Hacker News Reader

Comment by bigstrat2003 | Hacker News Reader

bigstrat2003

[flagged]

There was a famous court case where the gay widow had no legal rights over their dying partners medical care, that is a pronounced human right that a heterosexual couple has over a gay couple that has been defined and why the opposition actually hurts people in ways many have not considered.

In a previous generation, the deserving target of eyerolls and groans was people who both-sidesed an issue. In part because it was shallow, and part because it was just a weaponized way of talking where you get to be political under superficial the guise of neutrality. Asking an audience to believe it is just not respecting the intelligence of your audience.

I think the version of that for our generation is the person who says "Gosh let's not talk politics" about obviously political things when doing so is clearly just to shield preferred targets from criticism. Of course it's not always that, and you can never prove it in any particular instance, which is why it's such convenient phrasing. But it gets eye-rolls for a reason.

I wouldn’t find “let’s not talk about politics” eye-rolling and neither would my social circle (first generation Asian families). In fact if someone kept bringing up politics in an overly emotional or pushy way, they probably wouldn’t be invited back.

I agree that not everyone is familiar with them if you're not very immersed in American political culture.

> Opposing gay marriage is not denying the humanity of gay people

How so?

Is opposing polygamy denying the humanity of polygamists/polyamorists?

Is opposing first cousin marriage denying the humanity of people in romantic relationships with their first cousins? (The first anniversary of Connecticut's first cousin marriage ban is later this week.)

Israel bans both same-sex and interfaith marriage domestically – although it recognises both when performed overseas – if the former is a denial of someone's humanity, is the latter equally so?

I mean the distinction is pretty obvious. Polygamy overly complicates the structure of marriage benefits, and nobody has the motivation to carve out a legal distinction for them. Though I personally don't care if they do.

Gay spouses were not looking for preferential treatment or special consideration. They were denied the same benefits and advantages a hetero couple is afforded purely because they were seen as gross. It was just a tax on gay people.

> Israel bans both same-sex and interfaith marriage domestically – although it recognises both when performed overseas – if the former is a denial of someone's humanity, is the latter equally so?

Yes? Potentially even more so? I think most people supporting same sex marriage would see a ban on interfaith marriage as abhorrent. That's overly militant religious persecution.

> I mean the distinction is pretty obvious

I don't agree it is obvious

> Polygamy overly complicates the structure of marriage benefits,

I don't see how that's so. Polygamy is legal in 58 nations worldwide. How "complicated" do they find it?

Australia has legal de facto polygamy. To explain: under Australian law, unregistered cohabitation is classified as a "de facto relationship", it entails (in principle) the same legal rights as marriage does. While Australia only permits a person to be in a single de jure marriage at a time, a person can be in multiple de facto relationships simultaneously. If that isn't "overly complicated" for Australia, what makes it "overly complicated" for the US?

> They were denied the same benefits and advantages a hetero couple is afforded purely because they were seen as gross. It was just a tax on gay people.

Did gay people who opposed same sex marriage do so purely because they saw themselves as "gross"?

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-04/the-gay-couple-who-op...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com