[temp453463343]

Hey thanks for sharing that. Glad to see there is some diversity when it comes to civil liberties advocates. (not that there is anything wrong with the ACLU as far as I can tell)

"Our four pillars of litigation are private property, economic liberty, free speech and school choice." - their website

What's the deal with school choice? Seems kinda random

One thing I wish advocacy groups allowed is donating towards narrower goals. For instance I support most of what the ACLU does, but I don't really care for their views on gay marriage and don't particularly want to fund that part. It would be great if I could donate to more specific parts of the organization (same goes for public radio, haha)

[Amadou]

> What's the deal with school choice? Seems kinda random

There is a religious subset of the libertarian crowd that is all about those four issues. School choice means religious and/or home schooling (which tends to also be religion centered).

Their intersection with the civil liberties crowd is pretty small - they dislike acknowledging that there are systemic problems beyond their main issues. For example they don't believe in anti-discrimination laws because they say the market place (private property and economic liberty) will sort it all out - despite all historical evidence to the contrary.

For me, seeing that list would make me wary. My impression of such groups is that there are indeed some people who truly believe that but there are plenty for which it is simply cover for bigotry.

The enemy of my enemy isn't necessarily my friend.

[danielweber]

home schooling (which tends to also be religion centered).

Please look up home school resources in your area.

I can pretty much guarantee that you have at least two: one that is explicitly religious, one that is explicitly secular.

Lots of people have gotten fed up with their public schools for secular reasons.

[nitrogen]

There is a religious subset of the libertarian crowd that is all about those four issues. School choice means religious and/or home schooling (which tends to also be religion centered).

School choice can also mean vouchers for semi-public technical or accelerated schools.

[aestra]

That's like saying "I want equal rights for all races, except Asians."

Gay marriage is a civil rights issue. ACLU is all about civil rights.

If you don't support civil rights, don't donate to the ACLU. Full stop.

[hellerbarde]

Wow, even on HN, there are people that oppose gay marriage? That surprises me.

[gpvos]

There's quite some space between opposing something and not finding something important enough to fund activism in favour of it.

[mcv]

ACLU does quite a bit more than just support gay marriage, though. If they do a lot of things you think are great, and a few you're meh about, it's still good to donate.

The people who donate primarily for the gay marriage fight don't get to earmark their money either.

[temp453463343]

Yeah, and that was kinda my point.

I don't see why they don't make it possible to earmark money - I think they would end up getting a LOT more funding:

People that don't want to fund gay marriage advocacy would donate to the issues that they find more important, and people that feel strongly about gay marriage would donate more because they know it would all go towards their pet issue.

[aestra]

There's other charities with a narrower focus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_Marry

[rmc]

Yeah, marriage is overrated. It's not worth fighting for.

Or are you straight and hence it doesn't affect you? Kinda defeats the point of donating to charities...

[yawgmoth]

Unfortunately, it's not that simple. I can't provide health insurance to my partner and we pay quite a bit more in taxes than a married couple.

I would like to not pay more because of whom I choose to marry.

[boot]

I'm all for marrying who you want, but if you live in the US your tax comment doesn't make sense.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_penalty

[nbouscal]

Umm... did you actually read the link that you just cited? “Multiple factors are involved, but in general, lower to middle income couples usually benefit from filing as a married couple, while upper income couples are often penalized.”

[jeffwidman]

This really shouldn't be a surprise as there are generally very smart people on both sides of polarizing issues.

I know a lot of smart people, myself included, who read HN regularly and oppose gay marriage.

[hackinthebochs]

Why do you oppose gay marriage? I'm not looking to start a debate, I won't even respond if you'd prefer (tho I'm sure others will...). I'm genuinely curious about the reasoning from someone who has given it critical thought and can articulate their viewpoint well.

[temp453463343]

Hey, the original parent poster: (I figure I'd weigh in)

I'm not strongly against gay marriage. I simply don't support it. Sorry if my explanation is a little disjointed. There isn't one particular issue that explains it all.

I see the whole issue as completely artificial. It was almost entirely created and started by Gavin Newsom (former mayor of SF). It was a demogogic move on his part to try to get support for his run for governor several years later.

Aside: Ironic it backfired and ended up pigeon holeing him as a far left politician.

No one talked about or wanted gay marriage before he brought it up.

A more nebulous reason is that society is moving away from marriage. People are more and more living in civil unions. Marriage has become a religious/traditional thing. So revising/redefining antiquated traditions to appease a group of people seems unnecessary.

I think the idea of redefining a term like marriage is also rather problematic for me. It's always described a union between a man and a woman, since like the times of Hammurabi - and now we're just redefining it? It seems a little absurd.

The address the issue, we created a new term. "Civil Unions". But for some reason this isn't good enough - and I don't know why. Seems like the real goal is to redefine a several thousand year old term - which kinda seems revisionist to me.

Another argument I've seen and that I've never seen addressed is: why do gay couples get to marry and not polyamorous people? Seems like there is a double standard here.I personally feel like if they're going to go through all of this, they might as well allow all marriage.

At the end of the day I wouldn't really care if gay marriage passed. What bothers me the most is that so much time, effort and money is spent on something that is a rather insignificant issue.

The right to visit loved ones at a hospital and the tax benefits are more symptomatic of broken hospital/tax laws than a huge national issue on par with the civil rights movement. I think calling gay marriage a civil rights issue is hyperbolic and disingenuous (and is polyamorous marriage a civil rights issue too?). I think there are way way way more important issues currently to deal. Thousands of people are rotting in jails for non violent crimes, thousands of people have their lives ruined by medical bills, thousands of people are forced into plea bargains for crimes they never committed. There is so much suffering happening around us, and we spend out time arguing about redefining marriage. It's just really frustrating for me to see this artificial debate occupy so much of the collective unconscious of the country (and now the world).

[ceol]

> But for some reason this isn't good enough - and I don't know why.

The same reason "separate but equal" wasn't good enough for black people in the mid 20th century: It isn't equal at all.

It's not about redefining a term or forcing people to think a certain way. It's about being recognized on a legal level as being equal.

> why do gay couples get to marry and not polyamorous people? Seems like there is a double standard here.

There's a stigma against polygamy due to it being used almost entirely as a way to abuse and imprison women and children. That's also ignoring the legal hurdles; for example, power of attorney gets tricky when there is more than one spouse. Same with inheritance.

> What bothers me the most is that so much time, effort and money is spent on something that is a rather insignificant issue.

You think it's insignificant because it doesn't affect you. However, for a lot of gay and lesbian couples, it's a huge issue in their lives for many reasons. The fact that you can't even imagine this being a serious issue for someone else is quite telling, and it's something all too common amongst people who argue against gay marriage.

You should take some time and look into yourself to see why you have such trouble empathizing with others.

[hackinthebochs]

>The same reason "separate but equal" wasn't good enough for black people in the mid 20th century: It isn't equal at all

"Separate but equal" when it comes to schools is very different than equality under the law; the latter being much easier to achieve and can be rectified by law when it falls short. Separate but equal in schools is intrinsically unequal, this is not true for civil unions. I know that the attempts to hitch gay marriage to the civil rights wagon is a stumbling block for some people.

[dragonwriter]

> Another argument I've seen and that I've never seen addressed is: why do gay couples get to marry and not polyamorous people? Seems like there is a double standard here.

Restricting marriage to pairs of opposite sex plainly discriminates on sex in the same way that restricting marriage to pairs of the same race discriminated on race. Who you are permitted to marry is determined by your race/sex.

Limiting marriage to pairs does not discriminate in the same way. It may or may not be an inappropriate restriction, but its not the same type of discrimination that is at issue with either the opposite-sex or the same-race restrictions, so there is no "double-standard" in eliminating either or both of those restrictions and not eliminating the restriction to pairs.

[erikpukinskis]

I'm inclined to agree with you. Gay Marriage isn't a civil right's issue, it's a solution to a set of civil rights issues. Legalizing gay marriage doesn't help the child raised by his mom and an unrelated "auntie" who can't visit the kid in the hospital. It doesn't help the two best friends who have been living in a non-romantic domestic partnership for 20 years who can't both live and work in the same country.

I would prefer if we just make it illegal for anyone (IRS, immigration, employers, etc) to discriminate based on marital status. Problem solved.

[hackinthebochs]

Interestingly, I agree with a lot of what you said. I never understood the resistance to "civil unions". Why try to co-op a word with an established meaning when civil unions are in all practical respects exactly the same? I voted for gay marriage in the most recent election, but its always seemed like a non-issue to me. As long as there is no legal discrimination, who gives a flying fuck what its called?

[rayiner]

I would like to see organizations with narrower goals. The ACLU is great, but they have so much on their plate.