The Gay Fray

Discussion in 'Ethics, Morality, & Justice' started by Tiassa, Jul 28, 2004.

?

I am . . . .

  1. Homosexual

    25 vote(s)
    9.2%
  2. Heterosexual

    201 vote(s)
    73.6%
  3. Bisexual

    31 vote(s)
    11.4%
  4. Other (I would have complained if there wasn't an "other" option)

    16 vote(s)
    5.9%
  1. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    23,049
    James what difference does that make? Im sure you COULD find life expectancy stats which would say that gays do tend to live shorter lives, the argument is what causes this. Is it being gay which reduces life expectancy OR is it the homophobic attitudes of those such as wellwisher and others which lead to mental health issues (which alone reduces life expectancy from CVD) which lead to increased suicide rates, increased drug use and other risk taking behaviors which lead to increased risks of death from overdose, HIV and other illnesses and potentually death by violence, being forced into unstable and risky relationships and sexual practices rather than stable and safer ones because of the stigma and abuse and discrimination and lastly direct violence.
     
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  3. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    I was asked to provide evidence for my claim about shortened life expectancy for homosexuals. Here is a link:

    http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/fischer/090313

    Politics shouldn't trump health and safety. I don't take the author;s attitude that homosexuality is a safety risk to me. I am more concerned with a choice of lifestyle that is encouraged without balancing this with the downside, so a rational choice can be made. The one-sided way could lead to overcompensation and therefore all the associated problems.
     
    Last edited: Jun 4, 2012
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  5. Grumpy Curmudgeon of Lucidity Valued Senior Member

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    wellwisher

    The question is not whether they have shorter life expectancy, they probably do. But the question becomes WHY do they have shorter life expectancy. Is it simply because they are gay or is it because of the social and mental problems that society imposes on them because of homophobia.

    Every teen suicide of a gay because of bullying and social stigma reduces the life expectancy. The stress of being treated as less than human(or less of a human)reduces life expectancy. Even the thoughtless and unnecessary delay in reacting to the HIV crisis reduced the life expectancy. Examining the life expectancy of blacks give similar results for similar social causes. So holding up reduced life expectancy for gays is disingenuous if you and people who think like you are the cause of that shorter life expectancy.

    It is no different in kind(though not yet in degree)as holding up the life expectancy of Jews in 1930s Germany as justification for the actions taken against the Jews. And we already have pastors calling for the government to kill gays, or at least put them behind electrified fences. Do you really want to be filed in history in the same folder as those guys? Really?

    Grumpy

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  7. Bells Staff Member

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    You missed the point.

    When you were asked to provide proof and evidence of your claim, we expected scientific evidence. Not a link to a Conservative and what appears to be a Christian website complaining about homosexuals.

    The site you linked also does not provide any scientific information as to how such data was collected, whether they are looking at health risk factors or if they are looking at the fact that violence against homosexuals is up in the US alone, and whether suicide rates are linked into what you are attempting to convey here. Or were they following the previous norms and looking at people's orbituaries?

    Cameron, Playfair, and Wellum (1994) counted obituaries in various gay community publications and claimed to be able to use them to calculate the average life expectancy for homosexuals.

    Their conclusion – that homosexual men and women have a shorter life span than heterosexual men and women – provides a textbook example of the perils of using data from a convenience sample to generalize to an entire population.


    _____________________________________________________________


    Obituaries in gay community newspapers do not provide a representative sampling of the community. This is evident in the fact that only only 2% of the Cameron group's obituaries were for lesbians. Moreover, community newspapers tend overwhelmingly to report deaths due to AIDS (only 11% of Cameron's gay male obituaries were not related to AIDS). In addition, community newspapers tend not to print obituaries for people who are not actively involved in the local gay community, those who are in the closet, and those whose loved ones simply don't submit an obituary to a local gay newspaper.

    The Cameron group's gay obituary study reports many numbers and statistics. However, they are absolutely worthless for estimating the life expectancy of gay men and lesbians.



    http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/facts_cameron_obit.html


    You see, your argument is an old one and it is based on such flawed research. You should actually read the link provided above. It goes into detail as to why the study homophobes rely on are just so wrong.

    As for what you are deeming a lifestyle choice.

    Tell me, do you choose to be heterosexual?

    Or were you born that way? Do you choose to be attracted to women or men if you are of the opposite sex?

    Sexuality is not a choice. One does not choose to be homosexual. One simply is.
     
    Last edited: Jun 4, 2012
  8. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    37,882
    Stating the Obvious

    Well, right. What's missing is the relationship between the numbers and reality.

    That homosexuals have a shorter average lifespan is actually well-established. Twenty years seems a bit much, but that tells me where these ideas come from and, thus, what they are intended to do.

    The HIV epidemic in the U.S. devastated the gay community, and could itself account for a twenty-year difference in expected lifespan.

    But those are older numbers. And here's the catch.

    When you drive something underground, it becomes inherently more dangerous.

    What do the numbers say, though, as the gays come out of the closet? As homosexuality normalizes, many of the moral and health concerns traditionalists invoke to attack gay rights will resolve themselves simply because the community is emerging from underground. A bazillion sex partners? Well, that kind of makes sense when you look at the environments in which gays were meeting, and this was symptomatic of being underground. A high disease transmission rate? Well, duh. A government deciding to leave the community to face the "gay measles" alone? Well, it certainly didn't help.

    But as homosexuals emerge into the sunlight and find validation of their human frailty in love and marriage, a strange thing happens: they act like "normal", "regular" people.

    So where Wellwisher's post becomes especially offensive is when it transforms from being shot through with mere ignorance into a work of ignorance as neurotic demand.

    He wants to treat certain people badly because when you treat them badly, they fall apart, and the fact that they fall apart is justification for treating them badly.

    Now, maybe in closed social and political circles, these sorts of arguments are effective, but that is only because the people in those circles either lack or reflexively reject these nasty interlopers called facts.

    What I don't get about Wellwisher's increasingly inflammatory posts is why. They're pointless posts, of no utility whatsoever except maybe to embarrass traditionalists and heterosupremacists by representing them as if they're some kind of insanely ignorant candy shells.
     
  9. Syzygys As a mother, I am telling you Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    12,671
    Nowadays, nobody seems to be able to use google. The first link in "gay life expectancy":

    Is the Oxford International Journal of Epidemiology good enough for you?:

    http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/30/6/1499.full

    " the gay and bisexual life expectancy in Vancouver in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

    The aim of our research was never to spread more homophobia, but to demonstrate to an international audience how the life expectancy of gay and bisexual men can be estimated from limited vital statistics data. In our paper, we demonstrated that in a major Canadian centre, life expectancy at age 20 years for gay and bisexual men is 8 to 21 years less than for all men. If the same pattern of mortality continued, we estimated that nearly half of gay and bisexual men currently aged 20 years would not reach their 65th birthday. Under even the most liberal assumptions, gay and bisexual men in this urban centre were experiencing a life expectancy similar to that experienced by men in Canada in the year 1871. "

    Now you could say that this is 20 years old data, and I could say you can google newer ones...

    ------------------

    In Iran, the gay life expectancy is zero, since as we know, there are no gays in Iran...
     
    Last edited: Jun 4, 2012
  10. Syzygys As a mother, I am telling you Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    12,671
    Now to argue with myself, here is another study. Mind you, you have to keep in mind, different areas/cultures might give you different answers:

    "Epidemiologists Morten Frisch and Henrik Brønnum-Hansen will publish “Mortality Among Men and Women in Same-Sex Marriage: A National Cohort Study of 8333 Danes” in the January 2009 issue of the American Journal of Public Health. The study finds that since 1996 the mortality rate among gay men in same-sex marriages has been virtually equivalent to that of heterosexuals."

    Now if you read this carefully, it doesn't say ALL gay men, just the ones living in same-sex marriages. So it is kind of refuting itself in a way...

    The study quoted in the previous post is dated. That was at the height of AIDS epidemic and concentrated on 1 urban center only, thus limited and probably skewed results was achieved. Looks like it became such a political issue that further research and studies weren't exactly encouraged.
     
    Last edited: Jun 4, 2012
  11. Neverfly Banned Banned

    Messages:
    3,576
    Ruh Roh!
    Looks like misconceptions have opposition. Normal equals normal.
    Should post this in the Marriage thread.
     
  12. Bells Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,270
    Did you read the actual study and what it was they were looking at?

    Pay particular attention to the time period they were looking at and what that time period signified for homosexuals.
     
  13. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    23,049
    Bells the suicide and mental illness statistics alone would predict a 5-10 year gap and that's ignoring drug use, risk taking sex and violence. As Tiassa said the fact that there is a gap is pretty much a fact, the problem with his post is where the blame is placed for that gap. It's no different from saying that the 10 year life expectancy gap between the general population and the Aborigional population means that people should stop being Aborigional. That's a) stupid and b) a missinterpriation as to where blame and responsibility lie
     
  14. Bells Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,270
    Yes...

    Did you assume I was arguing against that?

    The study Syzygys brought up looked at how HIV/AIDS affected the life expectancy of homosexuals during that period, because if you recall, it did decimate the homosexual community during the late 80's early 90's. It also briefly discussed the higher risk of suicide amongst homosexuals as well. In short, what Syzygys's brought up only re-affirmed why wellwisher is wrong and why what he (wellwisher) relies on to make this argument is flawed.

    The argument wellwisher went for in this thread is from the Cameron study, which was flawed and just downright bad.
     
  15. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    23,049
    Bells I'm still wondering why anyone is arguing about a life expectancy gap in the first place, when James jumped in with a demand to prove a 20 year gap or be banned he missed the point, of COURSE there is a gap and wether its 5, 10, or 20 years is irrelivent for this discussion. Sure James could say "HA you couldn't prove exactly 20 years so your banned" but that would just be stupid. The homophobia and therefore either the portion requiring debate or sanction didn't lie in the gap, it didn't lie in the study used (good or bad methodology) it lied in the conclusion and that seems to be the very but no one is arguing about when it is the bit that should be the whole debate. Ok there is a gap, WHY is there a gap and what can and should be done about it?
     
  16. Bells Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,270
    James' question was very specific.

    Wellwisher has still not provided scientific evidence of his claim that "Average gay males lose about 20 years of life." ...

    See now?

    Wellwisher made a spurious and homophobic claim based on what ultra right Christian websites tend to push. That "average gay males lose about 20 years of life" because they are homosexuals and that homosexuality is a choice and then they liken it to smoking, which actually is a choice. Such sites rely on Cameron's study which was completely flawed and baseless to begin with and they use it to attempt to justify their homophobic ideology.

    What the Canadian study of the late 80's and early 90's showed was that life expectancy during that period was lower because of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Canada. That if the epidemic continued, life expectancy would have dropped. However things changed. In other words, it doesn't really apply anymore. People live with HIV now. It is not the killer it used to be. Safe sex practices and the vast education programs implemented during that period helped. Advances in medicine also helped.

    Suffice to say, wellwisher's claims that homosexuals have a shorter life expectancy because they are homosexuals is false and baseless. To liken homosexuality to smoking shows just how pathetic the argument is. To state it is a choice, like one chooses to smoke shows just how noxious the argument actually is.

    Wellwisher has yet to back up his claims.
     
  17. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    23,049
    Exactly my point bells, let's say he can find a study that shows the life expectancy gap IS 20 years. Does that mean that James and the rest are just going to back off "oh there is a 20 year gap, guess you were right and it wasn't homophobic"?

    No he's STILL wrong but that's all he's asked for, not proof that it's being gay and not how that I treated just to back up a gap which is irrelivent. Actually if he's looking at studies from when the AIDS epidemic was at its peek it's to small, I would have said 30-40 years because it killed off people in there 20s and 30s and yes that has gone down though treatment and education and so yes you are right, it's probably not a 20 year gap now 10- maybe 15 years sounds probably right but that's going to depend on location. But this whole argument about how much is a distraction from the real issue that his argument was homophobic not because he said 20 years but because he said it was just being gay which causes that gap and not looking at the other factors which lead to this problem. THAT is what he should be banned for if he is going to be banned
     
  18. Syzygys As a mother, I am telling you Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    12,671
    Hey, you wanted science, you got science.

    By the way I don't see what is the big deal. Mormons live longer than the average people, gays might live a few years less. Different groups have different life expectancy, this is just natural. As long as one knows the reasons behind it and can actively effect his/her own chances for a longer life, it is just statistics...
     
  19. Syzygys As a mother, I am telling you Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    12,671
    http://www.economist.com/node/21546002

    There are 7 Muslim countries, where being gay is punishable by death. Now of course there is no statistics, but just imagine how that effects life expectancy, when your simple existence is not wanted...

    Unrelated, but interesting tidbit:

    "Earlier Islamic societies were less hardline. An 11th-century Persian ruler advised his son to alternate his partners seasonally: young men in the summer and women in the winter. Many of the love poems of the eighth-century Abu Nuwas in Baghdad, and of other Persian and Urdu poets, were addressed to boys. In medieval mystic writings, particularly Sufi texts, it is unclear whether the beloved being addressed is a teenage boy or God, providing a quasi-religious sanction for relationships between men and boys. Austere European chroniclers fumed at the indulgent attitudes to gay sex in the Caliphs’ courts (now the censure is the other way)."
     
  20. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    37,882
    Obsolete Punch Line, or, the Extraordinarily Mundane

    Well, to a certain degree, he has backed them. And that support is insufficient for his point, as was predicted.

    For some folks, it's kind of embarrassing to find that their controversial moral assertion is based on useless, obsolete data. Having one's gullibility exposed like that never really does much good for one's self-esteem.

    But that leaves another silly notion to be examined.

    Really? We're going to compare who a person loves to smoking a cigarette?

    From the outset, people have been focusing on what they knew from the outset was Wellwisher's bad data and what that sort of ignorance brings to the discourse.

    But let's stop and think about the other part.

    Imagine yourself in high school.

    Someone of the same sex says, "I think I'm in love with you."

    Someone of any sex says, "Hey, want a smoke?"

    In what Universe are these two considerations remotely similar?

    One of the problems we encounter by hounding Wellwisher's brand of ignorance from the conversation is that we never do get to hear the punch lines.

    That is: So our neighbor argued what reads like bigoted superstition. And when challenged to support that argument, he provided the expected numbers that were generated with questionable intentions and by lame methods, which end up lending to a dishonest, not-quite-circular moral assertion. Oh, my. How ... er ... embarrassing.

    We can simply say, "And now he knows what's wrong with that particular line of argument. This is why it doesn't work."

    But this comparison to smoking?

    I smoke. I'd love to not, but that's one of the burdens you accept when you start, even if you don't realize what you're signing your soul away to.

    I've been in love before. Don't know what to tell you about that.

    But I can sincerely say that the two are very, very different. This is my opinion, derived from my perspective. Anyone is welcome to argue, if they like. It's not writ in stone, but therein lies the ultimate question: How is smoking like falling in love?

    I mean, for starters, and perhaps I'm simply too proud of my humanity, but falling in love usually involves another person. We can make whatever jokes we want about relationships, and some of the heterosexual-misogynist variety would certainly apply—you know, like, the old ball and chain that always costs you money, gives diminishing returns, and will hound you into the grave, just like a wife.

    But at some point, the wife becomes an inanimate object in those punch lines. Well, according to the comparison. Either that, or the cigarette becomes a person. Anthropomorphizing cigarettes can sometimes be useful. But, still, this is a different intersection between life and art.

    "The current statistics say that cigarettes will shorter your life by about 10 years. The life expectancy of gay males is shortered by 20 years. Why is PC not trying to control behavior that is doubles loss of life expectancy, if it is so concerned about those addictive cigarettes ....

    .... Should we use the 20 year standard fo gay mortality as the standard for PC hands off? That means smoking should also be hands off. Or do we use the liberal dual standard?
    "

    (#585)

    Often I laugh at some of my vegetarian neighbors who are moralistic and supremacist about their diet; they might ask why, if I eat a snail, would I not eat my dog. And in those moments, whether it's a chocolate covered ant, or a cow or sheep, I wonder if they really are overlooking the obvious difference in how humans relate to dogs and locusts. But in that case, no matter how screwed up I think that argument is, they at least have the general basis of saying, "Animal equals animal, and you tell me the difference." Others might think the lack of sensitivity toward distinction is a bit strange, but there is, at the very least, this logical connection between the worm on the hook and the golden retriever stretched out by the fireplace so you can lay on the floor and use the dog as a pillow while you read and listen to Birth of the Cool.

    Who you love equals smoking, though? Where is the common logical basis between a cigarette and a human being? Punch lines. Love as psychotic behavior; smoking as addiction. No, really. That's it. Am I wrong? Then, pray tell how and why. Diverting the question into that context still doesn't reconcile the individual human being to the inanimate object. The risk assessment considers the profits and losses of interacting with a human being to the one or an inanimate object to the other.

    The relationship between lovers involves two human beings.

    The relationship between addict and drug is, well, between one human being and an addictive drug.

    This absurd dehumanization of the proposed lover is something we might even attempt to call the most offensive thing of all about Wellwisher's argument, but instead of outrage perhaps a moment of deeper consideration would serve us better. How often does this sort of device slip into our rhetoric? Certainly, it's not quite as egregious as justifying rape by declaring that men are like hand grenades, and a woman in tight jeans might be enough to pull the pin, and you can't blame the grenade for what happens after someone else pulls the pin. But its subtlety is important, too. Certes, punch lines have a certain function in the public discourse, often granted passage until it is replaced by something much more responsibly informative, like facts themselves in some cases, or a specifically-arranged array of facts—i.e., a complex but supportably informed argument.

    Does the dehumanization carry any influential credibility? That is, who on any side of an issue will give an argument any weight? Are there traditionalists who genuinely nod because the point makes sense to them? Do the people who are outraged by an ignorant proposition actually know how much influence the device really carries? Of course not. It's impossible to know; the best estimate we have is how often we hear it in the discourse. You know, like that bit about Adam and Steve. It still persists in the gay fray, and it's certainly easier than actually thinking the point through in relation to Judeo-Christian theology applied in the political discourse.

    One would think that ....

    Well, never mind what one would think. In the end, we must remember that there are two issues afoot in people's distress about our neighbor's sentiments.

    The first is, indeed, a matter of fact mixed with a fallaciously detached historical mosaic.

    The second is dehumanization; if one's argument has to do with comparing people to, say, a cigarette, or a tampon, or some livestock about to be introduced invasively to a human sex organ, and so on ad nauseam, shouldn't that be an obvious omen right there? Say whatever about the nature of our indignation, but if your argument requires that other human beings be considered as mere objects of conveniently denigrating metaphor, perhaps you ought to consider whether or not you're presenting a genuine point.

    And one can say whatever about playing rhetorical chess and elevating their own rhetoric to some grandmaster's overview, but, no, if we're talking about, "this person is a cigarette", you've just turned a person into a cigarette, with all the implications therein.

    And the thing is that the difference is not extraordinary. Part of the reason people become indignant about such aspects of these debates is that they should not have to explain certain things.

    When you combine the appearance of ignorance with what appears willful dehumanization in order to make a point that isn't even valid in its own context, the result is that people become wary. Instinctively, they expect something better than an obviously obsolete punch line couched in a dehumanizing addiction metaphor.

    This is not an extraordinary expectation.

    To the other, this is also an enlightening glimpse inside the homophobic outlook. Do these uninformed punch lines really count as rhetoric in these circles? If so, doesn't that simply remind what homosexuals are up against in their journey to be merely human?

    Nor should anyone wonder, should these cardboard cut-out myths bear any influence in traditionalist circles, why those folks are viewed as uninformed bigots.
     
  21. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    37,882
    Prop. 8 Likely Headed to Supreme Court

    Prop. 8 Likely Headed to Supreme Court
    Ninth Circuit denies en banc appeal of May ruling


    Maura Dolan reports for the Los Angeles Times:

    The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals' decision to deny an appeal of February's ruling against Proposition 8 paves the way for a U.S. Supreme Court decision on gay marriage by next year.

    The decision means the U.S. Supreme Court is likely to have two major gay-rights cases on its docket in the near future. Another federal appeals court last week struck down a federal law that denied federal recognition to same-sex marriage.

    Backers of Proposition 8 said they will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the 9th Circuit ruling ....

    .... A three-judge panel ruled 2-1 in February that the ban violated federal constitutional guarantees but limited the effect of the ruling to California. Sponsors of Proposition 8 asked the 9th Circuit to assemble an 11-judge panel to rehear the case.

    A majority of the circuit's active judges voted against such reconsideration.

    On Tuesday, Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain, joined by two other jurists, wrote in a dissent that President Obama, in declaring his personal support for same-sex marriage, said it was a matter for states to decide.

    "We have overruled the will of seven million California Proposition 8 voters," O'Scannlain wrote. "We should not have so roundly trumped California's democratic process without at least discussing this unparalleled decision as an en banc court."

    Judges Stephen Reinhardt and Michael Daly Hawkins filed a concurring opinion that their 2-1 ruling was specifically narrow, and avoided the question of whether or not a state, in general, can forbid same-sex marriage. "That question may be decided in the near future," they wrote, "but if so, it should be in some other case, at some other time."

    So many state laws have been thrown into the question of civil rights under the U.S. Constitution. Those stumbling blocks appear to lead inevitably to the Supreme Court. To the one, this should not be seen as surprising, ironic, or anything other than what it is: inevitable. A Supreme Court showdown is where the question of gay civil rights will eventually end. The big question is whether the quixotic Roberts court will craft a political decision or a properly judicious, legal perspective. And here we find a test of our cynicism.

    After all, with questions of equal protection and due process in play, vis à vis proactive efforts in over thirty states to invoke discrimination, and considering that despite all the work traditionalists have done, they are the ones who must ask for this Supreme Court review, it will be very difficult to craft a path around the clear constitutional markers pointing toward marriage equality.
    ____________________

    Notes:

    Dolan, Maura. "California gay marriage case headed to U.S. Supreme Court". L. A. Now. June 5, 2012. LATimesBlogs.LATimes.com. June 5, 2012. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lan...marraige-case-headed-to-us-supreme-court.html
     
  22. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    37,882
    DoMA Hit Again

    DoMA Hit Again
    House Republicans lose battle to extract inheritance taxes from 83 year-old widow


    A New York Court has dealt another blow against the Defense of Marriage Act:

    A federal judge in New York has sided with an 83-year-old woman who found herself subject to inheritance taxes when her wife died and the federal government wouldn't recognize their marriage.

    Edie Windsor, who lives in New York, married her late spouse Thea Spyer in Canada in 2007, a marriage that was recognized under New York state law. But because of DOMA, the federal government taxed the inheritance Spyer left for Windsor after she died in 2009, forcing the widow to pay more than $360,000. In her suit, Windsor sought a refund of the tax and argued that DOMA violates the equal protection principles of the U.S. Constitution.

    "Thea and I shared our lives together for 44 years, and I miss her each and every day," said Windsor in a statement. "It's thrilling to have a court finally recognize how unfair it is for the government to have treated us as though we were strangers."

    Perhaps the first win for Windsor came when the Obama administration announced it would not defend DOMA in her case, Windsor v. United States of America. The Justice Department said it found the law unconstitutional, but the Republican-led House of Representatives picked up the case and paid for a defense, hiring former Bush solicitor general Paul Clement.

    Lawyers for Windsor said they expect the House of Representatives to appeal the decision.

    "We are confident that it will be affirmed on appeal," said attorney Roberta A. Kaplan, "and we hope that the court will do so expeditiously given that our client is 83 years old."


    (Grindley)

    Equal protection puts the heterosexual traditionalists on notice. We're down to formalities, now. Due process has become the supremacists' friend. And that's fine. Due process is vital. But we're no longer holding off on the law simply because this—

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    Edie Windsor (l.) and the late Thea Spyder.

    —makes some religious person feel all squeamish in his pants.

    And then there is the bonus irony of watching Congressional Republicans trying to extract inheritance taxes from an 83 year-old widow.
    ____________________

    Notes:

    Grindley, Lucas. "Another Court Challenge, Another Loss for DOMA". The Advocate. June 6, 2012. Advocate.com. June 7, 2012. http://www.advocate.com/politics/ma...06/defense-marriage-act-loses-court-yet-again
     
    Last edited: Oct 18, 2012
  23. Bells Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,270
    Wait..

    The Republican Party paid for lawyers to try and extract inheritance tax from her?

    Aren't they the party of less taxes?
     

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