Roberts Court to take on Gay Marriage Issue

Neil Peart is a god of rock drumming, second only to Stewart Copeland and Vinnie Colaiuta (Vinnie and Terry Bozzio aren't rock only, but they do a lot of rock).

Geddy's voice is the only thing about Rush you can't take seriously.

 

It was meant to be playfully provocative...it worked

I was force fed too much Rush at a young age and that song in particular was a culprit. I know they're a serious band but I find them oddly depressing in tone. And it's a matter of taste but I find Peart's drumming to be technically brilliant but just a bit too much action. it gives the music constant tension and makes me anxious. I have this argument with my brother frequently...thought I'd try and pick it here. In a gay marriage thread of all places!

 

Always up for a threadjack, I am... and I'm pretty much right exactly with you on what you've said so far, particularly on the drummer.

What has struck me about them is that they must have been heavily influenced by that little window in which the really high provenance fusion bands were big-- Return to Forever and Mahavishnu. The palette reminds me so much of Clarke, Laird, Cobham, White and McLaughlin that, without the compositional sophistication, and with the art rock vocals, it just becomes irritation in aural form.

 

Now taosjon, we can't go following every little tangent you want or this thread will be off the rails.

So I'm here to bring us back on track.

http://www.salon.com/2012/12/11/scalia_its_effective_to_draw_parallels_between_murder_and_sodomy/

A supreme court justice out there on tour like Carrie Bradshaw is pretty despicable.​

 

I'm a bit more concerned about the reasoning than about the touring. Of course he can have "moral feelings" against homosexuality if he feels the need-- what he can't/shouldn't do is consider laws justified by his "moral feelings."

 

Rush gets in but not Yes? Two band that took themselves way too seriously with high-pitched singers. But Yes was decent at least. Rush songs all sound the same to me.

 

There's an important distinction here that he completely ignores. And it's pre-marriage-equality-debate arguments he's making here. These are questions that have nothing to do with marriage but have to do with criminalization of consensual adult relationships.

Scalia's argument
Murder = Immoral
Tolerating Homosexuality = Immoral
Murder = Illegal
Therefore it should be ok to make Homosexuality illegal if the people will it so.

But homosexuality DID used to be criminal behavior. Not that long ago. Because it was thought of as predatory and immoral by a huge majority of the country. Those days are over...never coming back.

What people have learned over time is
Murder = taking someones life
Tolerating Homosexuality = making someones life worth living
There are objects of both acts, only one of them could be considered a victim. Victimless crimes that aren't really crimes but are just distasteful to some should be ignored by our political system.
Even if the will of the people finds it distasteful, it is not something we should legislate. You're allowed to wipe your ass with an American flag and I'm allowed to go, "eww" but we should not criminalize that free speech.

And it goes a step further
~100% of people agree Murder = Immoral
<50% of people agree Tolerating Homosexuality = Immoral
So setting aside the argument about victimhood, the will of the people makes his position pointless.

Scalia is worried about arguments that were effectively settled in the 80's - 90's and can't even bring himself into the current debate because he's stuck in time.

 

If gay marriage is anything like hetero marriage, legalization may just be a backdoor way to end gay sex.

 

This is not a groundbreaking comment, but the speed and the shift of this issue still leaves me amazed and disorientingly hopeful.

I've worked in the progressive/nonprofit/civil rights world all my adult life. And I've had the privilege to work very closely with some incredible LGBT advocates during that time. And I would be willing to bet that none of them would have pegged 2012 as the year when this issue not only reached the Supreme Court but -- equally importantly -- reached such resounding and demonstrable levels of public support across the country.

In fact, in my personal experience, gay marriage was seen by many LGBT advocates -- and myself too, to be honest, speaking from a pragmatic, real world standpoint -- as a self-destructive political landmine. While folks were fighting for equal employment rights, HIV and health care issues, challenging sodomy laws, dealing with the military situation, etc., etc., etc., the whole issue of gay marriage would literally provoke eye rolls from many if not most in the trenches.

It was seen as not only a distraction from this other "serious, achievable" work, but actively counter-productive--blowing potholes in the hard-fought inroads to the mainstream. A common response was "Gay Marriage advocacy will simply motivate and mobilize the Christian Right like never before. We will get buried."

Fast forward to 2004 and out of the blue Gavin Newsom orders the city clerk to issue marriage licenses to gay couples -- which if we can all recall Pissed The Hell out of the Democratic leadership. Apoplectic would not be an overstatement.

I was in SF at the time and we were all very excited yet nervous -- Is this real? What does it mean? Will they be valid?

But then -- and this gets to HouseHead's point -- a bunch of people in my office got down to City Hall that week with their longtime partners, more than 10 at least. And these people all got married. And we had this joint impromptu reception -- and sweet sufferin succotash if it wasn't one of the most emotional days I've ever experienced. It was suddenly so crystal clear how f/cking important this was. It was revelatory for me and for many of us and it was simply incredible for my friends who were suddenly married. I mean, I was married. I suddenly felt like such an idiot -- How could I think it was politically expedient to table this issue? And many of my newly married friends had openly held those politically expedient views as well.

But that all changed.

So full credit to Gavin Newsom for pulling the orange from the bottom of the stack. I could never really suss why he actually did it. He was (and still is) an ambitious politician with a highly-touted future ahead of him. He had an affair that has somewhat dampened his political momentum (I can't remember actually if this was pre- or post- this issue). But as I mentioned, this did not endear him to the establishment. It was without a doubt a huge political risk for him personally, with no view at all to the current climate of popular acceptance.

So, while I have nothing to back this up, I've held on to the ludicrously, hopelessly idealistic possibility that he did it simply because it was the right thing to do.

 

Why in God's name would you assume THAT??????

 

Wouldn't that make him third?

I see what you did there.

 

This is a great post. Repped. It's like when you're in the car for a long time and you really have to pee, but you get used to the discomfort and just kind of live with it. But when you finally get to the gas station, you wonder if you'll even make it to the bathroom. Just being closer to relief makes the anguish worse.

That's what I'm feeling now. We're putting on the turn signal cause we saw an Exxon billboard. I'm allowing myself to feel like this could really happen and that's making it much more intense.

And if I can get more personal - I have been a best man or groomsman in many weddings. I have a large group of straight friends and have been flattered to be included in this way. But I've never once thought, "one day I'll get to do this". Weddings have always been someone else's big day and I've always done my best to help it be special. It's community validation of you as a family. That your union is worth traveling across the world to celebrate. That people will save money and take vacation time and dress up just to see you say "I do". People will fret over who they're going to bring for their date. The single guys will try to get laid. There will be a cheesy band playing Brick House and old people dancing like Carlton. That just never seemed like a real option to me. Even as some states legalized marriage, I thought that without federal recognition it's just playing dress up and having a party. And my gay friends agree. We're mostly all paired off, but having a wedding seems silly if it doesn't really mean anything.

My best straight friend is getting married in May in Mexico and I'm in that wedding as well. And for the first time, I'll look around, thinking, "I wonder what ours is gonna be like." I don't know if that sounds like as big of a deal reading it as it feels in my head, but it's a fundamental change in how we view our place in the world. As truly equal.

 

It was settled when Scalia was on the losing side of the Supreme Court case that said states couldn't make homosexuality illegal.

I don't know if I've ever seen a poorer loser, who thinks he's always right, than Scalia.

 

Just go in the woods!!! It's your right as a male!!! (I killed the analogy, didn't I?)

 

I got a bad feeling about this.

 

We'll look back on the gay marriage issue in 30 years as we look back at interracial marriage now. WTF was all the fuss about? You want to be happy/miserable with your significant other, go for it. It's none of our business.

 

The people most opposed to gayrriage aren't anywhere near accepting interracial marriage yet.

 

At least white Catholics are OK now

 

You're obviously not listening hard enough.

Listen harder.

 

The alleged R&R HoF can suck it until Mojo Nixon is admitted.

 

No joke. And people need to stop making such a big deal out of the Rock n Roll HOF. Its ludicrous. What measurements are they using to induct people into it? Its not baseball. There's no unwritten rule that says a gold record = automatic entry like 3,000 hits would. Are the Pixies in the Rock n Roll HOF? Oh wait, I don't give a shit, they still made incredible music.