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No, most people don't do that. Reasoning from cognitive biases and anecdotes is much more common. Dreaded Anomaly Send a noteboard - 30/06/2011 12:18:40 AM
No, nobody's rights should be up to anyone else, unfortunately they have to be, for those of us who support democracy, the reason we entrust it to a majority is we distrust them less than the minority or the individual. We also enshrine personal rights whenever possible inside a document that requires prolonged super-majorities to change, so some kneejerk reaction from the populace doesn't either eradicate them or invent new ones.


Often, gay rights are already implied by a consistent reading of such documents, as many judges have remarked over the past few years. Judge Vaughn Walker, who issued the decision overturning Proposition 8 in California, noted that limiting marriage to one man, one woman constitutes gender discrimination as well as sexual orientation discrimination, and beyond that, it is rooted in conventional ideas about gender roles which we have supposedly progressed beyond as a society.

Beg Pardon, you're the one who used the word 'forcing' and did it in regard to the majority. I am no more fond of the tyranny of the majority than you, but I'm also not fond of the tyranny of the minority either. And history is generally full of a lot more apparently wise and reasonable people who engaged in tyranny because they thought they knew what was best for the lowly masses than it was off frothing megalomaniac monsters who ruled on whim and spouted of cliche villain line, history just tends to rename the former as the latter when the next self-righteous bastard cuts their head off and declares themselves wise and benevolent, taken as a whole I prefer to take a whole bunch of ordinary people, sit them down and let both sides explain their POV, and then ask them what to do, it tends to work better, frankly I trust them to act morally more than I do politicians.


Forcing through the system, not down people's throats. (I really don't know how the rest of this relates even tangentially to the issue at hand.)
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New York Senate approves same-sex marriage - 25/06/2011 03:47:43 AM 1377 Views
Good. *NM* - 25/06/2011 07:40:52 AM 454 Views
Re: Federalism is so fucking slow. *NM* - 25/06/2011 02:47:11 PM 285 Views
I'm actually not opposed to this. - 25/06/2011 03:48:32 PM 678 Views
Makes sense to me. - 25/06/2011 04:00:07 PM 907 Views
I'm not sure why there was even any need for such explicit protection. - 25/06/2011 04:04:47 PM 673 Views
There are two reasons, depending on ones position on the issue. - 25/06/2011 06:04:27 PM 721 Views
Meh, you never know. - 26/06/2011 12:58:37 AM 819 Views
so in your only Catholics are really married? - 26/06/2011 12:04:07 AM 682 Views
Church Doctrine. - 26/06/2011 12:57:39 AM 807 Views
That is simply not true - 26/06/2011 08:20:59 AM 750 Views
Yes it is. - 26/06/2011 05:14:29 PM 748 Views
That's patently wrong in that Orthodox weddings are explicitly recognized by the Church. - 26/06/2011 02:42:00 PM 698 Views
Yeah okay... - 26/06/2011 05:16:05 PM 736 Views
Are you sure about this? - 30/06/2011 04:47:57 PM 602 Views
Dragonsoul is wrong - 01/07/2011 09:21:43 AM 753 Views
Glad to hear it. *NM* - 25/06/2011 04:05:15 PM 270 Views
Seems fine to me - 25/06/2011 05:44:30 PM 673 Views
Voting on civil rights constitutes tyranny of the majority, not legitimate democracy. - 25/06/2011 09:37:28 PM 801 Views
Direct democracy is the only true democracy. *NM* - 26/06/2011 01:01:26 AM 289 Views
Sometimes it is grand not being a True Scottsman *NM* - 26/06/2011 08:21:49 AM 279 Views
Re: Voting on civil rights constitutes tyranny of the majority, not legitimate democracy. - 26/06/2011 03:11:06 AM 747 Views
Good luck telling that to the deeply religious right. - 26/06/2011 03:20:04 AM 663 Views
I am a deeply religious member of the right, and I tell them that all the time *NM* - 26/06/2011 03:30:14 AM 291 Views
Then you're a rare person. *NM* - 26/06/2011 03:36:11 AM 293 Views
After a number of years of gay marriage - 26/06/2011 06:57:07 AM 641 Views
That's more or less true of virtually everything, not a great example - 26/06/2011 07:09:03 AM 674 Views
People shouldn't turn their own religion and/or opinion into law - 28/06/2011 07:33:48 PM 654 Views
I don't recall mentioning religion beyond confirming that I was religious - 28/06/2011 08:22:51 PM 713 Views
I admit I wasn't replying to you directly - 29/06/2011 07:20:10 AM 667 Views
I think you should give this subject a bit more thought - 29/06/2011 02:16:04 PM 711 Views
I'll address the bulk of this later - 29/06/2011 07:58:48 PM 593 Views
Believing things without strong supporting evidence is not rational. - 30/06/2011 12:11:33 AM 787 Views
Requiring different degrees of proof for things isn't particularly rational - 30/06/2011 01:14:44 PM 860 Views
I require the same standard of evidence to be confident in anything. - 30/06/2011 07:43:51 PM 1254 Views
Re: I require the same standard of evidence to be confident in anything. - 30/06/2011 08:59:00 PM 860 Views
Re: I require the same standard of evidence to be confident in anything. - 30/06/2011 09:47:30 PM 1125 Views
We're gonna have to pick this up another time - 01/07/2011 04:37:25 AM 684 Views
No, I used the word irrational to mean that it's not rational. - 30/06/2011 09:12:19 PM 701 Views
Fair Enough - 01/07/2011 04:32:44 AM 737 Views
Btw, in case you were wondering, I do like you - 01/07/2011 02:17:42 PM 743 Views
Re: Voting on civil rights constitutes tyranny of the majority, not legitimate democracy. - 26/06/2011 10:38:56 PM 848 Views
I think you should give your fellow citizens a bit more trust and respect - 27/06/2011 05:41:52 PM 645 Views
I'm all for occasionally forcing stuff down people's throats... - 28/06/2011 11:44:12 AM 639 Views
My expectations are guided by psychology and history. - 28/06/2011 07:08:06 PM 760 Views
That's good to know, most of us do that, though we usually just call it common sense and experience - 28/06/2011 08:55:23 PM 785 Views
No, most people don't do that. Reasoning from cognitive biases and anecdotes is much more common. - 30/06/2011 12:18:40 AM 692 Views
Perhaps, you seem to be claiming not do that yourself though - 30/06/2011 01:40:57 PM 788 Views
Empire State Building was lit up in rainbow colors, looked cool *NM* - 25/06/2011 08:21:03 PM 310 Views
Good. *NM* - 25/06/2011 11:41:30 PM 275 Views
So, fifth time is a charm? - 26/06/2011 06:38:26 AM 786 Views

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