On what basis is morality defined or derived then? What is your factual basis for your morality? That which feels good, looks in the here and now of the moment to do no harm, and that which produces revenues for the 'greater good' which is basically a blank check to a lobotimized morally bankrupted Congress?

Marriage and recreational drug use are not civil rights. You say things as if they are true, hoping that it looks and sounds good, but they are not true. Keep saying it, as loudly as you like, or put it to rap. It doesn't make it true.
That is part of your open-minded delusion liberals suffer from - chant it, scream it must make it so.

Gay marriage is unnecessary to society. Marriage exists from the beginning to protect the rights of women and children. No government is formed to care about feelings - only actions.

Those who wrongly suggest that gay marriage is a right continue to believe that those who exercise their right to disagree are somehow oppressing them. Really?

Refusing to embrace ideas and practices that go against your values is not discrimination.

Working and voting for or against passage of legislation is not a violation of civil rights.

Refusing to buy, support, or stock a book promoting homosexuality in your local library is not censorship.

But when your actions attempt to silence those who disagree with you (through threats, violence, retribution), it is all three.

Once again, you are not even able to stay on track. Typical, for whatever reason, of liberal's inability to debate - deflection is preferred. I am not discussing marijuana as a medical treatment - I have not had it recommended or prescribed by a board certified physician at any time, and I have seen articles supporting as well as those debunking it. My opinion on it is just that.

My wife had no interest in being relieved of pain and discomfort for the trade-off of being devoid of her senses. Her children and things going on around her were too important to her to miss. Life is robbed while your senses are doped beyond comprehension or lucidity.

My mother had demerol given to her during her first delivery. She said it made her so sick that it ruined the experience. She went without for subsequent deliveries.

And no, I have never used ibuprofin or any other OTC meds prior to, and rarely following dental or any other kind of medical treatments. I have played doubleheaders of softball with gauze clenched in my teeth after removal of wisdom teeth (of which I had 8.) I enjoyed softball. I did not see any reason to sacrifice doing what I enjoyed, or which others looked to me to do my part, to wallow or seek pity for pain. I used valium one time, as prescribed, following a football injury. I still went to school, but got less out of class, when I could even find my classroom or stay awake, than if I had forgone the pill and lived with the pain.

(Yeah, it took me 15 minutes to get from one class to another, and I had no idea where the time went. I should have been sent home. I absolutely did not like then, or care to think now, about what might or could happen or occur while in that state. I refused to take any further valium. I was disgusted when a teammate approached me with a request that I sell him my remaining tablets. I flushed them down the toilet. I recently learned that he had died at the age of 47. His was not a seemingly happy ending.)

So, I entertained your deflection. No, sorry, I have no greater or changed feeling on intoxication for fun, pleasure, stress, or escape. Whether or not gov't, via society, holds to its prohibitions in the interest of the better good makes no difference to me and my choices. My choice and my freedom to choose for a life - one free from dope - were made a long time ago, and I have no reason to reconsider or to waste time thinking otherwise.

Make no mistake, I have no acceptance of or sympathy for those who piss away their weekends, finances, time, relations, or self-control in using either tobacco or alcohol either. No one can convince me of a single redeeming thing I have missed by abstaining.

I do not accept that for society it is more practical to be stoners than it is to have some semblance of societal remonstrative influence.

Other than those who are crooked, fines levied on those charged with drug/intoxication do not go to police officers. Your callous off-the-cuff "merely" and "extra" are insulting and plain stupid. Isn't most of the basis of the argument here by dopes go to the 'practicality' and benefit of your "mere extras?"

Decriminalization and medical marijuana are not necessarily linked. Again, your youth or squandered opportunity to develop your brain does your little cause no credit.

I had no part in the decision of my friends to use or not use whatever palliative substances offered. They chose lucidity and sobriety - I believe they are better people for the lessons and more supernal things they learned and understood about themselves for their decisions.

I think the actuarials and sociologists would find little evidence to back up the scenario you are suggesting, with the improved results you postulate.

You, as a morally-challenged relativist adult have all the facullties and power (depending perhaps on your drug habits, of course) to change your voting registration, and to decide about your attendance or rejection of religion, and whatever philosphy or excuses to which you might align yourself.

The child born and raised in the first environment has more likely had their virtue and innocence irretrievably stolen or polluted, and much stronger deeply-seated impressions to overcome.

Your ideals about politics, social justice, crime and punishment, and adult pleasures came to you long after those other children had those most impressionable years (2-7?) likely trashed and broken.

I could care less about most adult's fortunes, plights, choices and consequences. Marriage between a man and a woman has been the basis from the beginning of history, and exists to protect the rights of women and children. No gov't/society cares about feelings - only actions.

Gays aren't being discriminated against. Marriage for them is irrelevant and pointless. It won't make their lives any more romantic or committed. Anyone who believes otherwise is fooling themselves.

Gays can't produce offspring. That's the major purpose for marriage--the production and protection of offspring. It provides children kin and order and all that goes with it. Just because so many heterosexual marriages are failures these days doesn't change this biological, anthropological, and sociological fact.

The gay marriage issue is not just a religious issue. Even in France, a very secular society with almost no religious political influence, the French parliament denied gay marriage because it would be destructive to the family and the welfare of children.

Classical art in Europe often depicts the damned as repulsive creatures frothing, spitting, with gnashing teeth and bulging eyes, crawling over each other like insects in a collective of individual misery. Your self-degrading vulgarity resonates similar ugliness.

You abhor discussion of morals and impugn religion because you are too proud to submit. Not to me, or some vestment wearing, icon wielding figure thereof, but to the fact that you are but dust, and beholden to anyone or anything for the air that you breathe, or the life that sustains your existence. Shame has been eradicated from public discourse.

Therefore, you mock. You have no reverence - no perspective. Your life is about weed and money, and your ***. You have decided there is nothing more, and you wait, miserable, to die.

We are all hypocrits to some measure. No one decrying an implied sanction to gay marriage or to wasted living is professing personal perfection or what place in line at an imagined pearly gates we hold. Public hypocrisy begets personal hypocrisy. No one is suggesting Orwellian sensors in homes and dark cornesr. Legislating morality has never worked, and will never be the case.

What is important, and what this thread is about is the public discourse about what the face of society should be - that to which we should aspire, and hope that personal behavior follows, at whatever pace. The cultural war before us is whether we aspire to greater good, or whether we dissemble to "whatever goes." Those that haven't bludgeoned their conscience to smithereens, but who struggle day-to-day with all the same worldliness everybody else faces, feel that morals are important and necessary as the basis to the discourse. The others want no conscience involved, disparage any individual or collective who disagree, and would rather deflect to contrived civil rights, social justice, emotions, skewed understandings of what individual freedom, liberty, and true justice are, and create public servitude to human behavior's lowest common denominator.

I pulled the figures on Iraqi deaths from a reputable source. You flatly chose to believe the emotionally-appealing, intellectually dishonest, contrived numbers. Your credibility is dross. You argue, congruent with liberal dementors??? tactics, on what you want to believe, dispensing with truth. Right, truth is now relative.

Some seek to support those pursuits that are virtuous, redeeming, and praiseworthy, and in seeking truths, and being honest, chaste and charitable - all universally appealing. You and yours (as indicated above) advocate and justify any means, including dishonesty, to meet desired ends, disavowing the truths of consequences regarding morality. That is your choice. Just might want to stay sober so you can find the election booth on the right day.

You are insulting, I guess, the athiests, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and others who are or have been to Iraq. Was that your intent, or are you just as willfully ignorant and spiteful in your self-loathing?

As one of a Christian faith, i have to try to hope you lose the weed, and readjust your belief. Frankly though, I think you will probably cling to it as it might be too scary for you otherwise in the real world.

No one is going to stop behaviors of another. No one is going to change the heart and mind of that person. That is up to the individual. Conservatives are not necessarily mandating what individuals should do (like the paternalistic, elitist liberals, re health care, soda drinking, hate crimes, etc) but neither are we giving up on protecting the innocent, or preserving individual liberty, and that includes the moral status quo. If that includes incarcerating someone to stop or punish destructive behavior, then that person has already forfeited their rights to be free of compulsive restraint. Rationalizations as to the efficacy of revenues from taxing widespread use of cannabis completely ignore the consequences - but the expediency outweighs any traditional wholesome mores, and so you resort to meritless political mud slinging.

You fear whar you do not know. Shed your cloak of ignorance, rid yourself of the blinders you wear through everday life, and acclimate yourself to this society we live in. It is ever-changing as new ideas spring up everyday. We are a forward-thinking species, else we'd still be using shapeless stones as tools.

Your definition of morality is not absolute. Your choices make up your definition of morality, which of course you believe to be correct, otherwise you would not have made and live with those choices. Your choices, however, are not the best choices for everybody. Don't want to have gay sex? Then don't. Don't want to live with a partner prior to marriage? Then don't. Don't want to smoke weed? Then don't. Don't want to have an abortion? Then don't. Don't want to get a divorce? Then don't. You cannot complain about your choices as you are happy with them, but YOUR choices would not result in happiness or pleasing situations for everybody I repeat, your definition of morality is not absolute, whether you like it to be or not.

Your opinions of very private matters disgust me.

Actually, the Bible is due to be updated this year, which seems strange to me: how can you update "God's Word", a sacred text? Maybe they'll put some of those gospels back, which were purposefully removed?

I have a copy of the Bible because it's an interesting story, and I am interested in theology. I plan to fill my library up with sacred texts. It is foolish to think that your "Book" is correct, and all others be damned. (FYI: Religion is an experiment in control, and it works.)

Mr./Ms. "S2McH":

Morality has many pragmatic definitions - why do you need such absolutist, closed-minded terms? We all have different notions of "right and wrong." I respect your values (except for those of bigotry, intolerance, and arrogance), but you need to understand that they aren't always practical. Especially not in this case.

Arguing that something is "unnecessary to society" is completely irrelevant. Should books and newspapers be banned from society because they are less useful and accessible than television or the Internet? Should little conveniences like cell phones be banned from society because they are essentially no less effective than household lines? Besides, gay marriage is no less "unnecessary" than straight marriage. Women's and childrens' rights can be upheld just fine without it.

You attempt to deny rights on the implied, weak, and self-righteous (not to mention downright disgusting) premise that your "love" is purer, that others couldn't possibly be capable of experiencing compassion and caring. How would you know? Biological and neurological bases are the same, it's stupid to contradict tangible evidence. American government was created to facilitate liberty and "the pursuit of happiness." It's only bigoted and unwise to impose your personal value system on others.

You neglect to mention how homosexuality harms anyone. There are obvious reasons for this: it has no detrimental aspects. Your homophobia has blinded you; it has given you delusions of superiority. If you don't want a same-sex marriage yourself, don't get one. If you don't want to "buy" a book on homosexuality, don't buy it. It's that simple. Something that never affects you is plainly illogical (and, by most standards, "immoral") to deny those whom it does affect. You continually presume to have the unequivocable authority to interfere in the lives and rights of others. That is NOT a common conception of liberty.

Your argument that humans "aren't animals" is just plain idiotic. By scientific definition, we are related to any and all organisms that exist on the face of this earth; we are classified in the kingdom Animalia, phylum Chordata, class Mammalia, order Primates, family Hominidae, genus Homo, species Sapiens sapiens. Charles Darwin was a clever guy - ever heard of him? Every bit of anthropological and genetic evidence supports his theory of natural selection. Again and again, Creationists fail to live up to the "sapiens" bit of our identity; it is sheer arrogance to assume that we are above all life forms in the universe.

Ecological principles govern our interactions just like those of monkeys or birds; but then, perhaps that's why your feeble responses are so predictable.

So !, what is going to be next, I will be able to marriage my pet's too ?...

Mr./Ms. "memo02":

How misanthropic and cruel of you. You see ~10% of the population as inhuman? Quite Hitleresque.

S2McH,

"The Constitution guarantees freedom of religion (religious plurality) not freedom from religion (atheism as the defacto national religion.)"
The Constitution in a sense provides for both. There is the Free Exercise clause, which allows you to practice any religious you wish. There is the Establishment Clause which forbids the establishment of a national religion and is often interpreted as forbidding laws based on one or a few religions (Christianity as a defacto national religion). Yes, atheists must share the USA with theists (and visa versa!).

As for atheist theocracy, that would be were any and all practice of religion, including going to church, would be illegal, like they had in some communist countries. This is hardly what advocates of the separation of church and state want. They just want you to respect the rights of those who don't believe as you do by keeping religion out of government. The USA would be secular and open to all religions. Also, atheists have little interest in theocracy as atheism merely claims disbelief in god and make no claims on how to live life or what public policy should be.

"On what basis is morality defined or derived then? What is your factual basis for your morality?"
Well, there is Kant's categorical imperative, the Utilitarian principle of not harming others, the Golden Rule, etc. I like John Stuart Mill's principle of liberty that one is free to live as one wishes provided one does not infringe upon the rights of others. And of course, different ethical theories lead to slightly different views of right and wrong. Also, interpreting what harm or infringing upon rights means also leads to slightly different perspectives. One may think as Singer that harming animals is wrong and thus we should all be vegetarian, though most seem to disagree. This is one reason that morality is relative, because there are so many ways to determine right and wrong. Yet I think most people agree on the general principles and doing whatever one pleases without limits is not accepted. Certainly banning gay marriage and marijuana without some decent explanation of who is being harmed, etc violates the very foundations of morality and liberty on which our nation is founded.

"Marriage and recreational drug use are not civil rights."
Reread your state constitution. Many state constitutions explicit state that marriage is a right.

"Gay marriage is unnecessary to society."
The title and rights of marriage is extremely important to homosexuals and protecting their families. That said, it doesn't matter that gay marriage is unnecessary. If it doesn't harm society, under Mills' liberty principle it should be legal. Similarly recreational drug use should be legal.

"Those who wrongly suggest that gay marriage is a right continue to believe that those who exercise their right to disagree are somehow oppressing them. Really?"
Actually, you are oppressing homosexuals by opposing gay marriage. You are denying them legal rights and benefits afforded other couples (and calling it civil unions instead doesn't fix this) and that homosexual couples need to live their lives and protect their families.

"Refusing to buy, support, or stock a book promoting homosexuality in your local library is not censorship."
Um, you do know what censorship is? It means banning access to literature, etc. Refusing to buy and stock a book is banning access and is by definition censorship.

"Refusing to embrace ideas and practices that go against your values is not discrimination. Working and voting for or against passage of legislation is not a violation of civil rights."
If you are denying rights to others based on sexual orientation, that is discrimination regardless what your values are. If you are working against legislation that denies people their civil rights, well that is by definition a violation of civil rights. And according to Mills' liberty principle, you have no right to act in this manner and are behaving immorally in doing so.

A comment on Weisberg's article - as a 25 year old libertarian, I totally agree that the Republicans are the party of prohibition. You put it so eloquently. I used to vote for them, but I wouldn't consider voting for a single member of that prohibition party right now.

Yes. If your pet consents to the marriage and can verify this by saying so in English (or another human language) and signing a marriage license, we will let you marry your pet.