Posted on 11/28/2007 1:34:26 PM PST by Froufrou
“I used to have some liberal views”
What I once thought of as “liberal” views, for and within myself, I came to realize were libertarian views - limited government. And, yes, I believe that in order to preserve the greater good of freedom, there are limits to how much 51% of us can place ALL our MORAL views into law and in a way that would make illegal every activity we believe people SHOULD CHOOSE not to do. If we were to attempt that, we would create our own version of the Saudis moral police.
But, that which I accept, from a libertarian position, I also realize cannot be held in a pure-libertarian-utopian sense either, or none of our moral traditions, in any sense, can hold sway for long in society, and it is from those traditions that we have built so much of what we know must be included as our “freedoms”.
Hello again. :-)
Yes, I too have known of unrelated elderly people sharing homes together to make ends meet and to be companions in a platonic sense. I also have known many younger people who shared apartments with people of either the same or opposite sex, for financial reasons, and they were not involved with each other romantically. A “domestic partnership” law that didn’t require sexual involvement would’ve suited many of them.
But, the gay lobby won’t allow it.
Btw, in my state, after civil unions legislation, giving homosexual couples benefits equal to marriage, was passed only months ago, already the gay lobby here is screaming that civil unions are second-class status, and they want to be called “married”. The...nonsense...just...won’t...end.
As you said, they are free to live the way they want to. That was my point to that crazy church group: Even certain churches will marry them in religious ceremonies. The law doesn’t recognize it, but stormtroopers aren’t kicking in their doors. And I believe most conservatives would oppose stormtroopers kicking in doors to investigate what consenting adults are doing in private because it would go against our principles of limited government.
If the gay lobby were arguing for privacy, I would agree with them. But they’re not. Instead, they’re arguing for the “right” to indoctrinate our children into the homosexual lifestyle, to have someone charged with a “hate crime” if they speak against homosexual behavior, etc. (”Rights” and “hate” - two more words being misused today.)
You’re right, my views were libertarian. But, for several years, I’ll admit I held a few big government, liberal views. In any case, I did not make judgments about homosexuality. I saw it as a matter of privacy between consenting adults, and I still do. With the exception of that short period of liberalism, I’ll bet your views were much like mine: My husband always says, “We didn’t change. Everyone else did.” Our views are still the same, but when everyone else shifted to the Left, we were left standing on the Right. And then, when many people went off to the far outreaches of the loony Left, we took a few more steps to the Right.
Once the pro-homosexual activism began, I realized their cause had nothing to do with privacy. Despite all their talk about “keeping government out of the bedroom,” the gay lobby keeps inviting Big Brother into it, and they themselves won’t stay out of anyone else’s business. Remember how they were “outing” (i.e. accusing) people in Hollywood, just because they weren’t dating anyone, not to mention “outing” famous people who were no longer alive to defend their name.
The sad fact is, today, thanks to all the attention the homosexual lobby has demanded and all the claims they have made “outing” people, people of the same sex who share an apartment or a house often are presumed to be gay, even when they’re not. So, one could look at it this way: Not only has the lobby succeeded in denying them the same benefits, it denies they’re straight.
Of course, as you pointed out, not everyone in a homosexual relationship shares the extreme views of gay activists, just as many people in heterosexual relationships do share them.
“to have someone charged with a “hate crime” if...”
The entire concept of “hate crime” is another slippery slope intended to bring the law into “legal” intrusion against our thoughts and beliefs. With the very principal that a certain thought is “illegal” or that a certain thought places a certain distinction on the nature of a “crime”, then, no thought is safe from what some future 51% say is a “hateful” thought. The consequences of that slippery slope are NOT “unintended consequences”, because the effort is to bring government into thought control.
The proponents of “hate crimes” give the argument that if someone, for instance, commits assault and battery on someone with their motive having been derived from a “hatred” for the victim due to the victim’s race, sexual orientation, etc., then instead of the simple charge of assault and battery they are also charged with a “hate crime”, or the assault and battery charge on the “hate” motive is assigned a different “hate crime” status within the general status of assault and battery. But, in plain terms, they are in reality being charged with a thought crime.
Now, again, the proponents argue against that designation - thought crime - by way of saying there would be no action - no crime - if the behavior - assault and battery - had not taken place. But this is demonstrated by three practicalities of the application of “hate-crime” laws, to be a lie.
If someone assaults their ex-spouse, former boy/girl friend because they “hate” them (literally) the person who commits the assault will not be charged with a “hate crime”. But, in such a case, is the victim any LESS of a victim, is the crime, in its facts of how it was carried out, any LESS heinous than an assault that is given the label “hate crime”. No. To say otherwise is an injustice to ANYONE who is a victim of assault not given the classification as a victim of a “hate crime” as well.
In some cases when the “assault and battery” charge (or other basic crime) is found lacking of evidence for conviction, by the jury, but in the trial ample “evidence” of hate (race, sexual orientation, etc) was presented as the motive then the plaintiffs, having unsuccessfully produced a conviction have sought a separate trial for a “civil rights” conviction for the “hate crime” itself; and in spite of no criminal conviction on the basic charge, such cases have been brought to trial and prosecuted. Making it clear that we are prosecuting people for their thoughts, because detached from the original “assault” (or whatever), the motive, the thought of the defendant is all that is on trial. But, the reality is that a victim of an assault, a murder or whatever does not belong in a separate category due to the thoughts of the defendant, because, before the law THE VICTIMS MUST ALL BE EQUAL, because the crime against them is equally injurious no matter what the thoughts of the defendant were. Hate crimes are not only thought crimes, they are unjust to the whole class of the victims of the basic crimes they are attached to.
The slippery slope of this is already upon us in academia, from where the leftist spawned the basic concept of “hate crime” in our leftist-law-school-factories. In addition to campus “speech” rules, freshman campus indoctrination programs, “curriculum standards” for some courses and all the way up to the “mission statement” of some colleges, both public and private, our latest generation of students are being met with a fait accompli - their thoughts and values are suspect, and will hurt their academic standing unless they (at least outwardly) demonstrate correct thoughts. At the extremes on some campuses the strongest proponents of these “standards” seek direct academic sanctions against any student who voices “racist”, “sexist”, “homophobic” remarks ANY TIME ANYWHERE.
The origins of all this reside with our internal domestic enemy, the left and in the current degree to which this slippery slope of “hate crimes” has descended, the reality is nakedly clear, a “hate crime” is a thought crime, nothing less and that is its true intention - to make your thoughts something that can be sanctioned, and punished, by the government.
“Gays” and others are simply a tool, a means, consisting of ignorant fellow travelers, by which the thought crimes agenda of the left is proceeding. In the end, it will neither protect “gays” or anyone else, because the mere idea that your thoughts can be a crime will leave out no one as a possible victim; in fact they leave out no one as a likely victim.
Sorry for the delay in response. Another good post, very well stated.
It always has been very clear to me that thoughts have been criminalized with hate crime laws, even though I myself and the people I love dearly are supposed to be covered under such laws. If it’s clear to me that “hate crime” equals “thought crime”, I don’t understand why the Left just cannot comprehend why we oppose such laws. It seems they’ve been brainwashed (or dumbed down) into accepting hate crime laws without questioning them.
I pinged you to a thread with a youtube video the other day, and today I noticed a headline about another passenger beaten by young girls on a bus. In that case, the girls were caught, and they probably will be charged with a hate crime. Still, I see no difference between someone beating me because they don’t like my skin color and someone beating me for some other unjustifiable reason.
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