Neil H

"'I haven't heard about any particular rights that gay couples are asking for that are not already covered under California domestic partnership law." There are intangible benefits to marriage that you won't find in any statute. They can't really be described very well, but the idea is that being married makes couples more committed to each other, more dedicated to the relationship, more dedicated to raising their children. All this talk about the "legal rights of marriage" overlooks the question of why married couples have legal rights in the first place. It's to implement and preserve those intangible benefits. "Civil unions" or "domestic partnerships" aren't marriage. Are they really able to implement and preserve exactly the same intangible benefits to same-sex couples that marriage provides to opposite-sex couples? Or are they just a legalistic equivalency intended to get gay people to shut up and stop complaining?" - Neil H

Study demonstrating that the CRA actually reined in rather than encouraged abusive sub-prime mortgages - Neil H

"Are you accepting the Republican propaganda about the eeeevil Clinton-backed CRA causing the sub-prime mess as proven fact? Please don't." - Neil H

"I'm no fan of John McCain, but blaming him personally for the post-election actions of his (I assume) now-former advisors? Um, no." - Neil H

"I would be interested in any specific example of a civil union institutionally getting treated as inferior to "real" marriages, since concrete examples do tend to carry more weight for a lot of people." - Neil H

"From the article itself rather than the title, it seems there's more objection to the lawsuits being filed challenging the vote than the actual protests. That said, there is still a "gay people should just shut up and go away after losing this one vote" feel to all the complaints. Um, no. I'm also interested in how they manage to claim both that they have nothing against gay people at the same time that they insist that gay people's relationships go against the natural order." - Neil H

">But out of state money was used to fund the fight AGAINST Prop 8 too!! How can you fail to reconcile that in your head?? When the Mormon Church shook down their top financial donors to get them to politically interfere in another state's business, were the rest of us just supposed to sit back and watch? >And the courts allow interest groups to bypass the will of the majority! How can you fail to reconcile that too?! What the courts did "by itself, is anti-democratic". At least I got a chance to vote on this! Yes, people tend to misunderstand the meaning of "democracy". "Democracy" can mean a situation where 51% of a population votes to kill the other 49% is a perfectly valid thing to do. A Constitution is a document that is supposed to prevent such a situation from happening, by placing certain things beyond the realm of the "tyranny of the majority". This is necessary for democracy to function, or at least to function for longer than it takes for the majority to vote the minority..." - Neil H

">The amendment specified that, there is no right for same sex couples to marry Actually the plain language of Proposition 8 specifically said that the legal right to marry was being *taken away* from same-sex couples. "Proposition 8: *Eliminates* Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry">After that decision, the people DID specifically state in the Constitution that, in fact, marriage is not a right for same-sex couples. Yep: they removed same-sex couples' right to marry. They stripped a minority of their established rights. Do you disagree that the plain language of Proposition 8 reflected this?" - Neil H

This is disturbingly entertaining to read - Neil H

"To quote the founder of a different cult: "the purpose of a lawsuit is not to win. It is to harrass and threaten". They don't have to worry about the truth. They just have to keep people tied up in court long enough to bankrupt them." - Neil H

"No. Punishment of the laity serves no purpose except sating a desire for revenge. It'll just make things worse, in my opinion." - Neil H

Anthony Venn-Brown's account of life in a live-in "ex-gay" ministry in the 70s - Neil H

Palin the Socialist? - Neil H

Effect of the US subprime crisis on other countries' national economies, particularly in emerging markets. It's bad. - Neil H

The US subprime mortgage crisis as seen from the homeowners' perspective - Neil H

Amazingly partisan local TV interviewer ask Joe Biden questions like "how is Senator Obama not being a Marxist?" - Neil H

"I think there needs to be word to describe the feeling that you get when you realise that the true extent of the insanity being peddled has not yet been tapped. E.G., the sensation you get when you realise that a small number of McCain supporters (for example some contributors at [this "Hillary supporters" site](http://www.hillaryclintonforum...)) are suggesting that the whole interview was actually set up and prepared for in advance by Biden as a deliberate way to effectively answer (or apparently, "give the appearance of effectively answering") the charges that the McCain campaign have been making against Obama. This same discussion board has people celebrating what they claim is the woeful inadequacy of Joe Biden's responses. At least you can say they have some room for intellectual debate in their strange reality: "Joe Biden, exposed idiot or hidden mastermind?" Sheesh." - Neil H

"Anyone else remember Stephen Colbert asking the guy who wanted a Ten Commandments display in a courtroom to name one of the Commandments, and the guy couldn't? Yeah, a lot of these "Bible-believing Christian" politicians really don't bother to read the Bible." - Neil H

"If you want the [right-wing spin on this](http://newsbusters.org/blogs/p...), they're claiming that Biden was "angered" by Barbara West's "tough questions", and claiming that the Obama campaign's refusal to allow Joe Biden's wife to be subjected to the same treatment signals the imminent demise of press freedom under an Obama administration. I offer this for informational purposes only." - Neil H

Video of some very angry Prop 8 supporters - Neil H

">They can have their own opinions and do have the right of freedom of speech. I would hope that someone acting as a public official understands that their rights are restricted when they're actually on the job. They don't get to cavalierly publicise information attacking one candidate while on government time." - Neil H

"Do they ever focus on anything else? Oh yeah, abortion, right. Besides those two?" - Neil H

I don't know much about art, but I know what I like - Neil H

"I agree. I just wish it were otherwise." - Neil H

""wild, untrue, and blatantly negative stories for months " Yes, yes, it's everybody's fault but her own that people don't like her. We've been hearing that for the last 8 years about Bush. The conservative movement really has nothing new to offer in response to the manifest failure of their chosen President except exactly the same aggrieved sense of victimhood, huh? Except they've decided that it's Palin, not Bush, who's going to be their mascot now." - Neil H

"Obama did just fine in the debates. The public said voted him winner of all 3, as I recall. So much for the "falls all to pieces without a teleprompter" delusion. Not that I expect you to admit you were wrong. You'll just seize on some other half-baked issue to make a fuss about." - Neil H

"Obama did just fine in the debates. The public said voted him winner of all 3, as I recall. So much for the "falls all to pieces without a teleprompter" delusion." - Neil H

Confessions of a person who got paid to write term papers for other people - Neil H

">You can't advocate free speech and then condemn people for speaking freely. Why not? Condemning someone for what they said is just as much an exercise of free speech as the speech being condemned. It really, really bugs me when people say that the exercise of free speech in opposition to other speech is anti-freedom of speech. Expressing an opinion about other people's expressed opinions is exactly how freedom of speech is supposed to bloody *work*!" - Neil H

Optimus-Magnus '08! - Neil H