roachboy

there are so many aspects of this thread that i find baffling it is hard to know where to start.


among the positions outlined in opposition to the nj decision, infiniteloser's is maybe the best summary one--but it seems based entirely on a notion that the american legal system is static--so that if at one point socially or politically marginal groups were not taken into account in the formulation of law, that's the end of the matter. and if the american legal system were static--or closer to static---were it, say, a civil law tradition and not a common law tradition--he'd in principle be right (though in practice he wouldnt be because even in civil law traditions, judges (though officially functionaries charged with the rigid application of the law) have considerable interpretive latitude in applying it).

but the american system is set up to be adaptable to changing political situations, and one way that change is brought about is through the mobilization of social groups, the elaboration of arguments and/or claims, the dissemination of those arguments/claims, debates about them, actions geared around that debate--the context within which law operates is historical, that is it shifts, like it or not--and so categorizations that were at one point reflective of a particular historical situation change--not in lock step, usually at a lag, but nonetheless--and so at this point any claim concerning the legal marginality of the gay population is effectively moot and has been for quite a number of years--so in essence the entire logic of infinite loser's positions is outmoded, invalidated by changing circumstances.

the claims that he has made concerning "mainstream culture" dont really mean much of anything, frankly. there are people who agree with his position--most of whom are on the right politically--and there are many who do not. there is no single phenomenon called "mainstream culture"--there are multiple discourses, multiple groups--always has been---and there are political claims generated by particular groups that they represent the interests of a segment of the population much larger than they are themselves--this is what we call political argument. and for a time these claims might hold----but over time their hold tends to dissolve...witness what is happening to the american right at the moment. the social-historical--the world--"reality"--changes. you might not like that, infiniteloser, but you cannot stop it--you can try to influence it, as can anyone else--but it's ridiculous to attempt to use some transcendent logical framework to try to "disprove" change.

in the initial post you made to this thread, il, you grouped homosexuality incest and bestiality together and for a while tried to argue that there was some logical consistency between them---well any such consistency is a function of the higher-order category you use to group them, and that means then that such logic as there is is circular--you advance three distinct categories as if there is a family resemblance between them--well the only resemblance between them is the notion of "sin" that circulates in conservative churches prompted in significant measure these days by far right political groups like the christian coalition which produces videos that anyone can watch that make essentially the argument you are making. typically, these videos try to evade the logical problems that you walk straight into by recourse to articles of faith, which for believers function like natural law. and perhaps or the demographic that finds these crackpot videos compelling, it is natural law--but that erases the simple fact of the matter, which is that the version of christianity endorsed by the american far right is particular to itself, and no matter how much the protestant far right hates this fact, they speak to and for themselves and no-one else.

your arguments are embedded in such a context, presuppose such a context--and you seem unable to see that.

so you call for referenda, assuming (with a kind of political motivation particular to the american far right) that the judiciary is somehow dominated by folk who do not share the assumptions of your fictional "mainstream culture" which really means the culture you imagine to exist out there made up of folk who share your assumptions. you call for referenda because you assume this imagined community would react as you do to changes in the purview of marriage as a legal institution.

i agree that referenda would be good, but i also think that your position would loose in many areas of the country, and i would personally appplaud each and every loss.


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as for the amazing display of ( empty ) that ncb has spattered across this thread, i dont really feel any particular need to say much...to do so would be to take it seriously--and i see no reason to take it seriously--so i am going to take my dog for a walk instead.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite