The Hypocrisy Of Sam Yagan and OkCupid

I'm fine with civil unions existing (they're useful, for both same-sex and different-sex couples) and I'm fine with civil unions being a stepstone.

But civil unions is not marriage anywhere, least of all legally and across country lines.

So the issue is murkier, on the one hand once civil unions are in and civilisation hasn't ended it's easier to drive for marriage equality and the "opponents" to gay marriage can be used to get civil unions (that worked fairly well in most of western europe); on the other hand it means years or decades waiting as a sub-standard citizen (not all of western europe has marriage equality yet), it depletes the store of outrage/combativity for equality proponents it's not necessary[1] and I'm not sure it makes the overall process shorter: there seems to be a ~>10 years lag between partnerships and marriage equality.

[0] Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Iceland added same-sex partnerships in the early 90s and superseded them with gender-neutral marriage in the last 5 years; France added civil unions (for both homosexual and heterosexual couples) in 1998 and extended marriage to same-sex couples in 2013; Finland enacted registered partnerships in 2002 and support full same-sex marriage has been falling ever since — from 45% back then to 65% now; Great Britain added civil partnerships in 2004 and further added full same-sex marriage in 2014.

[1] the netherlands skipped civil unions and just went straight for marriage equality in 2001

You only donate to anti prop 8 if you are sufficiently opposed to gays marrying to spend money on it. I think it is by definition a bigoted act, and to use your words, morally repugnant.

e.g. Maynard v. Hill (1888)

"Marriage is something more than a mere contract, though founded upon the agreement of the parties. When once formed, a relation is created between the parties which they cannot change, and the rights and obligations of which depend not upon their agreement, but upon the law, statutory or common. It is an institution of society, regulated and controlled by public authority. Legislation, therefore, affecting this institution and annulling the relation between the parties is not within the prohibition of the Constitution of the United States against the impairment of contracts by state legislation."

Meyer v. Nebraska (1923)

"While this Court has not attempted to define with exactness the liberty thus guaranteed, the term has received much consideration and some of the included things have been definitely stated. Without doubt, it denotes not merely freedom from bodily restraint, but also the right of the individual to contract, to engage in any of the common occupations of life, to acquire useful knowledge, to marry, establish a home and bring up children, to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience, and generally to enjoy those privileges long recognized at common law as essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men."

Skinner v. Oklahoma (1942)

"But the instant legislation runs afoul of the equal protection clause, though we give Oklahoma that large deference which the rule of the foregoing cases requires. We are dealing here with legislation which involves one of the basic civil rights of man. Marriage and procreation are fundamental to the very existence and survival of the race. The power to sterilize, if exercised, may have subtle, far-reaching and devastating effects. In evil or reckless hands, it can cause races or types which are inimical to the dominant group to wither and disappear. There is no redemption for the individual whom the law touches. Any experiment which the State conducts is to his irreparable injury. He is forever deprived of a basic liberty."

Griswold v. Connecticut (1965)

"We deal with a right of privacy older than the Bill of Rights -- older than our political parties, older than our school system. Marriage is a coming together for better or for worse, hopefully enduring, and intimate to the degree of being sacred. It is an association that promotes a way of life, not causes; a harmony in living, not political faiths; a bilateral loyalty, not commercial or social projects. Yet it is an association for as noble a purpose as any involved in our prior decisions."

etc.

So it's actually a modern assertion that gay-marriage is not allowed by law as "marriage" in the general sense has been recognized and reinforced numerous times, without specificity as to the nature of the parties involved. It's the modern dawning realization by parties wishing to marry and being denied, and by parties wishing to deny them, that the scope of who can marry is largely unconstrained.

Persons against gay-marriage are actually in a battle to contract the existing right, while persons for gay-marriage are looking for explicit confirmation that they are included in the right. Given the general trend of rights expansion over American history, it's unlikely that an argument to contract an existing right will win without a general rewrite of several Constitutional Amendments (privacy, due process, etc.) explicitly naming the minority class that they wish to specifically oppress.

Not all discrimination is bad (another difference between the legal and dictionary versions of the same word). In particular, I think the common difference between okay discrimination and not-okay discrimination is judging people for what they are vs what they do.

The first is unfair and cruel, the second is a necessity of daily life and may or may not be cruel depending on circumstances.

Judging someone because of their race, sex, orientation, religious beliefs? Things they have absolutely no direct control over? Pretty much universally decried as unfair at best.

Judging someone because their actions negatively impact other people? The only way laws are created and society moves.

No matter what Eich does, he will be criticized. There is no way for him to win.

First, this is false. The things Eich could have done are wide and varied, and detailed in particular by me and others elsewhere in this very thread. This isn't about "winning". Critical evaluation of actions is not a game where there are winners and losers.

Why does being gay give you more protection than having a private ideology where nobody is hurt

Having a private ideology is one thing. You can think as negatively as you want to of any race, sex, orientation or gender identity. At the moment you throw money at a cause to legislate that thinking, to directly repress people you don't even know, or speak about those opinions in public, it ceases being private. And per the freedom of speech we all get in this country, everyone has the right to comment on it.

Freedom of speech != Freedom from criticism.

Oh, and as mentioned elsewhere, it's expressly illegal in this country to have civil rights unequally applied. Case law recognizes marriage as one of those rights, so even if we remove all ethics from this discussion, it's still illegal.

It's legal, but it's also not conducive to a tolerant society.

And again we disagree at a basic level. Tolerance does not mean accepting intolerance. Intolerance should be named, shamed, and driven out of our society as an ugly and corrupting influence.

This is a favorite tactic of social regressives, mind - upon making some comment or taking some action that incites mass outrage (Akin's "legitimate rape" comment from the election comes to mind, or Limbaugh's calling a woman a "slut" for campaigning for birth control coverage), trying to paint the opposers as the true evil, and usually invoking these flawed, incorrect comparisons to freedom of speech in an attempt to turn the outrage around.

It seldom works.

First of all, attacking others solely based on our "theories" is a "preemptive strike". It's an unprovoked assault. You don't know the truth.

One does not directly support the backers of a bill unless they want that bill passed. His reasons for doing so are irrelevant, but supporting something that unfairly targets and attempts to remove rights from people can be recognized for the evil that it is. Evil doesn't necessarily imply malice aforethought.

Further, his continued support after being informed that this was seen as unacceptable has only one logical conclusion.

Challenging is fine. However, it should be done with respect of the person.

Why should I respect someone who has absolutely none for me, and wants to make my life miserable having never met me? Respect is a two way street, and Eich has not only not earned mine, he's actively went out of his way to destroy any respect he might have had.

You don't support an attack on rights on people you "respect".

My theory is he & his family were being harassed from this.

Your theory has no more support than mine.

I also think he didn't appreciate the group coercion to change his stance on an issue. Coercion is bad.

I'm sure the people who support apartheid didn't appreciate the group coercion to change their stance either. Yet without that coercion, blacks would still be treated as three fifths of a human for the purpose of law. And women would be unable to vote or have most civil rights. And interracial marriages wouldn't be allowed.

Not all coercion is bad. Sometimes coercion is necessary for progress.

Aren't we all a little intolerant?

Thoughts and actions are different things.

One of my coworkers, who I respect greatly, was raised as a devout Christian and thinks that gay marriage is wrong from a moral perspective. You can't logic someone out of something they didn't logic themselves into in the first place - and believe me we've had some interesting talks bout this very topic :)

Do you know why I respect him? Because despite those beliefs, he doesn't support legislation that codifies his moral restrictions on other people into law. He doesn't vote for politicians that do that. He doesn't give money to boosters of laws that would restrict my equal rights. He did what Eich does not - he recognizes that what people do in their private lives has no effect on him or his morals. He doesn't attempt to legislate his moral restrictions in this matter so that everyone must abide by his narrower version of allowed conduct.

We're getting more into legislative philosophy here, but in this country, generally things are allowed unless there is a good reason for them not to be. Restrictions need to have a good reason, and religious beliefs and personal moral qualms are not a good reason for restricting the conduct of the population. Even less so when that comes to restricting a recognized right.

I think most supports don't approach it from a standpoint of hate.

Maybe, maybe not. But I can only judge what they do - and the fact that they want to treat me as a second class citizen is a case of either ignorance (they don't know that this is a big deal, why this is important, why change what isn't broken), arrogance (they feel they have the right to impose their moral restrictions on the world), disdain (they actually feel that I am strange, broken person that should not have my weirdness recognized by law), or religion (they feel that by denying me this right, they are preventing me from sinning against their deity of choice)

All four of those things reflect pretty badly on the person supporting the law. And you're probably tired of hearing me beat this particular drum, but the same four failings I just mentioned played heavily in the interracial marriage fight many years ago... which is why I find it very puzzling that someone can support interracial marriage (or not speak out against it) and then turn around and oppose gay marriage. Puzzling to the point it calls the supposed pure motives of the person into question.

Also, the tone of justifiers of this demonization seems off.

You keep bringing up this word, "demonize", "disrespect" and so on. Why do you think that morally judging Eich's actions is either of these things? I'd bet that if you were to poll the people who spoke out against him, you'd find very little "hate" for him, and a great deal of exactly what I've mentioned here, the 3 facts why this is unacceptable, based not on his motivations, but on his actions.