage was designed around traditional families. This premise is debatable, but assuming it is true it's still not a particularly strong argument. The law was designed to be flexible and evolve with society's needs and desires. Allowing gay marriage is a minor adjustment of what we in the US currently understand marriage to be - not a "changing of the very definition". If w…

You arguments are good but not airtight. I'll pick out the ones I disagree with. > To be clear, there are difference in say how gay couples reproduce Straight couples can reproduce with their spouse - gays cannot. That's not just a difference, but a complete opposite. >Let's be honest - opposition to gay marriage is based on religion, ignorance, or personal aesthetics. I agree that most people oppose gay marriage bec…

> Straight couples can reproduce with their spouse - gays cannot. That's not just a difference, but a complete opposite.

Not really one relevant to much of the legality around marriage. About the only thing it even remotely connects to is the presumption of paternity (the default assignment of legal parental responsibility to the spouse of the biological mother of any child born during the marriage.) And, even then, its not really a problem. There are two different forms of the presumption, and which is adopted varies by jursidiction.

Rebuttable: In this model, the concept of rights and responsibility of biological parents as preeminent is maintained, but the spouse is presumptively assigned parental rights and responsibility, but this can be reversed if there is evidence that the spouse is not the parent. Obviously, in the case of same sex marriage, this is resolved simply, as the evidence is readily available to rebut the presumption in all cases.

Conclusive: This model is based on the priority of the marital relationship over biological parenthood for raising children, and in jurisdictions adopting this this model the spouse of the biological mother is conclusively assigned parental rights and responsibility with regard to any children born during the marriage. Obviously, there works just fine in same-sex marriage.

So, the same-sex-couples cannot reproduce with their spouse thing is a difference, but not one which seems especially problematic with regard to the legalities around marraige.

> The reason I'm against gay marriage is that I don't want the definition to change

That's not much of a reason.

Why do you think the current definition of marriage, the result of continuous change over an extended period of time, is so perfect that it should not continue to change?

> and I don't want my children having gay propaganda pushed on them.

What does that have to do with equal marriage one way or the other? You think that continuing to deny equal marriage is going to make gay rights advocates less vocal and omnipresent?

Re: House of Lords debates pardon for Alan Turing

#142

Post by jackmaney »

eeky wrote: post #131
robotresearcher wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By using euphemisms like "stand for traditional marriage" you automatically lose the argument. You do not have to defend straight marriage. No one is against it. There's nothing to stand for. In fact you are against the other things. Your position is one of sanction and oppression, not support.

It's changing the definition of the word, so yes there is something to stand for. If you don't believe marriage needs defending, look at the rates of marriage. Now the meaning of marriage has been diluted so much, no one wants to get married anymore - there's no point except to possibly get benefits from the state. I could have just as easily said people who use the term "homophobic" automatically lose the argument,…

I couldn't care less about a debate with "people" like you. I want you to stop denying us our civil liberties.

Re: House of Lords debates pardon for Alan Turing

#143

Post by DanBC »

jackmaney wrote: post #142
eeky wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's changing the definition of the word, so yes there is something to stand for. If you don't believe marriage needs defending, look at the rates of marriage. Now the meaning of marriage has been diluted so much, no one wants to get married anymore - there's no point except to possibly get benefits from the state. I could have just as easily said people who use the term "homophobic" automatically lose the argument,…

I couldn't care less about a debate with "people" like you. I want you to stop denying us our civil liberties.

Yet you make very many posts to this thread, instead of just ignoring the trolls.

Re: House of Lords debates pardon for Alan Turing

#144

Post by Karunamon »

eeky wrote: post #138
Karunamon wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Organizations supporting traditional marriage will immediately be called "intolerant, bigoted, hate groups" and shouted out of the debate. Stop couching your views in pseudo-PC language and call it what it is. You do not "support traditional marriage" because that is a meaningless phrase. Nobody is campaigning for traditional marriage to go away - you can go have one right now! You are not supporting a thing, you ar…

>You are not supporting a thing, you are supporting keeping that thing from someone else. Here lies the crux of the debate. You think straight people are keeping something away from gays. But I think its gays trying to take something from straight people. Let's say I lived in a country that banned marriage entirely. I would still get married and it would be enough for me and my family to recognize that we are married…

>But I think its gays trying to take something from straight people.

A gay couple getting married does not in any way, shape, or form impact another striaght person's marriage, and I challenge you to prove otherwise.

You arguments are taken nearly VERBATIM from the anti-miscegenation movements of a few decades ago. Blacks marrying whites impacts the sanctity of traditional marriage and will harm children" and on and on and on.

There is almost no argument that marriage equality opponents use that wasn't also used against that back then. That alone should cause you to seriously think twice about the rhetoric you're using, here.

A few decades ago it was race mixing, now it's homosexuals. Same players, same arguments, same justifications.

This isn't really relevant to the point on any logical level beyond trivia, but still, think on it.

>They get infuriated when straight people don't want to recognize them.

The fact that you think this is very telling. It's completely wrong. It's that simple. This has nothing to do with what people think, it has nothing to do with feelings or emotions. It's about actions and causes and effects. Concrete, observable things.

I couldn't give two shits what you think of my relationships - that is your concern. Where I do care is when I am unconstitutionally denied rights for no good reason.

You are telling me that getting the same tax breaks a married couple does, the ability to see my partner in the hospital, that kind of thing, somehow, is SO deleterious to you in some fashion, so negative, that I should be denied those rights.

Fair enough. We're all adults here. Objectively define that negative impact and then we'll talk.

>So they are taking something - our freedom to interpret our own reality.

You can interpret your own reality however you wish.

You can not, however, violate the equal protection clause of the constitution to deny certain people rights just because you feel that it's icky (and I must point out that you haven't brought forward any argument yet that doesn't stem from your personal feelings).

Re: House of Lords debates pardon for Alan Turing

#145

Post by swalkergibson »

eeky wrote: post #131
robotresearcher wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By using euphemisms like "stand for traditional marriage" you automatically lose the argument. You do not have to defend straight marriage. No one is against it. There's nothing to stand for. In fact you are against the other things. Your position is one of sanction and oppression, not support.

It's changing the definition of the word, so yes there is something to stand for. If you don't believe marriage needs defending, look at the rates of marriage. Now the meaning of marriage has been diluted so much, no one wants to get married anymore - there's no point except to possibly get benefits from the state. I could have just as easily said people who use the term "homophobic" automatically lose the argument,…

From where do you derive your definition of traditional marriage?

Re: House of Lords debates pardon for Alan Turing

#146

Post by dragonwriter »

eeky wrote: post #138
Karunamon wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Organizations supporting traditional marriage will immediately be called "intolerant, bigoted, hate groups" and shouted out of the debate. Stop couching your views in pseudo-PC language and call it what it is. You do not "support traditional marriage" because that is a meaningless phrase. Nobody is campaigning for traditional marriage to go away - you can go have one right now! You are not supporting a thing, you ar…

>You are not supporting a thing, you are supporting keeping that thing from someone else. Here lies the crux of the debate. You think straight people are keeping something away from gays. But I think its gays trying to take something from straight people. Let's say I lived in a country that banned marriage entirely. I would still get married and it would be enough for me and my family to recognize that we are married…

> You think straight people are keeping something away from gays.

I don't think anyone thinks straight people are keeping something away from gays. After all, the proportion of the population that supports marriage equality is much greater than the proportion that is gay.

> But I think its gays trying to take something from straight people.

As someone in a stable, opposite-sex marriage, I'd like to know what it is that gays are trying to take away from me. What that I had before equal marriage came to my state have I lost? Because I don't see it.

> they want everyone to be forced to recognize their marriage.

What they want is for their committed life partnerships to be treated the same way under the law as those of people who happen to prefer a life partner of the opposite gender.

> So they are taking something - our freedom to interpret our own reality.

You are free to "interpret your own reality", and I doubt any equal marriage supporter will argue against your right to do so. Your freedom to do so, however, does not give you the right to deny others equal protection under the law. The concepts aren't even related.

> This is a kind of rabbit hole type revelation that spans many other issues and underpins my fundamental opposition to statism/slavery.

And that is the kind of sentence that doesn't even begin to make sense in context. WTF are you talking about, seriously?

Re: House of Lords debates pardon for Alan Turing

#147

Post by thejsjunky »

dyno12345 wrote: post #134
thejsjunky wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pardons are a general tool to forgive (in several senses) a crime. If you look at the history of pardons in the US for example, you'll find examples ranging from people who were wrongly convicted, to people who got one as a reward for cooperating in investigations, to people who simply had powerful friends. Which is why I find that reasoning confusing - when you pardon someone, you just do it... and if you care to gi…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardon#United_Kingdom Pardons are extraordinarily rare in the UK and normally only granted for misapplication of the law

The article seems to say the opposite:

'It is the standard policy of the Government to only grant pardons to those who are considered "morally" innocent of the offence, as opposed to those who may have been wrongly convicted by a misapplication of the law.'

It also mentions that in 1996 there was a pardon given as a "reward for information".

Re: House of Lords debates pardon for Alan Turing

#148

Post by ericevans »

They shouldn't "pardon". If there were some other form of nullification, that might be ok, but did nothing wrong by modern standards, and "forgiving" him implies that he did, even if that isn't their intent. And any legal relief a pardon would give a living person is irrelevant.

Let the conviction stand as a historical marker of shame.

Instead, they should vote on an apology to him and all the other people wronged by the actions of their predecessors.

Re: House of Lords debates pardon for Alan Turing

#149

Post by dragonwriter »

ericevans wrote: post #148

They shouldn't "pardon". If there were some other form of nullification, that might be ok, but did nothing wrong by modern standards, and "forgiving" him implies that he did, even if that isn't their intent. And any legal relief a pardon would give a living person is irrelevant. Let the conviction stand as a historical marker of shame. Instead, they should vote on an apology to him and all the other people wronged by…

> but did nothing wrong by modern standards, and "forgiving" him implies that he did

One of the purposes of the pardon power is to nullify convictions where a law was broken but the conviction, justified as it might be by the law, was unjust in the specific context.

Now, its designed (on the premise that the law is always just in the general case) to deal with exceptional cases, but it is no less appropriate a vehicle for the case where the law failed to be just in general and thus any conviction under the law is unjust in its specific context.

Re: House of Lords debates pardon for Alan Turing

#150

Post by dllthomas »

jlgreco wrote: post #118
dllthomas wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's conviction for two separate acts, which is a different thing than, say, acts which are homosexual and also forcible or pedophillic or something. Note that I most explicitly don't mean to imply that these attributes are any more common of homosexual behavior than heterosexual, just that they can be attributes of the same act, and may even have been punished under the same statute.

So you are hypothesizing that they neglected to prosecute child molesters of child molestation, and instead prosecuted them merely for 'homosexual acts'? That may be the case, but I find it unlikely. Are there any specific examples? Frankly though, as plainly unfortunate as those situations may be, those people should still be pardoned. When the prosecution fucks up, bad people can be declared not guilty. Same princi…

My understanding (which could totally be wrong) is that the charge is "gross indecency," not specifically labeled "homosexual acts." If it was the latter, some attention might still be merited but I agree I'd rather err on the side of caution (in terms of meting out punishment improperly).
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