By now you've probably heard

[catsittingstill]

The California Supreme Court legalized gay marriage in California.  NPR had a report on it.  At the end of the report they did the standard quotes from both sides thing.

The quote from the gay rights activist was (roughly "I just text-messaged my partner and asked her to marry me!  She said yes!" 

The quote from the anti-gay activist was (roughly) "we were very surprised; the legally right decision would have been to uphold the lower court ruling."

My reactions were "Oh, how sweet."  And "Dude, you got nothin'.  Admit you got nothing and move on; you're just embarrassing yourself"

Because after "She said yes!" let's face it, there's nothing of similar poignancy that the other side can offer.

Comments

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Just got back from your neck of the woods... *sigh* I fear getting this issue corrected there will be quite a while. It took both a fair bit of willpower *and* Mother's intervention to keep from really coming down on my own da when he made a surprisingly vitriolic remark about the lone Obama sticker we saw in Greene County... *sigh* I knew he was a yellow dog Republican, but really, dad, violence ain't the answer, and that's kinda the point.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Yaknow the weird part about those two quotes? The anti quote uses logic; the pro quote is an emotional one. Normally that's just wrong; the emotional argument is the one made of fail. But that's kinda the point: The law has no business interfering in emotional affairs between consenting adults. (The question of minors is a hornets' nest I don't care to poke too hard, except to say that the right to adopt children is yet another of those areas Thou Shoudst Not Discriminate in....)

Personally, I think government should do away with the institution altogether; it has no business commenting on the business of religion and emotion. Start by lining out "Marriage License" and inserting "Domestic Corporation, Short Form." Eventually you oughta be able to go online, construct a domestic charter by choosing a combination of boilerplate and custom text fields, hit "Validate" to check your work against code (and it'll send it off to a human if the engine gets confused, and tell you so), then when validation is complete, input payment info, hit "submit" and "print" and you get back a PDF that you can either print on plain paper or some sort of fancy stationery... badda boom, badda bing, you're hitched. And if you just *want* somebody to wave hands and say words and whatever the heck, that's between you and whoever's doing it, all fifty-seven of yez if you wanna. Although I would have a proviso that whoever's on that charter be capable of communicating to the court clerk; how is up to the clerk and the parties. (ASL, Stephen Hawking device, Babelfish, whatever... I'm not *even* gonna touch the question of species or planet of origin. :)

But that's just me and my crackpot ideas. :)

[mdlbear]

I like that one. Cf. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

Wait until strong AI comes into the picture...

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Cf. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

Where do you think I got the idea? :)

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

:-) Any sapient being ought to be free to marry.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

The anti quote uses logic

Actually, the appeal to tradition (it's right because we've always done it that way,) or the appeal to authority (it's right because the lower court ruled that way) are actually logical fallacies, and don't represent the correct use of logic.

Although I would have a proviso that whoever's on that charter be capable of communicating to the court clerk; how is up to the clerk and the parties.

Right. I'm perfectly okay with having someone marry their dog, provided the dog is at least 18 years old, can verify that it understands the nature of the contract it is proposing to enter into, enters the contract of its own free will, and can sign the papers.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

p.s. just make sure the DNA and protein complexes are compatible! (Wasn't there a filk about this interspecies couple that made that mistake? :)

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Actually, I wouldn't require this. If sapient beings that are allergic to each other still want to marry, then my sympathy to them, and it's okay with me.

[stevemb.livejournal.com]

"At the end of the report they did the standard quotes from both sides thing."

I couldn't find the quotes in either the audio link or the text. Maybe the link was updated.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Alas, I heard the quotes in the report on the radio, but can't seem to find them on the web site.

[almeda.livejournal.com]

Decisions like this are more important even than the media is getting, at least for certain subsets of humanity: in some states, transsexuals can legally marry no-one, because both their birth gender and their legally-changed genders are considered in calculation of 'same-sex' for marriage certificate purposes.

Which is utterly stupid, but also quite consistent with various prejudices, ickinesses, and distastes on the part of authority.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Good point; I hadn't thought of that.

(nice haircut, by the way)

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

It's great news.