Posts by Emma Hart
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Up Front: How About Now?, in reply to Steve Barnes,
Correct me if I am wrong but the whole “till death us do part” bit is supposed to mean something when you say “I do” otherwise it is a bit pointless, innit?.
But you don't have to say that, any more than I had to promise to obey.
Doesn’t that demographic pretty accurately describe our parliamentarians? … and any vote on this issue is a ‘conscience vote’ … so isn’t the result predictable?
Changes slightly when you take into account the effect of knowing someone who's LGBT. In order to say 'no' to this, an MP has to actually get up in front of their colleagues and say, "I don't think you deserve the same rights I have."
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Up Front: How About Now?, in reply to Craig Young,
In terms of adoption law reform and transgender equality taking precedence (i) the trans community has had to wait too damned long for it as it is and (ii) inclusive adoption reform is the last same-sex parenting reform to be undertaken, as well as the last piece of substantive LGBT equality reform. When the introduction of same-sex marriage proper does occur, it’ll be defused and merely a matter of formal, ritual and ceremonial equality.
Okay. I think this is a case of "putting the worst inequalities first" versus "doing the easy stuff first". Neither of which approach is "wrong". And these are all things we want done.
My take has been that this (same-sex marriage) is both easy and popular (relatively). And doing it, as someone has said previously in this thread, makes doing the hard things easier. Whereas if you say you have to do the hard things first, the easy stuff never actually gets done. And it sucks, it absolutely sucks, to be basically saying to people that when it comes to their personal happiness and security (and even basic safety) they should wait.
The adoption thing I think is more complex because the entire Adoption Act needs revamping, for a whole bunch of different reasons, some of which are nothing to do with LBGT rights.
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Up Front: P.A. Story, in reply to Bart Janssen,
Oh Bart. You know I love you, right?
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Up Front: P.A. Story, in reply to Steve Barnes,
Syntax, Sin Tax, now there's a thought.
'S'called "excise tax", isn't it?
Okay. Richmond the pink-shirted whistle-fondling referee is being attacked by zombie rugby players. We need to free him from this situation so he can board Ellerslie Panmure's pirate ship for the trip down the Avon and round to Governor's Bay.
Creative solutions?
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Up Front: How About Now?, in reply to Lucy Stewart,
Personally I’m in favour of getting back to the truly traditional “formally acknowledge people who want to profitably combine their assets and establish kinship bonds between their extended families, the results to be invested in their mutual heirs” definition
Could we manage something where you can opt to explicitly NOT "establish kinship bonds between extended families"? Because that would be... quite useful.
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Up Front: P.A. Story, in reply to Bart Janssen,
Struggling to figure out how this could be incorporated into the narrative.
I've already worked in one Whedonverse joke (did someone say the manatee was an angel? Yes they did.) This must be doable.
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Up Front: How About Now?, in reply to Tom Beard,
ut by just expanding the definition of “marriage” from “one man and one woman in an emotionally and sexually exclusive relationship for the rest of their life” to include same-sex pairings doesn’t include all the diversity of human bonds that might benefit from such protections.
And I am, of course, in favour of legal recognition of relationships that involve more than two people. Like I said, dirty incrementalist, one thing at a time.
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Up Front: How About Now?, in reply to Russell Brown,
According to the new poll, support has increased by 50%. Even allowing that some old people have died since, and the general shift to acceptance in western countries, it does seem to me that civil unions have done the job many of us hoped they would.
And this is one of the reasons I was in favour of civil unions, because it was clearly going to do this. Because I am, of course, an ideologically-bankrupt incrementalist. The other reason is the reason I have one: because people who want 'legal recognition of their relationship' without the traditional 'baggage' of marriage could have that. And as a cynical divorcée, that was what I wanted for me.
But as someone who 'didn't (personally) want a bar of it', I have that option. I got the choice, everyone should have that choice, including being able to choose marriage because they are invested in it. Don't want to be married? That option already exists. Do want to be married? It may not. And marriage is, for all its emotional baggage and discriminatory history, a secular legal contract.
Clearly, it is time to deploy Phase 2 of the Homosexual Agenda.
Fucking ay. Though I still haven't received my copy...
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Up Front: How About Now?, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Oh, absolutely. If you combine the Civil Union and Marriage (Gender Equality) Amendment Bill votes, you can certainly pick people who won't be supporting gay marriage.
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Speaker: Sharks Dine Out on…, in reply to S Schumacher,
S, I suggest your read this post of David's. $200 000 short is not "a better house than you had before". Nobody is asking that. Nobody.