A lesson in how the Freepers "welcome" a new member

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

Please note that I did not allow spell checker to alter the freeper posts...it's all copied and pasted, "as is."

posted on 05/30/2004 8:48:23 PM PDT by angelisa
"Love in any form is in short comodity these days ,so if two people ,regardless of what sex they are fall in love,I believe they have the right to be married and have the government acknowledge it as a true marrige"

The reply:

posted on 05/30/2004 10:19:56 PM PDT by L.N. Smithee
"Welcome to Free Republic, angelisa. Apparently, you just signed up today (5/30/04, PDT). Read this response carefully, because it may save you a lot of rough lessons around here. As you may have noticed, FR is a conservative news forum. Participation from liberals is not prohibited, but us Freepers have a pretty low tolerance for people who comment on issues when they clearly don't know their stuff. If the above post is indicative of your regular thinking process, you, angelisa, don't know your stuff. You aren't even in sniffing distance of your stuff. For your sake, I hope you are a child, because an adult should have a more informed opinion on thorny issues like same-sex marriage. Your statement's naivete is stunning. "Love in any form is in short comodity (sic) these days..."? What in the world does THAT mean? Who is in charge of measuring the average daily volume of love? Who determines whether someone is "in love" or not? And what are the different forms of love that you make reference to? You go on to say you believe "two people, regardless of what sex they are...have the right to be married and have the government acknowledge it as a true marrige (sic)" What do you think marriage is for, angelisa? Do you really have any idea? Here's a hint: no matter how much two men or two women express their "love" for each other physically, they will NEVER create a family by themselves. NEVER. I invite you to quit thinking in little bumper-sticker slogans and examine the real issues in the controversy about same-sex marriage, such as:
Whether municipalities such as San Francisco have the right to ignore state laws with impunity; Whether or not the United States' Constitution should be interpreted from a "global" viewpoint instead of a purely American one;
What role government has, should have, or should not have in determining what types of relationships are recognized as legal; and
Whether a tiny percentage of the population has any business demanding government punish the majority that chooses not to approve its lifestyle.
Yes, angelisa, it's a lot scarier than talking about 'falling in love.' You may not want to make the effort to understand. But that's the way things are around here, sweetie. You can be a Freeper, or you can be sheeple. The choice is yours."

EDITED to include URL: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1144982/posts

[patriotvoice]

1. The dialectic of "Freepers" and "Sheeple."

Amusing.

[ET Awful]

19. I say from now on we refer to them as Freeple :) n/t

[Zhade]

42. That, my friend, is a winner!

Fuck the traitor-worshipping Freeple!

I cannot wait until their false idols fall, one by one. I will shout it from the rooftops.

[Cronus Protagonist]

2. It's kind of like DU then

Except they don't have to endure insincere "welcome" posts from bots.

:)

Click here for fair and balanced yet stunning, insulting, shocking, funny buttons, magnets and stickers

[Djinn]

3. to be fair

if someone signed up to DU today and posted something along the lines of "same sex marriage should not be tolerated" they'd probably be given much the same response.

that said I guess this particular freep thinks that any married couple who don't have kids should have their marriage dissolved

[Leprechan29]

7. This is true

As would be evidenced by my post a bit farther down. But I try to keep it respectful, and try to attack the argument only.

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

8. Oh, absolutely, they would be challenged...maybe flamed...

...but it was the "But that's the way things are around here, sweetie" comments that I thought were worth noting...the method of disagreement and not the disagreement itself.

I also don't think that the DU women would stand for the didactic "life lessons" approach...the whole slimy "you're new here, baby, let me spare you some pain" garbage.

On DU, I often see "excuse me, but I couldn't help noticing that you are completely full of crap" posts...but DU does NOT condone attacking the poster (unless they themselves are rude coming right out of the gate)...

To paraphrase Fran Drescher in "Hollywood Knights"...

DU has more class in its little pinky than the freepers have in their whole...pinky.

:evilgrin:

[Delano]

16. There are libertarian-leaning conservatives who are for gay marriage.

Goldwater had no problem with gays. They should be a bit more tolerant of the range of right-wing opinion. What about the Log Cabin Club?

Not that I care. Log Cabin republicans can go to hell with all the other republicans for all I care.

[SpaceCatMeetsMars]

4. Now go out and get breeding, sweetie

and forget all that silly nonsense about "loving" people, you silly sheeple. You should try posting something about peace next, they will probably give you even more hilarious lectures about that horrible concept.

[Leprechan29]

5. How friendly.

And how wrong.

Now to stop with the short points:
Marriage is not for the express purpose of producing offspring. If it was, infertile couples could not marry, post-menopausal women could not marry, even injured veterans might not be allowed to marry depending on their injury. And as to the argument that love between two people cannot be measured and is therefore ineligable as an argument for homosexual marriage, is just plain stupid (would say retarded, but I'm moving away from saying that - personal thing). The love between two people married(or not married) cannot be measured, and that does not make their love any less real, any less important. And as to the Constitution: Yes, it is true that the mayor of SF violated the law, and as such should be penalized, but it is also true that any law that states that all men are not created equal (if a FReeper picks this up, I know this is from the Decl. of Ind.) should not be on the books. Discrimination of any sort goes against the basic, fundamental principles that our nation was founded upon, and as such has no place in the United States government.

[Erika]

6. How Funny!

The Freepers think a twisted radical right political agenda and misusing Christ's love of sinners is all OK. But they are the ones who think it's fine to throw out the poor and the needy in direct contradiction of what Christ taught.

A new term should be applied to the Freepers, it should be Freeples who let the likes of Robertson, Falwell, and Bush herd them into believing UnChristian hate and exclusion is fine. They have to be simple minded to misinterpret the New Testament.

They will be bookmarked in American history as a right wing fringe group who chose to use Christianity as a political ploy against those who dared question right wing government.

[roguevalley]

9. somebody has a tiny dick.

[kiahzero]

10. This guy is a complete moron

I was sorely tempted to C&P a term paper I just finished writing on why bans on same sex marriage are violations of the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution.

[patriotvoice]

11. I, for one, would be interested in seeing your paper.

See also: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=1209583

[Erika]

12. Gays Pay Taxes & Fight Wars

Why should they be denied the privileges of our constitution.

I will just think of freeples in the future.

[patriotvoice]

14. 18 year olds pay taxes, vote, and fight in our wars.

Yet they may not run for Congress; they do not meet the Constitutional requirement.

My point is gays as a class may vote to change the laws and may peacefully educate the public, just as 18 year olds may do for the age requirement in the Constitution.

However, unlike eighteen-year olds, I think sexual orientation is deserving of judicial protection and should be placed in the suspect classification test.

See also: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=1209583#


On edit:
I'm neither trolling nor trying to be bitchy; I've just been thinking about Constitutional law for a few hours today, so it's on my mind.

:toast:

[amjsjc]

18. Clearly homosexuality should be protected...

I hold that three thousand years of overt discrimination in Judeo-Christian cultures ought to make a group a shoe in for strict scrutiny...
And frankly I don't see how any DoMa law could survive review by a court that wasn't populated by trolls like Rhenquist and Scalia.

[kiahzero]

20. They don't need to, the Constitution already protect SSM

Banning interracial marriage is racial discrimination.
Banning same-sex marriage is gender discrimination.

The state has zero compelling interest in the gender discrimination at hand - it's only interest is in furthering prejudice.

Hence, banning same sex marriage is a violation of the United States Constitution.

[patriotvoice]

29. Interesting

Antimiscegenation law comparison certainly proves a fertile ground. Here's the opinion of Chief Justice Warren in Loving et ux. v. Virginia (which ruled antimiscegenation laws unconstitutional):

"The Equal Protection Clause requires the consideration of whether the classifications drawn by any statute constitute an arbitrary and invidious discrimination. The clear and central purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment was to eliminate all official state sources of invidious racial discrimination in the States.

There can be no question but that Virginia's miscegenation statutes rest solely upon distinctions drawn according to race. The statutes proscribe generally accepted conduct if engaged in by members of different races. Over the years, this Court has consistently repudiated "distinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry" as being "odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality." At the very least, the Equal Protection Clause demands that racial classifications, especially suspect in criminal statutes, be subjected to the "most rigid scrutiny," Korematsu v. United States (1944), and, if they are ever to be upheld, they must be shown to be necessary to the accomplishment of some permissible state objective, independent of the racial discrimination which it was the object of the Fourteenth Amendment to eliminate. Indeed, two members of this Court have already stated that they "cannot conceive of a valid legislative purpose . . . which makes the color of a person's skin the test of whether his conduct is a criminal offense."

There is patently no legitimate overriding purpose independent of invidious racial discrimination which justifies this classification. The fact that Virginia prohibits only interracial marriages involving white persons demonstrates that the racial classifications must stand on their own justification, as measures designed to maintain White Supremacy. We have consistently denied the constitutionality of measures which restrict the rights of citizens on account of race. There can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely because of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the Equal Protection Clause"



Replace "race" with "gender" and the opinion runs the same. The big issue will be whether gender applies to sexual preference, since its sole use so far has been used vis-a-vis sexual identity.

I feel preference is part of identity. Some believe it's a physical, curable, aberation though. Let's hope they don't prevail.



Question: Suppose my religion allowed me to have intercourse with animals. Would denying me rights to bestiality be discriminatory along ethnic grounds? What about necrophilia?

On edit:
Grammar

[kiahzero]

31. Sexual preference doesn't matter

Banning same-sex marriage is sexual discrimination, just like banning interracial marriage is racial discrimination.

You don't even need to have a concept of "sexual orientation" to explain how it's discriminatory (note that the Court doesn't take up a notion of "racial orientation").

Person X has the right to marry person Y.
Person Z does not, simply by virtue of their sex.
Therefore, the State is discriminating against person Z on the basis of sex. While sexual discrimination is not held to the same level of suspicion as racial discrimination (as there are valid reasons for discrimination, such as maternity leave - the baby physically comes out of the mother, and it's only fair to give her some time to recuperate... :D ), the State does need to give a compelling interest for the discrimination beyond maintaining traditional gender roles. Since maintaining traditional gender roles is the only rationale the State can give for banning same-sex marriage, it clearly fails this test.

Question: Suppose my religion allowed me to have intercourse with animals. Would denying me rights to bestiality be discriminatory along ethnic grounds? What about necrophilia?

No, it wouldn't be discriminatory (certainly not along ethnic grounds: "Ethnicity is the cultural characteristics that connect a particular group or groups of people to each other." - Wikipedia), because the State has a compelling interest in preventing animal cruelty; the animal cannot give consent.

Necrophilia is a whole different matter - I'm sure you could come up with a situation where someone wanted their body to be used like that, however creepy that might be to sane people like you and I. But clearly a person cannot be married to a corpse, just like a corpse cannot enter into any other contract posthumously.

[patriotvoice]

32. Agreed.

However, see this link for a comparison between "sexual" discrimination and "sexual orientation" discrimination:

http://www1.law.ucla.edu/~williamsproj/programs/Rubenstein4-25-02.html

The link also discusses the "Loving analogy," which proves useful as noted above.

[kiahzero]

33. Interesting

That would have been nice to find when I was writing my paper. :D

Thanks!

[patriotvoice]

34. No problem.

The last table in the abstract is very succinct and helpful.

:toast:

[pinto]

36. Answer: I doubt the dead or animals would consent....otherwise

(I'm a little rusty, constitutionally speaking) I believe individual rights usually take precedence...unless there is an overriding issue of state. Don't see that your hypothetical religious preference would stand up (see Mormon Church, polygamy)....

[patriotvoice]

37. As you said, but...

... I have issues with polygamy and polyandry. I can see no overriding state interest in the definition of marriage as "a union of two."

Suppose a couple decide they want an "extended" family. They decide that they want a "qualified" (where they define "quality" by the same rigorous standards they chose each other) person in to be a new father or mother (depending upon which sex is chosen).

Suppose this exists outside the context of any recognized religion, but is solely a preference of the individuals.

What state interest is there in preventing a plural marriage?

[pinto]

38. I don't see any inherent state interest re:plural marriage. Interesting,

but I think it's a red herring.

I lived communally for a while and family units tended to be two people and the kids if any. There was one three adult group family at one time, but that was the exception, even in an environment that afforded that possibility....

interesting legally, though.

[kiahzero]

40. State doesn't need an interest

There's no equal protection issue with multiple marriages - you can't enter into an exclusive contract with multiple people. In other words, a state can recognize such a relationship, but they are under no obligation to do so.

This, of course, glosses over the Free Exercise issue; current jurisprudence holds Free Exercise as relatively weak - States can block free exercise, basically, so long as it doesn't infringe on religion as a class, or something like that. I admit that my knowledge of Free Exercise is not quite as comprehensive as I'd like, however.

[K-W]

13. Poor freepers just need some love. nt

[Senior citizen]

15. Love is their worst nightmare -- they are dedicated to killing it.

Edit: Spelled a word wrong and corrected it.

They are fully aware that love is the greatest enemy of fascism, capitalism, patriarchy, slavery, and elitism.

To control people, they smear love as a weakness. Gender roles are designed to annihilate love, and, for the most part, they succeed. When you are raised from birth to see yourself as one thing, and someone else as the opposite or other, it is very difficult to love that alien being who isn't like you. Divisiveness starts when people are divided at birth into two teams, or social castes, given names and assigned pronouns that indicate their team affinity or caste status, and not only encouraged to act and dress so as to indicate their team/caste status, but to immediately distinguish everyone else on the basis of team/caste, and to treat them in one of 2 different ways based on that status. If people saw a person, instead of seeing a woman or a man (a member of their team or of the other team/ someone of their own or of a different social caste), love would be possible.

If love were possible, no marriage laws would be necessary, nor would 50% of them end in divorce. If love were possible, prostitution wouldn't be necessary. If love were possible, war would be impossible.

George Gilder once wrote some books about how men are controlled by controlling their access to women, usually by paying them more than they are worth, while women are best controlled by denying them all possibilities of survival outside of marriage (or prostitution), such as jobs that pay a living wage or social programs. People are turned into commodities under capitalism, to wit the so-called "trophy wife," or the "aphrodisiac" of power. Surely you know people who selected partners because they looked like some desirable stereotype, only to learn that the person wasn't like that stereotype at all.

Imagine, if you will, a peaceful, egalitarian, early society with respect for life. What do they do with rapists and murderers? They can't afford to keep them around, and they have no death penalty. So they exile them. After a while the rapists and murderers get together and find they have a lot in common, primarily the fact that they feel they should be able to rape and murder with impunity. Since there is now a gang of them, they pick a small village, kill the adult males, and take the females and children as slaves and wives. Now how do they keep the next generation from being civilized and having respect for life instead of being rapists and murderers like them? Simple. They kill all disobedient or disrespectful slaves and wives, and only keep alive the most submissive. All children born must be raised, based on sex, into the rapist/murderer team or caste, or into the wife/slave team or caste, so the rules for gender roles are enforced from birth. If you haven't actually read the history, you can still envisage how easy it is for warlike people to conquer and enslave peaceful people who not only aren't trained to kill, but actually have inhibitions against it.

Yes, occasionally people still do fall in love, but they are usually punished for it. Someone you love might not be the right team or caste in the eyes of society, and if they are, well, you're letting down your side by actually loving them.

If you eliminate the subjugation of females, you eliminate the overpopulation necessary for wars and the booty wars bring. It isn't necessary to have a death penalty for crimes against life, but it is certainly necessary to quarantine offenders instead of exiling them or putting them where they can form new gangs.

To go to a freeper board and talk of love is like going to a white supremacy board and talking about the benefits of interracial marriages. It is the essence of what they oppose.

[shance]

44. Interesting Perspective.

Seems in our fantasy driven culture, we dont like to look at the reality that there are people who actually despise (or are highly threatened by) love, and what it represents, which to overzealous individuals probably means the dissolution of their power to control and inherently the potential to be weakened to a state of *sheeple* as the person put it.

So perhaps to romanticize love and to paint a picture that everyone desires and just needs more love is in fact, just another illusion to distract us from the reality that everyone is not necessarily driven by a need to be loved at all.

This is a very interesting point and if many individuals (particularly more women) realized this, perhaps they might suffer less heart ache in life.

Some like you said, hate the idea of love, and actually *love* the idea of dominance, power and ultimate control over others.

This certainly has been seen in the world of chimpanzees, which I believe are the closest link to us homo sapiens?

[amjsjc]

17. A more honest welcome to a conservative message board

Hello Angelisa, welcome to Free Republic. As you may have noticed, FR is a conservative news forum. Participation from liberals is not prohibited, but us Freepers have a pretty low tolerance for people who comment on issues when they clearly know what they're talking about. If the above post is indicative of your regular thought process, you, angelisa, have obviously used your brain at some point during your time on this earth. We (and by 'We' I mean the Wall Street executives who stand to see the Dividend Yield from our stock portfolios increase if Bush remains in office, and who also happen to control this message board) stand to lose a great deal if the religiously zealous troglodytes who make up the bulk of this message board should inadvertently learn to think for themselves, and come to realize that supply side economics is really just a plot to make a handful of multi-millionares into billionares. For that reason we have chosen to make sure that people who have rational, nuanced world views do not come into contact with any of the people on this message board. Since you would appear to have such a world view, we have taken the liberty of deleting you previous post(s), and should you continue to try and post here we will take the liberty of deleting you as well. Welcome to Free Republic, Angelisa and, goodbye...

[Droopy]

25. Welcome to DU, amjsjc!

Yeah, I'd say that your conservative welcome is definitly more accurate than that conservative numbnuts over there at Free Republic.

[ClassWarrior]

21. I'd like to know...

...how gay marriage "punishes" straight folk.

[noiretextatique]

24. when you find out

can you tell me too? :shrug: as far as i can tell, it's an affront to some people's "right" to hate gays.

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

26. It's right there in the post...

...the freeper spin, at least...

"Whether a tiny percentage of the population has any business demanding government punish the majority that chooses not to approve its lifestyle"

1). Freepers choose not to approve of something, exercising their freedom of choice, not acknowledging the fact that anyone else's lifestyle might involve freedom of choice too, but their freedom doesn't count if they're not a freeper, because if they WERE, they wouldn't be talking about anything other than the freeper lifestyle anyway

2). Government passes legislation supporting something not approved by freepers

3). Freepers now have no legal means of enforcing their disapproval other than expressing their disapproval on limp-dick freeper message boards

So this freeper has declared himself "the majority," he's decided that if he doesn't approve of someone else's lifestyle his government should back him up, and if "his" government decides that he has no right to dictate the lifestyles of others, so he's now become the kid in the toy store who screams to his parents "I want it I want it I want it I want it I want it I want it I want it I want it I want it," and the parents reply "you can't have it," and the kid says "I hate you."

Pretty simple connect-the-dots logic, although pretty terrifying too.

[powergirl]

22. And the Freepers don't understand why they are losing women voters?

I like the sexist "sweetie" reference. What a bunch of losers. THis has been a personal experience of mind. When I discuss politics with a conservative and I'm winning the argument, they resort to some sexist comment. When they do that to me, I will say "Is that how you plan on attracting more women voters?" (I should also add dates!)

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

27. Yeah...I had a female friend with a deadbeat out-of-work boyfriend...

...who wasn't even attempting to look for work, just living off of her while she busted her ass. At one point she was concerned about making the mortgage payment and paying all of the other bills because our company had put a freeze on overtime that wasn't pre-approved by a manager. His response...and I swear on my life this is what she told me, word-for-word:

"Don't worry your pretty little head about it."

So I thought about my friend when I read the freeper post, and I remembered how hurt and insulted she was by the boyfriend's remarks.

That's why we see so much of the Theresa Heinz Kerry bashing. Now, I understand that she is a multi-dimensional woman and not everyone's cup of tea. But she also isn't Pickles, the beautifully minded Stepford First Lady...and man, oh, man...are freepers afraid of a strong, intelligent woman who is not afraid to speak her mind.

Once again, women of DU...every last one of you...I salute you.

:toast:

[Lautremont]

23. Freeple peeple are creeple. (n/t)

[Deja Q]

28. Gee, the two people alone make themselves a family... What is the guy on?!

I could spend a day refuting this brainless fucker, L.N. Smithee, but I won't. He isn't worth anybody's time.

[rumguy]

30. Freepers can't reason...this dude just rambles on and makes no sense

what a freeptard...

[spanone]

35. What a dick.

[Padraig18]

39. What an oxygen thief!

Let's vote that freeper troll off the planet! A show of hands, please....

:evilgrin:

[kskiska]

41. I watched them drive out an old member not too long ago

when he began sounding "reasonable." He left, saying he was registering as an Independent because he couldn't stand the hatred of the Freepers anymore.

[Zuni]

43. this is incredible

how f-in condescending and intolerant