One of the challenges of living in a free society is being confronted by things that we don't agree with, or are even repulsed by. That's a problem, but not a legal one. If we say we value freedom, then the criteria to judge the legality of an action, be it gay marriage or otherwise, is this: Is this action harmful to society or the individual? The burden should be on the person who wants this action to be made illegal. It's tempting to codify those actions we find disgusting as illegal but it does nothing to advance freedom and tolerance.

I agree with you though those on the other side will argue that the things they are against are "harmful to society" in various respects.

It then becomes a twofold test: are they correct and is the "harm" they target something pragmatically and constitutionally something that should be addressed by prohibitory legislation.

We can see this, e.g., in the case of the activity at issue here. Surely, the "disgusting" factor is major impetus in the equation. But, just because something is "disgusting" doesn't mean it necessarily makes sense to outlaw it. Consider the pragmatic argument made by Andrew Sullivan in respect to same sex marriage, especially for the young male on the make class.

Likewise, not everything "harmful" should be outlawed. Again, one can consider it as a twofold matter. First, on the whole, it might be more harmful to prohibit. Thus, censorship is counterproductive since hate etc. will find some outlet. Second, and generally related in some fashion, the activity has been deemed of fundamental importance to a free society. The fact that some practice "x" in ways we find distasteful, notwithstanding.

Religion is a prime example here. Many quite honestly think various activity will damn us to hell. [The term can be defined broadly.] This is harmful. But, in many respects it is not the sort of harm that society can target by prohibitory laws.

Some might find the above a bit too pedantic, but honestly, the matters addressed here -- though the tone and shoddy reasoning used at times leads many to be turned off by the arguments made -- are rather complex. The fact that bigotry is used as a political tool is distasteful, but its power arises from the deep matter of the issues involved.

-j

we are certainly not free, we are manipulated and indoctrinated and managed.

And we have been run by the same regime essentially since 1974.

Yeah, NeoLiberals Rule Today. Look at Iraq, the same prescription they want for America, both Republicans and Democrats.

While Neoliberalism seems fine to impose on counquered territories, they are our slaves. But should it be imposed on us, the US? Are we slaves to Multi Nationals as well?

Jerry Brown:

Genetic engineering companies want to create a situation where you have to get permission from a corporation to eat. And the corporate executives don't live in the community. They don't send their kids to the same school. They don't go to the same churches. They don't play in the same parks. They don't swim in the same pools. They don't go to the same movies.”

Jerry Brown quote

Add to Chapter... “Multinational corporations do control. They control the politicians. They control the media. They control the pattern of consumption, entertainment, thinking. They're destroying the planet and laying the foundation for violent outbursts and racial division

Jerry Brown:

“It's a crazy society now. It's the richest society ever and yet people are overworked. There's more unemployment, more crime, more confusion, more broken marriages. This is a breakdown. Every culture breaks down. Every society breaks down, whether it's Rome, Spain, the British Empire. The people in charge probably didn't get it until they had their heads chopped off.”

How the US got its neoliberal way in Iraq
By Herbert Docena

"Article 25: The state shall guarantee the reforming of the Iraqi economy according to modern economic bases, in a way that ensures complete investment of its resources, diversifying its sources and encouraging and developing the private sector."

Last June 30, the Iraqi newspaper Al-Mada published the latest draft of the Iraqi constitution that was then being negotiated by Iraqi politicians.[1] Its contents would have been enough to give former occupation authority chief Paul Bremer a heart attack.

The Iraqis - even those who were willing to cooperate with the United States - wanted, at least on paper, to build a Scandinavian-type welfare system in the Arabian desert, with Iraq’s vast oil wealth to be spent on upholding every Iraqi’s right to education, health care, housing, and other social services. “Social justice is the basis of



building society,” the draft declared. All of Iraq’s natural resources would be owned collectively by the Iraqi people. Everyone would

have the right to work and the state would be legally bound to provide employment opportunities to everyone. The state would be the Iraqi people’s collective instrument for achieving development. (See key provisions in matrix below.)

In other words, the Iraqis wanted a country different from that for which the Americans had come to Iraq. They, or at least those who were involved in drafting the constitution, wanted nothing of the kind of economic and political system that Bremer and other US officials had been attempting to create in Iraq ever since the occupation began. What the occupation authorities wanted was to fulfill “the wish-list of international investors”, as The Economist magazine described the economic policies they began imposing in the country in 2003.[2]

As direct occupiers, the US enacted laws that give foreign investors equal rights with Iraqis in the domestic market; permit the full repatriation of profits; institute the flat tax system; abolish tariffs; enforce a strict intellectual property rights regime; sell off a whole-range of state-owned companies; reduce food and fuel subsidies; and privatize all kinds of social services such as health, education and water delivery.

By the time the next version was leaked in late July, the progressive provisions in the draft constitution had disappeared.

...............Complained Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish member of the constitution committee Kurdish member of the constitutional committee who was involved in the caucuses: “The Americans say they don’t intervene, but they have intervened deep. They gave us a detailed proposal, almost a full version of a constitution. They try to compromise the different opinions of all the political blocs. The US officials are more interested in the Iraqi constitution than the Iraqis themselves........... members of Iraq ’s constitutional committee were reduced to being bystanders. One Shi'ite member grumbled, “We haven’t played much of a role in drafting the constitution. We feel that we have been neglected. We have not been consulted on important issues.”[20] A Sunni negotiator concluded: “This constitution was cooked up in an American kitchen, not an Iraqi one.”[21]

A neoliberal constitutional dish
By the time it was served on the table on August 28, the final draft of the Iraqi constitution must have tasted very different from previous servings. Not only were some of the key ingredients of the previous drafts removed outright, new ingredients with distinctly neoliberal flavors were added.

Gone was the article proclaiming adherence to social justice as the basis of the economy. In its place was a provision binding the state to “reforming the Iraqi economy according to modern economic bases, in a way that ensures complete investment of its resources, diversifying its sources and encouraging and developing the private sector”. By “reforming” the framers of the constitution could only have meant the usual stock of neoliberal economic “reforms” that have been prescribed or imposed on dozens of developing countries around the world. This includes privatizing state-owned enterprises, liberalizing trade, deregulating the market, and opening it up to foreign investors. Instead of revoking the so-called Bremer Laws, or the decrees enacted by the occupation authority implementing these neoliberal policies, the draft constitution would make Iraqis constitutionally bound to enforce them. Another provision reiterates, “[t]he country shall guarantee the encouragement of investments in different sectors”.

Also gone was the provision affirming the Iraqi people’s collective ownership of Iraq ’s oil and other natural resources and obliging the state to protect and safeguard them. Instead, a new article lays the legal ground for selling off Iraq ’s oil and putting it under the control of the big multinational oil companies. Article 110 goes so far as to spell out that “the federal government and the governments of the producing regions and provinces together will draw up the necessary strategic policies to develop oil and gas wealth to bring the greatest benefit for the Iraqi people, relying on the most modern techniques of market principles and encouraging investment”.

By “modern techniques of market principles”, the draft is most likely referring to current plans - supported by the interim government’s top leadership - to privatize the Iraqi National Oil Company and to open up Iraq ’s oil reserves to the big oil companies. Referring to such plans, Adil Abdel Mahdi, a senior leader of SCIRI and now Iraq’s vice president, told an audience in Washington , just before the elections: “[T]his is very promising to the American investors and to American enterprises, certainly to oil companies.”[22]
.....The constitution is also laying the ground for the eventual acquisition of Iraqi assets, in the form of equity, real estate or other capital, by foreigners or multinational corporations. While the June draft states that “Iraqis have the complete and unconditional right of ownership in all areas without limitation”, the final draft drops the words “unconditional” and “without limitation” and adds instead the qualification “except what is exempted by law”.

Given that Bremer’s Order 39 already allows foreign ownership of Iraqi assets and given that this order will be perpetuated as a law..... while the press continues to tell the story of Sunnis, Shi'ites, and Kurds squabbling over the spoils of oil; they are missing the contest between Iraqis and non-Iraqis. The constitution may yet pave the way for non-Iraqis to have as much right over Iraq’s oil as Iraqis.

The June draft promises extensive welfare commitments to Iraqis, including free education and free health care. The International Monetary Fund, which has been insisting on eliminating government subsidies to Iraqis..... The final draft gives vague assurances that the services will be delivered but this time, it adds new language on the private sector’s role in delivering them. These subtle changes are significant because they hint at the coming wholesale privatization of social services in Iraq....

Harmful to society should not be the test. Many things are harmful to society, but for which the 'cure' of Governmental empowerment is MORE harmful. The test is purely whether The Government is empowered to regulate and if so, that it does so within the explicit limits set by the US Constitution.

On marriage I think it can well be argued that there was clear Common Law indicating The Government's right to regulate. However since that time The Government's scope of discretion in regulation has become more constrained by various amendments and understandings of the core limits within the US Constitution.

Thus the burden has to be on The Government to show that it is complying with the limits. And using religious belief about gay marriage is not compliance.

I'm of the opinon that this entire issue is a distraction from the real issue, which is the deliberate destruction of the US as a culture, using this issue among others, using immigration, to deliberately divide the population into factions fighting against each other (and not the upper class), and the reduction of the population into a helpless subservile posture relative to the upper classes, first as part of the greater North American Union, later who knows? They love it when they can play one part of the population against the other, and @#$%@ them, its the favoite game of the Liberal Capitialists.

I bet they plan to force on the 'North American Union' a constitution like the one they are forcing on Iraq.